The inevitable happened last week. The Bellevue Reporter lost one of its best reporters – Carrie Wood.
She’s not going far, just up I-405 to Kirkland where she now is the new editor of the Kirkland Reporter.
I know this is the way things should be: good people get promoted from within to positions of greater responsibility. In Carrie’s case, she more than deserves it.
She was part of the original Bellevue Reporter team when it switched to twice a week production in January 2007. She has written good stories and made good friends – on staff and in the community — all that time.
Because there are stories that happen in Kirkland that affect Bellevue, I expect that we’ll have some of Carrie’s stories in the Bellevue Reporter off and on. Still, she will be missed.
The Bellevue teachers strike is over and teachers and students once again are in the classrooms. Many people will wonder why it took two weeks to get to a settlement.
What really matters, of course, is that schools are back in session.
I admit I was getting worried that the strike to spread to other issues. For example, one day teachers weren’t out in front of Highland Middle School on Bel-Red Road. Instead, they had moved to Bel-Red and 148th Avenue Northeast.
One group was on the corner in front of the ARCO gas station.
I naturally assumed it was the teachers protesting the fact that students could go into AM/PM Mini Mart and buy drinks loaded with sugar. Obviously, they were worried about classroom decorum in the afternoon.
But, I wondered, why were they on the opposite corner, picketing a credit union. Then it hit me: without a pay raise, the teachers probably wouldn’t qualify for a loan.
I also made an assumption why teachers from Stevenson Elementary School and Odle Middle School had moved down Northeast Eighth Street to 124th Avenue Northeast. They were in front of the Evergreen Village retirement facility. Well, we all know that not all senior citizens support school levies.
Kudos to the people at Carpet To Go on Bel-Red Road. When they saw throngs of women (and some men) marching by all decked out in pink, they sprung into action to help those walking to defeat breast cancer on what was a very hot day Friday.
Employees brought out their water cooler and also brought bottled water out to the marchers.
