First of two baking-related stories we have for you before the night’s out. This one was sent by proud mom Laurel Taylor:

Our daughter, Elspeth Stoner (WSHS grad), went off to Carleton College in MN last September, her dad’s alma mater.

She got work study and was one of only three first-year students chosen to work at Dacie Moses House, where a primary function is baking treats for anyone who stops into the house. We are pretty sure that the reason she was chosen is that she put on her resume that she had volunteered over the years for The Christmas People with her sister Gwendolyn and grandma Carol. They baked dozens of cookies and then also volunteered to pack them.

Fast forward to (Wednesday)’s paper New York Times, where Elspeth’s photo is on the front page of the food section! She is not mentioned by name in the article but she is there. In a fun follow-up, she was just offered and accepted a position as one of the residents for next year. She is the one wearing a green cardigan holding a plate of Cowboy Cookies — my recipe ;). It’s also on the NYT website

The Christmas People are a nonprofit that collects thousands of home-baked cookies in West Seattle and vicinity every holiday season to distribute to people in need. We asked Elspeth what she baked for those donations: Various types, he said, “like oatmeal raisin, cranberry cookies, and I believe the same recipe for Cowboy Cookies that I’m holding in the photo in the NYTimes. At Dacie’s, of course, I make all kinds of things depending on what we need each week.” We also asked what she’s majoring in: “At Carleton we aren’t allowed to declare a major until the end of sophomore year, but I’m fairly certain I’m going to be a Biology and English double major.”

14- to 24-year-olds are invited to this brand-new event:

Register for the First-Ever King County Youth Leadership Summit!

Designed by and for young people, this summit is a unique opportunity for leaders and aspiring changemakers (ages 14-24) to gather from across King County. Whether they are already active in the community or looking for a way to start, this event is built to amplify youth voice.

The Details:

What: King County Youth Leadership Summit

When: Saturday, May 30, 2026 | 9:00 am – 4:00 pm

Where: The Museum of Flight (9404 East Marginal Way S, Tukwila)

Registration: https://beststartsblog.com/2026/04/15/register-for-the-first-ever-king-county-youth-leadership-summit/

Thanks to Joe Drake for arranging and sending what’s become an annual tradition – the group photo of West Seattleites who have traveled cross-country to run the Boston Marathon!

The 130th running of the Boston Marathon will take place on Monday (April 20). A sizable contingent of West Seattle runners and their enthusiastic supporters have flocked to Beantown to participate in the most prestigious annual marathon in the world. Some of them gathered at the Marathon Expo for a pre-race photo op. Shown above, from left to right, are Kyle Oman, Treva Thomas, Michael Nguyen, Shannon Chappon, Huy Son, Mike Marshino, Joe Drake, Patti Shuster, Becca Gehring Brown, Jonathan Brown, Eric Eagle, and Marie Skoor.

If you are – or know someone who is – a West Seattleite who’s going to Boston to run the renowned marathon on Monday, Joe Drake wants to hear from you! He’ll be there again this year, and he’s already got a plan to meet up with other West Seattleites like last year, but in case there’s someone with whom he hasn’t connected yet, he asked us to put out the call! So anyone going from here who isn’t already planning to meet up for the West Seattleites’ group shot, please email him at jnldrake@gmail.com – thank you!

That Seattle Police video published today tells the story of why Officer Albert Khandzhayan got the department’s “Medal of Courage” for an incident that began in West Seattle. We reported on it the morning it happened – May 3, 2025 – though it got little other attention as it happened on a Saturday morning and was over relatively quickly. It started north of The Junction with a scene that terrified onlookers, not to mention the mom and children involved – her ex-boyfriend breaking out the window of her car, pulling her out, and driving away with the children. Officer Khandzhayan rescued them – and arrested him – in Boulevard Park.

A week and a half ago, we brought you Alki resident Charlotte Starck‘s story about her plan to journey to Detroit with a creation that had a place in automotive-industry history as well as family history – a 1930 Fisher Body Napoleonic model coach built by her late grandfather Irvin Starck, a Boeing machinist who put 18,000 hours into it over 55 years. Now Charlotte, her brother Jim Starck, and their special delivery, have arrived.

We asked Charlotte to let us know when she got there so we could publish a followup. She and her brother transported the coach in its container, which her grandfather also built:

Charlotte said the delivery was a two-site adventure:

First we met General Motors Director of Corporate Giving and Heritage Heidi Magyar at the new global headquarters for General Motors. They just moved in mid-January.

Then north 25 minutes to the new GM Heritage Center under construction that is the home for the coach now. We handed off to left to right in top photo) Rebecca Bushman and Chief of Heritage Kevin Kirbitz.

It is by far the most beautiful. They have a few others.

Charlotte adds that they were told theirs is the only known documented 193 inaugural-year coach, and that many historians think the early 1930 Fisher Body Guild coaches might have been the most technically sophisticated youth-craftsmanship-competition objects ever made in the U.S.

P.S. She’s been invited back when the Heritage Center opens.

By Macey Wurm
Reporting for West Seattle Blog

It’s that time of year again! Girl Scout Cookie Booth season kicked off this afternoon with five different locations around The Junction, and more than 20 in all of West Seattle. We visited the booths (tables) in front of Husky Deli and Easy Street Records, which were just getting started at mid-afternoon. Additional booths were in the process of being set up in front of the Junction QFC, Jefferson Square Safeway, and A La Mode Pies around 4:00 p.m.

, and Liv, three members of Troop 46258, had a table and signage outside Husky Deli. They drew attention to a “New Flavor!!!” called Exploremores, described as “a Rocky Road ice cream-inspired cookie filled with chocolate marshmallow and toasted almond creme,” per their sign. The crew has been part of Girl Scouts of Western Washington for four years:

Across the street, Eliana and MJ, two members of Troop 41333, were setting up in front of Easy Street Records. The pair are eighth-graders who have been Girl Scouts since kindergarten.

These Girl Scouts are planning to sell cookies at the aforementioned locations several more times in the coming weeks, with full details on dates and times for Junction locations found here. Other locations in West Seattle can be accessed through the “Cookie Finder” by entering a zip code, which will direct you to the booths closest to you.

Looking to order cookies online? Girl Scouts of Western Washington also offers the Cookie Connector, which allows you to enter a zip code, and support a local troop in your area through buying online.

Proceeds from Girl Scout Cookie season go toward the local council, Girl Scouts of Western Washington, which operates from Bellingham down to Cowlitz County, and toward individual troops. There are currently more than 40 troops selling in West Seattle. Cookies run $6 a box, except for the gluten-free “Toffee-Tastic,” $7 per box; find out more about the cookie varieties here.

Sales will continue until March 15, marking a little under three weeks to get your cookies and support the Girl Scouts!

By Charlotte Starck
Special to West Seattle Blog

On March 3, my brother Jim Starck and I will board a plane to Detroit carrying something far too fragile to ship — our grandfather’s 1930 Fisher Body Napoleonic model coach, carefully secured inside the handcrafted wooden box he built for it himself.

It will be the first time the carriage has ever left the Seattle area.

(Irvin Starck and the carriage, photo in locket)

Nearly ninety-five years ago, as a teenager in South Dakota during the Great Depression, our grandfather, Irvin A. Starck, obtained one of the very first Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild model coach plans provided by the Guild – the inaugural year of what would become General Motors’ long running and most influential youth outreach and recruiting initiative aimed at getting boys into auto engineering.

He had a natural-born talent for building things and hoped to enter it by the Guild contest.

But, life happened. He was living in poverty during the Depression. He scrambled to work multiple jobs to survive. And just couldn’t sacrifice the time to focus on the model before the submission deadline.

But he never got rid of it. He kept it. For a someday.

We didn’t fully understand how poor he was then – until much later. One Thanksgiving, I noticed he never put mashed potatoes on his plate. (It was our favorite.) I finally asked why. He replied, “During the Depression, we didn’t have money for food. At one point, he said, that’s all we had. I had to eat potatoes for a few weeks.” He hated them ever since.

That moment stuck with me. As an adolescent, it was the first time I became aware of how fortunate I was to have food on the table every night. When he explained more of those days, it gave new meaning to the unfinished coach.

Eventually he moved to Seattle, was hired at Boeing, and spent 30 years as a machinist building airplanes. Precision became his profession.

And one day, he started to work on it again. Slowly. In the evenings after his shifts on the line, or when our grandmother was a little grumpy. Down to the garage he would go. To his own creative world. Under dim lights, hunched over his workbench with his glasses low on his nose.

The oversized plans, yellow with age, were mounted on the wall above as he shaped parts so small he sometimes held them in a vice. If a tool did not exist to create a detail, he fabricated one. He built the tool to build the design pressed into leather. He made tools to craft the intricate patterns that embellished the plated wheels. Complex parts didn’t stop him. He just built them.

He kept at it. This was not tinkering. It was mastery.

In 1985 — fifty-five years after getting the plans — he announced it was finished. That same year, he entered it in the model competition at the Washington State (Puyallup) Fair and won the top prize, a Blue Ribbon. News of the precision craftsmanship traveled from the fairgrounds all the way to General Motors headquarters in Detroit.

An executive wrote inviting him to place the carriage in the GM Heritage Museum.

He declined.

Having only recently completed it after more than half a century, he told us, with a chuckle, “I just finished it.” He wanted a little time to appreciate his own work.

Some facts from the Fair:

Irvin A. Starck’s Fisher Body Napoleonic Model Coach:
• Purchased: 1930 (first-year issue of the Guild contest)
• Completed: 1985 – Seattle, Washington
• Blue Ribbon: Washington State Puyallup Fair (1985)
• Estimated labor: 18,000 hours
• Approximate parts: 2,000

The Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild contest was created during the Great Depression as both a recruiting pipeline and a youth outreach initiative.

Thousands of teenagers and their families participated. The 1/18-scale Napoleonic coach — based on Fisher Body’s iconic emblem inspired by Napoleon Bonaparte’s ceremonial carriage — became a symbol of craftsmanship and design excellence during the transition from horse-drawn transport to the automobile age.

My brother and I talked and agreed that it was time for others to see it. We contacted Kevin Kirbitz, Chief of GM Heritage. Over the decades, he has seen several surviving Guild coaches in fair shape. But he told us they had not seen one with this level of beauty and precision craftsmanship. General Motors is opening a new Heritage Center museum next spring, and Kevin said they would be honored to include our grandfather’s carriage in the permanent collection.

Now, 40 years after he first declined GM’s invitation — and nearly 95 years after he got the original plans — our grandfather’s carriage will finally return to Detroit.

It’s an emotional trip, because we love our grandfather so much and miss him dearly; he died in 2002. He taught us how to finish something you start. How to be patient when you don’t see all the pieces. How to find solutions and move forward. And how to do work you can be proud of.

Before it departs the Pacific Northwest, we believe this represents more than industrial history. It is a Seattle story — a Boeing machinist’s Depression-era dream completed over fifty-five years in a garage, honored at the Washington State Fair, and now returning to Detroit as part of American industrial heritage.

We will depart March 3rd to deliver it to the GM Heritage Center in Grand Blanc, Michigan.

=====
Charlotte Starck is a former journalist currently engaged in civic and community service as president of the Alki Community Council.

Thursday (February 26) is the first day you’ll see local Girl Scouts selling cookies inside/outside local stores, among other places. As always, the times and locations are listed on the Girl Scouts of Western Washington website – a quick check by zip code shows the earliest local booth on the schedule that day is Husky Deli (4721 California SW), starting at 3 pm Thursday; most other locations don’t start up that day until 4 pm. Look for your nearest location(s) by scrolling down this page to the search-by-zip-code box. Wondering which cookies are available this year? Look here – though you might not find all those cookies at all booths.

(WSB photos by Torin Record-Sand)

Earlier this week, while monitoring SFD radio calls, we heard the dispatcher make a short announcement about a firefighter’s impending retirement, with well-wishes for the firefighter, Patrick Dunn, described as most recently serving on Ladder 13, the fire truck based at Station 37 in Sunrise Heights. This morning, Dunn, family, colleagues, and friends gathered at Easy Street Records for a breakfast celebration; we stopped in toward the end for photos:

Dunn tells us he’s been with SFD for 29 1/2 years, and spent time at Belltown’s Station 2 and the U-District’s Station 17 as well as West Seattle’s Station 37. What’s next? “Getting healthy,” plus a trip to Europe to see his daughter, who’s studying abroad, and then will “launch my next chapter.” He told us his favorite memory is “the caliber of people I’ve worked with.”

Listings for Julie Garbutt‘s weekly free “Walking for Well-Being” walks in Lincoln Park are fixtures on the WSB West Seattle Event Calendar. But she’s just adjusted the meetup location, so we’re calling attention to it here on the main page too:

Walking for Well-Being, Wednesdays @ Meet at 47th/SW Fontanelle

Walking for Well-Being — Move together in nature, Wednesdays/Saturdays @ Lincoln Park 10:00 AM

Join Walking for Well-Being for Movement & Community! Walk together with fellow West Seattleites in and around Lincoln Park –Rain or Shine.

This free weekly walk is organized by Julie Garbutt of Waypower Coaching and takes place at a conversational pace covering 2.5 miles in an hour. All fitness levels are welcome.

Meet us at the corner of 47th Ave SW & SW Fontanelle (near the 76 Gas station). We leave promptly at the listed start times, so please plan to arrive early.The start is next to the black mailbox at the north Lincoln Park Service Entrance at the intersection of 47th Avenue SW and SW Fontanelle Street and features plentiful street parking.

Got something for our calendar? westseattleblog@gmail.com – thank you!

It’s already Saturday in Paris, where Bakery Nouveau owner William Leaman has just 3 days left before his second Coupe du Monde de Boulangerie competition, this time as a coach.

We first told you in October about Leaman’s return to the competition two decades after winning it as a member of Team USA in 2005. Since agreeing to coach last year, he’s been traveling regularly to practice with the 3 bakers selected from around the U.S for the competition. The team made it past the preliminary round last October in Las Vegas, and has been focused on the finals ever since.

(photos by William Leaman)
Leaman shared a photo of a recent practice day, showing the breads, pastries, savory “snacks,” and an artistic piece that depicts “the great inventions of your country” that each team must produce in a single day. They’re up against nine other teams from around the world. The competition is held every 2-3 years.

“We are done with practice and made our adjustments to the French flour; honestly, we feel pretty good!” said Leaman.

Next they will search Paris’ higher-end markets for finishing touches. “We have 2 more days to select the best possible ingredients we can find to garnish our products.”

Leaman says they’re staying across the street from Porte De Versailles, the exhibition hall where the competition is held, making it a hassle-free commute when it’s showtime very early in the morning on January 20th. Team USA will bake alongside Brazil, France, Japan, and Senegal. The following day, it will be Canada, Chinese Taipei, Denmark, Morocco, and South Korea, with judges announcing winners on January 22nd.