March 2017

By Lindsay Peyton

On most Saturdays, 17-year old Katherine Fry boards a bus near her home in West Seattle and makes a two-hour commute to the Woodland Park Zoo.

The senior at Chief Sealth International High School has volunteered in the ZooCorps teen program since 2014 – and has logged almost 800 hours of service.

Her dedication has not gone unnoticed.

The zoo is honoring Fry with its Youth Conservation Award on Tuesday, Feb. 28 – as part of its Thrive Leadership Awards dinner and fundraiser held at the Four Seasons downtown.

This will be the first year for the Youth Conservation Award, youth engagement coordinator Issana To said.

“We’re focused on inspiring and empowering youth to take action,” she said. “The more we can do that, the better.”

To said a number of teens were nominated for the award. Judges sought a young volunteer who excelled in expressing empathy and honesty, was engaged in learning opportunities, showed commitment to conservation and encouraged others to get involved.

By Tim Clinton
SPORTS EDITOR

West Seattle's first stay in state play at the Tacoma Dome was a short one.

The Wildcats took a 65-54 opening round loss to Lincoln of Tacoma to be eliminated from the Class 3A girls basketball state tournament Wednesday morning.

West Seattle opens its first boys tournament Thursday at 7:15 p.m., also in the Tacoma Dome.

information from King County Sheriff

Family members of murder victim Timothy Hovey are offering $10,000 for information that will lead to an arrest and conviction of a suspect in the case. Hovey, 27, was shot on September 4th after he walked away from a party at a house in the area of S128th St and 22nd Ave S. (Case#C16045227)

Timothy Hovey was a JBLM soldier who was a month from deploying when he was shot and killed. Hovey had been at the party with friends when he decided to go for a walk. His friends found him a couple of blocks away lying on the side of the road with multiple gunshot wounds. He later died at Harborview Hospital.

In addition to the $10,000 offered by the family, Crime Stoppers is offering $1,000 for information that will help solve the case. If you have information about this case you can call the King County Sheriff’s Office at 206-296-3311 or you can remain anonymous and call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477)

information from the City of Seattle

The Seattle Office for Civil Rights (SOCR) today announced a new hotline for people to report harassment in Seattle. The Hotline is part of the City of Seattle’s Bias Hurts Campaign for Seattle residents and business owners who are the targets of discriminatory harassment, including threats, slurs, intimidation and cyberbullying.

“We’ve set up the hotline so people in Seattle can contact the Office for Civil Rights immediately if they are harassed or discriminated against,” said SOCR Director Patricia Lally. “But more important, we want to join with the community to develop actions that we can take to protect and support people over the long term. As a community, we need to take care of one another as much as we can.”

The campaign includes three key components: a hotline (206-233-7100) to report harassment, meetings with community groups from across the city to learn what people are experiencing and how the City can proactively address them, and a media campaign to publicize the City’s efforts. The media campaign will include print ads, social media, ads on buses and trains, radio and direct outreach to community groups.

By Tim Clinton
SPORTS EDITOR

Bowen McConville of Kennedy Catholic High School led the area contingent at the recent Mat Classic XXIX state wrestling tournament, taking second place in the 195-pound class of the Class 4A boys competition.
McConville battled all the way to the final, where he took a loss to Kione Gill of Tahoma by fall in 1 minute, 37 seconds.

Three Highline High School and one Tyee High School wrestler placed in the Class 2A boys competition.
Kevin Plenh-Romero of Highline took third place wrestling at 106 pounds and teammate Kyle Herbruger snagged seventh place at 126 pounds.

Lazaro Lombillo of Tyee took eighth place wrestling at 120 pounds and Jonavan Omar of Highline placed eighth in the 195-pound class.

Two area athletes placed in the girls competition, which mixed all classifications.

Caylee Collins of Highline finished fourth at 170 pounds and Giulian Pepe of Mount Rainier secured seventh at 155 pounds.

by Lindsay Peyton

Construction crews usually begin working before the crack of dawn on the site of the new Puget Sounds Skills Center, located on 18010 8th Ave S. in Burien.

Things were at a standstill, however, on the morning of Tuesday, Feb. 28.

Starting at 5 a.m., strikers from the Heat and Frost Insulators Local 7 picketed in front of the building, waving signs that read, “Insulation Specialists pay less than area standard wages and benefits to its workers.”

The group’s business manager Todd Mitchell explained that workers are concerned about the contractor Insulation Specialist NW LLC, from Spokane, which was hired by Highline Public Schools’ general contractor FORMA Construction.

Mitchell said the company is in violation of the prevailing wage laws administered by the State.

“We came out and talked to the employees on site, and they have no idea what they’re being paid,” he said.

Mitchell added that according to state law, the wages must be posted on the site and the workers must be informed before the job starts.

By Ken Kagan

If, like me, you are of a certain age – and by that I mean, for example, that you remember where you were when you heard the news that President Kennedy had been shot, then your early association with Italian wine was almost undoubtedly the modestly-priced Chianti that was brought to your home by well-meaning guests.

Sometimes the bottles were shaped like a regular wine bottle, sometimes they had extremely long, skinny necks, and sometimes they were truly oddly misshapen, but almost always, the bottles were covered in straw, and the wine was most often bone dry, tannic or acidic.

For the last 20 – 25 years or so, and more and more every year, we here in the States are blessed with an abundance of some of the world’s greatest wines, at prices real people can afford, from all over Italy, with no woven straw in sight. Italy boasts more than 20 very significant, world-class wine producing regions, within which are literally scores of smaller regions producing fabulous wines – red, white, rosé, and sparkling.