A La Center High senior was suspended from school Wednesday for strapping a fake bomb around his waist in a stunt to ask a girl to prom.
The situation caused a short-lived scare among administrators until they confirmed the prop wasn’t a real weapon and the student, Ibrahim Ahmad, was not making threats. Nonetheless, the stunt landed Ahmad with a five-day suspension that will keep him from going to the school’s prom on Saturday night.
Ahmad said he felt pressure to go all out in asking his would-be date to the big dance.
“In ‘promposals,’ you’re supposed to go big,” he said. “It’s kind of a trending thing now, too, where everyone just asks in a really creative way.”
So during lunchtime, Ahmad strapped a paintball vest to his waist and filled the open pockets with red paper tubes attached to red wires, a prop made to look like explosives. And he stood up on the stage in the cafeteria holding a sign that read: “I kno it’s A little Late, But I’m kinda…THE BOMB! Rilea, Will U Be My Date To Prom?”
The proposed east county bridge could be heading farther east. But it still needs crucial buy-in, and its new location may present new hurdles.
Republican Clark County Councilor David Madore, a driving force behind the idea of a new span connecting Washington and Oregon east of Interstate 205, indicated recently that he wants to consider shifting its alignment. Madore recently said he’s exploring moving the proposed bridge so that it crosses the Columbia River between Camas and Troutdale, Ore. The previous concept would have landed in Clark County at Southeast 192nd Avenue, inside the city limits of Vancouver.
Details of the new alignment are unclear.
“There is still much work to be done. We’re on it,” Madore wrote on his Facebook page this week. “If this is the direction that you want our community to go, then please weigh in. Our job is to listen to you, our bosses.”
Ever since its opening about a decade ago, Esther Short Commons has been a tough home for retailers.
Despite its proximity to popular Esther Short Park, with its string of public activities, the small shops and restaurants in the building’s retail space on West Eighth Street have come and gone quickly. With a new restaurant and a snack store both set to arrive next month, all the retail storefronts will be filled for the first time in a long time. But existing retailers are struggling, and the property owner isn’t sure that a dental office will renew a lease set to expire this year.
“It’s a better mix now, but I’ve always had them come and go,” said Tom Tucker, whose Portland-based Tucker Enterprises owns six of the West Eighth Street retail spaces. “In areas like this, retail has a huge turnover.”
The two new businesses are arriving at the best possible time: Existing tenants say the seasonal Farmers’ Market, which opened for 2015 last month, gives them a big business boost as more people flock to the area. Misty DeWitt, owner of Pro Vitae Vibration Studio at 525 W. Eighth St., said summers are her time to catch up financially. “Winters are very hard,” said DeWitt, who opened the walk-in fitness studio three years ago.
It’s been a long time since kindergarten was synonymous with nap time, graham crackers, stories and playtime. Today’s kindergarten classrooms are more academic than ever.
The kindergarten school day has been lengthening, too. State law mandates that voluntary, all-day kindergarten be implemented in all schools by the 2017-2018 school year. Slowly, school districts across the state are transitioning from half-day to all-day kindergarten programs. At this point, the state is funding only all-day programs that serve students with the highest free- or reduced-price lunch rates.
How does all-day kindergarten compare to half-day kindergarten?
“There’s no nap, even with our longer day. They really don’t need it,” said Jodie Brusseau, kindergarten teacher at Evergreen Public Schools’ Riverview Elementary. “It’s very academic, and there’s a lot of learning happening, but we do still strive to keep the magic of kindergarten alive with arts and crafts, games and activities to develop their fine motor skills through holding a pencil or cutting with scissors.”
In honor of Clark County’s first legal celebration of 420 — the marijuana culture holiday that falls on April 20 — we thought we’d list some lesser-known facts about cannabis.
The Columbian’s new Cannabis Chronicles website also launches Monday at http://cannabis-chronicles.com, with news, reviews, videos, links, a calendar and more.
