Record South Whidbey
INSIDE
Christmas, Eastern European style See...A10
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2014 | Vol. 90, No. 93 | WWW.SOUTHWHIDBEYRECORD.COM | 75¢
Freeland son returns home from
NATIONAL TREK By BEN WATANABE South Whidbey Record
Ben Watanabe / The Record
Cameron Coupe rolls out some gear used in his coast-to-coast fivemonth walking trip. What once was shiny and new is now faded and torn, none more so than his last pair of sneakers.
Cameron Coupe spent the past five months walking from Seattle to New York. That’s nearly 2,800 miles. It took seven pairs of shoes, each with soles worn flat as a pancake; he filled one and a half composition journals with his adventures; and the shiny red cart he started out with, the faithful wheeled horse that lugged food, water, clothing, sleeping bags and tents, is now faded, torn and has a wobbly wheel. The 19-year-old Freeland son left his freshman year at Washington State University, packed his cart with supplies and put one foot in front of the other. With his college pal Xander “Zan” Roman of Bellingham alongside, Coupe set out in June to walk from Seattle to New York
City to raise money for Seattle Children’s Hospital. But, the trek was mostly to combat a general state of unhappiness, he said, to give himself a break from the anxiety of trying to figure out “what I wanted to do with the rest of my life,” and to sate a wanderlust he didn’t know existed. Out on the open road across 13 states, unknown territory to the pair of 19-year-olds, they often found themselves picking a path and not looking back. “You go confidently in the direction you chose to go,” he said. Born and raised on Whidbey
Island, Coupe was ready for something new. He got what he wanted. As he described the trip in his mother’s Freeland home, he said every mile was completely different. That search for the exotic is what drives people to do such trips, Coupe said. Some miles were more pleasant than others, he admitted, especially crossing Montana in consistent rain and wind. “We looked so stupid sometimes,” he said, describing regular days in the Big Sky State of waking up to sunshine SEE COUPE, A5
Transit hires Graska as interim chief Dog House, city By JESSIE STENSLAND South Whidbey Record Island Transit’s interim director will begin his six-month stint no later than Dec. 15. The transit board approved a contract, in a 4-1 vote, to hire Kenneth Graska as the temporary chief in a meeting Friday marked by a strange little game of musical chairs. Both Oak Harbor Councilman Joel Servatius and Mayor Scott Dudley showed up to represent the city on the board, causing some confusion and tension. “I don’t know why you chose to make a spectacle of it,” Servatius said to the mayor before agreeing to bow out. “I’m not the one who is,” Dudley countered. Under the negotiated agreement, Graska will be a contract
employee and earn $62.50 an hour. He will also receive a housing allowance of up to $1,350 a month, a car allowance of up to $400 a month and an airfare allowance of up to $350 a month. After lengthy discussions about the budget Friday, the board went into executive session to discuss the proposed contract with Graska. Island County Commissioner Helen Price Johnson, a member of the transit board, said the members were aware of Graska’s history in Snohomish County, where he resigned as director of Community Transit in the midst of a bribery scandal. He was never implicated in wrongdoing, but an audit harshly criticized his management style as “autocratic SEE TRANSIT, A11
land deal makes progress By BEN WATANABE South Whidbey Record
Reopening of the Dog House Tavern in Langley took a step forward this week. Building owner Janice Kleiner presented some concept designs at the Nov. 17 public hearing. The most striking of SEE DOG HOUSE, A11