Progress 2020

Table of Contents

C4 Roland Dickinson's land becomes a legacy

C6 Ashley Sweeney talks of her writing process

C10 Gale DeJong reflects on 40 years as a vet

C12 Expansion gives Lynden P.O. breathing room

C14 Cornerstone creates a league of its own

C16 Lynden Sheet Metal marking 80 years

C17 Rustlers Grill opens in Dutch Mothers space

C18 Kidstown renews for its next 25 years

C22 New York Life celebrates 175 years

Secluded family property will become a park for all

Roland Dickinson:

LYNDEN — If you can make it down the steep driveway and then negotiate a tight curve to cross the bridge over Double Ditch Creek and then get back up, you are there, safely at the secluded na-

ture sanctuary home of the Dickinsons — and a future Lynden park.

On the other hand, you could also walk in “the back way” o the stub end of Fishtrap Way, from 17th Street, into the canopy of trees over a rough pathway, with Fishtrap Creek gurgling o to the left.

Either way, 89-year-old Roland Dickinson welcomes you. He knows this land he has lived on for 52 years, and loves, is now public property of the City of Lynden. In time, it will become Dickinson Park, with two pedestrian bridges

over these creeks to extend the city trail system.

“It’s not mine anymore, so whoever comes ... I don’t really mind seeing people,” he says as he shows the lower edges of the property. In fact, he is surprised not more folks have come to check out this hidden treasure since it came into city possession in 2019.

True, it can be hard to place where these 8.8 acres are, tucked in ravine north of the Fairway Center, mostly cedars on soft foot terrain and, perhaps most idyllically, at the convergence of

these two streams of Lynden signicance.

“It’s so secluded that, unless it’s close friends of ours, they didn’t know we lived back here. ey didn’t know how it was laid out,” Dickinson said.

Roland and his wife, Caroline, who has a weekdays caregiver for her Alzheimers, are allowed to live in their house here as long as they wish to.

It was in 1966 that they bought the rst two acres on which the house was

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‘I didn’t want all the trees to come down’

By Calvin Bratt editor@lyndentribune.com

A small gure on a large expanse, Roland Dickinson walks the property he has lived on since the 1960s but has now sold to the City of Lynden to be future park land. It is 8.8 wooded acres at the convergence of Fishtrap and Double Ditch/Pepin creeks, with foot access o 17th Street. (Calvin Bratt/Lynden Tribune)

built by 1968, from a Kortlever couple. Adding the low culvert crossing of Double Ditch was the key thing for access.

How he came to assemble the remaining acreage is a rather complicated step-by-step story that Roland will tell, involving dealings with families Steenmeyer, Van Dyken, Kieviet, Taylor, Smith and nally Vellema.

ese neighbors were willing to sell, often, because the creeks are the de ning, and limiting, factor of this land, not straight surveyor’s lines.

“It was just kind of a stroke of luck, to get it all. It’s been nice. I didn’t plan it, but I couldn’t have planned it any better than it turned out.”

“I never once thought of it becoming a park,” he can say now. He remembers feeling “busy” keeping up with blown-down limbs and gnarly undergrowth of the heavily wooded property. “It was kind of a pain a lot of times, just work.”

“It could be a full-time job if you wanted to really make it nice,” he said. An employee of a grandson now comes about every two weeks to clean up the worst.

is is where the Dickinsons raised

Close to Fishtrap Creek is where a new 600-foot extension of Lynden city trail will eventually be built. Creekside lowland has always been su cient to handle ooding, longtime owner Roland Dickinson says. (Calvin Bratt/Lynden Tribune)

Hitching heroines to history

Ashley E. Sweeney’s new novel explores ill-fated Donner Party story

By Brent Lindquist brent@lyndentribune.com

WHATCOM — Six days per week for about four hours each day, Ashley E. Sweeney travels back in time.

e former Lynden Tribune reporter will release her second novel, titled "Answer Creek," in May, and the act of immersion proved essential to Sweeney while penning both this book and her rst one, "Eliza Waite."

“I have to say no to a lot of social events and recreational opportunities because I’m at work and writing is very hard work. Whether I’m actually typing or I’m researching or I’m interviewing, I’m immersed in my characters from about 9 to 1 every day,” she said. “ en, around 1 or 2, I emerge into my 21st-century life. I’m thinking about my characters even before I go to bed at night. I have to dedicate that kind of time to them, and that makes a di erence. It’s not just something that I do on the side like a hobby. It’s a job. I get up to get a cup of co ee or stretch, but I am fully immersed in the novel that I’m writing because I have to be.”

Sweeney sees both the titular heroine Eliza Waite and her "Answer Creek" main character, Ada Weeks, as unique creations who can address the inequality experienced by women during the times in which they lived.

e voices of these women have never been heard, Sweeney said, and these novels

are a way of bringing them back.

“My philosophy both with Eliza and with Ada is I’m writing about ctional women who represent, say, tens of thousands of other women whose voices have been lost to history,” Sweeney said. “So, even though they’re ctitious, I feel like I’m a mosaic artist and I’m taking bits and pieces of women’s lives through the research I do and I’m creating a unique character.”

at research is an essential piece of Sweeney’s writing process. In her own words, Sweeney’s novels involve “hitching a heroine to history,” and that would not be possible

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Vince Hill, Dave Baillangeon, Marco Pena-Larios and Tyler Huartson

Ashley E. Sweeney visits Scott's Blu , Nebraska, during her research for her new American history novel "Answer Creek." (Courtesy photo/Ashley Sweeney)

without diving head rst into mountains of source material.

For "Eliza Waite," this involved the chronicle of a pioneer woman living in the remote San Juan Islands in the late 1800s. Eliza experiences enormous loss before heading to Alaska to make her own way against the backdrop of the historic Klondike Gold Rush. For "Answer Creek," the tale is decidedly darker as Sweeney tells the story of Ada Weeks, a 19-year-old member of the ill-fated Donner Party of 1846-47.

Sweeney said her goal in researching each novel is to read about 100 books on the subject matter. She spends about a year of her two-year writing period immersed in the time period. Rather than spending the year focused solely on research, Sweeney instead writes her story and uses placeholders. In her manuscript, an uncapitalized “xxx” means she will do some research and ll in that part later.

“I won’t stop my writing because I don’t know, say, when matchsticks were invented,” Sweeney said. is explains why Sweeney’s favorite part of the writing process is the second draft. Writing the second draft is when she gets to plug in all the history she learns during her research in order to make the story as histori-

See Sweeney on C8

Visits to the Continental Divide in South Pass, Wyoming (right), and Donner

Memorial State Park in Truckee, California, were part of Sweeney's exhaustive research process. (Courtesy photo/Ashley Sweeney)

cally accurate as possible.

Historical accuracy is a very important part of Sweeney’s novels, to the extent that she even researches what positions the stars were in during the time period in which her stories are set and which owers were blooming at that time of the year.

“I’m committed to being as factually and as historically accurate as possible so the reader can trust me when they read my work,” Sweeney said. “I’ve done my homework. Yes, there’s one error in Eliza and there may be one error in 'Answer Creek' that I don’t know of yet, but I do my very best to be factually and historically accurate so the reader not only can trust me but they can

learn something.”

e research is one process, writing believable characters is another, Sweeney asserts. In writing ction, authors must construct characters who are awed because ction should be a re ection of life. A perfect character is neither interesting to read about nor a true re ection on the reality of their situation.

Sweeney said she needs to write about characters who expose the underbelly of humanity.

“ ey take on grief and anxiety and the e ect of making poor choices or saying biting words or deeds that they leave undone,” Sweeney said. “You have to imbue your characters with these real-life aws so that the reader can really identify with the character.”

e author has no idea how readers will identify with the characters, Sweeney said, as each reader brings in biases to every book picked up. ose biases don’t matter, however, if a character acts in a way that is believable and consistent with his or her established traits.

Part of her immersion into these characters’ experiences for "Answer Creek" involved traveling the 2,000 miles of the Oregon Trail over the course of a month.

“As a novelist, there’s no substitution for traveling to the place where your novel is set,” Sweeney said.

A pair of 17-year-old Wyoming cowgirls took Sweeney on a wagon ride so she could experience exactly how it felt on the trail and in a wagon, in which every revolution of the wheels was bone-jarring.

“I could stand in that stage and I could turn 360 degrees and see exactly what Ada would have seen in 1846,” Sweeney said. “It was almost spiritual to have that kind of connection to nature and to the past. When you’re standing there, the wind is howling. e mosquitos are buzzing. e grasses are

waving. You’re standing in a place where other people stood before us. Not that in any way was I experiencing what they were experiencing, but at least I could breathe the air and to feel the wind and be in a place where I knew they had actually stood was very powerful.”

Most of the research she does, however, doesn’t actually make it into the novel. Sweeney said she actively tries to avoid “info dumps” — authors using the information they learned simply for the sake of using it rather than furthering the story and characters. Sweeney said she is careful to only use information that moves her story along in a meaningful way.

Speci cally for "Answer Creek," Sweeney set out to tell a ctional but historically accurate story about the fate of the Donner Party, a group of pioneers who became stranded in the Sierra Nevada smountains on

the Oregon-California Trail.

“My goal was to focus on their collective humanity and to make no judgment on the choices they made and what they did to survive,” Sweeney said. “You read stories about people who get caught places and have to break their own limbs to get out of their situation. ey have to make the hard choice about splitting up and leaving someone behind. It comes down to survival and what lengths human beings will go to survive.”

Sweeney spent time in Nebraska’s Legacy of the Plains Museum, where she discovered journals original to the Oregon Trail. In these personal writings, she uncovered much of what made these people tick and how they thought about their journeys.

“You think you’re going in with something and you come out with something completely di erent. I was reading those journals and the emotions that they elicited were genuine,” Sweeney said. “I was anxious and teary. It wasn’t just like reading something dry. It really was a very emotional experience to read rsthand, handwritten journals from the Oregon Trail. You uncover aspects that you didn’t set out to uncover. ose can become the most poignant parts of your story.”

As she continues writing, Sweeney plans to continue focusing on stories about the American West because there are so few women’s voices in the written histories of the West, aside from the likes of Annie Oakley and Calamity Jane, for instance.

“I would venture that there are tens of thousands of Annies and Janes whose stories were never told,” she said. “ ere are thousands of novels that could be written about a woman’s life in the West.”

"Answer Creek" will be released May 19. Bellingham’s Village Books will host Sweeney reading from her book at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, May 27.

Ashley E. Sweeney

Dickinson

ve children. Getting out of dairying, Roland was in di erent jobs over the years, including doing feed grinding on farms and later being a eld applicator of fertilizers.

He credits former Lynden mayor Jack Louws with planting the idea — at lunch gatherings at Dutch Treat Restaurant — of the Dickinson property someday becoming a city park. An appraisal at the time came up with a $2.2 million value for full development potential, which the city wasn’t eager to pay.

Dickinson’s thought was “I didn’t want all the trees to come down.” Fast forward some 10 years to 2018, and it became the privilege of current Mayor Scott Korthuis to make the surprise announcement that Dickinson had agreed to sell his property to the city for $1.2 million.

Dickinson is a keen observer, and appreciator, of the wildlife that thrives on his property. He has photos of barn owls and wood ducks and bald eagles, and ve deer at a time down by the creek — he once nursed an injured buck back to

health.

State Fisheries has placed some woody debris for better Fishtrap Creek sh habitat.

Dickinson has not seen the two streams bounding his property ever seriously ood. Just two weeks ago amid heavy rainfall, he put stakes as high as the water got, and also mayor Korthuis came by to check the level where a pedestrian bridge is planned. It all looked okay.

e Dickinsons have seen Lynden grow up all around them since they came here in the 1960s: Village Drive to the north, Forest and Woodcreek neighborhoods to the west, 17th Street pushed through. In fact, as a kid Roland helped harvest hay from nearby Oordt property that is now lled with houses.

is April Roland will turn 90, and he hopes to re up the little riding tractor he has used for keeping the lawn mowed, for yet one more summer.

What happens to the house is for the city to decide, but he is content that he has done the right thing in leaving the legacy of this land to future generations of Lynden to enjoy.

In his house Roland Dickson points out on a map how his accumulation of 8.8 acres of property came to be. (Calvin Bratt/Lynden Tribune)

He’s seen 40 years of veterinary change

Gale DeJong is wrapping up a career at the Kulshan facility

By Elizabeth Kayser elizabeth@lyndentribune.com

LYNDEN — Kulshan Veterinary Hospital is celebrating its 70th anniversary of being a local veterinary service for both small and large animals.

Also, Kushan veterinarian Gale DeJong is celebrating his 40th year of being with the clinic — and his last. DeJong started in 1980.

In 1950 Ernie and Virginia Streets purchased a vet clinic in Lynden and made it their own, both of them being veterinarians. Operating out of a house on residential Front Street, they named their place Streets Veterinary Hospital.

In 1971 the Streets sold the practice and the name was changed to Kulshan. It still operated for a few years out of the residence before moving to the corner of Front and 19th streets, where Lynden Veterinary is now, specializing in pets.

DeJong was at that location when he began. It wasn’t as populated a neighborhood as it is now.

In 1992 a 10-acre piece of property at Badger and Benson roads was bought for building a new facility. It was the perfect transition for the future, moving out more toward farms on the edge of Lynden. Kulshan was becoming much more focused on large animals anyway.

“It was about 85% large animals and 15% small,” DeJong recalls.

When he started, Whatcom County had more than 500 dairy herds, and that was a large part of what Kulshan did, as well as plenty of work on horses.

At rst, the surrounding area to their new facility was farmland. Slowly but surely, the area nearby was developed by Homestead into homes and a golf course. With the increased housing came more and more pets, and the focus of the clinic saw a big shift.

As Lynden is now home to nearly 15,000 people, DeJong guesses the Kulshan ratio has changed to about 25% large animals and 75% small. ere are fewer than 90 dairies in the county now.

“Even more are selling,” he said,

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Gale DeJong will soon retire after 40 years at Kulshan Veterinary Hospital as the clinic celebrates its 70th anniversary. (Courtesy photo)

“and that brings a lot of sadness in me that our producers can’t make a living.”

Change can bring sadness, DeJong knows, but it can also be fun and exciting.

In 2011 Kulshan remodeled its current facility to adjust to the changes. e lobby area was redone to help with the ow of clients coming in. More exam rooms were added for the small animals, plus a separate entrance for large animals.

In 2017 Kulshan expanded into Ferndale, with a clinic o Portal Way. It is just for small animals, and veterinarians rotate shifts there.

Technology has also changed. Kulshan now has its own lab diagnostics area, for examining samples from animals in-house instead of sending them out.

DeJong says the advance of veterinary technology since he started is pretty amazing. X-rays, ultrasounds and surgeries have all developed and are within the capability of Kulshan to do.

“Old x-ray machines are archaic,” DeJong said. “We can now do so much more. It really helps with diagnostics.”

DeJong has spent his career mostly caring for dairy cows. When he rst started, almost every dairy farm had a bull on premises for breeding. But as technol-

ogy has advanced, he watched dairymen change to using arti cial insemination.

In terms of overall veterinary outlook, DeJong said he likes to see changes that extend animals’ life spans and reduce pain.

“Egg collection technology has advanced to where (cows’) lives aren’t affected,” DeJong said. “ at excites me.”

Having spent so much time working with dairy cows that can weigh 1,300 pounds, DeJong has experienced some “wear and tear.”

He’s had to undergo two surgeries for a shoulder rotator cu , one just from overuse and one from a dairy cow kicking him when he wasn’t expecting it.

Earlier in his time at Kulshan, there wasn’t much of a separation between the large- and small-animal vets, but by now two di erent teams have developed. ere are other changes too.

“In the 1950s it was probably 95% men and 5% women,” DeJong said. “Women now make up about 80% of vets.” He tips his hat to the women who really set the stage for those changes to happen.

DeJong has enjoyed being a vet. He believes it to be a respected profession and he doesn’t think that will change. “I have enjoyed the trust and acceptance from the public,” he said. “It’s an oppor-

tunity to be a lifelong learner.”

Certainly in being a veterinarian today, more specialities are available.

In 2020 DeJong’s share of the Kulshan

practice is for sale, to join four other partners-owners. He plans to spend the rest of this year being a consultant and coach to the younger vets there.

New building gives Lynden P.O. extra space

Opening in May, new Lynden Carrier Annex reflects explosion of e-commerce

By Elizabeth Kayser elizabeth@lyndentribune.com

LYNDEN — e new Lynden Post

O ce Carrier Annex on the west side of town is slated to open in May.

e building construction by developer Mike Kooy is essentially complete.

Local Postmaster Brian Mouche, who started working in Lynden in 2000, says the post o ce could have used an expansion already back then.

“Lynden has been growing over the past two to three decades,” Mouche said. “With a town exploding in growth, it comes with some challenges.”

To meet increasing customer demand and to ease the overload, the Lyn-

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The building on Du ner Driver is complete, although its use by the U.S. Postal Service will not begin until May. Final landscaping remains. The site provides parking and room for the activity of postal vehicles. (Calvin Bratt/Lynden Tribune)

den Post O ce has had to adjust routes and even has four rural routes based out of Everson, Mouche said.

Another factor is the growth of ecommerce and the resulting explosion of package delivery.

About two years ago, the Lynden Post O ce started to do deliveries on Sundays to keep up with e-commerce demand, most notably for online shopping giant Amazon.

Online ordering keeps rising as the option chosen by Americans, especially around the holidays, Mouche said, and the current downtown Lynden Post Ofce was having a hard time keeping up with all the large packages arriving last December. e new building at 114 S. Du ner Drive will alleviate this burden of larger volume of bigger packages.

“E-commerce has had an impact on needing more room to sort,” Mouche said. “It’s not restricted to Amazon.”

e new Carrier Annex will be one big room for sorting mail and package and for drivers to start their routes on the ample surrounding lot. e new building is just for post o ce employees. Customers must still use the longtime Post O ce at Sixth and Front streets for retail and mailing needs.

Mouche said the U.S. Postal Service

owns the Front Street building, so it is fully available for the future. He enjoys being a part of the downtown business area and getting the chance to directly engage with customers.

e new building is not owned by USPS, but the Post O ce has a very long lease.

As far as designing the new facility, Mouche said had little say in it. “I’m not even picking the paint colors.”

e new building does allow more room for P.O. boxes and its lobby will be set up a little di erently, Mouche said. But those changes probably won’t be seen until summer or fall.

Mouche said post o ce customers should know these points about the new facility:

• It is not open to the public, it is just for postal workers.

• e current Post O ce isn’t changing, so if a customer needs to purchase stamps or mail out a package, that is all still done at the post o ce on Front Street.

• e space that is currently used downtown for mail carrier vehicles won’t have as many vehicles parked there after the new facility opens, but it is still not for public use.

• If a customer puts mail on hold

and comes back earlier than expected, it may not be available for same-day pickup.

• e post o ce is always hiring for postal carrier assistants, who work Sun-

days and holidays.

• Mouche plans to split his time between the two facilities, so he may not always be available at the main Lynden Post O ce.

Cornerstone creates a league of its own

Close to home, this is another outlet for youth in basketballcrazy Lynden

By Hailey Palmer hailey@lyndentribune.com

LYNDEN — e love for basketball runs deep here — no secret about that. It seems at least one state title banner gets added at Lynden or Lynden Christian high schools each year.

Beyond those two high schools and the Northwest Conference they belong to, however, is another realm of preps competition: the Northwest Youth Basketball League run by Cornerstone Christian School of Lynden.

e league was begun in 2006 and is available to students in grades 8-12. It o ers a whole extra outlet of play for basketball-minded kids.

School principal Darryn Kleyn said the league was originally created for Cornerstone students to have a chance to play basketball.

“Our school is not part of the WIAA,” Kleyn said. “We were looking to target high school teams to get competition.”

e Washington Interscholastic Activities Association oversees most of the state’s athletic action.

What started small has now grown into a community-wide league with participation by students who attend various schools. e league currently has one girls and two boys divisions with a total of 18 teams.

Over the years, students from Lynden and Lynden Christian high schools have formed teams in the league, leading to a high level of competition, Kleyn said.

“For the kids who don’t want to try out for their (high school) team or eventually get cut, the standard of play is great in this town, so the competition ends up being really good,” he said.

“ ese kids are usually playing one other sport for their own school, so most of them are good athletes. It ends up being a nice quality standard of basketball as

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It's competitive yet fun for participants in the Northwest Youth Basketball League, which is now in February playo s. All the action is in the Cornerstone Christian School gym on Northwood Road. (Hailey Palmer/Lynden Tribune)

well.”

Games are entirely in the Cornerstone gym o Northwood Road. As many as six games will be played consecutively in an afternoon and evening, starting at 3:30 p.m., with just 1 hour and 5 minutes allowed for each.

Now in February, the teams are in playo s toward championship games on Feb. 18. e gym has bleachers for spectators. Admission is free.

Kleyn said the league lets Cornerstone students stay local playing games, avoiding travel. e teams only practice a couple of times per week, so it’s not overly taxing on parents or the kids either.

He referred to basketball in Lynden as a bit of a pyramid. Kleyn said there are a lot of kids who grow up having aspirations of playing for their high schools, but that narrows down quickly as they get older and the level of play increases. Not making the high school team doesn’t mean the kids’ desire to play disappears, however.

“We end up providing that opportunity [to play] and we certainly get a lot of quality feedback from the town saying this is a great opportunity for their kids to continue to play,” Kleyn said.

As Cornerstone’s athletic director as well, Kleyn, with teacher Janita Willis, runs the league. An athletic committee

gives input every now and again as issues come up.

e league wouldn’t be able to run as smoothly as it does without the help of the referees, Kleyn said.

Mark Bugas, Jerry Kok, Ron Moreno and Harry Pelleboer are the four o cials who have been there since the start of the league.

“I’d like to just give a shout out to those four guys that have been with us since the beginning,” Kleyn said. “With sports, if you have great o cials, then things are easier to manage from an administrative perspective. It leads to less complaints and possible are-ups on the court.”

Now going more than a decade, the Northwest Youth Basketball League has given kids in the area a chance to play the game the city of Lynden loves so much.

e response from the community has been positive, and Kleyn takes it as a good sign that many teams return the following year.

“It’s just a real joy to have the teams that come year after year,” he said. “A lot of them start in their freshman year and they’ll play all the way through [12thgrade]. It’s a great bunch of kids and they’re very respectful and appreciate what the league is about.”

Four o cials have loyally been part of the Northwest Youth Basketball League from its start in 2006. (Hailey Palmer/Lynden Tribune)

In addition to basketball, Cornerstone has started a volleyball league for students in grades 8-12. Students who have graduated are also welcome to sign

up, Kleyn said.

e volleyball season starts March 5 and teams will play eight games plus playo matchups.

Lynden Sheet Metal marking 80 years

LYNDEN — Lynden Sheet Metal is celebrating its 80th anniversary this year, having recently made plans for a fourth generation of local ownership.

Founded in 1940, Lynden Sheet Metal sells and services many products for residential and commercial clients. With a sta of 65 employees that has nearly tripled in the last 10 years, the business o ers heating and cooling systems, gas replaces, plumbing, water heaters, boilers and commercial refrigeration (walk-in coolers, freezers and ice machines).

Lynden Sheet Metal also handles

commercial kitchen hoods through the design, permitting and installation stages as well as doing welding and sheet metal fabrication for residential and commercial uses.

It’s all a lot of work to keep a loyal crew busy.

“We consider being in business for 80 years a credit to all of Lynden Sheet Metal’s employees, past and present,” said co-owner and general manager Bobbi Kreider. “Our reputation is due to the excellent service that they’ve given our customers over the years.”

Majority owners Bobbi and Cory Kreider acquired their ownership stake in 2010 from Bob and Rose Crabtree (Bobbi’s parents), who became co-owners of Lynden Sheet Metal in 1977 and retired in 2011.

e Kreiders now also have two couples — Philip and Stephanie Vander Veen and Ken and Joell Keck — who combined have accumulated 20% ownership. Philip Vander Veen started at Lynden Sheet Metal when he was 18 and has been there for about 20 years. Ken Keck has been an employee for nearly 10 years.

“ e fourth generation of ownership is secure and Lynden Sheet Metal will be going for many more years,” Bob-

bi Kreider said.

Lynden Sheet Metal is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays at 837 Evergreen St., near the intersection of Guide Meridian Road and Main Street, directly across from Washington Tractor.

e business will have a large booth

at the Whatcom County Home & Garden Show, scheduled for March 6-8 at the Northwest Washington Fairgrounds & Event Center in Lynden.

For more information, call 360-3543991 or visit www.LyndenSheetMetal. com.

Staff has nearly tripled in last decade to cover the multiple work areas of this business

From left, the owners of Lynden Sheet Metal are couples Ken and Joell Keck, Cori and Bobbi Kreider, and Stephanie and Phillip Vander Veen. All of their involvement represents a fourth generation of ownership in the business.

(Courtesy photo)

Iconic Lynden restaurant reopens as Rustlers Grill

Pannenkoeken kept, Western fare added

LYNDEN — One of Lynden’s bestknown restaurant spots reopened Feb. 3 with a new name and new local owners.

Rustlers Front Street Grill o ers “a fun, family atmosphere with a quirky Western feel,” laughed Lynden native Kevin Seutz, co-owner with wife Belinda of the 300-seat downtown destination at 405 Front St. ey purchased Dutch Mothers Family Restaurant from Dave and Debbie Black, effective Jan. 1.

“We’re keeping some of the favorites from Dutch Mothers, including pannenkoeken, the thin, crispy Dutch pancake that’s delicious with sweet or savory toppings,” Kevin Seutz said. “We also still serve their homemade pies and baked goods. But we’ve added some of our favorites, including steaks, tacos and atbread pizza.”

Kevin and Belinda also have owned the 180-seat Rusty Wagon, located just north of Hinotes Corner at 6937 Hannegan Rd., Lynden, since 2000. ey originally planned to launch Rustlers Front Street Grill shortly

after Jan. 1, but then decided to take most of January to update the Blonden Building, constructed in 1909, without disrupting customers. Dutch Mothers opened in 1982 and was acquired by the Blacks in 1996.

“We wanted to do it right and create a nice space for people to enjoy,” Seutz said. “When you have a gifted brother like I do in terms of renovating [Whatcom Home Repair owner Craig Seutz], you take advantage of that knowledge and experience and let him lead the charge on what needs to happen. My good friend Dusty Poortinga contributed his talent and vision for woodworking and artwork into the project. With the additional help from numerous family and friends, it was worth waiting a little longer.”

After a “soft opening” serving only breakfast and lunch until 3 p.m., Rustlers Front Street Grill added a dinner menu on Feb. 11 and is now fully on its regular hours of 6 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Sunday through ursday and 6 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Beer, wine and a selection of mixed drinks are available.

For more information, call the restaurant at 360-354-2174 or visit www.rustlersfsg.com.

Co-owners Belinda and Kevin Seutz join with son Brandon Seutz, center, in running the new Rustlers Front Street Grill. (Courtesy photo)

Rescuing the world’s abandoned children

Lynden-born Kidstown International is renewing its vision for the next 25 years of aiding at-risk kids

By Calvin Bratt editor@lyndentribune.com

LYNDEN — For the month of January Rusty Polinder was away in northern India and Nepal taking the pulse of the Kidstown International mission. By car and plane he covered thousands of miles to make dozens of contacts to renew the vision of this ministry to at-risk kids.

To again see, in reality, the situations of commitment and faithfulness there in challenging circumstances was “humbling,” said Polinder, the organization’s Paci c Northwest regional director, in an interview back home in Lynden.

For instance, at the end of a 12-hour car ride in mountainous terrain from Kolkata, India, Polinder sees a man named Churchill who with his wife and sta operate a group home for 28 kids, showing Christian love and compassion. is is “the heartbeat of what we do,” he says, and this particular visit “wins my heart every time.”

Polinder is also deeply grateful for the people — dominant in the Lynden area, especially — who for 25 years have supported the Kidstown e ort as it now also looks to the future.

“We are wanting to reconnect with this community. Without the loyalty and constant commitment and vision, it doesn’t happen for these 25 years and it doesn’t have the hope and vision for the next 25,” he said.

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Rusty Polinder of Lynden was in Nepal and India in January reconnecting with children who are supported by Kidstown International sponsors in the United States. (Courtesy photo/Kidstown International)

e seed of Kidstown was planted on a trip of Lyndenite Mike Hollander with a Christian Reformed group to Romania in 1995. He met a Hungarian pastor couple, Irma and Janos Mulnar, who were caring for about 35 abandoned children in three small rooms.

“ ese kids were being loved and cared for,” Hollander declared as he started sharing the burden on his heart with people and local churches. “ at’s what needs to be supported. at’s what looking after kids is all about.”

In February 1996 Hollander o cially established Kidstown Romania Inc. for the purpose of raising money to expand the Molnars’ orphanage (named Bethesda Home), set up educational facilities and rescue more abandoned children.

“ at model continues to be the model,” Polinder said. at is, to have a partnership with a local church, group or individuals in a foreign country that is nurtured by Kidstown supporters in the United States.

e goal is to “always try to be the best partner we can be as they address needs in the local context,” Polinder said.

From 1998 on, Kidstown began reaching out to help more Christian orphanages in Romania until by 2003 the number was near 10. And in 2005 God began to open doors for

Rusty Polinder is the Paci c Northwest regional director for Kidstown International, which traces its start to Mike Hollander's heart for abandoned Romanian children, starting in 1995. (Courtesy photos/Dani Winters and Kidstown International)

Kidstown

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the work to be duplicated in India and Nepal where it could be seen that the challenge of abandoned, orphaned and at-risk children is enormous.

Today, Kidstown International has 47 partnerships covering about 1,000 kids.

Chuck Valley is the overall executive director, working logistics out of Puyallup. Polinder, with a diverse cross-cultural background, came on board two years ago.

Polinder believes that as child adoptions from other countries are generally decreasing, there is a place for Americans compassionately helping with childcare that is being done by indigenous pastors and churches.

e goal is to create opportunity for children to nd love and acceptance, to get a general education or trade schooling, and see a way forward to be productive and rise out of the poverty they may be in.

Each partnership of Kidstown to the local level has a little di erent avor and dynamic to it, depending on the groups or people involved, Polinder says.

Kidstown does not buy or build properties. e nancial help is to work with committed Christians in other countries in child development.

“We are committed to investing in the children,” Polinder said.

It has turned out, over the time of Kidstown, that the “ nal mile” of getting kids solidly nurtured into adulthood, in job skills and personal values, has been the hardest step to complete, Polinder said. He sees it as giving youth “tools to break that cycle of poverty,” whether by way of scholarships, tech school or advanced educational opportunities, in addition to the basics for life.

“Our support base is loyal and committed, and that’s Lynden,” he said. He estimates about 60 percent of Kidstown support is from

the Lynden area.

“Our sponsors are lifetime committed sponsors to kids. We’ve been able to do what we do because of that loyalty.”

Also, Kidstown is able to direct well over 90 percent of all giving directly to the care for

kids, with some generous business backers taking care of the overhead of travel and administration. It has been a “beautiful model,” Polinder said.

A group of six local Kidstown supporters planned to y to Nepal last Saturday to

renew connections with children in group homes and orphanages there.

Alvin Starkenburg, who is o the Kidstown board after many years on it, said two

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It is in bonding times like these with kids that the vision of the organization is renewed and energized. (Courtesy photo)

Lynden families have a long strong bond with 18 to 24 girls in Katmandu, the capital city, rst through their basic education and some material needs and now more toward gaining trade skills for jobs.

It is all to “look forward to breaking that cycle of poverty,” and building values in children that will sustain them productively into adulthood, Starkenburg said.

“ ere is such a need over there. ere are the rich and the poor, and mostly the poor,” said the retired Lynden businessman.

e six travelers are Starkenburg, Candy Matthews, Allison Moore, Emily Maas, Jason Vander Kooi of Skagit County, and Marv Tjoelker, who is current Kidstown board president.

ere will be a trip to six group homes farther west in Nepal , to which will be delivered knitted blankets and more from a Lynden church.

Tjoelker’s membership in Mt. Baker Rotary provides a reason to visit a hospital in Nepal that Rotary International has supported.

In at least 15 years of this Asian link and being involved in Kidstown from its start, he nds that totally full and meaningful relationships are developed with the kids who are helped, to go along with the nancial support given, Starkenburg said. “We know them well.”

Kidstown seeks to connect with its Lynden community roots and continue to build up the nancial, spiritual and personal support for its mission to at-risk kids in the world. (Courtesy photo/Kidstown International)

New York Life celebrates 175 years

Company has gone from whole-life policies of old to a wide variety of client services

By Brent Lindquist brent@lyndentribune.com

LYNDEN — e parent company of Lynden’s New York Life o ce celebrates 175 years this April, and while the business is a community mainstay, it has changed a great deal over the years.

“ ere aren’t that many old companies around,” said Lynden agent Shane Van Dalen. “ en to be around 175 years is like a whole other level.”

Back at the beginning in the 1840s, New York Life made a name for itself with whole-life insurance policies. Looking through old New York Life policies at the national level can be fascinating, Van Dalen said, as the company insured generals and presidents from throughout American history.

“You say, ‘Holy cow, this has been here a long time,’” Van Dalen said. e Lynden o ce was opened in 1964 by Larry Vail. His parents owned

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Shane Van Dalen sits behind his desk at New York Life local o ces on Liberty Street. In 1996 Van Dalen took over the business that Larry Vail had founded in Lynden in 1964. (Brent Lindquist/Lynden Tribune)

one of the bars in Sumas, and Vail himself got into the beer business through Walton Beverage. One day, he spoke with a New York Life recruiter who commented that Vail knew a lot of people and that joining New York Life might not be a bad idea.

Vail did so, and it didn’t take long before Lynden’s New York Life o ce became a staple in town.

“ e next thing you know, he starts writing policies on everybody and their dog,” Van Dalen said.

Vail was in business in Lynden until the mid-1990s, when he began to experience some health issues. He approached Van Dalen, who was working at U.S. Bank at the time. Vail told Van Dalen about his situation and said he wanted to be sure of taking care of his clients.

“I realized that half of these people, I either know or I’m related to or whatever, and the next thing you know, sure, let’s do it,” Van Dalen said. “I joined New York Life in 1996 and I just took it to the next level.”

e old whole-life policies were a lot narrower in scope than the myriad of options now o ered by New York Life.

“With a whole-life policy, it would accumulate, grow a cash value, pay a decent interest rate and cover expenses in case you died. Now we do life insurance, investment services, nancial planning, long-term care, disability, 401ks, retirement plans, IRAs. It’s a whole other level of nancial services for these clients.”

As the world gets more and more automated, Van Dalen and New York Life see Lynden and Whatcom County

customers hewing to a less technology-oriented time.

“Everything is so automated to where when people get a check, it’s direct-deposited. When people want to purchase something, they say ‘just take it out of my checking account,’” Van Dalen said. “Now, here, we can do that. We have the capability to do that. But in Lynden or in Whatcom County they generally still want to bring a check.”

Van Dalen said he likes to sit down with clients face-to-face to gure out what they need, what concerns they have and what kinds of questions they bring to the table.

Some families represent four generations of New York Life customers, and Van Dalen said hiring agent David Lewis last year has been a big help in communicating with younger people who might not be familiar with New York Life’s o erings.

Lewis says, “ e rst and most important thing for us is just guring out where the person is at, what their situa-

tion is and what their goals are. Having that basic non-technical, non-threatening conversation about, ‘Okay, where are you at now and where do you want to be,’ is something that you can have with anyone."

“It’s universal. Once you determine that, then the process of educating them

on what tools are available to help them get where they want to go begins," Lewis said.

York Life is located at 517 Liberty St. in Lynden. Call 360-354-4433 for more information.

New

Shane Van Dalen and David Lewis are the local team together. (Courtesy photo/New York Life)

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