Kingston • Eglon • Hansville • Indianola • Little Boston • Port Gamble
COMMUNITY NEWS Vol. 32 No. 7 • July
KingstonCommunityNews.com
Small hobby becomes big business CB’s Nuts now a stable business venture By LESLIE KELLY
KINGSTON — For Clark Bowen, the perfect day involves his 8-year-old son Jesse, some peanuts and baseball. It doesn’t really matter if they’re at the stadium or at home watching the game on TV. “Just cracking peanuts and talking baseball,” Bowen said. “That’s my perfect day.” And rightfully so. As Kitsap County’s peanut king and the namesake of CB’s Nuts, Bowen’s life revolves around nuts. What started out as a hobby for him is now a stable business venture that boasts sales of more than 100 tons of in-shell peanuts and 173 tons of peanut butter annually. “Our success can be attributed to having a good business plan and having a good team in place from the very beginning,” Bowen said. “All along the way we’ve plotted out the numbers we wanted to reach and we’ve had faith in those numbers. Sometimes our projections were like just throwing darts. But we hit our targets and we’re right where we thought we’d be.” Much of the credit, Bowen said, has to go to his wife and business partner, Tami, and to an investor, Tom Hults. “I was curious. Tami was more focused. And Tom, he knew the business technology side of things. He looked at our systems early on and plotted out how we could reach our goals.” Bowen started out small. After buying a bag of fresh roasted peanuts at a MarinersOrioles baseball game in Baltimore, he realized that those kind of peanuts weren’t available around baseball in the Pacific Northwest. He soon found himself pushing
mbeahm@soundpublishing.com
Clark Bowen’s life revolves around nuts. His business can boast about sales of more than 100 tons of in-shell peanuts and 173 tons of peanut butter annually. Leslie Kelly / Sound Publishing a hobby-sized roaster at Safeco Field, selling warm peanuts. That was in 2002. “I was just hoping to break even,” he said. “But sometimes I’d sell out and then customers would get mad. I had a guy yelling at me and I told him, ‘Sorry man, this is just a hobby.’ ”
About a year later, he met Tami and she saw the potential for growth. That led Bowen to look for antique roasting equipment that could be used to roast more nuts. For a while, the couple worked out of their home. See NUTS, Page 2
Norberg family ‘overwhelmed’ by support rwalker@soundpublishing.com
KINGSTON — From all accounts, Jim Norberg is a man of faith. And it’s faith that’s keeping him from being resentful or full of self-pity, even as he enters
Summer school helps students get ahead, avoid the ‘summer slump’ By MICHELLE BEAHM
lkelly@soundpublishing.com
By RICHARD WALKER
2015
his fourth month of recovery from a head-on collision in which his youngest daughter was injured and the other driver, deemed to be responsible for the crash, died. He’s not resentful, even as he labors in rehabilitation to recov-
er from head injuger than him going ries, two shattered on; this trial of Job ankles, a shattered he’s undergoing femur, a lacerated has a purpose. liver, and several “The whole famother broken bones. ily, they definitely Even as his have a strong faith body fights off an in God,” said Brian infection so he can Whelan, a family undergo another friend. Jim Norberg surgery. “He’s viewing Even as his bank things through account is drained, the that prism. He has house he rented vacated, his a larger perspective ... ‘What earthly possessions in storage. am I having to learn from People who know Norberg, this, what is God doing in my a 52-year-old father of two and grandfather of one, say he See NORBERG, Page 4 knows there’s something big-
Summer school in the North Kitsap School District is underway, and there’s a lot more to look forward to than in the past. Mary Blocher of the district’s teaching and learning department, said summer school now offers enrichment classes for grades 3-8, and, also new, credit retrieval and advanced credit for high school students. “We’re just really excited in our district to be able to expand and try some things we haven’t been able to do in a long time,” Blocher said. Summer school is now offered to all students, from current kindergartners to next year’s seniors. Education opportunities over the five-week summer courses start June 29 and continue through July 30 at Poulsbo Elementary School, Poulsbo Middle School and North Kitsap High School. From kindergarten through eighth grade, “summer school is a summer experience in reading and writing and math,” Blocher said. “We really want to avoid the summer slump. We want to help kids continue that path of keeping things they learned all through the year.” Blocher said this summer school experience, which she called “intervention summer school,” is mostly for students who are on the fence of whether their skills are on their grade level, or who might struggle to maintain their skills during the summer. In this summer school program, students will be able “to continue to kind of hold on to those skills and not see that slumping happen.” This summer school program is free to all students. Summer school offered for grades 9-12 is available to all students, including those retaking failed classes required for graduation, or students who want to get a head start on their graduation requirements. These summer school courses are $250 per course, $50 for students who qualify for reduced lunch or $25 for students who qualify for free lunch. There is also an online option for only $150. See SUMMER, Page 2
ECRWSS POSTAL CUSTOMER Kingston Community News 19351 8th Ave. NE, Ste. 106 Poulsbo, WA 98370
PRSRT STD US POSTAGE PAID KINGSTON WA PERMIT No. 22