Jeff Davis

Remem­ber in the mid-1990s when Jeff Davis was here? Looks like he just moved to the Ore­gon coast. Here’s more, from the Flo­rence, OR, newspaper:

After review­ing 22 appli­ca­tions for the super­in­ten­dent posi­tion, the Sius­law School Dis­trict announced last week that Jeff Davis of Ort­ing, Wash., will take over the reins begin­ning July 1.

Davis, 62, will replace cur­rent Super­in­ten­dent George Win­ter­scheid, who resigned from the job due to health reasons.

“The school is blessed to have such a phe­nom­e­nal can­di­date accept the posi­tion,” the dis­trict said in a state­ment released March 13.

Cur­rent­ly, Davis is the super­in­ten­dent of the Ort­ing School Dis­trict, a posi­tion he has held since 2002. He plans to retire from the Wash­ing­ton school system.

His past expe­ri­ence includes sev­en years as super­in­ten­dent of the Enti­at School Dis­trict and three years as prin­ci­pal of Fri­day Har­bor High School, both in Washington.

Drop by The Place Bar & Grill and check out their spe­cial that’s run­ning from today till April 7th…2 for $22! Here’s more (http://www.theplacesanjuan.com/specials.html). See you there!

Coming home on the late boat.....

It’s always fun to see friends on the fer­ry, even when they’re sacked out from a long day on the mainland.

Today, more than ever before, life must be char­ac­ter­ized by a sense of Uni­ver­sal respon­si­bil­i­ty, not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to oth­er forms of life.
Dalai Lama 

Last night, the Hos­pi­tal Board approved the pro­posed con­tract with Peace­Health, which will set in motion get­ting a new, updat­ed med­ical cen­ter — a new hos­pi­tal is sched­uled to open in 2012. Here’s more from Alan Roochvarg, for the Hos­pi­tal District:

Con­tract Approved for New Inte­grat­ed Med­ical Center
for San Juan Coun­ty Hos­pi­tal District 

Fri­day Har­bor, Wash. – The San Juan Coun­ty Pub­lic Hos­pi­tal Dis­trict #1 Board of
Com­mis­sion­ers today unan­i­mous­ly approved a long-term ser­vice con­tract with  Peace­Health, a North­west-based not-for-prof­it health­care sys­tem, to sig­nif­i­cant­ly expand health­care ser­vices for San Juan Coun­ty Hos­pi­tal Dis­trict res­i­dents and Island visitors.

The Peace­Health Board of Direc­tors approved the con­tract last week.

The  long-term rela­tion­ship between the San Juan Coun­ty Pub­lic Hos­pi­tal Dis­trict #1 (Hos­pi­tal Dis­trict) and Peace­Health will cre­ate a new, ful­ly Inte­grat­ed Med­ical Cen­ter locat­ed in Fri­day Har­bor, includ­ing a new, expand­ed pri­ma­ry care and spe­cial­ty clin­ic, expand­ed diag­nos­tic ser­vices cen­ter, a 24-hour emer­gency room and a 10-bed Crit­i­cal Access Hospital.

More than a year ago, the Hos­pi­tal Dis­trict, lead­ers of the cur­rent Inter Island Med­ical Cen­ter (IIMC) and the San Juan Com­mu­ni­ty Hos­pi­tal Com­mit­tee invit­ed Peace­Health into dis­cus­sions to explore a poten­tial part­ner­ship to serve the Island’s future health­care needs. A com­pre­hen­sive fea­si­bil­i­ty study was com­plet­ed in May 2008, and a for­mal Let­ter of Intent was signed in July 2008 to allow Peace­Health and the Hos­pi­tal Dis­trict to nego­ti­ate and draft a for­mal con­tract pro­pos­al.  Con­tract Approved for New Inte­grat­ed Med­ical Cen­ter for San Juan Coun­ty Hos­pi­tal District

“From the begin­ning, this project has been shaped by the input and needs of those who live and work in our com­mu­ni­ty,” said Lenore Bayuk, chair­per­son of the Hos­pi­tal Dis­trict Board of Com­mis­sion­ers.  “We were for­tu­nate to iden­ti­fy a high-qual­i­ty health­care part­ner in Peace­Health. Their com­mit­ment to serv­ing the long-term health­care needs of this com­mu­ni­ty, from day one, has nev­er wavered.”

As part of the 50-year con­tract, Peace­Health will build, own and oper­ate the new Inte­grat­ed Med­ical Cen­ter in Fri­day Har­bor, which will pro­mote heal­ing and well care, as well as pro­vide an expand­ed range of on-Island health­care ser­vices in a high-qual­i­ty, inti­mate envi­ron­ment. Physi­cians and oth­er health­care providers will be able to care for Island res­i­dents and vis­i­tors with new, state-of-the-art med­ical, diag­nos­tic and imag­ing ser­vices, a 24-hour emer­gency room and a ful­ly inte­grat­ed, elec­tron­ic med­ical record. The new med­ical cen­ter and hos­pi­tal will serve patients all under one roof and is sched­uled to open in the sum­mer of 2012. The Hos­pi­tal Dis­trict will con­tin­ue to oper­ate Inter Island Med­ical Cen­ter until the new facil­i­ty is opened.

Under the terms of the approved rela­tion­ship and con­tract, local phil­an­thropy will pro­vide $10 mil­lion toward con­struc­tion costs of the new med­ical cen­ter and hos­pi­tal. Peace­Health will fund the remain­ing $20 mil­lion for pur­chase of the land, facil­i­ty  con­struc­tion and equip­ment.  Peace­Health will be the own­er of the prop­er­ty and facil­i­ties, and will have full respon­si­bil­i­ty for the deliv­ery of ongo­ing patient care, staffing and oper­a­tions. The Hos­pi­tal Dis­trict will sub­si­dize Peace­Health to pro­vide con­tract­ed ser­vices with­out increas­ing the exist­ing Hos­pi­tal Dis­trict tax levy sup­port­ing the IIMC, either now or after the levy lift expires in 2015.

Cur­rent­ly, Inter Island Med­ical Cen­ter, locat­ed in Fri­day Har­bor, offers a fam­i­ly prac­tice and inter­nal med­i­cine clin­ic, 24/7 emer­gency ser­vices, and some extend­ed diag­nos­tic equip­ment and ser­vices, but patients need­ing addi­tion­al diag­nos­tic test­ing, pro­ce­dures,  and inpa­tient care must trav­el off-Island. As the Island pop­u­la­tion has more than dou­bled since the IIMC was built 35 years ago, there is lim­it­ed space for patient care and clin­ic oper­a­tions and no addi­tion­al space for upgrad­ing, mod­ern­iz­ing or adding need­ed services.

The new Inte­grat­ed Med­ical Cen­ter will increase the num­ber of physi­cians serv­ing the  District’s res­i­dents and will near­ly dou­ble the num­ber of oth­er health­care professionals
serv­ing the Island com­mu­ni­ty. The Crit­i­cal Access Hos­pi­tal com­po­nent of the new
Inte­grat­ed Med­ical Cen­ter will require Cer­tifi­cate of Need and licens­ing approval from
the State of Washington.

“Everyone’s goal and com­mit­ment has been to build upon the lega­cy of ser­vice pro­vid­ed by the Inter Island Med­ical Cen­ter and to serve the San Juan com­mu­ni­ty with expand­ed access and high-qual­i­ty ser­vices with­out requir­ing an increase in Hos­pi­tal Dis­trict tax­es,” said Peter Adler, PeaceHealth’s senior vice pres­i­dent for Strat­e­gy, Inno­va­tion and Devel­op­ment.  “The new­ly estab­lished rela­tion­ship between Peace­Health and the Hos­pi­tal Dis­trict is ground­ed in a shared vision for sus­tain­able, acces­si­ble and patient-cen­tered ser­vices that will meet the long-term needs of the community.”

“This part­ner­ship is a sig­nif­i­cant step for­ward in main­tain­ing and enhanc­ing the qual­i­ty of life for the res­i­dents of the Hos­pi­tal Dis­trict and San Juan Coun­ty,” Bayuk said. “We’re excit­ed to have this project mov­ing for­ward in part­ner­ship with PeaceHealth.”

San Juan Coun­ty Pub­lic Hos­pi­tal Dis­trict #1 (SJCPHD#1) is the tax-sup­port­ed agency
man­dat­ed by Wash­ing­ton State law to pro­vide health­care ser­vices and facil­i­ties for res­i­dents and vis­i­tors of the Hos­pi­tal Dis­trict. The Hos­pi­tal Dis­trict pro­vides clin­ic-based med­ical ser­vices at the Inter Island Med­ical Cen­ter in Fri­day Har­bor. It also oper­ates San Juan Island EMS which pro­vides emer­gency med­ical ser­vices, crit­i­cal care trans­port, and injury and acci­dent pre­ven­tion pro­grams. SJCPHD#1 is com­prised of San Juan Island, Town of Fri­day Har­bor, Brown Island, Stu­art Island, Johns Island, Spei­den Island, Pearl Island and Hen­ry Island in San Juan Coun­ty, Wash­ing­ton. For more infor­ma­tion on the IMC project, vis­it www.sjcommunityhospital.org.

Peace­Health is a Belle­vue, WA-based not-for-prof­it health­care sys­tem serv­ing multiple
rur­al and urban com­mu­ni­ties in Wash­ing­ton, Ore­gon and Alas­ka. Spon­sored by the
Sis­ters of St. Joseph of Peace, Peace­Health has pro­vid­ed excep­tion­al med­i­cine and
com­pas­sion­ate care to North­west com­mu­ni­ties for more than a cen­tu­ry, including
serv­ing the needs of small and remote com­mu­ni­ties through the oper­a­tion of three
suc­cess­ful Crit­i­cal Access Hos­pi­tals. Peace­Health annu­al­ly receives nation­al recognition
for inno­va­tions in patient-cen­tered care, patient safe­ty and health­care technology.
Research pub­lished in the June 2008 edi­tion of the Joint Com­mis­sion Jour­nal on Qual­i­ty  and Patient Safe­ty ranked Peace­Health as one of the top five qual­i­ty of care health­care  sys­tems in the coun­try, and the lead­ing sys­tem in the West. Peace­Health is fre­quent­ly named as one of the region’s best employ­ers. For more infor­ma­tion, visit
www.peacehealth.org.

Jesse Winchester

Jan from the Com­mu­ni­ty The­atre reports:

If you liked TOM RUSH when he per­formed here last Octo­ber, you’ll like Jesse! Just ask our own island music enthu­si­ast, Kirk Fuhrmeister—guitarist and own­er of Isle Be Jam­min’ on Argyle Street. Kirk plays some of Jesse’s songs when he per­forms and is very excit­ed to see Jesse live in Fri­day Har­bor. Kirk says Jesse has a way of writ­ing “sto­ry songs” that often por­tray the bal­anc­ing acts of life, like his “Noth­ing but the Breeze: Life is much too short for some folks. For oth­er folks it just drags on….” Jesse was one of the most pro­lif­ic singer/songwriters of the ‘60s and ‘70s. His songs have been record­ed by such artists as Elvis Costel­lo, Emi­ly Lou Har­ris and Bon­nie Raitt. He has sung and played with the likes of Todd Rund­gren, Tom Rush and Wynon­na Judd. Peo­ple mag­a­zine com­pared his voice and style to James Taylor.

Jesse Winchester

Jan from the Com­mu­ni­ty The­atre reports:

If you liked TOM RUSH when he per­formed here last Octo­ber, you’ll like Jesse! Just ask our own island music enthu­si­ast, Kirk Fuhrmeister—guitarist and own­er of Isle Be Jam­min’ on Argyle Street. Kirk plays some of Jesse’s songs when he per­forms and is very excit­ed to see Jesse live in Fri­day Har­bor. Kirk says Jesse has a way of writ­ing “sto­ry songs” that often por­tray the bal­anc­ing acts of life, like his “Noth­ing but the Breeze: Life is much too short for some folks. For oth­er folks it just drags on….” Jesse was one of the most pro­lif­ic singer/songwriters of the ‘60s and ‘70s. His songs have been record­ed by such artists as Elvis Costel­lo, Emi­ly Lou Har­ris and Bon­nie Raitt. He has sung and played with the likes of Todd Rund­gren, Tom Rush and Wynon­na Judd. Peo­ple mag­a­zine com­pared his voice and style to James Taylor.

It was a lit­tle sur­pris­ing to see FHHS teach­ers Ruthie Paull, Marc Ver­miere, and Susie Hale on the fer­ry Tues­day (like, who is there left to teach the kids?!?) but it was nice to find out why they’re going.…

Ser­vice learn­ing is becom­ing more & more used by schools around the USA and Cana­da — learn­ing things on the job & in ser­vice of com­mu­ni­ty. We are head­ed that direc­tion — and hav­ing three skilled instruc­tors at a con­fer­ence is a nec­es­sary part of our school dis­trict mov­ing ahead. Way cool for our school.

Kerri anchored a strong defensive effort for the defending champions.

Last night at Coupeville, the Fri­day Har­bor Wolver­ines beat the Wolves 13–3 in their sea­son open­er. Led by pitch­er Ker­ri Goff, last year’s league champs showed pow­er at the plate and strong defense. Head coach Kevin Carl­ton said he was “thrilled” by the girls’ strong start, and said the team is look­ing for­ward to their home games Fri­day and Sat­ur­day (dou­ble­head­er) this weekend.

Liam on the hunt....

Cathy Cole told me they tried:

This week­end, Liam con­struct­ed a Lep­rechaun Trap for his 2nd grade class. He and his class­mates put the traps out yes­ter­day in hopes that they would catch them­selves some lucky lep­rechauns on St. Patrick­’s Day. In the past, the only evi­dence in Ms. Evan’s class­room were lit­tle lep­rechaun foot­prints on the spe­cial day. Liam hopes that a lep­rechaun will climb the lad­der onto the top of the hat to get the gold and will fall through the top into the pile of cot­ton inside. His sign, “Failte” is Gael­ic for “Wel­come.” Between the sign, the rain­bow and the gold, we think there is enough to attract a lucky leprechaun.

Mean­while, FHES sec­ond grade teacher Shan­non Evans report­ed how it went in class yesterday:

Love it!

There was ter­rif­ic evi­dence of lep­rechaun activ­i­ty. Our class­room was a
dis­as­ter with desks mis­placed, traps “tripped” (they were too smart to
get caught, unfor­tu­nate­ly), and it was clear they exit­ed through the
win­dow. The stu­dents’ desks were out in the hall, and my desk was even
messed up with their lit­tle green foot­prints on the kids’ report cards!
They also swiped my rock­ing chair, and I just found it down the hall.

What a mess, and what fun!

Edu­ca­tion is not the fill­ing of a pail, but the light­ing of a fire.
William But­ler Yeats 

Kim on the boat yesterday afternoon.

Kim (in pho­to) and Jason were on their way to deliv­er yes­ter­day… Danielle & Eric were on the boat last week (they say they will let us know how things go), and Rachel & Bri­an are still on sched­ule for next week.

I’ll keep you post­ed how every­thing comes out.

Defender Mathew Skeels stops another offensive thrust by Coupeville.

Fri­day Har­bor scored a cou­ple of min­utes into the sec­ond half (Conor Lan­phere fin­ished a Cameron Bying­ton cross to the right side) to offer a sign of things to come as the Wolver­ines work to pull it togeth­er tomor­row when Merid­i­an comes vis­it­ing. Despite the score, our guys were still work­ing hard (that’s sopho­more defend­er Math­ew Skeels pro­tect­ing the ball) late in the game, still look­ing to score one last goal.

Deb Nolan has more:

The sale is Sat­ur­day, March 21, 2009!

Did you get too many Christ­mas gifts? That dia­mond ring no longer fits? Don’t know what to do with all the stuff from spring clean­ing? Bring us your stuff!!

Donate all your unwant­ed ‘trea­sures’ to the Fri­day Har­bor High School PTSA Project Grad­u­a­tion Rum­mage Sale. We need qual­i­ty dona­tions of usable stuff!

Drop offs are sched­uled between 3 – 7pm Fri­day, March 20th at the Fri­day Har­bor High School Com­mons.  Call 378‑2286 before Fri­day if you would like us to pick up your stuff.  Sor­ry but we are unable to take office machines, com­put­ers, base board heaters, con­sole TVs, elec­tric blan­kets, ency­clo­pe­dias, flu­o­res­cent lights or fix­tures, gar­ment or golf bags, home­made VHS movies, kerosene heater, large appli­ances or exer­cise equip­ment, old paint, sinks, toi­lets, sofa beds or venet­ian blinds.

Our Rum­mage SALE will be held on Sat­ur­day March 21, 2009 at the FHHS Com­mons from 9 am to 1 pm to raise mon­ey for Project Grad­u­a­tion which is a drug/al­co­hol-free, safe, fun, all-night cel­e­bra­tion for the grad­u­at­ing seniors of Fri­day Har­bor High School. The par­ty pro­vides a fun night for the grad­u­ates to have a last big par­ty togeth­er as a class in a safe, secure, alco­hol-free and drug-free envi­ron­ment.  Your sup­port is great­ly appreciated!

I heard from a friend at the school dis­trict that our friend Jeff passed away last week.….here’s more from that note:

As you prob­a­bly know, Jeff Copeland died unex­pect­ed­ly on March 4th.  As a Mas­ter Mechan­ic, Jeff kept our busses on the road for 25 years. He leaves behind his wife, Kay Cousins, and his four grown sons, Jason Copeland, Jon Copeland, Rooben Eby and Roc­cay LaRock who are all Fri­day Har­bor High School alum­ni.  There was a memo­r­i­al gath­er­ing at South Beach last week­end to scat­ter his ashes.

Over on Orcas, Joe Gay­dos is one of the peo­ple I lis­ten to, when it comes to sort­ing out pri­or­i­ties relat­ed to sav­ing our ecosys­tem… here are his thoughts on one way to make things better:

Increased US — Cana­di­an coop­er­a­tion is among oth­er basic prin­ci­ples that need to be fol­lowed to save Puget Sound.

A new research paper, just pub­lished in the inter­na­tion­al jour­nal Eco­Health, finds that a major prin­ci­ple for restor­ing ecosys­tems is lack­ing in efforts to restore the health of Puget Sound.

“Efforts to save Puget Sound must revolve around a work­ing prin­ci­ple that ecosys­tems do not rec­og­nize polit­i­cal bor­ders. To save Puget Sound, the U.S. and Cana­da must work togeth­er much more close­ly than is cur­rent­ly prac­ticed,” said Joe Gay­dos, the study’s lead author. Gay­dos is Chief Sci­en­tist and Region­al Direc­tor of the SeaD­oc Soci­ety, a non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion that funds sci­ence to improve the health of the Sal­ish Sea. The Sal­ish Sea is a name often used for the U.S./Canadian inland sea that includes Washington’s Puget Sound and British Columbia’s Geor­gia Strait.

“While there is some coor­di­na­tion between U.S. and Cana­di­an ini­tia­tives to heal the Sal­ish Sea, it is not near­ly enough.  The inter­na­tion­al polit­i­cal bound­ary is invis­i­ble to marine fish and wildlife, includ­ing species list­ed as threat­ened or endan­gered” Gay­dos said. “Oceano­graph­ic process­es, such as fresh­wa­ter from rivers and streams, and cur­rents exchange plank­ton, sed­i­ments, and nutri­ents through­out the entire ecosys­tem, not just Puget Sound.”  Gay­dos not­ed that Canada’s Fras­er Riv­er is Puget Sound’s largest source of fresh water.

“Our salmon and our whales are your salmon and your whales,” added Jane Wat­son, Marine Ecol­o­gist at Van­cou­ver Island Uni­ver­si­ty and one of the SeaD­oc Society’s Sci­ence Advi­sors. “We can­not change the nature or bound­aries of the ecosys­tem but with improved coop­er­a­tion and bilat­er­al com­mit­ment, we can joint­ly recov­er imper­iled species and clean up the water.”

Mil­lions of dol­lars have been spent on restor­ing places like the Chesa­peake Bay and the Ever­glades, but the suc­cess has been lim­it­ed and there is not a suc­cess­ful mod­el to fol­low. In addi­tion to call­ing for coor­di­nat­ed ini­tia­tives at the ecosys­tem lev­el, the paper calls out nine oth­er crit­i­cal prin­ci­ples that need to be fol­lowed to design a healthy Puget Sound and Sal­ish Sea. These include: account­ing for con­nec­tiv­i­ty in the ecosys­tem, bet­ter under­stand­ing the food web, avoid­ing habi­tat frag­men­ta­tion, respect­ing the integri­ty of the sys­tem, tak­ing actions that sup­port resilience, appre­ci­at­ing the eco­nom­ic val­ue of a healthy ecosys­tem, mon­i­tor­ing wildlife health, plan­ning for extreme events and shar­ing our knowl­edge about the ecosys­tem with every­one in the region.

A copy of the man­u­script is avail­able at www.seadocsociety.org. The SeaD­oc Soci­ety works to ensure the health of marine wildlife and their ecosys­tems through sci­ence and edu­ca­tion. A pro­gram of the Wildlife Health Cen­ter at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Davis (UC Davis), the SeaD­oc Soci­ety has a region­al focus on improv­ing the health of the Sal­ish Sea.