s seeing the world as it should be and not as it is madness? Through the dark musical “Man of La Mancha,” Whidbey Playhouse actors explore the bounds of sanity as they portray Don Quixote’s imaginative adventures as told by Miguel de Cervantes in prison as he waits to face the Inquisition.
This is the event that lets everyone who has survived cancer, is fighting cancer, caring for those fighting cancer and all who are affected unite to show that this disease can’t beat hope.
The Relay for Life of Whidbey Island will be held Friday, June 1 and Saturday, June 2 at the North Whidbey Middle School track. The Survivor Lap begins at 6 p.m. Friday, June 1 with guest speakers.
Despite moving across the nation mid school year and being a full-time mom, Jerri Sanchez, 41, earned her bachelor’s degree in elementary education without changing universities.
Sanchez is a stay-at-home mother of four children. Her husband is in the military. When her children reached school age, Sanchez took advantage of their time at school to go to college online through Western Governors University.
Hillcrest Elementary School students know how to get their hands dirty. With the help of Oak Harbor Garden Club members, they transformed a weedy section between buildings into a colorful array of flowers, herbs, trees and even a butterfly garden.
Patty VanDyke’s first-grade class is one of the participating first and second grade classes. Every Wednesday, garden club members, including the woman who started it all, Helene Valdez, club president, come to the school to help more than 50 students weed, plant and learn about gardening.
Competitive dancing isn’t reserved for youth, as Linda Kaser is proud to show. The 59-year-old scooped up an abundance of awards at recent competitions in New Orleans and Portland, Ore.
From bright yellow buttercups to star-shaped, purple camas, the prairie at the Pacific Rim Institute south of Coupeville has an ecosystem unique to the area, making it well worth the time-consuming efforts to restore it with native wildflowers and grasses.
During a rare time that the prairie was open to the public, Robert Pelant, CEO of the Pacific Rim Institute, and Dr. Joseph Sheldon, vice chair of the PRI Board of Trustees, offered tours to the community.
Thursday morning, nearly 50 students from Evergreen State College, plus community members, attended a tour to view the restoration work.
Poetry doesn’t have to be a seemingly never-ending series of rhyming verses that require college-level courses for comprehension. Instead, poets like Sam Green seek to use poetry to enhance literacy in students and give them something to relate to.
Crafters Co-op isn’t your average crafting store. Instead of rows of acrylic fabrics and synthetic crafts, the new shop on Pioneer Way offers a breath of fresh air with natural fibers, rugs made from recycled T-shirts, vintage buttons and fabrics and a homey studio with everything needed to make hundreds of unique crafts.
The Oak Harbor School Board unanimously approved asking voters to support a levy to collect $7.35 million at a meeting Monday evening. This proposal will be presented to voters in February 2013.
As the board members supported the larger of two levy rates they discussed at the meeting, the audience gave them a standing ovation.
“Smoke & Dust” isn’t just Perry Woodfin’s new book of poetry. It’s a gathering of words and images mirroring the beauty of Puget Sound and Whidbey Island; a series of memories wrapped in adjectives and the verbs that sum up Woodfin’s life in the Pacific Northwest.
Woodfin, 70, has lived in Oak Harbor for more than 20 years and has been writing poetry since he was a teenager. One of his poems, “Swan Song,” was published in the Whidbey News-Times a few years ago in response to the building of Walmart in Oak Harbor, and another of the poems in his book, “We Gather Here Today,” was inspired by the police reports published in the News-Times.
Hillcrest Elementary School will receive new rubber tile flooring in the halls, classrooms and office to replace the current dirty, aging carpet. Installation will take place after the school year ends in June.
The flooring is a new product that Oak Harbor schools haven’t used before, but is popular in hospitals because it’s easy to clean, long-lasting and reduces noise, according to Superintendent Rick Schulte.
It’s grand and it’s glitzy, like Broadway come to Oak Harbor. There will be dancing, laughter and favorites from Disney movies and popular musicals, and it’s all put on by Oak Harbor High School students in the choir program’s full-blown musical revue, “Puttin’ on the Ritz.”
While the Oak Harbor School Board members choose a final levy amount to propose to voters in February 2013 as they had planned, they did hear requests to use levy funding to add back the 30 minutes that was cut from middle school days this school year, an issue previously left unvoiced among the many speakers asking for special education, nurse and library positions and other topics during the recent series of levy discussions.
The board had hoped to make a decision on the levy at the April 30 meeting but after a discussion that lasted until 9 p.m., when the board moved to lengthen the meeting further, board members decided they’d need more information before making a decision.
