The sound of music echoes through the halls of the Secondary Academy for Success (SAS) in Bothell. In fact, since the arrival three years ago of the performance jazz project, it has reverberated to a point where a measurable change of student attitudes and enthusiasm has risen to exceptional new heights.
Before The Music Project at SAS, there was little extracurricular opportunity. Math teacher Jim Geiszler (now retired) enticed rhythm-and-blues performer Bernadette Bascom and other music professionals to put together a training program at SAS.
It soon became the centerpiece of attention for students who previously hadn’t believed it possible SAS would discover such bountiful evidence of emerging self-esteem and a new sense of something worth belonging to.
I can’t recall a year in which more than two or three SAS students qualified for community-based scholarships. That changed this year when a record number of graduating SAS students applied for scholarships and 13 won tuition dollars for a kick-start to their next level of education.
Our congratulations and good wishes to SAS scholarship winners Amanda Gonzalez, Jeffery Schmidt, Veronica Stevens, Samuel Armatage, Courtney Roberts, Nick Messner, Heidi Schauble, Dalton Wall, Joshua Alexander, Matt Hunter, Israel Perez, Amanda Walters and Maddie Williams.
These 13 graduates are among 82 who will be honored May 25 at the 26th annual recognition breakfast sponsored by the Northshore and Woodinville Rotary clubs, Kiwanis Club of Northshore and the Northshore Scholarship Foundation.
The scholarships total $158,900 and will bring to more than $1.7 million in grants that the foundation and the service clubs have awarded over the past 26 years. A total of 1,368 students will have benefited from the financial help.
Auto retail
Among pronouncements made during recent city ceremonies was the statement that Bothell is moving away from an “auto retail” commercial emphasis in order to connect with the city’s rich heritage tied to the Sammamish River. The public gathering marked the official beginning of revitalization of downtown Bothell.
It might be instructive to remind city leadership of the historical significance of “auto retail” in Bothell. The very idea of the Park at Bothell Landing should be credited to a city councilman, the late Lowell Haynes, whose authentic full “service” station on Bothell Way served as an unofficial city hall in town for many years. Bothell Y service station operators Johnny Bluhm, Joe Kuntz and Chuck Gaylord all found time to serve on city boards or council.
Mayor Charles Kaysner and his partner Jack Nicholl ran the only auto-parts store for miles around. Mayor Bud Ericksen had the Chrysler-DeSoto-Plymouth dealership and was a key figure in the Bothell Chamber of Commerce. Ron Green of Green Ford traced his family’s roots to the area’s first school superintendent.
Auto retail provided a good share of Bothell’s tax revenues in all of those years preceding the high-tech valley and the eventual northerly annexations into Snohomish County.
Prom dance
Nick Terry can be pretty pleased that this teenager’s movie, “Senior Prom”, has been selected to be shown in high definition at the upcoming Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF). Viewings of the comedy are scheduled May 28 and June 1. SIFF notes that “Seventeen-year-old director Nicholas Terry guided his fellow improvisational, high school actors to cultivate the stereotypical romantic situations throughout their high school experience and plant them firmly in the seminal social event of prom.”
The credits list Nick as director, editor, screenwriter, cinematographer and music. His dad, Matt, gets billing as producer. Could “Senior Prom” be the next ensemble mockumentary in league with “Best in Show” or “Waiting for Guffman”?
Urban heights
Snohomish County Council is wrestling with standards for urban centers, proposing to allow 18-story buildings in densely developed, unincorporated areas. One of the sites bound to draw public scrutiny and strong opposition will be the abandoned Point Wells refinery in Edmonds where gun-shy politicians refused to place the region’s new water treatment facility.
By ignoring the Point Wells site and positioning the plant north of Woodinville in Grace, the King and Snohomish county executives chose Brightwater, which would require two-way delivery of sewer and storm-water collection, pumping refuse east to Brightwater and then all the way back to Puget Sound once treated.
The Brightwater location cost is likely to be double original estimates — now fighting not only tunnel burrowing mishaps but pushing a $2 billion-dollar plus price tag. Significant sewer rate increases are already planned this year to pay for construction bonds floated earlier and the plant won’t even be operational until 2012.
John B. Hughes was owner-publisher of the Northshore Citizen from 1961 to 1988 and is active in local nonprofit organizations.
