Hilary Shemanski has enjoyed a vagabond lifestyle, from teaching snowboarding at Snoqualmie Pass to living in Australia, and backpacking across Europe, but she’s no hobo.
Is she?
“I travel a lot, I’m cheap. I’ve been called a hobo before,” Shemanski admitted, “I’ve never hopped a train though. Well, technically.”
The chiming electronic music that plays when you slide behind the wheel, and the animations on the multi-screen display, are in direct contrast with the machine muscle of this car. But then, so is the label, “electric car.”
Chevrolet’s entry into the “green” car market, the new Volt on display at Chaplins Chevrolet in North Bend, is not at all what you might expect to find in an electric car. It’s black, solidly built and sized like a car, with four doors, and seating for four adults. It looked nothing like the eco-friendly go-carts that many (or maybe it’s just me) mentally associate with the label “electric car.”
Day of Silence, Day of Respect, Safe Spaces, Use Another Word. All of these are events and programs that students at Mount Si and Cedarcrest High Schools have introduced to address the widespread problem of bullying and harassment in their schools.
While none of them are solutions in themselves, all of them strive to raise awareness about the issues, especially for minorities and GLBTQ (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, or Questioning) youth.
When Carnation residents found out last week that their only grocery store, the Carnation QFC, would close its doors March 31, they reacted pretty much in the same way.
Ronda Sjavik called a friend with the news, saying “I knew you’d be in mourning with me, so I had to tell you what happened!”
“That’s bad!” said another woman, abruptly setting the plant she’d been examining into her cart on the store’s last day.
To everyone’s relief, the store was closed only overnight, and re-opened Friday morning as the Carnation Market. The new owners, Sean Skiles and Ali Hayton, say they are excited to be in the city.
Maybe this one wouldn’t be as bad as predicted, Ken Meadors hoped. Lower Valley flooding had already forced the evacuation of the permanent residents of the Snoqualmie River RV Park and Campground in Fall City Wednesday afternoon, March 30, and Meadors was bracing for another move as Thursday morning’s forecasted crest neared.
Inside, it’s a small, windowless space with a computer, a dog crate, and a couple of display cases. Inside the dog crate is a restless bulldog. Inside the cases are cannabis candies, capsules, cigarettes, lotions, and jar upon jar of dried marijuana flowers, or bud. A large sculpture of a seven-lobed leaf is mounted on the wall, and there’s a distinctive scent in the air.
Grab some gloves and a shovel, your roundabout needs you.
So says North Bend Senior Planner Mike McCarty, referring to the city’s First Street roundabout, which could use some green thumb assistance and a few flowers.
Famous figures from history took pint-sized form last Wednesday, March 23, in the classrooms and hallways of Cascade View Elementary School. All fourth grade students chose an important person to impersonate for an hour-long “wax museum” experience.
The search for a principal to replace retiring Randy Taylor, which commenced last week, will include input from students, parents, school staff and the general community.
It is March Madness at Chief Kanim Middle School, and Chris Blake, a teacher and coach of football and basketball, is at the center of a flurry of boys trying to fill out their team brackets and follow along with the NCAA men’s basketball championships. He uses the school’s tournament mania to make his favorite subject, math, both fun and relevant to his students.
His ability to do that, to make learning spill out of the classroom and into students’ lives, is one of the reasons he was named a Snoqualmie Valley Schools Foundation Teacher of the Year on March 9. It’s a quality he shares with his fellow Teachers of the Year Sharon Piper at Opstad Elementary School and Kim Sales at Mount Si High School.
In the already tough restaurant industry, in a multi-year recession, Finaghty’s Irish Pub shines as an example of success.
The Snoqualmie Ridge bar and restaurant opened in February, 2008, expanded nine months later, and has enjoyed steady business growth every year, including a 10 percent jump in 2010.
Carnation will soon see its first four-way stoplight on Tolt Avenue, a major milestone for the city, its drivers and pedestrians.
At its March 15 meeting, the Carnation City Council recommended awarding a contract for the installation of a traffic signal at the intersection of Tolt Avenue and Entwistle Street, plus a marked crosswalk with a flashing yellow light at the intersection of Tolt and West Morrison Street, to Totem Electric of Tacoma.
With the entire second grade set to perform, it was impossible for every parent to get a good view of the Cascade View Elementary stage.
So school staff had a simple solution: turn the stage. On Thursday night, March 17, Cascade View’s second grade performed its annual concert along the north wall with a full gymnasium’s worth of onlookers down in front.
Cascade View Elementary’s first and second grades are its largest, reflecting Snoqualmie Valley School District’s large elementary population as well as the significant number of young people in Snoqualmie, where new census data shows that more than one in three residents is a minor.
