A BIG MOVE North Carolina accountant buys local firm. Page 5
| Construction to begin N NEWS NE on new vacation lodges. [3] o SPORTS | Boys hoopsters are SSP un u [15] undefeated in league. | Farming COMMENTARY CO C shouldn’t rely on gas. ssh h [6]
ART ABOUNDS UNNDS Artful options ns are plentiful on First Friday. ridday. Page agee 10
BEACHCOMBER VASHON-MAURY ISLAND
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2015
Vol. 60, No. 5
www.vashonbeachcomber.com
75¢
Corps group brings a new approach to volunteer work AmeriCorps crew will tackle a variety of projects at five locations on Vashon By NATALIE MARTIN Staff Writer
Natalie Martin/Staff Photo
National Civilian Conservation Corps volunteers Kestrel Peavy, Nate Nesslar, Mel Meder and Ashley Westpheling clear a patch of ivy at Lisabeula Park last Thursday. The volunteer group will do work in four more locations.
When Jaq Sarah French graduated from New York University with a degree in theater, she was unsure what she’d do next. The self-professed city girl said she’d rarely ventured outside Manhattan the last four years and was ready for a change. She found that change, and last week French was in cargo pants and boots, raking at Vashon’s Lisabeula Park. “I think I need to spend some time focusing on other people,” she said, taking a break from her task last Thursday. “All the time that people have given to me, I want to pay it forward.” French is among a dozen young people who will spend two months on Vashon volunteering through the National Civilian Conservation Corp (NCCC), a branch of AmeriCorps. While NCCC groups have regularly worked at Camp Sealth, it’s the first time a crew will do projects islandwide. In the coming weeks, the diverse group of 18- to 24-year-olds will build a rain garden at Sunrise Ridge, care for fruit trees at the food SEE CORPS, 19
A missing memorial
On Vashon Highway, one woman works to honor a stranger By SARAH LOW Staff Writer
Anyone who has driven on the north end of Vashon Highway in recent years is likely familiar with the roadside memorial to Patrick Byrd, who was killed in an accident there in 1999. But the heartbreaking “We miss you Daddy!” emblazoned on the white cross under his name will no longer be a tragic reminder of the incident, as the cross disappeared about two weeks ago. While other roadside memorials have been taken down over time on Vashon, the missing cross came as a shock to Linda Peterson, an islander who lives nearby and has quietly but faithfully tended to Byrd’s memorial for the last 16 years. “It’s just gone,” Peterson said last week. “It’s not lying anywhere nearby, and there is a per-
fect hole where it had been. It looks like it’s just been pulled straight out of the ground.” Byrd was a musician from Puyallup who, along with his wife and a friend, came to Vashon on New Year’s Eve 1998 to play for the evening’s festivities at the golf club. On their way to the north-end ferry in the early morning hours of Jan. 1, 1999, their van was rear ended by a drunk driver and sent off the highway and into a tree. Byrd died of his injuries, while his wife and their friend were also injured but survived. The Byrds had four children. It has been presumed that someone in the Byrd family placed the cross at the site sometime during the year after the accident, though Byrd’s wife Wendy told The Beachcomber in 2001 that she could never SEE MEMORIAL, 20
Natalie Martin/Staff Photo
Linda Peterson cared for Patrick Byrd’s memorial for 16 years.