Dedicated to the citizens of Mason County, Washington since 1886
Dedicated to the citizens of Mason County, Washington since 1886
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After four seasons on Netflix, and six years at the forefront of pop culture consciousness, I'm suddenly hearing a lot of people ask what "Stranger Things" is all about, even though its focus has hardly shifted. "Stranger Things" is set almost entirely during the 1980s, and mostly in the American Midwest, and revolves around a loosely affiliated group of teens and tweens, plus their occasionally present parents. The group members have overcome their adolescent relationship drama to band...
Anyone who swings by the Skyline Drive-In Theater in Shelton tonight (June 9) can catch a two-hour-long screening of 22 short student films from The Evergreen State College Mediaworks department, all for free. Gates to the theater open for “Stars at the Skyline” at 8 p.m., with the screening set to commence around 9 p.m., depending on when it turns sufficiently dark. Mediaworks faculty members Suree Towfighnia and Julia Zay said they’re excited to share the work of their students, inclu...
North Mason School Board members marked the deaths of two people before recognizing the civil service of two others during their May 19 meeting. District 4 Director John Campbell moved to amend the meeting’s agenda to discuss sending the board’s condolences to the family of Shelton-Mason County Journal columnist Mark Woytowich, who died May 6. Campbell described Woytowich as an environmentalist, activist and “very good friend” of the North Mason School District who helped make the communi...
Erik Youngberg, the new director of District 1 on the North Mason School District Board of Directors, assumed another role during the board’s May 19 when District 3 Director Laura Boad nominated him to be the board’s Washington Interscholastic Activities Association representative for the 2022-23 school year. Youngberg accepted the position. District 5 Director Arla Shephard Bull said the WIAA is “the organization governing athletics, interscholastic activity and competitions in Washi...
A resident’s proposal to work with the Port of Hoodsport on creating a public dog park was tabled after port commissioners voted 2-1 on May 11 not to proceed with investigating the proposal. While Port Commissioner Terry Brazil said he intended to investigate further on his own, he and Port Commissioner Lori Kincannon voted against the port moving forward with the proposal. Port Commissioner Cody Morris voted in favor. Dog park proponent Bill Long expressed interest in using an acre and a h...
My review of "Stranger Things" Season 4, Part 1, will be forthcoming next week. I wasn't about to binge seven episodes in a single weekend. Instead, we'll be looking at another recently released tribute to the 1980s. Even speaking as a self-confessed generational chauvinist on behalf of the Eighties, I keep expecting everyone to get sick of that decade, and to move on from reviving its pop culture. Since the start of 2020, "Bill & Ted" and "Ghostbusters" released critically and commercially...
The North Mason School Board reviewed the redistricting reports and maps produced by Sammamish Data Systems so it could approve moving to the next phase of the school district’s redistricting. North Mason School District Superintendent Dana Rosenbach summed up the report from Sammamish Data Systems, which the district contracted to evaluate the latest U.S. Census information. “We do have a requirement, when the new census comes out, that we have to evaluate the distribution of our director dis...
North Mason School District Transportation Director Maurine Simons shared with the school board May 19 details about the return of the “Fill the Bus” event, scheduled to take place Aug. 20 at the QFC parking lot in Belfair from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. “QFC does a great job of putting together packages that have the school supplies all together, right near the front,” Simons said. “The bus drivers will be out there. It’s all volunteer time.” She added, “We’ll have our little ‘Buster Bus’ out there for...
The Port of Dewatto has been ensuring it maintains enough money in the bank to address expenses. During the port’s April 13 meeting, campground coordinator Joe Newman reported the campground’s initial turnout numbered “just a few” campers, although he said a camping group reserved quite a few more slots by mid-April. Newman said about 25 volunteers helped out at the campground for its cleanup March 26, and with a few more hours during that week, he was able to get the rest of the leaves and bru...
Two months after Barbara Treick's art wall at Belfair Self-Storage showcased multimedia artist Alice Durrie, that same space is devoted in June to Durrie's wife, professional photographer Teresa "Tree" Smith. Durrie described Smith as her artistic "muse," and the feeling is mutual. Smith characterized their relationship as "symbiotic," in which each one's artistic pursuits thrive because of the other. "We encourage and support each other in the practice of our crafts," Smith said. "I'm able to...
So, after reprioritizing my entertainment expenses, I'm subscribed to Apple TV+, Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu, Netflix, Paramount+ and Peacock. Remember when streaming was supposed to be simpler than cable? I'd been tempted by Apple TV+ before, as it premiered "Ted Lasso" in 2020, followed by series adaptations of "The Mosquito Coast" and "Foundation" in 2021, but it took the hauntingly gothic atmosphere promised by trailers for "The Essex Serpent" to fully sell me on my seventh streaming subscription...
The summer and fall series of art and music fairs at the Rest-A-While RV Park in Hoodsport kicks off from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday. It will include a memorial to recently deceased Journal columnist and writer Mark Woytowich at 2 p.m. “Mark was such a treasure in our community, and is very missed,” said Rest-A-While Operational Manager Elizabeth Bennett, who recalled Woytowich as being warmly received by his fellow vendors and attendees at her seasonal fairs, where he sold his book “Where Waterfalls and Wild Things Are.” “Being the Shelton-M...
Hawkins Middle School eighth-graders Bradley Williams, Dylan Prideaux, Sophia Mairs, Owen Oblizalo and Yariel Barajas presented their "Project Citizen" to the North Mason School Board on May 19. Williams described Project Citizen as teaching students to work with government to create public policies to help solve community problems. "Our class voted from a long list of problems," Williams said. "The majority picked school shootings, so we came up with policies to prepare for and prevent these...
The North Mason Regional Fire Authority spoke with the Shelton-Mason County Journal on Monday about its new headquarters building at 490 NE Old Belfair Highway. "It's been a crazy morning," North Mason RFA Chief Beau Bakken said. "We spent all of last week making the move into this facility. By the afternoon of Friday, May 13, we knew we had to have everything over here that we would need in order to function." Bakken deemed Friday night the station's "special soft grand opening," leading into t...
I'm trying something different for this week's reviews. Please let me know if it works for you. I often review the start of new shows (or the start of new seasons of returning shows), but unless the entire season dumps at once, rarely do I review the conclusions of those season-long arcs. This matters because most modern television and streaming shows are written as season-long arcs, which was absolutely not the case with TV shows when I was growing up in the 1980s. Eighties TV had notable...
The North Mason School District selected Erik Youngberg on May 10 to fill the District 1 School Board position left vacant by Art Wightman, whose resignation was accepted at the board's March 24 meeting. In his letter to the board, Youngberg described himself as a fifth-generation resident of Mason County who wants to make a difference in the community by doing what he can to ensure future residents "continue to have a great school system." Youngberg said he learned to cope with childhood...
A proposed community dog park was put before the Port of Hoodsport for consideration on April 13. Resident Bill Long, who moved to the area several years ago from University Place in Pierce County, is the founding member and president of SUN (Safe, Unleashed, Natural) Dogs of Pierce County, a nonprofit organization that developed and paid for an off-leash area at Chambers Bay starting in 2005. It operates in partnership with University Place and Pierce County. The group raised more than $40,000 to fence and develop that park, and Long said he...
As I'd anticipated, "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" was well exceeded by "Everything Everywhere All at Once" as a free-for-all romp across multiple universes, but what I suspect surprised a lot of moviegoers over the weekend is the "Multiverse of Madness" pales even in comparison to "Spider-Man: No Way Home," which benefited from focusing more on fan service than on fan homework. While I'd still defend the "Doctor Strange" sequel as a solidly entertaining and well-made Marvel...
The Belfair Self-Storage art wall is devoting May to showcasing Allyn resident Michael Osborn's "Kustom Laser Art by Oz" lasear-cut wood artwork, complete with an artist reception featuring Osborn at 5 p.m. on May 20 at the business, 23270 NE state Route 3. Osborn's roots as an artist are in Euless, Texas, with a job at Fegan Fine Art & Restoration to restore several truckloads of antiques from homes flooded by Hurricane Katrina. Osborn discovered he enjoyed "working with my hands to restore...
When the Port of Allyn followed up on Sweetwater Park during the port commissioners' May 2 meeting, Port Executive Director Lary Coppola said Kathleen Barrantes, the grant writer the Salmon Center hired, had come up with a plan for a series of grants from various agencies to fund the project. "Because of the delays in moving this project forward, the cost has more than doubled, which is why a professional grant writer was brought in," Coppola said. He added that the local arborist, qualified und...
The Port of Allyn reviewed several technical matters during the port commissioners’ May 2 meeting. Port Executive Director Lary Coppola said he sent a letter to Mason County commissioners to say the port was reducing its Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy request for its water system project from $500,000 to $100,000. “However, there is a new set of hoops we have to jump through for the federal government, and we are just now navigating that maze,” Coppola said. “We should have the bid...
What's perhaps most notable about "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent," a charmingly affectionate sendup of the iconically bizarre public persona of Nicolas Cage, is that its most compelling performance doesn't come from the actor you'd expect. In both his best and worst work as an actor, Cage has always managed to distinguish himself from his peers, in no small part because he never gives any performance less than his all. To his credit, he commits just as wholeheartedly to this film's...
As of April 21, the North Mason School District needs makeup days and a new board director. Superintendent Dana Rosenbach submitted a waiver to make up for the days the district missed due to weather and emergencies. Rosenbach said state law requires a district to go past June 14, at least, in instructional days, including any makeup days, before that district can be considered for a waiver. “In a typical year, you would have had to make up at least three days, plus hit that June 14 mark, b...
A performance by the Hawkins Middle School Orchestra for the North Mason School Board on April 21 led middle school Principal Robert Kalahan to catch the school board up on the school’s progress through COVID. After the orchestra played the songs “Sparkle,” “Pepperoni Pizza” and “Dragon Slayer,” Kalahan said seeing all the students “playing together was something I was really hoping for” and is indicative of “a lot of really great things happening” at Hawkins Middle School. “Another exam...
North Mason School District Superintendent Dana Rosenbach spoke out at the school board’s April 21 meeting about how the decade-old McCleary v. Washington decision has affected funding for smaller school districts. Rosenbach criticized the effect of “regionalization” on the legal funding mechanisms for school salaries and compensation. “A group will present the 2023 Legislature with a report on how it’s working, with some recommendations for adjustments,” Rosenbach said. “The committee is...
