Articles

Cordaviva is a 9-piece powerhouse of dance music influenced by the disparate rhythms and styles of the African diaspora. Their upbeat original music is a unique blend of soukous, rumba, Afro beat, funk, and various Latin styles. Bright horns compliment sublime vocal harmonies (sung in various languages), soulful guitars, and relentlessly driving percussion.

It’s officially 7/01/12 and I wanted to be the first one to wish our darling Gypsy a "Happy 37th Birthday!" What a girl! In honor of her day it brings us great pleasure to announce that the movie, "The Pony Man," starring Miss Gypsy, will be showing at the Vashon Theater on 7/15/12 at 1:00 p.m.

This is a unique time for the Boy Scouts highest award, the Eagle Scout Award. The Eagle Scout Award was started in 1912, thus this is the 100th Year Anniversary. Kevin Britz and Steve Kicinski, along with many other adult leaders, work closely with potential Eagle Scout candidates of the Scout Troop 294.

It is an honor to name Lou Engels as the Strawberry Festival Grand Marshal for 2012. Lou has been an Islander since 1950 when his father opened Engels Towing and Repair in its current location in 1951. Lou took over the business in 1969 and has been hard at work servicing Island vehicles six days a week for the past 43 years, the second oldest continuous business on the Island.

Well on Vashon that is really "Unofficial" Mayor. But while my name is up there and it looks like I am running, I am really fundraising for two causes that I have been working on for the last year. My platform is to "help make HealthCare accessible to all Vashon residents".

Cousin Nancy came up from California to visit the other week. She is going to become a grandmother in the next couple of months, and her expectant daughter-in-law Ariel grew up in Seattle, so Ariel’s Seattle friends and family held a baby shower for her.

This Southern Californa based group began as a purely acoustic, song-writing band. With very limited expectations and even less money, 200 West released their debut EP "Let’s See Where This Takes Us" to a very warm welcome from fans and listeners alike. The simple 5 track EP accumulated over 25,000 downloads and would lead to countless numbers of shows for the band over a span of several years.

Never before publicly displayed, Vashon Island resident, Jean Navarre has entrusted Janett Harrington and Andrea Aldrich, co-owners of UpCycled, with the privilege of presenting for sale twenty-two carefully selected pieces of art, representing eight contemporary artists.

The certification testing has come to a successful close for our Kimberly Stove. I am happy to report that Kimberly excelled in every aspect, finishing the battery of tests in half the time, and proving herself an extremely safe stove in very small spaces. With no protection on the walls we can place Kimberly within 6 inches of a combustible wall. This allows it to be installed on a 22 x 26 inch floor pad, with 3" vent parts. Our E.P.A. Emissions of 3.2 grams per hour and a top output of 40,000 btu (cord wood) makes this the most powerful and clean burning small stove that Omni Labs has ever seen, and allows for heating of homes up to 1500 square feet. 

Beginning July 1, many Vashon residents will begin being fined $25 per day for septic systems that may or may not be failing and polluting Puget Sound.

King County is 20 years behind the rest of the 12 counties surrounding Puget Sound in helping property owners repair or replace failing septic systems that are polluting the sound. Every other county has provided financial aid for property owners by utilizing funds available from federal, state and private sources. The EPA Sea Grant program used by 10 of the other 11 counties for septic system water pollution control provided more than $4.5 million dollars this year. King County did not apply or their application did not qualify.  

Nudibranchs (which is pronounced nudibranks) are the most amazing, complex and beautiful creatures of the sea.

I thought that I would draw a cartoon for this article, since nudibranchs are really hard to describe…but I thought that might not be such a great idea since the Loop is printed in black and white and I didn’t have a lot of confidence in being able to render a nudibranch without using color.

What better way to spend the afternoon of the Forth of July than on the beach with family and friends? Come enjoy one of the summer’s best low tides out at Point Robinson with the Vashon Beach Naturalists who will be there to teach folks of all ages about our shoreline neighbors. Before you go out on the beach check out the Festival area which will be set up by the lighthouse this year. As you come in you will learn some important things about how to take care of the animals and habitats that surround the point.