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Friday, MAY 18, 2012
A DIVISION OF SOUND PUBLISHING
County approves plan to remove sandbags By STEVE HUNTER shunter@kentreporter.com
The giant sandbags along the Green River in Auburn, Kent and Tukwila soon will be going, going, gone. Hopefully, the way of the dinosaurs.
The King County Flood Control District’s Board of Supervisors approved Monday a $5.8 million plan to remove 26 miles of sandbags lining the river in the three cities. “The sandbags were a necessary evil to provide extra protection to the Green River Valley cities dur-
ing the increased threat of flooding,” said County Councilwoman Julia Patterson in a county media release. “By removing the barriers, users can once again enjoy full access to the trail.” The flood control district will pay approximately $4.4 million and the cities about $1.4 million
under the plan, with the county funding 75 percent of the project. Auburn Mayor Pete Lewis said his City has been hearing from companies interested in acquiring the fine-grade material inside the bags, and possibly taking it out themselves. Otherwise, he said, the City will probably contract
out the removal project, which in Auburn’s case extends from South 277th to Porter’s Bridge. “If I can find a way to do it without costing the taxpayers any money, that’s the way we’re going to go first,” Lewis said. [ more SANDBAGS page 4 ]
Green River’s Ash engineers excellence by teaching others By ROBERT WHALE rwhale@auburn-reporter.com
Dawn Revell drew strength and love from her mother, Brenda Revell Moss, who lived a life of pleasure and considerable pain. Moss, the country’s longest-living, single-lung transplant patient, according to her doctors, died May 2, 20 years after receiving the lung in a history-making surgery at the University of Washington Medical Center. MARK KLAAS, Auburn Reporter
A BREATH OF INSPIRATION Moss lived life to the fullest despite difficult days as lung transplant recipient By MARK KLAAS mklaas@auburn-reporter.com
Breathe deeper, laugh more. Mother and daughter often shared that familiar bit of advice – to remind each other of how gentle life could be. Brenda Revell Moss knew how
precious each breath was, how fulfilling each day with family and friends could be. The Auburn woman, a natural redhead, had a “firecracker” personality, an infectious smile, was fun and friendly, direct and argumentative, caring and passionate. “My mom took care of everyone else. She was very outgoing,” said Dawn Revell. “She loved people, and she loved life.” It was a life filled with pleasure
– and pain. Faced with a life-threatening lung disease, Moss opted to become one of the first patients in the Seattle area to undergo a lung transplant, at the University of Washington Medical Center on April 19, Easter Sunday, 20 years ago. Despite the risks, Moss, 52, and Nayland Judd, 53, also of Auburn, each received a lung
As a kid, Janet Ash listened to Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, played Chopin nocturnes on the piano, read anything she could get her hands upon. The very crucible into which nerds are poured, you say? Yep. And Ash is proud of her lineage. Nerds, she insists, flock to her. “I think I’m a bit of a nerd magnet,” Ash says. So of course, in keeping with Ash’s geek bona fides, it only makes sense that as a girl, this 12-year, Green River Community College engineering instructor should have sported twin calculators on her belt, memorized trig tables, and dazzled her parents’ guests with many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse – that is, when she wasn’t pushing up those thick
Janet Ash
glasses of hers, the ones with the tape in the middle? Nope. In fact, if the stereotype of the engineer ever does correspond to actual flesh-andblood people, then this sunny, cheerful, wise, witty, energetic, empathetic, gregarious, easilymoved-to-laughter human being is not it. [ more ASH page 10 ]
[ more MOSS page 12 ]
INSIDE,
pages 13-16
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