Life is slowly returning to normal in Cassandra Woodcock’s home.
No more hum of a sewing machine in the wee hours of the morning.
Her husband Matthew can finally get a good night’s sleep.
“There were times when she was just getting to bed and I was just getting up,” he said.
In charge of costuming for the Whidbey Playhouse musical, “1776,” Woodcock and her wardrobe team had their work cut out for them to create outfits that would pass for the American Revolution period.
Of all the ornaments in Martha Martin’s home, there’s one that holds dear sentimental value. Protected in a glass casing…
Of all the work that went into getting her third graders ready for an island-wide reading competition last week, there was one thing Glenda Jackson didn’t count on.
The butterflies in her stomach.
It didn’t matter to Elisabeth Ince that she was a young competitor up against several older students.
It didn’t bother her that she was on a big stage with so much at stake.
After 25 years of defending clients in a court of law, Tom Pacher’s body and mind needed a break.
One day, he turned to his wife and suggested an idea that was literally right before his eyes.
Why not open a cigar shop?
Kathy Lunsford didn’t want to leave.
She had never been to the old farmhouse and barn steeped in her family’s history. Now that she was there as an invited guest to tour the home built by her great-great-grandfather Henry Riksen, the gravity of the experience made her stop and reflect.
She thought back to the difficult choices Riksen and other Dutch farmers from Oak Harbor’s Clover Valley made in the early 1940s when they gave up their farm land, homes and in many cases their livelihoods to make way for Whidbey Island Naval Air Station.
Sometimes, the smallest things can bring out the biggest smiles.
Such as when Sheryl Dunn places a small sign on her desk every January.
The sign announces that Gardner Orthodontics is looking to buy Girl Scout cookies.
Lots of them.
It wasn’t the boulder that so many dignitaries had kissed over the decades at a location not far away.
But it was a large stone all the same, and Helen Chatfield-Weeks laid a long, intimate smooch on it.
The long links of paper chains were a sign that this would be no ordinary school assembly.
The silence and tears that followed only confirmed it.
“Some of the biggest, strongest guys on campus were emotionally changed today,” said Jeffrey Laiblin, social studies teacher and activities advisor at North Whidbey Middle School. “I watched them break down in tears.”
After downing a cup of beef and barley soup, a mixed-greens salad, a pair of bread sticks and two glasses of iced tea, Helen Chatfield-Weeks was in the mood to demonstrate an Irish jig.
She stood and danced on a recent afternoon at Angelo’s Caffe in downtown Oak Harbor, spinning, stopping to pose and belting out laughs while following only the sounds of her own “da, da, da” rendition.
After taking the pulse of Seattle Seahawks fans across Whidbey Island during the NFL postseason, Kory Dyer was encouraged by the healthy support.
The support was so strong he decided to take the necessary steps to make Whidbey Island part of the Seahawks’ official booster club.
Gone were the curls but not the Super Bowl smile.
Greg Goebel recognized Russell Wilson right away when he sat down next to him after boarding a flight from SeaTac to Newark, N.J., two weeks ago.
With the realization that a trip to the National ProStart Invitational was no longer in reach, culinary arts students from Oak Harbor High School then had to swallow more tough news.
