REVIEW BAINBRIDGE ISLAND
Friday, January 15, 2016 | Vol. 91, No. 3 | WWW.BAINBRIDGEREVIEW.COM | 75¢
A SERIOUS ROCK STAR
INSIDE: Island Invitational, A10
Talks continue between union, school district BY JESSICA SHELTON Bainbridge Island Review
No deal. That’s the word Mike McCloud, president for the Bainbridge Island Education Support Professional Association (BIESPA), received from his bargaining team last Thursday after they met with a bargaining team from the Bainbridge Island School District They had hoped that a marathon, 10-hour session with a mediator from the Public Employment Relations Commission would be enough to finally reach an agreement for a new classified staff contract. The previous one expired in August, and the parties have TURN TO TALKS | A3
Luciano Marano | Bainbridge Island Review
Nicole Culver, 9, displays a portion of her fossil collection in an exhibit she personally curated at the Bainbridge Public Library. Below, a few of her specimens on display, including trilobites and coprolite (dinosaur dung).
Ordway student shares love of fossils through library show BY LUCIANO MARANO Bainbridge Island Review
At first glance, it may seem like Nicole Culver has a pretty cool rock collection. But actually, they are not rocks. That is a mistake you do not want to make with her. The 9-year-old Ordway Elementary third-grader recently shared her fascination with fossils — the remains or impressions of ancient organisms preserved in petrified form or as a mold within a rock — through a display she personally curated at the Bainbridge Public Library, and she has been working to set the record straight among the local youth since. “Fossils, most of them, were alive,” she explained. Rocks, she added succinctly, are not. Nicole’s love of paleontology began several years ago during a family trip. Fossil collecting was a childhood passion for her father, Dan, and one he was surprised to see her take to so quickly. “She’s very knowledgable,” he said. “She also collects insulators off of telephone poles.” Nicole remembers her first fossil hunt vividly. “We went through Wyoming and he let me choose,” Nicole said. “He said we could either go to find gold off the ground or
we could go and find fossils, and I chose fossils.” Ask the pint-sized prehistory buff which is her favorite dinosaur, and you better be ready to learn something. “I kind of like the flying ones,” she said. “It’s kind of hard to say. I kind of like Pterosaurs. They’re not really dinosaurs, but they’re actually around a little bit at the same time. They probably were around during the Cretaceous Period, but also around during [the] Triassic. But, if you’re talking dinosaurs, my favorite dinosaur would probably be Parasaurolophus.” (She pronounced the name perfectly — while this reporter slyly got out his smart phone to keep up.) The idea to display a portion of her vast fossil collection, assembled mostly through hunting excursions or purchased at several
geology shows and expos entirely with money she earned and saved herself, came when Nicole saw a similar exhibit showcasing another local student’s hobby at the library. “We saw displays a couple of months ago, two or three months ago,” Culver remembered. “And Nicole said, ‘Oh, I want to do that.’ So I went and asked one of the librarians.” Nicole even wrote a paper to accompany the exhibit — on display downstairs in the children’s section through February — explaining the fossilization process. It’s crucial, she said, to study the past to better understand the planet. “I think it’s important because if you don’t know the past then you don’t know what to do in the future or anything,” she explained. “So, like, during the extinction event of the dinosaurs, if that extinction event happens again, you’ll be more prepared because you’ll know what will come.” She quickly added, of course, that no amount of knowledge would make that occurrence easy to handle. The sassy young scholar said that she hoped that by showing her collection at the library she might get other children her age interested in prehistoric studies. TURN TO STAR | A15
TBD: The future of the Sakai property Community meeting planned for brainstorming ideas BY JESSICA SHELTON Bainbridge Island Review
Bob Linz doesn’t have talking points or preconceptions about what the meeting on Jan. 23 will look like. In the course of a 20-minute interview about the subject, his most frequent response is “I have no idea.” And that’s a good thing. He’s not concerned with his ideas for the park district’s undeveloped Sakai property. He’s Park it concerned with yours. What: Public meeting The former for planning the Sakai executive property. director for When: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. One Call for Saturday, Jan. 23. All has led straWhere: Bainbridge tegic planning High School commons. for all sorts of Lunch, coffee, snacks island clients and free daycare for — Bainbridge children over 5 will be Performing provided. Arts, Bainbridge Arts & Crafts, Rotary Club, the Bainbridge Public Library Board. And next Saturday, he’ll kick off the public planning process for the “central park” property that the park district bought in July after voters overwhelmingly approved a $5.9 million bond measure this past February. TURN TO SAKAI | A15