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AmeriCorps lends a hand Contributed photo
AmeriCorps NCCC team picture, l-r: Dylan Farinash, Alyson Bonner, Ryan Kocak, Morgan Cannon, Kathyna Butcher, Rachael St. Jacques, (in front) Ted Bohland, Micayla Boari.
Four Winds Westward Ho, a historical summer camp on Orcas Island, is hoping that a team of young adults from the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps will be able to eradicate the non-native invasive species spurge laurel from their camp grounds.
The team traveled from their base in Sacramento, Calif. and arrived on the island April 2 to start pulling up the weed. The camp is thought to be the “ground zero” of the explosive growth of the poisonous plant. Camp staff speculate that Ruth Brown, the founder of the camp
in 1927, brought it to the island to decorate her yard with, and slowly but surely it’s been taking over the grounds. Staff has not been able to get their arms around the problem and hope that this group of volunteers working over an extensive period of time will bring it under control. The NCCC team is comprised of eight members between the ages of 18 and 24 years old. The team will be living on the camp for three weeks and will also be volunteering at local nonprofits in the community.
Wednesday, April 23, 2014 • The Islands’ Sounder
High school given awards A total of 413 schools are 2013 Washington Achievement Award winners – and Orcas Island High School is one of them. The school took home “Overall Excellence” and “High Progress.” Awards are based on three years of student scores on state tests. The Washington Achievement Award is sponsored by the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction and the State Board of Education. Award winners are selected using the state’s Accountability Index and
the Elementary and Secondary Education Act Flexibility Waiver. Schools are recognized as top performers in six categories: overall excellence; high progress; reading growth; math growth; extended graduation rate (awarded to high schools and comprehensive schools only) andEnglish language acquisition. The award-winning schools will be honored at a ceremony on April 24 at Timberline High School in Lacey, Wash.
Student art show coming The art of Orcas Island’s young people will once again be filling the Orcas Center galleries with creativity and exuberance throughout the month of May. All are invited to the show’s opening reception on Friday, May 2 from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the Orcas Center galleries. During the opening reception there will be assorted musical interludes performed by Orcas Island students. The annual exhibit will feature the work of kindergarten through 12th grade students from Orcas Public Schools, along with students
OPALCO FROM 1 severed on Nov. 5 last year. Telephone, 911 and internet service was interrupted for nearly a week until a temporary fix was put in place with the aid of OPALCO. Just days after the incident, the OPALCO board of directors directed that the company speed up fiber deployment throughout the county. The co-op is undergoing a cost of service study that will update the fee structure and menu of services. It should be completed by this June. With more members connecting, the cost of
from the OASIS program, Salmonberry School and the Orcas Christian School. The exhibit is coordinat-
ed by A*OK (Arts for Orcas Kids) and Corey Wiscomb, Orcas High School’s art teacher.
service will likely go down. “The cost is currently being divided by those 28 members,” Olson said. “We are looking at what is a reasonable rate with planned expansion and new hookups. We want to give members a menu of options to choose from for what fits their needs … some people need it desperately now for their business to function. They don’t want to wait for the cost to potentially go down.” Throughout the islands, neighborhoods are joining forces to share the cost of a broadband connection. Communities in Deer Harbor, Roche Harbor and Cape San Juan are looking
at spreading the cost out amongst multiple homeowners.
The future Last August, the board asked OPALCO to look into purchasing a “licensed FCC spectrum.” This would allow antennas to send wireless broadband signals to many more locations at a fraction of the current broadband cost. The cost of that purchase is confidential and the negotiations are ongoing. An answer is expected some time this year. “It’s bigger than just making a purchase,” Olson said. “It’s a long process with FCC licensing.” To avoid outages like Century Link’s this past fall, OPALCO has microwave links throughout the county that create a loop to prevent service interruption. Redudancy in power supplies means there is a back-up if something fails. “You need a plan b,” Olson said. “After the big outage, everyone became very familiar with the term redundancy.”