Veteran coach takes over Mount Si boys basketball program
May 28, 2010
NEW — 1:35 p.m. May 28, 2010
Mount Si has a new coach for its boys varsity basketball program. Veteran high school coach Steve Helm was named as the new coach Friday May 28.
Helm previously coached at Bellevue High School, Newport High School and Eastlake High School. Read more
A time for healing
May 27, 2010
Barn fire leaves physical and emotional scars on humans and horses
e Doug Madden strokes the forehead of his fiancee’s horse Hunter, who was badly burned when their barn burned down May 1, likely due to an electrical problem. Two horses died in the fire. Hunter is recovering well, and Madden hopes to be able to ride him in two months. Photo by Dan Catchpol
Doug Madden and Kelly Bolen love horses.
SnoValley Star reporter wins journalism award
May 26, 2010
Every year, the regional Society of Professional Journalists chapter invites award-winning journalists to its annual Excellence in Journalism Awards dinner.
SnoValley Star reporter Laura Geggel picked up a second-place award for education reporting for nondaily papers at the dinner May 22. The winning piece detailed how students at Two Rivers School use boomerangs to learn math and science.
The Star competed against publications in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington.
Two of the Star’s sister papers also won awards at the Meydenbauer Center ceremony.
The Issaquah Press was named the No. 1 nondaily newspaper in the Pacific Northwest.
Police blotter
May 26, 2010
Snoqualmie
Two or three beers?
An officer pulled over a Redmond man at 10:34 p.m. May 15 in the 6400 block of Railroad Avenue Southeast when the man made an illegal left turn and then swerved in and out of his lane.
The officer asked if he had been drinking, and the man replied he had drunk two beers, but later changed his answer to three. The man failed several field sobriety tests and was placed under arrest for a DUI and booked into Issaquah City Jail. He was also written up for a traffic violation. Police impounded his vehicle.
Did you pay child support?
An officer recognized a man who had a suspended license driving at 12:50 a.m. May 16 at the intersection of Southeast Newton Street and Park Avenue Southeast. The man had a suspended license because he had failed to pay child support.
The officer pulled the man over, and the man showed him a valid Texas driver’s license and said he had talked with child support enforcement and that they had reinstated his Washington license.
The officer said the man would receive a criminal citation in the mail and advised the man that his Texas license was invalid as long as his Washington license was suspended.
Barking dog
A caller reported hearing a barking dog at 8:45 a.m. May 16 in the 38300 block of Southeast Northern Street. Officers located the dog and found it was fine.
North Bend and Fire District 38 closer to agreement for building new station
May 26, 2010
North Bend and Fire District 38 are closer to an agreement to build a new fire station, but several significant stumbling blocks remain in the way of a final decision.
City and fire district officials met May 11 to discuss the latest draft of an agreement for the new station. Officials are meeting again May 27 to discuss resolving the outstanding issues.
“There’s a couple of big issues left,” City Administrator Duncan Wilson said.
Looming large is the question of how the fire district would be compensated if North Bend annexes land in the district.
The two sides also have to iron out how disputes over the agreement would be resolved and the value of the property the station would be built on.
City and district officials agreed on splitting the station’s estimated $5 million cost for construction. The district would pay up to $2.5 million of the cost for the station on city property
King County will release data for apps
May 26, 2010
In the near future, King County residents could track crime statistics, find the nearest county park and check bus schedules on their smart phones — due to a measure adopted by the King County Council last week.
The council adopted legislation May 17 requiring the county to publish data sets online. The measure sets up the possibility for people and businesses to disseminate county data to the public through the Web and smart phone apps.
The legislation requires the county to produce by Aug. 1 a list of the data sets being considered for online publication. The county should post the data online by Nov. 1. King County plans to hold a public data workshop as well. Officials will announce the date next month.
Councilman Reagan Dunn — who represents unincorporated King County south of Issaquah, Bellevue and Newcastle — sponsored the ordinance.
Brian Dickinson aims to climb seven summits to give back
May 26, 2010
When Snoqualmie Valley resident Brian Dickinson first set out to climb the tallest mountain on each of the seven continents — known as the Seven Summits — his wife JoAnna was skeptical.
“I was surprised, because he wasn’t a climber and I thought ‘OK, where did this come from?’” she said. “But I knew if this is something he wanted to do, then it’s going to happen.”
The first mountain he climbed was Alaska’s Mount McKinley (Denali), at 20,320 feet, last May.
In February, Dickinson completed his second summit when he climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. At 19,340 feet, Kilimanjaro, in Tanzania, is the highest mountain in Africa.
“As far as the seven, I would anticipate Kilimanjaro to be one of the easiest if not the easiest of them all,” Dickinson said, “because it’s not a technical climb, it’s just high in altitude, over 19,000 feet.
“I viewed that as an opportunity to have a couple of high school friends get together,” he added. “So, we met up in Africa and did the climb together.”
Jason Mead and Joseph Southerland joined him. The trio grew up together in Rogue River, Ore., and the men have known each other since elementary school.
North Bend woman climbs mountains against the odds
May 26, 2010
Jamie Rosen has climbed a number of mountains, but she has an even bigger one to tackle: preventing cancer.
Many nonprofit organizations raise money to help find a cure for cancer, but Rosen joined an organization that targets prevention, which is, in effect, another type of cure. If a person doesn’t get cancer in the first place, they don’t even need treatment.
In the United States, no more than one out of 10 women with breast cancer has a genetic history of the disease, according to the Breast Cancer Fund.
Some research points to toxic chemicals and radiation as contributing to high rates of breast cancer, and Rosen wants people to be in the know, not only for their sake, but for the sake of their friends and families.
She invites the community to join her at the North Bend Bar & Grill June 6. The grill will donate 10 percent of the day’s proceeds to the Breast Cancer Fund.
Students create poetry in 17 syllables
May 26, 2010
Snoqualmie Valley’s three libraries invited local residents to write haikus about books they had read in honor of National Poetry Month in April. A haikus is a type of structured poem.
The Friends of the Library groups in the Valley sponsored the contest, which was judged by two librarians. Winners received $25 gift certificates to Barnes & Noble.
Haiku contest winners
North Bend Library
Kaitlyn Glenn, elementary school
Book: “Little Red Riding Hood”
What a dumb old kid
Thought a wolf was her gramma
Hold on — wolves can’t talk!
Alex Rasmussen, middle school
Book: “+Anima”
A fallen angel
His black wings will light the way
Through the darkened path.
Letters
May 26, 2010
Constitutional rights
Suspicion isn’t enough to strip away rights
Excellent editorial this week (“Fear doesn’t justify stripping civil liberties,” May 20).
Frank Lautenberg is a notorious anti-gunner, totally oblivious to due process or the Constitution.
His most recent contribution was the law wherein citizens deemed, for not necessarily valid reasons, guilty of “domestic violence” are stripped of the right to bear, own or posses a firearm.
Vindictive spouse or domestic partner? “He threatened me!” … Bingo.
I won’t dare to deny that some restraining orders are legitimate, if totally ineffective but some are not.
That said, since no one knows how or why people find themselves on the terrorist watch list, and getting off it is as much a mystery, until we have answers to these questions, the process should remain unchanged.
Until you have a criminal record, you’ve a right to purchase, possess, own and bear firearms.
My weekly poll vote? Yes, they should be able.
George Crotts
North Bend
