Bainbridge Conversation

Dear Friends,

Rachel is leaving the building for a week. I’m taking spring break to shop around for colleges for our BHS junior twins, clean house and make sure everything’s going OK in the life of my family’s monumentally spoiled cat, Stu.

I have a big Bainbridge scoop in Sunday’s paper; don’t miss it.

When I return, I plan on organizing a blog get-together. I’ve taken all of your suggestions to heart and I wish to incorporate them. I hope to entice my old friend Phillip Boucher to help lead us. The Sun’s Web editor, Lloyd Pritchett, my husband, will be on hand, along with others who can make your dreams and my dreams for this site come true.

Warmly,

Rachel

By Rachel Pritchett

Development may be grinding ahead on Bainbridge Island, but if a group of tree advocates has its way, drivers on Highway 305 won’t see much of it.

Under the Bainbridge Treeway project, local volunteers will join arborists Jim Trainer of Kitsap Trees and Olaf Ribeiro Sunday morning to plant 400 tree seedlings along part of the busy corridor that connects the Winslow ferry terminal to the Kitsap and Olympic peninsulas.

“We wanted that screen back; that was part of the charm of our highway,” said Ribeiro, who lives on Bainbridge Island.

Development projects and maintenance of trenches and utility-line clearances all have taken a toll on state rights of way along the highway, Trainer explained, pointing to a recent signal installation at Madison Avenue that cost quite a few trees.

The group, also expected to have representatives from the Association of Bainbridge Communities and local high-schoolers, will plant the 18- to 24-inch Douglas fir, Sitka spruce and Western red cedar seedlings along both sides of the highway from High School Road to Madison. It’s not as much work as it seems, according to Trainer. One cut into the earth — maybe two with the spruce — and heeling them in is all it takes.
The work should be finished in two hours.

“This is the first time that we’re going to do a major beautification project,” Ribeiro said.

The volunteers will be planting in 25- to 30-foot swaths 10 to 15 feet off the highway, placing firs in the higher, drier areas and the others down low where it’s moist, Trainer said. They’ll plant far enough off the road that the trees would still stand should the two-lane highway ever be widened, Ribeiro said.

Sunday’s work is the first of three phases that when completed in a year will feature young, growing trees for several miles along Highway 305 from Winslow to the Agate Pass Bridge. The 2-year-old seedlings were donated by Hood Canal Nursery. Trainer hopes to eventually add some legacy tree seedlings to the project, including those from the cedars made famous in David Guterson’s book “Snow Falling on Cedars.”
Both say the state Department of Transportation is on board with the project.

Trainer and company have a similar project along Highway 3 in Central and North Kitsap, where some already have been planted. He’s also done a project near the Warren Avenue Bridge in Bremerton, and hopes for another in Illahee.
Ribeiro has his eyes on future projects on Bainbridge.

“High School Road could really do with some more plantings,” he said. And so could Winslow Way, once the Winslow Tomorrow improvements are in place, he said.

Meanwhile, both men remained concerned about the century-old cedar “Witness Tree” at the planned Japanese-American internment memorial at Pritchard Park on Bainbridge Island. Winter storms eroded dirt away from underneath the tree, which is on the National Register of Historic Trees. While they had hoped to convince the city to shore up the area, they now hope to excavate the towering tree and move it upland with a crane. They’ll soon propose that to the city, Trainer said.

Meanwhile, volunteers are invited to join in Sunday’s planting. Show up at 8 a.m. at the Highway 305 McDonald’s at High School Road.

“It’s going to be a tremendous event,” said Trainer, who estimates he’s planted 10,000 trees on Bainbridge in the past decade.

By Rachel Pritchett

Bainbridge Island and Uganda are literally a world apart. But they have a common thread. People here and there both want to dig water wells in the improverished, war-torn rural villages of northern Uganda.

For several years, they have, through a highly unusual and remarkably successful Rotary Club of Bainbridge Island program.

About to board the plane for the long journey to the African nation are Bainbridge Rotarians Steve Bentley and Pete Cholometes, who will check how the 33 wells installed under the club’s Uganda Water Project are performing. They’ll also hobnob with the local movers and shakers to arrange for more. Some 95 wells are planned in all, according to Cholometes, a retired Air Force lifer. The men will return May 12.
In between will be lots of work in the hot, burning sun in villages in Uganda’s Kaberamaido District, north of Lake Victoria and south of Sudan.

Without wells, women and children must walk miles a day to lakes, where they risk disease if they stand on shore to dip their containers into the muddy water, or death if they wade out farther, where there are alligators and snakes. Adding to their wrenching plight have been AIDS and marauders from Sudan, who have overrun their villages, killing young and old.

“At nighttime, I’m not going to walk around lots,” Bentley said.

Massaging relationships with the locals will be just as important for the men as checking on the wells.

Bainbridge Rotarians go yearly to corruption-plagued Uganda, networking with people they can trust to keep the life-saving wells operating when they’re not there.
“This is all part of our process of truly building a complete solution,” Bentley said.

Some trusted locals are businessmen and village leaders — some even have the ear of Uganda’s leader, Yoweri Museveni.

The Bainbridge Rotarians receive support from higher levels of Rotary all the way up to Rotary International, along with support from other groups.

Once club members identify a site, they form a local water district whose members help oversee it. The actual drilling is done by a trusted Ugandan who often must penetrate hundreds of feet of nearly impermeable bedrock. It costs about $5,400 for each well, Bentley said.

It doesn’t take long after the well is running to see vast improvements in village life, both men said. Mothers no longer have to spend most of their time getting water. They can tend to their families and work at jobs. The children become healthier and more lively. Dozens — hundreds — work the pump handle every day.
“You’ve changed people’s lives,” Bentley said.

The club’s Uganda Water Program got its start with member Joanne Croghan. Once a resident of Africa, she was behind a club effort to install a well in the Ugandan village of Ochero in 2002. That launched the program that today has captured national and international attention. Bentley, who works very hard work at his paint business, says he’s looking forward to living life on “Uganda time” for a while.

“I get to lose my circles under my eyes; I get to come back refreshed,” he said.
Said Cholometes, “This is giving back to humanity what I’ve been given in my life.”

Obituary

Isami Nakao

Aug. 24, 1914 TO March 24, 2006

Isami (Sam) Nakao, 91, of Bainbridge Island died March 24.

He was born to Torazo and Kuma Nakao on Bainbridge Island. He graduated from Bainbridge High School in 1932. He worked on the family strawberry farm, at a salmon cannery in Alaska and at Town & Country Market. He also was a steward aboard a passenger liner and a cowboy. He married Kazuko (Kay) Sakai in 1943 in Minidoka, Idaho. Mr. Nakao enjoyed mushroom hunting, salmon fishing with his friends and family, and working in his gardens.

He was preceded in death by his brother, sisters and daughter, Anne. He is survived by his wife on Bainbridge Island; sons, Bruce (Marilynn) and Bill (Pam); grandchildren, Zachary and Eric Nick; and special friend, Butch Lundin.

Service: Family celebration of life. Donations: Helpline House of Bainbridge Island or Bainbridge Island Firefighters’ Association. Arrangements: Kass & Cook Funeral Home.

It’s the weekend. Hey, you guys, I’m posting your comments as fast as I can!!! Take a deep breath and count to 10, Jim, then hit send!!! Thank you sincerely all for your responses. This blog is the most-read source for news, comments and features here on Bainbridge and it’s in part due to you.

Here’s what’s up this weekend:

Turn you clocks ahead Saturday night before retiring
It’s SAT time for lots of you juniors Saturday morning. Good Luck!
Last weekend for “Gypsy”
* First Sunday at The Commons features classical guitarist Michael Partington (Did you guys know I can play classical guitar?)

Look to your Islander today for the rest.

Rachel