bravo February Comedy at the Ave | February 22, 7:30 pm | $17/$15, Auburn Ave. Theater Ave Kids: Skippyjon Jones | March 9, 2 pm | $6, Auburn Ave. Theater Michael Tomlinson | March 9, 7:30 pm | $17/$15, Auburn Ave. Theater Tickets: www.auburnwa.gov/arts | 253-931-3043 735064 INSIDE | Mayor cites progress in his State of the City address [3] R EP O RTER .com FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2013 NEWSLINE 253-833-0218 AUBURN ˜ Sports | Trojans soar into state regional playoffs [12] Northwest Brewing Company’s Chief Executive Officer Greg Steed, left, and its Chief Operating Officer, Dan Anthony, hope the nearly half-century of beer marketing experience between them pushes sales of the Pacific-based brewery’s beers through the roof. SHAWN SKAGER, Auburn Reporter B REW CREW TAPS MARKET, THINKS BIG Auburn woman and classmates hope to serve village in Dominican Republic BY ROBERT WHALE [email protected]With the violent, protracted war in South Sudan snapping at her back, 11-year-old Nyareu ong fled with her family to the United States. Ultimately the family of seven sank its new roots into Auburn. at’s where Nyareu started middle school and took her first painful steps learning a new language. A childhood spent without the most basic necessities in a homeland where families had to relocate every month just to stay alive and where attend- ing school was impossible, has given the 2008 Auburn High School graduate insight and compassion for others. Her later experience as a refugee grappling with a strange language inspired her to be- come a teacher. One of Courtney Johnson’s formative lessons in compassion was the help she got as SPU’s Courtney Johnson, left, Nyareu Thong, middle, and Haley Miller are planning a trip of a lifetime. COURTESY PHOTO [ more OUTREACH page 2 ] BY ROBERT WHALE [email protected]Commissioners from the ports of Tacoma and Seattle, business owners, labor leaders, and the mayors of Auburn and Kent met at Auburn City Hall last ursday to talk about the problems posed by aging freight routes within Green River valley cities. From more than an hour’s worth of give and take emerged something politicians and leaders rarely reach these days – consensus. Consensus, that is, that most of the freight routes along which goods flow from valley warehouses to the two ports – especially to Ta- coma – are falling apart or on the cusp of falling apart, while federal and state governments that once helped cities pay for construction and maintenance plead poverty. Agreement also that if money can’t be found for repair and main- tenance, the fallout would cripple the local economy, hand much of the Port of Tacoma’s business to aggressive rival ports on the Gulf and East coasts, and possibly reduce the Port of Tacoma to “a backwater” among ports. “e reality is if our freight doesn’t move, and if we don’t remain in a competitive position, we’re going to lose,” said Port of Tacoma Commissioner Don Meyer. BY SHAWN SKAGER [email protected]If you haven’t yet heard of Pacific-based Northwest Brew- ing Company, your days of ignorance are numbered. Originally founded as Trade Route in 2008, the craſt beer maker, which recently celebrat- ed the one-year anniversary of its switch to Northwest Brewing, is poised to make a splash City, port officials fret over crumbling freight routes [ more ROUTES page 4 ] Cavanaugh block sold to developer BY ROBERT WHALE [email protected]Ever since the Cavanaugh family’s plans to redevelop its block on East Main Street fell apart under the fina- glings of its business partner, the vacant gravel lot that debacle leſt behind has been an ugly gap in Auburn’s downtown. But during his annual State of the City address at Emerald Downs on Tuesday, Mayor Pete Lewis surprised the crowd of business and civic leaders with the announcement that Wells Fargo Bank had sold the former Cavanaugh family-owned block to Landmark Development of Tacoma. e value of the sale, which closes March 11, has not been released. [ more BLOCK page 3 ] [ more BREWERY page 3 ] Auburn 2013 Residents’ Guide REPO RTER .com AUBURN INSIDE Residents’ Guide Looking to extend a helping hand
Transcript
bravoFebruary Comedy at the Ave | February 22, 7:30 pm | $17/$15, Auburn Ave. Theater
Ave Kids: Skippyjon Jones | March 9, 2 pm | $6, Auburn Ave. Theater
Michael Tomlinson | March 9, 7:30 pm | $17/$15, Auburn Ave. Theater Tickets: www.auburnwa.gov/arts | 253-931-3043735064
INSIDE | Mayor cites progress in his State of the City address [3]
REPORTER .com
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2013
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18A U B U R N˜ Sports | Trojans soar into state regional playoffs [12]
Northwest Brewing Company’s Chief Executive O� cer Greg Steed, left, and its Chief Operating O� cer, Dan Anthony, hope the nearly half-century of beer marketing experience between them pushes sales of the Paci� c-based brewery’s beers through the roof. SHAWN SKAGER, Auburn Reporter
BREW CREW TAPS
MARKET, THINKS BIG
Auburn woman and classmates hope to serve village in Dominican RepublicBY ROBERT WHALE
Commissioners from the ports of Tacoma and Seattle, business owners, labor leaders, and the mayors of Auburn and Kent met at Auburn City Hall last � ursday to
talk about the problems posed by aging freight routes within Green River valley cities.
From more than an hour’s worth of give and take emerged something politicians and leaders rarely reach these days – consensus.
Consensus, that is, that most
of the freight routes along which goods � ow from valley warehouses to the two ports – especially to Ta-coma – are falling apart or on the cusp of falling apart, while federal and state governments that once helped cities pay for construction and maintenance plead poverty.
Agreement also that if money can’t be found for repair and main-tenance, the fallout would cripple the local economy, hand much of the Port of Tacoma’s business to aggressive rival ports on the Gulf and East coasts, and possibly reduce the Port of Tacoma to “a backwater”
among ports.“� e reality is if our freight
doesn’t move, and if we don’t remain in a competitive position, we’re going to lose,” said Port of Tacoma Commissioner Don Meyer.
If you haven’t yet heard of Paci� c-based Northwest Brew-ing Company, your days of ignorance are numbered.
Originally founded as Trade Route in 2008, the cra� beer maker, which recently celebrat-ed the one-year anniversary of its switch to Northwest Brewing, is poised to make a splash
City, port officials fret over crumbling freight routes
Ever since the Cavanaugh family’s plans to redevelop its block on East Main Street fell apart under the � na-glings of its business partner, the vacant gravel lot that debacle le� behind has been an ugly gap in Auburn’s downtown.
But during his annual State of the City address at Emerald Downs on Tuesday, Mayor Pete Lewis surprised the crowd of business and civic leaders with the announcement that Wells Fargo Bank had sold the former Cavanaugh family-owned block to Landmark Development of Tacoma.
� e value of the sale, which closes March 11, has not been released.
[ more BLOCK page 3 ][ more BREWERY page 3 ]
Auburn2013Residents’Guide
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Looking to extend a helping hand
www.auburn-reporter.com [3]February 22, 2013
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SOUND TRANSIT SEEKS VOLUNTEERS
FOR OVERSIGHT PANELSound Transit is seeking
South King County volunteers for its Citizen Oversight
Panel. The 15-member group independently monitors
Sound Transit to make sure it meets its commitments
to build and operate a regional bus, light rail and
commuter rail transit system. Those interested must be
registered voters within the Sound Transit District and
reside and/or work in South King County. They should have skills in one or more
areas related to the panel’s responsibilities: business
and � nance management; engineering; large projects construction management;
public facilities and services; government processes; and public policy development
or review. More information is available via email at
401 S. Jackson St., Seattle, WA 98104. A completed application and resume
must be sent to Pat McCarthy, Sound Transit Board Chair, 401 South Jackson Street,
Seattle, WA 98104-2826 by Friday.
Landmark was unavail-able for comment Wednes-day morning,
But according to the City, the developer’s plans call for a six-story building, a mixture of retail on the base facing West Main Street and � ve � oors of apartments above that can be set up for condominiums.
Its plans reportedly in-clude covering the parking garage on the south side of the lot the garage is the only part of the defunct Cavanaugh project ever completed.
Of keen interest to merchants in Auburn’s moribund downtown, the building upon comple-tion is expected to put an estimated 400 more people in the downtown, day and night.
“It’s part of the redevel-opment we’ve been looking for,” Lewis said.
According to its website, the Landmark Group “de-velops multi-family housing and mixed-use commercial projects through public and private partnerships, from adaptive reuse of histori-cally signi� cant structures to new construction.”
� e mayor tied the announcement into Spencer Alpert’s plans for his sprawling Auburn Junction project between the Sound Transit Station, Main Street and A Street Southeast, just to the west of the old Cavanaugh block.
Alpert’s conceptual plan shows a green, mixed-use, urban village with underground parking and walkways, an “upscale commercial and residen-tial dominated project,” featuring ground-� oor re-tail and restaurant facilities incorporating open space.
“� ere are people work-ing all of the remaining catalyst blocks, today, and it looks like we’re going to be in a position of choosing, which is a great place to be a� er all these years,” Lewis said
Before learning of its partner Ben Errez’ � -nancial wrongdoing, the Cavanaugh family leveled the block to make room for its project. A� er years of suits and counter suits, the Cavanaugh family lost the property.
[ BLOCK from page 1 ]
in the competitive cra� brewing market, in the state and beyond.
A year ago Greg Steed and Dan Anthony took over the struggling Trade Route.
“� is brewery was bro-ken, it was a mess,” Steed said. “� ey weren’t selling very much beer. � e beer wasn’t real well received.”
� e men immediately got to work, using their almost half-century of experience as beverage marketing and sales guys to build a solid foundation for the brew-ery’s future.
“Dan and I are interest-ing,” Steed said. “I ran the Seattle Anheuser-Busch wholesaler for the last 13 years, and I was with them for 25 years in the whole-sale beer, wine and spirits business. And Dan worked
with Miller. So we’re kind of like Coke and Pepsi.”
With Steed and An-thony holding down the business end, the duo hired head brewer Greg Fleehart and bought his former brewery, � ree Skulls. � ey surrounded Fleehart with a strong core of local brewers to help guide the development of the brand’s beers and ales.
“Our expertise is the marketing and sales,” Steed said. “Neither Dan nor I are brewers. We understand the brewing process well, but we’re really sales and marketing guys. � e other guys around here, they just love beer.”
Today Northwest Brew-ing is riding high on the success of its � agship brew Hoppy Bitch.
“It’s the one that has taken o� ,” Steed said.
� e brewery is waiting
on approval from the Fed-eral government to begin producing 16 ounce cans of Hoppy Bitch, in addition to the bottles and kegs it already produces.
Northwest is also prepar-ing for the roll out of a new beer, Local Ink.
“We’re going to have local tattoo artists from each city we put that beer into do the background art for that label,” Steed said. “We’ll drop the logo over the top of that art and put the city name on it.”
Steed said his brewery boasts a strong presence in Washington and Oregon and will launch in Idaho, Colorado and Alaska in the upcoming months.
“We’re trying to sell beer,” Steed said. “We make a very good product, and our expertise is how to get it to the consumer. We’ve got some pretty edgy stu� . Our
vision statement is making cra� beer bold, fun and sexy.”
In addition to its beers, Northwest Brewing oper-ates a tap room at the brewery at 1091 Valentine Ave. SE, Paci� c.
“It’s a great little local gathering place,” Steed said. “It’s a local watering hole with live music every Saturday. It’s a funky little spot, it’s fun.”
Right now, Northwest Brewing produces about
5,800 to 6,000 barrels a day.Steed hopes eventually to
quadruple that output.“We’re ambitious, we want
this to be a 25,000 barrel brewery, which would put us in the top 10 in Washing-ton state,” Steed said.
Northwest Brewing Company launches its Local Ink brew at the tap room on March 1.
For more information, visit www.northwestbrew-ingcompany.com.
Against a backdrop of good news all too rare in this tough economic climate, Auburn Mayor Pete Lewis gave his � nal State of the City ad-dress Tuesday a� ernoon at Emerald Downs before an audience of local business and civic leaders.
He started out ticking o� notable successes in the business sector.
In 2012, Lewis said, a number of new businesses, with more than 1,200 jobs in tow, opened or set down roots in Auburn. Among the notable new businesses, expansions, and here-but-yet-to-opens: Coastal Farm and Ranch, which opened in the old Walmart store next to the SuperMall a� er spending $20 million to � x up the building; � e owners of the Outlet Collec-tion Seattle, a.k.a. � e SuperMall – announced they would invest $35 million in renovations and thereby add 1,000 new jobs overall to Auburn; the regional Hospital Cooperative Services Administra-tion broke ground in August on a
$26 million new laundry facility that by next sum-mer will bring 185 living wage jobs to Auburn; and Boeing launched 74 projects in 2012 with a cumulative construction valua-
tion of about $31 million.Among other businesses that
opened in 2012: Eagle Leather, Turning Point Studios, North America Pipe and Steels and AIM Aerospace
Next week the Auburn School District breaks ground on the $110 million dollar Auburn High con-struction and renovation project, � nanced by a bond approved by district voters last November.
Giving all that growth a push, Lewis said, was the new Mayor’s Task Force, a panel made up of more than 20 local business leaders who came together to create and guide the activities of Auburn’s Ur-ban Center for Innovative Partner-ship, or IPZ. As the state’s 15th IPZ,
Auburn’s is the only city-based one that the State of Washington has certi� ed so far.
� e Sister Cities program reg-istered a success in 2012 when it established relations with the Korean Chamber of Commerce and other business partners, leading the Seattle Food Company to buy up 165,000 square feet of space with the goal of relocating to Auburn.
� e City also developed and pub-lished a comprehensive list of local-state-federal business incentives for on-going business attraction and for speci� c marketing of Auburn as “the place to conduct business,” Lewis said.
Turning to the human services sector, Lewis said the city lent help in 2012 to redevelop a blighted downtown apartment complex - � e Pines – shaping it into new market-a� ordable units. While Auburn has more a� ordable hous-ing than most cities in the region, Lewis said, it is time to upgrade its existing housing stock.
A� er taking stock of the number of abandoned homes and weed
wild properties proliferating in the city, Lewis continued, the Auburn City Council approved ordinances to speed up the code enforcement process and to allow the City to place liens on properties and stop transfers until the owners clean up their scru� y holdings. Today on the City’s website, Auburn’s Wall of Shame allows residents to post a picture of each unshaven property, its address, the mortgage holder and his or her contact information so people and potential buyers can call and remind them about their obligations.
As far as transportation, the City in 2012 opened the new A-B Street corridor to provide a new north-south route from the Transit Center to Auburn’s northern limits at South 277th Street. Last year the city brought home 26 grants worth $16.4 million, Lewis said.
In 2012 the City used some of its grant money from the State of Washington to buy a small lake on the West Hill, which will soon be the center of a new park.
Lewis sees progress as city continues to change
Lewis
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INSIDE | Owners look to close deals on liquor stores [3]
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FRIDAY, MAY 11, 2012A DIVISION OF SOUND PUBLISHING
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18A U B U R N˜ Inside | Ashley Perkovich enjoys quick rise to the top in world-class weightlifting [14]
Downtown makes way for Art Walk & Wine TastingSTAFF REPORTS
Auburn’s robust arts community is putting itself on display Friday and Satur-day with the second annual spring down-town Art Walk & Wine Tasting event.
� e two-day free event features more than 25 local artists displaying their artwork in businesses throughout the
downtown core. Both days will be full of art, music and
performances as well as wine tasting with local wineries.
Wine tastings coordinated by Auburn Wine and Caviar will be o� ered at 12 locations. Wine punch cards purchased the day-of event will be $20 for � ve tastes and available at Zola’s Café, Station Bis-tro, Rottles, � e Auburn Downtown As-sociation and Auburn Wine and Caviar. [ more WALK page 6 ]
Strength takes many forms.It’s the muscular, brute force
of the athlete competing in the arena.
It’s the sturdiness of hard-ened steel as it weathers stress, time and the elements.
And it’s the grit and deter-mination of 49-year-old Molly Serna, battling to make the most of every day as she � ghts cancer.
In October of 2009, Serna, an English teacher at Auburn Mountainview High School, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
“It was just a complete shock,” said Serna, who previ-ously taught at Auburn High School. “I was totally sur-prised. It’s one of those types of cancer that the symptoms are not real noticeable.”
For Serna, the � rst inkling that something was wrong came in the form of frequent trips to the bathroom, one of the few noticeable symptoms of ovarian cancer. A trip to the doctor con� rmed the worst – stage 3 ovarian cancer.
“Sure enough, that’s what it
was. I had two large tumors,” Serna said. “It’s one of those things that you think will al-ways happen to someone else and not you. I was completely shocked.
“� is is so strange, but my doctor was so upset when she
AUBURN RELAY FOR LIFE
[ more SERNA page 5 ]
Molly Serna is making the most of each day as she battles ovarian cancer. SHAWN SKAGER, Auburn Reporter
A look from above shows the Green River and the Reddington levee in proximity to the River Mobile Estates in northeast Auburn. The levee is worn, but King County expects to start later this year on the $12 million project to replace it. COURTESY PHOTO, Ned Ahrens, King County
County to replace levee$12M project will increase � ood protection, displace 16 residentsBY ROBERT WHALE
River Mobile Estates residents know a thing or two about the shortcomings of the Reddington levee on the Green River north of Brannan Park in northeast Auburn.
And lest they forget, all that water that sometimes sloshes through the park on fall and winter days will be there to remind them.
King County o� cials say that the levee east of the mobile park, built more than 50 years ago for the sake of � ood protection to surrounding agricultural lands and prone to seepage, is not up to today’s design and construc-tion standards.
“� e Reddington levee con-
tains the 100-year-� ood event in that channel as it is right now, but that’s about all it does,” said Steve Bleifuhs, manager of the River and Floodplain Manage-ment Section of King County. “In terms of its construction, we know it’s not adequate.”
Part of the problem is that the builders put the levee on the river side of a former channel, which is a wetland today.
Given the grim assurance that no ongo-ing source of money from the federal, state or county level will be available in the foreseeable future to help cities maintain freight corridors on the valley � oor, hard adjustments could be in the wind.
Some of them with deep, lasting implications for Auburn and other cities – Fife, Puyallup, Sumner, Pa-ci� c, Algona, Kent, Renton and Tukwila – members of the Valley Cities As-sociation, an organization representing their com-mon interests.
Auburn Mayor Pete Lewis told the City Council on Monday that Valley Cities
Lewis
[ more CORRIDORS page 4 ]
Auburn, cities seekingways to support corridors
www.auburn-reporter.com [5]May 11, 2012
told me,” Serna said. “I didn’t get it at � rst. I was so upset for her. I didn’t get what she was trying to tell me. I was so upset I jumped up to try to console her, then I realized what she was trying to tell me.”
A� er a hysterectomy, which also removed the tumors, and a round of chemotherapy, Serna’s can-cer went into remission for 19 months. “� at’s pretty good for ovarian cancer,” she said.
Last November, however, it came back.
“I had to do radiation be-cause I had a large tumor in my neck that was interfer-ing with some things,” she said, “so they had to get rid of that right away.”
� e radiation therapy, combined with her current round of chemotherapy, forced her to take the year o� from teaching.
“� e school has been great. � ey’re so support-ive,” Serna said. “A lot of the teachers donated sick days so I could get through the year. � at was really nice. And then they’ve had sev-eral di� erent fundraisers. I have people keeping in touch with me all the time.
“� e whole school is re-ally just a warm community and very supportive of each other, the students and the sta� . I really miss not going in there every day.”
Serna said she will continue with her chemo-therapy treatment until July. A� er that, she will determine whether she can return to teaching.
“Hopefully, a� er that, if I’m in remission, I would like to go back to teaching,” Serna said. “I don’t know if I’ll go back full-time or part-time (teaching), but I want to. My son (Tony) is going to be a senior (at Au-burn Mountainview), and I just miss teaching. I miss the sense of community at the school.”
Although realistic about her � ght, Serna remains con� dent in her ability to beat, or at least live with, the disease.
“It’s pretty serious. It’s the deadliest gynecological cancer,” Serna said. “But my doctors are hopeful with my prognosis because I’m pretty young. Mostly older women, in their 60s and
70s get it. � e doctors feel that’s a good thing on my side. � ere are some pretty amazing stories of people who have lived a really long time with it.”
Serna plans on doing a little living this summer, including a trip to San Francisco with Tony and her husband, David, to visit her oldest son, Danny, a Yale student interning in the Bay Area.
“We’re also going to some baseball tournaments and some college scouting trips to California and the East Coast,” she added.
Serna is determined not to let her plight become the only thing in her life.
“� e realization that I’m not going to live forever and that I have to deal with this illness all the time gives me a greater apprecia-tion for just the everyday things,” Serna said. “In that sense, it’s kind of positive. I just try to work hard and keep living and not make my life all about cancer. I just try to keep doing things and living a full life that’s not just about the illness.”
“I value friendships more, just seeing people,” she added. “Mostly, I value relationships more. Even a sunny day like this, I can’t take it for granted. I just enjoy it more. And with all the days that I’m sick, I really enjoy the days when I’m well and I’m up doing something.”
Auburn Relay for Life
More than 600 people on 56 teams are expected to walk in the American Cancer Society Relay for Life at Auburn Memorial Stadium, beginning at 6 p.m. Friday.
� e ceremonial Sur-vivor Lap is 6:30 p.m., the luminary cer-emony follows at 10. � e closing ceremony is noon Saturday.
Participants walk to raise money for the American Cancer Society. � e Auburn Relay for Life has raised more than $68,000 so far.
To learn more, visit www.relayforlife.org.
[ SERNA from page 1 ]
FRIENDS AND FAMILY OF AN AUBURN MAN plan to hold a fundraiser to help him battle cancer.
The fundraiser for Eddie Maughn, a 1979 Auburn High School graduate, runs from 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. May 20 at Sparks Firehouse Deli, 21 5th St. NW, Puyallup.
Orders will be taken from the menu for breakfast, lunch and dinner, with the restaurant donating part of the proceeds to help Maughn.
Scar� Ford earns fourth national award for superior service, customer satisfaction
Auburn’s Scar� Ford is among an elite group of Ford and Lincoln dealerships to be recognized with the 2011 President’s Award by Ford Mo-tor Company.
� e prestigious award honors dealerships that excelled in automo-tive retailing in 2011 by providing exceptional customer service and satisfaction.
Ford honored 313 Ford and Lin-coln dealers across the country for
delivering superior customer satisfaction in sales and service this year.
Only three other Ford dealers in Washington state received the award. It’s Scar� Ford of Au-burn’s fourth time.
“We thank our customers, who are the reason we received this honor,” said Way Scar� , owner of Scar� Ford. “Our entire sta� works tirelessly each day to provide out-standing service, so it’s great to be recognized for that.”
� e President’s Award was es-
tablished in 1998. Dealers become eligible through survey responses from customers related to their sales and service satisfaction.
“� e pursuit of excellence is not for the faint of heart. It requires passion, tenacity and hard work,” said Sean Weingarten, Northwest Regional Manager for Ford Motor Company. “In order to achieve the President's Award, dealers must ex-ceed customer expectations every day in every department.
“� e award salutes those top-per-forming Ford and Lincoln dealer-ships that embrace these philoso-phies, achieving among the highest levels of customer satisfaction.”
Al Rossi has clear mem-ories of the 1952 Helsinki Olympics.
“It doesn’t go away,” said the 81-year-old Auburn man. “Here we are 60 years later, and you’re asking me about the Olympics. It lingers.”
And if the memories ever begin to get hazy for Rossi, all he has to do is turn to the pictures and mementos lining the walls of his basement. Especially the frame containing the bronze medal he won as a coxswain on the U.S. four-man rowing team.
EARLY DAYSRossi’s family moved to
Auburn from Michigan when he was in the sixth grade.
“� ere was 5,000 people when I moved here, now there is 80,000,” he said. “I was here when we only had two stoplights.”
He attended Auburn High School, where he was active as a team manager and cheerleader.
“I was too small for
sports,” Rossi said. “At the time I was 5 feet, 2 inches and about 105 pounds.”
A� er graduating in 1949, Rossi enrolled at the University of Washington as a business education major. It’s where he found his role on the Husky row-ing team.
“You have to be small to be coxswain,” he said. “And
I was. “� e main job of a cox-
swain is to steer the boat,” Rossi explained. “You sit back in the stern and you have tiller ropes. You steer every once awhile, just making little corrections to have the straightest line to the � nish. Because every time you have to move that tiller it’s like putting the
brakes on.”In addition to steering,
the coxswain is part moti-vator, part coach.
“You energize them, you tell them where you are in relation to the other crews,” Rossi said. “In the last part of the race you tell them to up the stroke. You’re kind of the main motivator and coach on
the water. You help with technical stu� , like some-body’s oar is in the water a split second later and you tell them ‘bow, you’re late.’”
� en, as now, the Husky rowing teams were national powerhouses, winning several Intercol-legiate Rowing Associa-tion championships under coach Al Ulbrickson.
In 1952, Rossi – then a junior – was a member of the school’s junior varsity team coming into the IRA national championships and Olympic trials. Just a couple of weeks before the event, Rossi said, Coach Ulbrickson was dissatis-� ed with the performance of his varsity four-man, plus coxswain team and shu� ed the deck, putting Rossi in the stern with a mix of varsity and junior varsity rowers.
� e combination of Carl Lovsted, Al Ulbrickson (the coach’s son), Richard Wahlstrom, Matt Leander-son and Rossi proved to be the right recipe.
“We just kind of clicked,” he said.
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RN Olympic memories still linger after 60 years for Al Rossi
VILLWOCK LOOKS TO KEEP POINTS LEAD
AT SEAFAIRH1 Unlimited Hydroplane driver Dave Villwock and the U1 Spirit
of Qatar 96 hydro look to hold o� challengers in the drivers
point standings during this weekend’s Albert Lee Cup race
at Seafair. Racing gets under way at 8 a.m. Friday on
Lake Washington. Villwock � nished � rst in the � rst two
races this season and was third in Tri-Cities last weekend.
Al Rossi stands in front of a display containing his Olympic bronze medal. Rossi – along with teammates Carl Lovsted, Al Ulbrickson, Richard Wahlstrom and Matt Leanderson (all pictured behind him) – was the coxswain for the third-place U.S. team at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. SHAWN SKAGER, Auburn Reporter
[ more ROSSI page 15 ]
Torrence looking for Wally at Northwest Nationals
Steve Torrence lofts his Wally. Torrence will compete in Top Fuel this weekend at Paci� c Raceways. COURTESY PHOTO
Like many professional drivers in the National Hot Rod Association, Steve Torrence, pilot of the Capco Top Fuel dragster, grew up at the drag strip.
Unlike other drivers, however, he’s known trag-edy, which propelled his career forward and brought it to a halt.
An accident that killed a driver led to an incredible run for Torrence in 2005 a� er cancer had sidelined him in 2000.
“� at was probably the biggest victory of all (beat-ing cancer),” Torrence said. “� at was way bigger than any Wally I’ve ever won. It’s been a life changing experi-ence.”
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ONTO THE GAMES�e team captured the
national championship, qualifying for a spot in the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, Finland.
On July 19 Rossi, his crew and the rest of Team USA walked into the Helsinki Olympic Stadium for the opening ceremonies.
“It’s nothing like they do now,” Rossi said. “�ey spent $40 million for opening ceremonies (in London). �ey probably spent a couple thousand bucks (at Helsinki). �ey had a couple speakers who welcomed everybody. But the substance was the same, we were all lined up in a stadium, with our �ags and our uniforms. And then they had an Olympic toast and we went on from there.”
Rossi and his crew quali-�ed for the �nals, where they placed third, �nishing with a time of 7 minutes, 37 seconds.
“We barely missed out on
the silver medal,” Rossi said.Switzerland edged the
U.S. with a 7:36.5 �nish. Czechoslovakia won the gold with a time of 7:33.4.
Rossi said the Olympic experience wasn’t really about the competition.
“Meeting all the other people was the substance. It was about the harmony,” he said. “We keep track of who wins what, of all the gold medals, but that’s not it. It doesn’t matter. What mat-ters is the sportsmanship and integrity and honesty. It’s about sharing together-ness. You get to know your neighbors, whoever they may be.
“It’s really a platform to show the world how we can all get together. It’s just on the �eld of play,” he said. “Nobody wins the Olym-pics. Individuals are just honored for their e�orts.”
RETURNING HOMEA�er the games Rossi
returned to the UW, where he graduated in 1953. He embarked on a career as a
teacher and administrator with the Seattle School Dis-trict. In 1959, he married Sharimae Rossi.
A�er retiring from the school district in 1982, he worked full-time at the Longacres �oroughbred racetrack as the director of programs and printing until 1995.
Now he keeps himself busy puttering around the house, managing his rentals, and in the winter, working for the Pac-12 evaluating basketball o�cials at Husky games.
Sixty years and 15 Olym-
piads later, Rossi said he would jump at the chance to do it all again.
“�en I’d know more about the signi�cance and emotion,” Rossi said. “When you’re 20 years old, you leave Auburn and all of sud-den you’re in the stadium at the Olympics. It isn’t until you wake up when you’re home that you understand what it’s all about.
“It was a wonderful ex-perience … just to be over there and part of that whole scene. You don’t realize how important it is until you’re out of it.”
(�e Wally is a trophy awarded to winners of an NHRA national event.)
Yet having overcome that and the other obstacles it takes to assemble a race team, Torrence has come screaming out of the gate this season. He’s already gone to four �nals, taken two event wins and comes into the 25th annual O’Reilly Auto Parts North-west Nationals at Paci�c Raceways in fourth place in the Top Fuel class.
“We started 2012 just with the hopes of being somewhat competitive,” Torrence said. “I don’t think we could’ve plotted it out any better than that.”
All this a�er racing just three full seasons from his 2006 start in Top Fuel.
His father, Billy, began racing sportsman when Torrence was 6 years old. Before the younger Tor-rence got behind the wheel of a super comp car at the age of 15, he had already raced motorcycles, although he bypassed the more typi-cal entry into drag racing, the Junior Dragster series.
In 2004, Torrence went to Frank Hawley’s driving school to earn his alcohol dragster license,
But in April 2005 tragedy hit.
“Shelly Howard was killed in an accident,” Tor-rence said. “I was called by her husband and crew chief to see if I wanted her seat. I went in and �t in well with the team. We started
racing in June, and I had never driven anything other than what I had gotten my license in.”
Torrence drove in 13 races in the alcohol drag-ster previously driven by Howard. He made it to 11 �nals and won nine of them en route to the NHRA Top Alcohol crown.
“If you don’t believe in God, that season would at least make you believe in miracles,” Torrence said.
In 2006 Torrence got the chance to move into the pro ranks when he drove Dexter Tuttle’s Top Fuel dragster.
“It was a pretty big transi-tion, but not really as great as going from sportsman to alcohol,” Torrence said. “�e quickest and fastest I had ever run in an alcohol car was when I went 5.20 at 227 mph. It’s a pretty drastic jump, to say the least. When these things take o�, you thought you were going
pretty fast in an alcohol car, it keeps going as hard as you le�, if not harder.”
Not a surprise given that a Top Fuel dragster can top out at faster than 300 mph by the time it reaches the �nish line 1,000 feet down track while generating close to 8,000 horsepower. And the long, skinny cars can — when the conditions are right — make it down the drag strip in less than four seconds, thanks to the nitromethane-gasoline fuel mixture used in them and the Funny Cars.
What he’s accomplished this season is amazing, too, given the fact Torrence put his team together in 3 1/2 months.
“We raced the last three races of 2006,” Torrence said. “�at’s when the de-mise of Torco Fuels began. I didn’t race in 2007, sporadi-cally in 2008. I raced the full season in 2010. Capco was still on the car, Capco
is our family business. Last year we started the season and about halfway through we decided to start our own family Top Fuel team. We ran the last few races of last year just to get our feet wet.”
With crew chief Richard Hogan on board, Torrence has put together quite a run so far, and he hopes to keep it going.
“It maintains a level of professionalism and the expectations of what we’re trying to achieve over here,” he said. “We haven’t really changed our goals, we’ve just reached them a lot sooner than we expected. Now we’re at a point where we try to maintain consis-tency and solidify ourselves as a championship contend-ing team.”
Heading into the Northwest Nationals, the �nal stop on the three-race Western Swing, Torrence said he is con�dent that Hogan can tune the car for whatever the weather conditions are, be they 100-degree temperatures or 75 and cloudy.
“I feel like right now we’re in a pretty safe position — knock on wood — and un-less something catastrophic happens, we’ll still be in fourth (a�er the swing),” Torrence said. “We have some opportunities to gain some ground and move into third. We’re capable of running in these conditions as well as 100-degree condi-tions. As for me, I just keep doing my job, practice on the tree and continue to be the machine and �awless.”
[ ROSSI from page 14]
[ NHRA from page 14]
Steve Torrence and the Capco Top Fuel dragster launch o� the starting line. Torrence races at this weekends O’Reilly Auto Parts Northwest Nationals at Paci�c Raceways. COURTESY PHOTO
bravoComedy at the Ave| March 16, 7:30 pm | $17/$15, Auburn Ave. Theater
The Gothard Sisters | March 17, 2 pm | $17/$15, Auburn Ave. Theater
Rainbow Dance Theater | March 23, 7:30 pm | $15/$13, Performing Arts CenterTickets: www.auburnwa.gov/arts | 253-931-3043 739728
INSIDE | Yolanda Trout to run for City Council [3]
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18A U B U R N˜ Sports | Mangrum, Swartz grab Pac-12 wrestling titles, preparefor NCAAs. [10]
The prize: After successfully completing 12 grueling weeks of basic training, recruits receive the Eagle, Globe and Anchor, emblematic of everything that the Marine Corps represents. SHAWN SKAGER, Auburn Reporter
Surviving The CrucibleRecruit from Auburn survives rigors of basic training, earning the right to be called a MarineBY SHAWN SKAGER
� ey call it � e Crucible.For a Marine Corps recruit, it is the
� nal test, the last chance to prove he has the physical and mental toughness to become a United States Marine.
For 54 hours, some 200 recruits have been in � e Crucible. Operating on just four hours of sleep a night and three
meals, they have marched more than 40 miles to confront physi-cal and mental tasks conceived to simulate the rigors of combat.
At issue – whether the recruit has absorbed the ex-tensive training he has received in the past 11 weeks.
“� is is it, this is everything they have learned, and they are tested on it,” said Col. Robert W. Gates, Chief of Sta� for Marine Corps Recruit Training San Diego. “It all goes toward determining if the recruit has the mental toughness to become a Marine.”
For 18-year-old Auburn Riverside graduate David Gubarik, it’s almost over.
[ more MARINES page 8 ]
Our reporter, Shawn Skager, spent a week following the U.S. Marine Corps during recruit basic training in San Diego. He features David Gubarik, a recruit from Auburn.
MARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMARINEMaking Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making Making aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
A spokesman for the state Department of Ecology recently told the Auburn Reporter that the toxic plume of tri-chloroeth-ylene that had slipped under-ground and escaped Boeing property years ago appears to pose minimum risk to nearby Algona – at this time.
But to Algona’s lead-ers and to the residents who may lie in the path of the plume of this known carcino-gen – Boeing used the chemical decades ago to degrease its airplane parts – the recent be-havior of the DOE and
� e Boeing Co. o� er cold comfort.
A� er all, it has not es-caped the public’s atten-tion that the DOE and Boeing said at � rst that
the spill wasn’t in Algona – but it turned out to be there.
� at they then said OK, it’s in Algona, but only in the industrial sec-tion – and now technicians are
looking at the residen-tial areas.
Algona Mayor Dave Hill put it this way: state and Boeing, if there’s the minimum danger that you say there is, what’s lit the � re under you to dig all those test wells,
Algona officials want answers in wake of toxic leak
Landmark Develop-ment of Tacoma on Wednesday completed its purchase of the for-mer Cavanaugh-family-owned block.
“We have received con� rmation that Land-mark Development has completed the purchase of the Wells Fargo Block in downtown Auburn today,” Auburn’s Eco-nomic Development
Manager Doug Lien con� rmed in an email to Mayor Pete Lewis. “Developers John McK-enna and Brett Jacobsen have con� rmed that they are into full design work for a mixed-use project and expect to be in construction this year.”
Bret Jacobsen, general manager of Landmark Development and In-vestors Capital Group,
City officials confirm sale of Cavanaugh block
[ more BLOCK page 2 ]
www.auburn-reporter.com[8] March 15, 2013
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In the early hours of a rainy � ursday morning Gubarik begins the � nal test of � e Crucible. He shoulders his 80-pound pack, picks up his 8-pound M16A4 service ri� e and begins a nine-mile hike that culminates in an ascent of � e Reaper, a 700-feet peak. At the top waits the ultimate prize – the Marine Corps emblem, the Eagle, Globe and Anchor. It is bestowed in a cer-emony that marks the completion of � e Crucible and the � rst time the recruit is o� cially called a Marine.
“When I reached the very top my senior drill instruc-tor told me to control my emotions,” Gubarik said. “I kept a straight face, but in-side I had tears of joy in my heart. It was an incredible feeling, like nothing I’ve ever felt before.”
The journey beginsGubarik’s journey as a
U.S. Marine began when he was a high school junior.
“In high school I had my ups and downs, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life,” Gubarik said.
He was torn between
moving on to college or joining either the Marines or the U.S. Army.
First, however, he had to graduate and turn 18. Although the Marines and the Army allow enlistment at 17, parents or guardians must sign the enlistment papers.
“My parents came from the Ukraine, so my dad was
forced to go into the military because of the USSR (former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics),” Gubarik said. “So he said he wasn’t going to sign and that I had to make that decision on my own.”
A� er weighing his options, Gubarik settled on the Marines.
“I didn’t really like high school because of all the drama, I just didn’t care for it, so I didn’t really want to go to college,” Gubarik said. “I looked into the Army a little bit also, but they don’t have a brotherhood like the Marines do. So I decided to join the Marines. It’s a brotherhood, and it’s going to change me into some-thing better, and I get to serve the United States.”
A� er signing his papers last August, Gubarik had to wait until December to actually board a plane for training.
With fewer than 200,000
marines on active duty with the Corps, the demand for spots in recruit training is high. As a result most young men and women join on a deferred basis. Gubarik used the time to prepare himself physically for training.
“� e recruiters had physical training sessions four times a week,” Gubarik said. “It really helped me improve, and I started eating right and doing the right stu� .”
Welcome to the MarinesIn December, Gubarik’s
plane touched down at Lindbergh Field in San Diego. A white Marine Corps bus awaited him and the other recruits. A� er a 15-minute ride, the bus stopped outside the Recruit Processing Center at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, training ground for male enlistees west of the Mississippi train.
Outside the bus, yellow footprints painted on the concrete courtyard waited for the new recruits, who would soon get their � rst experience with the infa-mous Marine Corps Drill Instructors (DI).
� e yelling begins im-mediately, and the recruits are ushered o� the bus and swarmed by DIs. � ey are informed that they no longer live by civilian
laws but are now governed by military justice. � ey are warned that if they leave the depot without authorization, the punish-ment will be severe. A few hundred yards away, planes at the busy airport take o� , symbols of a freedom the recruits won’t taste for the next 13 weeks.
� e recruits are ush-ered inside the building through silver hatches (the Marine Corps uses Naval terminology because of their association with the U.S. Navy). Inside they divest themselves of the material possessions of their civilian lives. Wallets, cell phones, reading mate-rial and MP3 players all go into bags, to be returned once the recruits � nish training.
� ey receive their � rst set of government-issued clothing and a pair of tennis shoes. Boots come later and must be earned. � ey are quickly ushered into the telephone room where they make a brief, scripted call to their parents or guardians, letting them know that they have arrived safely. � en their heads are shaved and they are ushered through a myriad of medical and psychological exams.
Despite his careful physi-cal preparation, Gubarik said the mental shock and confusion were overwhelm-ing.
“Now that I look back, I thought I was ready but I wasn’t,” he said. “At � rst you’re just ‘yes sir, yes sir’ or ‘no sir, no sir.’”
Recruits are assigned to 40-man platoons, and train-ing begins with instruction in martial arts, physical � t-ness and military protocol, and history. � e platoons march everywhere in for-mation, learning discipline as they go.
According to Gubarik, it wasn’t long before he began to notice the results of his transformation.
“You start adapting and improving yourself and become more disciplined,” he said. “� en there is less yelling, and you become used to the yelling there is. When you get yelled at, you correct yourself and you remember it because you were yelled at. � at way you don’t do it again.”
He continued:“I would say the thing
I overcame the most was just being more disciplined and more courageous, just looking at the obstacles and knowing that you can do that and that there is noth-ing to worry about.”
The end in sightFor Gubarik, it’s almost
over.A� er passing through
� e Crucible success-fully and earning the title of Marine, there is just a week le� .
A� er graduation he will take a 10-day leave and report to the School of In-fantry, where he will learn advanced combat training. Even though his Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) is motor vehicle
operator, every Marine is a ri� eman � rst. A� er 29-days he will head o� to MOS training.
“My � rst choice was intelligence, but there wasn’t any room there,” he said. “But I’m satis� ed with this choice because it’s what the Marine Corps needs. And I want to help out this country rather than just sit back and do nothing.”
When his MOS training is complete, he will be as-signed to a duty station. � e training won’t stop there. While on active duty he will have the opportunity for more training, be allowed to train in a di� erent MOS and have the chance to attend college courses and earn advanced academic degrees.
For Gubarik, however, it’s not about the bene� ts of being in the military; it’s about duty.
“You can’t join the Marines for the wrong reason,” he said. “You’ve got to join for the right reasons. You can’t just join for the bene� ts, because if you do, it’s going to be much harder to get through it and be mentally prepared to just do it. It’s just about doing the right thing that counts. I come from a Christian home, and we say, ‘wher-ever God leads, you that’s where you go.’ You’ve got to go. I feel very satis� ed. I feel like my life is moving for-ward in a better direction.”
[ MARINES from page 1 ]
Gubarik
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18A U B U R N˜ Emerald Downs | Leslie Mawing brings passion to his craft; jockey returns to defend his riding title[Preview, 11-14]
Kailen Bergerren, a � fth-grader at Bonney Lake’s Emerald Hills Elementary School, � lms his classmates, Jonathan Williams, left, and Trinity Wyse, during the Q-13 studio mockup at the Junior Achievement BizTown in Auburn. SHAWN SKAGER, Auburn Reporter
THE BUZZ ABOUT BIZTOWNKids explore, learn as adults in business worldBY SHAWN SKAGER
� e Q13 television studio is an oasis of calm amid the whirl-wind of hubbub in Auburn’s Junior Achievement BizTown.
Behind the camera, Emerald Hills Elementary School � � h-
grader Kailen Bergerren silently cues his classmates, Trinity Wyse and Jonathan Williams, counting down with upheld � ngers.
Five … four … three … two … one … and Bergerren points as they go live, beaming out a newscast to their fellow BizTown participants.
Bergerren, Wyse and Wil-liams aren’t actual Q13 employ-ees, of course. It’s all pretend, although you’d be hard pressed
to guess this, watching these and other BizTown participants go-ing through their assigned tasks.
Since 2004 Junior Achievement has o� ered BizTown, a simulation of the adult business world, giv-ing � � h-graders throughout the region a taste for a day of what it’s like to run a business, balance a budget and manage employees.
“In the � � h-grade program at BizTown, the young people
[ more BIZTOWN page 4 ]
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jay Inslee, right, stopped by Auburn’s Pick-Quick Drive In on Tuesday to chat with Mayor Pete Lewis, left, and Gerard Centioli, company president and CEO of ICON LLC, about the iconic restaurant’s commitment to green technology. After talking to Centioli about ways to encourage businesses to embrace innovation in Pick-Quick’s design, Inslee sat with Lewis to enjoy a burger, milkshake and fries. SHAWN SKAGER, Auburn Reporter
Midway through one of the many speeches marking the opening of the Auburn Environmental Park boardwalk at the north end of Western Avenue last � ursday, some brash, noisemaking so-and-so stole the thunder.
All heads whipped to the bold upstager, just then 25 feet above – a large Canadian goose on its way out of the park, � apping its great wings and announcing its presence in an outburst of profound honks.
“A � y by,” declared a voice from somewhere in the crowd, as laughter rippled along.
Without a word, that feathered denizen of the AEP
explained what the park was all about. But that didn’t stop City o� cials and others from trying.
“It’s an environmental park for generations to come,” Mayor Pete Lewis told the large crowd. “We know that this area is go-ing to continue to � ll up with people. � e opportunities for a natural setting such as this are going to be fewer and fewer as the years go by.
“To have this great park for our children and their children to come, makes such a big dif-ference,” Lewis added.
“It will be used for years, for education, for pleasure. It will de� nitely be used,” said Auburn City Councilwoman Nancy Backus.
City embraces wonders of new environmental park
KCHA begins $10M rehab projectFOR THE REPORTER
A major renovation of Green River Homes − one of the King County Housing Authority’s oldest public housing develop-ments – is under way.
� e $10 million project will transform the worn-out, box-
like structures at the 59-unit public housing complex into a modern, attractive rental hous-ing community.
� ese improvements are intended to complement the work by the City of Auburn is doing at Les Gove Park and on the M Street corridor.
“� is is another great partner-ship with a caring organization[ more PROJECT page 3 ]
A tidy clutch of ceramics teach-ers and students gathered in Green River Community College’s Salish Hall room 170 last week for the annual throwing of clay bowls.
Word from veterans of last
year’s, inaugural bowl-throwing spectacular, among them Auburn’s Gail Spurrell – stick around kiddo, it’s loads of fun.
But wait, what gives? Not a single bowl set a whizzing or spin-ning through the air during the
Bowl time: Potters throwing clay around for major fundraiser
[ more EMPTY BOWLS page 3 ]
www.auburn-reporter.com[4] April 13, 2012
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March 28, 2012 6:30pm
Hilton Garden Inn 1800 NW Gilman Blvd Issaquah, WA 98027
Please RSVP by March 27, 2012
by calling 800-973-0362. Light food and beverages served.
Lily Jung, MD, FAAN
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March 28, 2012 6:30pm
Hilton Garden Inn 1800 NW Gilman Blvd Issaquah, WA 98027
Please RSVP by March 27, 2012
by calling 800-973-0362. Light food and beverages served.
Lily Jung, MD, FAAN
HearJames Bowen, MD
discuss information about multiple sclerosis (MS) and
a prescription treatment option.
April 19, 2012 6:30pmCI Shenanigans3017 Ruston Way
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Please RSVP by April 18, 2012 by calling 800-973-0362
Light food and beverages served.
DOG DAYCAREWhere your dog is family!
INDOOR DOG PARKYour dog does the poopin’ and we do the scoopin’
become employees, con-sumers and they become citizens,” explains Junior Achievement of Washing-ton spokesperson Joanne Kahl. “�ey really conduct a full economy at BizTown.
And they come very pre-pared and focused.”
�roughout BizTown, which features mockups of businesses such as Best Buy, IKEA and Q13, the students go briskly about their tasks as working adults.
“I sign all the checks and
give the bills to people that have bought advertising,” said Williams, the Q13 CEO. “Our ad exec goes out a�er I print the bills, and hands them out. I may do a couple if it’s real busy.”
�e program at JA World in Auburn – along with its
companion, Finance Park, which teaches �nancial literacy to middle- and high-schoolers – is one of the capstone programs for JA, Kahl explained.
“Our core purpose is to empower young people to own their economic success,” she said. “Junior Achievement is really a great partnership with education. �e statistics of where we are with gradu-ating our kids is a huge issue. If you think about it, it wasn’t that long ago we were the No. 1 nation in graduating our children from high school. Now we’re not even in the top 20. So we need to inspire kids about their futures. Inspire them now so they understand that in our free market system in America
and if they have a dream, they can make that dream a reality. Education is that �rst step in making that dream come true.”
In Washington State, Junior Achievement reaches about 100,000 students in 5,000 classrooms, Kahl said. At the Auburn location, 20,000 students go through the BizTown and Finance Park programs annually. And with up to 29,000 kids dropping out of high school yearly in the state, accord-ing to Kahl, anything that can make an impact and inspire children to believe in their �nancial future is important.
“What we have at this facility, and at the one in Yakima as well, is the great-est o�ering we’ve ever had as an organization,” Kahl said.
For ��h-grade teacher Russell Anderson, the BizTown experience is a vital piece of his teaching curriculum every year.
For weeks leading up to the actual outing at JA World, Anderson and par-ents and volunteers from the business world prepare the students.
“We’ve been doing this for about six years,” Ander-
son said. “It teaches them personal responsibility along with teamwork. �ey being to see how close to reality it really is.”
Anderson continued: “�ey come back from this exhausted, but so ful�lled. It’s really amazing. A lot of them will say they have started to appreciate more what their parents do.”
�e impact on the stu-dents a�er their BizTown experience is also notice-able, Anderson added: “�ere is a self-con�dence boost,” he said. “At our school we talk about respect, responsibility and safety. Here they have to put those into practice in an environment di�erent than school. And it starts to hit home with them when they see it here.”
For the kids, the experi-ence is a real eye-opener as well.
“I’m the CFO at IKEA, I manage all the �nances and bills,” Adam Sjolund said. “I think BizTown is re-ally cool, how it shows how it really is in real life.”
“It’s awesome,” Bergerren added. “Being an adult and in a business is hard to do.”
[ BIZTOWN from page 1 ]
As of the grand open-ing, visitors to the park will see not only the 2-year-old bird observa-tion tower but a brand new trail of pervious concrete around it, sur-rounded by mulched areas. At the end of that trail, atop pin pilings and fully ADA-accessible, is the boardwalk,
Extending over the wet-lands to West Main Street, about 1,200 feet in all, the boardwalk’s features include benches and picnic tables made of recycled materials, interpretive signs at heights accessible to everybody, native landscaping at both entrances, even a 21-space bike rack.
�e Washington State Conservation Corps – administered by the Washington State Depart-ment of Ecology – put the boardwalk together, using
the muscle, know how and determination of six teams of 18- to-24-year-old volun-teers that it cycled through the swampy site every week for more than six months.
But counting all the souls who wielded shovels, turned wrenches, planted plants, wheelbarrowed and mulched, hundreds of people and organizations had a hand in the project. Indeed, city estimates show volunteers put in about 700 hours.
Help came also from Parametrix, from LMI Aerospace, Inc., from Au-burn High School’s DECA and Interact clubs and from every department in the City of Auburn. Hu�man Construction contributed its sweat to the parking lot expansion and the pervious paved concrete.
Additional support came from the Auburn Area Chamber of Commerce, �e Downtown Auburn As-
sociation, the Boeing Com-pany, the Rainier Audubon Society, the Seattle-King County Association of Re-altors, Puget Sound Energy, the Auburn School District, Centrix Biosystems and ev-ery service club in the city.
Funding for the park began with a $572,000 Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program grant in 2007.
When all the speeches were done and the ribbon was cut and the last piece of cake was eaten, Marcia Garrett, director of exter-nal a�airs for Washington State University’s o�ce in Seattle, one of the City’s research partners in the wetland, strolled along the boardwalk to get her �rst look.
“It’s gorgeous, gorgeous!,” Garrett said. “Oh, just look at all those purples!”
[ PARK from page 1 ]
Richard Wynne, a board member of the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Coalition, speaks at the grand opening of the Auburn Environmental Park boardwalk. ROBERT WHALE, Auburn Reporter
DESPITE SIGNS OF ECONOMIC RECOVERY, record numbers of families in Washington and across America are relying on food as-sistance. Among the most needed items are sources of high quality protein. Washington’s own Stiebrs Farms recently donated more than 8,000 eggs to the Auburn Food Bank, Hoquiam Food Bank, White Center Food Bank and UCBO Yelm Community Services to help fami-
lies struggling with food insecurity. Stiebrs Farms’ e�orts are part of a national e�ort, organized by the United Egg Producers. For the �fth consecutive spring, America’s egg farmers are giving families in need a helping hand by donating nearly 10 million fresh eggs. That brings the number of eggs farmers have contributed since 2008 to 60 million – equaling nearly 5 million dozen.
