(Editor's note: Publisher Jerry Robinson is out and about-talking to people, snapping pictures and telling their stories.)

Meet Mark Benedum

You can sometimes see him in the hallways at Highline Medical Center locations from Burien to West Seattle. He is Chief Operating Officer and has been for 20 years,

When he is not poring over computer printouts you can find him on weekends relaxing in Westport, riding a surfboard. Cold? Yes, but he wears a wet suit and works up a sweat dodging the huge rocks on the jetty and riding the big Aleutian Juice-waves over 10 feet high that start in Alaska.

He lives in Des Moines now but as a boy learned surfing the wild waves off Long Island in New York.

Meet Melanie Schweiss

Her mom loved Gone With The Wind and named her daughter after Scarlett's sister-in-law.

Melanie was blitzing a keyboard as I walked by her nursing station at the Riverton campus of Highline Medical Center and I was dazzled by her speed. She types like you are supposed to, never looking at the keys. Most journalists I know use two fingers, not too efficiently .

She gave all the credit of her flying fingers to Mrs. Works, her typing teacher at Highline Christian School who lived up to her name. She worked hard to teach it right.

Melanie has been an R.N. at Highline for 17 years.

Meet Shelley Bowers

You might have to get up early, though. Like three in the morning.

Shelley is the one who bakes all those scrumptious cakes and pies at Des Moines Creek Restaurant. In Des Moines, of course.

She is holding a piece of Triple Lemon Pie I ordered at lunch the other day. I had my choice of Strawberry Rhubarb, Chocolate Banana Cream, Dutch Apple or Jumbleberry

Elsbeth says this is the last time I can order pie for lunch.