Zach Ouellette of Tacoma was 16 years old two summers ago, working at the Proctor District Farmers Market with his mother, a market regular known as Cheryl the Pig Lady.
When they met at a 2007 Washington camp for scholarship winners, Bashair Alazadi was 16 and wore the traditional headscarf of all Muslim women. Carlos Sandoval was 17, Catholic and a smartass.
Across Tacoma in the past year, neighbors have altered the profile of their communities with pocket libraries, community gardens and yarn bombs — efforts that have involved dozens of people.
Bree Yager, who has been in and out of foster care her whole life, is about to do something no one in her family has done – graduate from high school. The 17-year-old Clover Park senior had never considered college because of the cost, then she landed one of 50 Washington Governors’ Scholarships for Foster Youth.
Everyone has a mother who worries, and Anthony Chen’s mom gets nervous when he bicycles to work from Federal Way to his office in Tacoma’s South End. Chen, 51, is an occasional bicycle commuter and the full-time director of the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department. Last week, in honor of National Bike Month, he pedaled the 15 miles each way for the first time in 2013.
With offices in Tacoma, Olympia, Renton and Kennewick, Jay Haynie drives just over 500 miles a week. And that’s since he slowed down.
Next week, Peter Wimberger will load daughter Elena, 22, and son Gus, 18, into the car, drive them to the Mexican border and leave them. By mid-October, give or take a month, the siblings should make it home. The Pacific Crest Trail, at 2,663 miles, is a challenge few people take on all at once. Gus, Elena and her boyfriend, Carter Chaffey, are nothing if not ambitious.
Ian Fox is a serious fellow, a University of Puget Sound junior majoring in English, with a sub-focus in writing, rhetoric and culture, and minoring in religion, politics and government.
Tim Nevarez saw his life taking a turn for the better last month, which often means trouble is looming. He had been unemployed for close to a year, laid off when the landscaping company for which he worked went bankrupt. But now Nevarez and wife Debbie were expecting their first child together on April 29.
Being a Buddhist monk is no shield against life. Dr. Barry Kerzin was reminded of that fact this week as he dealt with his father’s death.
Barbie Lumbert admits it. When her children were young and the family went camping, she’d read to them aloud with a voice that changed and did sound effects.
Not long after we wrote about the Spanaway House of Rats in January, the television reality show “Hoarding: Buried Alive” sensed ratings among the rodents. Coupled with filth and a touch of craziness, rats proved irresistible to the producers of the Discovery Channel-backed TLC series. On Tuesday, they descended upon the home with camera crews.
It’s been close to three years since Lon Cole was diagnosed with younger-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Today, the Puyallup man will add another title to a long list of them. Already a former soldier — a combat medic — he is a husband, father, grandfather. Today, Cole becomes a published poet.
Herman Botnen is 85 and has lived his whole life on Fox Island, spending more time there, he calculates, than anyone still on the planet.
The invasion of Graham last weekend – with people from Montana, Kentucky, Oregon and Texas – was Peggy Scheid’s fault. Family and friends made a big deal of her turning 100, but the guest list at son Bill’s 5-acre spread for four days was 21. The party itself? That came close to the 80 invited.
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