After completing her fourth, four-year term on the Keystone Ferry Advisory Committee, member Julia Hodson she decided to step down from the three-member volunteer board.
The Board of Island County Commissioners named Ian Jefferds as her replacement.
Three public meetings are scheduled next week to gain comments on proposals to possibly move, improve or replace the Mukilteo ferry terminal.
Chautauqua assemblies were popular in America until the mid-1920s. They were community gatherings for music, education and preaching. Former president Theodore Roosevelt said that a Chautauqua is “the most American thing in America.”
On the other hand, novelist Sinclair Lewis deemed Chautauquas “nothing but wind and chaff and…the laughter of yokels.”
Coupeville High School’s annual Chautauqua was held Wednesday night. It’s difficult to say whether the show was closer to Roosevelt’s or Lewis’ definition on the Chautauqua spectrum, but one thing is for certain: The crowd was definitely entertained.
In 1900, Clover Valley Elementary School consisted of a two-room, white wooden schoolhouse. In 1952, it moved into an 18-room facility that cost $525,000 to build. In 2007, the elementary school closed and served as a home for displaced Oak Harbor freshmen and sophomores for two years during the high school modernization project.
Now, the old Clover Valley building has become the official host for HomeConnection and the Hand-In-Hand Early Learning Center, which includes Oak Harbor’s Developmental and Head Start preschool classes.
Dr. Robert Bishop left his full-time veterinary practice 16 years ago when he was elected Island County coroner, and that’s a job he hopes voters will let him retain in the Nov. 2 election.
Bishop keeps his DVM credentials up-to-date and fills in for a veterinary friend on the island, but his true avocation is Island County coroner.
Winning nine of 10 events, the Oak Harbor swim and dive team spanked Everett 121-33 at the Forest Park Pool Tuesday, Oct. 5.
A report released this week by the Washington State Auditor’s Office is critical of the Island County Assessor’s Office for a lack of adequate controls and procedures, leading to inaccurate tax bills being sent to citizens.
A once-popular event promoting Whidbey Island businesses will return this weekend after an absence of one year.
In a sign of an improving economy, the Island County Biz Expo will welcome visitors Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 9 and 10. Now in its 18th year, the trade fair features approximately 90 businesses from across Whidbey Island. It takes place inside both gymnasiums at Coupeville Middle and High School.
I read a poem by Amy Witt supporting Mary Engle for Island County Assessor. Please consider mine.
Apparently Whidbey Island residents keep a lot of unwanted pills in their medicine cabinets. Island County Sheriff Mark Brown reported that the drug “Take-Back Day” was an unimpaired success.
Whidbey Island library customers will be able to check out electricity monitors for one week at a time at the Freeland and Coupeville Sno-Isle branches starting this week.
Puget Sound Energy is providing the devices on loan as part of a year-long energy-efficiency pilot program.
The Oak Harbor Public Works department has come out with its 2011-2012 budget wish list, and among the many capital projects proposed are plans for a $1.2 million upgrade of the RV park and the construction of a $250,000 kids’ “splash park.”
The Island County commissioners’ first official meeting on a deep-cutting budget that will result in the loss of 30 positions and the elimination of a number of programs was surprisingly amicable.