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.

Spiller’s letter talked about Seuss’ book “There’s a Wocket in my Pocket.”

Spiller began working on the letter in November and turned it in in January.

In the meantime, she had to brainstorm, do worksheets, analyze past letters, writhe a rough draft, have the letter edited and submit it.

“The hardest part of the project was ‘putting my heart on a plate,’” wrote Spiller, whose writing teacher Rene Peterson listed the letter as an assignment this year. “You were supposed to put so much emotion into the letter and that was what I found myself spending tons of time on.”

Students were discouraged from writing a fan letter. Instead of just praising an author, they had to connect the author’s works to their life, Spiller added.

“Honestly, I do not think there was any easy part of the actual project,” Spiller wrote. “Everything needed deep thought and consideration.”

Secretary of State Sam Reed and First Gentleman Mike Gregoire awarded finalists, runners-up and category champions in a May 11 ceremony in Olympia.

Port Townsend’s Samantha Smith won in Spiller’s seventh- and eighth-graders’ category, according to a press release from the Secretary of State’s office.

More than 5,000 students in grades four through 12 participated.

In Spiller’s category, only 49 of 1,187 letters made it to the finals.

“I believe what made my letter stand out was the idea of family that I put in my letter,” Spiller wrote. “Dr. Seuss really helped me connect with my family when I was younger.”

Spiller used to read Dr. Seuss books to her younger brother, Justin, she added.

The avid volleyball and basketball player’s U-13 volleyball team finished third out of 34 teams in a regional tournament in April.

Then, on Mother’s Day weekend, the same weekend of the ceremony in Olympia, Spiller’s AAU hoop team won the eighth-grade division of the Best in the West Tournament in Yakima.

Still, she wrote, she tries to make time to read and write.

“I love writing and have always considered writing one of my best skills,” she wrote. “I really enjoy literature and language arts at school and that is when I get my reading and writing in.”

With a busy sports schedule, she added, time to write for fun is scarce.

The payoff of writing, she wrote, is too big to ignore.

“What I like about writing is how much freedom and creativity you are given,” she wrote. “Whether it be voicing your own opinion or telling a story. Plus, there is always a new aspect of writing to learn, maybe a new form or new words to use. Writing is never completely known.”

Students wanting to follow in her footsteps to Olympia need to look inward when writing.

“Write from the heart,” she advised. “Writing is more interesting to others when they feel emotions, and if you do this, there is a good chance you will do very well in Letters About Literature.”

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.

The class, Logan said, will help teachers who want to introduce archetypes as a way to analyze literature in the classroom.

In literature, archetypes — the most basic and original example of something — refer to storytelling patterns that repeat from the beginning of recorded literature to this day.

“From cave fire to Kindle, the pattern never changes,” she wrote.

For instance, Logan wrote, every story’s hero is a wanderer, locked in a journey somewhere. Every hero is an orphan, separated or different from others in some way.

Every hero is a caretaker, having someone for whom they make sacrifices. Every hero is a warrior, locked in conflict with something or someone.

“Monsters come in all shapes and sizes,” she wrote. “Mean girls from school, dragons, fear, addiction, brutal authorities and so on.”

At the middle school these days, Logan teaches a workshop titled “The Hero’s Journey.”

“It is perfect timing,” she wrote.

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.

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.

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.

Meserve marveled at how little difference existed in some cases between the elementary school students’ art and the older students’ art. But above all, he praised the youngest children’s creative freedom.

“They don’t really care what it’s going to end up looking like, and it often ends up looking good because of that,” he said.

High school and middle school students also presented art during the show. The older students tend to be more self conscious about their work, Meserve said.

“They don’t want to screw it up,” he said. “So they either stop drawing or painting, or they are really nervous and they don’t want to try new things with their art.”

During the show, parents marveled at the array of talent, and were even surprised by what they saw.

“I have never seen him do a human,” said Paige Dolecki, staring at a self-portrait of middle-schooler Spencer Dolecki, her son.

The art show displayed the district’s range of visual arts talent from kindergarten to 12th grade, said Ruth Huschle, a Snoqualmie Middle School art teacher and the show’s coordinator.

“A lot of the kids we showcase in this event aren’t kids that necessarily that get a lot of recognition in a lot of other places,” she said.

Students had received a postcard at home telling them they would represent their school at the show.

“It feels good,” said third-grader Makena Lau, who drew with crayons a landscape of pink and yellow flowers. “It feels good that other people can see my art and I can see what they think of it.”

Some didn’t even know about a postcard and instead found out through Huschle.

“A student called her mom and said, ‘Mom, guess what? My portrait got chosen to be in the art show.’ She was just thrilled,” Huschle said. “For some kids this is the thing that is their standout thing. They may not be super-strong athletes, but this is their really strong thing, so it’s a really special event.”

Children did not compete for spots in the show. Instead, teachers chose from works the students had done throughout the year. Lau’s flowers were at least a month old, for example.

“A competition changes the dynamics and it’s not really what this is about,” Huschle said. “It’s really about showing what we do in the district as far as the visual arts go.”

Sebastian Moraga: 392-6434, ext. 221, or smoraga@snovalleystar.com.

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.

This after his trombone-playing prowess took Bumgardner to places like the Grammy Awards in California and before it earned him tickets to Japan this July through the Monterey Jazz Festival.

“They have auditions from around the country,” Bumgardner said of Monterey, “and they pick out a big band and then every summer they have a tour. Last year, they did kind of a West Coast tour and this year they are doing Japan.”

Then in September, the band, including Bumgardner, will play at the actual Monterey Jazz Festival.

An incoming freshman at the New School of Music in New York, Bumgardner said the important thing is not where he goes or will go, but whether he learns once he is there.

“Anytime I get the chance to play with people who are better than me, whether it’s professionals or other students, that really helps a lot,” he said. “It keeps your ego from getting too big and it keeps you working hard.”

Bumgardner said all of these trips make for a busy and stressful schedule.

“But it’s a good busy and a good stressful,” he added. “I’d rather be busy doing all these things than not do any of it at all.”

Sebastian Moraga: 392-6434, ext. 221, or smoraga@snovalleystar.com.

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.

“The Encompass people are fabulous,” said Baker, who will contribute to an Encompass blog with stories about raising Landon, an Encompass student.

Kinship caregivers remain optimistic, sometimes only to protect children from worry.

“They are all for unification. They are all really good with the kids,” Fletcher said of kinship caregivers.

Until unification occurs, they have to deal with diapers and plans changing all the time.

Baker said this is not how she pictured her golden years.

“You were picturing cruises,” she said. “And now you’re at a T-ball practice again.”

Instead of cruising, Baker and her husband find themselves navigating a child’s foundational years, while their buddies enjoy wine tastings.

On the downside, they have to witness their adult child being unable to be a parent and their grandchild struggling to understand why Mommy is not around.

On the upside, they know that the time they are giving up allows their daughter to get healthier and their grandson a chance to develop.

“We are providing a safe, stable home for him,” she said. “And it’s crucial at this time in his life.”

Besides, she said, life is more than just entertaining yourself.

“Just seeing how hard that caregiver works to make that life for that child,” Fletcher said. “They are all very compassionate people, but they are sacrificing, definitely.”

Sebastian Moraga: 392-6434, ext. 221, or smoraga@snovalleystar.com. 

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.

“Mistakes are a lot more prominent when people are watching,” said eighth-grader Will Crandall, who said failing before an audience is a powerful motivator.

When a musician errs during practice, eighth-grader Joey Petroske said, he or she can always start over. Not so with paying customers around.

“You have to keep going,” he said. “And fix your mistakes later.”

After and sometimes during each song, children learn from professional musicians like Twin Falls Middle School band director Matt Wenman, Mount Si High School band director Adam Rupert and longtime musician Chris Clark.

“It’s brought out a lot of things in me,” said the 72-year-old Clark, who began playing at age 8 and who played for stars like Jerry Lewis and Mel Torme. “While these kids have been playing for seven years, I have been playing for seven decades.”

The tips from the adults help children improve, eighth-grader Cole Van Gerpen said. The live-concert atmosphere helps them overcome stage fright, said eighth-grader Michelle John.

The most important lesson for the children, Clark said, is learning how to play as an ensemble, and listening to one another.

“What we want is a family that plays together,” Clark said. “As long as they look at it from the standpoint of only themselves, it will impede their progress. I call it the Me-Me-Me school, and there’s a lot of it in jazz.”

John and Crandall said their skills have improved since they joined Future Jazz Heads, which meets two Tuesday nights a month.

“It’s really helped me excel,” John said.

The pros also benefit from it.

“To see the moment when they really love what they are doing,” Wenman said, “it makes me want to work harder.”

Everything that happens at Future Jazz Heads benefits children, Wenman said. The only downside is that children are too busy to attend sometimes. When they do, they often can’t stay until the end of the show.

“To get them here on a Tuesday from 7 to 10 p.m.,” Wenman said, “if they stay here until then, when do they do homework? Once they are here, they want to do this every week.”

Wenman, who grew up in Gig Harbor, said he would have loved to have a chance like this back then, performing and learning at once.

Now the children of the Valley have that. It will be even better, Wenman said, once the community hears of it.

“If every kid and parent and teacher really knew how amazing this is,” he said, “on Tuesday nights you wouldn’t be able to find a seat.”

Sebastian Moraga, 392-6434, ext. 221, or smoraga@snovalleystar.com. Comment at www.snovalleystar.com.

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.

“It feels awesome to have won it twice in a row,” said Emma, flanked by teammates Victoria Copeland, Taylor Talbott, Abbigal Triou and Grace Wendlick.

Things didn’t feel awesome for most of them just 12 hours earlier. Most of the No Names Needed crew had a rough time the eve of the competition.

“I felt like I was going to throw up,” said Abbigal, a fifth-grader like all her teammates.

Grace also said she had a tummy ache.

“I couldn’t sleep last night,” said Taylor, as her parents watched.

Victoria said she woke up an hour earlier than usual because of nerves. It did not seem to hurt them any, as the No Names Needed crew mounted a great comeback late in the game.

Fall City Elementary School’s team had the lead until all but six of the contest’s 40 questions had been asked. With four questions left, Snoqualmie took the lead and did not give it up. At the end, Snoqualmie Elementary finished with 250 points — 10 more than Fall City Elementary School, 20 more than Cascade View Elementary School and Opstad Elementary School, and 60 more than North Bend Elementary School.

Now that the students have the trophy they can relax and sleep with a smile on their faces. And so can Mr. Riley, according to Snoqualmie Elementary fourth-grader Grace Richter’s prediction.

“We’re planning on keeping the trophy next year, too,” she said.

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.

Kindergartner Payton Stokesbary was one of those children. He had a slotted tray holding bits of ice. Plants sat underneath the tray. A kettle shot steam to the underside of the tray.

The kettle represented the sun, the plants were the earth and the ice cubes were the clouds. As the steam melted the ice, water rained on the plants.

“He’s really into science stuff,” said his mother, Kelly. “I’m happy, trust me. My 2-year-old is not that way.”

Students in the science competition had to follow the scientific method — formulate a hypothesis and a prediction, conduct an investigation, collect results and issue a conclusion.

“We are trying to avoid show-and-tell,” science competition judge Yvonne Stevens said. “We’re looking for something original, something that they have added their own element to it.”

That’s exactly what second-graders Molly Harris and Jackalyn Gates sought when they designed their experiment — cracking an egg.

“People think, ‘This is kind of easy, it’s an egg,’ and then you’re like, ‘Ugh,’” said Gates, squeezing the egg around its middle.

The children in the evening’s spelling contest had no chance to say “It’s easy, it’s ‘egg,’” as the easiest words the youngest contestants received were six letters long.

By the time the second-graders stood up to spell, they received fourth-grade words.

Adriana Schmieder won among first-graders.

Beck Hoffman won among second-graders and Daniel Henderson won among third graders. Fourth-grader Jillian Borrevik and fifth-grader Jenna Brandt completed the winners’ circle.

For some, winning had taken time.

“It’s been her goal since last year,” Sue Korol said of Jillian, her daughter. “She was eliminated in the finals last year, so she came back with a vengeance this year.”

For others, time was running out.

“It feels awesome,” said Jenna, who practiced 45 minutes a day every day prior to the contest. “It’s awesome since this is the last year I’m able to compete.”

By the time she got up to the stage to spell, most of Payton’s ice had melted and the tea kettle was off.

The judges had already visited with him, included Mount Si High School science teacher Kevin Knowles, who gave him one last quiz.

“Do you know the name of all this?” Knowles said pointing to the tray still dripping water onto the plants.

“Water cycle,” Payton whispered, impressing Knowles in the process.

“Hey,” Knowles told Payton, “I want to see you in my class in a few years.”

Sebastian Moraga: 392-6434, ext. 221, or smoraga@snovalleystar.com. Comment at www.snovalleystar.com.

Roubicek, Megan’s teacher at Snoqualmie Elementary School, raves about the artistic talent of the fourth-grader, whose work has been selected as the poster art for the city’s 2013 Arbor Day.

“Megan is one of the most hardworking, dedicated and compassionate students I have ever taught,” Roubicek wrote in an email. “She always gives 110 percent effort in everything that she does and isn’t afraid to use her creative side.”

Contributed Megan Caro poses with her painting, ‘Trees are Terrific in All Shapes and Sizes,’ which will grace the Snoqualmie Arbor Day poster next year. Megan, a fourth-grader at Snoqualmie Elementary School, said her art depicted the variety of trees in the Valley.

Megan fulfilled a yearlong dream of hers just by participating. As a third-grader last year, she was not eligible to participate. This year, she competed and won.

Her watercolor painting, titled “Trees Are Terrific in All Shapes and Sizes,” shows the variety of trees in the Snoqualmie Valley, all under a purplish sky and a setting sun.

Her setting sun can be found behind a row of mountains, the opposite of what we experience in the Valley. Megan shrugs the anomaly off, in the process of scoring one for creative, imaginative people everywhere.

“What makes it fun,” Megan said, “is just being able to draw what you’re thinking and your emotions. I also like that nothing is perfect and everything is unique.”

Roubicek’s entire class entered the contest. Michelle Dutton, co-owner of Smart With Art and a parent of a classmate of Megan’s, gave the class a lesson in watercolors beforehand.

Roubicek said many of her students were not surprised Megan had won because “it was such an amazing painting.”

Roubicek said Megan and the rest of the class also entered a statewide contest. The winner of that gets his or her artwork on the cover of the Washington Voter’s Pamphlet.

In the meantime, they gladly share in Megan’s joy.

“We are incredibly excited for Megan,” Roubicek wrote.

Kathy Caro, Megan’s mom, said her daughter has always been artistic.

Even in preschool, Kathy said, Megan’s work stood out as more elaborate, fancier than the rest.

Nowadays, Megan’s 11-year-old brother seeks his little sister’s help when it comes to his school projects.

Nevertheless, Megan said winning was a big surprise, mostly because Kathy kept it a secret from her.

“There were other girls in the car,” Kathy said, “I wanted to tell her when we were by ourselves.”

Howland earned a 3.5 grade point average. About 3,338 students earned an average of 3.5 or higher, with 752 students earning straight As.

Students must carry at least 12 graded hours of course work to be included on the honor roll.

Macaroni Kid of Issaquah-Snoqualmie picks one teacher every month. The nomination for Roubicek called her a kind, encouraging and even-handed teacher.

“All in all, she is one amazing teacher,” the nomination read, with the word “amazing” in all capital letters.

Roubicek is a fourth-grade teacher at Snoqualmie Elementary.

She will receive a plaque from Issaquah Trophy & Awards, a massage gift certificate from Therapeutic Health in North Bend and a $100 gift certificate to the Woodman Lodge, courtesy of the lodge and the Cascade Team Real Estate Agency.

Claudine Fairchild, a physical therapist at Cascade View Elementary School, won the award in February.

Twin Falls Middle School teacher Kyle Wallace won it in January.

By Sebastian Moraga Emmitt Rudd leaps during the long-jump competition at the Mount Si Invitational Meet.

We meet again, at the meet.

After a 23-year hiatus, the Mount Si Invitational Meet returned to life April 21 at Mount Si High School.

Teams from all over the Puget Sound area arrived to celebrate the revival of what once was a staple of the spring athletics calendar in the Snoqualmie Valley.

The hosts did themselves proud, not only with a picturesque day of cloudless sunshine, but by putting on good performances. The girls tied Marysville-Pilchuck for first place with 148 points.

Lexi Swanson broke her personal best in the pole vault with a 10-foot leap. The mark placed her as the state’s fifth-best vaulter among 3A schools.

Kristen Kasel broke her personal best in the discus twice in a row, finishing second. She also had a personal record at the javelin, finishing second with 92 feet, 10 inches.

She credited her discus streak to adjustments she has made to her throws, staying lower and using her legs for more momentum.

Her top discus mark for the day was 90 feet, 9 inches, still shy of her final goal for the season.

“A hundred-and-something,” she said with a laugh.

The boys finished fourth. Bradly Stevens broke his personal record in the discus with 130 feet, 6 inches — good enough for first place. He also won the javelin with 190 feet, 1 inch.

Emmitt Rudd broke his personal best in the long jump.

“I felt good today, came in feeling confident,” Rudd said, “and got a good height on the jumps.”

He finished eighth in the competition.

The star of the day, without doubt, was the meet itself. Long condemned to the history books after the deteriorating cinder track made it impossible to keep hosting the event in 1989, the return of the meet had a special meaning for those who saw its heyday and decay.

A coach at Mount Si since the 1970s, girls head track coach David Clifford digs the return of the meet more than most.

“To have been part of it for as long as I was and then to see the last one, and then to have it restarted again,” he said.

Clifford said the old cinder track had 10 lanes, so the old meets would have nine teams, plus Mount Si.

“We were having money issues back in the 1980s, and the district just didn’t have the money to maintain the track and upgrading it to where it needed to be,” Clifford said.

Thanks to a bond, the school renovated its track and field facilities seven years ago, into what Clifford calls a top-notch track and  “the envy of the KingCo league.”

Putting on a meet again took a while, though. The envy of the KingCo league has no lights or covered stands. Still, the itch to revive the meet never disappeared.

“We’ve been wanting to put on a meet out here for a while,” assistant coach Chris Jackson said.

Clifford agreed.

“This year, we said, ‘The heck with it, we’re going to figure out a way to get stands out here and we’re going to have it during the day,’” Clifford said. “It’s basically restarting and re-establishing a meet we had for many years.”

The newer track has eight lanes. The meet still gathered nine teams, as two of them are not co-ed.

Teams including Sequim, Snohomish, Graham-Kapowsin, Clover Park, Holy Names and powerhouse O’Dea showed up for the meet.

More than 130 parents, students and community members volunteered during the meet. That plus the fans and teammates gave Mount Si an edge. When Swanson leapt over the bar at 10 feet, fans exploded in cheers.

“It’s a home-field advantage,” Rudd said. “And it’s great to have all these people here.”

Both teams scored two runs in the first inning at the Mount Si ball field, and goose eggs in the next three.

The Kangs took the lead with three more runs at the top of the fifth frame, just as rain started falling steadily.

Mount Si High School’s Britney Stevens leads off first base as slugger Mickey Blad gets ready to swing in the April 17 game against Lake Washington High School. The Wildcats won, 11-5.

Lake Washington errors helped the Wildcats put two more runs on the board in the fifth.

Celine Fowler hit a ball that bounced between the Kangs’ pitcher and catcher, and while the two tried to decide who should grab the ball, Fowler was already at first base.

Lake Washington’s shortstop missed Britney Stevens’ single, and Rachael Picchena hit a ball deep to centerfield, which allowed Fowler and Stevens to run across home plate.

The top and bottom of the sixth inning was a game changer for the Wildcats.

Mount Si freshman Paige Wetherbee relieved starting pitcher Kendra Lee, and struck out all three Lake Washington batters.

But that was the only inning she pitched due to a hand injury in the following inning, when she tripped rounding first base.

The Wildcats took the lead in the sixth when seven batters scored runs.

Jenny Carroll hit a single, and Wetherbee’s left-field hit could have been a double if not for the trip over first base. But the hit did allow Carroll to run home, tying the game, 5-5.

Fowler tapped the ball infield for a single.

Mount Si slugger Mickey Blad was then at bat. She’s got a .606 batting average so far this season, a virtually unheard of average in high school fastpitch.

But her powerful stick didn’t matter this time as Lake Washington’s pitcher tossed four balls her way.

The Mount Si crowd, in a friendly ribbing gesture, clapped and cheered and shouted, “Way to walk Mickey. Way to walk.”

With the bases loaded, Lauren Smith hit a single toward third base, but the ball was dropped and Wetherbee crossed home plate.

Picchena hit an infield ball that slipped through the Lake Washington shortstop’s glove, with Fowler and Blad crossing home plate, for a score of 8-5.

Smith ran home after Tamarra Crowe hit a double.

Carroll’s infield hit was missed by Lake Washington at third base, which allowed Picchena to cross the plate. But a series of errors led to Carroll running all three bases and diving into home for an 11-5 score.

Lake Washington got three big hits off Lee in the final inning, but two outfield catches and a toss out at third base ended the game.

Mount Si’s league record now stands at 8-1, putting them in KingCo 3A’s second place spot, just behind the undefeated Juanita High School. Their next game will be at 4:30 p.m. April 26 against Mercer Island at Mount Si, and at 4:30 p.m. May 1 against Bellevue at Bellevue High School.

Just ask sixth-grader Ethan Saur, a student at Twin Falls Middle School, who tried to grow grass with water, milk, cola and soda. His ultimate discovery had little to do with science.

“Now I know Mom will get rid of my soda every time she gets a chance to,” he said.

By Sebastian Moraga Ben Rogers, a fourth-grader at North Bend Elementary School, plays with a pendulum eighth-grader Tanner Thomson built.

To be fair, Saur also discovered that grass does not grow well when you pour anything but H2O on it.

Saur waited four weeks for the grass to grow. He watched as mold grew on the milked-up soil and expanded when Saur poured fizzy soda on it.

Schoolmate Sarah McTier and Brenna McDaniel discovered that their best free throws happen when launched from atop their heads. Josette Vail discovered turning on a light bulb is hard work if you use fruit.

Dozens of other discoveries sat on display April 12 at the first Science Fair at Twin Falls Middle School.

Students conducted experiments that went from the serious to the silly, but always following a scientific approach of questioning, investigating, hypothesizing, testing, inferring and concluding.

Sixth-graders Sierra Spring and Jessica Copitzky measured the brightness of glow sticks in cold, warm and hot water. Eighth-grader Tanner Thomson timed pendulums swinging from different heights.

And then there’s Vail, who tried to see the proverbial light using a variety of fruits and veggies.

“I used an apple, a lemon, a grapefruit, a cucumber and a potato,” Vail said. “Then I took some nails and copper wire and measured the volts.”

None of the fruits or veggies turned on the bulb.

Thomson’s experiment went a little better, and a little simpler.

Thomson encountered concepts like “point of equilibrium,” while researching his pendulums, but chose to keep it understandable for his middle-school audience.

“I wanted to keep it as basic as I could, but also at an eighth-grade level,” he said.

Thomson said he would choose someplace other than his living room to test the pendulum. His two dogs would not leave him alone.

Then, when the testing ended and they could play with the pendulum, they ignored it.

“They just licked it and left,” Thomson said. “It really wasn’t that exciting to them unless they could not play with it.”

Photos by Sebastian Moraga McKenna Esteb (from left), Annie Bruckner and Tori Rose, the first-, second-, and third-place finishers at the 2012 SnoValley Idol Junior contest March 31. Fourteen girls competed in the finals of the eight-year-old event.

On a wet night, musical talent reigned inside Mount Si High School on March 30.

The eighth annual SnoValley Idol Junior contest showcased some of the most talented teen and pre-teen singers in the region.

Fan-favorite McKenna Esteb, of Fall City, won the contest with a rendition of “Halo,” a Beyonce song. Annie Bruckner finished second and Tori Rose finished third.

Esteb, an eighth-grader at Chief Kanim Middle School, was the 11th of 14 singers that evening. She had a strong stage presence, stepping upstage to sing to the audience, and talking to the crowd (“I love you, I love you.”).

Her up-tempo choice of song and her talent also helped draw the crowd in.

This was Esteb’s first year in the competition.

A longtime singer, she said she only got serious about it last year, and began working with a vocal coach.

Esteb wants to be a professional singer when she grows up. She practiced on her church’s stage to prepare for the competition.

“I was pretty surprised. It took me a while to realize that I had won the whole thing,” she said.

She won a $50 gift card, a trophy and a teddy bear, whom she named after her friend Brianna, another contestant in the competition.

The contest featured mostly middle- and grade-schoolers and only one high-schooler — Mikaela Ballard, from Cedarcrest High School.

Eighth-grader Bruckner sang “There Are Worse Things I Could Do.” Actress Stockard Channing, as Betty Rizzo, sang it in the 1978 movie “Grease.”

“I have been watching that movie since I was 4,” Bruckner said. “I always felt bad for Rizzo.”

Sixth-grader Rose’s voice was a perfect fit for her choice of song, “Angel,” by Sarah McLachlan.

“I just knew the song and my mom really liked it,” Rose said, adding she did not mind finishing third.

“It’s a good experience anyway,” she said.

This was Rose’s fifth year in the contest and likely her last, she said.

“I just have done it five years and it’s time to try something new,” she added.

Judges selected Bruckner, Rose and Esteb as finalists and then let the audience vote for their favorite to decide the winner.

Both Rose and Esteb had brought a large contingent of fans, so when the emcee announced that Rose had finished third, Bruckner could not hide her surprise.

“I really thought I was going to get third,” Bruckner said. “I guess I feel OK finishing second, but it’s kind of a coincidence because Tori finished third last year, too.”

Bruckner and Rose differed on their views of how a winner gets elected.

“It’s a big popularity contest, and it’s been that way for a while,” Bruckner said matter-of-factly. “In the end it’s all about who brought the most friends.”

Rose said she liked getting the audience involved.

“It lets the audience be more of a part of it,” she said. “If it wasn’t that way it would not be as much fun for friends and stuff.”

Joe Dockery, the faculty adviser for the Mount Si High School chapter of Key Club, has been named the Key Club Faculty Adviser of the Year for the organization’s Pacific Northwest district.

The Pacific Northwest District spans northern California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia and Alaska with thousands of high school chapters of Key Club.

Key Club is the high school version of Kiwanis, the international community service organization. Dockery received the honor at the Pacific Northwest district convention in SeaTac the weekend of April 1.

“That Joe is an exceptional teacher and adviser is actually not surprising to those who know of him,” Dave Humphrey, Kiwanis adviser to the Mount Si High School Key Club wrote in an email. “He has already had many honors bestowed upon him.”

Dockery began working with Humphries in 2007.

“He’s just a tremendous teacher,” Humphries said in a phone interview. “When he takes that into the Key Club, what he’s doing is using his skills in a really subtle way, but he empowers the kids and ultimately the kids run the meeting.”

One of those children is Molly Mabel, secretary of the school’s Key Club chapter. She called Dockery a great adviser.

“He sincerely cares about every project we work on,” Mabel wrote in an email. “He does not just oversee the work that the members do but he actively participates with us.”

Dockery was in New York on a field trip with students and was not available for comment.

He has won such awards as the KCTS Golden Apple Award, The Seattle Times Teacher of the Year and the Radio Shack National Technology Teacher of the Year.

Last year, Dockery won the Making IT Happen award from the International Society for Technology in Education.

“Those of us who know Joe Dockery, we know he is one of the leaders in the innovative things he is doing in technology,” Snoqualmie Valley Schools Superintendent Joel Aune said at the time. “We all know Mr. Dockery. We all know he is the best.”

Sebastian Moraga: 392-6434, ext. 221, or smoraga@snovalleystar.com.

The morning kindergarten classes’ performance will be at 11 a.m. at the school        gymnasium.

The full-day and afternoon kindergarten classes’ performance will be at 2 p.m. in the same venue, and before the children’s schoolmates, according to an email from the school to parents.

Opstad Elementary School has also scheduled a performance of “Three Piggy Opera” for 6 p.m. May 17.

By Sebastian F. Moraga Tina Longwell and her son Cody, an Opstad Elementary alum. Longwell, secretary at Opstad, received the 2012 Snoqualmie Valley Schools Foundation’s Classified Educator of the Year award. Longwell started her work at Opstad as a volunteer during her days off from a dental office while her son attended the school.

For eight hours a day, Tina Longwell makes the octomom look like an amateur.

Most every weekday morning, Longwell’s family grows the way raindrops fall on a tree in North Bend. By the hundreds.

“I kind of feel like I am a mom to 536 kids, from 9:05 to 3:25,” the Opstad Elementary School secretary said, and to hear her tell it, she would not have it any other way.

“I don’t consider it a job,” she said. “I get to go to school every day.”

A former dental office manager turned instructor assistant turned school secretary, Longwell won the 2012 Snoqualmie Valley Schools Foundation’s Classified Educator of the Year award.

“I never would have thought I would be working in a school,” she said. “Not that I disliked school but it’s not something I ever thought I would have done. But I love it. I can’t imagine not doing it now.”

Growing up, Longwell loved horses and wanted to run rodeo stock. A back-breaking accident at 18 took care of much of that dream.

“I was going to be the first female rodeo stock runner,” she said.

Three years ago, she said, someone beat her to that, but odds are that person never won educator of the year.

“Got her beat there,” she added.

Miss Tina, as the children call her, — since saying ‘Longwell’ challenges their blossoming speaking skills — still relishes the change of pace her job affords her. So hectic was her old career at the dental office that being surrounded by hundreds of children, their needs, their wants and their questions, lowered her stress level, she said.

She became an instructor assistant in 2007, and applied for the secretary’s job in 2008.

Longwell’s tasks include that staple of elementary schools: owie overseer.

“I take care of the health room, so I have got kids coming in with minor owies, but they think they are major owies,” she said. “And then you got kids coming in with big owies that are scared, and you have to let them know they are going to be OK.”

The owies are not a challenge to Longwell. The challenge lies in wanting to do more for the children than she actually can.

“There are some situations where kids need more, and I can’t,” she said. “I can just do my best and hope I can make a difference. That’s kind of hard.”

Longwell said she sometimes struggles to not internalize what children are going through. She said she has to remind herself to come back the next day with a fresh approach.

“That’s what I try to tell kids, too,” she said. “‘OK, you’re having a bad day today. Tomorrow we’re going to come in, clean slate, and we are going to have a better day.’”

Few days have been better than when a camera crew surprised her with the news that she had won the award.

“I could not have won this award without this team that (Opstad principal) John Jester has here,” she said.

When she first volunteered at Opstad, years before getting the job, her son was a fourth-grader at the school.

Cody Longwell graduated elementary school and is now a seventh-grader. His mom, on the other hand, said she hopes she never does.

“I love my job, I love my kids,” she said. “There are great kids here.”

Sebastian F. Moraga: 392-6434, ext. 221, or smoraga@snovalleystar.com.

That is what more than 80 students in the Mount Si High School culinary arts program did over the weekend of March 24 and 25, for their school’s ASB auction.

Such work is common for the children in the program, who have between 60 and 80 gigs outside of their school each year.

All this work, all this cooking, all this baking and all this dishwashing, has built a cohesive unit of students who take care of business and one another.

By Sebastian F. Moraga From left, Jessie Tidball, Steve Webb, Katie Vanbogart and Amber Caudle, all members of Mount Si High School’s Culinary Arts program. The students learn lifelong skills and build strong friendships, all while working in a hectic environment.

“It’s stressful at times because there’s so much stuff we get to do, but it’s fun to be with friends cooking food for all the people here,” said student Zach Sletten. “My parents say, ‘I wish I had that available when I was a kid.’”

Laura Tarp, culinary arts teacher at the high school, said children divide work in six different stations: coldline, purchasing and receiving, DIG (dishes, inventory, garbage), front, grill, and bake.

The coldline students handle the cold food, salads and sandwiches. The purchasing-and-receiving students have to order everything, take deliveries, read invoices and know whether anything is damaged.

Such is the buy-in from students that Tarp has had children call from their sick beds to alert her about an inventory issue.

“They may be sick but they call and say, ‘Miss Tarp, we are almost out of shake lids,’” Tarp said.

Grill and bake entail just that. Students on front duty deal with the cash register and beverages like milkshakes. Sometimes the lines get long and the students freak a little bit, but Tarp keeps her cool.

“I have to tell them to stay calm,” she said. An overseer more than a micromanager, Tarp rarely steps in.

One such occasion when she does step in is if a student curses. This is the hospitality business, after all, no room for foul language. If a student’s tongue slips, she or he has to do push-ups.

“We have to keep our upper body strong,” she said.

Over the course of a semester, students switch stations every week, to keep things interesting. Students form a cross section of the school, from great singers to math wizards, special needs students and 4.0-GPAers.

The only way to fail this class is by showing up with a bad attitude or not showing up at all, Tarp said. Students receive no homework. The proof of their learning is in the pudding. And in the sandwich, and in the fried chicken, and in the careers they find after they graduate.

Most students, Tarp said, have a job lined up in the culinary field by the time they are sophomores. Just last week, Jerry Weathers, sous chef at TPC Snoqualmie Ridge heard from two students about jobs. Weathers is a graduate of Mount Si and Tarp’s program.

Even those who don’t get to wear a cap and gown manage to find success sometimes, Tarp said. A former student of hers who did not graduate is now working as chef in a boat in Alaska, “making some real good money,” she added.

Students outside of the class trust their peers’ cooking abilities, Tarp said. Many have taken Tarp’s creative cooking class, a more narrowly-focused version of home economics.

“They know me, so they know I don’t mess around in the kitchen, when it comes to safety or when it comes to cleanliness,” Tarp said.

Sletten agreed.

“It makes me feel good they make my food for me,” he said. “I trust a lot of the kids back here.”

Students inside the class form friendships as impenetrable as overdone steak. Student Camille Neaves, sneaking behind Sletten to cover his eyes with her hands, called him one of his best friends.

“There’s a lot of bonding,” Tarp said. There’s a lot of, ‘Oh, you need help with biology homework? I took that class last year.’”

Several students see themselves holding on to that ladle once their high school years pass. Tarp said she can’t go to the Snoqualmie Casino without former students recognizing her.

“I want to do everything culinary,” Neaves said. “I want to be a head chef somewhere someday.”

Sebastian F. Moraga, 392-6434, ext. 221, or smoraga@snovalleystar.com.

Sandi Everlove, interim CEO of Washington STEM, left educators, parents and leaders of the Snoqualmie Valley School District with that message during a luncheon-fundraiser March 22.

Everlove’s organization focuses on the teaching and learning of science, technology, engineering and math in schools.

By Sebastian F. Moraga Sandi Everlove spoke in favor of increased availability for sceince and math classes..

She praised the emphasis the district has placed on STEM classes, and encouraged its teachers to share what they have learned with teachers outside the district, so children all over Washington state can learn, she said.

“Imagine sitting in a math class where they are begging for math class to not end because they love it,” she said. “STEM is the career path of the future, and I thank you for everything you’re doing.”

The fundraiser’s keynote speaker, Everlove said the way educators look at mathematics and science needs to change.

Math and science amounts to the “passport to opportunity” for today’s children, Everlove said during the luncheon at Snoqualmie Ridge TPC. “Every kid deserves that opportunity,” she added, stating that more than 180 million nationwide STEM jobs will be available by 2018.

While Everlove called Washington a “STEM-fueled state,” she also said the state’s gap between what children know and need to know about STEM is the second-largest in the nation. Only Delaware’s is larger.

“But we can fix this,” she said. “In Washington State, the average elementary school kid gets les than two hours of science a week. If we want to change the numbers, we might try getting more science in the classroom and that’s doable.”

She said the same recipe applies to math. Six out of 10 Washington state children would rather take out the garbage than do their math homework, she added.

Prior to Everlove’s speech, district superintendent Joel Aune said the district is committed to STEM.

“It is our intent to extend the STEM opportunities in our school,” he said. “We need to educate students for the future, not the past.”

The luncheon is the largest fundraiser of the year for the Snoqualmie Valley School Foundation, and it helps pay for a long list of classroom grants. The group raised $89,000 this year.

Aune applauded the foundation’s effort to help teachers and students bring resources to the classrooms of the Valley.

“Please be assured,” he said, “that we are very much appreciative of the support this community has given us in the past. We do not take it for granted it and we look forward to your support in the future.”

Sebastian F. Moraga: 392-6434, ext. 221, or smoraga@snovalleystar.com. 

Hampered by its rainy weather, its modest indoor facilities and by its powerhouse neighbors to the west, the Wildcat team nonetheless retains a big dose of enthusiasm, even in the face of matches against behemoths like Mercer Island.

Thirty-six girls turned out for tennis this season, a big number until one realizes than more than 60 turned out last year.

By Sebastian F. Moraga Cheyenne Dixon, a junior, returns a serve during practice at the Mount Si High School tennis courts. Mount Si has played strong teams to begin the season but the team hopes to be in top form when the more winnable matches come along.

“It’s the lowest we have had in my tenure,” said fourth-year head coach Erik Hanson. “I don’t know if this is the cause, but fees went up from $125 to $175. That might have been a contribution.”

The team’s strength and emphasis is in doubles. Making it through the first rounds of KingCo league championships would make this season a big success.

Through the tough start of the season, with matches against Lake Washington and Mercer Island, Hanson has remained calm.

“He has the right attitude,” player Sierra Morin said.

Waiting for the scary Islanders to show up in Snoqualmie for a match, the girls practiced hard, laughed plenty and rocked to Bill Haley and the Comets, the latter courtesy of Coach’s stereo.

“We’re not expecting to win,” said senior Trina Eck, “but we are expecting to learn from playing with a faster-paced team, a team that hits better and more accurately.”

Senior Kenzie Parker agreed.

“It’s not about winning or losing, but about learning and having fun with it,” Parker said.

The girls are great, Hanson said, committed to many things outside tennis.

“We try to work hard, have fun, learn and they all get better,” he said.

Still, the road is certainly uphill, with 36 girls practicing in a crowded gym when the weather does not cooperate.

Outdoor practice time grows scarce, with rain making constant cameos.

“I was so mad yesterday,” Eck said. “It was snowing. I was like, ‘It’s the first day of spring!’”

Sebastian F. Moraga: 392-6434, ext. 221, or smoraga@snovalleystar.com. Comment at www.snovalleystar.com. 

By Sebastian Moraga Elizabeth Cronin teaches her fourth-grade class at Cascade View Elementary School about Ireland, days before St. Patrick’s Day. Cronin received the 2012 Snoqualmie Valley Schools’ Foundation Elementary Educator of the Year and will be honored during the annual foundation luncheon March 22.

Pass the gravy, pass the salt, pass the latest pedagogical theory on how to teach those children.

Holiday dinner banter is different at every household, but when Elizabeth Cronin’s family gets together, she and her mother will often end up talking shop, to the amusement of the rest of the dinner guests.

“My dad, my sister and my husband will just be sitting there,” said Cronin, a fourth-grade teacher at Cascade View Elementary School, “while my mom and I are talking teacher talk.”

Cronin, the Snoqualmie Valley Schools Foundation’s Elementary Educator of the Year, traces her roots in teaching to her mother, who teaches ninth grade at Inglewood Junior High School in Sammamish.

“I would go in during the summers and help her set up her classrooms and everything,” Cronin said of her childhood. “How motivated she was inspired me.”

The fourth-grade teacher calls that age a perfect fit for her. The children aren’t babies anymore, but they still like their teachers and they aren’t grown-ups yet.

“They are mature enough that you can have more adult conversations with them, but they are still kids and they still have a lot to learn,” she said, adding that every day she has at least one moment when she feels glad she chose this profession.

And if it’s about picking a grownup teacher who can get silly with the best of them, those fourth-graders also have a perfect fit on their hands.

When shopping for a house, Cronin said, sometimes she found herself attracted by a good place to play hide-and-go-seek.

“I feel like a kid a lot of times,” she said.

A product of Western Washington University and Bellevue’s City University, Cronin said book learning can only take a prospective teacher so far.

“There’s so much more to classrooms than the academics piece,” she said, “Things you don’t learn in college, you learn by doing it.”

For instance, she said, dealing with the loss of a pet.

“It may be a fish or something,” she said, “but it really rocks their world.”

A teacher’s goals then become making the student feel comfortable while still helping him or her be focused enough so that he or she keeps learning.

Sometimes the profession does get difficult, never more so than when nothing seems to reach a child.

For those moments, and for many others, Cronin relies on her colleagues, particularly one who is extremely familiar with her.

“She’s great,” she said of Mom.

All of those teachers, she said, were on her mind the day a camera crew interrupted her class to let her know she had won.

“I feel very honored,” she said, “because there are so many other teachers who are so deserving of an award like this.”

That day, the lesson was about crayfish, and students had been told to keep it quiet. So when a handful of dignitaries invaded the room and told Cronin she had won, students felt like cheering. They just did not know if they should.

“It was so cute,” Cronin said. “The next day, they came in wanting pictures with me.”

Four are honored as Educator of the Year

This is the second of a multipart series on four people the Snoqualmie Valley Schools Foundation chose as educators of the year.

The third part comes March 29, with a profile of Tina Longwell, a secretary at Opstad Elementary School and the 2012 Classified Educator of the Year.

The fourth part comes April 5,with a profile of David Bettine, a math teacher at Twin Falls Middle School and the 2012 Middle School Educator of the Year.

Jenny Foster, the 2012 High School Educator of the Year, was featured March 15.

All four honorees will receive special recognition during the SVSF’s annual luncheon March 22. Learn more, including how to attend, at www.svsfoundation.org.

C is also for Casey.

Casey Krueger, an eighth-grader at Snoqualmie’s St. Joseph Catholic School, found out on the radio about Men of Valor, an organization that helps wounded Army veterans. Krueger then baked cookies and wrote cards for the soldiers.

By Sebastian Moraga Army Ranger Victor Sassoon, left, shakes the hand of Saint Joseph Catholic School’s eighth-grader Casey Krueger. Krueger organized a cookie-baking drive to benefit wounded Army veterans. Injured soldier Jason Phillips, to the left of Krueger, attended a school assembly in honor of Krueger and his religion class’ mates.

“I wanted to bake cookies for the soldiers and show love for them,” Krueger said. “I just wanted to show them that there’s still love out there and someone cares for them.”

He then got 10 of his classmates from his religion class in on the action.

Men of Valor, a program that reaches out to veterans suffering from traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, ended up receiving 31 batches of cookies.

As a thank-you to the class and to Krueger, veterans showed up March 14 at St. Joseph’s for an all-campus assembly.

“For these soldiers serving their country,” Men of Valor’s Josh Renschler, a retired Army sergeant, told the children, “a cookie and a card can mean the world.”

Soldiers are self-sufficient, self-sustaining individuals, Renschler added. An injury that steals their independence can be crushing.

Renschler, standing next to former Army Ranger Victor Sassoon and Jason Phillips, a soldier in fatigues wearing a cast on his right foot, praised the children for helping others “for the right reasons.

“If you do something for me because I told you to, or if you do something for me just because you have to, I can tell the difference between that and doing something because you want to,” he said. “Make sure your heart and attitude are in the right place.”

It only took four to five days to get all the cookies and cards together. Krueger and his mom delivered the cookies personally at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

“It was a really great experience,” Krueger said, “seeing all that happiness on the soldiers’ faces.”

Renschler presented the class teacher, Judy Lash, and Krueger with separate plaques in recognition of their gesture.

“I’m very proud of him,” said priest Todd Strange, the school’s administrator, of Krueger. “He’s a great example that will make a great impression on a lot of kids here, too.”

Sebastian Moraga: 392-6434, ext.221, or smoraga@snovalleystar.com.

From Fall City, Karla Axness graduated cum laude with a degree in civil engineering. Samuel Matthysse graduated with a degree in arts in humanities. Sierra Schaller graduated with a degree in education.

From Snoqualmie, Nathan Storrs graduated magna cum laude with a degree in mechanical engineering. Bryce Wilson graduated with a degree in sports management.

By Michele Mihalovich Amanda Linder, 11, stands next to her 3-D exhibit of the Great Sphinx of Giza at the fourth annual Twin Falls Middle School Museum Walk on March 2.

“King Tut,

Born in Arizona,

Moved to Babylonia,

King Tut.”

Nah, that’s not right, as any sixth-grader at Twin Falls Middle School in North Bend will tell you. And they know because they just spent the past few months researching ancient Egypt.

Comedian Steve Martin may have gotten a few facts wrong in his 1979 hit song, but students at the school’s fourth annual Museum Walk on March 2 could talk endlessly about the subject they chose and the 186 3-D exhibits they created for the one-hour event.

Parents walked around the commons area of the school, which had been turned into a museum, and snapped photos of exhibits that included pyramids, boats, jewelry, weapons and musical instruments of the time.

Amanda Linder, 11, used Styrofoam, boxes and clay to craft a papier-mâché replica of the Great Sphinx of Giza.

Part of her research included watching “Mystery of the Sphinx” on Netflix.

She pointed out that due to the extensive erosion the Sphinx has suffered, it could be even older than scientists currently estimate, which is 2,500 years old.

Griffin Nicolino, 12, desperately wanted to make King Tut’s death mask, but sadly, someone had already signed up for that.

So he created a papier-mâché rendition of Egyptian god Anubis’ jackal head, painted black with ominous-looking white eyes and gold, sequined fabric.

Emma Anderson, 11, is the girl who beat Nicolino to the punch on Tut’s death mask.

She used Styrofoam, molded wire and mesh to create her colorful exhibit, which also included a falcon and snake on the crown.

Tyler Kim, 11, went a different route, and carved the ancient Egyptian writing system in plaster.

Kim said he’s not very artistic, but managed to draw a pretty good collection of hieroglyphics. He “aged” the plaster using his mother’s liquid makeup.

Everything Egyptian under the sun was displayed at the makeshift museum, including a bottle with actual sand from outside Khufu’s Pyramid, working models of Egypt’s water system and handmade papyrus paper.

And what Egyptian museum would be complete without a mummy?

Ryan Hendricks, 12, created his by wrapping a three-foot-long doll he found at Goodwill with athletic tape.

“A lot of people have been asking me if it’s my little sister,” he joked. “But I don’t even have a sister.”

In reality, the only exhibit missing was a student dressed up like Steve Martin dancing the Funky Tut.

The foundation’s event March 22 is its biggest fundraiser of the year, with the group aiming to raise more than $80,000 for children in the Snoqualmie Valley School District.

Carmen Villanueva, the president of the board of directors of the foundation, said the luncheon is free.

However, the foundation will ask attendees to make a donation.

People may also donate via the Internet at www.svsfound ation.org. A third way to donate is to join the 365 Club, where people pledge to donate $30 per month.

“That way, it can fit in their budget and they can make a big impact that way,” Villanueva said. “And for a dollar a day.”

Donations are tax-deductible. Money will fund classroom grants, district initiatives and educational programs, according to a foundation press release.

The board meets once a month during the school year, has four to six general meetings a year, and also includes other activities.

The board consists of co-presidents, co-vice presidents, co-secretaries and a treasurer.

Go to www.mshsptsa.org or email the PTSA’s nominating committee’s Lois Bauer at loisbau@comcast.net or Melanie Cochran at melanie.m.cochran@questdiagnostics.com.

The event consists of a soup-and-bread meal in bowls made and decorated by high schoolers and middle schoolers in the Snoqualmie Valley.

Then, there will be a silent auction of products donated by businesses and individuals from the Valley.

Proceeds will benefit the food bank.

Both the meal and the auction will occur at the Si View Community Center, 400 S.E. Orchard St., North Bend.

Tickets are $20. Since a limited number of bowls exist, people are encouraged to get their tickets early.

After the meal, people may take their bowl home as a reminder of all of the empty bowls in the world, the food bank’s website stated.

Purchase tickets online at www.mtsifoodbank.org or in person at the food bank from 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Wednesdays. The food bank address is 122 E. Third St., North Bend.

Donate items for the auction by emailing the food bank’s Heidi Dukich at mtsifoodbank@yahoo.com.