In the Media

Twelve students at the Shannon Point Marine Center were feeding plankton, examining crab larvae and measuring oxygen near seabed worm holes. One watched the others for inspiration.
Joe Rudko, 21, of Woodinville, is a lone art student among a dozen budding scientists. While students measure water acidity levels among algae, Rudko uses the seaside research center and the students’ work as a springboard for his photography.

Local law enforcement agencies handed out 228 speeding tickets while recently looking out for lead-footed drivers.

David Wright with the Whatcom County Traffic Safety Task Force says the speeding drivers were busted during emphasis patrols between July 15th and August 7th.

“We had Canadian drivers, Whatcom County drivers, and drivers from Oregon and California,” said Wright. “We don’t care where you’re from: if you’re speeding in our state, you’re doing something that you shouldn’t be doing.”

Dan's Automotive, a Bellingham service and repair center, has moved to a larger facility in the same business park after achieving 74-percent growth in its second year of business.
Dan's Automotive now utilizes three bays for customer vehicles after moving to its new facility in June, according to a company press release. Dan's Automotive is in the Sunset Pond Business Park at 705 Sunset Pond Lane, just off James Street Road and a quarter-mile northwest of Sunset Square.

Eleanor Elliott was born on the Canadian frontier and taught in a one-room schoolhouse. As a young wife, she lived in Washington fishing village so remote that she had to sail across the Columbia River each time she gave birth. But despite the lack of luxuries, she always saw the positive side of life.

"She was a wonderful woman, it's really hard to do her justice," said her son-in-law Darrel Trotter of Rosburg. "She lived through so many difficult times ... but in the daily journal she kept there's nothing negative in it."

Eleanor died Aug. 2, 2011, in Cathlamet at the age of 93, having spent 73 years in Wahkiakum County.

Eleanor R. Tomlinson was born Feb. 20, 1918, in Hazelton, British Columbia, to Robert and Ethel (Collins) Tomlinson. Her mother died a year later in childbirth. Her father later remarried and the family moved to Ketchikan, Alaska, where she graduated from high school.

As a young woman, she traveled alone down to Bellingham, Wash., and paid her own way through then-Washington Normal College (now Western Washington University), earning a teaching degree.

Welcome to "Mystery Lode," a six-part serial adventure written by Whatcom County residents.

The adventure runs July 11 through Aug. 15, with a new chapter in each Monday's edition of The Herald.

In our story so far, college student Ben Avery, a man in a hot-dog suit, a black Lab, a Herald photographer, a kidnapped chicken, and a homeless man who doesn't believe in ancient curses find themselves trapped by a cave-in at an old coal mine near Fairhaven. Could the Chinese curse be true?

Ben and Jerry's is famous for quirky names for its ice cream flavors. Some of the quirkiest have paid homage to well-known people, such as Cherry Garcia, Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream, and Imagine Whirled Peace, a John Lennon tribute flavor.

A topical Ben and Jerry's flavor, apparently retired too soon, was Economic Crunch, released in 1987.

Here in Bellingham, Ben Scholtz at Mallard Ice Cream has created special flavors for a few local institutions: Kulshan Cherry Liqueur Treat for the Kulshan Community Land Trust; a blueberry swirl with the school colors for Western Washington University; and Slam Dunk (vanilla ice cream with chocolate and Butterfingers) for the Bellingham Slam basketball team.

She was a strong person, they said. A beautiful person, a brilliant person.

Yet Annie Nelson, who would have been 20 next month, could also be serious, stubborn, empathetic and silly.

Remembering this, friends who attended her memorial service last Wednesday at Mount Si High School honored her memory by lightening the mood at the event whenever it turned somber.

"Annie really wanted for this to be more of a celebration, and not a sad thing," said friend and neighbor Sharon Hockenbury, whose daughter Taryn, organized the memorial with the help of another close friend and classmate with Annie, Samantha.

Dianna "Annie" Jene Nelson died July 29, almost two years exactly after she was diagnosed with non-rhabdomyosarcoma, a soft-tissue cancer that started as a painful lump on her back.

When she was diagnosed, Annie had been looking ahead to her last year of high school. She missed most of her senior year though, because she immediately started an aggressive course of treatment for the cancer.

"They really hit her hard at Children's (Hospital) as far as the first six months," recalled her mother, Joanne. Annie had surgery to remove the lump, followed by both radiation therapy and chemotherapy. By February, she was in remission, able to return to school, her friends, and her boyfriend, Spencer Newsad.

The Perseid meteor shower - the sole annual celestial display that Northwesterners are almost guaranteed to see - will be a bit diminished this year because of a brilliant full moon.

Other major meteor showers occur in fall and winter months, when it's a good bet that Northwestern skies will be cloudy. But the Perseids are active from mid-July to late August, a time when skies around Bellingham usually are clear.

Still, even casual observers should be able to see all but the most faint of the meteors, which are debris from the comet Swift-Tuttle that burn in brilliant streaks as they enter Earth's atmosphere. Most are the size of a speck of dust.

These Whatcom County students were named to the spring-quarter honor roll at Western Washington University:

Reasons are aplenty when one looks at the Whatcom Rangers U18 Gold 93/94 girls' soccer team and sees why it has been successful.

The Rangers have placed high or had a winning record at nearly every club showcase competition in the past year. They have a loaded roster that includes the reigning Class 2A state player of the year. Their coach also happens to be an NCAA Division II coach for not one but two teams.

Eight players from the defending Class 2A state champion Sehome girls' soccer team doesn't hurt, either.