Valley student Kallin Spiller earns state honors for letter
May 17, 2012
Contributed Seventh-grader Kallin Spiller (center) was honored as a finalist in the state’s Letters About Literature contest May 12. Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed, left, and First Gentleman Mike Gregoire attended the ceremony in Olympia. Spiller wrote a letter to Dr. Seuss about the impact his book, ‘There’s a Wocket in My Pocket,’ had in her life.
Dead for 21 years, Theodor S. Geisel still gets letters.
“His books were my favorite when I was little to read with my family,” wrote Snoqualmie Middle School seventh-grader Kallin Spiller, the author of a letter to Geisel, better known by his fictitious medical degree and his middle name, Dr. Seuss.
Spiller’s letter to the children’s books author made her a finalist in the statewide Letters About Literature contest, where children write letters to their favorite authors.
Valley teacher selected for Harvard course
May 17, 2012
Memo to Snoqualmie Middle School teacher Connie Logan: As of June 25 and until July 20, she may not drive a car.
She has to drive a cah. And has to pahk it in the yahd.
Logan has earned a spot in “Golden Compass as Moral Compasses: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Fairy Tales and Fantasy,” a class at Harvard University, in Boston.
Logan was one of 15 teachers selected to attend “Hah-vahd” over the summer. Hundreds of people applied for the four-week class.
“To be admitted, I had to write an essay and submit a résumé,” Logan wrote in an email. “I got the call over spring break.”
Maria Tatar, a renowned Harvard professor of Germanic languages and literatures of folklore and mythology will teach the class, alongside guest lecturers, Logan added.
“This class will allow me to interface with experts in the field as well as educators from around the U.S.A.,” said Logan, who will live for a month in Harvard’s Adams House.
The National Endowment for the Humanities will fund the class, all out-of-pocket expenses paid.
Girl Scout Troop wins second in skills contest
May 17, 2012
The Valley’s Girl Scout Troop 42403 won second place in the Outdoor Skills Competition in Carnation in late April.
Twelve troops competed in skills such as first aid, knot tying, knife safety and outdoor cooking. The girls from the troop, fifth-graders, also built a bench out of ropes and twigs; and cooked a brunch with eggs, cheese, onions and peppers, alongside apple sauce, sausages, muffins and coffee.
Competition took place at the Girl Scouts of Western Washington’s Camp River Ranch in Carnation.
‘Race To Nowhere’ film is coming to the Valley
May 17, 2012
Mount Si High School will offer a showing of “Race to Nowhere,” a documentary describing the pressure to perform and achieve that affects today’s schoolchildren and its consequences, like burnout among educators and depression among children.
The school scheduled the show for 6:30 p.m. May 21. Admission is free, but seating at the school’s auditorium is limited. Get tickets at www.raceto-nowhere.com/epostcard/5971.
The movie is rated PG-13.
Snoqualmie Valley School District shows off its artsy side
May 10, 2012
Photos by Sebastian Moraga Makena Lau, of Fall City Elementary School, stands next to her drawing of pink and yellow flowers.
Where we see art, Bryce Meserve sees freedom.
“It’s uninhibited,” said Meserve, an art teacher at Mount Si High School. “They just want to create.”
They, in this case, are the elementary school students from the Snoqualmie Valley School District who presented their art during the district’s art show at the high school May 4.
Matt Bumgardner’s musical odyssey continues from winter into spring
May 10, 2012
Camera-shy and uncomfortable with the spotlight, Matt Bumgardner nevertheless displays an honesty as uncommon as his talent with the trombone.
A senior in high school building a bright future with the sounds of his instrument, Bumgardner declares the trombone to be “lame” without sounding clichéd or like a too-cool-for-school teenager.
“You don’t have nearly as much freedom as you have with other instruments, just because of the nature of it,” he said. “Just because it’s really difficult.”
That’s what keeps it a challenge for Bumgardner and what keeps him enthralled with it.
Contributed Matt Bumgardner, a senior at Mount Si High School, will perform in Japan and in the Monterey Jazz Festival this summer.
“There’s a bunch of good pianists, there’s a bunch of good drummers, there’s always going to be way too many saxophonists,” he said. “But when you can find a trombonist who can really find their own unique voice in the instrument, that’s really cool.”
Mount Si High School music teacher Adam Rupert has called Bumgardner the best jazz trombone improviser in the nation.
Encompass helps caregivers navigate caring for young relatives
May 10, 2012
Kathy Baker loves every day. And struggles every day.
Loves every day she gets to spend with her 5-year-old grandson Landon. And struggles to keep his world normal.
Baker is Landon’s primary caregiver. Has been for a year and a half, while Baker’s daughter tends to serious health issues.
Watching Landon grow feels great. Watching him feel like Mom left him hurts.
Caregivers endure similar combinations of pain and joy when raising the child of a relative.
“They love the child, but there’s definitely a bit of grieving because things aren’t going according to how they had thought,” said Emili Fletcher, family support manager at Encompass, a nonprofit family services organization in North Bend that offers resources for kinship care.
Most kinship care involves grandparents, Fletcher said. Sometimes even great-grandparents participate.
“Relative caregiving can be generational,” she said, “where it can be the third time that it happens. It’s a really unique situation, but it can happen.”
People in caregiver roles require multiple help, from legal advice to diapers and wet wipes, Fletcher said. Baker said many grandparents don’t realize help exists.
“We are not therapists,” Fletcher said. “We offer support and validation and empathy, but we are not therapists.”
Sometimes, people just like to know they are not alone.
Future Jazz Heads are a work(shop) in progress
May 2, 2012
By Sebastian Moraga Cole Van Gerpen, at left, Michelle John, center, and Joey Petroske play during Future Jazz Heads, a mixture of music workshop and live performance for middle- and high-schoolers. The children play in front of paying customers and musical experts, receiving advice in between songs.
Make a mistake and you’re human. Make a mistake before a crowd and you’re an embarrassed human.
Make a mistake before a crowd and love it? Then, you’re a jazz head in the making.
Future Jazz Heads gathers middle- and high-schoolers to play music before an audience at Boxley’s restaurant in North Bend.
Snoqualmie Elementary School repeats as book contest champ
May 2, 2012
One more and Pat Riley cashes in.
The pro basketball coach patented the term “three-peat” for when his team achieved the feat of winning three championships in a row. It never happened for ol’ Pat, but a group of Snoqualmie Elementary School bookworms might just achieve that feat next year.
A team of Snoqualmie Elementary students won the annual Battle of the Books competition, which gathers one team from each elementary school in the district.
It’s the second year in a row a group from Snoqualmie Elementary won the contest. In 2010, a group from Snoqualmie Elementary finished second.
By Sebastian Moraga The 2012 Snoqualmie Valley School District’s Battle of the Books champions was the team No Names Needed. But here they are anyway: Taylor Talbott, left, Abbigal Triou, Emma Duim, Grace Wendlick and Victoria Copeland.
The contest requires students to answer questions from a list of books they had been reading for months. Each team won an intramural competition at its school to make it to the finals.
The Snoqualmie Elementary team, No Names Needed, counted Emma Duim as one of its members. In 2011, Emma won the competition with Book Busters.
Future scholars have a blast at Cascade View
April 26, 2012
By Sebastian Moraga Evan Symington has some fun with her science experiment, a bowl of non-Newtonian fluid.
A grade-schooler stood on stage at Cascade View Elementary School, faced three judges and spelled “tabernacle.”
“Geez,” a middle-schooler in the crowd told Cascade View Principal Ray Wilson, “I don’t even know what a tabernacle is.”
Scenes like that abounded at the Science, Art and Spelling Night, where kindergartners and grade-schoolers amazed older students and grownups with their skills in the three subjects.
