West Seattle

Obie Wilkerson got his dog Bo, who is a Newfoundland, with the help of his girlfriend who found the dog online a little over a year ago.

Bo has had a big impact on Obie's life and Bo is still growing. "He tackles me, he pulls me and he's just a wonderful dog. He's always curious," Obie said.

"When I come home he jumps on me with excitement. I have to prepare myself," by going into a stance, Obie explained.

At 175 pounds, Bo surprisingly "doesn't eat much." He will grow to 190 according to Obie.

Because of skin problems caused by fleas, Bo gets a non-grain dog food and treats from Petco. Bo enjoys beef knee bones too.

Obie lives with Julie Crabtree who operates a small daycare facility in their home.

Emma Epps has been with her pure bred Collie companion Lacey for 16 years. Lacey came from a veterinarian, "out in the country but I don't remember the name of the town," said Epps, " I was 11 years old.

At her age Lacey isn't as active as she used to be and, "she sleeps pretty much all the time. I don't have a lot of expectations of her."

But in her younger years, Lacey was fond (and still is a bit) of getting under things like furniture and at one point did have quite an adventure.

"We were at a friend's place who is a dog groomer but she also boards dogs for people, and she lives near Mt. Vernon. We were going to be out of town and couldn't take Lacey with us. So we came back and the next morning my Mom wakes me up and says, 'I'm sorry honey but Lacey has run away.' I knew she would come back eventually but she was gone for three days. Just after she was lost in the countryside I had a craving for Chinese food (which I don't usually like). My mom and I went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. My fortune cookie: "You will find what you have lost."

Friday, Jan. 18
Boys basketball
Rainier Beach 84, Chief Sealth 42
Rainier Beach doubled the Chief Sealth score in Friday's game played at Rainier Beach.

Girls basketball
Chief Sealth 57, Rainier Beach 40
On the girls side Chief Sealth easily handled the host Rainier Beach team Friday.
Lindbergh 51, Evergreen 44
Evergreen was topped by the Eagles in an overtime game this past Friday.

Swimming
Chief Sealth
The Seahawks' girls team emerged with a 62-24 victory over Eastside Catholic Friday, but absorbed a 58-36 loss when compared to Nathan Hale.
For the boys, Chief Sealth lost by a 57-34 score to Nathan Hale and by a 69-24 margin to Eastside Catholic.

Larry Rocz (pronounced "ross" and his wife Jocelia (just newly arrived from Brazil five months ago), got their dog Callie in Richland, Washington. "We went online and looked and looked and looked and prices were crazy," said Rocz. They were looking for Bichon-Frisee and found Callie who is a mix of Bichon and Shih tzu.

She's only one year old.

They bought it from a private owner, not a breeder. "He had gotten it for his daughter, but his daughter went to college and did not have time to take care of her."

They feed her a dry food diet of standard dog food but her treats are special. "Bone," said Rocz, "a steak bone. More than anything in the world. You give her a steak bone and she will work on it for a month. She loves it."

Callie's nickname is Houdini the couple said. "When we leave her in the house I've got to lock the cat door because she will go out. There was a window we had open that was ten feet up, and I forgot to close it. She knew it was open and she went out of it, jumped down ten feet. She will go no matter what. She goes out looking for children to play with." said Rocz.

Q13 Fox News (KCPQ-TV) and Robinson Newspapers have formed a news partnership. The agreement will mean that stories in the coverage areas for Robinson Newspapers which include Ballard, West Seattle, White Center, Burien, SeaTac, and Des Moines will see shared coverage and credit between the two organizations.

The agreement will mean faster response for breaking news in some cases for Q13Fox News since the Robinson Newspapers staff will often be closer to the scene of an event. It will mean greater brand awareness for Robinson newspapers through on air credit for stories provided to Q13 Fox News.

The Robinson Newspapers include the Ballard News-Tribune, the West Seattle Herald/White Center News, the Highline Times/Des Moines News/SeaTac News.
KCPQ, channel 13, is the Fox television affiliate licensed to Tacoma, Washington serving the Seattle/Tacoma television market, owned by the Tribune Company.

The 7 acre, $6.1 million addition to the Southwest Athletic Complex at 8420 30th Ave. s.w. is now complete and in a walk through on Jan. 6 the former location of Denny International Junior High School, representatives for the builders, architects, and Seattle Public Schools explained the work that was done to remake the site.

The site now includes a new softball diamond, with tall fences, six tennis courts, a large field/play area (not yet open), playground equipment at the corner of 30th Ave. s.w. and Cloverdale Street, plus walkways, fences, cement seat walls, bike racks and a lot of water management features.

CLICK THE PHOTO ABOVE TO SEE MORE

On the walkthrough were Dana Amore of Bassetti Architects who handled the project design, Tim Waters and River Steenson of BN Builders, General Contractor for the project, and Mike Skutack, Capital Projects Supervisor for Seattle Public Schools.

Ben Shimizu got his dog Annie, who is a pit bull and German Shepherd mix, 4 years ago "at a dog convention downtown. They had booths where dogs were competing in both agility and confirmation and behavioral training. She was for sale by this organization called Bullseye Pitbull Rescue. They had a number of dogs there and she was the product of a litter, she was six months old at the show. I already had two dogs and two cats at the time so I wasn't looking for another dog. She had this little bib on that said, 'Please adopt me' and the rest is history."

In the house now are a one year old cat named Shabu along with Annie. "They wrestle all the time. They love each other."

"I never saw the father but the papers say he was a German Shepherd. I met all of her siblings and she was the only one that was unlike them. They all looked like what you'd assume is a pit bull but she had much softer features. A lot of that tendency comes out when she's out in the woods in the mountains."

The West Seattle Junction Hometown Holiday schedule officially got underway with the tree lighting on Dec. 3 but when Santa comes to town, everyone knows that's when you really get things started.

The headquarters in front of Key Bank had some face painting going on for some of the Pathfinder school and they were busy providing information on shopping, the Holiday Raffle (participating merchants are giving away $3500 in merchandise) and neighborhood events.

Professional photographer Donna Ryan was shooting photos of Santa with families who were lined up on the sidewalk to get their Christmas wishes heard. Both she and Santa will be back next Sunday, Dec. 11 from 11 am to 3pm.

Next week the Mule Drawn Carriage rides begin in junction too.

Learn more about Hometown Holidays by visiting www.wsjunction.org

Stay on top of the holiday happenings in West Seattle by checking the West Seattle Herald Holiday Events Calendar.

By David Rosen and Patrick Robinson

The most spectacular Christmas lights in West Seattle, at least as far as animation, music and sheer amazement goes are back bigger, brighter and even more astounding than ever before. The West Seattle Herald brought you the story last year. Called the Helmstetler Family Christmas Spectacular it is a highly choreographed, musical and interactive display at at 3908 s.w. Charlestown Street.

The Herald got a sneak peek at this year's show with some remarkable lighting choreography to a jazzy version of We Three Kings by Go Fish (Watch the video to see and hear this one song preview). The big show gets underway at 7pm on Saturday Nov. 26 when a special member of the Seattle Sounders, Zach Scott will literally kick things into action.

CLICK THE PHOTO ABOVE TO SEE MORE

Mountain to Sound Outfitters is on track with it's expansion plans into the space next door to its location at 3602 s.w. Alaska Street. The 1800 square foot space directly to the east of them was occupied by Westside Auto Repair but Gary Putman closed the business in early June due to illness.

Now partners Greg Whittaker and Rob Stowell are adding on in several ways as the business grows to meet an increased demand for a local supplier of skis, boots, kayaks, skates, stand up paddle boards and all the accessories those sports require.

They've added an office space in a loft that will accommodate accounting, web development.

They will offer custom ski boot fitting in the new space, plus a large display from Thule (who is coming in to help set it up), plus some new lines including Hestra gloves, Scott gloves, goggles, poles and of course skis, Forefront skis from Colorado, Mervin with NAS skis and Gnu snowboards, plus more hats, goggles and gloves.