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December 18, 2011
Man dies after plummet of van to bottom of pit BY TOM CALLIS PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
SGT. RANDY PIEPER/CLALLAM COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE
Traffic specialist Deputy Josh Ley examines wreckage early Saturday.
PORT ANGELES — A 27-year-old man died Saturday morning after he drove a van through a fence and down a 30to 40-foot drop to the bottom of a gravel pit. Clallam County sheriff’s deputies pronounced Brian C. Hughes dead at the scene off Mount Pleasant Road about a mile south of U.S. Highway 101 after attempting resuscitation. Alcohol is believed to have been a factor, and an autopsy is planned. The wreck occurred shortly
after 3 a.m., Sgt. Randy Pieper said later Saturday. Pieper said Hughes had just left the site of a domestic violence call a “couple blocks” away. The sergeant said it didn’t appear that any form of assault occurred. Deputies responding to the call were directed to the wreck, reported by a nearby resident who heard a loud crash. Hughes was ejected from the van and found unconscious. No one else was in the vehicle. Tread marks were located on the road, Pieper said.
Two weeks left in 2011 Home Fund campaign Jenson PENINSULA DAILY NEWS’ 2011 campaign for the “hand up, not a handout” Peninsula Home Fund enters its final two weeks today with a touching story about how the fund helped a mother of five, April Jenson, move into an apartment — and gain an outlook on life about helping others as soon as she can. The current holiday-season campaign ends Dec. 31. If you haven’t given yet, see Page C1 on how easy and equally heartwarming it is to help our neighbors.
The
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PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
The electronic price sign at the Safeway service station in Sequim last week.
A clip from a popular YouTube video shows Twinkles the bear waving to a visitor at the Olympic Game Farm.
Peninsula bear a video sensation The ups, downs of gas
BY JEFF CHEW
PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
SEQUIM — Trying to make a drowsy 700-pound Kodiak grizzly bear wave its paw at you in the dead of winter is next to impossible. They are supposed to be hibernating,
after all. But when one of Olympic Game Farm’s grizzlies — many of which are retired film or circus performers — gave a video-recording visitor a quick, cute, human-like wave a year ago in June, it became an overnight sensation last week on YouTube.
The seven-second clip ONLINE . . . of Twinkles, a 20-yearold female grizzly that was born and raised on the farm, went viral on the Internet, with more than 2.8 million views by Saturday night. ■ See the U.S. morning televishort video sion talk shows, British of Twinkles: http:// TV and Internet news tinyurl.com/ sites picked it up around pdntwinkles the world. It can be seen on YouTube.com at http://tinyurl.com/pdntwinkles or by going to YouTube and typing “waving bear” in the search field. “It’s kind of crazy,” said Robert Beebe, president of the game farm at 423 Ward Road, on Friday.
Calls from all over
JEFF CHEW/PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
Robert Beebe, president of Olympic Game Farm north of Sequim, gets Tug, a 2-year-old Kodiak grizzly bear, to wave. Tug’s cousin at the farm, Twinkles, also waves — but not in the winter hibernation months.
It was Tuesday morning that Beebe and Jamie Pate, game farm tour manager, learned about the video when a French newspaper called them. “They asked us if we knew about it, and we didn’t,” Pate said. The television show “Inside Edition” called next. “The first day, it looked like there were 350,000 hits on YouTube,” Pate said. “The next morning, there were about 750,000, and then Thursday, there were more than a million.” It aired on ABC TV’s “Good Morning America” and early Tuesday was posted at Yahoo.com and America Online and its news website, The Huffington Post. TURN
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Once hovering near $4 a gallon, prices falling almost daily BY JEFF CHEW PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
Gas prices from Neah Bay to Port Angeles, Sequim and Port Townsend are tumbling down almost as fast as they shot up two years ago, when they hovered around $ a gallon at the height of the surge. Just Friday, the lowest ALSO . . . North Olympic Peninsula ■ Diesel prices were found in prices not Sequim, as they have like those of been for some time. gasoline — Prices in Sequim have why?/A6 fallen about 10 cents in the past week alone. There, Safeway and Costco are duking it out at the fuel pumps. Safeway overnight Thursday dropped its price by 4 cents a gallon to $3.31 for unleaded gas, including the 3-cent-a-gallon discount Safeway offers to its card holders. That’s well below the state average of $3.46 a gallon but way above the national average price for unleaded at $3.25 Friday. Costco opened its pumps early Friday morning, matching Safeway’s price after the unleaded gas pump read $3.35 a gallon the day before. TURN
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INSIDE TODAY’S PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
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