Have you ever heard 562 children breathe a collective sigh of happiness? If so, you may have been a party to the annual Artsmart! celebration held in May at Mark Twain Elementary School. With anticipation, kids look forward to the five days devoted to a celebration of the arts and diversity.
Seventh-graders ace National Latin Exam Latin? Seventh graders? You bet! Seventh graders at Lake Washington School District choice school Stella Schola take a year-long course in Latin ... and they love it! Student John Hornick, who calls himself "Johnus Hornickus" in class, comments, "It's so cool when I discover Latin roots in all kinds of words that I see around!"
ICS wins LWSD Math Olympiad competitionA team of junior high students (coached by Franz Rau) from the International Community School swept the Lake Washington School District's Math Olympiad competition on April 5 for the third year in a row and took home the wandering trophy. There were three individual and three team events in which they had to match their skills against those of all the other LWSD junior high schools. Six students from each school took part in each event. However, each student could only be part of four events, making it a true team effort for all the schools.
Zoning issues, by their nature, are usually challenging and contentious. That's certainly true in the Market neighborhood, where a proposed zoning change has generated a large amount of opposition.Once a year, during September, the city allows, at no fee, Private Amendment Requests to the Kirkland Comprehensive Plan. In the Market neighborhood, eight people put forward a zoning request, which affects a total of 39 properties; these abut an additional 26 properties. The proposed zoning change is from SF-72 to PR-36. In translation, this means from single-family homes situated on lots 7,200 square feet in size or greater, to professional office/residential, with a lot size requirement of 3,600 square feet.
Old school is meeting new wave in downtown Kirkland at the location of what many had eyeballed as the perfect location for a transit hub.But the location of an old hardware store that first opened in 1890 at 424 Kirkland Avenue will become home later this year to Bungie Studios. Bungie Studios is the Microsoft division responsible for the creation of "Halo 2," a wildly popular and hugely lucrative computer game that runs on Microsoft's Xbox game console and on computers.
Hopes for a resolution to stalled contract talks between Kirkland and the Police Guild were dashed in a 47-0 vote April 26, according to Detective Don Carroll, Guild president.The thumbs-down vote on a contract follows almost a year and a half of negotiations and the use of a Public Employment Relations Commission (PERC) mediator for the 56-member Police Guild, which has been working without a contract since the beginning of 2004, he said. Not all officers voted on the offer because some were off-site, Carroll added. "That's not unusual." The contract Kirkland police voted against was one the city proposed last October, Carroll added.
Like most ballet mothers, Jane Drehetz spent most of her ballet-mad child's early years doing a lot of driving, taking her son to classes, performances and competitions.But unlike the vast majority of ballet parents, she has seen her child make the leap from school to professional dancer. With that success, Jonathan Porretta's mother had to change her commute from driving to flying."I'm here nine times a year," said the New Jersey native. "It's six hours on that plane, but I've got it down pat. I get up early and do everything I have to do, so once I get on that plane I sleep as much as I can."
We want to apologize to anyone who might have gone to Ben Franklin Elementary School on April 28 to discuss the potential acceptance of property gifted to the state by Lois Acheson. We were contacted after last month's issue went to press and told that the meeting is being postponed. When we hear the new date we will be sure to pass it along.
On the third floor of Coe Elementary School on Queen Anne is a very special classroom - special not just in the school, not just in the Seattle School District but, perhaps, in the nation.It is Room 310, set up primarily for students with Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD. Teacher Shealeen Stabelfeldt has been there since its inception in the fall of 2002.This year there are nine students in the class.
Finding spas that offer gifted therapists in a truly special atmosphere can be challenging, but when I do discover one of these jewels, I rejoice at my good fortune. The key is to be willing to search and to explore the myriad possibilities that exist. In my hunt for the ideal combo, I came across Tasbey Farm, a massage retreat located in Clinton, on bucolic Whidbey Island. Owner Rosie Hilton opened Tasbey a year ago, after having worked 15 years as a massage therapist, first for a chiropractor's office in Edmonds and then, once she and her family moved to the island, at a local health club. Eventually she opened an in-home practice, which has evolved into a massage retreat for those seeking a peaceful, rural setting to relax, slow down and take time out from their busy lives to reconnect with themselves.
So the City Council can now give themselves a pat on the back for "doing the right thing" in assuming that up to 20,000 "family wage" jobs could be created in Interbay over the next 25 years. The trouble is, these new workers will undoubtedly clog 15th Avenue (or hopefully some will hop the monorail) to go home, since the City Council has denied the Port of Seattle's request to explore multifamily housing as part of the massive North Bay project. Crying over the loss of "family wage jobs" if any "dreaded" multifamily housing is considered, the industrial businesses (BINMIC) overlook the fact that affordable workforce housing is popping up all over Seattle, and it would have made perfect sense to be located in this area. Do they think that family-wage housing will be found in adjacent Queen Anne or Magnolia, where current housing prices soar well over $500,000? Has anyone considered that 15th Avenue is already clogged during rush hour? What about the fact that Pier 91 has been vacant for five years?
Living long enough should mean learning a few things.Single-parenting two children as they morph into teenagers requires the ability to boil down what you've learned, so you can impart your wisdom to your kids in brief, pithy phrases. If you're longwinded, your teens will tune you out. In fact, they won't always listen even if you're short-winded. But pithy is better than meandering where teens are concerned.The thing I repeatedly told my two daughters was: Never - that's never - judge a person by what they say. Judge them by what they do.There are many, many people in our city and country right now who spend a lot of time talking about God and goodness.But just going to a nice, brick building once a week with a bunch of other self-congratulators isn't godly to me. Now, I'm not against church as a social setting; go with my bless-ings, my children. But if you want me to think the God thing has taken with you, do something for the poor, the homeless or the disenfranchised.
Mickey Canan Howard, longtime resident of Queen Anne, passed away May 3 after a brief illness. She was 82. Mickey was born in North Dakota to Abram and Anna Ratzlaff. In 1942 she moved to Washington, D.C., to work for the Civil Service Commission. There she met her first husband, Donald J. Canan, of Seattle. After Mickey and Don were married in 1945, they moved to Seattle where they raised their family. A few years after Don's death in 1988 Mickey was fortunate to meet Phil Howard, who became her second husband. Mickey and Phil divided their time between their homes in Indio, Calif., and Seattle.In 1953 Mickey began work at the Queen Anne/Magnolia News.
KAIMI DEARDORFF"It sucks."ERIC OSBORNE"It's horrible - as if gas wasn't expensive enough. The thing that makes it really difficult is that we already had a gas increase because of the war. Washington is expensive enough as it is."
Port Commissioner and Queen Anne resident Paige Miller launched her campaign for Richard Conlin's city council seat last week at a gathering in the Mountaineers Club.It was an event attended by friends, family, fellow Port commissioners Bob Edwards and Pat Davis, Port CEO Mic Dinsmore, Seattle Monorail Project chairman Tom Weeks and Seattle City Council president Jan Drago.Edwards, current commission president, acted as master of ceremonies and touted Port accomplishments that included record cargo business last year, the scheduled 2008 opening of the third runway at Sea-Tac International Airport and a plan to save the waterfront trolley.