/2010BIR-Who

THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE BAINBRIDGE ISL AND

ENVIRONMENTALIST CREATIVE BUILDER

LIBRARIAN

Kol Medina Rebecca Judd

Wildlife and the environment are his passions

Tamela VanWinkle School builder feels at home in a fabric store, too

More to her than reading young-adult fiction

BUSINESS CHAMPION TEACHER/COACH

DRAMATIST

Andrea Mackin Steven Fogell

Failure is not an option for this downtown advocate

Liz McCloskey A coach who gets the most out of her kids

BPA enriched by creative director of many talents

PARKS PLANNER COMMUNITY VOLUNTEER

MARKET MANAGER

Perry Barrett Cheryl Dale

Planner who understands the power of public lands

Volunteering for the love of her community

Susan Vanderwey A fun, enjoyable market is music to her ears

A SUPPLEMENT TO THE BAINBRIDGE ISLAND REVIEW JULY 2010

WHO’S WHO

Page 2

Bruce P. Weiland

John Rice, owner

151 Finch Place Southwest Suite A Bainbridge Island, Washington 98110 206-842-1611 bpweiland@comcast.net

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July 30, 2010

Winslow Cabinets & Home Details is new to Bainbridge Island and located at the The Winslow Courtyard Shops, next to Adam & Eve Clothing Co. Although the business is new to the Island the owners, John and Mary Rice, are not. They lived on the island in the early 1990’s when John commuted to their showroom at 5th & Virginia in Seattle.

There they operated a successful kitchen and bath design firm until semi-retiring and selling.

Real Estate Attorney

Serving Bainbridge Island Since 1993

John and Mary vowed to someday return to Bainbridge, which they did a year ago, and decided to open another design and cabinet showroom without the need to commute. John is also a Realtor with Johansson Clark Real Estate, just steps across the street from their showroom. He enjoys the ability to visualize a property’s potential and follow through with its transformation.

Stop by and discuss your project and view our fine sustainable cabinetry.

showroom: 400 winslow way e #110

Island Electronics, Inc., our local Radio Shack dealer, has provided islanders with a full line of consumer electronics for the past 16 years.

Located in the Island Village Shopping Center since 1995, Amy Johnson and her staff not only offer top quality products, but more importantly, provide one-on-one service on how to use them.

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WHO’S WHO

July 30, 2010

PERRY BARRETT

Perry Barrett has always been connected with the landscape.

Growing up in Phoenix, Ariz., Barrett was subjected to the large southwestern city scapes featuring an abundance of urban sprawl. The inefficient and unsustainable nature of the land use had a profound effect on the young man, which lingers to this day.

“Having a sensibility for human impact on the land has always been in the back of my mind,” Barrett said.

Parks were few and far between there. His upbringing instilled within him a sense of value for parks in a community.

“Earlier park planning talked about them as the lungs of the city,” he said. “It’s so important to have places where people can have either organized or unorganized type of play.

Psychologically, people need those places and locations.”

Barrett took his passion for parks and open space to Lewis & Clark College in Portland and the Urban Design and Planning graduate program at the University of Washington.

Barrett’s quest to preserve lands for public good was intensified by a college trip to China, which features extremely dense cities and vast countrysides. The experience further influenced Barrett’s belief in the great effects mankind has on the land.

“It made me aware of the impacts of hu-

Brad Camp/For the Review

mans on our landscape,” he said.

Barrett worked for Bellevue and Seattle before moving in 1994 to Bainbridge, which shares his affinity for preserved landscape.

“It’s great working with the people who want to see play opportunities in their landscape or see it in a special way,” Barrett said.

Bainbridge was a great fit for Barrett in other ways. Always an outdoorsman, Barrett is drawn to the water and is also an avid bicyclist, another common trait among Bainbridge residents.

Since joining the Bainbridge Metro Park

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and Recreation District 16 year ago, he has been a part of planning and developing a number of important projects including: Battle Point and its ball fields; the acquisition of the Gazzam Lake properties; and construction of trails connecting the island’s many parks.

Barrett’s footprint in the park district includes millions in state grant funds to help purchase properties for new parks.

Steeped in grant season, Barrett is working on securing funding for a number of upcoming projects, including connecting trails around the Grand Forest, and furthering the work of the Bainbridge Japanese Exclusion Memorial Wall in Pritchard Park, all in the hopes of continuing to deliver the park services the community asks for.

“It’s been really cool to work on projects that do good or provide open space that people really attach their hearts to,” he said.

• Nat Levy

TAMELA VANWINKLE As students entered Bainbridge High School’s newly completed 200 Building for the first time in 2009, Capital Projects Director Tamela VanWinkle studied their reactions from the second floor.

“We shared tears of joy to hear our stu-

Page 3

dents explain how awesome this building is, and to share in their pride and excitement,” she said. “That’s a gift. I did feel blessed to be given the opportunity to do this.”

VanWinkle, who previously worked for the Issaquah School District, joined BISD in 2002 as a projects manager. After becoming capital projects and facilities director in 2005, VanWinkle oversaw the construction of the 200 Building, the largest BISD capital project at the time.

While she is now focused on construction of the new Wilkes Elementary School, BHS is still on her mind.

“I’m working on a fabric interpretation of the 200 Building,” said VanWinkle, an experienced quilter. “It’s therapeutic to buy fabric and quilt. I think I quilt my feelings. All of it, the good [and] the bad.”

The work is nearly three-quarters of the way finished and is full of rich golds, reds and browns.

“I do some traditional quilting, but I really enjoy art quilting,” she said. “I discovered probably about 15 years ago that I could lose myself in a fabric store. I can have any number of challenges or disappointments, and I can walk into a fabric store and I can rest my mind by just becoming engaged with the fabric and designing something.”

VanWinkle, who has a background in construction, fits the pieces of fabric together the way a stained glass artist molds glass.

“I think people who find some place to

Kimrick Soltanzadeh is a Regional Bank Private Banker for the Bainbridge Island and Poulsbo market of Wells Fargo Bank. As part of Wells Fargo Regional Bank Private Banking, Ms. Soltanzadeh works with clients to understand their personal values and their banking needs. She can then provide customized and creative banking solutions guided by both a client’s short- and long-term goals. She can also coordinate the knowledge and resources of other Wells Fargo specialists, including trust and estate services and investment management. Life insurance and brokerage services are available through Wells Fargo Investments, LLC. During her career at Wells Fargo, Ms. Soltanzadeh has been a Senior Relationship Manager with the Small Business 401(k) team for 2 years and a Financial Consultant for 5 years. Prior to joining Wells Fargo, Ms. Soltanzadeh was an Investment Advisor at Merrill Lynch in Carmel, California for 2 years, where she specialized in Financial Planning.

Prior to working at Merrill Lynch, Kimrick was an Executive Vice President at Citibank for 5 years in San Francisco, California. She has been in the financial industry for nearly 20 years.

Kimrick Soltanzadeh Wells Fargo Private Banker Washington Region Private Banker Bainbridge Island and Poulsbo

Ms. Soltanzadeh earned her B.A. degree in International Relations from San Francisco State University.

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Ms. Soltanzadeh serves as a Board Member and Treasurer of the Kids Discovery Museum on Bainbridge Island. She is married to Afshin, a nurse at Harborview Hospital in Seattle. She has a 9 year old son named Ethan who attends Blakely Elementary School and plays soccer, hockey and basketball.

She also has a 4 year old daughter named Isabelle.

Kimrick and her family live on Bainbridge Island

Kimrick.Soltanzadeh@wellsfargo.com

WHO’S WHO

Page 4 constructively invest their emotions are better for it,” she said. “Personally, maybe that’s why I like building. You’re investing a bit of who you are, your creativity, your emotions into something tangible.”

While she has created dozens of quilts over the years, the current project is her first building representation.

“I was just thinking about that was a pretty significant investment of my time and energy and it was an accomplishment that brought a lot of joy,” she said. “It was easier to build than to design.”

Through giving quilts to celebrate events such as weddings and birth of a child, VanWinkle hopes to create enduring pieces of history that will last the recipients a lifetime.

“This was something that was not part of my history, and part of who I am today.”

• Victoria Nguyen

STEVEN FOGELL

Steven Fogell has a solid recipe for success: Identify ingredients you love most and combine them in fresh ways.

That’s been his strategy as Bainbridge Performing Arts creative director where he’s blended his love of theater, particularly children’s theater, make up, fine art, set design and teaching.

Fogell grew up surrounded by professional art materials; his mother and sister were artists. He inched his way into the spotlight in high school theater, overcoming his painful shyness. Fogell, shy?

He started out blending, blending, blending – doing theatrical make up, then later, make up and art direction for commercial photography, such as print work for Calvin Klein. He devoted time to painting as well, what was “back then, provocative,” he said.

He developed his skills further in children’s theater in Santa Fe, N.M., before coming to Seattle Repertory Theatre and teaching at Seattle Children’s Theatre.

After teaching kindergarten for five years, he took a job at BPA directing the theater school. There, he polished his scriptwriting skills, publishing five scripts, and Eldridge Publishing recently asked him for more.

“That’s a compliment,” Fogell said. “To have someone contact you like that.”

He’s proud of the strength of BPA’s educational component.

“It will change your life,” he said. “Even if you don’t stay with theater, any company would benefit from what you learn: speaking in public, learning not to be embarrassed, teamwork.”

In the last few years, BPA has expanded to bring even more classes, including the recent Acting for the Camera and Live Action Stunts/Fight Combat Class with Lee Ann Hittenberger and Chris Soldevilla.

“It’s been one of the best classes in years,” Fogell said. “We made a DVD of it.”

BPA has been partnering with West Sound Academy to provide more instructors, expanding BPA’s reach and reputation as more

Brad Camp/For the Review

July 30, 2010

of a regional theater. Its productions, too, are well-regarded. Every audition draws talent from Seattle.

“To be able to go to the Fifth Avenue and talk with their choreographer, the crossover of talent, that we’re respected at that level – that’s taken a lot of people to get it that way.

The staff, he said, is at times like a loving, dysfunctional family.

Like Fogell, many of them have been at BPA for more than a decade. Technical advisor Matt Hadlock and master carpenter Justin Gellé were both there when Fogell arrived.

And Kim Failla, director of operations, has been at BPA almost as long as Fogell.

“It’s so fun to work with people who are passionate about what they do, When you’re with these people more than your partner or friends,” Fogell said. “We’re always pushing, pushing. ‘What else can we do to bring that wow moment’?”

Fogell sets the tone by pushing himself.

He’s got more than 60 scripts in various stages of development and he’s returned to the canvas again, developing a new body of work for a show in November.

• Connie Mears

SUSAN VANDERWEY

Brad Camp/For the Review

Dennis Anstine/Staff Photo

From top: Tamela VanWinkle, Steven Fogell and Susan Vanderwey.

Susan Vanderwey, a Chicago native, moved to Bainbridge Island 20 years ago in a quest to find the ideal living climate. Vanderwey originally had her sights set on Seattle, but her initial reaction after a visit was, “Who cares, it’s just another city.”

Vanderwey had a different reaction to Bainbridge Island, however, immediately falling in love with the “Ozzie and Harrietlike atmosphere.”

For the past seven years, Vanderwey has served as manager of the Bainbridge Island Farmer’s Market. While the market is only open seven months of the year – April through October – Vanderwey works hard all year long to ensure it’s success. She is in charge of administrative duties, coordinating logistics with the city, marketing, customer relations, overseeing licenses and permits, and making sure everyone is happy.

She originally served on the Kitsap Food and Farm Alliance and the public housing boards as a volunteer before becoming involved with the Farmer’s Market. She has a background in marketing communications and has worked for a number of world-famous companies – including, Morton Salt, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Orville Redenbacher – designing art for their products.

“My life went back and forth between arts and farming,” Vanderwey said in regard to the years prior to managing the market.

Although she loves her job, it requires continual energy and enthusiasm. Vanderwey describes it as “a job without an end.”

In her limited spare time, Vanderwey enjoys music, painting and making jewelry. She has also co-authored a few books, including:

WHO’S WHO

July 30, 2010 “Take Charge of Your Own Career: A Guide to Federal Employment,” and “The Stand Up Communicator: A Guide to Powerful Presentations.”

While the extent of her musical ability is limited to singing softly to herself as not to offend anyone, Vanderwey enjoys listening to a variety of music, including Janice Joplin and Andrea Bocelli.

Her love for music is incorporated into her career, as she actively ensures that live music is provided every Saturday at the market.

While the bands and musicians vary from week to week, market vendors and attendees have enjoyed the likes of Shelby Kitchen, Rick Barringer and Ian Turner, a former drummer for a Chicago blues band.

“It’s a real mix,” said Vanderwey.

In terms of expressing creativity, Vanderwey’s major focus is abstract art, though she also enjoys painting acrylic landscapes on canvas.

“Paintings are like music to me,” said Vanderwey.

Her future aspirations include: keeping the Farmer’s Market running; taking care of her elderly father; improving her artistic ability; and ensuring that her day-to-day life is accompanied by an abundance of live music.

If there was one thing she could tell the world about herself, it would be that: “I give a really good party on Saturday mornings at the market. I put on my silver tiara and go forth to make it fun for everybody.”

•

Page 5

to help rescue it from closure in 2004 by becoming its executive director.

The two biggest challenges were to establish a capital fundraising project and improving the facility. In the last six years the shelter has: increased its employees from one part-time worker to four and a half; upped its annual budget from $70,000 to $325,000; expanded capacity dramatically to treat more than 800 patients annually; and raised nearly all of a $575,000 fundraising campaign, much of which funded a large bird sanctuary and will help build a marine facility soon.

“The shelter is a true success story,” Medina said. “Thanks to many people, it has become a jewel for the county and community in that it is one of the best facilities in the region. And it’s also a source of inspiration for environmental change.”

Medina believes one of the shelter’s primary responsibilities – after taking care of animals in need – is to educate people about the importance that a healthy animal population plays in protecting the environment.

While Bainbridge may be rural, many of its residents moved here from urban locations.

“Connecting people to wildlife and putting a furry face on the environment is a living reality that people can see,” he said. “The more open space and access to Puget Sound provided, the more they are likely to protect it.”

Medina also has been influential through his involvement in several nonprofits, including: One Call For All, the Association of Bainbridge Communities (ABC), Health, Housing and Human Services Council (HHHS), Community Energy Solutions and the 23rd Legislative District Democrats board.

“I don’t really care about parties so much,” he said,” “but the Democrats are more supportive these days about environment and nonprofit issues. And that’s what I do.”

Jenneke Oostman

KOL MEDINA One could argue that there is a plethora of do-gooders on Bainbridge, many of whom are involved in the island’s more than 300 nonprofit organizations.

And then there’s Kol Medina, a self-proclaimed “nonprofit geek,” environmental attorney, and champion of all things wild and furry as executive director of the West Sound Wildlife Shelter.

He’s liberal, and proud of it.

And his liberal education started early when he spent two years attending Armand Hammer United World Colleges (UWC) in New Mexico’s Santa Fe National Forest. It is one of UWV’s 10 pre-college institutions worldwide that teaches a central philosophy to potential world leaders that wars and genocide should be eradicated.

The program, which leans heavily on the surrounding wilderness as a classroom, instilled in Medina a community ethic “to change the world,” though he wasn’t sure at the time exactly how he wanted to do it.

But he knew enough to get an undergraduate degree from Carleton College in Minnesota, spend a Peace Corps year in Africa’s GuineaBissau, earn a law degree from Stanford and then join Foster Pepper in Seattle.

After moving to Bainbridge, he spent three years as the law firm’s specialist on environmental and nonprofit issues. Then, after joining the wildlife shelter’s board, he decided

• Dennis Anstine

ANDREA MACKIN

Brad Camp/For the Review

From top: Kol Medina, Andrea Mackin and Rebecca Judd.

Andrea Mackin has a personal stake in seeing downtown businesses succeed.

Now in her second year as executive director of the Bainbridge Island Downtown Association, Mackin can feel the pain when a business closes.

“I take the success and failure of each business downtown very personally because I know what it’s like to close a family business,” she said. “I feel a personal responsibility toward ensuring the economic sustainability of business downtown.”

Like many of the businesses downtown, Mackin and her family felt the heat of the economic downturn. Mackin’s husband Brian worked as an artist creating pieces for hotels.

But as the economy began to go south, many of the projects began to disappear.

Mackin, who moved to Bainbridge in 1996, saw the same thing in the business community.

“I can’t believe it grinded to a halt, but as months go by you realize this isn’t going to end anytime soon,” she said. “I watched that

WHO’S WHO

Page 6 with downtown businesses and many realized they needed to retool their business model.”

That’s exactly what Mackin had to do: retool. She took a year off from work to help market her husband’s business, Counterbalance Sculpture.

When things improved, she returned and began working in community engagement at IslandWood.

Mackin, who has four children to provide for, said challenges will always present themselves. What’s important is how people, or businesses, adjust to them.

“Failure is not an option,” she said. “With that attitude, I think you become that much more creative when times are difficult.”

A native of Portland, Mackin has been a nonprofit lifer since she moved to Bainbridge.

She studied psychology and community health education at Portland State University with a goal of becoming involved in public health and wellness.

She came to Seattle but was unable to get involved in the field and settled down in Bainbridge, in its large nonprofit community.

She’s been a part of many of the island’s well known nonprofits, including BPA, The Island School, KiDiMu and IslandWood.

But she couldn’t stay out of downtown for long. Just a month after taking the position at IslandWood, there was a vacancy at BIDA for the executive director position. Mackin jumped at the opportunity.

“In life, timing is everything,” she said.

In the last year, Mackin has dedicated herself toward continuing to preserve Winslow Way, which is recognized as one of 11 certified Washington Main Streets.

Mackin and her family have seen what can happen to a downtown when a large shopping center, or a like competitor, comes in.

It can pull the citizenry from the city center, and once people leave, as many communities have learned, they often never return.

But Mackin, along with a continuously bonding community of business owners downtown are poised to not let that happen.

“The architectural history, the sense of place in downtown, we haven’t lost it; we haven’t seen it go away.”

And if Mackin has her way, it never will.

• Nat Levy

Brad Camp/For the Review

Cheryl Dale feels right at home in the new Kids Discovery Museum.

CHERYL DALE Cheryl Dale considers herself a human bridge, a person whose skills include connecting people so they can create something tangible for the good of a community.

Specifically, Bainbridge Island, where people are quick to roll up their sleeves to

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fulfill a community need.

“It’s a Bainbridge thing,” said Dale, who, since moving to the island 19 years ago with husband Jim and their young children, has been involved in several child-related and nonprofit endeavors in the community.

“There is so much giving here. I like to start things and then step back and watch it go to another level, which is pretty special here

July 30, 2010

because there’s so much talent. This is an island of doers who see a need and then make it happen.”

Dale is quick to deflect credit, saying that it’s natural for her to become active in a community and any achievements gained through her involvement are mere reflections of the island’s character. She prefers anonymity over the spotlight, but she has become an important cog in the island’s nonprofit machine.

Early on, she was involved as a parent activist for St. Barnabas Day School, Blakely Elementary and Sakai Middle schools. She then spent eight years on the Bainbridge Island School District’s board of directors, and was a co-founder of the Bainbridge Island School Trust, a fundraising nonprofit that eventually morphed into the Bainbridge Schools Foundation.

It was a natural transition for Dale to become the first executive director when Molly Hogger and others created the Kids Discovery Museum five years ago. That led to a three-year fundraising effort for KiDiMu’s new home, which opened in June as the first building completed in the Island Gateway development.

She quickly shifted gears again with her involvement in the Bainbridge Art Museum, another Island Gateway project. Art collector Cynthia Sears and developer Bill Carruthers brought her aboard as interim executive director, primarily as the person putting together a nonprofit and its volunteer board of directors.

“Cynthia, Bill and all the others, including myself, see it as an opportunity to highlight the art created in our own community,” Dale said. “It’s a unique situation and typical of Bainbridge in that people saw it as a project that would advance our community. It’s just inspiring for me to be around people who can do such amazing things.”

While the project has had some critics, she sees “having two sides to every story” as healthy.

“Opposition always makes any project better,” Dale said. “Total community involvement is always best and I appreciate everyone’s opinion.”

Dale has also been a volunteer for artist Janie Ekberg’s Camp Siberia, which, dur-

The moment the Lee family saw Bainbridge Island they knew they wanted to call it home.

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WHO’S WHO

July 30, 2010 ing the last 10 years has provided a summer camp experience for Russian orphans from the Novosibirsk area in Russia. The community also sends 18 island students – trained as counselors – each year to Siberia as part of a community service project.

All three of Dale’s daughters (ages 18-22) have been chosen, and she made the trip last year as a chaperone.

“It’s a life-changing experience for the kids,” Dale said. “I know it was for our girls.”

What’s next for Dale after the Bainbridge Art Museum? She’s uncertain, but she’ll know it when she sees it.

REBECCA JUDD

Brad Camp/For the Review

“There’s no end of ways to participate,” Judd said. “When my nieces came to visit they asked, ‘Is there always a festival here?’”

Other favorites are the new KiDiMu, IslandWood, the Garden Tours, PAWS, and the list goes on.

“One thing I’ve found here that is different from other places is that people in the community are willing to try new things. They’re progressive, open to new ideas.”

So is Judd, who admits to “being sort of hooked on” the young adult fiction genre.

Adolescence is a time of fresh perspectives, being “on the edge of something,” Judd

Page 7

LIZ McCLOSKEY

• Dennis Anstine

After visiting the Northwest for 10 years, the chance to be closer to family drew Rebecca Judd and husband Larry from Massachusetts. But after landing the job as branch manager for the Bainbridge Public Library, she can hardly believe her good fortune.

“It’s a great match for me,” Judd said. “I feel lucky to be here. It’s a beautiful place, and this library has had decades of stewardship.”

Judd grew up in the Midwest and studied the Classics at Northwestern University in Chicago. After graduating from the University of Indiana with a library science degree, she landed a job in Bedford, Mass., as the head of the reference department. It was her seven-year stint as library director in western Massachusetts that helped develop her orientation to “the library as community center.”

“This is a true community library,” Judd said, tucked away in one of the library’s meeting rooms. “A lot of people make this place special.”

About 25 to 30 people work at the Bainbridge Branch, as part of the Kitsap Regional Library system.

“They are a talented, professional, creative group,” Judd said. “They know the people who come in, the trips they’re going on, maybe even the challenges they’ve had.”

“Kathleen Thorne is an expert at creating programming that gets people actually talking with each other. That’s transformational,” she said. “Our Youth Services Librarian Carmine Rau has a gift for matching readers with books. She knows her stuff.”

She had high praise, too, for predecessor Cindy Harrison, who shepherded the library for 16 years.

Judd said community support is central to the identity of the Bainbridge Library, which exists as a public/private partnership.

“It heightens the sense of ownership,” she said. “There are a lot of people on Bainbridge with a high level of skills.”

A “commitment to excellence” is Bainbridge’s signature quality, she said. “It makes all of us think our creative best,” she said.

She’s enjoyed settling in to the community and is a “huge fan” of The EDGE Improv shows and the Farmers’ Market.

said. “And the writing is surprisingly good.”

Judd’s job is to notice trending in not only library services, but books as well. While adult hardcover sales were down 17.8 percent in the first half of 2009, children’s and young adult hardcovers were up 30.7 percent.

“I know, people will be expecting me to say I read “Anna Karenina,” but I like Libba Bray’s “Going Bovine,” Kristen Cashore’s “Graceling and Fire” and Sarah Dessen’s series,” she said. “Well, I like “Anna Karenina,” too.”

• Connie Mears

Despite leading Bainbridge High School to back-to-back state title games – and its first softball championship in 2009 – Liz McCloskey still doesn’t like to be called coach.

“I feel like coach is too formal,” said McCloskey, who graduated from BHS in 1999.

“Some people like being called coach because they like that power; they like that figure. I build a good boundary: I am your coach, but I’m going to be here to help you no matter what. That puts us on the same level.”

In her six years at the helm, McCloskey has transformed BHS into a powerhouse.

“Bainbridge softball has become something that I don’t think anybody would have thought it’d become,” she said. “It’s become a big part of the community. I think it’s something that the young girls in Little League look up to and aspire to want to play for.”

After transferring to BHS as a sophomore, McCloskey was a three-sport athlete for the Spartans and played point guard on the 1999 state championship basketball team.

“I was the shortest kid on the team,” she said, “but basketball was my favorite.”

McCloskey attended Central Washington University, and an internship brought her back to the island.

A few months before the 2005 season, McCloskey got a phone call from then-Athletic Director Neal While. The Spartans needed a head coach, and McCloskey accepted.

Bainbridge went 9-14 that season but has gone to four state tournaments, including a second-place finish this past season.

McCloskey, who was 23 when she accepted the job, has even been mistaken for a player.

“An umpire came over and said, ‘Have your coach come over when they get back.’ I said, ‘OK,’ then I walked over to home plate and said, ‘I’m the coach. That’s me.’”

No one had any trouble recognizing the Spartans on their way to the 2009 state title, which McCloskey still admits was a shock.

“We actually made a bet,” she said of the 2009 squad. “They said, ‘If we win state, you’re taking us to Benihanas.’ I still owe them that. It’s hard to get all the girls together in the summer because they’re traveling.”

McCloskey makes it a priority to keep in touch with current and former players throughout the year. She and assistant coach Nicole Hebner travel to watch each BHS player compete during the summer.

“I think parents think we’re crazy,” she said. “Being a coach, you have to be a mentor, and you have to be somebody that they look up to and feel comfortable coming to.”

With two state titles to her name – as a player, and coach – she knows what it takes to succeed. She enjoyed both experiences, but thinks coaching is more rewarding.

“You’re the one who puts the kids in the right position and make sure they believe in themselves in order to win,” she said. “As a player, you know your job, your role. As a coach you try to do everything.”

• Victoria Nguyen

WHO’S WHO

Page 8

July 30, 2010

Bainbridge Island Ace Hardware is the place to shop for not only your hardware needs, but also for a multitude of houseware & gift items.

Ace offers nine complete departments including: Hardware, Plumbing, Electrical, Paint, Lawn & Garden (including bedding plants) Sporting Goods, Toys and an extensive Housewares and Gift department. We also handle many special orders for those hard to find items.

Come in and browse – our friendly, knowledgeable staff will help you find everything you’ll need for your home & garden projects. Ace is open seven days a week for your convenience.

, Steve & Abigail Front Row: Cameron & Randy Madeline, Kyler, Char y, Row 2: Geetha, Beck Stu Drew, Ray, Irv & Row 3: Chris, Donna, , Nik, Eric & Dennis an Row 4: Toni, Kat, Ry

Your Locally Owned, Full-Service Family Hardware & Home Store.

635 N.E. High School Road • 842-9901 • www.acehardware.com Monday-Friday 8am-7pm • Saturday 8am-6pm • Sunday 10am-5pm

★ Newly Remodeled

Shop Building! ★ Same Great Crew! ★ Same GREAT Customers!

Is your car in reasonably good condition?

Purchasing a new energy efficient vehicle could be increasing your carbon footprint by generating a new vehicle and all of the manufacturing that it took to create that new vehicle. You be the judge.

If your car gets over 25 miles to the gallon and is well tuned and maintained, you are already doing a good job for the environment!

FREE Customer Shuttle Fleet Services Available

Not combinable with other offers. Expires 11/30/2010.