COVERING PUGET SOUND NAVAL NEWS FOR BREMERTON | BANGOR | KEYPORT
NAVY NEWS Kitsap
VOLUME 1, NO. 16 | 15 JULY 2011
www.kitsapnavynews.com
Underwater warfare ranges expanding By GREG SKINNER Kitsap Navy News
Following eight years of public process, the U.S. Navy made final their plans to expand the Keyport Range Complex serving Naval Underwater Warfare Division needs locally and along the Pacific Coast. Acting on behalf of the Secretary of the Navy, Roger Natsuhara, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy, last week signed an expansion plan that adds more than 1,800 square nautical miles to the existing range complex into its final and binding form.
SEE RANGES | PAGE 7
Colby Waddington, 3, left, wrangles a fistful of “little fishes” from one of the fun tanks at the Naval Undersea Museum in Keyport Wednesday. Each Wednesday through August the museum hosts hundreds of families for art and science based activities. GREG SKINNER \ KITSAP NAVY NEWS
THIS EDITION Navy conducts testing between hybrid and traditional vehicle ..pg. 2
Volunteer docent John Votkobek paints a sea turtle on the cheek of Preston Tindal Wednesday during the Naval Undersea Museum’s weekly Summer Fun Wednesday activities. GREG SKINNER \ KITSAP NAVY NEWS
Weekly water fun Undersea museum delivers water-based family fun and science By GREG SKINNER Kitsap Navy News
Brady Waddington’s favorite thing from his visit to the Keyport Under Sea Museum Wednesday was playing with the “ginormous fish.” As if following a sibling code, his younger bother Colby liked the “little fishes.”
Both were among hundreds of families that take weekly advantage of the museum’s annual Wednesday water-based arts and science activities created for families during the peak of summer. During the previous week’s fun day the museum counted 345 families that visited. “It’s a little above average,” said Valerie Johnson, program coordinator. The one-day-a-week program runs through the end of August. Johnson said the program changes some activities weekly, such as the “fish-print” T-shirts made by children last week, and this week’s porthole project that helps kids create ship portals on paper plates through which images from the children’s imaginations appear in paint. Other weeks it’s science based demonstra-
tions – simpler hands-on science that kids can do themselves. Johnson said her favorite project is the “ocean in the bottle.” It’s a lot of prep, but the families love it, she said. Using water, oil, food coloring, rocks, glitter and little fish, kids create little oceans to take home. Helping the museum carryout the mission of fun are a group of teenage docents doing everything from directing families to painting children’s faces with a selection of sea life. “I’m so glad they are here,” Johnson said. The docents have two additional projects themselves before the summer ends. Each will design and build a remotely operated
SEE FUN | PAGE 9
Born last, miss a lot. Sarah Smiley ....................pg. 4 No more “bad day” exemptions ............pg. 6 Quincy delivers .... pg. 14