Chalk up another tournament win for the Maple Valley Bombers 9U baseball team. The team won the Redmond Tigers Invitational Tournament July 17-18, for their fourth tournament win in six tries.
John Robinson grimaced ever so slightly after a 7-year-old girl kicked him in the shin.
“Good, good, now finish it,” Robinson said.
Robinson teaches four karate classes through his Pacific Martial Arts Academy at Lake Wilderness Lodge. He offers three classes for children and a fourth for adults.
The first day of school will mark a homecoming for Chris Thomas.
Thomas, a 1988 graduate of Tahoma High, has taken over as principal at Glacier Park Elementary School.
For more than a decade he had taught and served as a principal in the Bellevue School District, most recently at Sherwood Forest Elementary, but the chance to work in the Tahoma School District was “too big of an opportunity to pass up.”
Dan Aas was ready to get out of his cubicle.
Aas, a 2003 Tahoma High graduate, decided to find a new opportunity in lacrosse, a sport he picked up at 14 years old.
He landed a job coaching in Exeter, England.
It was a simple pitch by Tina McDonough to get a new walker on her team.
McDonough, who founded the Valley Girls and Guys team, teamed up with Abby Steiner to enlist a new member to walk in the Susan G. Komen Foundation 3-Day for the Cure in September.
Kris DiOrio of Maple Valley was diagnosed with stage 3 invasive lobular breast cancer on May 5, 2008.
It was a pretty good Seafair weekend for brother and sister hydroplane racers Brian Perkins and Kayleigh Perkins Mallory.
Jammin’ basketball teams are looking for new players with tryouts scheduled in the coming weeks.
Boys and girls in fourth through eighth grade can try out for youth teams while students in ninth through 12th can try out for the high school level teams.
Oh sure, you may think you can’t sing, but Dace Anderson, founder of Dace’s Rock ‘n’ More in Maple Valley, will say that you just haven’t learned how to use your voice right.
The non-profit music school is offering a free class to help anyone who wants to learn how to sing to use their voice properly, Anderson said, with the class starting Tuesday, Aug. 10.
Slowly but surely, Darren Motamedy has been saying goodbye to Kent, to the school district, to the gigs, to the place he lived for more than 40 years.
On July 29 he played at Music in the Park at Lake Wilderness Park to a record crowd of more than 900. Many in the audience were former students of the saxophone player who taught for more than 20 years in the Kent School District, including at elementary schools in Covington, as a substitute and more recently as a full-time teacher.
On Saturday Kayleigh Perkins, a Black Diamond native, gets the opportunity of a lifetime at Seafair.
Perkins, a 2006 Kentlake High graduate, will get to test out the defending national champion U-1 Oh Boy! Oberto unlimited hydroplane, a 31-foot long race boat that is shaped like an aircraft wing that is powered by a turbine engine, known as the world’s fastest race boats.
“I’m beyond honored to be able to take out such a fabulous machine,” Perkins said.
Steve Sogura will get a chance to not only make people happy but to help raise money for the Cancer Memorial Fund.
Sogura, a Tahoma High graduate who lives in the Ravensdale home he grew up in, will put on his Elvis tribute show at a fundraiser that starts at 5 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 14 at Druids Glen Golf Club, 29925 207th Ave. S.E., Covington. The show will benefit the memorial fund organization that strives to honor the memories of loved ones who have lost the battle with cancer and celebrate those who have survived.
Kristin Habenicht, who volunteers with the organization, has been friends with Sogura since they were children. Habenicht’s parents are Sogura’s godparents.
Garth Brooks taught Rae Solomon everything she knows about performing.
In a manner of speaking, that is, as budding singer Solomon “wore out my DVD player” watching live concert videos of the country legend to take her stage skills to the next level.
Maple Valley city officials never planned to get into the business of running a golf course, but in November 2006 the City Council approved the purchase of Lake Wilderness Golf Course. The contract with Premier Golf, which operates the facility, expires in December and for city officials the time has come to evaluate the next step.
Change is the name of the game at the Kent School District administrative offices this summer.
There is a reorganization under way while the district school board prepares to adopt a final budget in late August that includes change through cuts in staff, programs and a number of other areas.
The Kent School District serves students in Covington.
Tahoma High is sending nine math team members to compete at the annual National Mu Alpha Theta (MATH) Convention July 25-30 in Washington, D.C.
The competitors will demonstrate their knowledge of math on an international stage against 800 other students vying for national rankings.
• Between January 1, 1997 and June 30, 2006, at least 359 people were killed by domestic violence abusers in Washington state. The homicide victims included domestic violence victims, their friends, family members, new partners and intervening law enforcement officers. The majority of the homicide victims, 62 percent, were women killed by their current or former husband or boyfriend.
Just leave if you’re being abused. It’s easier said than done.
“We do know that one of the most dangerous times for a survivor is after they’ve first left,” said Cheryl Bozarth, executive director of Domestic Abuse Women’s Network (DAWN).
Bozarth said those who have worked with domestic violence survivors over the years had known anecdotally the risks of leaving and in the past decade or so research backs up that knowledge.
Lynn Roberts, executive director of the Greater Maple Valley Community Center, is glad that in less than a year visitors won’t be taking their lives into their hands when they make a left hand turn onto Witte Road.
Roberts was at the groundbreaking celebration Maple Valley city officials hosted near Witte Road on Monday afternoon. Work will begin on the project in about a week.
In an area with hundreds of youngsters playing everything from soccer, rugby, lacrosse, softball and baseball, the number of fields available for athletics is lacking.
There is some potential relief in sight with the Summit Park facility in Maple Valley, which was recently approved by the City Council, and Covington’s Community Park, but both face one major hurdle — a lack of money.
Tahoma School District officials will keep a close eye on spending this year, but will not have to lay off any staff.
In 2009 the Tahoma Board of Directors had to approve a budget with spending and staff reductions as a result of sharp reductions in state funding, according to information provided by district spokesman Kevin Patterson.
