TV personality to host Queen for a Day
May 28, 2009
Ladies, get your tiaras. Encompass is hosting its seventh annual Queen for a Day fundraiser at The Westin Bellevue. Women will be pampered silly and have a chance to support local children and families.
Proceeds from the fundraiser will benefit Encompass programs and students.
The organization’s staff are still assessing how much it has been affected by state budget cuts, and said any donations would help with the operation of the center.
Encompass serves the Valley in a number of ways. It helps children with developmental problems from birth to age 3, offers preschool services, youth camps, parenting classes and more.
Former ‘Evening Magazine’ TV personality John Curley stopped by Encompass May 13 and will be at the Queen for a Day fundraiser.
Mount Si seniors sparkle at tea
May 28, 2009
The Mount Si High School class of 2009 munched on cookies and drank punch as it took a walk down memory lane for the Senior Tea May 21.
The Senior Tea tradition began more than 50 years ago, but has undergone a name and policy change over the years. In the school’s early years, the event was known as a Mother-Daughter Tea, before it became the more universal Senior Tea. Until the boys were allowed, Mount Si men would go to the annual Father-Son Banquet, former Mount Si teacher Carol Lawrence said.
The tea party opened to both genders in the mid 1980s. But, just because it’s no longer called the Mother-Daughter Tea, doesn’t mean mothers completely avoid the ceremony.
Mount Si seniors Tyler Kirk and Daisy Frearson perform ‘Everybody’s Changing’ by Keane for the Senior Tea.
Opstad students weave cedar
May 28, 2009
Opstad Elementary’s fourth-graders now have a handy place to put their spoons. With the help of cedar bark weaver Nancy Olson, all 96 fourth-graders made cedar bark miniature spoon bags the week of May 18.
Olson started the workshop with an assembly on her trade. Asking the students to call her “grandma,” Olson told them about her years living in Alaska. The former schoolteacher married a Lutheran minister and would boat from town to town, offering ecclesiastical and social services to people in British Columbia’s Queen Charlotte Islands.
In 1992, Olson happened upon a cedar weaving class and sat down, eager to learn. After taking many pointers from her teacher Holly Churchill, Olson found herself weaving bark in the American Indian Haida style.
School district switches to online calendars
May 28, 2009
Many a school district calendar rests by the phone of families with school-aged children in the Snoqualmie Valley School District.
Those calendars will soon become artifacts, if not collector’s items. In an effort to save $20,000, the district will no longer print and mail hard copies of district calendars and newsletters.
The new online calendar provides a less-expensive way for families to keep track of district and school events. The district will pay $2,000 per year to use the online Trumba program. To access the calendar, visit www.svsd410.org and select the E-Calendars icon in the bottom right of the page.
Calendar 5-28
May 28, 2009
Events
Mount Si girls track team grabs district championship
May 27, 2009
Two down, one to go.
A week after capturing the league championship, the Mount Si girls track and field team nabbed a Class 3A District title at the Sea-King Championships at the Southwest Complex in Seattle May 22.
Mount Si won three individual events and finished with 120 points, beating out runner-up Rainier Beach by an impressive 38 points. It was the third district title in school history for the Wildcats.
Cascade View Elementary hires new principal
May 27, 2009
Cascade View Elementary will have a new principal at its helm this July. Snoqualmie Valley School District Superintendent Joel Aune appointed Ray Wilson to serve as interim principal at Cascade View.
“His energy, leadership, personal qualities and successful experience as an administrator in our school district will serve him well as he comes on board to lead Cascade View Elementary School,” Aune wrote in a press release. “You will find that he brings enthusiasm, passion and a sincere interest in the student to his work.”
Wilson has a long history with the school district. He began teaching at Mount Si High School in 1986 and served as assistant principal at Chief Kanim Middle, before moving to assistant principal at Snoqualmie Middle School this past year.
Wilson also has experience teaching elementary-aged children. When he first jumped into his career, Wilson taught in grades kindergarten through fifth in Quilcene, a city on the Olympic Peninsula.
Museum workshops teach area youths about trains
May 23, 2009
Once upon a time, trains coming to and from the Snoqualmie Valley used to transport lumber, coal and crops. Now, the cars carry students and their parent chaperones.
Every May, the Northwest Railway Museum offers multiple workshops for students and preschoolers from all over the area. The $5-per-person workshops draw about 1,000 people to the depot over a two-week period. Museum’s Education and Volunteer Manager Jessie Cunningham said she used her masters in teaching social studies and history to help build the program. To learn more, visit www.trainmuseum.org.
About 30 home-schooled students gathered at the depot May 13 for a lesson of their own.
Conductor Earl Wildes, left, talks with passengers during a train ride.
City of Snoqualmie fined by Department of Ecology
May 23, 2009
Snoqualmie hopes to get out of paying the Department of Ecology a $24,500 penalty.
On May 21, the city received notice that it was being fined by Washington State’s Department of Ecology for allegedly allowing its wastewater treatment plant to violate standards for treated water released into the Snoqualmie River over three months last winter.
According to a report from the Department of Ecology, their agency was not promptly notified about a series of problems that occurred at the city’s wastewater treatment plant in December 2008 through February 2009. The DOE claims that the treatment plant failed to meet standards for three kinds of pollutants in the plant’s water-quality permit, resulting in 21 permit-standards violations.
Softball comes up three outs short of state berth
May 23, 2009
The Mount Si softball team was twice just three outs from leaving with its first state tournament berth in three years.
Instead, the Wildcats left with broken hearts.
Mount Si had a three-run lead on West Seattle in the bottom of the seventh inning of the fifth-place game at a Class 3A District Tournament at Woodland Park in Seattle on May 22. The winner was scheduled to take the tournament’s final state berth.
West Seattle rallied in the bottom half of that seventh inning to forge an 8-8 tie, then came up with two runs in the bottom half of the ninth to topple Mount Si, 10-9, and finish off the Wildcats’ season.
“That’s a heart-breaker,” head coach Larry White said. “We just ran out of gas here at the end and couldn’t hang onto it. We were just a few outs away from moving on.”
Karly Wiedenbach makes a throw over to Brielle Buhner during a Class 3A district contest May 21.
