Dedicated to the citizens of Mason County, Washington since 1886
Dedicated to the citizens of Mason County, Washington since 1886
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 39
Shelton-Mason County Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Heidi McCutcheon is leaving for new employment after being with the chamber for 14 years. According to a Tuesday news release, McCutcheon was the president and CEO for 12 of her 14 years. She's taken a new job at the Thurston County Economic Development Council and Center for Business & Innovation. During her time at the chamber, she helped coordinate the Shelton Downtown Visioning Plan, produced the Business Matters publication,...
Karla Knudsen-Johnston, who taught elementary students for 33 years in Shelton schools, is the new member of the Shelton School Board. In a special meeting Monday evening at CHOICE High School, the board members voted 3-0 to select the Shelton native from five candidates to replace Marilyn Ward in an at-large position on the five-person board. Ward moved out of the district with three years remaining on her term. Board member Matt Welander was unable to attend the special meeting because he was...
Pacific marten recorded in Olympic National Forest A Pacific marten was recorded by motion-triggered wildlife cameras, marking the first time it has been recorded by a camera survey in Olympic National Forest. According to a news release, Woodland Park Zoo joined with Olympic National Forest to install six motion-triggered cameras and scent dispenser stations in the forest to try and detect martens, a rare native carnivore thought to be living there in sparse numbers. In July, the survey team...
My paternal grandfather, Eric Ericson, came to this country from Sweden with his parents in the early 1900s, maybe to escape a herring famine or something. We’re not sure why they came, but we do know those Swedes love herring. I know of two jobs my grandfather had. The first was as a teen in Spokane selling shoes in a store. He told me he was fired for telling a woman her feet were larger than the shoe size she insisted she had. He said he walked down the street to the Old National Bank, w...
Facts, please Editor, the Journal, Re: Partisan Facts, Letter to Editor, Aug. 25, 2022. “Facts, pesky little critters that get in the way of a good lie.” Thus saith Mr. Ardean Anvik. Now, let’s take look at the “facts” as he sees them. 1. “63,700 fentanyl deaths each year are caused by illegal drugs crossing our border?” Does “border” here mean only the southern border with Mexico or both borders and all ports of entry? Ambiguous statement with no corroborating source. 2. “Social services are overrun with homeless illegals.” Again, s...
The Hood Canal School District opens its doors Sept. 7 to about 335 students in prekindergarten through eighth grade, and with a new superintendent in Jose-de-Jesus Melendez. Melendez - who grew up in a Mexican village of about 50 people in the state of Zacatecaz - replaces Nikki Grubbs, who was hired as assistant superintendent in the North Thurston School District. He has been a teacher, principal, program director and superintendent in California, Colorado, Oregon and Washington. "My...
On Tuesday, Paul Wieneke began his second school year as the superintendent of the Southside School District. "We are not aspiring to return 'back to normal,' " he said. "We are returning to 'back to better,' better instruction, better connections with staff and students and stronger partnerships with our families." "Our staff is very enthusiastic about coming back," he added, "Our parents and students are very enthusiastic about coming back." The district anticipated about 200 students in...
The Shelton School District on Wednesday opened its doors to its eight schools, where 4,125 full-time equivalent students are expected. That's the same number budgeted at the beginning of the last school year. The district ended the last school year with 4,141 FTE. The first official count of students will be conducted Sept. 6. "We do not anticipate an enrollment decline for the 2022-23 school year," Superintendent Wyeth Jessee wrote to the Journal in an email. In a recent newsletter to the...
The Pioneer School District welcomes its students next Wednesday with a new superintendent and two principals among 42 new employees. The last school year was tumultuous for the district. In February, the Pioneer School Board placed Superintendent Jill Diehl on paid administrative leave almost two months after the Pioneer Education Association presented them with a vote of "no confidence" against her. Former Southside Schools Superintendent Doris Bolender replaced her as acting superintendent....
Mary M. Knight School District students returned to school Wednesday to find a much smoother campus. During the summer, Granite Construction employees replaced the gravel driveways and parking lots for the two Matlock schools with 3 inches of asphalt. The lots offer angled parking, handicapped parking and ramps into the schools. Drainage links were re-established during the $630,000 project. "You don't have to go through mud puddles and potholes to get to the high school," said Superintendent Ma...
While the Grapeview School District has hired a handful of new folks and moved some familiar faces into new roles, even its biggest changes in the coming school year aim to keep the district on an even keel. Kurt Hilyard is no longer superintendent, but his replacement, Gerry Grubbs, is no stranger to Grapeview. Grubbs interned under Hilyard for the past two years as part of the Washington State University superintendent certification program. "I'd already known and admired Kurt, so I was happy...
The North Mason School District is helping students and families meet the school year with new events, faces and positions within the district, all of which are intended to foster a sense of belonging between the schools and those they serve. Amanda Marley-Clarke, communications specialist for the district, expressed pride in the district's back-to-school outreach event Aug. 25. The event's goal was to get school registration information, and resources from 17 of the district's community...
Much of the information in this story is from the book "Grapeview, Detroit of the West," by Mary Sagerson and Duane Robinson. In 1893, when the Grapeview area was known as Detroit (the name was changed in 1922), a small one-room schoolhouse was built near the water. "The school was located at the head of the slough right by the skid road that loggers built. The oxen teams working on hauling the logs down would fascinate the children. After their work, the loggers would leave the oxen in the clea...
'Emily the Criminal' I went to see "Emily the Criminal" expecting a brisk, taut crime caper that would afford one of my favorite comedic actresses a well-deserved showcase to stretch her dramatic muscles, but what I also got was a political Rorschach test whose concerns seem especially relevant in light of debates about student loan debt forgiveness. It's easy to dismiss Aubrey Plaza's Emily as an adult child of squandered opportunities, who dropped out of college after racking up a felony...
Downtown Hoodsport business co-owner Katherine Yackel and the Port of Hoodsport appear to have settled their concerns about the community at the port’s Aug. 17 meeting. Yackel, instructor and operations manager of YSS Dive in Hoodsport, acknowledged using the port’s park without an event form April 30. She said she’d been unaware of such event forms beforehand. “I do apologize for that,” Yackel said. “We did instruct our divers to use the parking lot where we had our tents. We did have one te...
Faith Lutheran offers grief-support seminar Terry Oliver, the pastor of grief support and care with Faith Lutheran Church in Shelton, recently completed 30 hours of classroom education in grief training from the Center of Loss and Life Transitions in Fort Collins, Colorado. Oliver and his wife, Doris, have been leading seminars dealing with grief and recovery for the past three tears at Faith Lutheran. They will begin the new seminar “Reconciling Your Losses” at 2 p.m. Sept. 15 at Faith Lutheran Church at 1212 Connection Ave. in Shelton, fol...
Local Huskies excelling at University of Washington Twenty-three students from Mason County earned spots on the dean’s list for the winter quarter at the University of Washington. To qualify, a student must have completed at least 12 graded credits and earn a GPA of 3.5 or better. Local students are junior Nathan Jacob Hipple of Allyn and junior Audrey R. Pelczar of Union. Students from Belfair are senior William Bennett, senior Ozelleaona Shu-Jun Chu, freshman Tomas Francisco-Juan, senior Joshua Michael Geiser, junior Daniel Juan Juan and s...
After two seasons filled with disruptions due to the coronavirus pandemic, this year's version of Friday Night Lights feels like a return to normalcy. Perhaps that's tempting fate, but, for now, Mason County's three high school football teams are heading into this week's season openers with a full, structured offseason for the first time since 2019. Amid the height of the pandemic in 2020, the fall football season was postponed until spring 2021 when, after a rapid week of practice, teams... Full story
The Shelton Highclimbers football team has high hopes as they prepare for the 2022 football season. Mark Smith, in his third season at the helm, said the transformation from the end of last year to this year was great. It was much better with a full offseason after having a shortened offseason following the spring 2021 COVID season and turning around three months later for a fall season. "The first year, we played in February, March, so gave the kids off April so we basically had May, June,...
The snap ended in a fumble. As did the next one. The one after that was flagged as a penalty. Under a scorching late-summer sun at Belfair's Phil Pugh Stadium, the Bulldogs kept grinding. "Our first thing is hold yourselves accountable," North Mason High School football coach Rob Thomas said last week after his squad's sixth day of practice. "Mistakes are going to happen. Mistakes are part of football. Part of growing is what do you do after you make that mistake? That's going to dictate how...
Mary M. Knight enters the 2022 football season with something they're not experienced with: inexperience. "I have one returning starter, and it's only his second year of football," MMK coach Tom Kerr told the Journal. "I've got another returner, a non-starter, second year of football and then five new players that have never played the game before." The Owls had an experienced senior class last season, highlighted by Ryan Good and Quinnton Krippelcz, but the four seniors are gone along with...
Shelton High School grads are preparing for the 24 Hours of Lemons race Oct. 15 and 16 at the Ridge Motorsports Complex. Mike Beyer, Shelton High School's career and technical education auto instructor, was able to get some alums and former students together who were interested in competing in the race. "It was my idea to try this race and give a shot at an endurance race," Beyer told the Journal. "It's not our first attempt, it's probably going to be our most successful, I think. We tried to...
Dusty slides, plenty of laughs and a whole lot of trash talking. That was the 24th annual Fuddpuckers Draft softball tournament in a nutshell. The two-day, six-team event Saturday and Sunday at Callanan Park in Shelton had a little of everything, including a few things that probably needed a couple of ibuprofen afterwards. "We would like to thank all our players and coaches," co-organizers, and sisters, Kacy Fladager and Chelsey Ceniza said after the tournament concluded. "Without you, this tour...
