In 2016, Sequim news headlines included a big change at the helm of the Sequim Police Department, a popular recreational facility revived under new management, Sequim schools revamped its approach for new construction after a fourth bond plan fell short, and Sequim-area voters backed Democrats to legislative seats in Olympia but President-elect Donald Trump in the general election.
Here, by month, are some of the highlights (and lowlights) of some of Sequim’s top news stories from the past year:
January
The City of Sequim ushered in the new year with some changes in leadership. On Jan. 4, two newly elected city councilors — Pamela Leonard-Ray and John Miller — were sworn into office, Dennis Smith was elected unanimously as mayor and four candidates vied for the vacant seat left by Ken Hays. City councilors interviewed the candidates on Monday night and appointed Bob Lake, a financial planner and former risk management consultant, to fill the seventh seat.
For 20-plus years, Dale Faulstich, 65, has put a face, or faces, to the stories of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe. The soft-spoken, non-native artist from Missouri has served as the tribe’s Master Carver since 1994 designing and helping create totem poles, masks, signs and more in an official capacity for “The Strong People.” Faulstich retired on Jan. 8 to pursue other artistic passions with plans to do some occasional work with the tribe.
In early January a partial skull of what’s likely a Columbian mammoth emerged from eroding bluffs surrounding Sequim Bay. Officials with the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture have since collected the fossil, allowing the scientific community to access the data contained within the specimen and properly conserve it.
February
The Sequim School District’s fourth attempt at a school construction bond in the past two years didn’t make the mark. Results from the special election show that the $54 million proposal was garnering 8,068 yes votes (57.31 percent) of the 14,077 ballots tallied by the Clallam County Auditor’s Office as of Feb. 12. The bond proposal requires a 60 percent “super majority” to earn approval.
The 121st Sequim Irrigation Festival’s royalty court includes Queen Victoria Hall, Princess Hailey Kapetan, Princess Dana Nguyen and Princess Tatum Jensen. Through the year they represented Sequim at several events and parades including the Irrigation Festival from May 6-15.
For months SARC and YMCA officials have jointly worked toward reopening SARC, which closed on Oct. 30, 2015. Under the developing agreement the SARC board would “simply be the landlord” for the facility and the management would fall under the YMCA’s control. Upon opening, YMCA officials plan to operate SARC like its neighboring YMCA facilities.
The Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce honored Louie Rychlik, the longtime businessman and volunteer, with its 2015 Citizen of the Year award. Other finalists include Vern Fosket, Sequim High School band director; Judy Lange, board member/group leader at the Shipley Center; and Tim and Branette Richards, volunteers for various groups.
Karma Cannabis opened on Feb. 26. offering 30-plus strains of cannabis along with a number of concentrates, edibles and topicals Recreational marijuana stores like Karma Cannabis have been open in Washington since 2014 but Sequim city councilors enacted a moratorium and extended it to wait for the Legislature to set in place tax proceeds from marijuana sales to go to cities.
The Dungeness River continued to threaten two homes on the Dungeness River on Serenity Lane, but residents vacated the properties, leading crews with the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe to begin demolition soon to restore salmon habitat.
March
Officials with the Sequim Museum said three properties they received and sold helps them start a building fund for a new exhibit building next to the DeWitt Administration Center, 544 N. Sequim Ave. Funding came together thanks to land endowments from West End pioneer John Cowan and his wife Inez, which included two timber properties on Lake Ozette Road and off Highway 112, and a home in Port Angeles.
The Sequim YMCA, once known as the Sequim Aquatic Recreation Center, got another step closer to becoming a reality after Clallam County Parks and Recreation District 1 (SARC) Board of Commissioners voted 4-1 in support of a lease agreement with the Olympic Peninsula YMCA on March 9.
Within two weeks of Jim Hargrove’s announcement to retire from the floor of the Senate, Rep. Kevin Van De Wege announced his campaign for the vacated position as the 24th Legislative District state senator. Van De Wege’s announcement on March 21 was echoed by Clallam County Commissioner Mike Chapman and his announcement to run for the 24th Legislative District House of Representatives.
Clallam County Sheriff’s detectives arrested 55-year-old Sequim resident Douglas J. Allison on March 29, following an investigation that he sexually assaulted a 10-year-old girl, Clallam County Sheriff’s Office officials said. In the fall, Allison — principal of Mountain View Christian School, 255 Medsker Road, a Seventh-day Adventist school — pleaded guilty to raping and molesting two 10-year-old students and was sentenced Sept. 14 to 26½ years in prison.
April
A dozen students from the Sequim School District participated in the 59th Washington State Science and Engineering Fair in Bremerton on April 1-2, bringing home 10 first-place awards and numerous other honors. Five students were selected for state nominations for the National Broadcom MASTERS Competition.
Two grants may help the City of Sequim install new playing courts and improve its ballfields at half the cost. Sequim city councilors gave the unanimous go-ahead in a vote 6-0 on April 11 to partially fund new tennis courts at $60,000 in Carrie Blake Park and make improvements in Dr. James Standard Park for Sequim Little League at $20,000. They approved a resolution to designate the funds from the 2017 budget to meet the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office’s May 2 grant deadline.
A Sequim man missing since the morning of April 8 was found dead Saturday, April 9. Clallam County deputies said he apparently drove his motorcycle over a cliff overlooking Dungeness Bay and died from his injuries. They found the body of Jeffrey Nash, 47, at about 8:30 a.m. Saturday at the base of the cliff north of the intersection of Cays Road and Marine Drive, said Sgt. Eric Munger of the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office.
May
Sequim’s Police Department is moving forward with a new pilot program to help low-income persons and/or those in poor health during emergencies. Monies from non-governmental organizations, namely churches and service agencies, would go to the Human Services Emergency Fund overseen by the City of Sequim so that police could provide individuals/families with hotel room vouchers, emergency cash cards for clothing, meals and transportation.
Team manager Dionne Nielsen with Olympic Peninsula Academy students Devin Rynearson, Gianna Halo, Emily Nielsen, Aiyanna Dennis, Cadence Biehler, Xander Bolinger and Tanner Berryhill, earned the opportunity to compete at an international student creativity challenge Destination Imagination’s Global Finals held in Knoxville, Tenn., from May 25-28.
Washington state’s 2016 Capital Budget includes an appropriation to provide two modular classroom buildings to the Sequim School District, school officials reported early May. In July, the school board decided the buildings for four classrooms are slated for installation at Greywolf Elementary, 171 Carlsborg Road, by April 2017 as part of a new pilot project. Staff made the decision to install the new buildings at Greywolf because Helen Haller is at capacity. The buildings are different from portable buildings because they’ll be placed on foundations and will not be relocatable.
Russ Lodge, principal at Sequim’s Helen Haller Elementary School since 2012, announced he would take a job near Spokane in the fall — a position that will get him closer to family and Western Montana, where he worked for nearly 30 years. Lodge is the new principal at Deer Park Elementary in Deer Park, about 12 miles north of Spokane. In June, the school board selected asssistant principal Becky Stanton to succeed Lodge.
Community members and leaders brainstorm T-shirt ideas promoting Sequim at a community engagement seminar led by author Peter Kageyama. He discussed with residents what they love about Sequim and strategies for tapping into citizens’ energies such as through public art.
A voluntary test of water fixtures in Greywolf Elementary and Helen Haller Elementary recently revealed excess lead in some of the schools’ sinks. The Sequim School District reported to families and staff on May 26 via email that results from the planned first round of sampling showed excess lead in five classrooms and three office areas’ sinks at Greywolf and two hallway sinks at Helen Haller. In August, sinks at elementary schools were replaced.
June
Movement along the Cascadia Subduction Zone — a roughly 800-mile long fault where the smaller Juan de Fuca plate is slipping beneath the North American plate — is projected to cause a large earthquake and tsunami. In early June, the county’s Emergency Management Division and staff were among many participating in Cascadia Rising from Washington, Oregon and Idaho, along with tribal nations and nearly 40 federal agencies.
The Sequim School District’s newest administrator is a familiar one. The district’s board of directors agreed unanimously Monday night to promote Becky Stanton to principal at Helen Haller Elementary School. Stanton was named Helen Haller’s assistant principal last year. She succeeds Russ Lodge, who announced earlier this year he is taking an elementary school principal position with the Deer Park School District just north of Spokane.
Friends, family and educators celebrated SHS’s graduates-to-be at Scholarship Night on June 1. This year’s graduating class is receiving more than $2.3 million in grants and scholarships, including nearly $350,000 from local community groups and foundations. On June 10, about 215 seniors are set to participate in Sequim High School’s commencement ceremonies. Leading the way are six valedictorians, each of whom posted 4.00 grade-point averages: Eric Anderson, Karen Chan, Jessica Craig, Alexis Cromer, Blake Eriks and Audrey Shingleton.
A proposed 98-lot single family home development, Legacy Ridge, spanning 41.8 acres, was announced in mid-June. The preliminary plat/major subdivision application submitted by iDevelopNW and PACE Engineers, Inc. of Kirkland representing Irvin Boyd, falls west of Reservoir Road, south of Silberhorn Road, and east of Falcon Road in the City of Sequim’s limits. From the proposal, it shows that the project combines South Seventh Avenue from Silberhorn Road to Reservoir Road, which currently are disconnected.
Sequim resident Edward F. Calvin, 79, was pronounced dead at the scene of a four-vehicle collision that occurred on Friday about four miles east of Sequim on U.S. Highway 101 in Blyn. The collision occurred at 2:43 p.m. June 10 after a Toyota pickup heading east, driven by Calvin, crossed the centerline and hit the westbound van driven by Andrew H. Stockton, 61, of Daly City, Calif., according to the Washington State Patrol report.
Sequim High School’s 101st graduating class endured the first significant rainfall at a commencement ceremony since being moved outdoors in 2007, but it didn’t stop 212 of SHS’s 223 graduating seniors from walking with their classmates to accept diplomas. Sequim High’s 4.0 grade-point average valedictorians — Karen Chan, Jessica Craig, Alexis Cromer, Blake Eriks and Audrey Shingleton — each took a part in a presentation that highlighted what’s become known as a traditionally student-led commencement ceremony. Valedictorian Eric Anderson participated in the six-part valedictorian speech with a prerecorded message from the hospital. Anderson, battling a life-long disease, revealed he had surgery to have his large intestine removed.
Emergency personnel respond to a single-car crash on Old Olympic Highway in the early hours of June 19. The driver, 51-year-old Greg Valaske of Sequim, died in the incident.
Doug McInnes, a descendant of the area’s pioneering families, a local historian with a wealth of facts and fiction, a prankster of local renown, a military veteran and writer and organizer and more, died of age-related causes on June 21, three days after turning 87.
An effort to restore habitat and improve ecological functions in the 3 Crabs are began in June. Rerouting 3 Crabs Road and Sequim-Dungeness Way are part of an approximate $3 million project from state and federal funds to revert the area back to a more natural state improving the ecological function of more than 40 acres of coastal wetlands and restoring a half-mile of stream channel.
What started out as a celebration of 25 years of marriage in late June turned into a kind of nightmare for Willy and Christy Rookard, after Willy was severely injured while the couple was vacationing in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. He sustained brain injuries and a collapsed lung after he was grabbed by men in a car and dragged down the road early in the morning of June 27. The incident made national news and eventually the Rookards returned to Sequim where he continues to recover.
Jonathan Evison’s novel “The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving” came out in 2012 and a few years later independent filmmakers adapted it for a movie. Netflix bought the rights and released it in more than 150 countries in June.
July
Michael Lovejoy, a Sequim Schools paraeducator who had been on a kidney transplant list, died July 13. He was 51. One of Lovejoy’s duties for the school district before he became too ill to work had been as a traffic attendant at the corner of Fir Street and Sequim Avenue. He was known for waving and smiling at each driver.
August
Voters have rejected four school construction bond proposals in the past two years.
Administration with the Olympic Peninsula YMCA, which oversees the Sequim branch, recently announced Kurt Turner has signed on as the soon-to-open center’s branch manager. Turner holds 10 years of experience in YMCAs in Texas and most recently as the membership director of the Southwest Family YMCA in Austin after four-plus years.
Louie Rychlik, a longtime Sequim businessman and volunteer, died on Aug. 9 at the age of 74. Rychlik was selected the 2015 Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce’s Citizen of the Year in February 2016. Owner of Louie’s Well Drilling of Port Angeles, Rychlik was known for his philanthropic and volunteer endeavors throughout the community.
The City of Sequim staff targets nearly $800,000 for improvements to Fir Street in their annual budget. Plans get another big boost in November when The Washington state Transportation Improvement Board awarded the city a $3.1 million grant for the project.
On Aug. 2, PBS aired “The Boys of ’36,” a documentary film of the 1936 University of Washington crew team — including Sequim icon Joe Rantz — as they came together to win an Olympic Games gold medal.
Dewey Ehling, renowned teacher and longtime conductor of the Peninsula Singers and Port Townsend Community Orchestra, died Aug. 7 of pneumonia.
After nearly a year closed, the pool at the Sequim YMCA, 610 N. Fifth Ave., reopened for the first day of the Sequim High School’s girls swim team’s practice on Aug. 22. The facility reopened to the general public on Oct. 24, with a grand celebration held Oct. 30.
Stolli, a dog known well by users of the Olympic Discovery Trail, died on Aug. 31. Community members mourned the loss and family members eventually memorialized their “local legend” with a bench and plaque.
September
Vern Frykholm Sr. of Sequim, a World War II and Korean War veteran, was honored for his 100th birthday at a Seattle Mariners baseball game on Sept. 6 and saw videos of that celebration go viral on social media. He received an on-the-field moment during a Mariners-Texas Rangers game, capped by a standing ovation and many gifts besides.
Michael “Mikie” Procunier, a Sequim High grad and Port Angeles resident, died after coming up short on a jump during a race at the Olympic Peninsula Motorcycle Club track Sept. 18.
Staff from the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe demolished three homes being threatened by bank erosion near the Dungeness River. Homes were on Serenity Lane, about 2.5 miles from U.S. Highway 101 off River Road, adjacent to the tribe’s Riparian Restoration Project. Eventually the property will be opened to the public for fishing.
October
In October the Sequim School District board directors unanimously approved two levy plans: one, a replacement levy to sustain operations and education programs, and a second to refurbish the district kitchen and tear down an unused portion of the Sequim Community School. Ballots go to voters in a special election in February 2017.
Sequim philanthropists Bill and Esther Littlejohn donated $100,000 at the annual Harvest of Hope fundraising event Oct. 15, as part part of fundraising efforts for the Olympic Medical Center Foundation’s efforts to expand OMC’s Sequim cancer center.
U.S. Navy archaeologists found a literal message in a bottle composed by a trio of then-teenaged Sequim residents Alexi Nelson, Ally Taiji and Laura Rutherford, who called themselves “The Three Brunettes.” The story was picked up by a number of regional news outlets.
November
In the Clallam County 2016 General Election, local Democrats carried the day in state races, with Kevin Van De Wege moving up from his state representative seat to succeed Jim Hargrove for a state senate spot. Mike Chapman won Van De Wege’s open House of Representatives spot while Steve Tharinger held on to the district’s second state representative position. Randy Johnson edged Dem Ron Richards, however, for the open Clallam County Commissioner (District 2- Port Angeles).
Residents in the City of Sequim overwhelmingly favor an advisory vote for Sequim city councilors to ban discharging all consumer fireworks within city limits starting in 2018. In the General Election, voters approved the advisory vote with more than 65 percent of 4,026 ballots cast. With a “yes” vote, city councilors agreed to make it illegal to shoot fireworks within the city limits except for approved public displays.
Based on general election voting data, Sequim seems to favor president-elect Republican Party candidate Donald Trump, particularly outside city limits. Across the county, 80.5 percent were cast, with Trump and running mate Michael Pence finishing with 18,794 votes (47.63 percent) over Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine’s 17,677 votes (44.8 percent). In Sequim School District boundaries, including the City of Sequim and greater Sequim in Clallam County, Trump won 18 of 32 precincts and the local overall vote of 9,158 votes to 8,874, with the rest split among five listed candidates and write-ins.
Dungeness Valley Creamery received a $250,000 Value-Added Producer Grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to grow its business and produce new products. It is one of 18 Washington businesses to receive a matching grant this year, as part of a $45 million initiative to help agricultural producers and small rural businesses.
The Clallam County Economic Development Corporation announced the retirement of Bill Greenwood, the entity’s executive director, following a closed-door session at its board meeting Thursday, Nov. 17. Greenwood, a Sequim resident, started as the EDC’s executive director in early 2014.
In late November, the North Olympic Land Trust gets Ward Farm reached an agreement with landowners of the Historic Ward Farm to preserve the 60 acres of active farmland as forever available for agricultural purposes.
December
Deputy Police Chief Sheri Crain, 50, was appointed Sequim Police Chief on Dec. 5, following the announcement of chief Bill Dickinson. Crain started with the Sequim Police Department on Feb. 26, 1991, and carried several positions such as detective, sergeant beginning in 1999, police lieutenant in 2008 and interim police chief in 2010. Dickinson led the Sequim department since September 2010. Crain was sworn in Dec. 16.
A small aircraft carrying Sequim pharmacist and pilot Jon R. Bernhoft, 63, his fiancee Carla Parke, 61, and her grandchildren — a 9-year-old grandson and a 5-year-old granddaughter, both of Bellingham — crashed near Quilcene, killing all four aboard.
