Like a lot of people involved with the city of Kent, I'm trying to make sense of the senseless.
Seth Frankel, the city's video-program coordinator, is no longer with us, and it's so difficult to wrap my head around the reasons why.
As outlined in news reports (including ours), Frankel, 41, was found deceased at his Auburn home May 22, and his death is being investigated as a homicide.
The meal was chicken and dumplings, and my companion was Jean Ray.
And for a measly $6, I had lunch and made a friend on a Monday afternoon. The Kent Senior Activity Center is the place to be for a weekday lunch. And, frankly, it needs our support.
For Pat Gallagher, a visit from a holocaust survivor next month is the culmination of a 14-year friendship, rich in meaning and poignant with remembrance.
Gallagher, an instructional facilitator at the Kent Mountainview Academy, along with students of the Kent School District, will be welcoming Gerda Weissman Klein, a renowned human rights speaker and Nazi labor-camp survivor, when she comes to speak June 7 at a holocaust symposium that Gallagher has organized.
The Rotary Club of Kent is gearing up for its big event of the year: the annual Escapades Dinner and Charity Auction.
Billed as Kent’s oldest and largest annual charity auction, this year’s event takes place May 22 at the Kent ShoWare Center.
Our City Council is discussing something that will continue to dog every Puget Sound city for years to come:
Street projects and how to pay for them.
While I have to give them credit for putting everything on the table, in terms of which ox to gore for the required funds, it’s distressing to see where they’re looking first.
It's got a witch, a scarecrow, a lion and a tin man.
And then there's Dorothy, and her little dog, too.
The Kentwood Players' version of "The Wizard of Oz" has all the characters you would expect to see in a tribute to the classic American fairy tale.
But don't get too comfortable with this story - Kentwood's production of "Oz" has some one-of-a-kind twists you won't see anywhere else.
You're stuck in a bus terminal on a snowy night outside Topeka, Kans., and it's all you've got until morning.
So opens the setting for "Bus Stop," a classic American play and the spring production of choice for the Kent-Meridian Royal Players.
Kent’s biggest women-oriented bash went off without a hitch May 7, drawing approximately 500 ladies through the doors of the ShoWare Center.
The Wine, Women, Wow! event, one of the Kent Downtown Partnership’s biggest annual fundraisers, brought in the crowds and pleased the vendors, according to organizers.
The financial picture for Kent’s ShoWare Center is not an upbeat one these days.
Now going into its second year, the city-owned events center is projected to fall short, once again. This time to the tune of about $140,000. That’s about $300,000 less than the center lost last year - its first year of operation.
When Browser’s New and Used Books owners Greg and Kathi Simmons rolled into their downtown Kent business on the morning of April 24, they had no reason to think it was anything but an ordinary work day.
But they soon realized they were wrong: on the back outside wall of their business, the location of their prized dragon mural, they found an ugly fact about living in a modern city.
The mural was coated liberally with layers of spray paint – the work of an unknown graffiti artist.
The 2010 season turned out to be a golden one for the Kentridge Chatelaines.
The dance team, at 52-members strong, took first and second place in the show and kick categories, respectively, at the Washington Interscholastic Athletic Association 4A Dance/Drill Championships in March. In addition to that, the team walked away with the winner's trophy as the academic champions of the meet, with a cumulative grade point average of 3.54.
The pieces are coming together for Kent's celebration of all that is about women.
Now in its fifth year, the "Wine Women Wow!" bash will take place 6-10 p.m. May 7 at the Kent ShoWare Center.
A new walk-in medical facility has come to Kent.
The Regional Medical Clinic at Kent opened its doors for business April 5, from office space at 6719 S. 211th St., Suite 102.
Velda Mapelli didn’t have to die.
The 83-year-old Renton woman, who was tragically hit by a cyclist on Renton’s Cedar River Trail last week, underscores one of the biggest problems of our otherwise wonderful trail system.
A local group is preparing for another summer of international relations.
The Kent-Auburn-Tamba Sister Cities Committee had its big fundraiser for the year April 24 at the Green River Community College, and organizers say it went so well that the KAT organization is in a good position to fund its activities for the year.
If next year's budget projections remain as they are now, the Kent School District is lined up for layoffs.
It's a waiting game for the city of Kent, in its bid to bring a new Federal Aviation Administration facility to town.
Ben Wolters, the city's economic development director said Tuesday that FAA officials made a visit to Kent's proposed site April 2.
"You know, I thought we did well," Wolters said, noting their informal comments at the time were along the lines of "very impressive."
She saw a need and started a non-profit.
That's the short version of the story of Jennifer Levy, the Kentwood High School graduate who will be on her way to Argentina this week, to help a group of struggling senior citizens.
Two-hundred fifty degrees, in the abstract sense of the word, is hot. Very hot.
But it takes sitting in a smoke-filled room, watching orange flames roaring up to the ceiling, to appreciate the incinerator quality of this level of heat.
The Kent School Board took its first painful step in chopping back costs for the upcoming school year Wednesday night, approving a package of potential cuts that could help the district shore up an anticipated $9 million gap in revenues.
