With one week to go till the Special Olympics/Washington-presented Polar Plunge at Alki (co-sponsored by WSB), one enthusiastic local participant has just gotten in a practice run. Norm Smith joined about 400 others at the Kennewick Polar Plunge today and just shared photos – above, that’s him splashing into the water at left – along with this report:
West Seattle alum Norm Smith made the trek to Kennewick this weekend to kick off his string of Polar Plunges to raise money for Special Olympics Washington. Norm joined hundreds of Police Officers, students, and family members of athletes, along with other supporters of Special Olympics by jumping in the 38-degree water of the Columbia River.
Norm (blue shirt, above) is the father of well-known Special Olympics athlete/spokesman Zachary Smith and will be coming home to Alki next Saturday, January 29th, with son Zach to participate in the 2nd annual Alki Beach Polar Plunge to benefit Special Olympics Washington.
To join Norm’s team of West Seattle High School Alumni teammates for the plunge, or to donate money to Norm and Zach’s plunge on Alki, follow this link.
Norm shouldn’t be hard to find at Alki. Word is out that Norm and the rest of the Board of Directors for Special Olympics will be wearing pink tutu costumes picked out by the Special Olympics athletes for the plunge. Come down to Alki on the 29th and support Norm and Zach!
Other teams to be on the lookout for at Alki next Saturday include Chief Sealth International High School, which vowed to up its presence after winning the “Spirit Award” last year. And as reported here earlier this week, the local law-enforcement participants will include Seattle Police Chief John Diaz and Southwest Precinct commander Capt. Steve Paulsen. If you don’t pre-register, signups start at 9 by the Alki Bathhouse; the plunge is at noon, but there’s lots of fun in advance, including the Seahawks’ Blue Thunder drummers.
Will the Young Evils play that tonight during their gig at the Tractor Tavern in Ballard? Maybe not, considering it’s being hailed as a potential West Seattle anthem. Seattle Weekly commissioned it to celebrate the issue that’s currently on the stands. We’re mentioning it tonight just in case you haven’t seen it yet, online or offline: It’s their one-week conversion to West Seattle Weekly, perhaps not coincidentally, shortly after West Seattleite Mike Seely was promoted to editor-in-chief. In an espresso-steam-filled room a few weeks before publishing the special edition, Seely sat down with your WSB co-publishers and asked if we’d help with one section – the section that resembles our main focus, top news stories – since the Weekly usually pulls that section’s content from stories covered by its Daily Weekly online operation, and needed the top West Seattle stories of the week instead. Here’s the link to the one story featured online, regarding the Steve Bushaw murder-case trial; if you have the print version, our West Seattle news roundup starts on page 9, and includes three additional stories, including the Charlestown/47th crash and power outage, the police/dogs shooting incident on 44th, and theWest Seattle Chamber of Commerce‘s annual meeting. If you have some time to sit down and read this weekend, many great Weekly staff-reported stories too, including a closer look at the photo history book the Southwest Seattle Historical Society has just co-published, a review of West Seattle’s political clout, and a chat with the founder of Morgan Junction’s rockin’ Feedback Lounge (WSB sponsor), Jeff Gilbert, and editor Seely’s scene-setter.
A rare sunny midwinter weekend afternoon … perfect for kids to go to the playground or maybe the beach, right? Instead, about 40 girls and boys ages 3-12 took time out at mid-afternoon to brighten the day for residents at The Kenney. Jenna Lutton from Gildenfire Dance brought her young students to the big lower-level community room, which filled with proud family members as well as Kenney-residing audience members, all of whom combined for quite the ovation. Three Gildenfire groups performed one dance each – above, the 3-4-year-olds (with two 5-year-olds, Lutton noted) did a kiddie can-can, coached by their teacher off to screen-left. Lutton says you can expect to see her students turn up elsewhere around the peninsula in the months ahead: “As part of our ever evolving mission, we hope to bring joy and happiness to our community through dance. This spring we are planning ‘guerrilla’ dance performances all over West Seattle.” Home base for her West Seattle dance classes is the Highland Park Improvement Club.
(WSB photo from 12/12/2010)
With two major slides in the past year (January 2010 and December 2010) and a constantly wet, rutted road – with side effects like this recent ice sheet – the 6000-6200 block of Beach Drive has yet to find a permanent solution to the slope-vs.-street problem. Two city departments are involved, along with homeowners, and we’ll get the city’s latest take on it Tuesday – SDOT director Peter Hahn and DPD director Diane Sugimura are scheduled to brief the City Council’s Transportation Committee (chaired by West Seattle-residing Councilmember Tom Rasmussen) on the Beach Drive slide situation. The meeting is set for 9:30 am Tuesday at City Hall; if you can’t be there, you can watch live online at seattlechannel.org, or on cable channel 21.
… I spoke to the Medical Examiner yesterday after the autopsy was performed; they said ‘the cause of death is pending further investigation for more testing to determine exact cause of death before we can enter cause of death on the death certificate.” They also said that this investigation would be turned over to Seattle Police Department in 8 to 10 weeks and are considering it a ‘suspicious circumstances case.’
I know we all want to know what happened to Jeremy, but we have to be patient and let the Medical Examiners do their job, the more time they have and the more complete the report is, the better chance we have that justice will be served for Jeremy.
The remembrance location is steps away from where Jeremy was last reported seen, early the morning of December 24th. While Seattle Police were reported to have joined Bainbridge Police at the beach where the body was found, SPD spokesperson Det. Mark Jamiesontold WSB on Thursday that how they proceed from here depends on the cause of death.
ADDED 11:31 PM: Donations are being sought to help with memorial costs; you can give via PayPal using this Facebook page.
Before the first week of pre-leasing was even over at Link (WSB sponsor) in The Triangle, nine units already were spoken for. Harbor Properties‘ Emi McKittrick says that’s quite the pace. She took us on a tour of the almost-complete building along 38th SW between Fauntleroy and Alaska (map) this past week, our first tour since this one in October. Ahead, come on up to the expansive view-deck roof and into the model units, as well as a lobby that’s even going to sport iPads:
Fourth Thursday is coming up, which means the South Delridge-White Center Community Safety Coalition meets – here’s what’s on the agenda:
More than 17,000 calls to the Washington Poison Center were about children poisoned by medicines. Washington State needs a statewide take-back program to protect its children.
Teens use medicines to get high second only to marijuana, and they start as early as 12 years old. Washington needs a statewide take-back program so families can keep unwanted medicines out of the hands of our teens.
White Center – South Delridge Community Safety Coalition
Invites you to hear the
Seattle & King County Public Health Health & Environmental Investigator
Will Perry
at our meeting on Thursday, January 27th 6 pm
White Center DSHS Building, 2nd Floor
9650 15th Ave SW
From the Rotary Club of West Seattle: Next week’s lunch speaker will be Nancy Whitlock, executive director of the West Seattle-based Nature Consortium. Their main mission is to restore the forest of the West Duwamish Greenbelt, which runs along the eastern edge of West Seattle and is the city’s largest contiguous stretch of forest. The Rotary’s lunch meetings are at noon Tuesdays at Salty’s on Alki; their calendar of upcoming programs (and other events) is here.
On Thursday, January 27th, the West Seattle Democratic Women will have as
its speaker Democratic Political Activist Cathy Allen, who will share her thoughts on (1) Where are we now when it comes to Democratic status quo – good news versus bad news?, (2) What’s the prospect for this year – nationally, statewide, regionally and locally – what should you be getting involved with? and (3) How does this compare with the women’s movement internationally – are we picking up steam in the world equality movement or not? Cathy’s most famous women Democratic candidates include Sen. Patty Murray; Gov. Chris Gregoire; City Councilmembers Jean Godden, Sue Donaldson, Margaret Pageler; County Councilmembers Cynthia Sullivan, Julia Patterson, Carolyn Edmonds; State Legislators Helen Sommers, Darlene Fairley, Karen Keiser, Tracey Eide; and Sheriff Sue Rahr. And this last year – Cathy went behind enemy lines to beat the Tea Party and Sarah Palin by running the successful write-in campaign for Senator Lisa Murkowski in Alaska.
Join WSDW at the West Seattle Golf Course from 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.. Lunch $15 for non members, $12 for members or $5 for coffee/tea and dessert. Please contact WSDW at (206) 935-3216 or wsdwomen@yahoo.com should you have questions or wish to make a reservation.
Ruth Kerr photographed those little girls while visiting Haiti with Soles4Souls, a nonprofit that gets shoes to people who need them. She says she is “forever changed by the experience” of traveling there last August. Hearing about Ruth’s experiences, Joni Buckner, owner of Head to Toe Day Spa in the Admiral District, decided to have a collection drive at her business, and it’s under way right now. Ruth says you can donate by rubber-banding your “gently worn” shoes and bringing them to Head to Toe, along with a donation of $1 (or more) to offset shipping costs (donation-drive locations have to pay to get the shoes to the organization). Your donations will help help Soles4Souls with work that Joni says has already enabled them to distribute more than 10,000,000 pairs of shoes in more than 125 countries (including ours). 1.3 million have gone to Haiti, according to this recent update from Soles4Souls, one year after the devastating earthquake there. Wondering what kind of shoes they’ll accept? Almost anything, according to the official Soles4Souls FAQ. Just put that rubber band around each pair and take them to Head to Toe, which is at 2328 California SW (map; their hours are listed here).
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