March 2016

By Michele Smith

Governor Jay Inslee recently proclaimed May 12, 2016 ‘Puget Sound Skills Center Day’. What’s this about? For the past 50 years, PSSC in Burien has successfully provided real-world career training that enables high school students to develop employment, leadership and other life skills responsive to current and future industry needs.

Long ago, the wildly popular Dental Assistant and Nursing Assistant – Certified programs have exceeded enrollment, for 10 years the staff at PSSC have worked tirelessly to obtain funding for a new Health Sciences Building to expand the programs. The Health Sciences building will be constructed with state funding approved by the legislature last year on property already owned by the school district. They are able to break ground March 18th, 2016 with new classes beginning in the 2017-2018 school year.

By Amanda Knox

It had been a while since I visited Discovery Park. Years? It was one of those first days of Spring, when for the first time in a long time I was wearing too many layers of clothes. I walked down curving, narrow channels of soft turf, foliage on either side. The sun shined through the trees, lush and green and, here and there, blossoming. A bald eagle flew overhead, just above the treetops. It’s beautiful, I thought.

Because somehow the random juxtaposition of these elements—sun, earth, trees, sky, bird—felt like it meant something. Health, maybe? The health of the world? And then I thought, just how many of you bald eagles are there? The last I saw there were two of you in a Youtube video, perched on a terrace railing, communing with a cat. I realized my mind is a vortex of associations, of varying degrees of firmness or looseness, ever intelligent, because intelligence is simply the ability to recognize and memorize patterns.

If you think you’ve never seen a presidential campaign as nasty as this one, you must not be old enough to have voted in the election of 1800.

While today’s republican candidates discuss building border walls, who is the toughest---and the size of their hands, it is not the first time presidential runs have devolved into cage matches. Jumping ugly is as American as America. And that’s been true from the start.

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were pals and colleagues. They had worked together in the 2nd Continental Congress. They were among the founding fathers of our country. They both liked teriyaki.
In 1796, Adams was elected president---but under the rules of the time, Jefferson as the runner-up, became vice-president. Things seemed hunky-dory---until the election of 1800 came along. That’s when Jefferson decided he would be a better president than the guy he was serving under.

By Gwen Davis

As soon as next year, residents of White Center and the rest of unincorporated North Highline could vote about whether to become part of Seattle.

As previously reported, last week the Legislature agreed to redirect roughly $7 million in state sales tax to Seattle each year for six years if the city annexes the area. The money would help the city cover the annexation costs. Mayor Ed Murray has reportedly long wanted to unify the city.

The North Highline area is one of the last “urban islands” remaining in the city. Over the past several years, King County officials have sought annexation for densely populated but unincorporated communities surrounded by cities.

However, there have been recent, unsuccessful attempts to incorporate the area. In 2009, Burien annexed the southern portion of North Highline, but the Seattle City Council said no to the northern portion. In 2012, Burien voters likewise said no.

Murray hopes that the outcome will be different this time. Last summer the city council supported this intent, but since four new members were appointed since then, there’s no guarantee.

information from NWSO

Northwest Symphony Orchestra, continues their Season with a performance on Saturday, March 19th at 8:00pm at Holy Rosary Catholic Church. The program will feature several Northwest composers and Beethoven’s Symphony #1.

“Back by popular demand is the wonderful voice of Alexandra Picard, singing the world premiere of “Song of the Seerees” by Kari Medina, as well as other pieces. Continuing our theme featuring music this season by local women composers, we also have the world premiere of “Where Springs Not Fail” by Hanna Benn, as well as a profound work by Angelique Poteat. We conclude the concert with Beethoven’s exuberant Symphony #1.”
-NWSO Conductor Anthony Spain.

ABOUT NORTHWEST SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

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By Tim Clinton
SPORTS EDITOR

High schools
Baseball
Chief Sealth opens its season at 2 p.m. Thursday, traveling to Interlake with Nathan Hale for a jamboree.
Seattle Christian then visits Auburn at 7 p.m. Friday before going to Marymoor Park for a jamboree at 1:30 p.m. Saturday.
West Seattle goes to the Liberty Jamboree with Kentwood at 10 a.m. Saturday and at 12 p.m. Highline goes to Auburn with Decatur as Mount Tahoma visits Foster.
Kennedy Catholic plays in the Archbishop Murphy jamboree at 11:15 a.m. and Chief Sealth visits Eisenhower of Yakima at 3 p.m.
Monday's schedule has Lindbergh at Mount Rainier, Washington at Foster and University at Seattle Christian at 4 p.m. and Kennedy visits Bonney Lake at the same time Tuesday.

Fastpitch
Kennedy and West Seattle will participate in the Chief Sealth jamboree at 9 a..m. Saturday along with Roosevelt and Eastside Catholic, and Seattle Christian plays in a jamboree in Lacey at 1 p.m.
Evergreen visits Tyee for a 3:30 p.m. game Monday and West Seattle hosts Kentlake at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Southwest Athletic Complex by Chief Sealth.

By Tim Clinton
SPORTS EDITOR

SPOKANE--The West Seattle area had two finishes in the top eight of the state Class 1B boys basketball tournament.
Seattle Lutheran captured sixth place, winning one of three games in the tournament action held in the Spokane Arena while Shorewood Christian had a two-and-out stay in the final eight -- including a close loss to Seattle Lutheran.

Seattle Lutheran opened the tournament with a 50-44 loss to Almira-Coulee-Hartline on Thursday and Shorewood Christian opened with a 59-49 loss to the Yakima Tribal school.

That set up a rematch between the two SeaTac League schools in the consolation bracket Friday.
Seattle Lutheran had won the SeaTac regular season title over Shorewood Christian, but Shorewood Christian took the recent Tri-District tournament championship game rematch by a 65-57 score.
This time it was Seattle Lutheran's Saints who prevailed, 52-47, to advance to Saturday's game for fourth and sixth place.

Seattle Lutheran met Garfield-Palouse and lost, 59-54, to come away with the sixth place trophy.

By Tim Clinton
SPORTS EDITOR

Kennedy Catholic finished fifth in the state Class 3A boys basketball tournament with a 92-64 loss to the Garfield Bulldogs in the third place game Saturday.

Garfield had been ranked No. 1 going into the tournament at the Tacoma Dome, while the Lancers were unranked but stunned Bellevue in their tournament opener and only loss to O'Dea by one point in the semifinals Friday.

"It was a great season," said Kennedy head coach Don Hoffman. "I'm proud of our players. I was pleased with our huge wins over Foss (in the West Central District tournament) and Shadle Park (in the state regionals). And getting Bellevue here, it just couldn't have been better."

The Lancers were a surprise to even make the final eight at the Tacoma Dome -- let alone finish fifth in the state -- after coming in sixth in the district tournament to take the final regional berth.

They had to travel to Spokane for regionals and face a No. 1 seed in Shadle Park, but won.

By Tim Clinton
SPORTS EDITOR

Kennedy Catholic proved to be tough in the semifinals, coming within a heartbeat of a win and the state championship game.

The Lancers did sink what would have been the winning shot -- right after the final buzzer.
JFK had possession of the ball trailing O'Dea by a 61-60 score, and worked it to Keannu Royster through a frenzy.

Royster took a shot with time running out, only to have it partially blocked by O'Dea's Race Porter.
The deflected ball went to Matthew Sasonoff of the Lancers just to the right of the basket and he quickly popped it into the net.

But the shot was waved off by the nearest official as coming too late and it was the Fighting Irish who came away with the victory.

"We were one tenth of a second late or we would have won the game," said Kennedy head coach Don Hoffman. "The kids played hard. Both teams played their guts out."
O'Dea head coach Jason Kerr agreed.

"You had two teams out there battling," he said. "The Kennedy kids played their tails off. They kept coming at you. They never gave up."