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Thursday, AUGUST 14, 2014
VOL. 20, NO. 1
Soroptimist, food bank supporting students By Megan Hansen Co-Editor
As schools and parents gear up for the start of school Tuesday, Sept. 2, so are the organizations that aim to help students. Soroptimist International of Coupeville is currently holding a school supply drive for Coupeville’s Readiness to Learn program. This is the first time in a couple years the club has held a supply drive, said member Shelli Trumbull. There are roughly 80-90 Coupeville students who need assistance through the program. “Obviously there’s a need, and we just wanted to do something locally to help kids,” Trumbull said. Donations can be delivered to Cascade Insurance on South Main Street. The club is looking for items including composition books, spiral notebooks, scientific calculators, red pens, green pens, pencil sharpeners and highlighters. They have also set up an online donation program at www.gofundme.com/c1uuj8 The club has gotten the support from other members of the community. On Friday, Aug. 15 and Saturday, Aug. 16, Ken Hofkamp, the owner of Prairie Center Red Apple, will be assisting in col-
See Support, page 12
Registration starts The first day of school for Coupeville School District is Sept. 2 for grades 1-12 and Sept. 5 for kindergarten. New student registration is: n Grades kindergarten through 5: Aug. 13 and 14, 8 a.m. to noon and 1-4 p.m. each day. Call 360-6782474 with any questions or for additional information. Families arriving after these dates are requested to schedule an appointment.
See School, page 12
Ron Newberry photo
Ruth Demmert, an elder with the Kake Tribe of Southeast Alaska, chats with Coupeville historian Judy Lynn Monday morning at a site near where Col. Isaac Ebey was killed Aug. 11, 1857 in a midnight raid by Kake tribal members who were avenging the death of a tribal chief.
Tribal members retrace history 157 years after Ebey’s death, tribe visits site By Ron Newberry Staff Reporter
Of all the phone calls that come into the Island County Historical Society Museum in Coupeville, there probably will not be another that created the sort of buzz that rattled the front desk three weeks ago. Michael Ferri, a museum volunteer and local history buff, picked up the phone, listened to the voice of a young woman and couldn’t believe his ears. She told him she was a member of a Native American tribe in Southeast Alaska known as the Kake and she wanted to bring some of the tribe’s elders on a visit to Coupeville, a place that held historic significance to her people. “She said, ‘I’m sure you haven’t heard of us,’” Ferri said, recalling the conversation. “I said, ‘Oh, yes, I have. Everybody in Coupe-
ville knows about the Kake.’ I was exaggerating, of course.” People familiar with the early history of Whidbey Island are likely to have heard about the gruesome demise of one of island’s most prominent early figIsaac Ebey ures. Col. Isaac Ebey, the first permanent white settler to stake claim on land that is now referred to as Ebey’s Prairie, was shot, killed, then beheaded in front of his home in 1857 in an act of vengeance by a Northern Indian tribe. That tribe was a part of the Tlingit Indi-
ans known as the Kake. When Rick Castellano, the museum’s executive director, got the message that Kake members wanted to visit that same prairie 157 years after the historic incident, he said he was so shocked and excited, “I tried not to fall over. “I’ve been looking forward to this visit forever,” he said. The historic return took place Monday morning when five Kake tribal members, including three elders, visited the former site of Ebey’s house that they, too, had only read about or remembered hearing stories from elders as part of the oral tradition of their tribe’s culture.
See Visit, page 12