INSIDE: Looking good for Memorial Day ... A12
RECORD SOUTH WHIDBEY
SATURDAY, MAY 25, 2013 | Vol. 89, No. 42 | WWW.SOUTHWHIDBEYRECORD.COM | 75¢
Operator drops pursuit of Holmes Harbor Golf Course Parks district considers running greens By BEN WATANABE Staff reporter
Jim Larsen / The Record
Gordon and Shirley Simmons, seated, have sold their business to their daughter, Sonya Simmons, and her husband Gary Peterson. Pedro, in Gary’s arm, will keep his job as garage mascot.
Simmons Garage stays in the family By JIM LARSEN Record editor The long transition from Simmons Garage to Simmons Garage is complete in Clinton. The garage and associated tow truck business have been mainstays in the downtown Clinton community for decades. Now, there’s certainty it will be in Simmons hands for many years to come. Gordon and Shirley Simmons have completed sale of their business to
daughter Sonya Simmons and her husband, Gary Peterson. The transition will be smooth as it’s already happened. Sonya said Gary has been working at the garage for 22 years. “He’s the one who will really be running it,” she said. Not that Sonya is a stranger to her father’s garage. She started working there at age 11, pumping gas and washing cars. “I used the money to buy my first horse,” she said. After graduating from high school
in 1980, she went on to earn a degree at the University of Puget Sound. She met Gary, a Burien native, in a rather unusual fashion. “We met on a blind date in a 10K run,” she said. It resulted in a long run of married life, including daughter Makenzie, a student at Linfield College and Jonathan, a sophomore at South Whidbey High School. To say that Gordon and Shirley Simmons are institutions in the rural SEE SIMMONS, A6
Mum’s the word about a deal to operate long tee-less Holmes Harbor Golf Course that fell through. Patrick Kent of Seattle said he could not comment on his proposed deal to run the greens and pro shop at Holmes Harbor Golf Course, other than he was no longer pursuing it. “That’s about all I can give you at this point,” Kent said. In April, he briefly spoke with the Holmes Harbor Sewer District board. He told them he had a business plan and was excited to work out a deal with current owners Kevin Hanchett and Mike Cooper for the maintenance facility. The three-party deal between the owners, the sewer district and Kent fell through after Kent withdrew his proposal. At the time of his first appearance before the sewer board and in an interview with The Record, he proposed a communitycentered course. While still privately-owned, it was not
“I do not expect that the course is open this year.” Stan Walker, Holmes Harbor Sewer District
planned to be an exclusive club like South Whidbey’s other 18-hole course, Useless Bay Golf & Country Club. Left without a course operator, the sewer district is left mowing and managing the drainage of the course, which operates as the irrigation system for the golf course homes’ treated wastewater. “We have no other operator lined up to do that,” said Stan Walker, president of the Holmes Harbor Sewer District. “We’re back to square one.” The district planned to purchase the golf course property and let someone else operate it while paying the annual $70,000 in maintenance costs for the grounds. “We are not going to give up on this until we are absolutely certain of our course,” Walker said. The new “square one” idea SEE HOLMES HARBOR, A24
Islanders get a taste of tornado in Oklahoma By JIM LARSEN Record editor
Photo courtesy of the Goods
Linda and Leonard Good try out a relative’s tornado shelter in Oklahoma. The guitar symbolize’s Leonard’s boyhood in Oklahoma. At 6 years old, he was in a tornado shelter when a man started playing the guitar.
Leonard and Linda Good returned home safely to South Whidbey after a harrowing visit to Oklahoma. The were visiting relatives in Norman, Okla., when the infamous big one hit Monday, about 10 miles away in what is now the devastated city of Moore. The Goods were caught up in the same drama as everyone else in that part of Oklahoma, watching the skies and the television to find out if a tornado may be coming their way. From the front porch of where they were staying, the Goods could see the threatening skies, lightning and bright flashes as transformers blew in the distance. For TV drama, they could watch local reporters. Linda, a Suzuki-method violin teacher for decades, took notes during the real-life drama. “It’s sucking us in, we’re pull-
ing it away,” shouted a TV reporter from a helicopter. “Do not think — go!,” a TV anchor told his audience. “Get underground right now!” “I thought that was great,” said Linda of the job the reporters did. She also took note of, “Tornado on the ground! Killer tornado!” Leonard took a scientific interest in the cloud formations and resulting tornadoes, as he has been a popular South Whidbey science teacher for years. He is locally famous for his experiments that made learning fun for kids. He published a book of them. Even today when he’s “retired,” kids still come to his house for science lessons. “We could see the darkness, like in the land of Mordor … and flashing,” Leonard said. He took pictures of “mammatus” SEE TORNADO, A6