The League of Women Voters and the Mercer Island Reporter will host their annual Voters Forum at 7 p.m., Oct. 21, at Islander Middle School. Voters will hear from candidates for state representatives about Mercer Island parks funding initiatives and transportation issues. Come with your questions. For information, call (425) 883-9143.
West Mercer Elementary students, Ryland Shannon, left, with his friend Michael Gearhart, head to school with parents and classmates across S.E. 40th Street at Homestead Field during International Walk to School Day last Wednesday.
The ESL program on Mercer Island — now referred to as ELL for English Language Learners — is often overlooked; a modest footnote to the district’s trumpeted story of achievement. Yet the 72 ELL students attending MISD are well aware of the program’s strength and success. They are rewarded by it every day.
The wait for light rail in Seattle is almost over, just as Islanders and Eastsiders are getting a second chance to approve a cross-lake route in November. A new westbound HOV lane and direct-access off-ramp funded by Sound Transit and the Department of Transportation opened on Thursday night, bringing the Island one step closer to light rail.
Both driver’s side doors and the hood of a car were keyed while parked in the North-end Rite Aid parking lot during the morning of Oct. 11. According to the police report, the 42-year-old Islander victim took his children to the fire station around 10:40 a.m. When he returned to the car about two hours later, he found the damage, which he estimated to be worth about $1,000.
Republican U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert and Democratic challenger Darcy Burner engaged in their first official debate of the 2008 election season at Bellevue’s Meydenbauer Center on Oct. 8.
Knowing that a picture is equal to a thousand words, no citizen of our Island city needs more than a few sentences to recall (from the Reporter’s many pictures) that the Mercer Island Parks Department knows what to do with our priceless resources of our Luther Burbank waterfront, dock and brick powerplant building.
Dan Simons, a freshman at Mercer Island High School, was the high-point winner at the 2008 Washington Games Age Group Seattle Open held at Colman Pool in Seattle.
Last Sunday was the final day for the inaugural season of the Mercer Island Farmers Market. The market, held for 10 Sundays along S.E. 32nd Street adjacent to Mercerdale Park, was blessed with a nearly perfect run of good weather throughout August and September.
At the end of 2003, a few guys in a small-tech company decided to birth an online social networking site called MySpace. It was designed to be a more desirable alternative to a then-popular social networking site called Friendster. Little did this group realize what they had created and what it would become.
My wife and I are lucky. We sleep soundly throughout the night, with only the rare “off” night. Our lifestyle is tailor-made for adequate rest, as our work involves serious doses of exercise a couple of times each day, with most afternoons free for recovery. Lunch and a quick nap before heading back to work are luxuries that we don’t take for granted, especially now that my wife, Katie, is six months pregnant. Growing a person is hard work and requires cellular transformations of monumental proportions just to keep up with the increased circulatory, bone, blood, and tissue needs for both mom and baby.
Mercer Island native Jack Fellows spent most of his time in high school algebra class drawing war planes. Fifty years later, Fellows is still drawing war planes. But today he makes a living out of it.