Here at the Reporter, we’re proud to say we have something in common with some local students who recently caught the eye of Washington’s secretary of state.
Shannelle Cayetano and Alex Hastings can head into their summer break from Mattson Middle School with something extra to be proud of: Their joint history project was chosen from among entries statewide for display at the Washington State Archives in Olympia. Secretary of State Sam Reed, who oversees the archives, formally saluted the pupils and their work as part of 2008 History Day.
Working with records from the archives, Cayetano and Hastings developed an impressive report on the Camp Harmony detention center that existed at the Western Washington Fair grounds in Puyallup during World War II. There, in a sad chapter of U.S. and state history, Japanese and Japanese-Americans were interned before being shipped to inland camps in 1942. The students called their project “Behind Barbed Wire: The Story of Camp Harmony.”
“These students have demonstrated what a great resource government records in our state can be,” said Reed. “We hope more students will take advantage of the rich offerings available through state archives.”
Reed also is the keeper of the state library – which, we’re happy to note, recently added the 2007 issues of the Reporter to its massive microfilm records of newspapers in Washington. By law, the state library serves “as the depository for newspapers published in the state of Washington, thus providing a central location for a valuable historical record for scholarly, personal, and commercial reference and circulation.”
The state library is in Olympia. That’s a long (and pretty expensive) drive, so if you want to dig in to our archives, there are easier ways:
• Visit our office weekdays, and you can leaf through the bound volumes of past years’ editions.
• Or go online at www.covingtonreporter.com and www.maplevalley reporter.com for some digital archives of recent months of our articles. Our Web sites are still under development but ready for readers, though the archives aren’t fully loaded yet.
Editor Pat Jenkins can be reached at (425) 432-1209 (extension 1050) and pjenkins@reporternewspapers.com
