&NOW
Celebrate Snoqualmie Valley Record’s 100TH ANNIVERSARY
THEN
A supplement to the
VALLEY RECORD SNOQUALMIE
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THEN & NOW 100 YEARS Snoqualmie Valley Record
THANK YOU TO ALL OUR SUPPORTERS AND COMMUNITY FOR COMING TOGETHER TO KEEP THIS GEM A VIABLE PART OF THE COMMUNITY.
The North Bend Theatre recently celebrated its 70th anniversary as a center of the Snoqualmie Valley Community. The Theatre was built in 1941 as a state-of-theart movie house with full sound and the glorious splendor of Technicolor. The biggest historic transition in film since the introduction of sound is digital that will enable the North Bend Theatre to continue showing movies – and operas, concerts and other special events – well into the next 75 years.
Big Star Sponsors Greg “Cool Guy” Jorgensen The Hacherl Family Sno Falls Credit Union & Staff The Antone Family The Navidi Family The Deens Matthew & Beverly Davidson Tim and Mary Nelson Berow Family Twin Peaks Festival The Jaten-Thompson Family Sallal Grange Puget Sound Energy Paul & Anita Reed Theatre Star Sponsors Jeanie & Charles Miller Fagan Family Doug Carr Carol & Jim Reitz Penny Jones Mary & David Barrett Trixie Pennington Valley Center Stage Steve & Nancy Wray Eric & Teresa Opsvig Amanda Hicks & Jared Lyon Bruce Muir Brett Sheehan The Smith Family Rob & Keri Wheeler The Berger Family In honor of David R Kirshner Snoqualmie Valley Kiwanis Annette & Chuck Smith & Family The Frearson Family Cascade Diesel & Truck Repair Wildcat Football Booster Club The Ranney Family David & April Dell The Fisher Family Connects Counseling Nathan Shakib & Family Clint, Heather & Jacob Dean The Mosier Family Jeff and Kim Ayars Bill Beck Bob, Karin, & Sophia Hevner Hugh Gilmartin Debbie & Michael Kuehner
Acceptiva Perteet
Theatre Lovers David Gershman Moon Family Leisa Fowler Dan Buchthal Mick & Michelle Daly Karen DuBose Beth and Kirk Swanson Dan Davis Sarah & Dustin Ross Joel Adams Mary Adams Jennifer Clarke Wilkes Ann Landry Michael Horgan Christy Nelson Audrey and Bob Paisley-Baumann Lela Lottermoser Todd and Julie Brown Debbie Bass Sara Ruhland Jim & Diane Humes Tom Nugent Angie Dieringer Tom Davies Marchelle Mertens Jennifer Parsons Rebecca Steidle Diane Davis Emily Larson Trevor Kostanich Brett Gorrell Don Myhre Jody Soren Amy Hamerly Lyn and Rick Green Janice Buchthal Daniel Van Nyhuis Mark and Dawn Harper Dave Snead Bryan Keller Renee & Jay Llewellyn Karen and Terry Walker Geoffrey Miller Judy & Kevin Huggett Jaime Pedeferri Wayne and Laurie Clark Bob & Nancy Doherty Britney Garman Karen Auletta Neil and Mary Wolfe Kevin and Laurie Fitzpatrick Donny & Sandy Anderson John & Lisa Anderson Jeanne Klein MISKA STUDIO Salemann Shaw Family Steven Tochko Paul & Sarah McCullough Dale and Darlene Ray Ann Landry
Doug & Kristin Craig Nature’s Marketplace Don Myhre Sarah Aron Bruce Ferguson Michelle Comeau Brendan Mason Chris Grina Carla Thomas Neely and Donna Robertson Judi Steagall Kim & Tim Horne Emily and Joel Roalkvam Nathan Anderson McKenna Princing Stella Krieble Nyla Krieble Nancy Witt Karin Ayling Linda Thompson Kathy and Michael Torgerson Catherine and Harley Brumbaugh Sinanan/Nataros Family Amy Norton John Rempe Lisa & Jay Radmer Linda Grez Amy Bonner Doris Samuelson Metian Andersen Kevin and Elizabeth Miller Megan Woods Scott & Paula Finlinson Janet & Phil Farnam Erik and Diane Muth Fred & Linda Durbin Connie Som Tom Kemp Wendy and Lee Shafford Suzanne Kagen Kathy Klausing Karen Behm Brian & Mia Buse-Stone Dave & Cindy Yarnchak Ann Landry Joe Studlick Iladda Price Jerry BOPP Courtney Cutchins Gary Olson Diane Linstrand Kaysee Hyatt Dustin Phillips Carly Walsh Alina Plavsky Karen Lynne Jeff Eagley JoJo Mangano Konrad Roeder Marc & Susie Burns Jan Holmes Rob & Lacey Potoshnik Janet Harris
Bill Pedler Nicole Cezar Bridget Verhei Ann Landry Kevin Diegel Del Clark John Chaney Serena Robertson David Matlock Brandon Jacobson Kelsey & Matt Denton Sharon Larson Christine Garrison Stacey Duran D. & C. Johnson The Bolvin Family Debbie & Michael Kuehner Mary Johnston Miller Jan King Kathy Valentine
Plaque Sponsors Jeff & Sue Miller Nancy Thomas The Schomber Family John & Marie Jackson Marsheila Kenow Tod & Kara Botten The Arellano Family Workforce Evolution Mark & Heidi Lowe Dan & Cindi Heffernan Susan & Joe Eddings Tate & Talie Jones Jennifer Conyers Vernie & Lisa Newell Mac & Pat Cutchins Curtis Carpenter David Scott Family Stan & Debbie Simms Dick & Lee Kirschner Valley Locksmith & Replicator Graphics Catherine Henson Jonathan & Lisa Rosen Patricia McKiernan Trissa Barney Cathy Mika Craig & Kris Bennett Caroline & Ross Loudenback Sue & Richard Terbrueggen Jarrad & Angela Markley Debby & Brian Peterman Rachel Charbonneau Clayton & Janelle Littlejohn Jacob Shroades Greg & Toddie Downs Susan Kirby Corder Jamie Masters Paul & Stephanie Sprouse Olson 5 Lyn & Lori Watts Laurie & Neil Gutenberg Jim & Connie Smithrud
Wendy Stokosa Danny Evatt Jay & Kirsten Cheney Ken & Kyle Sinner Chris & Linda Young Robin Walbeck-Forrest Holly & Matt Cowan Barbara Beattie Miriam & Kyle Kroschel Liz & Aiden Schomber Jim & Monica Rutherford The Bunting Family Wendy & Stuart Wolf Scott & Chris Barnhart Paul & Caprice Cardinal Roy & Char Baker Cathy & Alan Jenner-Hendrickson Forrest & Karen Fielder Marty Flood Cheryl Weber Steve Baxter Cin & the Dragons Carol Lawrence Cathy & Fred Templin Randy Rhoton Larry Whalen Linda & Jeff Lentgis Serena Robertson Sonya Huntzinger Rusty Rae Sheila Hunter Debra Shervey Jan Coyle Mike Cruse Dave Feisthammel The Champion Heinke Family Ralph Rowe Kurt & Deborah Meister David Bach Mary Ann Fowler Jon & Nicole Wise Jodi Laakso Tim & Ellen Dedrick Karen & Ro Mistry Ben and Lynn-Mt Si Sports & Fitness Beyer & Joe Buman Doug & Linda Elsner Ron Vega Jon, Sharyl, Hannah & Rachel Brown Fritz Ribary Cameron Webster Reed & Sandy Simms The Spaziano Family Becky Steidle MSHS Wrestling Boosters Eric & Amanda Conley Maura T Callahan Joe & Maxine Stokosa Jan & Micheal Roe Kathy & Stuart Paulus David Eiffert & Kit McCormick James Sackey John & Kim Roeber Harrison Perkins
Rose & Mike Hanson Earl & Sandy Emerson Beth & Kevin Burrows Jolene Kelly Wes & Danine Dover Women of the Snoqualmie Valley Moose Lodge Debra Landers Kevin & Laurie Hauglie Jim & Shana Canon Jeff & Diane Sargent Keith Heston Joyce & Steve Goldberg Troy & Kelly Thompson Catherine Westerlund Walt Rector Mike, Maribeth & Griffin Day Steve & Holly Graves Guy & Shawn Lawrence Chris & Amy Gulick My Cakes Christine Butler Hund Family Donna & Robert Padilla Laurie Edwards Ruth Maule & Darrell Athay Fred & Becky Rappin Craig Ewing Robert & Lisa Ellsworth Ben & Lindsey Larson George & Winifred Schwartz Kimberly Calhoun Don Westerlund & Dawn Carr Kaleidoscope School of Music Suzanne Townsend Valley Animal Partners Dave, Suzanne & Noah Martin Noah Musler Jason & Alissa Gram Sarah Kaster Buddy & Rosita Jett-Ray Mark, Sally & Easton Torres Ron & Chris Pedee Ziegler Family Link Family Neil Weinstein Joseph Lipker Nancy & Steve Spohn Roxanne Shaw & Andrew Cannon Doris Vinnedge Lara, Kaitlyn & Dawson Van Cise North Bend Elementary School Mike & Kathy Manning Kevin Sauer Cheryl Cotton Jane E Benson Cathy Craft & Steve Ailiff Gary & Jenni Fancher David & Gina Caulton Kim Santos Tedeschi Family Film Lover Michael & Carol Stevens McGinnis Family
Martha K. Anders David & Glenda Clemons Ron & Barbara Scoones Lori Kimball Ric & Tiah Patterson Dana Koukol Richard & Sylvia Salais Soon & Rocky Wolenhaupt Lynn & Ramsey MacDonald The Burklunds Tim Sonnichsen Layla Anson Nora McCord & Franz Sano Hartman Family Brendan & Cameron Pike Lynn Brechtel Eric Sweet Ryan Whitworth The Fladlands Huestis Family Hailu & Clair Gabriel Rev. Mary Brown Kim, Kurt & Jeana Wagner Julie Peterson Michael Folks Katie Sjoboen Dave & Teresa Stoops Rebecca Kitz Lucy McInerney Reichenbach Insurance Agency Carolyn Loew Tracy Skylstad Dave & Donna Long Linda Wager Michael Conyers McCutchan Family Craig Rixon Landreneau Family Calder Carlson Malcolm Family Your Friends at Encompass Sue Beauvais Stephanie Seely Brett, Christy, Jessica & Jamie Trotto Peggy Morstad Andrea McCabe Demetrescu Family The Malberg Family Jeanette Meek Judy Boyce Ana’s Mexican Restaurant Kyle Ann Matthews Steve & Anne Westfall Matthew Edvalson Eadgar & Oliver Loos Stewart & Deborah Sherwood Vince & Melinda Caluori Zach Wunder Marcia Lyle Tonya & Brett Eliason Andrew, Matthew & Katie Clutter Rob & Eileen Harris Mark & Nancy Tucker
Landstrom Family Evan & Marla Eichler Albert & Chrstine Adams Kevin & Kathy Golic The Hofmanns & Flynns Joan E Kaltz Mount Si Lions Club Konrad Roeder Ian Yates Maddy, Jodi & Jacy Ed & Carol Masters Tana Blair The Vukovich Family Betty Olson Dave Myers Roberta McFarland The Spradlins The Nelsons Tiffany Knudsen Xury Greer Doug Elsner Frank, Lori & Alex Mendoza Deborah Gardner Anthony Falsetto Michael & Cathy Kilian Michael & Shannon Pusich Kathy & Mike Torgerson Possert Family Richard & Lorraine Thurston Linda, Joe, Anna Grez Brandon Comouche Fynleigh Garcia Eric O’Brien Kathy Davis Larry, Leah & Butters Terril & Karen Perrine René Schuchter Josh & Denae Anderson Rick Rettig Madeline Banashak The Luccio Family The Donka Family The Harlin Family John Soltys The Morris Family Kimberly Kanzler The Jacobson Family Murray & Colleen Peck The Laufer Family Samit & Julie Choudhuri Tyler Koukol Sheila Anderson Robert Anderson T & D Rosenberg Tracy Newman Kali Walker Jason & Rachel Mark Morgan Miller & Nicole Gressa-Miller Elyssa and Chase Roeder Mike, Becki, Jackson & Rowan David Kelley In loving memory of Harry Trostel Abby & Zach Hartman James & Cindy Farricker
Sno-Valley Youth Council Susan & Barry Hankins James & Linda Graham Connie Shroades Snoqualmie Valley Chamber of Commerce Elli Zoller, Holly Cowan and Rachel Mark Chris Mangano Gary Schwartz Jody Runge Terry & Melody Granillo Vicki & Ward Bettes Mike & Pam Cantalini Mark’s Pet Pals Lis Family Jan Taylor David & Debbi Luchtel James McKiernan Nic Rosettie Kenneth & Karon Paauw Blankenburg Family Frank & Becky Jorgensen Joseph Fjelstad John & Cheryl Kuncl Denise & Curt Nelson Mar Lydon Si & Ruthie Groscost Mitch & Dana Massey The Dahline Family Lou & Betsy Conyard Sno-Valley Eagles #3529 Ladies Auxiliary Mary, Terry & Caris Elliot Swedick The Brooks Family Si’s Water Aerobics Members (S.W.A.M) James & Cynthia Snyder Jennifer Osborn Rich Helzerman Kirby Nelson Orthodontics Lenihan Family Karen Ruppert Scott, Kathleen & Kinson Annette Bowen Troy & Kelly Garwood Andy Glandon Snoqualmie Valley Moose Lodge #1666 The Vails The Dukich Family The Wedge Family Committee for Banning Disposable Plastic Bags Stevie, Lynn & Gail Ann Landry The Wentz Family
900602
Hollywood Star Sponsors Danny & Robyn Kolke Boxley Music Fund The Five Ls Jeff Warren State Farm Insurance Agency & Theresa and Kylie too! Bev Jorgensen, Staff and Friends of the North Bend Theatre Hall Wealth Management Group Unity Masonic Lodge #198 Bartell Drugs SCCo & The Vincent Family
THEN & NOW 100 YEARS Snoqualmie Valley Record
The early days The Snoqualmie Valley Record traces its roots back to the North Bend Post, which started operations in the Tanner district east of North Bend on October 16, 1913, published by B.N. Kennedy. Older fragments of the newspaper exist, but the earliest extant copy, scanned into microfilm at the North Bend Library, is from March 2, 1917. That newspaper was later published as the Snoqualmie Post on the other side of the Upper Valley. The name of the paper evolved over time, from the Snoqualmie Valley Record and North Bend Valley Record to today’s Snoqualmie Valley Record.
Slices of life In those early days, and for decades afterward, every aspect of life made the weekly edition. “If you went to Seattle, that was in the paper,” said local historian Gardiner Vinnedge, who researched the paper’s history for the Snoqualmie Valley Historical Museum’s latest magazine. In the 1940s, publisher Robert Sawyer gave full coverage all the way to Duvall. “We don’t know how many staff he had,” said Vinnedge. Only two staff members are credited, but Sawyer may have also pulled from correspondents, some under pen names. When Sawyer got an interesting advertisement, he ran it as a news story. Headlines praised the latest products and services, with three paragraphs following on a front page packed with 25 different stories and advertisements. He made sure to run front-page pieces, clearly written by a Hollywood hand, about the movies playing at the local theaters. Residents were always sure Top, photo from the Snoqualmie Valley Museum Collection | Others, Record archive. to be thrilled, it seems, by these movies. “It was just doubled advertising,” says Vinnedge. No one shaped the early Record more than “It is a very diplomatic paper,” Vinnedge describes Sawyer’s Robert Sawyer, who published the Record as R.D. product. “There are not a lot of searing editorials denouncing Sawyer, buying it in 1928 and selling it in 1942. A people.” big booster of business, he touted the Record’s serBut he does sense an edge to Sawyer’s coverage of politics. vices, and those of other business, every week. For decades, well into the 1980s, the paper not only covered Below, a page, complete with missing photos, welcoming national politics, it also printed the results of every electoral cross-state boosters in the 1930s. Far left, a house ad race, precinct by precinct, from U.S. president to county audi- from the 30s. Below, an 1917 front page advertisement tor. On the front, too, Sawyer regularly ran political cartoons. for the Dream Theater in Snoqualmie. These are pretty tame by today’s standards. Many praise home virtues and portray Uncle Sam and common folk engaged in wholesome, prosperity-boosting activities. In those days, Washington was much more conservative than today. Mill workers were in the union, but “if you follow the returns downriver, it gets very much more Republican,” said Vinnedge. It’s not clear whether Sawyer was a Republican or just tired of Franklin Roosevelt. “But what killed him in 1940 was, he clearly didn’t want Roosevelt to have a third term. But you couldn’t say that!” Vinnedge said. His headline of Roosevelt’s unprecedented third term was “Democrats sweep nation and state. Valley goes along.” Sawyer congratulates Roosevelt’s triumph, but also was effusive in his praise of Wendell Willkie. When the GOP candidate visited Seattle, Sawyer made sure to report how Valley people turned out to hear him. “And he’s got an ad for Willkie at the bottom of the paper. Maybe he gave it to him.”
The ad-lib beat Charlotte and Ed Groshell bought the paper in 1949. Ed was adept at writing for the “Ad-Lib” beat: Small front-page snippets announcing what was being advertised in the pages of the paper that week. “Ed was really good at this column, ad-libbing the ad beat, in which anybody who placed an ad got a little joke, a quote, a little personal thing.”
Who was the Kingfish? The Record’s outdoor hunting and fishing columnist for two decades, sometimes known as Tut, sometimes The Kingfish, a.k.a Tut, was in real life Lawrence Tuttle, a lineman for Puget Sound Power and Light, who made the rounds in his truck and probably absorbed the color and sense of the season as he did so. Most of his columns included line art of the game he sought. “A really nice guy,” associate editor Gloria McNeely remembered him. “He really loved all those sports.” Elva Polley, who wrote the Fall City News Notes, ran the Fall City Marché, a local dime store, in her day job. These writers got a small stipend for doing their job—”They got paid by the column inch!” said McNeely—but they also had a passion for connecting with others.
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Stories
from the past One hundred years of news from the Valley Record:
1917
March: First extant accident report: “While at play with some companions about a number of empty cars at the N.P. Depot, Richard Dotson, 9-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. Chas. Dotson, suffered the fracture of his left leg. He was standing in a train car when a steel dump door came loose, catching both legs.
1918
December: When you have that button pinned on your coat, you can look the whole world in the face and feel proud. It means you have answered ‘present’ to the Red Cross Christmas Roll Call for 1919 at Meadowbrook.
1921
April: Two men charged with the making of homebrew and bootlegging were tried in Dalton’s court, pleaded guilt and were each fined $100. • Prospects for the Snoqualmie Falls Athletic Club placing a winning team in the field are good, as two of the best semipro players were added.
1922
December: Police arrested a Mrs. Fred Ware on charges of bigamy. She confessed that she had been four times married. Three of the husbands are living and undivorced.
1928
May: The last vestiges of days when men were hanged in the tower of the King County Courthouse were swept away. The board authorized the sale of two death cells used for death row prisoners. The town of Tolt, annoyed by Houdini-like prisoners, bought the cells for $50 each.
Then & Now is a publication of the Snoqualmie Valley Record
P.O. Box 300, Snoqualmie, WA 98065 • (425) 888-2311 Publisher William Shaw Editor Seth Truscott Advertising Sales David Hamilton Writer Carol Ladwig Production Wendy Fried
PAGE 4
1932
September: North Bend’s Sallal Grange holds its first Grange Fair.
1934
May: Two bandits held up the Snoqualmie Valley Bank at Tolt on a weekday afternoon, covering the cashier and a customer with a nasty-looking pistol.
1936
• January: Early settlers of the Valley were honored at a Kiwanis luncheon. Mrs. Alice Rachor of North Bend, oldest living pioneer of the Upper Valley, joined William H. Taylor, Peter Maloney, Ed Boalch and others. Mr. Taylor and Mrs. Rachor carried on a conversation in chinook with hotel keeper A.J. Moffatt.
1937
November: The people of Tanner and vicinity celebrated in a fitting way the completion of their rural electrification project, when friends and neighbors gathered at the home of John Ferguson in Edgewick to witness the ceremony of throwing on the switch, bringing electricity from Cedar Falls.
1938
February: The shreds of a family torn asunder by one war were brought together by another Monday when Dr. Wasily Muller, his wife and son of North Bend, were reunited with his dead sister’s children at the immigration station at Seattle. Leo and Valeria Glasser who had been carried away from the Red Terror in Russia when they were small children, and had been on the midst of the bombing on Nanking Road in Shanghai last August, stood in the circle of protecting arms.
1943
September: A large black bear made a flying raid on the pasture at the Walter Carmichael farm in Spring Glen Saturday evening, his objective a juicy young calf. But he reckoned not with Mother Love and the gentle old bossy, who promptly engaged him in fierce combat. • Pam and Bill Moffatt, children of Mr. and Mrs. James Moffat of Meadowbrook, are among the most patriotic little folks in the Valley. Thursday of this week, they turned over their beloved pet, Deacon, a large Collie, to the Dogs for Defense program for induction into the Army. He was delivered to the proper authorities in Seattle.
Growing up with the paper
THEN & NOW 100 YEARS Snoqualmie Valley Record
Fall City’s John Groshell gives a kids-eye view of the news biz BY CAROL LADWIG Staff Reporter
He grew up in the business, but John Groshell never had printer’s ink in his veins, like his father. Maybe seeing how many printers had lost a finger or two during their careers—one of the presses was called the hand-snapper, after all—is what cooled his enthusiasm, or the challenge of writing something every week. Certainly it wasn’t sporty enough for the future golf pro, teacher, and now owner of the Mount Si Golf Course. “If life didn’t involve a ball, something that you could throw, kick, shoot or bat, I didn’t care,” Groshell reminisced. He was visiting the Record office to talk about the days that he, his parents Ed Groshell and Charlotte Paul, and older brother Hiram, owned and operated the Snoqualmie Valley Record, from 1949 to 1961. When his parents bought the paper and moved the family from Chicago to Snoqualmie in October, 1949, John was about 4 years old. Too young to recall much of the early days, at least without consulting his mother’s two memoirs on the subject, he would hang out in the office after school, deliver newspapers with his brother and sell subscriptions at times. An image of he and Hiram with a wagon full of papers to deliver made the cover of one printing of Paul’s “Minding Our Own Business.”
Boy at work
As he got bigger—“I always say I didn’t grow up, I just aged,” he jokes—John was put to work in the shop where he could. He scrubbed the leads and slugs (the metal pieces of type used to print) in harsh chemicals and sorted them into their cupboards. “That wasn’t much fun,” he said. By the time he was 12, he was working the hand snapper. Palms together and hingeing at his wrists, John opened and closed his hands with a clap to demonstrate how the machine worked, and why it was so appropriately named. “It was a press that went bam, bam, bam,” he said. “You’d put the blank paper in, and then it would close (clap) to print, then you’d take it out, and put in the next one.” He developed nimble fingers and a nimble mind on this job. “What you learned was don’t ever go back… because the press didn’t care. That’s why back in the old days, many printers were missing a finger or two, or three.” Around that same time, he also started making the “pigs.” This job involved melting down all those leads and slugs that he’d cleaned, and pouring them into bricks to be fed into the Linotype. The machine melted the bricks, then shot the liquid metal into molds, assembled by the Linotype operator to create a line of type for the press. Groshell never really worried about the hazards, though—“We had gloves that probably came up to here,” he said, gesturing to his elbow—and may even have preferred them to the other side of “community newspapering,” the reading and writing side. “I worked, and I never minded working, but I was never into reading,” he admitted, including the newspaper. “I used to tell my mother that reading made me dizzy!” Covering the news was all right, though. Besides himself and Hiram, the Record had lots of reporters in those days. “They had reporters in each town, there was a North Bend reporter, and Snoqualmie, and Carnation, Fall City, Duvall, and they would all contribute,” he said. The “news” was more than just listings of who visited whom and of good times being had by all, but those reports also had their place in the Record, he remembered. “I think people just really liked to see their names in the paper, and any accomplishments.” Groshell, however, was an exception. He didn’t like to see his own name in the paper because that required him to write. Both he and Hiram had their own columns in the paper when they were in high school. “My brother started and he had a column that was called the Hi Corner,” Groshell remembered. His own column, reviews of games and sports information was simply John’s Sports Shorts, and “…it was like pulling teeth getting me to write a column every week!” Looking over one of his old pieces, about a college football game, he wondered out loud how he’d gotten an interview with one of the coaches. “My mother must have set that up for me,” he decided. Even as a youngster, Groshell easily got his fill of publicity. He shakes his head
Carol Ladwig/Staff Photo
With his parents as owners, John Groshell has fun, and funny memories of his days as a junior reporter in the 1950s.“The flood of 59, which is the first biggie that I remember, my brother and I went around the town in a rowboat taking pictures that they used in the paper,” he said, “and I remember when Smokey Joe’s Tavern caught on fire. I got pictures of that, and I wish I could find them now, the sign Smokey Joe’s, with the smoke pouring out of the place.” remembering the long Christmas letters his parents used to send out, detailing the family’s exploits, and usually including a sweet, but embarrassing, photo of their sons. “I would end up with kids bringing them to school and harassing the heck out of me,” he remembers. Still, he made it through high school, finishing out his senior year at Mount Si although his parents had by then sold the paper and divorced. Groshell went to WSU for a business degree, switched to teaching early on, and came back to the Valley to teach for five years, two at Snoqualmie Middle School, two at Tolt High School, and one at Mount Si. He loved teaching, he said, and sometimes wishes he’d never left the field, but school politics had discouraged him and the lure of sports was still strong. He played baseball and golf throughout high school, and continued golfing throughout college, so his career shift to golf pro was an easy one. After a year as a pro in Yakima, he came back to the Valley to buy a 20 percent share of Mount Si Golf Course, and eventually buy the entire business. He was an independent kid, became a seasoned and popular teacher, and has a successful golf career and business today, but sometimes, he can still do without the publicity—and the Christmas cards. A few years ago, he recounts, a customer brought in one of his family’s old cards to show him. “Here was a picture of my brother and I walking in a field, and the caption on it was “Two little pumpkins in a field,” Groshell said with a sigh. “Now, fortunately that didn’t come out when I was in high school, but my employees saw it, and pretty soon I was Pumpkin. They still sometimes call me that.”
THEN & NOW 100 YEARS Snoqualmie Valley Record
PAGE 5
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PAGE 6
1944
January: Ella Raines, the popular motion picture star and former resident of Snoqualmie Falls, will be out to speak on behalf of the boys who are giving their lives in battle, at a bond drive in Snoqualmie. Raines’ husband is the flying hero Cpt. Kenneth Trout, son of Mr. and Mrs. S. B. Trout of Snoqualmie. April: The Mustang fighter “Snoqualmie Valley,” purchased with local war bonds, is ready to go into action. The Mustang, built by North American Aviation of Inglewood, was the first fighter to penetrate Germany. Postcards of the “Snoqualmie Valley” are available in town.
1945
November: The last of four Valley boys captured by the Japanese in the Philippines is on his way home. Gerald Emerick was released from a POW camp in Japan. He survived the Bataan death march.
1946
January: The Mill Pond Elk have departed after 40 years. A truck removed nine of 12 elk, remnants of a herd that has sustained itself in this vicinity for four decades.
1948
November: In the general election, voters approve the first new school construction in 22 years.
1949
October: Miss John Fritts, wife of the owner of J&G Tire, tells the record she saw a flying disc near Monroe. The disc-shaped ellipsoid was gliding across the face of the fading moon. She stopped her car and pointed it out to two deer hunters.
1952
June: Construction of Mount Si High School begins, with loud thumps from the piledriver driving the first of 271 pilings deep into the ground.
1953
January: Two hundred people rose to their feet in the Carnation Farm hippodrome to toast Carnation Homestead Daisy Madcap, the greatest cow that has ever lived. She topped her own record, producing 11 gallons of milk and five pounds of butter a day over a year. June: Western garb must be worn, and Eastern garb outlawed, for the four days of North Bend Jamboree Days.
THEN & NOW 100 YEARS Snoqualmie Valley Record
We were all readers
In the service Military coverage ebbs and flows, but support for the troops is always at home
Sharing life’s details: Gloria McNeely’s stint as editor in the 1950s BY SETH TRUSCOTT Editor
“I was born with a streak of curiosity a mile wide,” insists Gloria McNeely. “And I still want to know what’s happening around the corner and what’s happening tomorrow.” McNeely, has spent her adult life in the Valley, chronicled its history, championed causes, and for 10 years, wrote up the news of the day as associate editor of the Valley Record. She has to be the only editor here ever to start work as the paper’s bookkeeper. Born in New York City, McNeely grew up from the age of 5 in Seattle. Her father, a civil engineer, had gone back east for work, then died in the Spanish Influenza epidemic that swept the world, when she was seven months old. Her connection to the Valley came through her brother, who came here to work at the Falls lumber mill. But it quickly expanded to another boy. At 16, Gloria met Denton McNeely at a coffee bar at the back of the Mount Si Tavern at Tanner. “He was tall. He had the most beautiful blue eyes in the United States of America,” she remembered. They were meant to be together. “I knew the day I saw him,” she said. “He said later that he did, too.” They married in 1938, when she was 19. Denton drove trucks for a living, and with a trusty record, wound up at Weyerhaeuser. Gloria, meanwhile, raised their young children. But she had a talent with numbers, as well as words, that was waiting for an outlet. “Math and words have always been my favorite things,” says McNeely, who had taken classes as an accountant. Those skills came in handy when she took a job at the Falls Printing Company, on the ides of March, 1951, at age 32, working for Charlotte Paul Groshell and her husband Ed, who had taken over publication of the Record in 1949. The company wanted a full-service bookkeeper. Part-time for a year, McNeely’s job description later multiplied. “People would come in and tell me who they had for tea, or where they went over the weekend, and I’d write notes and give them to Charlotte. She said, ‘write them up!”
Gloria McNeely, above with her key to Snoqualmie, has been connected to the Valley most of her life. An editor of the Record for about a decade, she started as a bookkeeper. Below, she is third from left, back row, at a Record staff women’s luncheon in the 1950s. McNeely had to soft-pedal coverage of her athletic boys at Mount Si High. Below, a coach sounds off on her son Denny’s career.
Letter from Ed “For 10 years, she was my right hand in the weekly publishing business,” wrote Ed Groshell in the letter of recommendation he penned for Gloria in October of 1961. “She handled our bookkeeping, wrote and edited thousands of news stories, handled my business correspondence and during several long absences on my part, she virtually ran the ‘show.’” Writing came naturally for McNeely, a born reader. “We were all readers,” she said. Growing up, “we read armloads of books from the branch library two miles from where we lived.” And, people were eager to share the details of life. “If you go through the old papers, you’ll see it’s all about people’s lives—what they were doing, what they were interested in, where they went.” Some folks were more private than others. “There are still those who want to have it known, and those who don’t. So, you’ll see a lot of the same names.” McNeely was promoted to associate editor, her name on the Page 2 masthead. SEE MCNEELY, 13
Photo courtesy Snoqualmie Historical Museum
With space to fill, World War I news was prevalent in the early Record—but not very local. Pages were generous with copy from overseas, including multiple pages of Red Cross news from the war front. World War II saw the paper stake out a massive presence. The Record championed war bond drives, rallying people, running frequent, and large, advertisements, including the moment when local movie star Ella Raines, who grew up in the Valley, returned to lead a war bond rally. Besides the bond drives, there was frequent mention, with Army-provided photos, about local soldiers— when they did well, when they earned medals, were wounded or taken prisoner, and when they returned to their families. There was also front-page coverage of the construction of a local veteran’s memorial in front of the Lee Brothers store, now the antique mall on Bendigo Boulevard in downtown North Bend. Korea saw similar treatment, though far fewer locals were killed in Korea and Vietnam than in World War II—six in Korea, eight in Vietnam, versus 41 in World War II. During the Vietnam era, coverage was a bit more low-key. The war infrequently made the pages of the Record, with the occasional mentioned of a medalled or promoted serviceman, or those killed or wounded. Coverage of the 1990-91 Gulf War was also light. But in 2003, when the Iraq War began, the newspaper once again got behind the troops. Jay Rodne, serving with the Marines, provided a live-from-Kuwait column. There was front-page coverage of Valley families reacting to the first days of war. Even local school children doing a cookie drive for the troops made the paper. “Whether you support military action or condemn it, let’s make one thing clear to those serving from our little corner of the world,” wrote publisher Jim McKiernan. “We support you in whatever you do and are counting on you to come home safely.”
THEN & NOW 100 YEARS Snoqualmie Valley Record
PAGE 7
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THEN & NOW 100 YEARS Snoqualmie Valley Record
Come hell or high water Getting the story out when the floods of the century hit home
1959 deluge There are a number of contenders for the biggest Valley flood of them all, but the November 23, 1959, flood is at least in the top three. “They said there was more water,” in 2009, “but I don’t believe it,” said Gloria McNeely, who was the Valley Record’s associate editor, and a worried mom, when the wall of water crashed down on the Valley. Why there was so much water, she recalled, is because the construction of the new interstate highway up Snoqualmie Pass had changed the course of the South Fork. A huge logjam broke, and when it went, the water broke the highway and swept a driver to his death. “My kids were both on a date the night of the flood,” McNeely said. “They each called home—Dave’s girlfriend lived on Highland Drive, Denny’s lived out on the North Fork Road—‘Tell Denny! Tell Dave!’ They finally ended up at the Gateway Café in North Bend. They had gone into the Williams Addition and helped bring people out of there. Up at Silver Creek, they were wading through chest-deep water.” With her log-truck-driving husband Denton idle, as the Weyerhaeuser timber operation was paralyzed with the rest of the Valley due to the flooding, McNeely had him drive her the two blocks to work through the water in his big Ford truck. At the door, she hopped down into ankle-deep water. “I was the only one who got to work until later in the day,” said McNeely, who started making phone calls, gathering news for the next edition. The paper got put out, as always.
Valley Record Archives
Floods return time and again in Valley history. Above, flood coverage from some of the big ones: 1990’s ‘Worst Flood in History’; A helicopter rescue at Fall City in 2009; and a North Bend home’s foundations wash away in the 2006 event. Far left, photos of the high water in the 1959 flood.
THEN & NOW 100 YEARS Snoqualmie Valley Record
PAGE 9
Guiding force
1954
January: The snow just won’t quit in the worst snowstorm since 1916. School staff assisted city workers in making roads safe late into the night. March: A Snoqualmie Valley steelhead is sent to President Eisenhower in Washington D.C. The gift is from Fall City’s Soapbox Derby Committee. Marvin Turple caught the winning fish.
Ex-owner Jim McKiernan looks back on years of change
T
he Snoqualmie Valley Record took on new energy in 1996, when a local family, Jim and Karen McKiernan, purchased the paper from long-time publishers Bob Scott and the Buchman family. Here, Jim McKiernan looks back on his 12 years at the helm of the paper, through some of the biggest changes this Valley ever saw.
1955
How did you get into this business? I had worked for Boeing for 11 years and although Boeing is a great company, it’s hard to measure your individual impact on the overall company. As a younger man I had noticed guys like Kyle Riley, owner of Kyle’s furniture, and Gordy Gaub and the impacts they had on Snoqualmie. I wanted to have that chance. Karen and I sold my Boeing stock and scraped as much of the money as we could. We then borrowed money from Bob Ittes, then owner of Issaquah Bank, because he was the only bank that understood a cash-flow business with very little assets. He went out on a limb for us. We sold the new car, the travel trailer and hunkered down.
How did the paper change with the Valley? The initial designs of the Ridge blew our minds. A lot of the early planning had been done, but we were able to see the first houses, the first streets, all in a spot where we used to hunt, have bonfires and possibly a few beers. Karen and I always felt the key to holding Snoqualmie together was to get involved and to try and integrate new folks into the community through the newspaper. We didn’t always agree with the changes resulting from the trePhoto by Karen McKiernan, above | Valley Record archive, right
Karen and Jim McKier nan, today, above, and when they purchased the Record in early 1996, at right. mendous growth. But in the bigger picture of the eastside, it was inevitable. Little things, like the mayoral race between Fuzzy Fletcher and Matt Larson, were turning points from a small town to a small city. It was important that these new residents understood the history of Snoqualmie so they could appreciate what shaped their new community. We ran historical stories, historical sections, more school news and more sports. We ran more stories on the Snoqualmie Tribe as their recognition was announced. Circulation grew quickly, doubling in five years. Our editors stepped up their coverage of the city council, planning commission, police department and fire department because everyone was dealing with a tremendous amount of change and it was imperative the newspaper helped guide smart growth and held elected officials to task. I may have even written a few pointed editorials, all in an effort to generate discussion. The water moratorium was also a difficult scenario for what was then the step-child community of the Valley, North Bend. Nobody could build houses, businesses struggled to renovate due to the moratorium and honestly, it all seemed pretty stupid to me at times. Why hold North Bend hostage for their water rights when there were times we all wished there was less water (flooding). But the mayors, council members and some help from the county, worked through it and now look at the growth. Downtown is more exciting then ever and I can’t wait to see what the next 20 years will bring.
How was the Valley different, 15 years ago? Good question. As a business owner you wanted to see growth. As a person who grew up in the Valley, there were times I missed the intimacy of what was then, an isolated community. The biggest thing we noticed was the make-up of the North Bend and Snoqualmie city councils. New residents were willing to jump in and with their desire to help came new ideas. Sometimes it would take a while for the old guard to realize that some of the ideas were pretty
March: Many locals joined in a search for 81-year-old Joe Boxley, whose body was found near Rattlesnake Ridge. When he disappeared, the local pioneer may have been looking for a trail he was familiar with 40 or 50 years before. good, myself included in the skepticism at times (Roundabouts being one of those not-so-popular ideas, or the medians in North Bend). We seemed to become an advocate for property rights at times as elected officials flexed their muscles—sometimes a bit too much. The initial growth started to degrade the intimacy many neighborhoods had. When Karen and I grew up, kids identified themselves with Highland Drive, Williams addition, Tanner, Riverbend, Fall City. But now there were new neighborhoods. I think many in the community were afraid people wouldn’t get to know their neighbors but with time, those fears subsided. The way the new neighborhoods were designed was conducive to block parties, neighborhood barbecues and kids riding bikes. But the biggest difference between 20 years ago and today is the lack of living-wage jobs in the Valley. There is no industry of significance other than tourism and I sometimes wonder if that’s enough to keep a community together. It will take a conscious effort by the county council and city officials to bring in new industries so that people can work in the community they call home. Bedroom communities can sometimes be apathetic to local issues. Keep up the pressure to urge people to get involved.
What were some of the pros and cons of new technologies? Do you miss any of the old methods? Wow, did the newspaper business change while we were owners. I really miss the darkroom. I could go in there, close the door, it was dark, and develop film to my heart’s content. It was a place of seclusion because nobody could open the door if I was developing film. It was an art form, to dodge and burn negatives or prints to make them clear. But it was also time consumingm and digital cameras saved me about 15 hours per week. Paste-up of the newspaper was also an art form and we missed the smell of hot wax with the purchase of a layout computer. Paste up pages were easier to copy-edit as several members of the staff would read the pages. It’s likely there were less spelling errors in those days because we had Nancy Fish, a walking dictionary and the person who generated most of the copy. Newspapers take much less time to generate today then they did even 10 years ago. We were also the first weekly newspaper in the state to have a Web presence. Of course those early versions weren’t very friendly and we weren’t sure what to put on the Internet but it was, and continues to be, a radical change in how news is delivered.
What was it like working with so many different reporters, editors and salespeople? Do you think there is a ‘newspaper type’ of employee? I hope this doesn’t come out wrong but newspaper people tend to question everything. I wasn’t used to that at all. Working at Boeing, I’m the boss and you just do what I say. That mentality went right out the window with the first reporters and editor, Brian Kelly. If there ever was a ‘Newspaper type’, Brian was it. He loved the business, the scoop, breaking a story and he was an award-winning photographer. I credit him with my photo skills as he scrutinized every frame that I would shoot. He worked as many hours as it would take and spent many nights on our couch after a late night at the paper. SEE MCKIERNAN, 13
1958
March: Charlotte Groshell pens a 10-part series looking at the alcohol rehabilitation center in Seattle. “The way that farm is run, the way it looks, and its effect, good and bad, on the surrounding community is important because this is the institution that the city of Seattle wants to relocate on the border of Preston,” she writes.
1960
April: In four hours time on Saturday, April 2, a familiar Snoqualmie landmark, Smokey Joe’s Tavern and hotel, housing 10 rooms, two apartments, a tavern and a cafe, was turned into an empty, gutted shell by a fire that sent clouds of smoke spiraling high in the sky. Despite the heroic efforts of Snoqualmie volunteer firemen and later members of the North Bend Fire Department, the rampaging flames could not be stopped before most of the interior was consumed.
1962
November: A steady, soaking downpour and a strong, unseasonably warm wind changed the Snoqualmie on Monday from a river minding its own business to one that became everybody’s business. The flood crested at 11.65 feet in the Puget Sound Power and Light Co. cavity at Snoqualmie Falls. Damage was light, but the river rose frighteningly fast.
1965
February: The Highway Department’s district engineer says a traffic light at Bendigo Boulevard and US 10 in North Bend is not warranted. But the Chamber of Commerce calls for the light, as does the Town Council, which assigns police to direct traffic there. The state relents and installs the light in June. April: Signs proclaim “Closed for cleanup due to quake” after an April 29 earthquake makes a big mess.
PAGE 10
THEN & NOW 100 YEARS Snoqualmie Valley Record
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Part of the story
Chasing fires, rescue and development pressure: The 1990s, as remembered by Record Editor Brian Kelly Brian Kelly rolled into town in 1993. Halting at the blinking red light at Meadowbrook—the town’s only signal—Kelly looked around at… not a lot. “Where’s the town?” thought Kelly. “Wow, what am I going to write about here? Is there any news here at all? I quickly learned there was a lot.” Kelly, who took a reporter job at the Snoqualmie Valley Record and found himself quickly promoted to editor, covered Valley news for six years, leaving in 1999. Today, Kelly is the editor of the Bainbridge Island Review. After the Record, he worked for the Seattle Times’ Eastside bureau, the Everett Herald and the South Whidbey Record. He fell into responsibilities here after then-editor Koshtra Tolle took leave, then left. Only a couple of months into a reporter gig, publisher Bob Scott asked him to take over.
Bad government
BRIAN KELLY
In North Bend, “we were coming off the tail end of Twin Peaks.” There was still strong visitor interest in the town that was the fictionalized setting of David Lynch’s cult mystery. Meanwhile, North Bend’s civic government was dysfunctional, remembers Kelly. Several members were coming to meetings armed, and big-city dailies covered the proceedings. Council-mayor splits developed into shouting matches. “One of the controversial proposals was that they wanted to extend the Boys and Girls Club to North Bend, and get it to Si View. They had this huge kickoff breakfast for it, it was hugely successful. Si View was filled with people pulling out their wallets. They raised a couple hundred thousand dollars,” but the money was spent without results, and the community soured on the idea. Due to all the mistrust, Kelly was tossed out of a council committee session by the mayor. Unwilling to give up his perfectly legal right to be there, Kelly stood his ground, and the cops came and physically removed him. “I told Bob Scott. He said, ‘Brian, don’t worry. If you ever need bail, I’ll come and get you.’”
Growth pressure In those days, there was great development pressure on the Valley. “North Bend was starting to get some of the growth. Snoqualmie had the Ridge in the pipeline,” said Kelly, who watched as public reaction mounted to a controversial plan to develop homes at the former Meadowbrook Farm, “in exchange for saving a tiny chunk of it. People freaked.” In Snoqualmie, the push for the Ridge was on, but not without backlash. Many old-town Valley Record archives residents feared the planned One of Kelly’s front page photos, look- community. “There was a real concern ing at a toddler exercise class at Si View Community Center, where a Boys about whether that was the and Girls Club was being considered, right way to go,” he said. “People worried that Snoqualmie would unsuccessfully. not be Snoqualmie anymore. People were worried about flooding, of course. Once you build this new city on the hill, they’re not going to care about ‘Old Snoqualmie.’”
Famous car Some of Kelly’s Valley stories revolved around his big, heavy 1964 Impala. “People knew me around the Valley because of that car,” said Kelly. “If it wasn’t parked in front of the office, it was parked in front of Smitty’s garage, getting a lot of work done. They took a lot of my paychecks.” The 1990s were the days of the police radio scanner. Staff at the paper listened to the scanner chatter to learn whether anything big was going down. One day, between the scanner warble and the sirens of the fire trucks racing down Railroad Avenue, “you knew something was going on.” So Kelly took off after the trucks, following them to a river rescue in progress near the foot of the Snoqualmie Falls Plant 2 powerhouse. Back then, the put-in was bordered by a long grassy strip ending in a steep drop. Chasing the rescue, Kelly drove down to the river, noticing some rescue vehicles parked nearby. “As I came roaring down the hill, I instantly pulled over onto the grass.” But the grass was wet and slippery. “My two ton car would no stop! I just kept going and going. The car stopped about five inches from the edge, where I would have gone over a 50-foot embankment. I can’t believe I almost became part of the story!”
Camera lessons
know if a photo turned out until they had processed it at the Record’s own darkroom. While here, Coleman got to take his first helicopter ride during the kick-off of the Mountains to Sound Greenway. The head of the EPA, Christine Whitman, came to the Valley, as did CHAD COLEMAN Congresswoman Jennifer Dunn and a young Rob McKenna. Coleman and SVR Editor Barry Rochford had gone out to Chad Coleman was barely out of college and cover the occasion. “I was expecting a grip-andgrin”—the traditional, hackneyed posed VIP ready to take a new direction in his career. A reporter and photographer, about a year shot. Instead, he got an invite to tour the lands of out of the University of Washington, working the Greenway by air. “Of course, I didn’t have enough high-speed in McCall, Idaho, he was ready to focus on the film.” So Rochford raced back to the office in camera. He just needed a place to do it. “Writing on a daily basis was not my thing,” he Snoqualmie to grab film. He got back with two minutes to spare, and they were airborne for a said. “I just wanted to do the photo side of life.” That’s when the 24-year-old took a job at the memorable moment. Other, rare air photo sesValley Record, specifically November 2001, as sions followed for Coleman. But the first time was special. staff photographer. “Another fun thing I remember is doing a Publisher “Jim (McKiernan) took a shot at me,” said Coleman, who found himself the main photo essay on the Snoqualmie Brewery. Back in the day, they were just a corrugated metal buildguy behind the lens for two years. These were the days when newspaper pho- ing,” he recalls, on the same site as the existing tographers rolled their own film, knew their building, completely rebuilt today. A Coleman cameras backwards and forwards, and didn’t photo from 2003 shows a 10-years-younger Pat
PAGE 11
1967
February: Fire destroys North Bend Elementary on Feb. 24. Built in 1914, it was the high school until 1944. The fire started in the attic, and was caused by wiring. May: The Puget Sound and Snoqualmie Railway will begin passenger service on May 28. The track is 2000 feet from Kimball Creek to Big Swamp. Service runs Sundays and holidays.
1968
June: School District 407 in the Lower Valley is in an uproar over the dismissal of a popular teacher, Mary Balenti. Some 200 parents sign a petition calling for a state investigation, and hearings follow. July: The Fall City Dump is closed, after 50 years of operation. Causes are backfill problems, rodents, fire hazards, water and air pollution, but many locals are displeased at having to travel to take out the trash.
1970
October: The new Interstate 90 will go south of North Bend, in spite of the plea by Don Shultz of the North Bend Chamber of Commerce for reconsideration of a more central route.
1971
August: The 1914 Fall City High School was razed in August. Plenty of locals had opposed leveling the historic structure, deemed unsafe for occupation, but the major structural, electrical and mechanical upgrades needed told against the building.
1973
January: Not a town anymore, North Bend becomes a code city. This means a rework of the ordinances is in order, to get rid of outdated laws.
1974
February: The gas crunch takes its toll as Valley stations became part of the ‘Oregon Plan’ of rationing by license plate numbers. Some dealers refuse to take part. Gas thefts soon follow.
1979
Chad Coleman cut his teeth as a photographer at Record
Valley Record archives
One of Chad Coleman’s shots from a 2003 photo essay on helicopter logging for the Record. Anderson with a growler outside the brewery, which had moved to the present site of Angel Thrift on Snoqualmie’s Railroad Avenue. In his Record days, Coleman bought his first digital camera. Digital photography was a revolution. It saved time—no more rolling film, no more negatives and slides to worry about. Once snapped, you saw what you had shot, instantly. “You know you have it. There’s a lot less anticipation,” said Coleman. “I get one, safe and good, but then I push for a better angle, better lighting, or try something different.” If it doesn’t work out, you don’t have to run it.”
January: Since the I-90 bypass opened a year prior, two of the city’s major gas stations have closed, and the others see a decline. Restaurant trade is down, but other businesses apparently never had it better.
1980
May: Fred Lawrence shared his firsthand account of the May 18 eruption of Mount St. Helens. He was driving back from a fishing trip at the Potholes Reservoir in Eastern Washington. Starting out, he noticed a front of clouds approaching. At George, pitch darkness descended, with up to four inches of ash on the highway. Visibility was zero. All travel halted at Vantage. Seven hours later, traffic resumed, with cars spaced out for visibility amid the volcanic ash. It cleared up around Kittitas, and the roadway was clear after Ellensburg.
PAGE 12
THEN & NOW 100 YEARS Snoqualmie Valley Record
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To McNeely, Charlotte Paul Groshell was a mentor. Five years older than her, she was never afraid to be the voice of a community, and champion causes. “A very bright woman,” a Wellesley graduate, she had been an editor and a foreign correspondent. Nine years later, after the paper sold and the Groshells moved on, McNeely did too. She wound up working for King County’s Valley levee administration. Working for the Record “introduced me to things I would not ever have been involved in,” McNeely said. About the time she took over as editor, McNeely was allowed to take off from the office and cover freshman sports at Mount Si High. “Ed took over at one point, because it wasn’t fair to my kids,” she remembers. “They were both excelling. I had to softpedal it because I was their mother.” As editor, McNeely made sure she got it right: “Keep one eye on ‘libel’ as a distinct possibility,” she advises, “and always verify—always—never guess, never ever.” Reading “was our connection to the world,” said McNeely. Newsreels and radio were the quick connection. “But you only got the highlights. If you wanted to know the meat and the heart of it, you had to read. It just makes me sick that we’re losing that.”
MCKIERNAN FROM 9
February: Government doesn’t have the money to do anything about flooding, say officials from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and King County Surface Water Management. Citizens Against Flooding organizes to do something about the problems.
What are you, Karen and Lynnae up to today? Do you Running this newspaper prob- have any greetings for the ably defined your life and fam- Valley at large? ily in many ways. What was We have made some changes. Karen and the biggest impact this paper I both work for Jensen Farms in Warden, Wash., and live in Moses Lake. Karen does had on you and yours? accounting for the farm and I sell onions.
January: The Herbfarm Restaurant is destroyed by fire. The four-star restaurant in Fall City is gutted by a fire that started with the electrical system.
Reporters would come and go, using it as a stepping stone to their next job. Then there was Marie Everett, the queen of sales and one of the most compassionate, friendly people in the Valley. She epitomized what a newspaper needed for a salesperson. If asked, she would even go work at a customer’s business if they were short handed.
You hit the nail on the head. The newspaper defined and still defines, our family to this day. Our kids, James and Lynnae, both had columns and were forced into the limelight. In James’ case, it was somewhat reluctantly but people would always ask him about his soapbox column. We remember kids asking Lynnae about a specific Beanie Baby she mentioned in her column. We felt like we could make a difference in the community that we both love so much. It taught us that honesty, integrity, compassion and the chance to echo someone’s story are the most important virtues in a small community. It also showed us that there was more to work then just a paycheck. (There were times I had to ask Karen if I was going to get paid that week) The week’s
(If anyone wants a truckload, let me know) I travel regularly for business but still get to drive a tractor on occasion. We still spend as much time at Blue Lake as we possibly can and feel fortunate that it is only 30 minutes from our house. Lynnae graduated from Central Washington University and is taking classes for nursing school at Big Bend Community College. Her goal is to be a registered nurse and someday possibly a midwife. Life changed dramatically in late 2011 after the death of James and it made us all appreciate life and memories quite a bit more. Fortunately, we have thousands of fond memories of the Valley and our incredible friends and family who live there. Go Mount Si!
Congratulations Snoqualmie Valley Record on 100 years of outstanding communication.
CIRCA 1909
Dr. Richard T. Burke’s hospital North Bend
1920 Snoqualmie Falls Hospital opened
1983 Snoqualmie Valley Hospital opened. Over 30 services now available
1991
1995
January: Jack Nicklaus’s designers are working on “A thinking man’s golf course” on the Ridge.
1997 2003
February: An historic pact, the 205 Flood Reduction Project, has been reached by the city, Army Corps of Engineers and the County. It will reduce flooding in Snoqualmie by blasting away part of the Falls bank.
2008
November: The new Snoqualmie Casino opens with 30,000 guests in the first six hours. May: The Snoqualmie fire siren sings again, after locals band together to salvage it from the old fire hall, demolished to make way for a new city hall. The siren now sounds at noon atop the Mignone building.
2010
March: Hundreds of people waved flags along the procession to Mount Si High Schoo in a memorial service for Marine Lance Corporal Eric Ward, a Mount Si graduate who was killed Feb. 21 in Afghanistan.
Black and white photos provided by the Snoqualmie Valley Historical Museum
1947 Nelems Memorial Hospital opened
2014 The New Hospital facility is scheduled to open winter 2014 900997
MCNEELY FROM 6
PAGE 13 success was measured in how many people commented on a story in the grocery line or how many times you scooped the competition. It also gave our family a true appreciation for high school sports. Snoqualmie Valley will always be our home and it still feels good to come down from the Pass, head past North Bend and look back at that amazing mountain.
Moving into the 21st Century Proudly continuing a tradition of community-based medical care for over 100 years.
(425) 831-2300 www.SVHD4.org
PAGE 14
People persons needed Leesa’s tenure
Now at Chaplins in North Bend, Leesa McKay sold ads for the Record for seven years, 2002 to 2009. It’s hard to say what sold Marie Everett on becoming the She rose to become one of the wider company’s top saleslone ad rep for the Snoqualmie Valley Record nearly 30 people, and was on the job for three years before ever years ago. It may have been flattery—the newspaper attending a company sales meeting. owner predicted she’d be very successful—but it was “I got to run around town and see people and more likely the people, or at least a cominteract with the community,” she remembination of the two. bered. “It gave me the freedom to go to my “My best friend (Katie Buchman) owned kids’ school activities and volunteer. I loved the paper,” Everett explained, and she’d that job.” Deadlines could get scary, though. been seeking a sales person for a while One section, “Bid for it,” in 2007, had her and when she realized she had one at hand. fellow saleswoman, Shari Roten, burning the “She told me, ‘you’re great at sales, you midnight oil until 2 a.m. to get it ready. should do this!’” So Everett did, for 13 years, “It gave me the confidence to do anything,” and when she left, 13 years ago, the people were the hardest thing for her to leave. Early Record ads said McKay. “I worked the Valley for five years alone, and I knew I could do it.” “I loved the people, and I loved my job,” were simple: A she said, on a short break from her work few bold lines of as a stylist at Snoqualmie’s Bella Vita text and a catchy Saying farewell Salon. Her sales career spanned a time phrase or two. Everett spent a lot of time in her car, travelof big changes, for both her job and the ing throughout the Valley and sometimes newspaper industry. At first, she remembered, “we had to even into Issaquah to sell ads. paste up the paper,” manually assembling ads, clip art and “We had a huge clientele then,” she said. “I was on the content on the blue-lined layout pages. Toward the end of road the whole time.” Hard work never bothered her, her career here, she used a computer to do more of that although she points out “when I left, they hired two work, and to her, it wasn’t entirely an improvement. people!” However, when the paper was sold to the Journal“I liked (paste-up) better, and you had a lot more proofing American and her responsibilities increased, she began to going on,” she said, “more sets of eyes on everything.” Since the worry that her existing clients might suffer. Her decision to pages were lying out, most of the office staff would eventually leave wasn’t easy. “When I left the Valley Record, that was scan through them, helping to catch typos and other mistakes. one of the hardest things I’ve ever done,” she said.
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www.trainmuseum.org
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PAGE 15
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THEN & NOW 100 YEARS Snoqualmie Valley Record
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