March 11th, 2010, by Margie Doyle
Connie Zehner
On Sunday, January 24, Connie Zehner took her last breaths on this planet, succumbing to pulmonary fibrosis, a lung condition of unknown cause that has no known treatment.
Born in 1948 in Munich, Bavaria, Cornelia Gabriela Lipp was always a bit of a rebel. She preferred reading and the outdoors to attending teas and learning to be a “lady,” as her family felt was appropriate. A love of books came naturally, owing to her father’s publishing business; Connie never lost her fascination with that world. Her professional resume reflects her experience in the publishing world, from copyediting to layout to writing, even authoring a German-language cookbook of traditional recipes (with a cup of humor) and several anthologies.
She came to the U.S. in 1982 to open the American offices of a German publishing house, and met Jan Zehner in the course of her work in Washington, D.C. They were married in March of 1984, and spent four years in Zambia with the Foreign Service. There, Connie got involved in helping local artists market their crafts. Then followed three years in Vienna before returning to the States and life on Orcas Island. Over the years on Orcas, Connie volunteered in a number of venues, in recent years at the Healing Arts Center in Eastsound. She supported many people with her wide knowledge about alternative medicine, which she loved to research.
When Connie and Jan parted in 2005, it was with mutual respect and affection.
From her earliest days, Connie was a strong advocate of nature. She loved being outdoors, hiking, skiing, gardening, swimming, or just sitting in the sun. She loved birds, shoes, romantic old Italian movies, a good adventure, chocolate, espresso, good food with good wine, laughing, dancing, and helping others. She was unfailingly generous to causes and people she loved.
To the end, Connie maintained her characteristic humor and her infallible caring for others. She is much missed in our community, and in the community of spirit that she inhabited so brilliantly.
Connie is survived by her brother Dieter, her niece Sabina, and her nephew Fabian, of Munich, Germany.
A Memorial Dance Party will be held for the Friends of Connie Zehner on Friday, March 12 at the Odd Fellows Hall at 7 p.m. Outrageous Dress is encouraged, and guests are welcome to bring dessert to share.
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March 3rd, 2010, by Margie Doyle
Katie Gray returns to Orcas Island to perform with Kurt Baumann at Doe Bay Resort this Friday, March 5th at 7 p.m.
Gray last performed on Orcas in 2008. Since then she traveled to Los Angeles and met up with musician Kurt Baumann. Gray says, “We’ve been hopping between LA, Colorado, Mexico, England, Germany, Morocco, Texas and now Orcas… writing, recording, co-producing and performing. Our home is Austin, Texas, but you never know with us.. we like spontaneity!
“We’re coming up to Orcas to support the passing of my dear, dear friend Connie Zehner. We figured as long as we’re there, we might as well play some music, and Doe Bay appears to be the spot these days. Our set is a harmonious fusion of our individual songs and collaborated ones.
“It’s mellow and moody music.. slightly folky.. super chill. His solo project is called ‘The Burned’. It has airplay on radio stations across the country and our songs have gotten featured on FOX, HBO, and ABC.
“We’re stoked to come share a cozy and sweet evening with the family there on Orcas!!
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February 19th, 2010, by Margie Doyle
Dr. David Shinstrom, Nominee for the Jefferson Public Service Award.
Contributed by Karen Key Speck
Congratulations to Orcas Island family physician Dr. David Shinstrom who has been nominated for the 2010 Washington State Jefferson Awards for Public Service.
Initiated in 1972 to create a “Nobel Prize” for public service, Seattle’s City Club Jefferson Awards honor ordinary citizens who do extraordinary things for others. Five volunteers from Washington State will receive the State Jefferson Award for their outstanding volunteerism. The winners will be judged by a panel of community leaders and their stories will be told on King5 TV’s Evening Magazine the week of April 5-9.
One winner will represent our state in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Shinstrom has held fast to the beliefs of the “old time country doctor” which include care for all without concern for ability to pay. He makes house calls, participates in mercy flights to take patients for mainland treatments and hospitalization and follows up with direct phone calls to patients and families after hours and when not on call. The doctor mentors medical students and provides a scholarship for local deserving medical students pursuing the field of medicine. Additionally, Shinstrom has waived his fees numerous times over the last few years to assure care for all is available and that his staff is paid.
He combines his love of flight with community service. Dr. Shinstrom is President of Chapter #937 of the Experimental Aircraft Association and he is a volunteer for the Young Eagles and Old Buzzards Programs. His outreach extends beyond the shores of Orcas for he has provided medical care to Nepali citizens in a remote mountain village clinic in the Everest Region of Nepal.
The “Apple A Day” column in the local paper and first aid, bottled water and blood pressure checks at the annual Library Fair are other ways in which Dr. Shinstrom reaches out to our community. He has also received Group Health Cooperative’s Award of Excellence, and Regence Blue Shield’s Clinician Performance Award.
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February 11th, 2010, by Margie Doyle
Jennifer Anne Travers Leh
Jennifer Travers was born in North Carolina on April 20th 1951. Her parents, William J. Travers Jr. and Barbara Cleary Travers were Bostonians living at Camp Lejeune during his Marine Corps Service. The family returned to Boston and Jennifer was educated by the Ursuline Sisters at Mount Alverna Academy in Newton. She later attended Boston State College. She left school to make her first cross-country trip on the back of her friend’s motorcycle, making many stops and working as a waitress along the way. She liked to reminisce about her time spent in the Grand Canyon, where she worked as a server at the lodge and befriended a diverse group of adventurers like herself who experimented with the alternate lifestyles and spiritual quests rampant at that time. She later said this journey helped her understand her life and imbued her with the determination to mine its diverse and multi-layered strata.
She settled on Orcas Island in the mid 1970’s and took work as a waitress at Rosario Resort, it was on Orcas that she found the community that would be a touchstone for life. She played a key role in the opening of Orcas’ most famous restaurant, Christina’s and worked there off and on for many years. She became an expert in the area of food and wine, eventually working as a wine consultant. She was a traveler and had a special connection with Latin culture, spending extended periods of time in Puerto Rico, Cuba, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, and finally Panama.
She traveled with her pets, most recently returning from Central America with her four Pomeranians and a cat. On San Juan Island she was the creator of the 4-H dog program for kids. She also enjoyed the poetry workshops she headed at the school in Friday Harbor. She was a voracious reader and had a love for the fine arts and supported the crafts as well, with a love for pottery, handmade jewelry, and textiles. In the early eighties Jennifer was the vocalist for “Three Day Weekend”, the band she formed with friends to play the jazzy, bluesy, swing she loved.
In 1999 she married Ted Lehn, a designer, in Friday Harbor, Washington. With her husband she created an elaborate garden at their home, finding that the world of plant cultivation provided wonderful experiences in delayed gratification, surprise, wonder, disappointment and astonishment. In 2008 she moved with her husband to Panama when he became involved in a design Project. She continued her work with animals, caring for injured and orphaned animals at the facility in Boquete. Her favorites included a two toed sloth and a jaguar she raised from infancy and was able to return to the wild.
Jennifer died on February 4th at Virginia Mason in Seattle, Washington, where she received the finest and most considerate care from her team headed by Dr. Anthony Grabino. Jennifer was preceded in death by her husband Ted in Boquete, Panama on January 3rd of this year. Two of her brothers, Michael and Kevin also predeceased her. She is survived by her brothers Bill of Johnston, RI and Warren or Worcester MA. and sisters Celeste Travers Mishenko of Worcester MA, and Christine Travers Hingman, MA. She is also survived by her step children, Tess, Zecca, and Javas Lehn. Jennifer leaves behind her cat Uma, and her four dogs, Tulip, Tin Tin, Gracie and Griffin. Memorials may be made to the Animal Protection Society, Eastsound, WA 98245, or Wolf Hollow Animal Rehabilitation on San Juan Island. A celebratory memorial will be held for Jennifer at the Westsound Community Hall on Orcas Island in Washington State on Saturday February 20, 2010 at 12:30 P.M.
Submitted by Jennifer’s family
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February 11th, 2010, by Margie Doyle
Steve Diepenbrock
Orcas Islanders Steve Diepenbrock and his son Taylor left yesterday on a 2-week “reconnaissance trip” to Haiti to help with the setup of Rosedanie Cadet’s farm production project in Limbé, Haiti.
Steve and Taylor plan to clear the site , help make a base camp for future trips and build relationships with the townspeople. They bring with them some tools, a generator, and first aid and other supplies.
Steve Diepenbrock says, “I’m thrilled to to have the opportunity to let the people of Haiti know that so many people are interested in helping them.
“There are so many unknowns, but it’s such an adventure. I’ve been feeling the need to do something beyond the island to reach out. Since the Haitian earthquake, we all feel so powerless to do something.”
Plus, Steve and his wife Mimi Anderson, who own Morning Star Farm, welcome the opportunity the trip presents their son Taylor, an Orcas High School Senior, who had already chosen Haiti as the subject of his Senior Project. He has already written his project paper, and now will be able to fulfill the service aspect of his state-required graduation project. Taylor plans to document the trip by video camera as part of the project.
Steve and Mimi have long dreamed of building a cross-cultural farming project; Steve says this father-son experience may well be the first step in a larger experience, that he feels was set in motion “quite awhile ago.”
Taylor Diepenbrock
Steve and Taylor will travel to Haiti via flights to New York City and Santiago in the Dominican Republic. A bus trip to Haiti on the other side of the island of Hispaniola will complete their travels to Limbe. They hope to meet up with Rosedanie Cadet on Feb. 12.
“Hopefully I’ll have some tangible skills to offer from Orcas to Haiti. It’s so great to have an immediate connection,” says Steve. We’ll do it step-by-step.” They are taking soccer balls, frisbees and games to play with the local kids, and though neither of the Diepenbrocks speak French or Creole, with sign language they expect to “get along fine.”
Cadet’s work can be followed on the website, noramise.org. Donations to the Noramise Project can be made through the organization answeredprayers2.org. (Make sure to specify that you would like your donation to go to the Rosedanie Cadet Noramise Project). The Kitchen in Eastsound continues to accept donations.
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February 8th, 2010, by Margie Doyle
Two Masterworks of English Literature will be presented by Richard Fadem in an 8 -week class beginning Wednesday, February 24, from 10:00 to 12:30 at the Parish Hall.
A fee of $20 will be collected at the first class. All are welcome!
The class will begin with the novel Mansfield Park by Jane Austen followed by Anthony Trollope’s novel, The Way We Live Now. Books will be available at Darvill’s.
The first three classes will focus on Jane Austen’s most complex and for some her finest novel, Mansfield Park (1814), in which she abandons the two and a half inch piece of ivory on which she claimed to etch her other works for a broader canvas. The novel is one of the great treatments in 19th-century fiction of the family, with the hazards of courtship, marriage, and child-rearing within a quintessential estate of the landed gentry. Inevitably the novel bears some relation to Austen’s disapproval of the Regency’s and especially the Prince Regent’s dissolute ways.
The next five weeks will be spent with Anthony Trollope’s The Way We Live Now (1875), perhaps his greatest novel out of a staggering number and one which tells a story of financial chicanery, self-indulgence, and greed, both cunning and stupid, extending into the U.S., that may sound faintly familiar.
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February 6th, 2010, by Margie Doyle
Save the bees! Spring is just around the corner and bees are already starting their work on warm afternoons. But bees, both wild and domestic, native and non-native, are threatened!
Evidence continues to accumulate that radiation from wireless devices is the primary cause of colony collapse disorder (CCD) and the disappearance of wild bees. The radiation seems to affect the bee’s ability to navigate. Do you like to eat? Most of our food crops (especially in SJC) must be pollinated by bees to produce fruit, vegetables, or most important, seed. When enough bees disappear, so will people.
What can you do? It’s simple! Turn off wireless devices during hours of daylight when the temperature is above 50 degrees F (10 degrees C) and tell visitors and tourists to do the same.
Steve Ludwig, Lopez Island
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February 6th, 2010, by Margie Doyle
"Paper Fish," a recent work by Joe Floren, one of many on display at the Senior Center. Opening Reception on Thursday, Feb. 11
“In an Abstract State of Mind,” a mixed exhibit of paintings and digital photographs by island artist Joe Floren, will be featured in the Lundeen gallery at Orcas Senior Center throughout February.
A reception for the artist will be held Thursday, February 11, from 4 to 6:30 p. m.
Floren, whose main recent emphasis is abstract photography, will include in the show several large acrylic paintings, also heavily abstract in approach.
This is his first one-man show on Orcas since 2007. His works have been shown in one-man and group exhibits in galleries and museums in Portland, Tacoma, Yakima and Seattle, and are part of private and corporate art collections throughout the Northwest.
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January 27th, 2010, by Margie Doyle
Rosedanie Cadet
Rosedanie Cadet was born in Haiti, the Land of Mountains. She has traveled the world, from the United State to Japan. After three years on Orcas Island, she decided last December to return to Haiti, to give back. She says she found her life’s purpose, “the job I was waiting for, for a long time,” in starting a sustainable farming project for the people of her hometown, Limbé, where her grandmother still lives.
Two weeks ago, with hundreds of thousands of Haitians killed in the earthquake and millions rendered homeless, Rosedanie’s calling gained a greater urgency. She will be leaving Orcas Island this week to return to Haiti and set up her project, helping people returning from the ruined capital city of Port-au-Prince, to set up a new life for themselves as farmers. She has learned that all her family members, located in Haiti, are safe and have not experienced a lot of damage, and that the roads surrounding Limbé are fine for travel. “Many people are trying to get back home. I imagine when I arrive there’ll be an influx of returnees from the city.”
But her mission did not originate with the earthquake. Rosedanie has been planning for some time to build a plant to store and transport the produce grown in Limbé, near the north coast of Haiti. She will model her project on a similar venture undertaken in Benin, in West Africa by Songhai, a non-governmental organization whose mission is “to foster a mode of development based on a thoroughly scientific approach to agriculture and small-scale industry, combined with honesty, integrity, and a highly developed sense of community.”
Rosedanie says, “It seems only right that those of us who were able to leave should return and rebuild… with this catastrophe it becomes even more important. I need to do this, not only for my people, but for me. It’s happening now because the need is more immediate, and also because Haiti is getting so much media attention because of the earthquake.”
After working on Orcas for three years (at The Kitchen for the last two years), she was planning last fall on a trip to Japan. But she started reading a book about micro-lending, and realized that it was time to go home with her project in mind. And so, last December, for the first time in 36 years, she returned to Haiti as a translator for the group “Answered Prayers.” A recognized charitable organization, they will assist Rosedanie by serving as a clearinghouse for donations. Read more
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January 22nd, 2010, by Margie Doyle
Friday, January 22
Special meeting to discuss a cellular network in San Juan County, in Friday Harbor.12:15 to 1:45 p.m. at Islanders Bank in Friday Harbor.
Saturday, January 23
Orcas Schools Open House and Facilities Tour conducted by School Board members, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. continuously. Refreshments and information in the School Library. Sponsored by the YES! for Schools Committee.
Orcas Idol Auditions — Two shows at the Grange! Orcas Idol Juniors at 3 p.m. Tickets $5. Orcas Idol Auditions for the Feb. 6 Finale at 7:30, Tickets $10.
Sunday, January 24
Memorial Services for RoseAnn Dolan, Orcas Center at 2 p.m.
Open House in Memory of Paula Redpath Malakowski, 2 to 5 p.m. at the residence at Fox Cove Court in Bartwood Estates.
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