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NACHES — One hundred years. That's how long the Yakima elk herd has been here — at least in its current incarnation, the one that grew from fewer than four dozen Rocky Mountain elk that arrived here in railroad cars.
In the century since, that herd has experienced decades of tremendous growth that led to periods of virtual slaughter, a so-called "elk war," management-goal-oriented hunting seasons and, now, a winter tourist attraction of wild animals being fed by the thousands at the Oak Creek Wildlife Area before an audience of photo-snapping onlookers that on a busy Saturday can number in the hundreds.
NACHES — The volunteers who help make the Oak Creek Wildlife Area visitors center and elk-feeding tours a positive experience for thousands of annual visitors do so because they love it.
But it's also a responsibility none takes lightly.
"This is a commitment," says Donald Franklin, president of the Wildlife Education Corps (WEC), a tight-knit group of the three or four dozen volunteers, most of them retirees.
"Some people have been doing this for years. Some are upset because (visitors) have to use a Discover Pass out there now; we had one volunteer quit over it.
"That's how dedicated these people are. They're there to educate the public."
A handful of volunteers have been a part of the WEC almost since its 1989 inception under then-Oak Creek manager John McGowan, when it was called the Senior Environmental Corps.
"We started with not too many people," recalls George Bess, a retired Navy lifer who signed up as a volunteer in 1990 and oversaw the group's shift scheduling at its monthly meetings right up until he and his wife moved to Dayton two years ago.
"The idea was to talk to people who came up there to visit, and obviously sometimes if they were short of people, we'd help them load the hay," says Bess, 84. "One of my jobs after I'd been there a few years was doing the bookkeeping for all the travel" — a 56.5 cents-per-mile stipend is the only pay the volunteers receive — "which turned out to be quite the job.
"As we progressed, we were feeding 2,000 elk or something like that, and quite frequently the volunteers would help the truck or throw the hay. If we had room, we'd invite people from the crowd to ride the truck and help throw out the small bales. And we set it up so if a group wanted to do it, the group could go out and help throw the bales."
Now the hay distribution is all done mechanically from the back of a flatbed truck owned by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. But visitors can tour the feeding field on bench seats in the back of one of two old military trucks — "these big old deuce-and-a-half trucks, as we used to call 'em," says Franklin — each of which can carry as many as 15 or 16 camera-wielding, wide-eyed tourists.
Volunteers in the visitors center — manned by WEC members seven days a week — take tour reservations by phone (509-653-2390) and also move through the crowd during the daily 1:30 p.m. feeding, answering questions and, when asked, being a visitor's designated picture-taker.
"The general public, about 90 percent of them, have zero knowledge of elk," says Don Witke, who trains the volunteers in elk physiology, life cycle and state history so they can share that knowledge. "So we try to educate them in the amazing world of elk and elk management."
"It's all about relationships with the public," Franklin says. "You try to tell something new to these people, and so you'd better have your ducks in a row. The word 'bad' spreads quick, and you don't want that: There's people come quite a ways to see this."
The visitors must abide by rules, which include: no dogs allowed. Bess still remembers the time a spectator's pet — "this little white dog" — got through the fence, "and that put that whole elk herd up over the hill. They just took off. We're always working with people, reminding them, 'Don't spook the elk.' They are wild animals."
Because of that, as many as 10,000 spectators a year come out to see them, in droves for the 1:30 p.m. daily feedings or in smaller groups during the quiet times.
"Every once in a while on an off day," Franklin says, "I go out there and just lean against the fence and think, hey, this is why we do this."
In January and February of 1913, the Yakima elk were a curiosity, their arrival viewed by hundreds of onlookers and trumpeted in the Yakima Morning Herald under a headline, "Elk Are Now In The County."
Over the previous three years, the elk herd in and around Yellowstone National Park had grown to a population size far beyond available forage during the harsh Wyoming winters. Every winter hundreds of them starved to death, a number that over the winter of 1910-11 spiked to 2,500 dead in the Jackson Hole area alone.
In 1912, federal officials decided the way to save the elk was to spread them around, and offered surplus animals to other states. At a price, of course.
Yakima sportsmen paid the price — $600, to be exact, to cover the purchase and transport of 50 Yellowstone elk. The six-day rail trip from Gardiner, Mont., wasn't easy on the four-legged animals or, for that matter, the two-legged ones; three cow elk died en route, and Yakima County game warden Frank Bryant was gashed in the head by a bull's antler during the unloading.
The 47 surviving elk — six bulls and 41 cows — spent a week in a Yakima stock pen before being transported to Naches and then up the Naches River to the Nile Valley and what was then the Stevens Ranch. There they were fed until the south-facing slopes of Cleman Mountain were snow-free enough to reveal the bunch grasses beneath.
On Feb. 22, the elk were released to fend for themselves. Two years later, 42 additional elk from Yellowstone were released in the Colockum hills of Kittitas County.
This, of course, was still three decades before the state wildlife department would begin erecting eight-foot-high fences to keep the elk off private farmland. As the elk population multiplied exponentially, by the early 1920s farmers' fences were routinely being knocked over and their orchards, alfalfa fields and haystacks ravaged by hundreds of 500- to 700-pound animals, each capable of consuming 15 pounds in a single day.
So it became time to hunt them.
The first elk-hunting season was set in 1927, with licenses set at $5 apiece. This was no small amount in those days; equivalent to roughly $66 today, that was a princely sum in an agricultural region at a time when — though the Great Depression wouldn't begin for another two years — farm mortgage foreclosure rates were already at record highs. (That year, in fact, a man whose Michigan farm had been foreclosed upon used explosives to blow up an elementary school, killing 38 students and six adults in the country's first incidence of mass murder.)
But those $5 elk licenses went like hotcakes. Nearly 1,000 were sold — at a time when Yakima County's population was less than a third what it is now and cross-state travel for hunting trips was significantly more problematic — and 189 bulls were harvested. Annual elk hunts continued over the next nine years, with 50 to 60 bulls taken each year.
But the damage to the local ag fields continued.
In 1934, the area at the junction of the Naches and Tieton rivers — where the Oak Creek Wildlife Area is now — was owned by Kirtley Sinclair. A hardy Scotsman whose father had moved the family from Nova Scotia to Naches in 1877, Sinclair was raising hay and cattle on some 2,000 acres that spring when he suffered his first range and fence damage from elk. It was just three elk that year, a number that rose to 25 the following winter. A year after that it was 100 and by the winter survey of 1937, Sinclair's hay was being enjoyed by nearly 190 elk.
The Washington Department of Game — established when county game commissions were abolished in 1933 — decided even removing 500 cows and calves and setting a herd maximum at 1,500 animals wouldn't be enough to stop the damage at Sinclair's and neighboring farms.
"The only possible permanent solution to their problems," the official recommendation said, "would be the purchase of the farms by the state."
That would happen, but not for another 12 years.
In the interim, the state, hunters and angry farmers did what they could to cull the burgeoning elk herd.
When Cowiche-area ranch employees illegally shot marauding elk over the winter of 1937-38, no fewer than 82 witnesses — reportedly "from one end of the valley to the other" — showed up wanting to testify to their own elk damages in support of the Cowiche ranchers.
The following fall, the Oak Creek winter range was opened to hunters on a liberal one-elk, any sex or age basis, while hunters anywhere else in the county — including the Rattlesnake Refuge, which had always been closed to hunting — could kill any one male elk with visible antlers. Game officials thought 300 elk might be taken in the hunt, perhaps even as many as 500. The actual kill that season: 1,006, more than the total number taken since the first authorized hunting season in 1927.
While celebrated by many rural landowners to whom the elk were simply an invading horde, the slaughter-like hunt of 1938 was roundly criticized by sportsmen. The game department, meanwhile, went about its business of purchasing land — including the Sinclair farm, which quickly became "the Oak Creek Game Range" — on which the elk could forage to their appetite's content.
In 1943, the state legislature called for $100,000 to be spent on building elk-proof fencing, and over the next decade 166 miles of that fence was built, nearly all in Yakima and Kittitas counties.
The elk-vs.-farm issue, though, didn't come to a head until 1949.
That winter was a cruel, seemingly endless stretch of wind-driven snowstorms and sub-zero temperatures. The elk, their winter forage buried under several feet of snow, turned by the hundreds once again to private property. Dozens of game department officials, on horseback or in Jeeps, tried in vain to drive the elk off the farmland.
When those measures didn't work, the farmers decided to take matters into their own hands and began shooting. One killed nine elk and essentially told game officials, "Come and get 'em." Another 80 elk were killed by other fed-up farmers in what became known as "the elk war of 1949."
The "war" didn't end until a Yakima crop-duster pilot named Carl Brady offered to use his helicopter to herd the scavenging elk back onto the refuge. To the surprise of the dubious district game supervisor who had approved the mission, it worked.
Two years later, during another hard winter, game officials called on Brady once again. A feature article in Popular Mechanics magazine heralded him as "America's first helicopter herder."
These days, the Yakima elk herd is one of the state's largest, attracting upwards of 20,000 license-purchasing, tag-carrying hunters to the annual late-autumn season. The herd's 12,000 animals roam over 900,000 acres of public land — and, yes, on occasion, private land as well.
In the coldest part of the winter, though, thousands of those elk rarely stray from the fields at the Oak Creek headquarters, casually known around the state as the "Oak Creek elk-feeding station."
When the snows come, so do the elk, and so do the people wanting to see and photograph them from scant feet away. And those people make that trip from Yakima, from Spokane, from Oregon or Idaho, or from the airport after flying in from countries all over the world.
"It provides the general public with an insight into elk," says Don Witke, a longtime volunteer with the Wildlife Education Corps, which assists state wildlife employees with the feeding program and coordinates feed-site tours.
"You can't go anywhere else in the entire world where you can drive up, park your vehicle, walk about 10 feet to the fence-line and see wild elk at a distance of maybe 20 feet."
And there will be a whole lot more of them than there were 100 years ago.


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Fridays at Crestview Country Club have worked out well for Nathan Tyler both times he's played in the Air Capital Classic.
As the tournament's 36-hole leader, Tyler is eager to see what another Saturday and Sunday have in store.
Tyler, a 30-year-old from Tucson, Ariz., birdied four of the final five holes en route to a 6-under-par 65 that gave him a two-shot lead in the $650,000 Web.com Tour event on Crestview's North course.
Tyler set the pace for 65 golfers who shot 1-under par or better to advance to weekend play. The former University of Arizona golfer posted a two-round total of 10-under 132 to overtake first-round leader Alex Prugh (71) and Monday qualifier Jace Long (63), who are tied for second at 8 under.
The casualties included Web.com money leader Michael Putnam. Putnam was trying to become the first player in tour history to win three consecutively scheduled tournaments. But he shot rounds of 73 and 72 and became the 33rd golfer with multiple wins in a season to come to Wichita and leave without a trophy.
Meanwhile, Tyler was just happy to be back at Crestview this week. He tied for 23rd three years ago after firing a second-round 63. But this year, Tyler has played on the All-American Gateway Tour, and landed a sponsor's exemption for the Air Capital Classic as the mini-tour's money leader.
"It's my first tournament out here (on the Web.com) this year, so to be in the lead is more than I expected," said Tyler, a three-time winner on the AAGT this year. "I'm happy to be here and hopefully I can keep it going on the weekend."
Fueled by tall, healthy rough and variable winds, Crestview's 6,959-yard layout played almost 1½ strokes more difficult for the field through the first two rounds than in 2012. But Tyler, who played his sixth competitive round on the North course Friday, attacked it with a strategy to flourish on the back nine.
"Me and my caddie talked about it yesterday," Tyler said. "We shot 2 under on the front, which is a harder nine, and 31 on the back. So we knew there was something back there."
It was something that Long, who recently finished his collegiate career at Missouri and is making his pro debut, found as well with a back-nine 31. But Prugh, who led by two after a 63 on Thursday, failed to find the formula, finishing with two birdies and two bogeys on Friday.
"I didn't make the putts," said Prugh, 24th in tour earnings this season. "I lipped out a lot of putts high and low. There was also just a difference in wind.
"The wind was coming out of a little different direction and a little stronger, so it was just that fraction harder to get to certain pins."
Prugh still managed to land a spot in the final third-round pairing with Tyler at noon Saturday. Prugh and Long, who shot 68 in Monday's qualifier at Newton's Sand Creek Station to earn a spot in the field, are one shot in front of a group of six golfers that include former Oklahoma State golfer Kevin Tway.
Tway, whose dad, Bob, won the 1986 PGA Championship, carded a 65 despite bogeying the par-5 18th.
"I like coming from behind," Tway said. "There is a little less pressure, which allows you to go get the golf course."
Crestview has always been a birdie-friendly course for Web.com competitors since the tournament moved there in 2001. But this year, it has bitten back.
Former Wichita State golfer Dustin Garza felt the pain late Friday afternoon. Garza clawed his way into a share of second at 8 under, but made a double bogey at the par-3 eighth and bogeyed the par-4 ninth on his final two holes, settling for a 71 that left him tied for 13th.
So far, Tyler has enjoyed a smooth ride.
"I'm just trying to keep it in front of me," he said. "That's it, really."

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Community college courses meet manufacturers' needs
Oakland, Mich. school develops mechatronics courses for area plants
A new Oakland Community College credit technical program designed to train technicians in the multiple skills required in advanced manufacturing will begin in September (2012). The courses are in response to the needs of area manufacturers.
"We have close to 200 German-owned firms in Oakland County, Michigan," says Irene Spanos, the county's director of economic development and community affairs. "In Germany this cross-training has been taking place for some time now. Of the 800 foreign-owned firms already located here, the next wave in technical training here in the U.S. is this cross-training of mechanical engineering with electrical engineering.
"The Automotive Industry is driving this new trend with the IT boom in the automobile but we are seeing this 'technical merging' in other manufacturing industries as well." Spanos added. "We are working with the employers in our region – some of the largest technology companies in the world – to ensure the workforce they need globally is qualified and trained here in Southeast Michigan."
OCC's Economic and Workforce Development and Engineering, Manufacturing and Technological Sciences departments will offer "Mechatronics – Integrated Skills for Advanced Manufacturing" beginning with a series of core courses equaling 35 credits, or 570 classroom hours. Topics such as geo-algebra, industrial safety, mechanical gears and linkages, computer assisted design, applied electricity, problem solving, robotics and fluid power are covered in the core sessions. Classes are completed in five two-month components each including two to three classes, and finishing in June 2013.
Students will then be able to specialize in one of three tracks – Mechatronics and Controls (five classes – 16 credits), Fabrication and Welding (four classes – 12 credits), or Robotics and Automation (three classes – 12 credits). Opportunities to gain supervised work experiences are part of the program. Students may choose a customized internship, or employers may choose to develop an apprenticeship program.
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text:
Apple Butter with Honey21 Reviews 1 Pic
Prep30 m
Cook1 h 30 m
Ready In2 h
"Honey adds an exciting element to this simple, lightly spiced apple butter."
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Adjust Servings
Original recipe yields 10 cups
- In a large saucepan over medium heat, boil the cider 15 minutes.
- Stir apples into the cider and reduce heat. Cover and simmer, stirring frequently. Cook 1 hour, or until the apples are tender.
- Remove apples from heat. Mash with a potato masher. Stir in the honey, cinnamon, cloves and allspice. Return to low heat and cook uncovered, stirring often, until thick. Transfer to sterile jars and chill in the refrigerator until serving.
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Reviews (21)Rate This Recipe
I'd make this again in a heartbeat! I did as the other suggested and used a quarter of the amount of allspice and cloves and half the amount of cinnamon. I made two batches (both tripled) and found the first batch to have way to much liquid so I added more apples the second time around. I still had to drain some of the liquid before pouring into my jars. I'd cut back a bit on the cider next time OR use more apples. I used a combination of Gala and Fuji apples and this recipe has a delicious flavor. My family and neighbors thank you!!! The honey is the perfect ingredient, so yummy!
Diane's Midwest Cooking
Double the apples and cut the spices in half. Cook with the lid ajar to allow some of the steam off. Excellent flavor.
I thought this was pretty good. I used Golden Delicious because I had them left over and I used more than the recipe said, because of the reviews. I also used a little less liquid and should probably have cut it down by more (a cup instead of half a cup). I still had to strain it a little. I also used only half the spices and only 1/4 of a cup of honey and it is still very good, not overly spiced. I also simply used my hand mixer to blend the apples, which worked great.
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Amount Per Serving (80 total)
- Calories
- 15 cal
- < 1%
- Fat
- 0 g
- < 1%
- Carbs
- 4 g
- 1%
- Protein
- 0 g
- < 1%
- Cholesterol
- 0 mg
- 0%
- Sodium
- 1 mg
- < 1%
Based on a 2,000 calorie diet
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All Day Apple Butter
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text:
Minutes after President Obama finished this year's State of the Union address, Rep. Steve Israel slipped off the House floor, pulled out his iPhone, and began to type. In the address field were the names of people scattered across the country whom Israel, the man in charge of helping Democrats try to win back control of the House, most wanted to run for Congress in 2014.
"Did you watch it?" Israel asked them. "In two years, you could actually watch yourself."
It was a move ripped straight from the playbook of a college football coach, the equivalent of dialing up a blue-chip running back in the middle of the big game just so he can hear the roar of the crowd. Israel, a fast-talking New Yorker in his second cycle atop the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, beams in retelling the tale. "I am a fanatic when it comes to recruiting," he says, jabbing his fist in punctuation.
Now is the heart of recruitment season, a time when the nation's top talent scouts fan out from Washington to scour the country's small towns and big cities for, if not the next undiscovered political star, then at least a viable 2014 congressional challenger. Polls are conducted. Fundraising stats are reviewed. Research, often into the candidates themselves, is commissioned. For those who make the cut, the courtship begins. As House Democrats seek to climb from the minority and Republicans seek to attain 51 Senate seats for the first time since 2006 (navigating intra-party squabbling while doing it), finding that ideal candidate is mission-critical.
"It's the most important thing that we do," says Guy Cecil, executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. "Without a good candidate, it makes your job a helluva lot harder."
Wives are wooed. Inspiring role models are found. Frequent-flier miles are accrued. It is not a job for the impatient. Experienced recruiters say it takes at least a couple of months to get most candidates off the fence and into a race. For some, it takes years. Congress can be a tough sell these days, with its popularity rivaling colonoscopies and root canals. Cecil says it took him seven to nine months and an estimated 100 conversations to persuade Richard Carmona to run in Arizona in 2012—and his bid wasn't sealed until he got a phone call from the president. (And, as a reminder that there are no guarantees in politics, Carmona lost.)
Call, convince, cajole, reassure. Repeat. It is a persistence hunt.
Rob Collins, the top strategist for 2014 at the National Republican Senatorial Committee, says he is modeling his efforts after Nick Saban, the University of Alabama football coach and winner of three of the past four national championships. "Nick Saban is a genius recruiter because he's constantly talking to his recruits. He's in their face. He lets them know that they're wanted. He lets them know they fit into the team and they they'll have a role that they would want," Collins says. "We're kind of taking that approach."
While college football is the most common recruiting analogy, dating is another. One senior GOP strategist active in the process said finding the right candidate is like identifying a potential mate. You don't want the ones who don't want you, but you don't want the ones who will go home with you on the first date either. And be forewarned: Nobody ever wants to know he or she is anyone's second choice.
It makes for a delicate task. While most politicians enjoy the ego-stroking that a courtship entails, many—especially Republicans, these days—fear being tagged as the pick of party bosses. So, wooing is often done on the hush-hush. Rob Jesmer, who had Collins's job in 2010 and 2012, said he would rendezvous with prospects in remote locales, like "a diner far away from town," safe from prying eyes and ears. "So people would not see."
The process is less about unearthing the next Marco Rubio or Barack Obama, although that would be welcomed, and more about finding the occasional Heidi Heitkamp, the new Democratic senator from North Dakota who won last year even as voters in her state thumped Obama by nearly 20 points. Heitkamp is the kind of political unicorn recruiters dream of catching: the one Republican who can win in New York City, say, or the perfect Democrat to carry Kentucky—a candidate so compelling that he or she upends a district's or state's natural political geography. "If we would have had anybody else, I don't think we would have won," Cecil says of Heitkamp.
"Fundamentally, I do not believe you win an election on Election Day. You win it two years before."
The unquestioned star in the modern era of recruiters is Rahm Emanuel, the former House member who became President Obama's chief of staff and is now mayor of Chicago. He helmed the DCCC during the go-go 2006 campaign cycle, when Democrats took 31 seats and the majority in the House. As is his style in all things, Emanuel was relentless in pursuit of a candidate.
"When my phone rang, my kids would say, 'Is that Rahm?' " says Heath Shuler, a moderate North Carolina Democrat whom Emanuel pressed to run for the House. Shuler had been a star quarterback, wooed by colleges (he ended up at the University of Tennessee) and NFL teams (he was the No. 3 pick in the 1994 NFL draft). He says, "Rahm was literally the best recruiter at any level, for any reason."
Shuler had concerns about balancing Congress and family. So Emanuel called him every time he was with his own. "Just letting you know I'm watching the dance recital of my daughter," Emanuel would say. "Hey, I'm just letting you know I'm watching the swim meet." Shuler started screening his calls. He also ultimately ran and won. (He retired from the House last year.)
To this day, Emanuel's photo hangs in the DCCC chairman's office. It's a reminder to Democratic recruits, Israel says: "No matter how bad they have it with me, it could be worse."
Each party in each chamber has its recruiting arm. For 2014, it's Israel at the DCCC and Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., leading the National Republican Congressional Committee; Sens. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., and Michael Bennet, D-Col., head the efforts in the Senate. It is often a thankless job—endless hours of recruiting and fundraising—but also a stepping-stone to greater power and influence. The four groups combined spent nearly $600 million in the 2012 elections. When people speak of the permanent campaign, these are four of its pillars.
But convoluted campaign-finance rules that limit the cash party committees can collect have diffused the recruiting process. Other sources of money now play a part, including the Club for Growth, which bankrolls conservative candidates, and EMILY's List, which spends millions every election to recruit Democratic women who support abortion rights.
So when Ashley Judd was about to take the stage at an EMILY's List event at the Democratic National Convention last summer, it was Stephanie Schriock who pulled her aside. The two had never met, but Schriock had a question for the actress. "I just walked up to her and said to her, just point blank, 'Are the rumors true? Are you thinking of running for office soon?' " Schriock wasn't your average activist; she's the president of EMILY's List. Judd shrugged off the question. "I said, 'Well, when you're really ready to have a serious conversation, give me a call,' " Schriock says.
Ninety minutes later, after spontaneous shouts of "Run, Ashley, run," broke out during the town hall, it was Judd who grabbed Schriock as they cleared off the stage. She said she wanted to set up that phone date. "I was, like, 'That was a pretty good recruitment event!' " Schriock says. Judd got one call and then another. Pollsters and political strategists were looped in, as Judd explored a challenge to Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the GOP leader. By March, word was out that she planned to run.
But even before the recruitment was done, the "decruitment" had begun. Democrats weren't universally thrilled with Judd's reputation as a Hollywood liberal, Obama devotee, and coal critic. McConnell paid for a burst of negative ads about her, and he and his strategists were later caught on tape salivating about savaging Judd's vulnerabilities. In Appalachia and beyond, nervous Democrats, including former President Clinton, cast their eyes toward the young Kentucky secretary of state, Alison Lundergan Grimes, as the party's strongest standard-bearer in the Bluegrass State.
By late March, Judd declared she had "thoughtfully and prayerfully" decided not to run. A full cycle of boom and bust—with the 2014 elections still nearly 600 days away.
Recruiting no longer has an off-season. The DCCC's Israel likes to tell anyone within earshot that he began calling 2014 recruits the night of the 2012 election, including some who had lost races only hours earlier. "Fundamentally, I do not believe you win an election on Election Day," Israel says. "You win it two years before, when you begin identifying candidates."
The math Israel faces in 2014 is daunting. Democrats could win every single House district that Obama carried last year and still fall short of the majority, even though Obama waltzed comfortably to reelection. The path to a Democratic majority runs through the red districts carried by Mitt Romney. And the only way to turn those GOP seats blue is to field enough compelling recruits who transcend party labels.
Emanuel focused on recruiting conservative Democrats, like Shuler, in more rural areas. Israel says he is a "fanatic" about finding centrist "problem solvers" in the suburbs. But history adds to the challenge: The most seats any sitting president's party has gained in a midterm election since 1900 is nine. To gain a majority, Israel is shooting for 17.
If House Democrats face a quantitative problem, the trouble for Senate Republicans is more qualitative. In recent years, the party has fielded five fundamentally flawed candidates who fumbled away winnable races. The most recent was Todd "Legitimate Rape" Akin. "He was a shitty candidate," Jesmer says. "Obviously, an unmitigated disaster." With Republicans six seats shy of a Senate majority, they can ill afford another such mistake in 2014.
The tension between the warring Republican establishment and its tea-party base threatens to explode in a series of bloody 2014 Senate primaries. Both factions blame the other for the GOP's blown chances at a Senate majority over the past four years. Into that breach steps new leadership at the NRSC, led by Moran, a no-name first-term senator, and Collins, a former Eric Cantor insider. They must thread the needle between the party's competing visions.
Senate Democrats, meanwhile, have had a string of strong recruiting classes, but they face a hostile landscape next year. They must protect incumbents in Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana, and North Carolina—all Romney states. Plus, five Democratic senators have already announced their retirements, including Tim Johnson in South Dakota and Jay Rockefeller in West Virginia, places increasingly hostile to federal Democrats. The party hopes it has found its unicorn in West Virginia: a rich pro-coal, business-oriented Democrat named Nick Preservati, a man without the baggage of a voting record in the conservative state.
The opportunities for Democratic gains, meanwhile, are limited. Only a single GOP-held seat in an Obama state is up this cycle, but Maine's moderate Republican Sen. Susan Collins remains popular. Democrats are instead searching for top-flight recruits in Kentucky and an open seat in Georgia, where strategists hope a weak GOP nominee emerges.
For House Republicans, the chief challenge is to protect their incumbents and find challengers to pry loose the handful of Democrats still occupying districts that Romney won last year. They've already re-upped one star recruit from 2012 who fell short: African-American Mia Love, who is planning to run again against a Democratic incumbent in Utah.
Calming a potential candidate's concerns about balancing elective office and private life is often the key to unlocking a run. Many of the toughest recruits are parents, especially young mothers. They worry as much about winning as losing—and what it would mean for their still-growing families.
Like most recruiters, Rob Simms, the NRCC's political director, said he connects political prospects with congressional role models based on shared experiences. For a young mother, he said, that means a chat with the likes of second-term Rep. Martha Roby, a 36-year-old mother of two young children. Those vitals statistics make Roby the exception in a House Republican Conference that is still about 90 percent white men with an average age over 50.
In fact, some elements of Roby's male-dominated Republican Conference weren't so keen on her candidacy initially, according to Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, the man who recruited her. The former NRCC chairman said that "people in the delegation" were worried about fielding her in a 2010 Alabama race seen as a political must-win.
"Martha Roby had a lot of people who, quite honestly, saw her as a young mother. They weren't sure that that's what they wanted to see," Sessions said. They worried, "That's a seat we've got to win—why would we necessarily go and be for somebody who has a lot of family needs?" he said. "We could lose the seat. Maybe she—you know the issues. It's not second-guessing her; it's saying that, 'Does she have, you know, what it takes.' "
Sessions pushed for Roby anyway and was vindicated when she won. But such resistance is symptomatic of a white- and male-dominated party that has struggled to appeal to women, youth, and minorities. After an "autopsy" of the 2012 election, the head of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus, announced in March that the party would invest $10 million to improve its outreach. That the GOP wants a diverse ticket, "I think it goes without saying," Simms said. Andrea Bozek, the NRCC communications director, noted that more than 20 Republican women, from incumbents to long shots, ran for the House and lost to Democratic men in 2012. "We do recruit women candidates. Unfortunately, they lost last cycle—to males," she said.
In contrast, the Democratic apparatus to recruit mothers is humming.
"I'm the mom adviser," jokes Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, a mother of three, including 13-year-old twins. She and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, a mother of two, including a son born during her time in the House, tag-team the duties of talking to Democratic mothers about potential runs for office.
Because Wasserman Schultz has kept her family in Florida and Gillibrand has moved hers to the capital, they are often strategically deployed, based on family-relocation desires of the potential candidate. Wasserman Schultz tells moms "about how technology is my friend, and how I used to have my kids' homework faxed to me so I could check it" when in D.C.
"I can give context, or at least life experience, that you can still be a good mom and a Congress member at the same time," says Gillibrand, who has also created a PAC, Off the Sidelines, to encourage and donate to women running for office. "I feel very passionate that women in Congress can make a difference."
Schriock of EMILY's List calls Wasserman Schultz and Gillibrand her "closers." Party officials call them indispensable.
But even more prevalent than a parent's worries about children are a candidate's fears of seeing a spouse become enmeshed in the electoral process—and all the good and bad that springs from it. The seven-month courtship to get Missouri's Claire McCaskill to run for the Senate in 2006 didn't end until after a dinner date in London between McCaskill and her husband and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., then head of the DSCC. When Schumer heard that he happened to be in London at the same time as McCaskill's family, he quickly arranged the international get-together. And because McCaskill's husband was the holdout, Schumer made sure to sit next to him.
For the same reason, then-Rep. Tom Davis booked a table for three at Minnesota's finest steak house in 2001 when he jetted out there to try to persuade Republican John Kline to run for Congress for a third time, after he had suffered two straight losses. There were no illusions of the evening's target, Kline says. "He needed to convince my wife." Davis did ("I can still taste that steak," a satisfied Davis says, more than a decade later), and Kline has served in Congress ever since.
(Not every high-dollar recruitment trip hits its target. Davis took Rhode Island's Republican former attorney general, Jeffrey Pine, to the 1999 All-Star Game at Fenway Park—it was at least three hours of a guaranteed audience—to plead his case. Pine still didn't run. Why? "Honestly, he had a good marriage," Davis says. "He didn't want to jeopardize it.")
Connie Schultz, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and wife of Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, has literally written the book on hesitant political partners. It's called … and His Lovely Wife, the tale of Brown's 2006 Senate race and her reluctant role. It's a staple on the spouse section of congressional bookshelves. "[Rob] Portman's wife read it," Brown says of Ohio's other senator. "She said, twice." The book has made Schultz something of a go-to woman for prospective candidate wives. Although Brown and party officials downplay Schultz's advisory role in recruiting, she says, "I've probably talked to more than 100 spouses since 2006, in varying degrees, sometimes through e-mail."
Schultz offers straight talk: "I'm not going to be responsible for misleading someone, and her life gets turned upside down," she says. Some potential candidates opt out because of the chats, and that's fine by her. "If it's just, hey, recruit at all costs, Connie is not your woman. I'm not going to do it that way."
Schultz says, "When they're really trying to recruit, they say it's not going to be that different. It's not true. It is an earthquake." She vividly recalls watching two men in suits jump out of a white van to grab her trash shortly after her husband's Senate campaign began. "Your family is going to be pulled into this, whether you want to or not."
In one of her book's telling scenes, Schultz recounts Schumer's hardball tactics to get Brown into the race. Her husband had been worried that she would have to give up her columnist job, fresh from winning the Pulitzer. Schumer's reply: "Well, Connie had her chance at the brass ring. Now it's time for her to support you." Schultz was taken aback, although she writes that she came to appreciate Schumer's "willful disregard for perceived obstacles."
That disregard is part of what made Schumer and Emanuel so successful. They heavily recruited candidates in deep-red territory. Davis, the former NRCC chairman, still remembers one particular Emanuel brag before the 2006 election: "He told me, 'I've got some surfers. If we've got a high tide, they'll ride it in.' " Sure enough, a Democratic wave came. "You always plan for the big year," Davis says.
The unspoken interplay between recruiter and recruit is that it is in the party's best interest to field the strongest possible candidates everywhere, even if the best a particular candidate can likely do, short of a major wave election, is lose honorably, as Richard Carmona did last fall in Arizona. The party must persuade those candidates to run anyway—just in case. That possibility is why the perception of political momentum, especially for those in the minority, is so important in recruiting.
As NRCC chairman, Sessions was able to do that in 2010 when House Republicans seized an enormous 63 seats, including the defeat of 52 Democratic incumbents. Party operatives partly credit the GOP's Young Guns program, which identifies promising political prospects and sets metrics for them—doors knocked, dollars raised, and so on—to receive party support. (House Democrats have a similar program called Red to Blue.) House Republicans won the same way Emanuel's Democrats did in 2006: fielding top-flight candidates in all corners of the country, even against the most veteran Democratic incumbents.
Sessions still proudly remembers the burst of ads the NRCC aired over the July 4, 2009, weekend in the Missouri district of legendary Democratic Rep. Ike Skelton. It was an effort to signal the seriousness of the GOP's intent to target a 30-year incumbent and to shake loose local Republicans who might want to take on the challenge.
Liberals mocked the ads as money tossed down a sinkhole. But Sessions's phone rang with two calls over the holiday weekend; one was from a GOP state senator, another from Vicky Hartzler, a local conservative activist. Both ran in the GOP primary, and Hartzler won en route to ousting Skelton. "We teed that up," Sessions says. "We got high-level people because we went out and made the pitch."
This year, the Democratically aligned House Majority PAC and EMILY's List have each named their top GOP targets for 2014, as part of an effort to lure strong challengers, and in the latter case, strong women challengers, into the contests.
Similarly, the Club for Growth has aired its first ad of the 2014 cycle in Arkansas, aimed at softening up Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor. As much as the spot was a jab at Pryor, it was also a kiss blown to Rep. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., whom many conservatives hope makes the leap into the Senate race. "I figure he might see the ads; I don't know," Club for Growth President Chris Chocola says, barely able to repress a smile. "Yeah, sure, we like Tom Cotton." The club followed up by releasing a poll showing Cotton outpacing Pryor.
No group has put more "surfers in the water" more consistently in recent years than Senate Democrats. One of them was Christopher Coons, who stepped into Delaware's 2010 Senate race late after Beau Biden, the vice president's son, unexpectedly bowed out and left Democrats with the unsavory prospect of ceding a Senate seat in a solid-blue state to a popular Republican House member.
The day Biden dropped out, he called Coons, a leading local official, urging him to run. Next, Vice President Joe Biden called. Then top Senate leaders. One of the Bidens—Coons can't remember who because the day became such a blur—told him, "This guy's going to call you in five minutes. You don't know who he is, but you've got to take his call."
That man was J.B. Poersch, then the DSCC's executive director. Time was precious, and Poersch wanted a meeting, fast. He arrived at Coons's Delaware home the next morning and planted himself there for three hours, wooing the Democrats' second choice as if he'd been their first. "I talked about the reasons that my wife and I might well be willing to take it on," Coons recalls. "And we talked through some of the concerns we had."
Republican Rep. Mike Castle was flying high in the polls, but Poersch made the case the race could still be won. A flurry of calls and a week later, Coons took the plunge. Castle stumbled in the primary to the now-infamous Christine "I'm Not a Witch" O'Donnell, who, in turn, imploded in the fall. Less than a year after Poersch's impromptu visit, Coons was sworn in as a U.S. senator.
Such success begets success. In 2011, Coons returned the recruiting favor, calling Joe Donnelly, then a moderate Democratic representative from Indiana who was mulling a long-shot challenge to Republican Sen. Dick Lugar, a fixture in the Senate since the late 1970s. "I said, 'Joe, you know, if the Republican primary works out the same way they say it might, you will have the same outcome that I did.' " Which, as it turns out, is exactly what happened. Lugar lost. His tea-party slayer, Richard Mourdock, collapsed. And Donnelly is now the junior senator from Indiana.
Donnelly's was one of five 2012 Senate races that the Democrats won in states that Romney carried. They also prevailed in the four most hotly contested swing states: Florida, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin. And Democrats ousted GOP Sen. Scott Brown in Massachusetts with another top-tier recruit, Elizabeth Warren. In contrast, Senate Republicans carried only a single state, Nevada, that Obama won in 2012.
Democrats not only recruited strong candidates, they often cleared the primary field for their picks. "We're willing to say up front, we're all in," Cecil says. No serious primary challengers opposed Coons, Donnelly, Heitkamp, and a host of other victorious Democrats. And the party is already working to do the same for top-tier Senate races, including in Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, and West Virginia, in 2014. It's something that Republicans, mired in internal divisions, have been unable to do.
The biggest testament to the Democrats' recruiting prowess comes from Collins, the NRSC strategist. "I think success for us is: How do we do what the Democrats did in our primaries?" he says. "That's our goal. That's the journey we have to take."
It won't be easy. Poisonous primaries have repeatedly produced either erratic and unelectable right-wing nominees, or mainstream candidates who fail to inspire. Perhaps as troubling for the GOP's future is that a recent round of self-examination has led to drastically different diagnoses from the party's warring wings.
Establishmentarians, led by super-strategist Karl Rove, have prescribed a new group, the Conservative Victory Project, to meddle in Senate Republican primaries to ensure more-electable nominees. That effort has drawn howls from the Right, where the tea-party base believes the party's bigger problem has been poor execution, wasted money, and a lack of clear ideological vision from party leaders and nominees.
"The focus of Karl Rove and like-minded folks that there are these crazy candidates that get nominated and can't win just isn't true," says Chocola, whose Club for Growth spends millions of dollars on campaigns, including in contested GOP primaries. The group has scored some of the biggest tea-party victories in recent years, including the election of GOP Sens. Marco Rubio in Florida, Ted Cruz in Texas, and Pat Toomey, a former club president, in Pennsylvania.
Tensions are so high that leading tea-party activists mailed a letter in March to some of the Rove network's biggest financiers urging them not to give any more money. Matt Hoskins, head of the Senate Conservatives Fund, another tea-party-style group, has been canvassing the country for undiscovered conservative talent. "I think the Republican Party has been very lazy in its recruitments: Who has high name ID, who is independently wealthy, who is well established," Hoskins says. "Often the party overlooks a strong candidate who doesn't have some of those characteristics."
Chocola brushes aside the failed candidacies of Akin, O'Donnell, Mourdock (the only one of the three his group backed in a GOP primary), and the like as outliers. He believes the raft of party-approved Republicans who fell short in 2012 illustrates the bigger problem. "The question they should be asking is, why did Denny Rehberg, Rick Berg, Linda Lingle, Tommy Thompson, George Allen, Heather Wilson—why did they all lose? They were all party establishment, these-are-the-type-of-people-that-can-win-elections," he says. "And they all lost."
That is not the question party leaders are asking. They are focused on avoiding another Todd Akin. But that is harder than it sounds.
Republican primary voters distrust the GOP establishment so thoroughly that overt public pressure from Washington can backfire. Rubio may be a GOP superstar now, but four years ago, party leaders tried to shove him out of the 2010 Florida Senate race. As Rubio recounted in his biography, An American Son, the strong-arming inadvertently helped. "The NRSC endorsement of Charlie Crist would turn out to be a blessing in disguise," Rubio wrote. "It would galvanize conservative support for me, and fury with the Republican establishment."
Spending more money won't necessarily make a difference, either. "Most of the time, the establishment candidate outspent the insurgent candidate," says Jesmer, the former chief NRSC strategist.
In fact, in the past two cycles, the GOP campaign committee in the Senate has tried both the hands-on (2010) and hands-off (2012) recruitment approaches. Neither was a success. In 2014, Collins has what he calls a "break-glass plan": neutrality except in cases of emergency. He says, "I think if we saw a candidate with fatal flaws, that we knew that Democrats would make them unelectable in their state and would become contagious to other Senate campaigns, we would do everything in our power to make sure that campaign did not make it through the primary."
Given the delicate task before him, he is in no rush to settle the party's pending recruitment questions. "We're comfortable not getting our best recruits until 2014," Collins declares.
The great hope to bridge the gulf between people like Chocola, who says "ideology is everything," and Rove, who focuses on who is most electable, is Ted Cruz, a tea-party favorite who bucked an establishment pick to win his seat last year. He is also the NRSC's vice chairman in charge of recruitment. Not that he sounds the part.
"The Washington establishment has proved to be exceptionally poor at picking winners in elections," Cruz says. "And I don't think a handful of Washington insiders should be deciding who should win primaries across the country."
If party leaders were hoping Cruz would provide cover to push for more moderate nominees, he hasn't gotten with the program. He notes that all three new Republican senators—himself, Deb Fischer of Nebraska, and Jeff Flake of Arizona—"won with substantial support of the tea party." Cruz says, "I think that is a recipe for winning elections, if we find strong effective candidates who can communicate a pro-growth conservative message—with a smile."
One truism in football recruiting is the shortage of top-tier talent. Scouts often elbow each other to secure a commitment. And that's just as true for Congress.
That story is playing out right now in Georgia, where Rep. John Barrow, a moderate Blue Dog Democrat, is widely seen as one of the party's strongest potential Senate candidates. The problem: A Barrow for Senate candidacy would all but assure that Republicans would pick off his House seat. The same dynamic played out in 2012 with Donnelly. "It's probably fair to say, Steve [Israel] said, 'Hey, buddy, don't ditch me,' " Donnelly says of the DCCC chairman, who was lobbying Donnelly to pass on the Senate run and stay put.
Among Republicans, the Senate and House campaign committees are currently tugging in different directions in Iowa. There, Rep. Tom Latham's recent declaration that he wouldn't run for the Senate was cheered by Walden, the NRCC chairman. But Latham's statement left some wiggle room, and he has maintained contact with the NRSC, according to a person familiar with those talks.
The truth is, Senate recruiters tend to dominate these inter-chamber competitions. "Usually, people are a little more excited about not having to run every two years in a competitive district," says the DSCC's Cecil. The Senate Republicans' Collins put it this way: "The [Republican Governors Association] is going to steal candidates from me; I'll steal from them. And everyone's going to steal from the NRCC."
Their underdog status means that House recruiters have to be a bit more entrepreneurial. Hence, Israel whipping out his smartphone after the State of the Union. Or, during inauguration weekend, inviting top Democratic prospects to town and rolling out the red carpet.
For Israel and his cause, a little razzle-dazzle is necessary. Prognosticators see little chance that he and his Democratic colleagues can climb out of the minority. So, much of his job is selling the mystique of momentum to donors, recruits, and reporters. In March, he excitedly launched a new early-recruiting program, calling it "Jumpstart," A PowerPoint slide featured multiple photos of rockets ready to bust through Earth's atmosphere.
"We use all the tools in our toolbox," Israel says. "Some of them are sharp; some of them are blunt; some of them are softer. But we use every tool."
Including the DVD player.
Often, Israel says he turns to Denzel Washington and Matthew Broderick to inspire his troops. He keeps a copy of Glory, the 1989 Civil War film, on a shelf in his office, nestled next to a documentary about Rahm Emanuel. Israel says he cues up the final scene of the movie, when an integrated band of Union soldiers charges a mighty Southern stronghold. "They are carrying the flag at Fort Wagner," Israel says, "and the guy with the flag gets taken out, the next guy picks up the flag, and they keep on storming the hill with the flag."
It's a stirring message about courage and camaraderie and country. Even if the charging soldiers failed to take Fort Wagner that day.
"I don't show them at the end, everybody died," Israel laughs.
National Journal


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August 1, 2014
RIPLEY, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- Two new officers were sworn into the Ripley Police Department Friday night.
Jamie Hart and Seth Johnson are both Ripley natives and say they're eager to begin serving their hometown.
Hart has already served 14 years on the Ripley Fire Department.
Johnson says he was planning to join the Marines, but a knee injury changed that.
Both his father and grandfather were police officers, and he's proud to carry on the tradition.
"This is where I grew up," 19-year-old Johnson said. "It's where I went to school. My family, everyone lives here. I just want to give back to the community."
Johnson's father is Eric Johnson, who was shot in the mouth while working undercover for the Charleston Police Department in 2006.
Eric held the Bible during his son's swearing-in.


text:
Seasoned film lovers and novices alike took in the final day of the Johnstown Film Festival on Saturday at the Heritage Discovery Center in the Cambria City section of Johnstown.
People gathered in the courtyard enjoying wine and cheese while waiting for sunset to view films that were 30 minutes or less.
Presented by Johnstown Area Heritage Association, the films were wide-ranging in theme and subject matter.
"We have everying from documentaries about interesting and important topics to real over-the-top comedies and narratives that tell incredible stories," said Shelley Johansson, event coordinator and marketing director for JAHA.
It was the first film festival for Johnstown resident Josephine Bucceri.
Bucceri and a friend attended the first night of the festival on Friday at the Johnstown Flood Museum.
She was looking for the works of local makers.
"I was so glad to see so many from the Johnstown area," she said. "I'm glad Johnstown actually acknowledges people with talent. I love to see local talent."
Resident Lisa Rae DeRosa frequents music and film festivals.
She plans to write about the festival for The Lisa Rae Series found on her website, www.lisaraederosa.com.
"I love to actually get behind the scenes with people who are pursuing their real passion," she said. "I like to find people who say 'Hey, this is what I want to do for a living. This is my passion.' "
She and other film viewers were in the right place on Saturday.
"The film festival tells so many kinds of stories from so many different points of view," Johansson said.
Cash awards were given to makers of the top three films and the best youth entry. The festival also included a Viewers' Choice Award.
Patrick Buchnowski is a reporter with The Tribune-Democrat. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/PatBuchnowskiTD.


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Sonneman A Way of Light is the namesake of founder and lighting designer Robert Sonneman. It was formed to create contemporary lighting that best exemplifies today's cosmopolitan American style. Sonneman Lighting fixtures are elegant and refined, decidedly modern yet clearly influenced by classic 20th century period styles.
The Alu Wall Sconce is available with the following:
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- Fixture: Height 14.5", Width 7.5", Depth 8"
- Shade: Height 6.5", Diameter 6.5"
- Wall Plate: Diameter 4.5"
Need help with some of our terminology? Check out Lumens' Lighting & Design Glossary.


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"Saved by the bell" may be a common refrain among students in classrooms and hallways, but parents and teachers are starting to ask if children should be saved from the bell instead.
Montgomery County parents have signed on to the Start School Later Initiative encouraging lawmakers to start school no earlier than 8 a.m., allowing kids more time for sleep and rest and teachers more time to prepare lessons.
Originating in Severna Park, MD, the petition was presented to members of congress yesterday, according to movement organizer Heather Macintosh, with nearly 5,000 signatures from all 50 states. Over 1,000 of those signatures were from parents and educators in Maryland.
"The [petition] comments range from student pleas for a more humane schedule, to educators wishing their students weren't still asleep, to health professionals and researchers seriously concerned about the damage we're doing to kids' mental and physical health," said movement organizer Heather Macintosh.
In Montgomery County petitioners had the following to say:
"My son will be a 9th grader in the upcoming school year. He and his grades will suffer greatly due to the unhealthy early start of high school," said Maria Lampos of Gaithersburg in the petition.
"With increasing demands on student teacher performance, restricting school start time to after 8 a.m. is the right thing to do. This would give everyone impacted a chance for better success," wrote Christine Zmuda of Potomac.
"The early start time of high school puts tremendous stress on parents as well as children. I have seen this both professionally as a psychologist and personally as a parent. I cannot wait for my younger son to be out of high school so I don't have to get up so early every morning either!" Lisa Meier of Bethesda wrote.
What do you think? Are school hours fine as they are or is there room for change?


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Results Around the Web for ClaudiusBack to the Claudius name page
Claudius (; , Latin: Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus; 1 August 10 BC – 13 October 54 AD) was Roman emperor from 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, he was the son of Drusus and Antonia Minor.
Claudius Ptolemy (; , Klaudios Ptolemaios, ; ; AD 90 – AD 168) was a Greco-Egyptian writer of Alexandria, known as a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology.
Claudius Aelianus
Claudius Aelianus (; c. 175 – c. 235), often seen as just Aelian (), born at Praeneste, was a Roman author and teacher of rhetoric who flourished under Septimius Severus and probably outlived Elagabalus, who died in 222. He spoke Greek so perfectly that he was called "honey-tongued" (meliglossos); Roman-born, he preferred Greek authors, and wrote in a slightly archaizing Greek himself.
Claudius Gothicus
Claudius II (; May 10, 213 – January 270), commonly known as Claudius Gothicus, was Roman Emperor from 268 to 270. During his reign he fought successfully against the Alamanni and scored a crushing victory against the Goths at the Battle of Naissus.
Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus (; AD 129 – /), better known as Galen of Pergamon (), was a prominent Greek physician, surgeon and philosopher in the Roman empire.


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Boxer Briefs - Friday, Apr. 26, 2013
|Current Week | Month View
Mar 15-May 12, 2013
Theta Nu Alpha Spring Cleaning Services
Theta Nu Alpha will come to you and help you with your Spring Cleaning!
Apr 12-26, 2013
Forest Grove Campus
The drive will benefit St. Vincent De Paul Food Bank and Relay For Life.
Apr 26, 2013
Boxer Dining
Join us at the Bistro & RFoC!
2:00 pm
Pacific EyeTrends Hillsboro
Pacific EyeTrends Hillsboro is showcasing the complete line of LAFONT EYEWEAR on Friday, April 26.
3:00 pm
Join the fight against cancer!
Apr 26-27, 2013
7:30 pm
Tom Miles Theatre (Warner Hall) - 2115 Pacific Ave.
Pacific University's Dance Ensemble presents its spring production. Evening performances begin at 7:30, and Saturday also offers a matinee at 2 p.m.
Apr 26-28, 2013
Track & field, baseball head into late-season play


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McKinleyville is located in California.
McKinleyville, California has a population of
McKinleyville is
family-centric than the surrounding county with
29.34% of the households
containing married families with children.
The county average for households married with children is 24.71%.
The median household income in McKinleyville, California is
The median household income for the surrounding county is $39,186
compared to the national median of $50,935.
The median age of people living in McKinleyville is
36.6 years.
The average high temperature in July is 62
degrees, with an average low temperature in January of 41.5 degrees.
The average rainfall is approximately 39.1 inches
per year, with 0.3 inches of snow per year.


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MIAMI -- Billionaires Norman Braman and Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross are battling over whether state taxpayers should pay almost half the cost of a $400 million plan to fix up the football team's home field.
Braman, a former owner of the Philadelphia Eagles, says Ross alone should pay for improvements, including a roof for the open-air Sun Life Stadium's grandstands. His campaign against the plan has prompted supporters, led by Ross, a real estate developer and the Related Cos. founder, to accuse him of "flooding the airwaves with misinformation."
It's deja vu for Braman, a car dealer and art patron who unsuccessfully opposed Miami-Dade County's $347.5 million subsidy for the new home of Major League Baseball's Marlins, which opened last April. After losing that battle, Braman helped oust the county's mayor in a 2011 recall election spurred by a property-tax increase.
"This is welfare for a multibillionaire," Braman, 80, said in an interview in his Miami office. Ross and National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell are playing a "nefarious game," he said.
Ross, 72, would pay at least $201 million of the cost. He says the upgrades would help attract more NFL Super Bowls, college championships and soccer tournaments to the city.
"We have a shot at a 50th anniversary Super Bowl game, we've got an owner who is willing to put up a couple hundred million dollars," Mike Dee, the Dolphins chief executive officer, said by telephone. "The argument that Steve Ross is wealthy and that he should just pay for it all himself is not an intellectual argument, it's a populist argument."
Using tax dollars to help pay for NFL fields has prompted heated debate in dozens of cities from coast to coast since 1990, with the public footing at least some of the bill for all except one. Among recent examples, lawmakers haggled over a new Minneapolis home for the Minnesota Vikings and wound up committing almost $737 million to the project, only slightly less than the team's $754 million share.
Under a proposal backed by Ross and Dee, a $3 million annual distribution of sales-tax receipts for 30 years would help pay for the renovation, along with revenue from an increase in a local hotel tax to 7 percent from 6 percent. Ross said the work would keep the Dolphins in Miami for the next 25 years.
Ross bought the team and its stadium in 2009 for about $1.1 billion from Wayne Huizenga, the Waste Management Inc. founder.
"I recognize that when you own a sports team, it's a responsibility to the community," Ross said in a Jan. 14 news briefing about the renovation plan.
Braman said Ross should "go to Wayne Huizenga and ask for a refund" if he feels he paid too much for the Dolphins, who haven't had a winning season since 2008.
MiamiFirst, a Dolphins-backed group that promotes the financing deal, said on its Facebook.com page that Braman "stuck it to Philly citizens" when he owned the NFL's Eagles, which he sold in 1995. The group's website links to a video calling Braman a "villain" who mismanaged the Philadelphia team by trading away key players.
MiamiFirst also took out two full-page advertisements in local newspapers. In one, the group said Braman benefited from taxpayer-funded luxury boxes in Philadelphia and that he sought public aid for a new Eagles stadium in 1993.
"You are entitled to your own opinion, Mr. Braman, but not your own facts," the ad said.
Braman said the luxury-box improvements in Philadelphia were negotiated before he bought the team and were included in the price he paid for it. The financing "wasn't a handout" because as much as 70 percent of revenue from the seats went to the city, helping it profit from the investment, he said.
Florida has spent about $251 million on professional sports-franchise facilities statewide since 1994, according to a legislative analysis. That includes almost $39.2 million for the Dolphins' home field since 1994, to pay for a renovation that allowed the Marlins to play there.
This week, the Dolphins and Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez backed a public referendum on the stadium proposal, though Gimenez said Feb. 11 that he wouldn't call for a vote until he's satisfied with the finance plan.
"There's got to be a lot more negotiating before it becomes a good deal for taxpayers," Gimenez said in an interview.
Braman said he will "absolutely" finance opposition to the stadium plan if a referendum is held, adding that he spent "well over a million dollars" during the debate over the Marlins ballpark and subsequent mayoral recall campaign.
"Somebody has to stand up to this stuff," Braman said. "The problem is that nobody has the financial ability and desire to fight it. Nobody likes these things but no one stands up to it."


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Reese Witherspoon Reunites With Friends For A Lunch Date In LA
Apr 30, 2012 04:30 PM
Welcome back to the west coast Reese!
The Academy Award winning actress was all smiles dressed in a cream coat today when she was spotted meeting up with friends for lunch at Tavern in Brentwood.
The 29-year-old pregnant A-lister didn't look like it when she returned home from a glamourous weekend in our nation's capital as she attended the White House Correspondent's Dinner on Saturday.
Looks like that coat is helping conceal her ever-growing baby bump!
SEE THE GALLERY Reese Witherspoon Meets Friends At Tavern
EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS - Reese Witherspoon Reunites With Ryan Phillippe For The First Time After Her Arrest
EXCLUSIVE VIDEO - Reese Witherspoon's Husband Jim Toth Asked About Going To Rehab
Reese Witherspoon Tries To Make Amends With Atlanta Police After Arrest
Watch Reese Witherspoon's Crazy Arrest Video
Reese Witherspoon Pleads No Contest To Disorderly Conduct Charges


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Join 500,000+ artists on ConceptArt.Org.
Its' free and it takes less than 10 seconds!
Hell yeah son!
you suck. go die in a ditch.
I've seen you around a bit...
Perusing through your sketchbook, I have become more and more intrigued.
Also, you drew Cooler... you're fucking awesome.
HarbringerofIllRepute Thanks! And yeah I want to do another DBZ character soon and actually take it seriously. Maybe Broly
Here's my finished Dryad for the ArtOrder competition and some quick tree studies I did before I started to get in the nature vibe and make sure I didn't use too much green I'm going to be doing a Bouguereau study tomorrow on my stream so if you'd like stop on by and say hi
Loved your last post man. And the portraits ofcourse.
So my usual image host site is being shitty at the moment and not working so I'm sorry if there's something wrong with the pics in this post.
Just a WIP of my Bouguereau study, figures, and a doodle from tonight
Love your recent stuff man , awesome improvement! That last portrait looks great , a stronger lightsource would be my preference though.
Anyway , keep it up and thanks for kicking my ass
I am Othrandir and Othrandir means me.
ive been wanting to critique your stuff for a while now so i guess ill try. i think that your values are kinda crazy, it seems like you're going from 0 to 90 mph in a lot of these very quickly. it's kinda like the things in your paintings are made out of some sort of weird material used in some 90's sci fi movie. maybe take things a little slower in regards to your values. save the darkest and brightest highlights for the sweet spots instead of kinda blending and meshing them throughout the paintings.
ok onto colors. something i would do was i used to use a lot of filters on my finished paintings because my colors werent that great. but instead of just doing that, i filtered some paintings of mine and learned what made colors work together by color picking and switching the filters on and off.
well thats my critique, i hope it helps
Othrandir Ha, thanks so much
Florgenstein Hey there thanks for the critique. I recently starting noticing the same thing in my values and have been experimenting while working on my illustrations and recent pieces to try and fix that weird look. For awhile I didn't care or pay much attention to the values I used, but now I'm starting to work more on it. Though I'm not sure what you mean about the whole weird 90's sci fi movie look thing o.O Only in the last couple weeks did I notice all the different filter options to help with color and stuff and I've been trying the same thing you did to help with colors
I... still suck. I want to spend more time working on stuff from my imagination. Not serious stuff, just doodles.
I wish I could show my commission stuff I've been doing recently, that's where most my drawing time has been going to
So, not much for today's post because I mostly did work today. However tomorrow will be loaded with studies.
I will discuss something that happened to me today though. I started the drawing below earlier today as a future portfolio piece. My thought process was simple, I had an idea for a battle mage or spellblade-like class and wanted to try my own take on it. So I started it like I started any of my drawings which is rough out a pose. I wanted it to be a somewhat interesting pose, not so much just him standing there. I wanted to give it emotion in some way. When I started drawing out the poses I just wasn't feeling it, I seriously for the life of me could not draw a good looking pose. And I kept thinking to myself "Wtf! Why can't I do this?!" But I didn't quit so I kept pushing with more poses and after awhile I sort of changed my technique. I was trying to draw the poses more like the way I draw my gestures when I do my 60 sec. warm ups. I try to draw each line with reason and I try to have clear, confident lines. However, by doing this my poses came out stiffer then they've ever been. After the first few poses I started caring less and less about it being accurate and more about it being alive and actually interesting. And each pose I did this with only got better and better. I went from doing stiff standing poses to dramatic magical spear throwing poses. The reason I think this happened to me was because I haven't really drawn poses from my imagination in a few days and I've been so worried about studying and improving myself that I haven't done much personal doodles or sketches to keep loose. I now realize that my worry of improving actually put me in a slump for a bit, I'm just grateful I didn't wait longer to do what I did today otherwise I probably wouldn't have figured out the problem. I guess what I'm trying to get at and teach whoever reads this is to quit being so stiff. Loosen up and try and remind yourself that what you're doing is drawing, it's not life threatening, it's not a huge deal if you don't sketch something right the first time. Keep going at it and every time you fail try and get motivated by your faults. Anyway, that's it for the wall of text, I'll post studies and more progress on this guy tomorrow
I'm glad you had breakthrough forrest i will definitely keep that in mind. i some time have that problem and i try taking a walk, quick work out or clearing my brain. Thanks for sharing and That dude looks awesome!
nice updates! btw i just remembered i was going to pm you bout that fb post, il go do that now :b
Those updates, I gotta say, pretty impressive stuff!
Just stopped by to tell ya that those streams of yours have inspired me to do a lot of things I normally wouldn't! Thanks for that. :>
kevin_ and you did pm me yay!
HarbringerofIllRepute thanks man I'm glad I could help you
Last Man Standing Fan Art and some studies, I've been pretty sick the last two days so drawing has been slow but I hope I'll be feeling better by tomorrow so I can get back to studies.
some studies. There shall be more tomorrow! Also, I'm slowly working out my next illustration xD It's just taking forever.
I didn't get around to what I wanted to do today but I will certainly kick my own ass for it tomorrow. Streaming tomorrow at 3:50 pm pst. Be there or be dead to me forever.
Just some doodles
Hand studies for today Really want to nail it when it comes to drawing hands and so I want to crack down on studies for them. Hopefully I'll finish this book cover commission I've been working on lately by tomorrow so I can show something other then boring studies.
Finished commission at the top, a couple studies, and my valentines day present for my lovely girlfriend
When doing gestures instead of capturing the outer contours try to draw through. Draw the energy of the pose and not the figure itself, use rhythmic lines to really bring out character of the pose(asymmetry is key in this and anatomical parts follow an asymmetrical rhythm). I know your goal is to be a Concept Artist but try to study cartoons(like glen keane's) and try to capture the gesture and expressions of the poses. It will really help loosen up your stiff posing and your characters will be more lively because of that.
CHECK OUT MY FRIEND'S SB OVAH HERE >> deer's sketchbook
thanks kamikaze, I know I really need to work on this :/ I'll try and fix the stiffness
some studies, a WIP of my ArtOrder submission for this months challenge and my new study/work schedule I'm going to try hard to keep up.


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Ascedia is excited to announce the re-launch of GE Healthcare Partners, an online healthcare community for hospital administrators, C-suite executives and healthcare industry leaders to share, connect and discuss current healthcare topics, trends, culture and asset management solutions.
Ascedia, Inc., a full-service digital agency based in Milwaukee, Wis., announced today it has completed its acquisition of Roll Mobile.
Ascedia is proud to announce that it was awarded Best in Class for excellence in the design, development and implementation of the TravelWisconsin.com website. The Best in Class award is the highest honor bestowed by the Interactive Media Awards and represents the very best in planning, execution and overall professionalism.


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Handmade Preview: Ritchey unveils Swiss Cross Disc CX bike at NAHBS » Ritchey Swiss Cross Disc NAHBS Fork
By Valerie W. March 13, 2014
NOTE: There are two ways to comment on our articles: Facebook or Wordpress. Facebook uses your real name and can be posted on your wall while Wordpress uses our login system. Feel free to use either one.


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Bee Mask
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This baby has come out of their hive just in time for Halloween in the Baby Bee Infant Costume. This little bee will attract more than honey in this adorable one piece with striped tulle details, sheer sleeves, cute wings and a bee hood with cute yellow bow.
Satin Bee Wing Set
Hey little miss bumble bee, don't you sting me! She won't when she wears this Satin Bee Wing Set. Pair it with a black and yellow polka dot leotard and tutu and you'll have the cutest little bee anyone's ever seen!
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Make your little honey the sweetest thing anyone ever did see when you dress her in this adorable Sweet Bee Toddler Costume. Black and yellow stripe dress comes complete with antennae headpiece and matching yellow wings.
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Won't you bee mine? This little bumble bee is cute as a bug's ear! Dress your little one as a lucky bumble bee and take the sting out of Halloween with this classic costume. What a photo opportunity - make lasting memories when your child wears this honey of a costume. Bee-utiful!
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Bee Pet Costume
They won't bee-lieve it's Fido in that clever costume! Start a buzz when you dress you four-legged friend in this funny Bee pet costume. Crack them up when you dress as a beekeeper (costume sold separately).
Honey Bee Tween Costume
Create a buzz when you don this adorable Honey Bee tween costume. The black and yellow dress comes complete with attached bolero style jacket, wings, leggings and matching headpiece.
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Bee Kit Costume
There will be a buzz when you arrive in this honey of a costume. The adult women's black and yellow bee costume kit is cute and easy to wear. Create your own special kind of costume with this clever kit on Halloween and learn all about the birds and the bees.
Egg Harbor Township, NJ 08234