REPORTER CENTRAL KITSAP
PASSING THE TORCH: A new generation of jewelry experts IN THIS EDITION
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2014 | Vol. 30, No. 10 | WWW.CENTRALKITSAPREPORTER.COM | 50¢
They’ve got plenty of boughs of holly Couple at Holly Vista Orchard ship wreaths coast-to-coast BY LESLIE KELLY LKELLY@SOUNDPUBLISHING.COM
It wasn’t the 125 holly trees that attracted Marianne and Doug Owen to their property along Chico Way. It was the house. But 26 years later, they couldn’t be happier as the caretakers of Holly Vista Orchard. “We were renting in Port Orchard and wanted to buy a house,” said Marianne. “We were looking all over with our Realtor and just couldn’t find anything. We happened across this place that was ‘For Sale by Owner.’ So we just drove up the drive and met the owner and just fell in love with the house.” It was only after seeing the house, that the owner, Evelyn Gibbs, told them there was a holly orchard that came along with it. “We didn’t know if we could handle that,” she said. “But Evelyn said ‘I’ll help you and I’ll teach you to make the wreaths.’” As the story goes, the Gibbs family had run the orchard since the 1950s. At one point, there were holly trees from their property at 7655 Chico Way, north, to where Newberry Hill Road is today. It
County to permanently close part of Silverdale Community Center due to water damage BY LESLIE KELLY LKELLY@SOUNDPUBLISHING.COM
Holly Vista Orchard in Chico makes and sells more than 300 wreaths a season.
Marianne Owen uses the wheel to craft holly wreaths by hand.
Doug and Marianne Owen have cared for their holly orchard since they purchased the property in 1988.
was after Evelyn’s father and husband died, she decided to sell the house and orchard. “At first, we thought ‘what do we know about running an orchard?’ I’m a hand (physical) therapist and Doug’s a nuclear engineer,” she said. “But Evelyn was very convincing and told us we could get help from the holly growers association.” For the first few years, Evelyn and a friend of her’s worked the Christmas season
helping them make wreaths. Marianne took on the role of managing the business, while Doug was “chief pruner,” taking care of the trees year round. They named the business Holly Vista Orchard. The early years were mostly wholesale which was the way the Gibbs had run the business. With two young children, Andrew who is now 26, and Emily, who is 23, and full time jobs, Marianne and Doug
Leslie Kelly / staff photos
kept quite busy. As soon as their kids were old enough, they worked in the orchard business, Andrew assisting in caring for the trees and making wreaths, Emily spent the holiday season folding boxes to use in mailing wreaths and bulk holly. After a few years, the Owens decided to sell wreaths retail and began a mail order busiSEE WREATHS, A9
It may just be the final act for much of the Silverdale Community Center. That’s the word this week from the Kitsap County Parks and Recreation officials. The county, which owns the building, has announced that heavy rain has damaged the building’s roof beyond repair. “It’s a very old building,” said Jim Dunwiddle, director for Kitsap County parks department. “It’s been patched over and over. It’s a situation where a little leak turns into a big leak, turns into a hole.” Dunwiddle said a recent inspection by the county showed that the roof over the long portion of the building at 9729 Silverdale Way NW had severe damage and the county made the decision to close that portion of the building at the end of the month. Areas impacted by the closure include the northwest portion of the building which houses storage areas, the Central Kitsap Community Council office, the Kitsap County Long-Term and Aging office, as well as the Poplar and Cedar meeting spaces. The Central State Theater of County Kitsap (CSTOCK) performance area in the newer portion of the building, and Evergreen meeting room below that will con-
Leslie Kelly / staff photo
The Silverdale Community Center.
tinue to remain open, pending an assessment of separate mechanical systems. CSTOCK’s production of “A Christmas Carol” will continue its run in the community center, with performances scheduled through Dec. 21. The building was built in 1958 and became a county parks facility in the mid 1990s. It had previously been a church, Dunwiddle said. The building now needs at least $700,000 in repairs, including a new roof, structural, mechanical and electrical improvements, he said. “The county is not able to afford that kind of work,” he said. “It was a difficult decision to make. It’s just very unfortunate.” While CSTOCK, a community theater group which has been around for 28 years, can complete its current stage production, its future, beyond December, is unknown. “We haven’t been given an exact timeline,” said Brandon SEE WATER DAMAGE, A9
‘Hour of Code’ gives CK students an introduction to programming BY CHRIS TUCKER
CTUCKER@CENTRALKITSAPREPORTER.COM
Central Kitsap students were given an introductory lesson in computer programming this week as the schools took part in the “Hour of Code” international campaign to demystify computer science and show that anyone can learn the basics. The Hour of Code was held Dec. 8-14 to celebrate Computer Science Education Week. Central Kitsap High School sophomores Kailan King, Ravyn Freeman and Jayden Upshaw were three of the 600-900 students at the school who took part in the program. The trio used laptop computers in the
“You have a lot of power if you learn how to code and you learn how to use a computer to your advantage.” – Alex Booth, teacher school’s library to drag blocks of computer instructions into a certain order. Each block appeared as a colored rectangle on the computer screen with a bit of adjustable text inside that described what the block did. Freeman followed instructions at the website code.org to make a “flappy bird” game by dragging the blocks around.
The first block on Freeman’s screen read “When run,” and Freeman draggedand-dropped a second block below it which read “set speed normal” to make the bird fly forward when the game was started. To make the bird flap higher into the sky, Freeman connected the block “when click” to two more titled “flap” and “play wing sound” so the bird would flap its wings and make a flapping sound when clicked. Each time a step was completed, students were tasked with adding more features to the game. “And we had to program it so when it SEE HOUR OF CODE, A9
Chris Tucker / staff photo
Central Kitsap High School sophomores Ravyn Freeman, left, and Kailen King take part in the “Hour of Code.”