In the Media

Valerie Bauman has joined the Puget Sound Business Journal as a reporter covering nonprofits and research.
She brings experience that includes five years at The Associated Press in Mississippi, North Carolina and New York. Her work has been published in USA Today, The New York Times and many other newspapers.
Bauman’s career also includes a stint at the Prague Post in the Czech Republic.

Middle blocker Emily Jepsen had a match-high 23 kills on a .613 attack percentage as Western Washington University overcame a slow start and defeated University of Alaska Fairbanks, 33-31, 23-25, 25-15, 25-17, in a Great Northwest Athletic Conference volleyball match Thursday, Sept. 22, at WWU.

Sophomore midfielder Steven Hughes scored his first collegiate goal with seven seconds left in the first half, lifting Western Washington University to a 1-0 victory over Northwest Nazarene University on Thursday in a Great Northwest Athletic Conference men's soccer contest in Nampa, Idaho.
The Vikings, who snapped a two-game losing streak, improved to 2-3-0 overall and 1-1-0 in conference action.

Midfielder Emily Frankland scored a goal in the 14th minute and it proved to be the game-winner as Western Washington blanked Northwest Nazarene University, 2-0, in a Great Northwest Athletic Conference contest Thursday, Sept. 22, in Nampa, Idaho.
The Vikings, who improved to 3-2-2 overall and 2-1-0 in GNAC action, ran their unbeaten string over the Crusaders to 16 (15-0-1). WWU leads the series 22-1-1, its only loss coming in 2003.

Western Washington University junior golfer Dylan Goodwin is no stranger to changing environments.
Goodwin, who was born in South Africa, moved to Indonesia and England before finally ending up at Mukilteo at the age of 14. Just as he made several moves until he found a spot he could call home growing up, Goodwin had to change his address in order to find solace in his collegiate golf career.
Now, he is hoping to follow up a brilliant 2010-2011 season, as the Vikings open play at the 40th Western Washington University Invitational on Friday and Saturday, Sept. 23-24, at the Bellingham Golf and Country Club.

Western Washington University's Center for Economic Vitality, the Lynden Chamber of Commerce and the Lynden Downtown Business Association will host "Shockingly Good: How To Keep Your Customers Coming Back," from 8 to 9 a.m. Friday, Sept. 23, at Dutch Mothers Restaurant, 405 Front St., in Lynden.

I know many of the students returning to Bellingham this week for fall quarter at Western Washington University aren’t quite 21 and can often feel excluded from the thriving downtown music scene, so I thought it would be a good idea to highlight some of the live music venues that feature all-ages shows around town.

The nation’s largest coal mining companies had hoped for quick approval of plans to export Powder River Basin coal from Wyoming and Montana to the endless power plants and factories of China. But summer settles into fall with permit applications in abeyance and growing resistance in Pacific Northwest communities, not only ones adjacent to but also some far from the ports that hope to ship the coal.

Wearing a homemade sandwich board sign, dancing and handing out fliers, Whatcom County Council member Barbara Brenner campaigned for re-election at the Western Washington University information fair this week.
Then she got kicked out, she said. She hadn't registered ahead of time for the invitation-only event, which draws thousands of students.
"It's crazy," Brenner said. "There's something really wrong here."

“I’d like to assure you this nightmare will end. But I don’t see an end in sight.”
That’s precisely what you don’t want to hear from the state’s chief economist, Arun Raha. His new revenue forecast has blown a $1.4 billion hole in the state’s biennial budget, which was already packed with an abundance of suffering. And $1.4 billion is actually an understatement: The necessity of restoring a prudent reserve makes this a nearly $2 billion problem.
The only faint hope Raha offered was the possibility of a 4.4 percent revenue bump in 2013 – too far down the road to bank on, especially given the ringworm-like tenacity of this economic misery.