In the Media
Samir Vejo learned to walk, talk and play soccer as a toddler.
The first-year head coach of the Kelso girls soccer team followed his middle brother, Amir, "like a puppy," anywhere there was soccer to be played.
In their hometown of Trebinje, Bosnia, that meant everywhere.
They'd join hundreds of other soccer-crazed boys at the park. Or they'd play in the street in front of the overcrowded flat where their family lived — "With at least 30 other people," said Amir — using only a soccer ball and two rocks, spaced parallel and apart to serve as goalposts.
Mark Bergsma, who grew up on the shores of Lake Whatcom and has been a photographer in Bellingham for just over 30 years, is passionate about a new type of art - using high-tech tools such as composite imaging and color grading to enhance images for a variety of markets and for his new gallery at Donette Studios, 4165 Hannegan Road.
He will host an open house from 5:30 to 9 p.m. Friday, Nov. 11, with "Choices," which he calls "a debut exhibition featuring photographs masterfully transformed into 'Impressionist' style." For more on his work, see markbergsma.com.
Heather McCrea was looking through some of the recent donations to the Oak Harbor thrift store where she works when she picked up a book titled “The torch is passed… .”
As she looked through its pages, she found more than just a collection of photos and text surrounding the Kennedy assassination. Tucked inside the book, she found three rare artifacts related to both the John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy assassinations.
“I looked in and went, oh, my gosh,” McCrea said. “It was exciting.”
“John Schutt is a superstar in planetary science,” says Ralph Harvey, director of the Antarctic Search for Meteorites (ANSMET) program. Schutt (pronounced “Skutt”) has served as ANSMET’s field safety officer and professional mountain guide for 31 years. Case Western Reserve University is awarding him an honorary Doctor of Science degree at this year’s commencement.
“I always like to say that it’s chic to be a geek.”
—Julie Larson-Green, 49,corporate vice president of program management for the Windows division, Microsoft
Veterans Day is Friday, Nov. 11, but events to mark it start early in Whatcom County. All events are free unless otherwise noted.
Acclaimed writer-illustrator of picture books Oliver Jeffers will be in Fairhaven this weekend to read from his recently released "Stuck," a howlingly funny tale of a young boy's efforts to solve a problem by throwing continuously bigger things at it.
In a phone conversation last week from his studio in Brooklyn, Jeffers said the idea for the book came from an incident that happened to his wife, when she snagged someone else's kite and tried mightily to free it - even heaving things into the tree.
Telling the story later to a friend was when he realized it should be a book.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency has announced winners of a contest to create the best "Apps for the Environment." After a solicitation earlier this year, the agency drew 38 entries and 2,000 votes on them from website users. The main prerequisite was that entrants base the program at least in part on publicly available EPA data.
One of the entries that I liked (though it was not among the winners), for example, was Find Green Garage, which enables users to see the locations of auto repair facilities that have achieved green certification from various programs. Type in a zip code and the user will be shown a Google Map with icons identifying the qualifying shops; click on one of the icons for "type of service provided, name, location, phone number, the certifying authority, and the amount of greenhouse gas savings achieved to date. Hyperlinks take you to the shop's website, the certifying authority website, and additional information about how green savings are calculated."
Former Western Washington University women's basketball player Megan Pinske has signed a one-year contract with the TV Saarlouis Royals in Germany's Damen Basketball Bundesliga League. Making that announcement was Slan Sports Management.
Western Washington University senior defender Alicia Patten was a first-team choice for the third straight year to the Great Northwest Athletic Conference women's soccer all-star team announced today.