Record South Whidbey
SATURDAY, MAY 26, 2012 | Vol. 88, No. 42 | www.SOUTHWHIDBEYRECORD.com | 75¢
INSIDE: Hometown Hero, Community, A12
‘For rent’ MEMORIES OF A 100-YEAR-OLD VET signs to go 4-H youths tell up on school Savy Savinelli’s buildings story of WWII BY BEN WATANABE Staff reporter
LANGLEY — There’s room for rent in the South Whidbey School District. District Superintendent Jo Moccia said at Wednesday’s business meeting of the school board that three facilities will be available for rent: the two-story building at Langley Middle School, the Bayview School and the District Office on Camano Avenue. Enrollment has declined for a decade, and the school district no longer needs and utilizes all of its spaces. Moccia earlier announced the Bayview School, which is the district’s alternative high school, will relocate to the South Whidbey Primary Campus for a new kindergarten through 12th grade alternative school in the fall. Employees in the District Office will be relocated to the district’s transportation and maintenance center on Maxwelton Road. “This offers potentially opportunities of generating a lot of good for the district,” said Fred O’Neal, a school board member. Should tenants not be found to occupy those three facilities, the school district will hire a property management company. The school board approved the district’s “request for proposal” draft, which is the document that seeks applicants to get several bids, with the aim that a low bidder wins, saving the district money. “We’re a public entity, so we need to open it to anyone and everyone,” Moccia said.
BY PATRICIA DUFF Island Life Editor
FREELAND — In 1941, while President Franklin D. Roosevelt was initiating a full scale support of China in its war with Japan, 29-year-old Achilles “Savy” Savinelli was trying to find a direction in life. Now, the 100-year-old Maple Ridge Assisted Living resident, and a proud veteran of World War II, is the subject of a film made by local students of the 4-H D Video Club. Set to the music of Guy Lombardo and his band playing “Shanghai Lil” and “How Deep is the Ocean?” the producers of the film used old photographs, Savinelli’s war diaries, and interviews with the old-timer, to create the story of Savinelli’s almost four years as a transport duty operator in the China Burma India Theater (CBI) from 1942 to 1946. Movie makers JaNoaH Spratt, 12, Patrick O’Brien, 14, and Chris Neal, 16, along with club leader Robert Elphick, managed to eloquently capture a time in history, and a personal story, using one man’s memory and keepsakes from a period in America that paved the way for generations that followed. The boys said most of their time was spent trying to unravel who Savy was and where he went and what the CBI conflict was all about. They also spent a lot of time using Photoshop to take the creases, rips and coffee-stains out of the old photographs. Spratt was the one who interviewed Savy, whom he now calls his friend. The research led to a lot of discoveries about the war and the man. “I thought it was very interesting,” Spratt said. “When I first saw him I thought, ‘Wow, this guy is 100?’” Visiting Savy in his room at Maple See memories, A7
At top, Achilles “Savy” Savinelli sits in his room at Maple Ridge Assisted Living, while telling stories of his days as a soldier during WWII. Above, the 30-yearold Savinelli at a camp near the Burma Road in China, where he was stationed during the war and, right, taking a break next to one of the vehicles he drove as a transport duty operator in China. Photos courtesy of 4-H D Video Club
Ben Watanabe / The Record
The South Whidbey School Board approved a draft of a request for proposal. The document is for tenants or property management services for three buildings owned by the school district.