In the Media

Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - MTV.com

When Ben Gibbard first moved to Seattle, he spent most of his time wishing he could just go back to Bellingham, Washington. That was where he had gone to school (Western Washington University) and where, sometime around 1997, he had formed Death Cab For Cutie (whose new album, Codes and Keys, is out Tuesday, May 31). And it was with his bandmates that he had packed up and moved 90 miles south, to the Emerald City, in the hopes of making it as an honest-to-goodness professional rock-and-roll band.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - The (Everett) Herald

After untold millennia of glacier surfing, this big rock is taking a quick, 12,000-year break.

Geologists believe a boulder located in a mobile-home park just off Edmonds Way is an "erratic," a stone deposited in the area by glaciers during the ice age.

Looking at the rock -- roughly 12 feet high by 10 feet wide by 15 feet long -- "erratic" would seem to be a misnomer.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - KGMI 790-AM

Western Washington University could be allowed to set its own tuition in order to make up for cuts in state funding.

Steve Swan, spokesperson for Western, says the Board of Trustees likely will make a tuition decision during its meeting scheduled for June 9th and 10th.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - Whatcom Magazine

Victor Cruz, the owner and winemaker at Cañon de Sol Winery in Benton City, is proof that nice guys indeed finish first.

This isn't to say that Cruz is resting on his laurels at his award-winning winery. On the contrary, he's working on a new label design and is creating the inaugural, two-tiered Cañon de Sol wine club to promote his beautifully crafted Washington wines.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - The Bellingham Herald

The Western Washington University baseball club team went 1-2 at the National Club Baseball World Series in Columbus, Ga.

The season ended for the Vikings, which placed fifth in the nation among nearly 200 college club baseball teams in the league.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - The Seattle Times

Shot in Washington over just seven days, "Do You See Colors When You Close Your Eyes?" is "shot like a poem is written" and uses nonlinear memories to tell the story of a family tragedy.

Starring Sage Price in the dual role of twin brothers, it's a romantic drama/road-trip movie that finds Jonathan (Price) meeting and quickly falling in love with Christian (Sean Frazier) — just as Jonathan is facing the last year of his life. After Jonathan's sudden death, his twin, Michael, finally meets Christian, and both are suffering deeply.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - Peninsula Daily News

When saxophone-playing tap dancer Shoehorn Conley failed to appear at the Juan de Fuca Festival of the Arts for his Sunday afternoon slot, festival executive director Dan Maguire immediately found a nervous — but clear-voiced — replacement.

Julia Maguire, a singer, guitarist, student at Western Washington University and Dan’s daughter, stepped onto the Chamber Stage a few minutes after making a set list.

She proceeded to deliver a 90-minute set that included songs by Norah Jones (“Come Away with Me”) and Leonard Cohen (“Hallelujah”) alongside a slow “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” (Lennon/McCartney).

Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - The (Everett) Herald

When Marlys Jensen made friends, they became friends for life.

A career-long Lakewood School District employee, loyal member of Everett High School's class of 1957, and Assistance League volunteer, Jensen was known for opening her heart and home to her cherished family and countless friends.

With Richard Jensen, her husband of 50 years, she hosted an annual rite of spring that brought hundreds of people to the couple's Lake Ki waterfront home. That event was opening day of trout fishing for Washington's lowland lakes, which this year was April 30.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - The Bellingham Herald

The final day of the 2011 NCAA Division II Outdoor Track & Field Championships proved to be one of the best in the history of Western Washington University.

The Vikings had two national champions Saturday - Ryan Brown in the men's pole vault and Monica Gruszecki in the women's javelin - and a second-place finish in the women's 5,000 by Sarah Porter, who won the 10,000 on Thursday.

It was the fourth national championship for Brown, who also won back-to-back indoor pole vault titles in 2010 and 2011, and the second for Gruszecki, who won the javelin as a freshman in 2007. They are the first Vikings to win multiple individual national championships.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - WJI Times Observer

State college administrators grappling with funding woes have identified a clever fiscal remedy, but only at the risk of rankling local taxpayers.

Some public universities buffeted by expiring federal stimulus monies and dwindling state resources are recruiting out-of-state students at the expense of in-state applicants.

"In order to increase revenues," explained Scott Jaschik, the editor of Inside Higher Ed, an online news publication, "many public universities are looking at increasing their share of out-of-state students, who typically pay much higher tuition rates."