Residents and visitors to the Northshore communities have enjoyed an abundance of festive, public events to welcome July and what surely has finally become summer.
Bothell brought back the summer arts festival, staging its first LiveARTS Bothell over the hottest weekend of the year. The scene was the Park at Bothell Landing. The community is indebted to the dedicated citizens who decided to bring the arts back to downtown after the traditional event sputtered and took a short hiatus from the local scene.
The annual Fourth of July parade and the Freedom Festival just get bigger and better each year until Independence Day in Bothell has become listed and anticipated right up there with the most popular of Puget Sound-area celebrations.
Young and old alike again poured through the Bothell Historical Museum, the city’s first schoolhouse and the slab house where the first of 16 Beckstrom children were born in the 1880s.
Not to be outdone, Kenmore community activists scheduled a “5th annual Non-Profit Picnic at the Kenmore Community Club.” This event is being held the day this Reporter edition hits the street — July 9 — at 6:30 p.m. The community club will host the potluck and bring together Friends of the Kenmore Library, Kenmore Heritage Society, Kenmore Senior Center and The Arts of Kenmore.
Incidentally, at 4 p.m. July 21, the Kenmore Library will be holding a 50th anniversary event at the library, possibly the last community-wide event to be squeezed into the library facilities before Kenmore Library moves to a new building to be constructed on Bothell Way across from Kenmore Village. Just as soon as the library officials “help” Kenmore Post Office to relocate, this long-anticipated project will get under way.
In her newsletter to the community, librarian Terry Claypool writes: “Please come to the library and share a memory; we want to post memories and share a blast from the past. Festivities include refreshments, a magic show, a classic car and … hula hoops for those who dare! The party will be from 4-7 p.m. outside on the lawn. Kenmore Library Advisory Board President Sue Huck already has her saddle shoes!”
Also drawing attention in Kenmore on July 9 will be supporters of Kenmore MoveOn who will gather late afternoon at the gas pumps in front of the Kenmore Safeway store to put an exclamation point on rising energy costs and the country’s reliance on fossil fuel, specifically oil.
The Kenmore participation in MoveOn’s national action day is being organized by Kenmore residents Jeff Paulson and Val Nygaard, whose grassroots efforts will be to support political candidates pledging to promote alternative fuel sources as a means to “ease our pain at the pump.” MoveOn members seek “a real plan to power our country on clean and affordable energy” from officeholders who favor a “policy that addresses the real energy problems our country faces in the 21st century.”
What’s not to like about that appeal?
SubBlurbs
• Nearly $150,000 in scholarship checks will go out this week from the Northshore Scholarship Foundation to 79 recipients planning to enter college for academic year 2008-09. More recipients than usual will be attending colleges in the state of Washington — substantially more than half of them in fact. The breakdown includes 15 attending the Montlake branch of the University of Washington, eight at UW- Bothell, seven each at Cascadia Community College, Lake Washington Technical College and at Western Washington University and six traveling to the Palouse country and Washington State University. Also on the list of state schools are Gonzaga University, Whitman College, University of Puget Sound, Seattle University and the Bellevue, Shoreline and Walla Walla community colleges. Yale, Julliard School and Stanford are among the out-of-state destinations.
• Not that we needed evidence that University of Washington, Bothell is a commuter school, but the point was driven home in June with the selection of Susan Tallis to receive the President’s Medal at UW-B’s 17th annual commencement. A one-time prima ballerina, Susan lives with her husband in Granite Falls and received her bachelor of arts degree in “society, ethics and human behavior”. A non-traditional student, she juggled her schooling with home, care giving and work responsibilities, achieving a 3.96 grade-point average.
Susan was an active member of the UW-Bothell Village Volunteers Action Club working on the project to develop and implement sustainable solutions for Kenya’s water crisis. She served as a legislative intern and volunteered at Northshore Family Center. Next step, she is applying to law school.
• Energetic science teacher John Schmied of Skyview Junior High reports that Friends of Hidden River are pushing hard this summer to establish nature study projects at the Brightwater wastewater treatment plant in Grace (that’s north of Woodinville on Highway 9). In cooperation with King County and other agencies, Schmied and fellow science teachers are working to convert 2,400 square feet of the old Stockpot Soups building on the site. A quarter-million dollar grant will certainly help.
The space will be devoted to labs and other outreach projects to be up and running well ahead of the opening of the free-standing community education center to be built later on the 110-acre site. John reports substantial interest from our Northshore School District and UW- Bothell and Cascadia CC in utilizing facilities for science education. Stay tuned. This Friends group is pushing hard to realize its goal to establish the facility as a national leader in the study of cutting-edge technologies. Harnessing methane gases as a useful energy source is just one of several ideas they are working on.
John B. Hughes was owner-publisher of the Northshore Citizen from 1961 to 1988 and is active in local nonprofit organizations.
