SOUNDER THE ISLANDS’
Serving Orcas, Lopez and San Juan County
WEDNESDAY, July 15, 2015 VOL. 48, NO. 28 75¢ islandssounder.com
State funds county projects
Olga Daze on Saturday – page 3
A semester at sea
AN ISLAND GIRL SHARES HER STORY OF TRAVEL
by MEREDITH M. GRIFFITH
by ANNA V. SMITH
Sounder contributor
Orcas Island will receive millions of dollars for capital and transportation projects as part of the 2015-17 budget package recently passed by the Washington state legislature. “I think we did pretty well for this session,” said San Juan County council member Jamie Stephens. “I worked hard, Rick [Hughes] worked hard, and Bob [Jarman], to get some of these things done, and our legislators really worked well with us to get this much. We’ve had years where we get absolutely nothing.” Funding includes $1.4 million for the Orcas Island Library; $760,000 for an Orcas Village Park and Ride at the ferry landing; $350,000 for a feasibility study to determine the best way to repair or reroute Lopez Island’s failing MacKaye Harbor Road; $243,000 from the Department of Ecology to install rain gardens and curbgutter sidewalks along Eastsound’s Prune Alley; and $115,000 from the Recreation and Conservation Office to replace the dock at Odlin Park on Lopez. For San Juan Island, the county council had requested funding to construct a connector between Pear Point Road and Turn Point Road but was denied. County Engineer Rachel Dietzman said the plan for the Orcas “park and ride” is to use the five-acre parcel belonging to Washington State Ferries above the newly installed ferry tollbooth. San Juan County would lease this parcel from WSF and develop it to include free 72-hour and possibly two-week parking to serve daily commuters and short-term visitors. Dietzman said that while public works has ideas for the project, the county expects to initiate an “extensive public process”
SEE STATE, PAGE 6
Orcas man charged with assault Journal reporter
Contributed photo
Jessi Gudgell participated in a semester at sea this past spring. She is pictured above in Myanmar. by COLLEEN SMITH ARMSTRONG Editor/Publisher
Jessi Gudgell is heading into her junior year at the University of Oregon, and she can already cross some major items off her bucket list. The 21-year-old is back on Orcas for the summer after the experience of a lifetime: circumnavigating the world during a semester at sea program. “There are moments and faces from my adventures that will never be erased from my mind,” she said. “The hearts of love and welcome attitudes that most everyone in each port I visited shared with me and my travel companions was incredible. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have a group of American college students invade your hometown, but with our gracious hearts and their warm welcomes and constant kindness we were able to create friendships with people all over the world.” Gudgell saw the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal in India, Angkor Wat in Cambodia and the landscape of temples in Myanmar. She gave out TOMS shoes to impoverished children in South Africa and volunteered in orphanages. “I was taken aback at the realization that some organized orphanage visits seemed more like a ‘field trip’ than time for us to actually help the children,” Gudgell said. “They would get attached to us and we would leave – just like everyone else. And that absolutely broke my heart. Our intentions were good but maybe we were doing more harm than good.” Gudgell says she was overcome by the reality of
poverty and how Americans interact with others in foreign countries. “Imposing our Western ideas on people of different mind sets than our own is not necessarily going to be beneficial to them,” she said. “I would like to travel and do aid work in the future, but only if it is asked for by the people and not forced upon them.” The study abroad program was sponsored by the University of Virginia and included 550 U.S. students and 100 international college kids. There were also life-long learning students, families of professors and crew members aboard the 600-foot, seven-deck vessel, bringing the passenger total to 900. Over the course of four months the ship traveled through Asia and Africa. Gudgell lists Myanmar, South Africa and Morocco as her favorite locales but says, “I fell in love with every place I saw and left pieces of my heart behind in each port.” The philosophy on the ship was “ubuntu,” a South African saying about human kindness that means “I am because we are, and we are because I am.” Those on the ship were without internet or phones for most of the trip. Gudgell said it made for deeper, more connected relationships. “People were really there to learn about the world and immerse themselves in the community,” she said. “I played games with children on streets and crawled through temples with natives who knew the town like the back of their hand. Despite
SEE ABROAD, PAGE 6
Orcas Island resident Peter William Sherman, 27, has been charged with assault with a deadly weapon in the second degree for an incident on July 4 in Eastsound. Bail was set at $10,000. Sherman is awaiting a trial set for Sept. 21. Sherman allegedly pointed an Ithaca 20-gauge shotgun at three people after a verbal altercation with one of them. According to court documents the gun was not loaded, but witnesses said they did not know that at the time. Witnesses also said Sherman told one man he was going to kill him. According to the responding officer’s report, Sherman admitted he pointed the gun at the three people. He added that he had been consuming alcohol, stating he had not been thinking straight. Sherman initially called the San
SEE ASSAULT, PAGE 6
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