West Seattle, Washington
12 Monday
The West Seattle Hi-Yu Float was fairly early in the running order at the Seafair Torchlight Parade (which hasn’t ended yet – at least not for those of us on the southern end of 4th Avenue), and it was preceded by a banner announcing it’s the winner of the Princess Award. Last year’s float won a Torchlight Parade award too – the Smile Award. We’ll add video of the float in tonight’s parade when we’re back at HQ. ADDED 11:15 PM: Also congratulations to Sivona Lingle, who represented Hi-Yu in the Miss Seafair competition – she came in third runner-up. “West Seattle Hi-Yu is very proud of her!” Carol Winston tells WSB. ADDED 12:20 AM: Float video. A few more parade visuals to come, as we check our cameras – sorry we don’t have video/pix of Sivona and Alki Community rep Keili Geller in the pre-parade Miss Seafair competition, but will add links to any we find. ADDED 1:26 AM: Here’s the KIRO video of the Miss Seafair announcement – starting with Sivona being announced as Third Princess. (Full results are listed on the Seafair website.) And our clip of the kids (including a West Seattle boy – though we have to find out from his mom if he’s visible in our video) who won the wooden-hydro contest, dragging them behind their bikes:
KIRO has the :30 clip of this from the parade contest online; see it here.
ADDED SUNDAY AFTERNOON: From David, dad of Zachary, the local hydro-contest winner, a couple photos (by the way, that’s him about seven seconds into our video, his mom Lisa says):
From a note he shared, which was also going to friends and family:
We built the hydros from 1″ plywood; these kids were randomly selected from 100+ entries. 10 kids (including Zach) won free bikes, which were donated by the Seafair Clowns and some other funding source (I heard mixed answers…McLendon’s? Boeing?). We assembled at 5:30, got our rides set up, waited on Broad St. for around an hour, and then merged into the fair, right behind Teatro ZinZanni.
… I have one suggestion for any Seattle resident: FIND SOME WAY TO GET IN THIS PARADE. It’s an amazing experience to walk through the thousands of people and realize how many you never get to know, and they’re living their lives in the same town, and they’re the same as you, and they’re very, very different. It grounds you in the community, and makes you feel more connected to this city, than any civic event I’ve ever attended.
We didn’t get a good photo of West Seattle’s Most Famous Politician in the parade, but David (also mentioning that even the dignitaries were accessible and friendly) did – just before the parade, anyway (the mayor was in a rain jacket by the time his car passed us):
One last note – one of the parade’s most stirring sights each year is a huge U.S. flag carried by Coast Guardsmen and Coast Guard Auxiliary members. They’ve put up a YouTube clip:
(photos added 2 am)
Just in: Tonight’s Outdoor Movies on the Wall presentation is moving to the backup indoor location at West Seattle Christian Church‘s new activity center. Just yards to the east of the Hotwire courtyard – it’s on the east side of 42nd, south of Genesee. Movie will start around 9, preshow activities starting shortly. ADDED EARLY SUNDAY: Not only did the weather force a change in venues, tonight’s movie changed at the last minute too … what was supposed to be the 1933 “King Kong” was discovered instead to be the most recent “King Kong,” way too long for Movies on the Wall, so “The Sandlot” was substituted at the last minute. Next week, it’s “Footloose,” which should be lots of fun on a big screen. Meantime, a couple sweet shots from Saturday night – Coffee to a Tea cupcakes honoring the intended theme of the night:
And the pre-movie contest – which turned out to involve banana splits, playing off primates’ alleged love of bananas.
Read more about the rest of the series here.
We told you earlier this week about the West Seattle Helpline backpack drive, under way now – one of the ways you can help local kids who can’t afford school supplies. And now Coffee at the Heights (WSB sponsor) has joined Capers in The Junction and Helpline HQ (35th/Morgan) as a dropoff spot for the backpack(s) you buy to donate. Paul from Coffee at the Heights explains their other business is participating too, regarding the backpacks Helpline buys on behalf of those who choose to donate money instead:
If anyone brings in either school supplies, a back pack, or funds to go towards purchasing a backpack or school supplies to Coffee At The Heights, we will give you $1.00 off your beverage! This goes on for the duration of the collection, through August 4th. We will deliver all funds, back packs, and supplies to Helpline.
The second part of our announcement is that PB&J Textiles will be extending our wholesale pricing to Helpline so that they can buy the backpacks at wholesale! We will not be taking any proceeds at all and we will be delivering the backpacks direct to Helpline. This will allow Helpline to get even more backpacks than they normally can, as they have to buy the bags and hope that the stores will give them a discount. So, open up your wallets and stop buy with supplies, money, backpacks, or all three and get a discount on your next beverage!
Coffee at the Heights is at 7349 35th; it’s open 6:30 am – 7 pm weekdays, 7 am to 7 pm Saturdays-Sundays.
(Seafair Pirates passing City Hall – without invading it! – parade-bound at 5 pm)
If you’re thinking about going downtown for the Seafair Torchlight Parade, better hurry. We drove most of 4th Avenue from Westlake south and curbside space doesn’t open up till City Hall at 4th/James. You can of course watch on TV (channel 7, 7:30 pm) or online (kirotv.com). Remember that The Viaduct closes its northbound lanes approximately 5:30-7:30 pm for the Torchlight Run, which precedes the parade; 5:30 is also when 4th Avenue closes, according to the citywide weekend-events traffic alert, and that’s from Seattle Center all the way to the International District, where the parade ends. We’ve learned of at least one more West Seattleite in the parade — Delridge resident Lisa Keith‘s son Zachary is one of the winners of a Boeing contest to choose kids to ride their bikes in the parade, pulling wooden hydros (which they had to build) like kids did way back when (Seafair is celebrating its 60th anniversary and that means extra nostalgia). The major West Seattle representation comes from the Hi-Yu float, royalty and accompanying volunteers; it’s fairly high up in the parade order this year, according to the lineup published on KIRO’s website. And of course there are West Seattleites in the Seafair Pirates, Seafair Commodores and Seafair Clowns organizations. West Seattle has two reps in the Miss Seafair competition pre-parade, as we noted here on Friday; and the mayor plans to ride in the parade this year, so there’s another well-known West Seattleite. We’ll be taking pix of the West Seattle parade participants to publish later (and we’ll add the Miss Seafair winner to this post – unless it’s a West Seattleite, in which case we’ll publish something separate)! Meantime, we’re staked out watching parade participants head toward the start of the route – the photo above shows the Pirates going by a few minutes ago; the Chinese Community Girls Drill Team passed just before them, in their yellow school bus. Again, whether you’re watching in person or at home, here’s the published parade order. 7:48 PM UPDATE: Jacqueline Saarenas was just chosen Miss Seafair – she’s a Seattle University student representing the Seattle Filipino Community.
Not only does every picture tell a story, every artist tells a story. June Anderson Evanoff is one of the painters exhibiting/selling at this weekend’s Alki Art Fair, and she can tell you about the work she has at the Smithsonian — a demonstration painting she was creating on the Mall in Washington, D.C., during the Bicentennial celebration in 1976, on behalf of the Swedish-American community. She lives on Mercer Island and what you see behind her in our photo is just some of her work – she’s set up just east of the Statue of Liberty Plaza. (By the way, the Smithsonian has a West Seattle link – Patty Stonesifer, who lives part of the time in West Seattle with writer husband Michael Kinsley, chairs its board.) A little further west, you’ll find Amanda Askren and her bags:
She says she’s been told she’s the only person selling tote/handbags at the fair this year (we didn’t see any others, but forgive us if we missed someone). The one behind her is just one of many brightly printed bags she’s selling for $35, along with other items such as cardholders for $5. And just west of the last (or first, if you’re walking east) booth, around 64th, we found this sign:
It’s not an official part of the fair, but Joy Anderson, who’s continuing to pursue a legal challenge to the closure of Cooper Elementary (where the district is moving Pathfinder K-8), is tabling with kids’ crafts and free drinks, plus a donation jar for their legal fund. Meantime, as for the official part of the fair, there’s entertainment in the Bathhouse area – and it all continues till 7 tonight, and again 10 am-5 pm tomorrow.
Just talked with King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office spokesperson Dan Donohoe, who says bail has just been set at $10 million for 23-year-old Isaiah Kalebu, arrested last night in connection with the South Park burglary/attack that killed 36-year-old Teresa Butz and injured her partner. We expect to get some legal documents in the case shortly and will add new information here once they’re in. ADDED 2:35 PM: A few details from those documents, including the major evidence they have against Kalebu (and added early Sunday – a link to a followup article with more on how police figured out who they were looking for):Read More
You never know what you’ll find at a rummage sale. Highland Park Improvement Club‘s parking lot is full of sale tables till 3 pm, and we noticed that box of rubber ducks at Highland Park Action Committee chair Dan Mullins‘ table. Or, you can buy some belly-dancing accessories from Dina Johnson, posing here with husband Blair Johnson:
Many outdoor events have live music, but this is the first one we’ve been to in a while that had an accordion serenade:
12th/Holden till 3 pm. Then tomorrow, HPIC’s having its annual neighborhood barbecue and kickball extravaganza, 2-6 pm at Highland Park playfield.
The Rotary Club of West Seattle is selling Skagit County-grown blueberries today till 3 pm in the south parking lot of Admiral Safeway, raising money for the Rotary Kids Holiday Shopping Spree – but without their signature canopy, shown at left in a photo from our coverage of their strawberry sale last month. Just got a note from Sue Lindblom of Illusions Hair Design (WSB sponsor):
Someone took the canopy that we have been using for our berry sales. We are in the parking lot behind Admiral Safeway and it went missing last night. (If you’ve seen it …) Call Sue at 300-3668.
And of course, you can alert police too (206/625-5011 is the non-emergency number).
We often publish West Seattle Crime Watch reports individually as they come in – this time, six have stacked up during the busy past day-plus, so we now have several to share, from burglary to bike theft to “casing” – all in the following roundup – read on (and p.s., sign up by Friday to strengthen your neighborhood with a Night Out block party on August 4!):Read More
ALKI ART FAIR: We’ll be heading down in a bit for an early look at who and what you’ll find there this year. On the boardwalk and by the Bathhouse, 10 am-7 pm today, 10 am-5 pm tomorrow.
OUTDOOR MOVIES ON THE WALL: Tonight, the second of six outdoor movies in this summer’s series, presented by the West Seattle Junction Association and co-sponsored by local businesses including WSB: The featured presentation is the 1933 version of “King Kong,” on the big screen in the courtyard between Hotwire Coffee (WSB sponsor) and Dr. Wolff. The movie starts at dusk but the preshow fun starts around 8:30 – “Save Barbie” – don’t miss it. B/Y/O chair/blanket – doors open at 7 and there was quite a crowd last week (photo above), so you might want to stake out your spot early and then go wander around The Junction for a while. Free, but bring a few $ for concessions and raffles, proceeds benefiting local nonprofits. See the full series lineup here.
BIG SALES – PLUS, YARD SALES LISTED ON WSB: Two huge rummage sales today – Community School of West Seattle till 5 pm (and again 9-5 tomorrow), Highland Park Improvement Club one day only (10 am-3 pm). And some other yard/rummage sales are listed in the WSB Forums, where you can list your sale in the Freebies, Deals, Sales category any time FREE: Here’s a moving sale; an “everything must go” sale; and a “cleaning house” sale.
“THE LISTENING ROOM” AT ADMIRAL THEATER TONIGHT: It’s the latest installment in a unique series of performances – live music, spoken word, and art, all happening in the show. Read all about it, and sample the musicians’ work, by going here.
That’s just a sample of what’s happening … the West Seattle Weekend Lineup has lots more.
That’s the Seattle Schools All-City Band – students from all over the city, including more than a few from West Seattle (which is also home base to ACB director Marcus Pimpleton, leader of the Denny Middle School music program) – performing Friday night at Southwest Athletic Complex during the first-ever Band Jam. You could say they were warming up for tonight’s Seafair Torchlight Parade downtown, and two of the other groups joining them last night are on the parade lineup too (which we just found here) – the Rainbow City Band and the Cranbrook (BC) Girls’ Bugle Band. (For more on tonight’s parade, beyond the lineup, go here; West Seattle will have plenty of representation in addition to ACB members – there’s also the mayor, the West Seattle Hi-Yu float/royalty, West Seattle members in parade staples like the Seafair Pirates, Seafair Commodores and Seafair Clowns, and 2 princesses in the running for Miss Seafair right before the parade … if you can’t be there in person, KIRO shows it live on channel 7 and online at kirotv.com … if you are going, remember there’s an extra King County Water Taxi run at 11:30.)
3:45 AM UPDATE: Just got word via phone and e-mail that Myrna Hauck has been found safe and unharmed. Her family’s still “sorting out” what happened but wanted to share the news that she’s OK.
(Original report follows)
That’s Myrna Hauck, mother of 8 daughters, grandma to many grandchildren. Myrna is missing, so her daughter, West Seattleite Michelle Dightman, is trying to get the word out any way she can. She says her mom is 5’3” and about 150 pounds and was last seen between 3 and 3:30 Friday afternoon, dropping off a relative at the La Quinta Inn and Suites in Lakewood (11751 Pacific Hwy SW; map) Michelle says Myrna “was expected in West Seattle at 5 pm and was driving a 1991 Aqua Blue Honda Accord, license number 429 SAX.” Michelle says, “We’re just so scared – this is so highly unusual.” This has been reported to police, so if you think you’ve seen her, call 911; the primary agency handling this is the police department in Lakewood, but Michelle says Seattle Police have been contacted too.
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