Articles by Kirk Boxleitner
From left
Chandler offers Marysville Tulalip Chamber an ‘Eye on...
By Kirk Boxleitner • March 25, 2011 3:03 pm

TULALIP — “Every legislative session has its own pace,” said Gary Chandler, vice president of government affairs for the Association of Washington Business. “This one hasn’t found theirs yet.”
Chandler told the Greater Marysville Tulalip Chamber of Commerce on March 25 that he hopes the 2011 session of the state Legislature will meet their goal of completing a budget draft before Easter, because he doesn’t see the next forecast getting any better than the most recently released one.
“We’re going to be $5.1 billion short in the next biennium,” Chandler told the Chamber during its monthly Business Before Hours meeting. “We told the legislators this was coming. We told them that the housing market was a false economy and that they needed to hang onto that money.”
During his “Eye on Olympia” presentation, Chandler identified the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, as well as U.S. military intervention in Libya, as factors which are already compounding the pre-existing economic recession, by driving oil prices even higher and hindering imports and exports to and from Japan.

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From left
Lincoln homecoming reunites Marysville, Arlington families
By Kirk Boxleitner • March 24, 2011 6:24 pm

Lakeshia and Dennis Drahos got married two months before Dennis joined the Navy six years ago, but this was their first full deployment as a Navy couple.
Petty Officer 1st Class Dennis Drahos Sr. has served on board the USS Abraham Lincoln for the past three years, and when the Lincoln pulled into Naval Station Everett on March 24, he and Lakeshia shared one of the first kisses coming off the brow, as she held nine-month-old Dennis Jr. in her arms.

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Nehring discusses graffiti, jobs, quality of life with Marysville citizens at coffee klatch
Nehring discusses graffiti, jobs, quality of life with...
By Kirk Boxleitner • March 23, 2011 4:25 pm

MARYSVILLE — Attendance at the city of Marysville’s latest coffee klatch was a bit more sparse than at the previous meeting, but Marysville Mayor Jon Nehring saw it as an opportunity for more in-depth dialogues with those who did attend.
Marysville residents Marv Johnson, Dawn Everett and Margaret Hopkins met with Nehring in the Marysville City Council Chambers on March 22 to raise their concerns about graffiti, green spaces in the city, urban development and the affordability of recreation programs for seniors.

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Chris Pratt
Marysville United Methodist Church members help Haitians rebuild
By Kirk Boxleitner • March 23, 2011 10:47 am

When Marysville Methodists traveled to Haiti, they found a country struggling with shocking poverty, but also one whose citizens still harbor hope.
The eight members of the Marysville United Methodist Church who had taken a mission trip to Haiti from Feb. 27 through March 7 devoted the evening of March 17 to sharing their experiences with fellow church members.

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Gerard Oosterwyk looks on as his former employee at the Dutch Bakery
Marysville’s Thompson & Krag celebrate their 100th birthdays
By Kirk Boxleitner • March 20, 2011 3:08 am

MARYSVILLE — Two Washington-born patients of the Providence Physician Group’s Marysville Clinic recently celebrated their centennial birthdays, but one of them snuck in an extra birthday party on the side.
Providence’s Marysville Clinic threw a combined birthday party on Feb. 22 for Floris Krag, who was born on Feb. 23 in Bayview, and Marion Thompson, who was born March 6 in Yakima. Both centenarians now live in Marysville and have been Providence patients for years. Krag has lived in the area for at least 80 years, while Thompson has lived in the area since 1968.

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Dani Rice
Marysville Special Education PTSA connects parents to community...
By Kirk Boxleitner • March 20, 2011 12:02 am

MARYSVILLE — Marysville mom Dani Rice discovered she wasn’t alone when her daughter, Morgan, was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome.
“It’s very common,” Rice said. “There are three other people, just on our street, whose kids also have Asperger’s.”
While children with Asperger’s syndrome are not rare, Rice has nonetheless found it a bit more rare to find places where she can consult with others about the challenges that are unique to raising a child with this syndrome.
Rice and other area parents of children with special needs were able to check out a host of regional resources in a single spot, during the Marysville Special Education PTSA’s Resource Fair on March 9.
“There’s so much that I didn’t know,” said Rice, whose arms were literally overflowing with books, pamphlets and fliers that she’d collected in the Totem Middle School cafeteria that day. “It can be difficult to navigate the system, but there’s so much advocacy here.”
The resource fair was a first for the Marysville School District, bringing together school district personnel with private service providers and non-profit groups under the same roof, so that parents of special education students could access all the resources available to them locally, at one place and time.

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Marysville Dunn Lumber employee Chad Burke
Dunn Lumber’s Marysville store closes after 44 years
By Kirk Boxleitner • March 18, 2011 10:57 pm

MARYSVILLE — Rick Haverty wishes he’d discovered Dunn Lumber sooner.
“I came by here to finish a project a while ago,” Haverty said to Dunn Lumber employee Chad Burke on March 18, as he browsed through the store’s stock while he still could. “You guys sold me on your service. You checked the boards that I bought before I left with them. At other stores, you just get what they give you. I had to buy more at those stores just to make sure I’d have enough.”
After March 31, Haverty will no longer be able to continue his now-habitual visits to Dunn Lumber, because by then, the staff and inventory of its Marysville branch are set to be relocated to Mill Creek, marking the end of the store’s 44 years on Grove Street in Marysville.
“We’ll be sharing that property with Parker Lumber,” said Mike Dunn, president of Dunn Lumber. “Frankly, we’ve been losing money here the last few years. The total level of business in this area hasn’t been enough to sustain us, and the economy has only exacerbated that.”

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E-Waste employees Craig Randall
E-Waste collects an estimated 8,000 pounds of electronics...
By Kirk Boxleitner • March 18, 2011 8:57 pm

MARYSVILLE — E-Waste’s first electronics recycling collection drive in Marysville went so well that both the Lynnwood company and the Marysville company that hosted it expressed the desire to team up again.
“We’re been doing these ‘e-cycles’ throughout Snohomish County and Seattle for the past three years, but never before in Marysville,” said Craig Randall, a consultant on environmental issues for the Lynnwood-based E-Waste, as he segregated different types of old, broken or used electronics into different stacks outside of Marysville’s Pacific Power Batteries on March 12. “We hope to do it again soon.”
“It gives us a chance to help offer a good service from a good company,” agreed Chris Canavan, a battery salesman for Pacific Power Batteries at 720 Cedar Ave.

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Everett Eagles Junior Drill Team member Cheyenne Gepner almost tips over from the weight of the clothes she carries to the Kloz 4 Kids offices on March 9.
Everett Eagles drop 800 pounds of clothes onto...
By Kirk Boxleitner • March 18, 2011 7:13 pm

Cheyenne Gepner struggled to stay upright as she hefted a plastic bag full of clothes that was almost bigger than she was, but the little girl insisted she didn’t need any help carrying the clothes up the steps into the Kloz 4 Kids offices.
Gepner was one of half a dozen young women who belong to the Everett Eagles Junior Drill Team who stopped by Kloz 4 Kids on the evening of March 9 to drop off an estimated 800 pounds in donated clothing to the non-profit organization behind the Marysville United Methodist Church.
“We’ve got clothes here for preschool through high school,” said Michelle Mullins, youth chair for the Everett Eagles Junior Drill Team. “We hit all the age groups. It’s all been washed and sorted. Nothing needs mending, and a lot of these clothes are brand new.”
Mullins explained, in spite of the group’s name, that a majority of the girls in the Everett Eagles Junior Drill Team either live or attend schools in Marysville, so they’re motivated to help out their hometown. The inspiration to collect for Kloz 4 Kids came from reading an article about the charity in the Aug. 25, 2010, issue of The Marysville Globe.

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The support piers for the new Ebey Slough Bridge are being built with gaps for the girders that are expected to arrive after mid-May.
Work continues on Ebey Slough Bridge
By Kirk Boxleitner • March 16, 2011 1:24 pm

Drivers on State Route 529 will still be using the existing 85-year-old Ebey Slough Bridge between Marysville and Everett for a while yet, but its replacement recently reached another milestone in its construction progress.

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Washington, Northern Idaho Church Women United meeting in Marysville April 8-9
Washington, Northern Idaho Church Women United meeting in...
By Kirk Boxleitner • March 16, 2011 12:35 am

MARYSVILLE — Church women from across the state and beyond will be converging on Marysville to ask themselves, “What Are We ‘Bee’coming?”
The Marysville United Methodist Church will serve as the site for a Christian ecumenical gathering of the Washington and Northern Idaho Church Women United, as they conduct their biennial state assembly and leadership council meeting on April 8-9.
According to local Church Women United Vice President Jeannie Lish, the movement is celebrating 70 years of service this year with “fellowship, prayer, advocacy and action for peace with justice.” Among the event’s motivational speakers will be Barbara Moreland of Mukilteo on “Bees and Beyond,” Richard LeMieux of Bremerton on the problem of homelessness, and Tom and Jan Kemp of North Bend asking how to minister to truckers.

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