Valley Record SNOQUALMIE
Wednesday, sept. 26, 2012 • Daily updates at www.valleyrecord.com • 75 cents •
Chopper chase after violent Echo Glen escape
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Teens club staffer, recaptured after two-hour search near Snoqualmie
Power swing: Wildcat golfers having a potent start to season Page 9
By Valley Record Staff
Six inmates from the Echo Glen Children’s Center in Snoqualmie are back in custody after a late-night escape on Saturday, Sept. 22. The group of boys, three 14-year-olds and three 15-year-olds, assaulted a guard at the detention facility around 11:10 p.m. See ESCAPE, 7 Seth Truscott/Staff Photo
What kind of animal is this? Valley farm raises cool wooly critters Page 10
Seth Truscott/Staff Photo
Life Enrichment Options raising Valley profile with first-ever Challenge Day Race
Folding one of the last towels she’ll handle as laundrywoman at Mount Si Transitional Center, Diane Keener retires this week after 41 years there.
‘The years have gone by so fast’
By Carol Ladwig and Seth Truscott
Index Letters On the Scanner Back To School Calendar Movie Times Obituaries
Ride of passage Valley Record Staff
5 6 12 14 15 16
Vol. 99, No. 18
Helmeted, and checking out the assembled race cars on Snoqualmie Parkway, Hunter, 9, of Fall City, tells her friend Scott that she’s ready to go fast. Hunter was born with Down’s Syndrome, but that’s never held her back. Scott, a family friend, takes her on ATV rides in the Oregon dunes, and Hunter loves it. “She likes to do things her own way and not have anybody hold her down,” says mom Dani Stellen. Today, she’s all set for a different kind of ride: The first ever Snoqualmie Challenge Day Race, a derby-car ride down Snoqualmie Parkway. Life Enrichment Options and Snoqualmie Valley Rotary hosted the event, which has been
Diane Keener retiring after 41 years at Mount Si Transitional Center
held in other Eastside communities for years, and is, for families like Hunter’s, a rite of passage. “This is our first time,” said Dani, her mother. “We’re very excited, but she is thrilled!” That day of fun was the first big event that Life Enrichment Options, or LEO, has hosted in the Valley, and one that LEO board members hope to build on, soon.
Diane Keener holds back the tears when she thinks about the change in front of her. She’s leaving behind her full-time job, but will miss the people who have meant so much to her over the last four decades.
See LEO, 7
See REtiree, 3
By Seth Truscott Editor
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Nick Hawley, left, and Wilson Toft thrill to the final stretch of their Challenge Day race down Snoqualmie Parkway on Saturday, Sept. 22. Sponsored by Life Enrichment Options and Snoqualmie Valley Rotary, the race pairs children with developmental disabilities with other, typically developing kids, as drivers; the old-fashioned derby car thrill is also a first step toward independence. Below, derby riders await the signal to begin their race.