Reporter Central Kitsap
It’s a draw The Pumas get fifth tie of the year against Portland squad Page 7
FRIDAY, June 21, 2013 | Vol. 28, No. 38 | www.CENTRALKITSAPREPORTER.com | 50¢
Party at the Pier kicks off summer
School’s out forever
by Michelle Beahm mbeahm@soundpublishing.com
Wes Morrow/Staff Photo
Central Kitsap High School vocal music teacher Alicia Lundberg hugs a graduating senior at the class of 2013’s commencement ceremony at the Kitsap County Fairgrounds Saturday, June 15.
Turning the tassel on 2013 By WES MORROW and KEVAN MOORE kmoore@soundpublishing.com
More than 1,000 students from Silverdale and Bremerton high schools walked in graduation ceremonies at the Kitsap Fairgrounds and Bremerton’s Memorial Stadium this past weekend. While graduation ceremonies usually follow a relatively standard process, each school and each graduating class added its own personality and its own quirks. Here are highlights from each of the four ceremonies:
Klahowya Secondary Some 169 students from Klahowya showed up at the Kitsap Fairgrounds for the class of 2013’s commencement ceremony. Though small in numbers compared to Central Kitsap and Olympic high schools,
Klahowya’s graduating class is filled with high-achieving students. Students from Klahowya’s graduating class received $3,562,743 in scholarship offers. Seniors at Klahowya, who gathered in the Kitsap Fairgrounds Pavilion on Thursday, were the first from the Central Kitsap School District to graduate. Class salutatorian Alyson Kreifels gave a stirring speech toward the beginning of the ceremony. Partway through her speech she paused and asked the sign language interpreter if she might sign a portion of the speech herself. During that portion she thanked several hearingimpaired students in the crowd. Valedictorian Sally Fletcher gave a speech of her own, drawing laugh after laugh from the graduates and audience. Fletcher
talked about what it was like having her mother work in the counseling office at school. One time, she said, her mother approached her and said she needed to talk to her about some problems she was having at school. That problem, it turned out, was cutting in the pizza line. So Fletcher told graduates — remember the lessons of Klahowya, don’t cut in the pizza line of life.
Olympic High School Olympic High School’s commencement ceremony featured 298 graduates at the Fairgrounds Pavilion just across the street from the school’s campus. Principal Bob Barnes, who announced his retirement at the close of this school year, spoke at the opening of the ceremony. For Barnes, as well as the class of 2013, this was his
final year at Olympic High School. Unlike the graduates, however, Barnes has been with Olympic for more than a decade, and with the Central Kitsap School District for more than 30 years. During her speech, Associated Student Body President Chloe Kent congratulated Barnes on his retirement and thanked him for his service. On a less serious note, Kent told her fellow graduates that “besides learning how to use a toilet,” commencement was the first real achievement in their lives. To close she addressed graduates with a lyric from a song by the rapper Drake: “You da, you da best.” Perhaps the highlight of the night, however, was when Olympic Vice See Grad, A13
Summer officially doesn’t start until Friday, but for students in the Central Kitsap area, summer began Tuesday at the “Party at the Pier.” Hundreds of students and volumes of volunteers spent Tuesday at the Silverdale Waterfront, in Old Town Silverdale, dancing, playing sports and video games and sitting in the sun. The party, an annual celebration, is sponsored by a number of local businesses as a way to give students a safe place to enjoy the end of the school year. “We wanted something fun to do to kick off the summer,” said Natalie Zimmer, who attended the Party at the Pier with her friends on Tuesday. She will be going into 8th grade in the fall. Each person who attended was asked to register
before entering, a task done through the use of smart phones. The check-in was to provide organizers with an accurate number of people attending the party, as well as to let the Central Kitsap Fire Department know how many people were at the event throughout the day for safety purposes. The committee planning the party arranged to have a Kitsap County Sheriff ’s officers present and volunteers who to act as security throughout the park, just to keep things in order. Sheriff ’s officials said Wednesday that there were no major incidents. As a part of the program, students received food vouchers for pizza or tacos from Taco Bell. Attendees had the option of buying snacks from a couple different stands on different sides of the party area. See Pier, A13
Silverale Mall gets new Connecticut owner By Leslie Kelly lkelly@soundpublishing.com
Starwood Capital Group, a private investment firm from Connecticut, has purchased the Kitsap Mall and some surrounding properties. The sale was announced Thursday by Starwood and its partner company Starwood Retail Partners. Officials of the company did not disclose terms of the sale, but records at the Kitsap County Assessor’s office indicate the mall was sold for $111 million. Papers were filed with the county and the state earlier this week. The Macerich Company of California, a national mall
developer and owner, is the seller. Macerich announced in February of this year that the mall was for sale. Along with the mall, Kitsap Place, which houses T.J.Maxx, Michaels and some other smaller stores, was sold to Starwood for $9.5 million. Four buildings across from the mall to the north on Randall Way, called North Point at Kitsap, were sold for $6.5 million. Officials at Macerich in California and Starwood’s offices in Chicago, did not return calls to comment. Kitsap Mall is the only regional mall on the Kitsap Peninsula and contains 700,000 square feet of retail space. The mall opened See mall, A13