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Newspaper Archive of
Shelton Mason County Journal
Shelton, Washington
June 2, 2011     Shelton Mason County Journal
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June 2, 2011
 
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Fair Continued from page A-1 "I'm very uncomfortable, and it's very unfortunate that we have to deal with a matter of such great sig- nificance to the community with our backs to the wall and time running out." No explicit details of this investigation were given during the meeting, but Commissioner Tom Wallit- ner addressed the Hansens, who were in attendance, on the matter. "In reference to the in- vestigation I don't see that it merits any concern on your part," he said. "I'm not about to put myself in the place of impeding the fair." The commission voted 2-1 to approve the agreement with Northwest Event Or- ganizers. Forest Continued from page A-1 inspired 1970's buttons, to this year's hand-drawn button illustrat- ing the 2011 theme of Forest Tales. Harvey said that since the first festival, the buttons have been a creative way to sell tickets. "One of the principles of Forest Festival is the sale of the button gets you into everything," she said. The festival costs $35,000 each year - we couldn't put the forest festival on if it wasn't for the community." The festival begins today with the opening of the carnival at 4 p.m. at Gateway Plaza on Moun- tainview. The carnival will be open from 4 to 7 p.m. Thursday and Fri- day, from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Sat- urday and from noon to 6 p.m. on Sunday. The closing times are de- pendent on the weather. Harvey said that even after 67 years the festival still educates the community about its history, be- cause many Shelton residents are not familiar with the area's vast logging heritage. "One of the challenges we've faced is we're kind of a bedroom community now ... People don't have a sense of what Forest Festi- val is," she said. "I've talked to poe- ple who have lived here 10 years and don't know what the Forest Festival is." The logging show, which follows Saturday's Paul Bunyan Parade, which starts at 11 a.m. in Shelton, gives people a first hand look at the county's history, Harvey said. "The logging show shows the old style of logging," she said. "It's nice to keep the heritage of the county and teach the kids." Saturday will also have a kiddie parade starting at 10:30 a.m., the Goldsborough Creek Fun Run and fireworks at 10 p.m. at the Oakland Bay Junior High School field. To close out the festival, on Sun- day there will be a duck float down Goldsborough Creek in the morn- ing, and a car show from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Olympic Highway North. For more information on schedul- ing, go to masoncountyforestfesti- val.com. Harvey said that while the bulk of the festival has not changed over the years, and the purpose has al- ways been to unite the community, it now serves as a reminder that conservation of the forest, which has long sustained the community, is more important than ever. "It's a renewable resource - we have to work on keeping it renew- able," she said. League Continued from page A-1 the authority to expend money. The groups are formed through state law and county codes and ordinances. "We found out just kind of what exactly do they do and who are the members and how are they selected and how long do they stay on, just the nitty-gritty facts about those committees," Boegl said. The next step is focusing what the group has learned for the whole community, Boegl said. "Putting it all together and making some general recommen- dations was the larger work," she said. The study group will share its information with the larger 50-member League of Women Voters of Mason County at the non-profit's next regular mem- bership meeting. Teen Continued from page A-1 funded Women, Infants and Children nutritional program) have been working in Mason County to get young mothers the resources they need, but several factors contribute to why teen- agers continue to get pregnant -- from access to birth control, to drug use to boredom in a ru- ral county. Snyder, who has Polycystic ovary syndrome and was told at 13 she'd always have a hard time conceiving, and her boy- friend had been using condoms and birth control pills. But, "none of those things happened as regularly as they probably should have," she said. Snyder received a lot of sup- port from most of her teachers and her mother, who allowed her boyfriend to move in with them. "My sci6nce teacher gave me a bassinet and a changing table," she said. "The teachers and nurses were mostly super supportive. Other teachers, like my P.E. teacher, were judgmen- tal. So, I kind of stopped going to P.E." Snyder was also asked to leave the North Mason branch of the Boys & Girls Club, and many of her classmates questioned who her baby's father was, frus- trating Snyder, who had been in a relationship with her boy- friend for three years. "I slowly stopped caring for some of my friends," she said. "A lot of close friends will stick with you. This let me realize what friends were real." By the time her baby shower took place the August before her junior year -- she'd spent the summer cleaning houses while her boyfriend worked at Safe- way -- only two people showed up. At this point, Snyder had dropped out of high school. "I just couldn't do it any- more," she said. Some pregnant teens think they have to choose between being a good mother and being a good student, said David Pe- terson, superintendent at North Mason School District. The district is looking into providing additional support for teen parents, like a poten- tial teen parent program with a daycare, said Anne Crosby, the district's compensatory educa- tion director and principal of al- ternative high school programs. There are teen parents at both PACE Academy, the dis- trict's alternative high school, and in the HomeLink parent- school partnership program, Crosby said. "I think we're looking at whatever means we have to keep people at school," she said. "The most important thing is to talk to the kids and ask them what they think. We think a daycare might be great, but one of the challenges for teen parents is getting to school with a baby." In the Shelton School Dis- trict, CHOICE Alternative High School had a daycare for teen parents for several years before funding cut it two years ago, said counselor Kate Fletcher. Fletcher has seen the rate of teen pregnancies decrease in the time she's worked at the schools since 2004, which she credits to general public awareness. "I have kids who watch [MTV's reality show] "reen Morn' and say, 'I don't want to be a teen morn," she said. Students come to Fletcher for a variety of pregnancy-related is- sues, from working through a re- lationship with the baby's other parent to learning to cope after having an abortion. "It breaks my heart," she said. "These kids are dealing with very grown-up issues, and it's hard because they are not grown-ups." After Stephanie Baker learned she was pregnant --a year afar her best friend Snyder -- the first person she told be- sides Snyder was her 25-year-old boyfriend of three months. Her boyfriend, a Navy sailor stationed in Bremerton, had told Baker he was sterile. When he found out she was pregnant, he insisted that she get an abortion, Baker said. "I told him it was against my moral beliefs, but he kept push- ing it," she said. The two broke up, and he did not visit the hospital when Baker gave birth to baby Parker almost BG 55 HANDHELD B'OWER $14995 Ui - - - Proven hanheld b(ower at an affordable price HEARING PROTECTORS Starting At ................................ $16 95 Double warranty protection is limited to $TIHL gasoline-powered products purchased for personal non-income producing, family and household purposes only. Other restrictions apply. FS 55 R TRIMMER WAS'219 'e : $19995 NOW JUST ! e Offer good through 7/3/11 at participating dealers while supplies last. g ._ Versatile, straight- " shaft trimmer for  occasional or light-duty  professional use  . Can use nylon line or  STIHL PolyCuf" head  m Simple line advancement and replacement o Skipworth's 1603 Olympic Highway North Shelton ' 360-426-0875 Skipworths.com Page A-6 - Shelton-Mason County Journal - Thursday, June 2, 2011 ten weeks ago. Baker said she is still attempting to get child sup- port from him. Baker, who was already plan- ning to enroll at PACE Academy, is now on track to graduate this month. "I didn't think I'd have the support that I have," said Baker, who lives with her mother, down the street from Snyder. "This is my life and this is the best thing that could've happened to me." Fellow teen morn Emma Shafto, a student at North Ma- son's HomeLink, agreed with Baker. "Sometimes I wonder if I hadn't gotten pregnant, if I'd be out partying with all my friends and end up in a bad situation," said Shafto, who also lives with her mother. "It's kind of a good thing I got pregnant so young." Her baby's father, who has been arrested twice for drunk- en behavior (he's 20 years old), "disappeared off the face of the Earth" ter Shafto told him she was pregnant, she said. Baker and Shafto were switching birth control meth- ods when they got pregnant (Shv2to also credits "drunken ftunbling'), but they and Snyder believe boredom has a lot to do with why Mason County's teen pregnancy rate is higher than the state average. "There's no movie theatre, no mall, no arcade," Snyder said. "Instead, we have the woods, and b0iifire parties and drink- ing.  After-school activities are what keeps students busy in a positive manner, said Shelten High School Counselor Susie Wirzbicki. "Part of what Shelton misses is a place for kids to hang out in a positive way," she said. "In Mason County, we have a lot of groups and activities and adults that are trying to create these places.  In rural areas, it can be hard- er for students to access after- school programs, Fletcher said. "Shelton is like a city for [some of] these students, an hour bus ride to school,  she said. "Our parents are doing the best they can, and I just worry that our students are left to make poor choices because they can." Lower socio-economic levels, as well as a. large Guatemalan population that views pregnan- cy through a different cultural lens, could also contribute to Mason County's teen pregnancy rate. "The Guatemalan culture #Jews contraception differently," said Lyne Constantineau, who works with low-income families in the North Mason and Grape- view school districts. "I believe it brings up the numbers." Many of the Guatemalan families that Constantineau works with are Catholic, a re- ligion that frowns upon contra- ception, she said. Baker also noted that many teen mothers she encounters at the WIC office are Guatemalan. .I honestly have to say the Guatemalans could be bringing up the numbers because of their culture," she said. Hi'gh-drug use among teenag- ers could also be a factor, Baker said, as well as boredom. Access to birth control was an issue in North Mason (which does not have a Planned Parent- hood location), but now it's less of a problem, Constantineau said. "We've gone from bad to bet- ter, and our teen pregnancies have gone down tremendously," she said. "We need more out- reach on the Guatemalan side.  Ultimately, most of the teen morns she works with are good mothers who take advantage of social services and work hard for their babies, Constantineau said. Snyder recently quit her job working at Crazy Eric's burger stand and now works at the shipyard in Bremerton, cleaning fuel and septic tanks and taking classes in drafting, math, Eng- lish and communications. Snyder plans to get her GED this December, though she's acutely aware that if she fails, that's $75 she could have used on three packs of diapers for her 20-month-old daughter Olivia. She and Olivia's father broke up, and she said she has diffi- culty collecting financial support from him. "His priorities are not what they seem they should be," she said. "I focus less on relation- ships now. My short-term goal is by January of next year to be out on my own ... I want to start two savings accounts, one for Olivia and one for myself, so I can go to college." 0 Truck 360,426.4743 Also Featuring: • A 11 • . F • Windows "Jail. l _ _ _,,, 2n00: I . Decks • Sudmg Serving Western Washington for 37 years Superior quality workmanship at an affordable price/ ** Our Roofs Are Hand Nailed ** 30 Year Workmanship Warranty + Limited Time Offer + SUMMER TRUCK LOAD SALE 2,0%40% OFF All" Roof Installations with PABCO PREMIER 30-yr Laminate Shingles Call now to schedule a FREE Estimate and reserve your color while materials last. ROOF NOW--PAY LATER FREE Estimwte$ , Saturday & Ewning Appointments Available Call today to schedule your appointment 360-432-02.96 *,, • Lic.# A1ROOI*111PR • Local • 24-hour emergency service • 0% Financing OAC • Senior discount ,-,