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Heartbreak.
Fear.
Anger.
These were the feelings of Clark County’s black leaders Friday, as the nation reeled from a week marked by racial violence. Locals made it clear they condemn all the violence.
For so many black men and women, the shootings have become an all-too-familiar story. The Counted, The Guardian’s project tracking police shootings in the United States, reports that police have shot and killed 569 people in the United States in 2016, 137 of whom were black.
“As a mother of African American sons, this hits us to a certain core,” said Deena Pierott, organizer of Vancouver’s annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast. “It’s an ache that we have, and we realize it’s not going to end anytime soon.”
Vancouver Energy is making a lot of promises.
Like how it can build and safely operate the nation’s largest oil terminal at the Port of Vancouver.
Or how it can turn a profit for its owners, Tesoro Corp. and Savage Cos.
Or how it can give West Coast refineries new access to domestic crude oil.
“So what does this mean to me, as someone in Vancouver?” said Vancouver Energy General Manager Jared Larrabee. “A huge part of the economic value is in labor income.”
Those not fighting the rail-to-marine terminal for its potential to be an environmental disaster may be embracing it as an economic engine that will provide “multiplier effects” in addition to paychecks.
Stephanie Lynn threw a mismatched disco skirt over her padded bike shorts when she rode to photograph a client’s house for a listing. It was 2009. The Vancouver woman was working as a real estate agent, and she wanted to squeeze a little fun and exercise into her day without looking completely unprofessional on the job.
She discovered that the skirt somehow compensated for hair squished by her bike helmet and a jersey soaked with sweat. She decided she could make an even better skirt than the one she grabbed from her closet. She traced her design, cut a pattern from newspaper and hired a local seamstress. After some trial and error, she created her first Sweet Spot Skirt: a short reversible skirt with rows of snaps so it can adjust to fit women as they gain or lose weight.
The idea, as they say, had legs. Outdoor retailer Recreational Equipment Inc., headquartered in Kent, started carrying Sweet Spot Skirts at 44 REI stores in 2013, then 150 in 2015. Sweet Spot Skirts is expanding its customer base by acquiring a T-shirt company and introducing a kilt for men this summer. Lynn anticipates the company will soon hit $1 million in annual sales.
Students have about 50 days of summer break stretching ahead of them before they head back to school. If middle school, high school and college students are looking for something to keep them busy this summer, here are several volunteer opportunities to gain work experience, explore potential careers, build resumes and make a difference in the community. From removing invasive species to maintaining trails to picking fruit for the food bank to working at the library, students will find plenty of volunteer opportunities.
The popularity of Mount St. Helens as a tourist destination, combined with its proximity to the Seattle and Portland areas, make the Ape Cave a well-known and well-trodden feature of the area. But with just a little careful planning, visits to the Ape Cave can also be a much more enjoyable experience for visitors and a potentially safer area for wildlife that visit it.
The Ape Cave is the longest continuous lava tube in the continental United States and also the third longest lava tube on the continent. The uniqueness of the cave draws thousands of visitors in the summer and sometimes it feels more like walking through a shopping center and less like a romp in the wilderness.
What’s more, the recent discovery of White Nose Syndrome near North Bend has the U.S. Forest Service concerned about the possibility of the disease spreading to the cave’s bat population. The disease is caused by a fungus that has killed more than 6 million bats in the Eastern U.S. It’s easily spread from cave to cave on the clothing and shoes of people who have visited contaminated areas.
Mary Blanchette remembers when being openly gay was risky. Her children were bullied at school. Someone painted explicit graffiti on their house.
“A lot of older women who have lived in this community their whole lives have a lot of fear,” said Blanchette, 60, executive director of the Children’s Justice Center. “There’s a lot of prejudice.”
Blanchette was among about 40 women gathered underneath the clock tower at Esther Short Park on Saturday to march in Vancouver’s first Dyke March. It was part of the 23rd annual Saturday in the Park gay pride event. As the women circled the park, their group swelled to about 100.
