1. A gift for learning, an aptitude for adventure 2. A storm, a football game and a queen 3. Navy pilot fought war on two fronts 4. Simple question sparks vocation 5. Without sight or words, Jim Holt taught himself and others
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REPORTER REPORTER Mercer Island Mercer Island Skydive Snohomish/Contributed Photo Audrey Unger, 82, skydives with instructor Adrian Bowles on June 10, 2012, to celebrate her birthday. See page 7 for the story. Sky surfer By Mary L. Grady [email protected]For Islander Nathan Ma, the time he attended school on Mercer Island seems long ago. He had forgotten that most of his would-be classmates would be graduating from high school on June 7. Instead, he was busy pre- paring for a final at the University of Washington, where he is a junior. Ma never attended high school on Mercer Island. He never attended any high school. Instead, he entered the University of Washington in 2008, one of a dozen or so gifted youth accepted into a program designed just for students like him. He was 14 years old. The Early Entrance Program is a two-step program for young students consisting of one year of Transition School, an intensive college preparatory program con- ducted by the Robinson Center for Young Scholars at the UW that leads to full-time enrollment at the university. Ma had attended summer camps sponsored by the program as a fifth and sixth- grader. During eighth grade, he took the ACT test and was invited to apply. Applicants need to score at or above the 85th per- centile on that test to be considered for the program. Ma does not remember his score. He does remember that the application pro- cess was extensive. There were sev- eral interviews and writing exercises. “It was intense,” he said. Julie Lancour, the interim direc- tor of the Early Entrance program, said that Ma has been an excellent student. He represents exactly the type of student that they look for. “Nathan has a great sense of the possible,” she said. “He is an incredible young man in many ways,” she continued. “He has been a positive member of the program, a volunteer and a men- tor to others.” “I’d like to keep him around,” she laughed. During the first year, there is an extensive support system for the students that follows them through the first year and beyond, including a special academic advisor and the program staff, their peers, and other resources. They live at home. Their parents are also a key part of the pro- gram’s success. At the end of the first year, the students ‘graduate’ and can then enter the university as regular students. But none of these young scholars can really be consid- ered regular. The students in these programs aren’t afraid to take risks, Lancour said. They quickly leave high school behind. They are just fear- less. According to the program web- site, the most successful Early A gift for learning, an aptitude for adventure By Mary L. Grady [email protected]Construction that will reconfig- ure the four-lane stretch of Island Crest Way south of 42nd Street into three lanes is set to begin by the end of the month. Many South end residents worry the changes will worsen congestion on the busy roadway during peak periods. Engineers say that speeds will drop and safety will improve along the corridor. Clint Morris, street engineer for the City of Mercer Island, said that recent road diet projects have been successful in other King County cities. “Cities such as Seattle and Sammamish have seen the benefits of a three-lane configuration vs. a four-lane roadway,” he said. “Three lanes help left turn move- ments, and pedestrian crossings are ‘Road diet’ to begin July 1 ROAD | PAGE 2 Joint MISD, City Council meeting Tuesday, June 26 The Mercer Island School District Board of Directors will be holding a joint meeting with the City Council on Tuesday, June 26. The meeting, which begins at 8 a.m. at the Community and Event Center, is scheduled to last until 9:30 a.m. The agenda includes discus- sion of the EMC survey and a school facilities master plan. First aid, adult CPR class on June 30 The Mercer Island Fire Depart- ment will be holding a first aid and adult CPR (with AED) class on Saturday, June 30, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the main fire station. The class is $35 per person. Call (206) 275-7607 to reserve a spot. St. Monica rummage sale, June 30 St. Monica Church is holding its first annual “Respect Life” rummage sale from 8:30 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, June 30, in the St. Monica Church gym. The church is located at 4301 88th Ave. S.E. Donations are welcome on Friday, June 29, from noon to 7 p.m. at St. Monica. Calling all Mercer Island parade musicians Band musicians of all ages are encouraged to sign up to march in the Summer Celebration parade on Saturday, July 14. A single rehearsal is set for 6:45 p.m. until 9 p.m. on Thursday, July 12, at Emmanuel Episcopal Church. Contact davidmenz@earthlink. net and check www.facebook. com/mercerislandcommunity- band to learn more. MI | THIS WEEK www.mi-reporter.com Serving the Mercer Island community since 1947 WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20, 2012 | 75¢ REPORTER REPORTER Mercer Island Mercer Island call (253) 872-6610 SUBSCRIBE One year $39, two years just $59 REPORTER REPORTER Mercer Island Mercer Island GIFT | PAGE 3 [ more- online www.MI-Reporter .co m Contributed Photo Nathan Ma, 18, is a junior at the University of Washington.
Transcript
REPORTERREPORTERMercerIsland
MercerIsland
Skydive Snohomish/Contributed Photo Audrey Unger, 82, skydives with instructor Adrian Bowles on June 10, 2012, to celebrate her birthday. See page 7 for the story.
For Islander Nathan Ma, the time he attended school on Mercer Island seems long ago.
He had forgotten that most of his would-be classmates would be graduating from high school on June 7. Instead, he was busy pre-paring for a final at the University of Washington, where he is a junior.
Ma never attended high school on Mercer Island. He never attended any high school. Instead, he entered the University of Washington in 2008, one of a dozen or so gifted youth accepted into a program designed just for students like him. He was 14 years old.
The Early Entrance Program is a two-step program for young students consisting of one year of Transition School, an intensive college preparatory program con-ducted by the Robinson Center for Young Scholars at the UW that leads to full-time enrollment at the university.
Ma had attended summer
camps sponsored by the program as a fifth and sixth-grader. During eighth grade, he took the ACT test and was invited to apply. Applicants need to score at or above the 85th per-centile on that test to be considered for the program. Ma does not remember his score. He does remember that the application pro-cess was extensive. There were sev-eral interviews and writing exercises. “It was intense,” he said.
Julie Lancour, the interim direc-tor of the Early Entrance program, said that Ma has been an excellent student. He represents exactly the type of student that they look for.
“Nathan has a great sense of the possible,” she said.
“He is an incredible young man in many ways,” she continued. “He
has been a positive member of the program, a volunteer and a men-tor to others.”
“I’d like to keep him around,” she laughed.
During the first year, there is an extensive support system for the students that follows them through
the first year and beyond, including a special academic advisor and the program staff, their peers, and other resources. They live at home. Their parents are also a key part of the pro-gram’s success.
At the end of the first year, the students ‘graduate’ and can then enter the university as regular students. But none of these young scholars can really be consid-ered regular.
The students in these programs aren’t afraid to take risks, Lancour said. They quickly leave high school behind. They are just fear-less.
According to the program web-site, the most successful Early
Construction that will reconfig-ure the four-lane stretch of Island Crest Way south of 42nd Street into three lanes is set to begin by the end of the month.
Many South end residents worry the changes will worsen congestion on the busy roadway during peak periods.
Engineers say that speeds will drop and safety will improve along the corridor.
Clint Morris, street engineer for the City of Mercer Island, said that recent road diet projects have been successful in other King County cities.
“Cities such as Seattle and Sammamish have seen the benefits of a three-lane configuration vs. a four-lane roadway,” he said.
“Three lanes help left turn move-ments, and pedestrian crossings are
‘Road diet’ to begin July 1
ROAD | PAGE 2
Joint MISD, City Council meeting Tuesday, June 26
The Mercer Island School District Board of Directors will be holding a joint meeting with the City Council on Tuesday, June 26.
The meeting, which begins at 8 a.m. at the Community and Event Center, is scheduled to last until 9:30 a.m.
The agenda includes discus-sion of the EMC survey and a school facilities master plan.
First aid, adult CPR class on June 30
The Mercer Island Fire Depart-ment will be holding a � rst aid and adult CPR (with AED) class on Saturday, June 30, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the main � re station.
The class is $35 per person. Call (206) 275-7607 to reserve a spot.
St. Monica rummage sale, June 30
St. Monica Church is holding its first annual “Respect Life” rummage sale from 8:30 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, June 30, in the St. Monica Church gym.
The church is located at 4301 88th Ave. S.E.
Donations are welcome on Friday, June 29, from noon to 7 p.m. at St. Monica.
Calling all Mercer Island parade musicians
Band musicians of all ages are encouraged to sign up to march in the Summer Celebration parade on Saturday, July 14.
A single rehearsal is set for 6:45 p.m. until 9 p.m. on Thursday, July 12, at Emmanuel Episcopal Church.
Contact [email protected] and check www.facebook.com/mercerislandcommunity-band to learn more.
MI | THIS WEEK
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Contributed PhotoNathan Ma, 18, is a junior at the University of Washington.
MERCER ISLAND REPORTER | www.mi-reporter.com Wednesday, June 20, 2012 | Page 3
Highway congestion to harm state jobs, cause billions in lost production
Increased congestion on Washington’s highways could result in thousands of lost jobs in freight-depen-dent businesses and a more than $3 billion hit to the state economy, accord-ing to a new Washington State Department of Transportation report.
A 20 percent increase in congestion would lead to a loss of more than 27,500 jobs and $3.3 billion in out-put, according to the report.
“There is no question increased congestion has a negative impact on our state’s freight-dependent business-es,” said Paula Hammond, Washington’s transportation secretary. “Our transporta-tion investment strategies must put a priority on eco-nomic corridors — those routes to and from our ports, farms and factories.”
Hammond said the study reinforces the need for transportation-fund-ing options to implement the needs identified by the Connecting Washington
Task Force. The task force recommended $21 billion in transportation investments over the next 10 years to maintain and preserve the existing system of highways, ferries and rail, and to invest in key economic corridors, among other priorities.
Not only will more traffic impact business, according to the report, but it will hurt customers as well. Freight businesses were asked how they would deal with the increased costs related to traffic.
Close to 60 percent say they would pass increased congestion-related costs on to consumers, 19 percent would absorb the costs, and 12 percent would close or move out of Washington.
Freight haulers note that congestion-related costs such as fuel and labor, new equipment and more time products spend on the road, not on the shelves, lead to
higher prices for consumers.
Bellevue Square set to expand
Bellevue Square is getting even bigger.
Bellevue's signature mall has submitted paperwork to the city to another 250,000 square feet of space — including 119,000 in new retail room and 131,000 of parking, a gain of 375 new stalls.
Representatives from Kemper Development declined to comment on the specifics of the plan.
The expansion will have the mall getting taller, add-ing onto its current park-ing garages and retail space, rather than growing out-ward, according to planning documents.
According to project doc-uments, between 150 and 200 people are projected to work in the new space.
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News briefsEntrance Program students are “motivated to fully develop their intellectual capacity, and are enthused to learn.” It is this combination of ability and strong self-motivation that is sought after in applicants.
Indeed, they want stu-dents to look at all the options that are made avail-able to them.
“We don’t want any of them to walk across the stage at graduation and think, ‘I wish I would have...’” said Lancour.
As far as high school is concerned, Ma, the second oldest of four brothers, con-siders the question for a moment before he answers.
“I feel like I did not miss out on anything,” he said.
Tallish, lean and matter-of-fact about his acceler-ated journey through high-er education, Ma appears unaffected by his gifts. But he is aware that he has been presented with great oppor-tunities. He said he has tried to make the most of it. He said that it was prob-ably good for him to be so young when he entered the program.
“If I would be leaving high school right now, I would probably be intimi-dated by college and all of
the choices,” he said.Yet, when asked how his
parents might describe him, he answered, “adventurous.”
His twin majors of pho-tography and psychology do not seem like an unusual pairing at all to him. “Each discipline informs the other,” he said.
Ma is a recipient of a Mary Gates Research Scholarship and was awarded a fed-eral government stipend to help cover the cost of a trip to Indonesia this sum-mer. There, he will con-duct and document a population survey of the long-tailed macaques of Tinjil Island.
He has won other scholarships, he explained, including one from the Early Entrance Program, “to add to the money my parents have saved for my education.”
It has not been all that easy.
Ma does not have a driv-er’s license, but is not in a hurry to get one. He has had a long commute to campus on the 205 bus from Mercer Island. He lived near cam-pus this past year.
In addition to his classes and research projects, he works 15 to 20 hours a week
during the school year at a coffee stand on campus. “If I’m having a busy week, I’ll give up my shifts, and if I don’t have anything to do, I’ll pick some up,” he said.
In between his required classes and work hours, he has sought out learning opportunities. He has been part of research projects notably in animal psychol-ogy.
He has been a research assistant for the psychol-ogy department at the
Woodland Park Zoo since the winter quar-ter of his f r e s h m a n year. There, he has also added to his photogra-
phy portfolio.There is more. He
squeezed in an Italian lan-guage class. He spent a sum-mer quarter in Rome study-ing art history.
Ma, who turned 18 last November, will graduate in 2013 with a B.F.A. in Photomedia with distinc-tion, a B.S. in Psychology (Animal Behavior) with distinction, and a minor in Art History. He will also graduate with college hon-ors, which denotes he has completed the UW Honors Program’s graduation requirements.
GIFT | FROM 1
“Nathan has a great sense of the possible.”
Nancy Lancour, Early Entrance Program, UW
Rebecca Mar/Staff Photo Children participate in the 15th annual Walk to School Day event at West Mercer Elementary on Wednesday morning, Oct. 3, 2012. Island schools observed the international event, which is held every October.
What does a brawling wind-storm, a football game and a shy high school student have in com-mon?
On Columbus Day, Oct. 12, 1962, a storm with winds up to 100 mph wreaked havoc on the Puget Sound region in what the National Weather Service later designated as Washington’s worst weather disaster of the 20th centu-ry. More than 50 people were killed between Vancouver, B.C., and San Francisco, nine in Washington.
As the huge storm hit the Seattle area, the Mercer Island football team was suited up at Islander Stadium, ready to take the field to meet archrival Bellevue for the Homecoming game. At the same time, the dangerous storm that began as Typhoon Freda in the South Pacific Ocean was bearing down on Seattle and the Eastside.
Hours earlier, the storm had moved onto land in California where high winds halted the sixth game of the World Series at Candlestick Park. Power lines and giant redwood trees were reported to have been toppled from the force of the winds.
According to weather service reports, winds at over 100 mph then moved into Oregon. The storm struck Portland, tearing off roofs, toppling trees and destroy-
ing buildings with “the fury of nearly a Category 3 hurricane.”
As it blew north, wind gusts were measured up to 92 miles per hour in Vancouver, Wash., and over 100 miles per hour out on the Washington coast. In Longview, the city’s civic center collapsed.
A HistoryLink.org essay describes what followed: the center of the storm hit Seattle at around 7 p.m. The power went out at Sea-Tac Airport. On Highway 99, billboards lay broken and trees lay in the road. Ferry runs were cancelled.
At the Seattle World’s Fair, fair officials closed the Coliseum at 7:30 p.m., worried that the glass windows might blow out.
Communities east of Lake Washington, including Mercer Island, were soon plunged into darkness. In Issaquah, the roof was torn off of the grandstand at the city’s Memorial Stadium.
At Islander Stadium, the game had begun. But just two plays after
Over the next five City Council meetings, culminating in a final vote on Dec. 3, the Mercer Island City Council will deliberate how to fashion a $25 million balanced city budget for the next two years.
Under Washington state law and standard city practice, the city manager is to deliver a balanced budget to the City Council every two years.
As in recent years, the real work will be in finding ways to cut expenses in light of declining tax and fee revenues.
Preliminary figures indicate that without those cuts, the city will be short by more than $1 mil-lion each year.
The 2012-2013 budget message, prepared by City Finance Director Chip Corder, states that “much of
2012-2013 city budget cycle is underway
BUDGET | PAGE 2
Shelves almost empty at food bank
The food bank at Mercer Island Youth and Family Services is very low on food.
They need contributions such as peanut butter and jelly, Top Ramen, boxed cereal, canned chicken or tuna, white and brown rice, hearty soups, Rice-a-Roni and mac and cheese products.
Items to be donated can be taken to the MIYFS o� ce in Luther Burbank Park, Banner Bank on 78th Avenue S.E., the Community Center, Albertsons and the Mercer Island Thrift Shop.
41st District Voters Forum is tonight
The 2012 Candidate Forum, hosted by the Mercer Island Re-porter and the Bellevue Reporter, will take place on Wednesday, Oct. 10, at 7:30 p.m. in the Council Chambers at Bellevue City Hall.
The event will feature candi-dates from the 41st and 48th State Legislative districts, including Maureen Judge, Steve Litzow, Tim Eaves, Marcie Maxwell and Judy Clibborn from the 41st District.
Historical Society meeting is Oct. 15
The Mercer Island Historical So-ciety will host its October meeting on Monday, Oct. 15, at 1 p.m. at the Community and Event Center.
The meeting will feature speaker Karl House, of the Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society, who will discuss the Puget Sound Mosquito Fleet on Lake Washing-ton before 1916.
To learn more, visit www.mihis-tory.org.
Statewide earth-quake drill is Oct. 18
Both the City of Mercer Island and the Mercer Island School District will participate in the statewide earthquake drill on Thursday, Oct. 18.
Learn more on page 8.
MI | THIS WEEK
STORM | PAGE 4
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Friday is the 50th anniversary of the Columbus Day Storm
kickoff, the game was stopped. It was too danger-ous to continue. Halftime festivities with the pre-sentation of Homecoming royalty and the crowning of the queen, Miss Alyce Toda, were postponed.
Yet Toda, now Alyce Arai, said that she was not sorry that half-time had been c a n c e l l e d . Reached by t e l e p h o n e last week at her home in Seattle, she said she was relieved. She had been dreading the moment.
“I felt I was getting an honor I didn’t deserve,” she said. “I felt awful.”
“I am Japanese,” she explained. “My sister and I were the only Japanese or
non-white people in Island schools.”
When she and her family found a home on the Island
a few years earlier, the realtor said he could not sell them the house until he had asked neighbors if it was alright with them.
Both of Arai’s par-ents had been in Japanese i n t e r n m e n t camps during World War II. Even as late as 1962, Japanese were still shunned.
“I was very shy and always felt odd,” she said. “When I was a freshman, I only looked at the floor.”
But she was not left out. A check of the Mercer Island High School Class of 1963 yearbook confirms
that she was involved in many activities, includ-ing French Club, Spanish Club, Student Cabinet, Pep Club and Service Club, the yearbook staff and more. She even had a nickname, “Acey.”
“The kids were extremely nice and accepted me,” she said. “They elected me to other things that I did not earn, like the drill team.”
Of the abbreviated Homecoming game, she recalled the flowers she held and the wind. “Oh, that wind blew,” she remembered.
The Homecoming dance was held on Saturday night, where the Homecoming royalty and their queen were finally crowned.
The game against Bellevue had been finished that afternoon. To add insult to injury, Bellevue won the game, 7 to 6.
As for Queen Alyce, she put her shyness behind her, perhaps inspired by her old classmates.
“The kids at the school showed a lot of heart and compassion,” she said. “I will always remember that.”
Page 4 | Wednesday, October 10, 2012 MERCER ISLAND REPORTER | www.mi-reporter.com
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File PhotoThe Hanukkah Eve storm of December 2006 hit the Island hard, blowing down trees and knocking out power lines such as here on West Mercer Way. The storm was a lightweight compared to the fury of the 1962 Columbus Day storm that began as a typhoon in the South Pacific Ocean.
Each Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Mercer Island Community and Event Center, the life drawing class is open to students.The course, listed as #13354 in the Parks and Recreation event book, runs through Nov. 28. The class is each Wednesday from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.The class is an open work-shop that allows partici-pants to learn and improve drawing skills. Learn more by visiting the city’s website at www.mercergov.org. Photo by Max Read.If you have a photo or event to share with Mercer Island, contact us at [email protected] or by calling (206) 232-1215.
EYE ON MI | LIFE IN ART
U.S. Navy PhotoNavy Captain Arthur Jacobson, a pilot, top row, third from left, commanded crews on the amphibious PBY Catalina aircraft during the months after Pearl Harbor in both the Philippines and Alaska.
For Islander Art Jacobson, a Bronze Star for his meritorious service in World War II came 60 years late.
His memories of those harrow-ing days have faded. He is 97 now, but his bearing and reserve are military. A hip replacement at age 92 has slowed him, but not too much. He still walks an hour each day at 10 a.m.
He is not too sure what the fuss is about those months at war. You did what you were told and what
you had to do. In the days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, there was no time for questions.
The career Navy man was born in Tacoma in 1915. He was always interested in flying, he said. Mechanically minded, he helped out at the service stations that his father owned around town. In high school, he and fellow stu-dents built a working glider. At 16, he was flying whenever he could afford to pay for the fuel. Later, he attended the University of Washington when he had money, working between semesters in the years after the stock market fell. Finally, he enlisted in the Navy and was sent to Florida for flight training in the late 1930s.
His first assignment was Hawaii. He was later sent to the Philippines
in the months leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor. He piloted amphibious PBY Catalinas.
The PBY was the Navy’s “eyes in the sky” for the Pacific fleet. Their job was to search for, and locate, an enemy fleet hundreds of miles away from the fleet before it could attack.
The Navy and President Roosevelt were keen to know what the Japanese were up to, and the PBY was the plane to do it. It had the range and ability to go to where the Japanese were and report on them. It was slow, not very maneuverable and did not have self-sealing fuel tanks or bulletproof armor for the crew or pilots. Regardless of its short- comings, it was the only plane that the Navy had capable of doing the job.
In the hours and days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese and their quick and deadly Zero fighters turned their attention to the American bases
Less than a week after Superstorm Sandy caused chaos in the greater New York area, thousands of run-ners headed to the city for the annu-al New York City Marathon.
Mercer Island resident Ginny Pietila and her husband, Bradley, decided to make the trip, though the couple whom they planned to travel with decided to defer their entry until next year. But after the Pietilas traveled across the country last Thursday, it was announced on Friday evening, New York time, that
Islanders in NYC find marathon cancelled
MArAthoN | Page 8
MISD town hall meeting tonight
The Mercer Island School Dis-trict will host the second of three Town Hall meetings tonight, Wednesday, Nov. 7, from 7 to 9 p.m. at Islander Middle School.
The meetings are to present information about building a new school and to get feedback from the community.
The final Town Hall will be held on Thursday, Nov. 15, from 7 to 9 p.m. at Crest Learning Center.
Election results online tonight
Election results for the No-vember general election will be available online at the Reporter’s website: www.mi-reporter.com.
Election information will be updated as news becomes available.
honor veteransVFW Post 5760 will be hand-
ing out Buddy Poppies on Mer-cer Island on Nov. 10, ahead of Veterans Day, Nov. 11. Veterans will be handing out the poppies from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
On Sunday, Nov. 11, the VFW will recognize the holiday with a period of silence lasting two minutes beginning at 8 a.m., and the U.S. flag will be at half-staff during the rest of the day.
Veterans Day holiday closures
Veterans Day this year lands on Sunday, Nov. 11, but many cities and other businesses will be observing the holiday on Monday, Nov. 12.
On Nov. 12, City of Mercer Is-land offices will be closed, along with Mercer Island schools and the post office.
The Mercer Island Library will be closed on Sunday, Nov. 11, and open on Monday, Nov. 12.
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Captain Art Jacobson just received Bronze Star for service in WWII
PILot | Page 2
Mercer Island couple arrives early before race, only to have it canceled day before event
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Page 2 | Wednesday, November 7, 2012 MERCER ISLAND REPORTER | www.mi-reporter.com
in the Philippines. But after months of patrolling the Islands, the PBY pilots knew the territory well. They knew places where they could hide. They had learned to duck into the clouds.
But there were many casualties. The PBYs were regularly strafed with bullets. The men kept broken pencils with them to plug the bullet holes in the plane.
Bob Bergstrom, the son of Jacobson’s good friend and fellow Navy pilot, Captain Edward W. Bergstrom, has
written extensively about the role of PBYs in the war. He was responsible for WWII PBY crews and pilots receiv-ing the Bronze Star awards recently, including his father, now deceased, and his father’s old friend, Jacobson.
In a recent story on the Orders and Medals Society of America website, Bergstrom described what the PBY fli-ers faced against the quicker and superior Zeros.
“There were no real navi-gation aids, no maps. It was celestial navigation and dead reckoning at its best. The pilots observed what was around them. Sometimes
they would fly close to the sea to check the direction of the wind on the waves,” he wrote.
When asked if he was ever afraid during these arduous patrols, Jacobson took a long pause. “Only just scared to death,” he said.
The Zeros decimated U.S. bases and their aircraft in the Philippines. The pilots and crews were finally forced south and ended up in the Dutch East Indies after a series of marathon flights. They went on to Australia, where they only had the clothes on their backs when they arrived. They were exhausted and hungry. Within a few days, they were put on a ship and sent back to the states.
After a short break state-side, Jacobson and other PBY pilots were sent to the Aleutian Islands in Alaska, where the Japanese had set up shop looking to extend their reach into North America.
The extreme weather was hard on both the planes and the men who lived along the shore in canvas tents.
The Japanese had invad-ed the Island of Kiska and bombed Dutch Harbor. The PBYs were placed on almost round-the-clock mis-sions. Any and all PBYs were ordered to make bombing runs on Kiska Harbor dur-ing their normal patrol. The missions sometimes lasted
24 hours. The PBYs had to avoid attacking fighters and then “dive bomb” the ships through breaks in the fog.
Many were lost. Most just disappeared,
Jacobson said. “We would never know what happened to them. They would just not come back.”
During all of this, a U.S. submarine went aground, leaving its crew stranded and vulnerable. Jacobson com-manded three planes that went to pick up the men.
“It was foggy,” he remem-bered. “We had to fly just 50 feet off the water.”
They squeezed the addi-tional men onto the already overloaded planes and slipped back over the waves.
At some point during the
fighting in Alaska, Jacobson learned that he had been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. There was no fuss or ceremony. The Navy had mailed the medal to his mother at home in Tacoma.
Jacobson remained in the Navy for 35 years. Just after
the war, he and his wife, Lois Jacobson, moved to a home on the South end, where they remain today. There they raised seven children. They now have 14 grandchil-dren and eight great-grand-children. Lois Jacobson has taught piano on two grand pianos in the basement for many years.
The family owned a six-seat Piper Comanche air-plane that they flew as far as South America. On one trip, they returned to Alaska, toting a motorcycle to get around.
Jacobson last flew the plane on his 90th birthday.
Bob Bergstrom contributed to this story.
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Page 16 | Wednesday, November 28, 2012 MERCER ISLAND REPORTER | www.mi-reporter.com
On Oct. 27, Islander and former Starbucks employee, Frank DiGirolamo, recited vows and allegiance to the faith of the Roman Catholic Church beneath the splen-dor of the soaring Italian Renaissance ceilings of the 105-year-old St. James Cathedral in Seattle. Amid the pomp of the ancient rites of ordination, DiGirolamo, a married man, became an ordained member of the Catholic Church cler-gy.
The role of a deacon in the Catholic Church is to assist the priest in the administration of a parish. He does not hold the sacred authority of an ordained priest. He cannot consecrate the offerings that are at the heart of the mass. He can marry couples and baptize babies, but most importantly
offers needed help to priests who must manage the large parishes, such as St. Monica on Mercer Island, on their own.
Permanent deacons (who are distinct from seminar-ians on their way to final priestly vows) assist the local priest by visiting the sick, teaching the faith, counsel-ing couples and individuals, and working on parish com-mittees and councils. For DiGirolamo, a commitment
to serving the poor is a special part of his voca-tion and duties.
It was a process and a journey, he told the
Reporter last week, of his path to the church.
DiGirolamo, now 45, first considered a more formal role in the church about 10 years ago, he said. “For me, it was a more recent awak-ening than a lifelong goal.”
“It wasn’t a deliberate
decision. It was something I had been moving toward,” he explained.
“After I married, I started to think, ‘What am I called to do?’” he said.
It was at Starbucks, ironi-cally, when he finally gave voice to what he had begun to feel about a possible voca-tion with his church.
“My supervisor asked each of us who were work-ing for him what we would be doing if we were not in our [present] job,” he said. “I answered that I would probably be working for the Catholic Church.”
It was an answer that he had neither prepared nor imagined he would say. Yet it was prophetic. Within 18 months, he had left the corporate world and was employed at St. Monica.
DiGirolamo remains grateful for that question.
The formal formation process for his new role took more than four years. He has been working for the church, here, for seven years.
He does not believe that his new title makes him ter-ribly special. “I am just a reflection of what this parish has given me,” he said.
Deacons remain some-what rare. On and off over the past couple of decades, deacons have been added to the church clergy. The num-ber of priests, who must take a vow of celibacy, has dwin-dled dramatically. Active priests are getting older and retiring. Far fewer men are entering the priesthood. According to data on the Archdiocese of Seattle web-site, there were 485 ordained priests in Seattle in 1966. In 2010, that number has fallen
by a third. The number of deacons has grown from 24 in 1976 to 140 now.
The addition of more deacons helps priests man-age parishes and brings an
element of the congregation itself into the mass.
It all seems natural to DiGirolamo.
“Having lay people lead-ing the liturgy is how the church began,” he said. “It has always been part of the mass.”
DiGirolamo will serve as a deacon for St. Monica Parish. St. Monica has about 1,450 families, or about 4,000 parishioners.
As he stood on the altar at
St. James with the 21 other applicants for the deaconate, DiGirolamo said he thought of all the people who helped him on his journey to that moment.
“I thought, we would not be standing there if we had not been invited,” he said.
DiGirolamo and his wife, Shelley, live on Mercer Island with their daughter, Mary, who attends Holy Names Academy on Seattle’s Capitol Hill.
Unless otherwise noted, school board meetings are held at 4160 86th Avenue SE, Mercer Island, in the Board Room. Board meetings are held on the 2nd and 4th Thursday of every month. Regular board meetings begin at 7:00 pm.
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“I am just a reflection of what this parish has given me.”
Deacon Frank DiGirolamo, St. Monica Church
Simple question sparks vocation
Stephen Brashear/Special to the ReporterIslander Frank DiGirolamo lies on the altar at St. James Cathedral in Seattle, along with 21 other candidates for ordination as they prepare to take vows to become a permanent deacon in the Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle.
Stephen Brashear/Contributed PhotoArchbishop Peter Sartain blesses DiGirolamo during the ordination of deacons at St. James Cathedral on Oct. 27.
This is the second of three stories about special educa-tion student, Jim Holt.
Islander Middle School student Jim Holt, who died suddenly late last month at age 16, was a severely dis-abled special needs student. He was born with chromo-somal abnormalities that left him both mentally and physically damaged. He needed constant care. He had little vision and was unable to speak. But over the years, his presence drew hundreds of caregivers, friends and admirers into his life.
Over 400 people attend-ed his funeral at the Mercer Island Presbyterian Church.
Many called themselves members of ‘Team Jim,’ a group of friends, caregiv-ers and supporters of Jim and his family; his mother Kathy Holt, his brother, Thomas Holt, his father, Steve Holt and stepmother Pattie Holt and her grown children.
Despite his challenges, Jim was able to learn and communicate with others. Jim formed strong relation-ships with his caregivers without speaking.
Jim drew others to him. School district staff from administrators to para-pros learned how to communi-cate and innovate in order to reach Jim. They were deliberate about includ-ing him in the life of the school.
Through the efforts of his parents, teachers and fellow students, both adults and students were drawn to Jim
and to helping other stu-dents with special needs.
The staff at Islander Middle School still speaks of Jim in the first person.
His teacher, Julie Riccio, is bereft.
Riccio and the staff who worked with Jim do not speak of his disabili-ties. Instead they laugh and tell stories about what he
accomplished.His school day was both
ordinary and extraordinary, given his circumstances. He rode the bus, like other stu-dents. He came to his class-room with chores to do. It might be working with his friend, Sydney Elston, to take roll by pressing buttons on a slate with pictures of fellow students or collecting the mail for his teacher.
Next, he rode his bright green custom-built bike with his feet strapped firmly into the pedals, on a circuit through the IMS school hallways. It was part of his daily regimen to put in a mile on the bike.
It helped the strengthen his lungs, Riccio said.
But it also allowed Jim to make himself known to staff and students through-out the building. He was not
a quiet or shy student. He expressed himself loudly.
IMS Principal Mary Jo Budzius said, “Jim was so much a part of our school. Now, it is just too quiet around here without him.”
“He was everywhere,” she said. “And if he fell, he would get up and go on.”
Back in his classroom, there was read-aloud time
and music. He attended the regular choir class, school assemblies, went to lunch with his friends, Jeffery and Tommy, and basked in the attention of his peer men-tors.
He liked to lay on the floor with his legs out-stretched. Soon after he would be positioned on a blanket or a mat, he might pull himself over to the doorway, just as a principal or visitor might pass by.
Once a week, Jim and the other students from his classroom would walk or wheel down to the QFC store at the South end shop-ping center, where they would shop for ‘healthy snacks.’ They had bright yellow ponchos to wear on rainy days.
His mental development was of an infant less than
a year old. But Jim had 16 years of experience to build on, Riccio said.
Before his four years at the middle school, Jim was a student at Island Park Elementary School, and he perfected pulling himself up off the floor by hanging onto a chair or a table and walking a few steps.
He might ‘chase’ his special education teacher, Kristy Kenyon around the tables.
“It was always so fun to see how far he would go to ‘get me,’” she wrote to his family of her memories of having him in her class-room.
“In what would normally be a simple game, I know Jim used everything he had to keep up,” she said.
Kenyon and para-pro Jim Berrington (aka Big Jim) helped him transition to middle school, training the staff there and easing ‘Little Jim’ into his new classroom. Kenyon remembers that Little Jim was always calm when Big Jim was with him.
“Big Jim would always be talking with him,” she said.
Holly Pratt remembers Jim from her time working at Island Park. She fed him (through a gastrostomy tube or G-Tube) and ferried him to recess.
“All the other kids loved Jim,” she wrote. “Many would come up to him and grab his hand and talk to him — particularly the girls. In his special way, I know he loved the atten-tion,” Pratt said.
At the middle school, para-pro Kamma Scott was hired for just an hour a day to help out at the resource room. Jim was the first stu-dent she met and worked with. Within the week, they added two more hours for her to work. She began to ride the school bus with Jim to and from school every
day. She is now full-time. “I am hooked now,” she said of her job.
“Every time I was with Jim, I felt good about myself,” she said. “I knew I was making a difference.”
Both she and others agreed that despite his chal-lenges, he was both inde-pendent and strong.
“He was his own person,” they said.
Nikki Dellinger, a cer-tified special education teacher, said she was a little apprehensive at first about working with Jim. She knew he had a set of complex medical issues.
Yet she soon found out that Jim was not breakable. He was present and able to communicate.
Jim made people feel like they were valued with-out demanding that much attention. He was not a high-needs student, but he would let you know what he wanted or needed, she explained.
Jim’s friend, Sydney, knew what is was like to be some-one different.
“Like Jim, I am different,” said Elston, who has a form of autism. “I know what it is like to be different.”
Sydney was often Jim’s ‘ A A A chauffeur,’” she said, g u i d i n g his wheel-chair down to QFC on Friday afternoons.
S h e noted that Jim was just learning how to do a fist bump.
She will miss him.Friends and peers like
Sydney are an important part of the special educa-tion program at Islander.
Scott and para-pro Megan Atkinson pointed to Riccio as the one who started the student mentoring program at the school, and has made it into a success.
“It has become the ‘cool’
class, the most popular class,” they agreed.
There are 37 students who have applied to be in the class this trimester alone, Riccio said.
The peer mentorship program has had many benefits. It teaches patience and empathy.
It has become a way to build support and advocacy for special needs students.
And for middle school kids, it was one period a day when you don’t have to judge yourself, Riccio noted.
He was a strong, deter-mined soul. He made you feel grateful for what you have.
Riccio credits the school administrators for being supportive of all special needs students. “They are always finding ways for things to happen, how to include my kids,” she said.
Programs at the middle school in areas such as music and art, and even sci-ence, are tweaked to include everyone.
And she credits the con-stant involvement and car-ing of Jim’s family.
Every fall and many times in between, Kathy Holt would come to train
the staff in her son’s care, how to feed him through a tube every two hours, and how to deal with a seizure or a crisis.
Even on the morning of her son’s funer-al, Kathy Holt came by to visit with many of the staff involved in Jim’s life.
“She was worried about us,” Riccio said.
His father Steve Holt and stepmother, Pattie, came by a few days later to give Riccio a special gift. It is a baby blanket that had belonged to Jim. It was a gift for her first child, due in May.
Page 10 | Wednesday, March 27, 2013 MERCER ISLAND REPORTER | www.mi-reporter.com
