Who’s News
June 21, 2011
Marlena Norwood accepted to UC Berkeley summer program
Eastside Catholic High School junior Marlena Norwood was accepted into the National Student Leadership Conference on Medicine and Health Care at University of California, Berkeley.
In the 10-day conference, students will witness how to suture and perform a craniotomy demonstration, practice drilling into model skulls, participate in simulated clinical rounds and determine the identity of mystery “outbreak” diseases. They’ll also visit with physicians and researchers.
Marijuana debate could be sending mixed signals to teens
May 17, 2011
As the debate about medical marijuana progresses, it could be sending mixed messages to youths, shaping their thoughts about the still-illegal substance.
Attitudes among local students are changing about the use of marijuana. Contributed
“Across the board, our counselors are reporting a change in attitude toward marijuana,” Youth Eastside Services Executive Director Patti Skelton-McGougan said. “Teens are seeing pot as less dangerous because of its potential medicinal properties.”
YES counselors are working to educate youths about marijuana, including information showing it is addictive, is often a gateway drug, and can lead to lower school performance and illness.
Nationally, the number of middle and high school students experimenting with the drug is at its highest since the 1980s, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
In the Issaquah School District, data only goes back to 2004, when the district began administering the state’s Healthy Youth Survey.
In 2004, more students, on average, reported “that adults in their neighborhoods think youth marijuana use is ‘very wrong,’” compared to reports from 2010.
In 2004, 70 percent of sophomores and 58 percent of seniors said they thought their neighbors looked down on youths using marijuana.
Who’s News
March 29, 2011
Friends of Youth receives $20,000 grant
Friends of Youth recently received a $20,000 grant from The Seattle Foundation to provide general operating support.
Friends of Youth, which has an Issaquah branch and is celebrating its 60th year, provides a broad, comprehensive spectrum of shelter, housing, counseling and prevention services for young people and their families in King and Snohomish counties.
Bellevue College student wins award for interior design
Bellevue College student Anne Aristya, of Issaquah, won an award for excellence in Interior Design from the Seattle Design Center as part of its 12th annual Northwest Design Awards Competition, which celebrates the best of regional interior design.
Aristya took first place for her work in INDES 265 Design Illustration under the guidance of instructor Sandra Wilson.
Designers, architects and students competed with projects in 10 competition categories. A panel of local subject experts evaluated submissions through an anonymous process, measuring each project on the basis of proportion, composition, use of space, materials and appropriateness of the design solution.
This year’s categories were: bathroom, bedroom, commercial, hospitality, kitchen, outdoor living, student design, whole house (less than $400,000), whole house (more than $400,000) and yacht/jet.
More than 250 members of the design community attended the awards presentation at the Northwest Design Awards Gala.
Suicide solution is to talk about it
March 15, 2011
For many, suicide is a difficult topic to broach.
“There are a lot of myths out there,” Friends of Youth Director of Community Treatment Services Paula Frederick said. “People, in general, think that if we do talk about it, that will increase the risk of other people committing suicide.
“That just doesn’t happen,” she said. “That’s not what the research bears out.”
Suicide can be a taboo subject. It can make people uncomfortable, but once it’s part of a discussion, it can help someone talk about their sadness and pain.
The best way to address it is to ask in a straightforward conversation, “Are you thinking of suicide?” Skyline High School Counselor Beth Contreras said.
At Skyline, Contreras’ door is always open to students who are either seeking help for their friends or for themselves. Sometimes, students report classmates they see in passing.
“We’ll get anonymous notes: ‘I don’t know this person, but they look really down,’” Contreras said. Read more
Restorix Health hyperbaric chamber leads to space-age medical research
February 15, 2011
Mention hyperbaric chambers, and most people start thinking about pressurized rooms where scuba divers afflicted with the bends go to recover.
But the chambers can be used for much more, and Issaquah’s Restorix Health plans to participate in hyperbaric treatment and research to find other medical uses for the pressurized chambers.
“We think there is great potential nationwide for what they’re doing and what they started in Issaquah,” Issaquah Chamber of Commerce CEO Matt Bott said, congratulating it for receiving one of the chamber’s three Innovation in Issaquah awards.
Restorix Health Medical Director Latisha Smith shows one of the clinic’s six hyperbaric chambers. Restorix Health’s model of comprehensive care and research helped it receive an Innovation in Issaquah award. By Laura Geggel
Restorix Health, which opened in Issaquah in December, has grand ambitions for its comprehensive health care delivery system. With six hyperbaric chambers, it has the largest collection of large monoplace chambers in the country. The chambers deliver oxygen with an increased atmospheric pressure, and can help heal patients with diverse maladies, including diabetic patients who have dying tissue deprived of its regular dose of oxygen.
“By putting your whole body under pressure, we dissolve oxygen into the liquid part of your body,” Medical Director Tommy Love said.
Increased oxygen levels can stimulate different responses in the body, including faster healing and increased stem cells, Medical Director Latisha Smith said.
Pacific Cascade students make tough decisions
January 11, 2011
Counselor Lori Kasemeier asks students about decision-making and throws a ball toward a student volunteering an answer at Pacific Cascade Middle School. By Laura Geggel
Students face decisions every day, from the flippant, “Should I straighten my hair today?” to the more serious, “Should I help my friend cheat on a test?” Read more
Off the Press
December 7, 2010
It is time to overcome hardship with giving
Let’s get right to the heart of the matter. Government budget cuts in 2011 are going to hurt the people who need the most help. With the federal, state, county and city dealing with huge revenue deficits — just when layoffs, furloughs and medical cost hikes are hurting most — the shredded social safety net is going to fail a lot of folks.
That’s why it is so important, in fact imperative, that this Christmas season we try to keep our local charities uppermost in our giving impulses. It’s the worst hardships those in need in the next calendar year will face that we need to anticipate and head off here and now.
In case a memory refresher will do some good, these are a few local places that can use our spirit of generosity:
Eastside Baby Corner in Issaquah provides for children in need from birth to age 12 throughout the Eastside. To quote their website, “What you give, we give, to Eastside families struggling with job loss, homelessness, medical crisis and poverty.”
Teenagers think inside of the box
November 23, 2010
Cold campout raises awareness of homelessness
Even after spending more than an hour building her cardboard box house and sleeping with nothing but cardboard and a sleeping bag between her and the raw outside, Kristin Dietzel was ready to tackle the day’s challenges as a temporary homeless minor.
But, as the day wore on, Dietzel, an eighth-grade student at Beaver Lake Middle School, found herself growing tired. She had fasted for 24 hours, gone digging through Dumpsters for meals, walked door to door for a food drive and panhandled outside a grocery store in Issaquah, all on the cold, gray day of Nov. 13.
She and 23 other students learned about homelessness in a 24-hour activity called Box Out, held by the Faith United Methodist Church youth group. Director of Youth Ministries Robert Seybold started the program seven years ago, but this is the first year he has organized it in Issaquah.
For Seybold, homelessness is a personal issue. As a teenager growing up in Yakima, he was homeless on and off for three years.
“I just remember what it was like to have to cover myself up with cardboard boxes whenever it would be raining or snowing,” he said. “I would grab plastic bags from the grocery store to prevent them from getting wet.”
Who’s News
November 9, 2010
Trivia champions crowned
Trivia Champions of Issaquah
Issaquah Rotary Trivia Night on Oct. 26 at Malarkey’s raised $1,600 for the Issaquah Friends of Youth At Risk program.
The top three teams donated their prize money to the charity. The winning team crowned “Trivia Champions of Issaquah” included members Christine and Charles Chi and Shannon and Richard McVay. Read more
Our Savior Lutheran Church turns 50
November 2, 2010
At the beginning of most services during the past 50 years, organist Vern Lindquist has played a quiet prelude, helping people transition from their busy lives into the serenity of worship at Issaquah’s Our Savior Lutheran Church.
Youngsters and their camp leaders at Our Savior Lutheran Church form a line to return inside after recess and refreshments during vacation Bible school in the 1990s. Contributed
Lindquist played the piano for the first service, Oct. 1, 1960, at the Village Theatre KIDSTAGE, just as he will play the organ at the church’s three-day, 50th-anniversary celebration this weekend, when the church celebrates its past, current and future members.
The first Lutheran church in Issaquah, Our Savior Lutheran moved from the theater a year later, after its members dedicated the first phase of their new church building. The founding pastor, Ernest Collard, circled the rural city and built a congregation of 82 members at a time when the city was less than 4,000 people.
From there, the church grew, and today it has more than 300 families in its congregation.
