News-Times Whidbey
SPORTS It’s game time!
page A9
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2013 | Vol. 114, No. 71 | www.whidbeynewstimes.com | 75¢
Music lovers descend on Oak Harbor Festival attendance soars in year two By JANIS REID Staff reporter
Janis Reid/ Whidbey News-Times
Music lovers dance to LeRoy Bell and His Only Friends during the Oak Harbor Music Festival Sunday, Sept. 1.
Oak Harbor’s second annual music festival brought music lovers from all over the world to enjoy the sights and sounds of Puget Sound. Oak Harbor Music Festival president Margaret Livermore said attendance more than doubled from last year, drawing more than an estimated 6,000 people. “The weather was gorgeous,” Livermore said. “We’re all exhausted, but it was well worth the trouble.” Informal polls conducted during the festival revealed that people traveled from far and near, hailing from places like Holland, Norway, Texas, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. “They had probably come to visit family and friends, but they knew this was happening and scheduled accordingly,” Livermore said. The event kicked off in style Friday by a brief ceremony followed by opening band Polecat and continued through the weekend,
“This has got to be one of the greatest community events in any place ever.” Wallie Funk
wrapping up around 8 p.m. Sunday. “I’m just so blown away,” said Wallie Funk, who attended the event. “This has got to be one of the greatest community events in any place ever,” said Funk, who formerly owned the Whidbey News-Times. “I’m just so proud of the organizers.” The event started last year as the Oak Harbor Music and Jazz Festival, but the name was shortened this year. The three-day festival featured all sorts of music from rock to pop, from jazz to bluegrass. Livermore said that while the event creates a fun com-
munity atmosphere, the real purpose is to fund music scholarships for local students. The Oak Harbor Music Festival received its 501(3) nonprofit status last month, allowing organizers to apply for grants and other types of assistance. The festival has already provided a $1,000 music scholarship Oak Harbor High School graduate and vocalist Kaitlyn McClimans, who is attending Western Washington University this fall to study music education. Livermore said the festival has received $1,100 from two donors to put toward scholarships, and it is their hope to provide more than one scholarship next year. Livermore said it was clear the festival had at least broke even, but is was unclear at press time how much money they had made for scholarships and next year’s festival. The scholarship is named after former Oak Harbor High School music teacher Ed Bridges, who attended the festival with his wife.
Olympic View gearing preparing for all-day kindergarten BY RON NEWBERRY Staff reporter
seemed to be enough time to fit in all the lessons. “We always felt like we were rushing through everything,” said Susan Stockfeld, a kindergarten teacher at Olympic View since 2000. “We were always trying to teach a fulltime curriculum in a half-day program, so this will be nice.” The state has earmarked 2018 as the target date for all elementary schools statewide to be offering free, full-day kindergarten. Olympic View was among the schools that qualified this year based on the percentage of
students at the school eligible for the federal free or reduced price lunch program. It’s not the only school in the district where kids attend all-day kindergarten. Oak Harbor Elementary offers a fee-based program that costs $260 a month. Also, the school district offers a free fullday kindergarten through the federal Title 1 program for qualifying students based on academic need. There also is a free program for qualifying kindergarteners in the special See kindergarten, A20
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As Che’ Gilliland buzzed around her classroom, sorting through boxes and decorating walls, a smile rarely left her face. Setting up a classroom just before the start of a school year never felt so good for Gilliland, a kindergarten teacher at Olympic View Elementary School. “I’m so excited,” Gilliland said. “It’s just been waiting and waiting and waiting.” The school year that begins Thursday,
Sept. 5, in the Oak Harbor School District will be unlike any other for four kindergarten teachers at Olympic View. Their school qualified for new state funding to become the first elementary school on Whidbey Island to offer full-day kindergarten without a fee or special criteria. Olympic View will offer four classes of fullday kindergarten taught by four teachers in four different classrooms. That’s a departure from past years when there were alternating full days or half-days and the pace was frantic and there never