SOUNDER THE ISLANDS’
Real Estate: Special section inside this edition
Serving Orcas, Lopez and San Juan County
WEDNESDAY, January 11, 2012 n VOL. 45, NO. 2 n 75¢
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Elementary student hit by car near school Barefoot Fifth grader sustains minor injuries by MEREDITH M. GRIFFITH Staff reporter
Dozens of children’s faces peered curiously from schoolbus windows as a 5th grader on his bike pedaled across the intersection of North Beach Road and School Road. He didn’t see the car coming, but some of the bus riders did. They stared in horror as the 11-year-old was knocked over and dragged beneath the vehicle. He was not wearing a helmet. “Thankfully, this was a low speed accident,”
said elementary and middle school principal Kyle Freeman. “The student was very lucky to escape the accident with only minor injuries and was released to the Funhouse to wait for his father following an examination by paramedics and a local doctor.” The accident happened just after school let out on Jan. 4. The school busses had just reached the intersection, and many students witnessed the accident. The Sounder has been unable to speak with any adult witnesses who could explain how the accident happened. “He was still under the bike,” said Mik Preysz, who responded to the call. “We got the
car off the bike, and the bike off the child. We just backed [the car] up.” He said there was no real damage to either the bike or the car, and the boy was uninjured, escaping with just a scratched knee. Freeman, PTSA president Holly King and the Funhouse Commons are now discussing the possibility of setting up a volunteer afterschool crossing guard program. Despite the area’s congestion, Preysz said this was the first auto-pedestrian accident he has heard of at that intersection in his 22 years as a responder on Orcas Island.
Spotlight on seniors: potter Trudy Erwin PROFILE OF AN ORCAS ISLAND ARTIST, SENIOR CITIZEN AND FORMER PILOT by MEREDITH M. GRIFFITH Staff reporter
Meredith M. Griffith/staff photo
Trudy Erwin in her studio, The Right Place Pottery.
Trudy Erwin worked as a machinist’s mate during World War II, repairing fabric-encased bi-planes banged up by male cadets just beginning to earn their wings. “They would crumple up the planes quite often, and it was our job to put them back on the line,” she said of her time at Glenview Naval Air Station, near Chicago. “They would wreck the propellors, break off the wing tips and scuff up the fabric.” At times the cadets would take the ladies up for a ride. “Of course, after that I wanted to learn how to fly,” she says. At age 20, Erwin served for nearly three years in the WAVES, “Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service,” a program begun under Eleanor Roosevelt in 1942. After the war was over, Erwin and her mother, Julia Crandall, took a jaunt up from Seattle to explore Orcas Island. “We were enthralled with the place,” Erwin said. They spent many summers in the islands, and in 1952 they heard that Orcas Island Pottery was for sale. The next year they bought it for $7,500 from Joe and Marclay Sherman, who spent a month teaching them how to throw pots on the wheel, slip-trail decorate, use pottery molds and fire up the kiln. Erwin met Bob Petris at a party celebrating the war’s end. They
married in 1947 and daughters Diana and Sidney were born soon after. In 1965 a job transfer took the couple to California. Pottery continued to spin steadily through Erwin’s days, as she ran a mug shop until 1985. Erwin has always loved to teach others how to do pottery. “It’s the most fun I think I could have,” she said. “When they get going and get thrilled, it’s a big thrill for me.” Her passion for crafting objects surfaced around age four. When her mom, a writer, sent her three kids outside to play, Erwin would crouch in the yard making little dishes out of mud. Crandall was soon keeping plasticene around to busy Erwin’s little hands.
Learning to fly In 1967 Erwin’s husband left the marriage – and that’s when she says she started learning to fly. Soon after earning her pilot’s license, she met her second husband – Wally Erwin, a chemist at UC Berkely. “He was such a good friend and helper,” said Trudy. “He was so complex, and so knowledgeable at so many things.” Trudy had spent many summers helping at Orcas Island Pottery, but in 1977 her mom and daughter Sidney were running the shop full-tilt, so Erwin purchased the
SEE TRUDY, PAGE 5
Bandit in SJC record books by SCOTT RASMUSSEN Journal Editor/County reporter
His exploits are arguably oneof-a-kind. Yet another dubious distinction can be pinned on Whidbey Island’s most notorious native son. Under his Dec. 16 sentencing in an Island County courtroom, Colton Harris-Moore was ordered to serve seven years and three months and pay a higher amount of restitution than any other convicted property-crime felon in San Juan County history. Required restitution for the 20-year-old’s 17 property crime felonies in San Juan County totals $272,648. “It is the largest property restitution case ever,” said county prosecutor Randy Gaylord, now in his 16th year. Larger monetary awards have been handed down in San Juan County, but they were of a “civil” nature. An Orcas Island couple was awarded $4.2 million in damages six years ago as a result of a
SEE BANDIT, PAGE 6
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