I love it when I get to share exciting news! This week I’m very pleased to announce our newest addition to the Whidbey Crosswind, syndicated columnist Sarah Smiley.

Allow me to share a little bit about why I think Sarah is such a good fit.

First, she’s a good writer — she’s funny and down-to-earth and speaks from a perspective many of us can understand.

Second, she knows what it’s like being part of a military family. She is the daughter of retired Navy F-14 pilot, Lindell Rutherford. By the time she was 22, her father had been deployed 11 times. He was deployed on the USS Franklin Roosevelt when she was born in 1976, and video of their first meeting, when she was seven months old, made national news, appearing on the ABC television program Nightline.

Today she’s still part of a military family. She is married to Lt. Cmdr. Dustin Smiley, a Navy flight instructor. They have three children, Ford, 10, Owen, 8, and Lindell, 4.

Smiley has been compared to columnist Erma Bombeck, and she has been featured in “The New York Times Magazine” and “Newsweek,” and she has appeared on CNN, The Early Show on CBS, Fox News and MSNBC.

I hope you will enjoy her columns as much as I do, and I encourage you to let me know what you think of them. Smiley’s columns will run the second, fourth and the occasional fifth Friday of each month. And don’t forget to look for our column “For Pets’ Sake,” written by NAS Whidbey Island Veterinarian, J.M. Kiel, which appears the first and third Friday each month.

If you’re interested in contributing to the Whidbey Crosswind, contact me a kreed@whid
beycrosswind.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

-Kathy Reed, edito