“I am happy to announce that two of my students at the Children’s School of Excellence [CSE] won the 2007 University of Washington Neuroscience for Kids Art Contest.

There were over 1200 entries from all over the world, and Airies Hygaard and Evan Hawkins both won in the K-2 grade category…and they are only in Kindergarten! They drew colorful neurons, comparing their brain to a growing tree. The theme for this grade was
“My brain helps me…”

Over the year, we have studied the brain, and this contest fit right into our Kindergarten curriculum. Many students from CSE participated and all the drawings were unique and wonderful.

It is very exciting to see that the University of Washington knows the importance of teaching about the brain to young children.

Click here for more information. ”

Cheryl Nichols
Teacher
Children’s School of Excellence
Rainier, WA.

Congratulations to Ms. Nichols, CSE and the students!

CSE Award Winners Mr. Hawkins & Ms. Hygaard with their prizes
Photo courtesy of CSE

“OK, so Fred Loertscher didn’t win the big prize on “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire,” but he still walked away with a nice chunk of spending money. The 38-year-old Tenino construction worker who was in the show’s “hot seat” Monday after holding over from an episode that aired Feb. 16 walked away with $4,000,” quoting The Olympian.

“Two area land-use watchdog groups are appealing a Yelm-area section of Thurston County’s comprehensive plan, saying its [Yelm’s] urban growth area is too large. “If an urban growth area is bigger than it needs to be, it’s costly to taxpayers,” said Tim Trohimovich of Seattle-based Futurewise, one of the two appellants along with the Olympia-based Adams Cove Group. He added that it would lead to “paving over areas that are needed for groundwater recharge and paved surfaces that will cause discharge of polluted water into surface-water supplies.”

The appeal, if approved by the Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board, could result in the second time in two years that Thurston County has been ordered to rework parts of its comprehensive plan. The county is in the process of complying with the hearing board’s first such ruling, issued in 2005.

Trohimovich and Adams Cove Group spokeswoman Gayle Broadbent said they filed the appeal Feb. 16 with the hearings board because the Yelm urban growth area is bigger than it needs to be to accommodate growth.

The hearing board’s role is to make sure local governments comply with the state’s 1990 Growth Management Act,” quoting The Olympian.

“The Yelm History Project is an attempt to relate the story of Yelm in a variety of ways. It is, actually, many stories. It is a story about the prairie, the surrounding forests, and the Nisqually River; all in the morning shadow of Ta Co Bet; Mt. Rainer. It is also the saga of the Nisqually people, who inhabited the land, shaped the environment, and spread throughout the region. The Yelm History Project, finally, relates the history of the people who settled the prairie, farmed the soil, and logged the forests,” quoting the Yelm History Project site.

The Yelm History Project provides a wealth on information on the history of this area.

From Rep. Tom Campbell’s Press Release of Feb. 22, 2007

Negligent health care provider bill advances to House floor

(Olympia) Legislation to give the state Dept. of Health authority over health care providers who demonstrate negligence, incompetence or criminal actions with patients advances to the House floor, having passed both the House Appropriations and the Health & Wellness committees.

Rep. Tom Campbell (R-Roy), who sponsored the bill (SHB 1103), said if it passes the legislature and is signed into law, the discipline responsibility for health care providers will shift from the health care profession to the state Dept. of Health. “This measure shifts oversight from health care professionals to the state that licenses the practitioners,” Campbell said.

The major provisions of the bill require background checks of health care providers and shifts authority from the profession-run boards to the Dept.of Health to investigate complaints, make charging decisions, and conduct emergency license suspensions. The bill also creates sanctioning guidelines for all boards and commissions that will provide predictable and appropriate sanctions.

Campbell said the current system allows the profession to oversee the conduct of their peers in the health care field even though the state that is responsible to license them to practice.

“This bill shifts the status quo and places responsibility to review the competence of health care providers to the agency that licenses them,” he said. “It says the state demands transparency in the health care system so consumers can know the capability of their providers.”

The Appropriations Committee voted 23 to 11 to send the bill to the House floor. Campbell said his bill won the support of all 22 Democrats on the committee along with the yes vote of Rep. Maureen Walsh, (R-16th District).

Campbell said he expects the bill to be scheduled for debate on the House floor next week.

“The strong vote the bill got from the Health & Wellness Committee (9 yeas/4 nays) and this vote in Appropriations Committee gives us great momentum to get it passed by the full House,” Campbell said. “Now, we’ll work to gain this momentum in the Senate.”

Check back around March 1 for more local interest news.

This issue concerns the City of Tenino:

“This is the email I just sent out to the “friends of Tenino” group that formed from the logging issue . Thought that you who gave assistance might like to read it…..

Hi Folks!

Just wanted to let those who couldnt come to the city council meeting know….. it was a great success!

The city hall was packed and the citizens made it known that they would like the city to take notice that they care about the trees above Tenino. As we already knew, Weyerhaeuser withdrew its request for an easement road from the city -temporarily – on Monday. YEAH!

One of the things that seemed apparent is that the citizens were asking the city to be proactive in finding alternatives for logging the entire hill. Frank Anderson of the council seemed to feel that because of the citizen ruckus the city was now in a weaker place to negotiate with Weyerhaeuser. His opinion was noted but the council in general did seem receptive to ideas and will investigate some alternatives. Perhaps we can create a task force on the issue to consolidate ideas and approach the city with real options*.

Friends of Tenino is approaching the city at the next council meeting to create a collaborative effort with the city officials to:
+ share information and projects from citizens
+ spread information from city projects and impactful items
+ to create a task force from citizens, city officials, weyerhaueser and possibly county,state reps too for a solution about the logging above Tenino.
+ to also create umbrella groups from existing entities and concerned persons for other issues -especially helping community programs and projects grow and such.

It was an exciting thing to witness the community showing such interest and wanting to support the city in their requests as well. Much information was gained about this logging issue in just a short time from many citizens. Perhaps we can all work together in the future to creat projects and actions that don’t drain the individual but strengthen the whole.

I might suggest to read the Tenino Independent for more information about the meeting and hopefully it is more objective in the next issue.

Lets keep this community growing!!! Let me know if you know anyone who wants to be on this email tree and I will add them. I also have a hard copy list of citizens/email/phone/experience that you can pick up at my house (until I figure out how to email it) One last thing- The next Party for the Friends will be created soon- maybe in mid-March?

Thanks, Loralin”

“Fred Loertscher, 38, a construction worker from Tenino, will be a hot seat contestant on “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” at 7 p.m. today and again Monday.
The show airs on Seattle’s KONG. Loertscher is a 1986 graduate of Montesano High School,” quoting The Olympian.

“Yelm, Washington. Yelm Acupuncture Clinic announces Community Acupuncture every Wednesday evening, 6pm to 7:30pm beginning February 21.

Do you suffer from stress, anxiety, trouble sleeping, PTSD, or addictions? Would you like to detoxify your body to increase your overall health and energy? Are you interested in experiencing acupuncture, but regular treatments are not in your budget? Join us for Yelm Community Acupuncture. Treatments will be done in a group setting and will be approximately 20-40 minutes long.

Yelm Acupuncture Clinic is sponsoring sessions. The fee is minimal, only $20 to cover the cost of supplies and expenses.

Yelm Acupuncture Clinic is located at: 204 Yelm Avenue West in Yelm. Please call 360.458.6942 with questions.
Treatments will be administered by longtime Yelm resident and acupuncturist, Fran Pearre, LAc and me.

Thank you,

Hilary Laferriere, LAc.”

Just published on the Earthfiles website is this story [scroll to #10]:

“10) Yelm, Washington – January 22, 2007 at 2:45 p.m. Pacific –

I am a listener of Coast to Coast, and heard you on the program
Friday night, Jan. 26th.

My name is — and on 1-22-07, I had an experience that I can’t quite
believe myself yet. It was about 2:45 PM in the afternoon. I was on
the roof of a construction site in a town known as Yelm in Washington
state, about a 30 Min. drive east of Tacoma.

While I was on this roof of a Walmart, inspecting a roof, I caught
something in the sky out of the corner of my eye. We are about 15 min
south of McChord AFB. So I thought nothing of it and went on with my
work. This was a little strange though because I realized that there
wasn’t an engine or any noise coming from what I had caught. I looked
back up to see what it was, and that was when I caught the image of a
craft, wasn’t really a saucer, but was round. Almost spherical. That
was when it passed through a cloud and stopped just as it penetrated
the side facing south.

That was the side I was on, but it seemed to be right above McChord
AFB. This caught me off guard cause as it started to penetrate out of
the cloud, the cloud and the craft both stopped the north easterly
movement that the clouds where moving in. It was a silverish color,
almost the color of non-polished aluminum. This craft stayed in this
cloud for about 10 min, and then promptly pulled back into the cloud.
Directly after the craft pulled into the cloud, was when I noticed
what looked like a tunnel forming in the cloud. The tunnel then just
disappeared and the cloud returned to its normal wind drift…

I’ve seen these men twice since the incident, and none of us can remember a thing about the time that is missing -except that we all get an overwhelming feeling of scaredness, or overwhelming feeling of impending doom. All 5 of us also hear this female voice that says 2011, over and over again throughout the day, each day since it happened. The feeling of overwhelming doom is so strong that it makes me want to cry.

I get shivers, and feel like you would if you where looking down the barrel of a gun.

It’s a very strong intense feeling.”

Click the hotlink above for the full story.