West Seattle, Washington
21 Saturday
On the same day the Seafair Pirates stormed Alki (WSB coverage with video here), two West Seattle families were storming Green Lake for a prize-winning appearance in the Seafair Milk Carton Derby. We got the word late Sunday night from Admiral resident Sherri Chun, who also shared photos:
Here we are – West Seattle’s entry in the Seafair Milk Carton Derby on Green Lake, and winner of the Seattle’s Child award for best family boat. I don’t know if there were others, but we officially represented West Seattle’s finest milk cartons! Alki Mail and Dispatch was our unofficial sponsor, contributing hundreds of milk cartons to the effort, along with numerous other West Seattle families.
We are officially the Zarkowski and Scholten families. On the boat are Corey Zarkowski, Oscar Scholten, me, and Weston Scholten. The second picture is the night before the race – all loaded up and ready to go (Roger Scholten, Zelma Zieman, Sherri, and Paul Zarkowski).
Here’s that second photo:
Full Milk Carton Derby results are here. This is the second weekend Sherri has made news – she is also organizer of the Admiral 4th of July Kids’ Parade (WSB coverage, with video, here). Regarding that event, we asked her if the donation drive in conjunction with this year’s parade and postparade activities brought in enough to ensure they’ll continue next year — she replied, “We did GREAT on donations for the Admiral Kids 4th of July Parade, so yes, there will be a parade next year! A big THANK YOU to the community for making it happen!”
Jeannette e-mailed us about this a few days ago but at the time, the date was later in the month, so it’s not in this weekend’s calendar – now we know it’s happening TOMORROW (Sunday) and we want to help get the word out. Her 9-year-old son will have “Connor’s Lemonade Stand” set up at 40th/Oregon 11 am-1 pm. Proceeds will benefit the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network. Here’s a map; go buy some lemonade from Connor – that’s just a couple blocks east of the north end of West Seattle Summer Fest.
Providence Mount St. Vincent threw a party this afternoon for Phil Bellefeuille, who just turned 100 years old.
We asked Phil if he had a birthday message to share. His reply: “Thank you, Lord!” He was also asked how he made it this far; he said, “I don’t know,” but noted that the best memory of his 100-years-long-and-counting life is his “wonderful marriage.” (The P-I wrote about Phil and wife Alean three years ago; she died in April of last year, about a month short of turning 96.)
At the Rotary Club of West Seattle‘s annual installation banquet tonight at The Kenney, Steve Fuller was honored as Rotarian of the Year. Josh Sutton from the West Seattle/Fauntleroy YMCA (WSB sponsor) sent the photo and info, explaining that Steve is “our most recent International Chair. Over the past two years, Steve has led our club’s efforts in supporting demining in Cambodia, fresh water wells in Vietnam, building the great Baikal Trail, put in solar refrigerator, generator & wiring at the East African Center in Takaungu, Kenya. He was pretty surprised! Outgoing president Carol Coram presented” the award. (By the way, the Rotarians have two more rounds of berry sales this summer – orders are being accepted now; check their website for info.) P.S. Also congratulations to Amy Lee Derenthal from The Kenney, installed last night as the new Rotary president.
24 hours of talking to the world – and it’s just wrapping up now on the south side of the South Seattle Community College campus atop West Seattle’s Puget Ridge. Amateur-radio operators (“hams”) all over the world join in Field Day, including the locals we checked in with this morning, who’d been at it since 11 am Saturday (here’s the preview we published Friday) – the picture above was taken inside the yurt they set up on SCCC’s open field. Joel Ware told WSB they’ve talked with folks as far away as Sweden and Japan. And they’re particularly proud of their off-the-grid power setup:
Note, that’s wind AND solar. The event, by the way, was sponsored by the Seattle Auxiliary Communication Service, which has other exercises throughout the year to make sure they’re ready to assist in case of catastrophe (we covered one — also at SSCC, but indoors — last October). In addition to that weblink on their name, you can also find Seattle ACS on Twitter (@SeattleACS).
Playing Talarico’s tonight, a West Seattle musician who’s battled his way back from a serious injury.
By Jonathan Stumpf
Reporting for West Seattle Blog
Trevor Ras knows a little something about perseverance.
Three years ago, this West Seattle resident and musician went out surfing in Huntington Beach, Calif., and twenty-four hours later landed in the hospital with a fractured vertebrae. “When I got out of the hospital five days later,” Ras said, “everything had changed for me at that point. I was in pain everywhere. The next six months, that was the real test.”
His life up until that fateful day?
An e-mail inquiry early this morning led to the realization four weeks have passed since our last report 
on the status of the mysterious death of Jill St. Onge, the 27-year-old West Seattleite who died suddenly in Thailand in early May while on an extended visit there with her fiance’. Ms. St. Onge’s family hasn’t posted an update on the “About Jill” website since late May, but we found a Thailand news story from mid-June that doesn’t appear to have received U.S. coverage so far: The Phuket Gazette reported June 13 that an autopsy report had been released regarding her death and that of another foreign tourist who’d been staying at the same guest house. Its findings were described as “inconclusive,” while ruling out food poisoning, which had briefly been suspected early on. After reading that, we found an e-mail address for a member of Ms. St. Onge’s family, sent a note, and just received this response:
Yes, we have received the autopsy report. However, we are still waiting for the official police report as well as the environmental report being performed by the Thai health department. We are hoping to tie the environmental investigation to the findings of the autopsy.
Thank you,
Marlin St. Onge (Jill’s Father)
Ms. St. Onge, who’d worked at Shadow Land in The Junction, died just a week before she and fiance’ Ryan Kells were scheduled to return to the U.S.
(February 2009 photo by Christopher Boffoli)
Back in February, WSB photojournalist Christopher Boffoli reported on an unforgettable group of West Seattle women, the Rosie the Riveter group, after they presented a program at The Mount. If you missed these trailblazing women then – here’s your next chance to see them. The news comes from organizer Georgie Bright Kunkel:
The West Seattle Rosie the Riveter group will present a program at Bridge Park Retirement Residence on 35th Avenue SW [in High Point; map] on July 16th at 3:00 p.m. The public is invited.
We will sing along to tunes popular during WWII, hear from the Rosies that worked during WWII and view a display of original Saturday Evening Post covers, advertisements and illustrations from WWII years. The original Rosie the Riveter cover is in this display.
Georgie Bright Kunkel, organizer of the Rosie the Riveter Group, invites any woman who worked during WWII to call 206-935-8663 in order to join with other Rosie the Riveters. You don’t have to have been an actual riveter to be a Rosie. We want to hear your story about it all.
Georgie also reminds us that she’ll be featured on KING5 TV’s Evening Magazine in the not-too-distant future (we don’t have the date yet) for one of her other claims to fame: Being the oldest open-mike standup comic in Seattle.
Thanks to Judy Pickens for telling us about this while we were visiting her Fauntleroy home on other business today: 
Longtime West Seattle entrepreneur and community advocate Helen Sutton has passed away. She ran the La Grace Dress Shop in The Junction for many years – a place where many young people in West Seattle got their first job and were mentored by Ms. Sutton. She also was a Board Member Emeritus of the West Seattle/Fauntleroy YMCA (WSB sponsor) according to the Y’s Josh Sutton (no relation), who kindly assisted us with research on Ms. Sutton’s many achievements – such as her term as president of the Washington State Federation of Women’s Clubs in the mid-’50s (read about it here – the story includes a lot of biographical information too). She also was closely involved with South Seattle Community College, where a rose garden in the Arboretum bears her name. Ms. Sutton died last Friday in Yakima, where she had moved to be close to her niece, and was 95 years old. Her niece is still deciding on whether to have a service – if there is one, we’re told, it’ll be here in West Seattle (where Ms. Sutton also had been a member of Fauntleroy Church and a resident of The Kenney) but not immediately.
Though we currently do not have an official Obituaries section, when someone takes the time and trouble to ask us to publish an obituary, so that other community members know of the passing, we certainly oblige, and will continue doing so if you have occasion to seek publication of one. (editor@wsb.blackfin.biz) This morning, Genie wrote to ask that we share news of the upcoming funeral for her sister, longtime West Seattleite Diane Casey Williams:
Born on September 28 1937, she lived most of her life in West Seattle with her husband Orval and her boys, Mark, Dale, Casey and Tom. She was a fixture at Farmers Insurance at “The Junction,” working for Ray Atwood since she was 18 when she graduated from Holy Rosary. She then moved up in the insurance world achieving the high rank of Average Adjuster for maritime claims at Frank B Hall and Fis Maritime, a feat rare for a woman. Diane was a competent, compassionate worker, mother, grandmother, great grandmother and sister who had care-taking down to a science. I have never met anyone who knew my “big sister” who didn’t love her. Funeral services will be held at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church on Friday, June 26, 2009 at 10:00 am, followed by a reception at Forest Lawn Cemetery. Please join the family in celebrating Diane’s life.
If you haven’t been to the Fremont Solstice Parade, you might not realize, given the turn the major coverage has taken in recent years, that it includes much more than naked, body-painted bicycle riders. For example: In the photo above, that’s The Center School‘s dragon in Saturday’s parade. (The Center School is a high school based at Seattle Center, “with a focus on the arts and community engagement” per its website, part of the Seattle Public Schools system.) It was a creation of West Seattleite Andy Bell‘s “Global Arts and Cultural Expressions” class at The Center School – here’s Andy and son Adam Bell in the parade:
The 25-foot dragon was accompanied by artists from the school expressing a variety of genres; they got other youth involved along the parade route, decorating the dragon as it went:
Thanks to Paul Dieter, a West Seattleite and Center School parent, for sharing the photos (and for his WSB Forums note that the parade isn’t just about the two-wheel, no-clothes crowd – although note there WAS well-rounded coverage on one of our fellow independent neighborhood-news sites, FremontUniverse.com, which is affiliated with nearby Ballard’s #1 online news source, MyBallard.com). We’re less than a month away now, by the way, from West Seattle’s own summertime parade, the American Legion Grand Parade (that’s its official name; though you may know it as the “Hi-Yu Parade,” it’s presented by Legion Post 160, not by the Hi-Yu Festival). It’s coming up on Saturday, July 18th.
That’s Phil and his young sidekick Adam from Longfellow Creek Garden, just after they dropped by the West Seattle Food Bank this afternoon to donate some fresh, clean greens. Their donation happened to come on the same day we got a note about two ways YOU can help WSFB, sent by board president Pete Spalding, who first explains that he and his board colleagues need some reinforcements:
We are looking for new board members for the West Seattle Food Bank’s Board of Directors. Over the course of the last year we have lost some directors due to varying circumstances like moving, job change etc. We know that there are some very dedicated souls out there in West Seattle that are specifically looking for something to do with some spare hours that they have. We know that they may want to do something that is personally fulfilling and this might just be the fit for them.
As most of your readers know the West Seattle Food Bank is committed to eliminating hunger in our area. We try to do this by:
– Securing and distributing quality nutritious food to our clients
– Educating our clients about good nutrition
– Increasing public awareness of hunger in our community
– Coordinating community resources for our clients
– Assuring continuity of services to our clients through a convenient, accessible locationIf anyone is interested in finding out more about this volunteer opportunity they can go to our web site www.westseattlefoodbank.org and download the board application, they can call the West Seattle Food Bank office at 206.932.9023 and speak to our Executive Director Fran Yeatts or they can contact me at 206.579.4373.
That is rewarding in its own way. And if you’re also up for prizes – Pete adds that the annual West Seattle Food Bank raffle tickets have just gone on sale today, $5 each, with these prizes:
Grand Prize – Two unrestricted roundtrip Alaska Airlines tickets
1st Prize – Fresh Water Pearl necklace from Menashe & Sons JewelersBut everyone that buys a ticket is a winner because you can take your ticket stub to:
– Cafe Revo [WSB sponsor]
– Christo’s on Alki
– Elliott Bay Brewery and Pub
– Zeeks Pizza, West Seattle location onlyEach of these restaurants will give a 10% discount on your meal and that is probably more than the price of the ticket.
You can contact any West Seattle Food Bank Board of Director, call the food bank or contact me at 206.579.4373 to buy your raffle tickets. We will also be selling them at our booth at the West Seattle Summer Fest in July. There are only 1,000 tickets for sale.
That’s our video from the survivors’ lap that started last year’s Relay for Life of West Seattle at WS Stadium — an 18-hour event to raise money (and awareness) to fight cancer. It’s coming up this Friday night-Saturday morning, with dozens of your West Seattle friends and neighbors participating (some listed here, including members of the team from WSB sponsor Sound Yoga). They encourage people to come down and cheer on the walkers – there are people on the track continuously throughout the 18-hour duration, 6 pm Friday till about noon Saturday. You can also make a pledge, to an individual, team, or the event in general, by going here. (For a taste of what it’s like, check out the Seattle PostGlobe story about this past weekend’s Relay for Life in Tacoma.)
Another weekend in its waning hours — and once again, so much of what happened couldn’t have been done without volunteers – like the many who put on the Morgan Junction Community Festival that we very much enjoyed being part of on Saturday (our reports: here and here). A sign on our table (above) was a reminder about the West Seattle Volunteer Recognition campaign we’re helping promote right now – and you have two more days to nominate someone for recognition. The Southwest and Delridge District Councils, along with WSB, want to shine a spotlight on some of the people whose volunteer efforts make this a great place to be; your role – send in a nomination (or more than one!). Here’s the quick ‘n’ easy online nomination form – deadline is Wednesday (June 17); a community panel will review the entries, choosing three for recognition during one of next month’s big events, the July 14th Hi-Yu Concert in the Park. Thanks – to you, and to all of West Seattle’s tireless volunteers!
WSB Forums member “bsmomma” says it was a last-minute decision, but she and her daughter have joined the nationwide Alex’s Lemonade Stand movement to fight childhood cancer. They’re planning a lemonade stand today, noon-3 pm, 48th SW & SW Waite (map).
(Gabriel Claycamp demonstrating pork-butchering in Port Orchard; 2008 photo by Christopher Boffoli)
One month ago, we shared the report that The Swinery — Culinary Communion founder Gabriel Claycamp‘s cured-meat business, closed on Beacon Hill – was planning to take over space in West Seattle. Now, a multitude of WSBers have shared e-mail from Claycamp that not only has more details about the originally reported West Seattle space, but also about plans to sell their products retail in The Junction – here’s the excerpt:
The Swinery Deli (The Swine Shop?)
The rumors are true. The Swinery is about to open an official retail establishment in West Seattle. This will be a full-service delicatessen (in the style of DeLaurenti’s, but smaller). We will carry cured meats from our friends around the sound and include a FULL butcher shop, as well as truly incredible cheeses that you don’t see anywhere else. We will have some dry goods, plus plenty of the hard to find deli items. This will be a delicatessen for foodies—for CC type foodies, who would everyday ask us where to buy veal bones, or salt cod, or bocarones. We hope to open this summer. Culinary Communion will have a little play here too: The Swinery Deli will feature a computer and printer running the complete CC database of recipes and curriculum. Now, when you ask about oxtails or mahi mahi, you can choose from a selection of real recipes, tested and proven. This has never been done before, truly turning a retail store into an educational cooking experience.Where is it?
For 7 years people asked the Chefs at CC where their favorite fish store was. Without a doubt, our first response was always: Seattle Fish Company in West Seattle (California Ave, just north of the Junction). Owner Hobey Grote carries, we believe, the most amazing fish in Seattle at the best price. Only one little oddity, Seattle Fish has a huge amount of empty space in the front of its store… perfect to house an amazing deli/butcher. The deal isn’t finalized yet, but Hobey has told us to go ahead and tell people. Please, if you are in the area, come down, say hi to Hobey and crew, and buy some fish to show your support for this incredible opportunity for all of us!! The combination of amazing seafood, incredible meats and cheeses, and great wine will be a treasure for West Seattle and the whole Puget Sound.
If you haven’t been to Seattle Fish Company, it’s on the west side of California SW, north of SW Oregon.
(photo by Christopher Boffoli)
Claycamp and his family, meantime, have moved to Vashon Island. They originally started in West Seattle, then moved to Beacon Hill, but lost their lease there shortly after a permit controversy and – according to their e-mail – are currently in a legal fight over how that ended. Their other new endeavor, which has been reported elsewhere – teaming with Skillet Street Food‘s Josh Henderson to come up with a “street food fair” starting later this year.
As Kristina put it while e-mailing WSB to share this New York Times link (which a few others have pointed out to us as well), “West Seattle-ites don’t hit the NYT all that often!” Seattle-based NYT writer Timothy Egan has written a long, opinionated look at the case of Amanda Knox, the Arbor Heights student who is about to testify at her murder trial in Italy. See it here.
Highland Park has two active community groups. We’ve written the most in recent months about the Highland Park Action Committee, as its members tackled tough topics including the proposed municipal jail, but the Highland Park Improvement Club is not to be underestimated. HPIC met tonight in their namesake building – same place HPAC meets, incidentally – and installed new officers – you see the team above: Ken Knoke, Kay Kirkpatrick, Julie Schickling, Nickie Jostol, Rhonda Smith, Gretchen Heiden, Bette Spry, Bill Jaback, Rory Denovan, Greg Harrington. (HPIC celebrates its 90th anniversary this fall; here’s the history page on its website.)
When new bricks are installed at the Alki Statue of Liberty Plaza, 
tribute plaques will be installed too – and one of them will feature the inscription you see above, in memory of JB Webster, the local real-estate agent, community volunteer and Seafair Commodore whose death shocked the community in April. (Original WSB coverage, with dozens of tribute comments, is here.) That’s according to his widow Christi Webster, who talked with us recently about it – she says it’ll be next to a plaque honoring Gregory Johnson, who recently piloted the space shuttle Atlantis, and that means two WSHS alums will be side by side. Christi told us the location is perfect because of her husband’s roots:
She says the wording for the plaque was created with the help of a family friend who’s a poet/writer, reworking part of what Christi read at her husband’s memorial (WSB coverage here). The Junction Keller Williams Realty office where she works as operations manager – where JB worked as an agent – will have a private fundraising event July 15 to help cover the cost of the plaque. As she summarizes, “JB’s roots are at Alki. So this is the perfect way to honor his wonderful spirit.”
NEIGHBORHOOD MEETINGS: Both at 7 pm – the monthly meetings of Fauntleroy Community Association (at The Hall @ Fauntleroy) and Admiral Neighborhood Association (at Admiral Church).
DELRIDGE PRODUCE COOPERATIVE: 6 pm tonight at Pearls on Delridge, it’s the next meeting for anyone and everyone interested in jumping into this truly growing effort. As we reported during the Delridge Day festival, DPC is getting a $15,000 city grant for its summer project “Mobile Market” — visit tonight’s meeting to help plan the next steps toward making it happen.
RETIREMENT PARTY: Another school is losing a popular longtime staffer: Schmitz Park Elementary‘s longtime librarian Judi Lybecker is retiring, and students past/present are invited to join in a celebration 3:30-4:30 pm at the school library (more info here).
Got word from the Seattle Mariners that Lara Davis at Youngstown Arts Center-based Arts Corps is one of three Northwest finalists in a recognition contest called “All-Stars Among Us,” being conducted in connection with the upcoming Major League Baseball All-Star Game in St. Louis – and voting is under way now: Here’s the official bio sent by the Mariners regarding Lara:
Lara Davis works as Community Partnership Director for Arts Corps, a non-profit
arts education program in Seattle. Davis has brought her passion and expertise
in community organizing and program development to nonprofits across Seattle
including YWCA youth programs, Seattle Young People’ s Project, AFSC
Cross-Cultural LGBTQ programs, and Pacific Science Center. Since 2003, she has
been an instrumental force at Arts Corps, helping to grow a nascent arts
education program into a nationally recognized model for delivering powerful
learning through the arts to underserved youth.
If Lara wins, she gets to go to the big game in St. Louis and get a turn in the spotlight. You can vote by going to this site – click on the Mariners’ logo and that’ll take you to the page with the three NW contenders, including Lara.
That was the welcome sight and sound this morning at the end of the breast-cancer-fighting Puget Sound Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure 5K Walk, which filled the Alaskan Way Viaduct with walkers of all ages. As we’d noted in this story, West Seattle middle-schooler Adam Westerman, 12, was Grand Marshal of the Kids’ Run an hour before the 5K Walk — we missed his moment in the spotlight but you can see him and his mom Eddie interviewed in this KING5 story; there’s also video of Adam with KING5’s Jean Enersen in the second half of this “raw video” from the station’s site. On her website, Eddie wrote earlier this week that their team raised $16,000 (Monday morning update – Eddie says more than $17,600). We took cameraphone photos during the walk for as-it-happened coverage via Twitter (scroll down to Sunday morning “tweets” with photo links), but our favorite shot every year is the one taken as the thousands of walkers enter The Viaduct heading northbound from the stadium zone:
Last year, we wondered if that would be the last time The Viaduct was open to walkers – because of uncertainty over its fate – now we know that it’s likely to remain standing till 2015, but much construction is already happening around it – one view from today:
Congratulations to everyone who walked and ran today, and to all the survivors, those there in spirit as well as those there in person. Many walk in celebration and/or memory of special people; for us, it’s the mother-in-law I never met, the grandmother my son never met, Mildred Hickman Sand, lost to breast cancer in 1972. May the cure be near — TR
By Kathy Mulady
Reporting for West Seattle Blog
On her last day teaching at the co-op preschool at South Seattle Community College, Ingrid Olsen-Young was holding her ink stamp, ready to place a happy message on the hands or tummies of the tots in her class, a ritual at the end of each day.
Suddenly she stopped and smiled. The little tummies were already stamped — each with a simple “thank you.”
Sunday, the “thank you” will be a little more elaborate as 20 years of preschool students gather to honor Ingrid with a farewell reunion at the Jerry M. Brockey Center on campus from 2 to 5 p.m.
“Losing Ingrid is kind of devastating,” said Margaret Pyfer. “She personally cares about each family. She truly cares about each child.”Read More
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