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Shelton Mason County Journal
Shelton, Washington
September 16, 1999     Shelton Mason County Journal
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September 16, 1999
 
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GF4OSSENBACHER BROS INC ; 106 NESIST AVE PORTLAND OR 97232 " i : =4(" '-- . ..... i .... i : # :# MOoN'SuITED MEN from the state's instant-response team Work to dismantle an alleged methamphetamine lab discovered in a trailer in the county's south end last week. Kerr, Taylor lead in city; District 5 EMS levy fails Barring a major turnaround in yet-to-be-counted ballots, Dick Taylor and Carolyn Kerr will vie in November h)r a seat on the Shelton City Commission. Following Tuesday's primary election, the first primary to be conducted here by mail, Taylor led Kerr by 64 votes. Kelly Buechel trailed Kerr by 111 votes and apparently is out of the race to replace John Tarrant as com- missioner of finance. Tarrant is running unopposed to replace Scott Hilburn as mayor. Hilburn is stepping down at year's end af- ter one term ill office. Meanwhile, it looks as if Diana Goldy and Mike Brown will con- tinue on to the November ballot in one of two heavily contested races for seats on the Mary M. Knight School Board. Brown led the next contender, Ira Brehmey- er, by just two votes at the end of ballot-counting Tuesday. In the other race, incumbent Kurt King- IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIll th lab probe here is Primary State s 182nd this year election MADDUX about as hot r afternoon can get, Mason County Yard on Johns Prairie, a silver-colored plastic and air-purifying t wields a a screwdriver on a the box yields and out a number of items, before handing md col- under an impro- awning. He's been going from a small, trailer that re- Sun like a radiant heat- advises him to take off the helmet, plenty more to do his five teammates real shade, decon- showers, relaxation. lrs and beakers and all stained with sort and boxes of as- to catalogue as the apparent clan- amphetamine labo- 182nd meth-lab in- year for members Instant Re- I Says Detective Cory s OVerseeing the ef- NOT THE only out the afternoon. 5 firefighters and a District 5 an aid vehicle are mandated standby, medic is soon to be the Scene of a brush that happens, she rangements for do the neces- checks on the both first-re- that the chemi- team members are of making the the lab ill. They e of the chemicals explosive, and Sheriffs Detec- Nick Patterson is With the county's Steve Ellison, Two de- the arcotics Enforce- keeping a techni- the inside cal eye on the follow-up to their arrests, made west of Shelton the previous Friday. This one is the result of a war- rant arrest. ACTING ON information that Jerry L. Morris and Carrie A. Hyder, both wanted on bench warrants, were living in the little travel trailer on, SE Highland Drive, south of Shelton, sheriffs deputies went to the site to serve the warrants on the two, accord- ing to Mason County Sheriff Steve Whybark. When they saw motion inside the trailer but no one answered their knock, and officers "detected paraphernalia and a smell con- sistent with a clandestine lab," Whybark said Friday, the depu- ties got a search warrant and brought Morris, 39, and Hyder, 35, out of the residence. They then called WESTNET agents into the action. whybark said the investigation will involve potential charges of manufacture of a controlled sub- stance against Morris and Hyder, who were identified in Mason County Superior Court and or- dered held pending their sentenc- ings, Morris on an escape charge and Hyder on a forgery convic- tion. The sentencings were set for September 23. WESTNET personnel hauled the subjects' car and trailer off to the impound yard to continue the investigation. "It's pretty unbelievable people were living in there," Drake said. "It's not a huge operation, but any of these operations can be pretty toxic. We can't tell the scale of this one at this point, but we sus- pect that the whole process isn't done here." He explained that often the first stages of methamphetamine manufacture will be done at one location, the final stages at anoth- er. The undercover detectives who work investigating the drug scene are at risk, he acknowledged. They're in and out of the places where people who have no under- standing of the dangers of the substances they're dealing with, like lithium from batteries, mix them in a chemical stew that makes a witches' brew sound be- nign. And they're in daily contact with people whose thinking is skewed to the next hit, the next high and where they'll get the dollars, or the ingredients, for the one after that. "Their decision- making processes are not conse- quence-based," one of the detec- tives said as he watched workers carry out contaminated items from the trailer. "And they won't be, not unless our jail and prison systems start providing treatment," he added. "METE[ IS A social epidemic," observed Ditmer as he doled out water to one dehydrated worker and advised another to get into the shade. "It started in Califor- nia, and it's been moving up the coast." His team, he said, is trained in strategic weapons work as well as drug investigations, and they used to be called in a few times a year. Now they're working full time dismantling clandestine lab- oratories. "We're trained to know the chemicals, to use the protec- tions and the tactics: fingerprint- ing, assessment of chemicals, tak- ing samples - and decontamina- tion," he said. Yet another agency was due on the scene to take dangerous resi- dues and contaminated materials away, Patterson said. "We're not even starting to estimate the cost of all the hours, all the agencies" that would be involved before the case is completed, he said. And Ellison, after the moon- suited, ventilated SIRT team peo- ple head off on other calls else- where, will be left with the task of husbanding the evidence as the case begins its long process through the court system. "who knows about the long- range effects of these things?" he queried. He laughed grimly when someone pointed out that the dark-gray bird circling overhead was a vulture, its turkey-red head bright in the hot sun as it checked out the scene. Firefighters kept busy; burning ban instituted By JEFF GREEN Fire crews around Mason County and in the Olympic Na- tional Forest were kept hopping this week by a rash of fires that broke out in the tinder-dry condi- tions that prompted a countywide burning ban order. The 90-acre fire in a steep and rocky area of the national forest drew a crew of 11 smoke jumpers who parachuted in to the area, as well as a four-member rappelling team that was airlifted in to the area aboard a helicopter. The fire was reported around midday Sunday in the Olympic National Forest in a steep area near The Brothers in southeast- ern Jefferson County. The cause remains under investigation by the U.S. Forest Service. However, a Forest Service spokesman said the probable cause was a lightning strike from an earlier storm that may have been smoldering for as long as several weeks and was kicked up Sunday by high winds. BY WEDNESDAY morning, the fire had consumed approx- imately 90 acres and was burning next to a conifer forest, said Verne Farrell, a Forest Service information officer. There was very little chance the fire could spread into nearby Olympic Na- tional Park, he added. A total of (Please turn to page S.) results Shelton City Commision Dick Taylor 488 39.5% Carolyn Kerr 424 34.3% Kelly Buechel 323 26.2% MMK School Board (including Gray ttarbor County) Pusilion 2 Diana Goldy 84 35.7% Mike Brown 62 26.4% Ira Brehmeyer 60 25.5% Jim Compton 20 8.5% Boyd Fite 9 3.8% l)i:;lrct 3 ' Kurt Kingman 87 37.2% Patsy Scott 50 21.4% Dante Elliott 39 16.7% Jenny Keesey 34 14.5% Pat Sykora 24 10.3% Fire District 2 Position 3 Jim LeBlanc 535 41.2% Ralph Herth 316 24.4% Kathryn Klusman 228 17.6% Marcia Hamilton 218 16.8% Fire District 5 Position 1 Thomas Brokaw 1,083 39.5% David Tagye 798 29.1% Lorne Hauser 519 18.9% Terry Eastman 341 12.4% Fire District 9 Position 2 "Sandi" Kvarnstrom 76 46.3% Edward Bish 54 32.9% Chuck Belander 34 20.7% Port of Dewatto District 1 Lorraine Kelly 44 58.7% Pennie Edwards 19 25.3% Stephen Vogt 12 16.0 Fire District 5 EMS levy Yes 1,457 45.7% No 1,728 54.3% IIIlUlIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIlIIIIIIIIIIIIIHUUlUlIIIIIHlUlUl Arrest story challenged A story in last 'week's Journal, detailing how a Grapeview wom- an will test the state's medical marijuana law after being arrest- ed, was in error, according to a friend of the woman. Helen E. Gardner was stopped by a guard at the Shelton Fred Meyer and accused of shoplifting, and a policeman arriving at the store found her in possession of drugs, according to the police. Last week's story said that when the guard detained Gard- ner, he asked her if there was anything else he should know about and she told him she had marijuana and cocaine in her fan- ny pack to be used for medical purposes. Gardner's friend said this week, in asking The Journal to correct the story, that Gardner never told the security guard she had cocaine in the fanny pack. "*,,,o,o, ...... ,.,,,.,30 .......... 36 g ..... 29 ....... 15 ............ 28 °°°tessos°*loe4 .......... 20 ............... 26 ......... 28 man and Patsy Scott were leading the pack. In all, five candidates filed for each of the two positions. "I can't complain," Taylor said. "Now is the time when the real race starts. It's going to take some work and we'll have at it." Kerr said the results were about what she and her campaign committee expected them to be. "Our goal was to survive the primary," she said. "Obviously I'm pleased. I appreciate people sup- porting me. (The general election) should be interesting." ELECTIONS OFFICE staff processed 6,381 mailed-in ballots in the various races and one bal- lot measure across Mason County Tuesday. Another 113 ballots came in too late Tuesday to be counted that day and Mason County Elections Supervisor Bill t{uennekens said he expected another 400 to 500 ballots to come in Wednesday's mail. Those ballots are due to be counted Thursday morning and whether they will change any of the current results won't be known until then. Huennekens said elections officials are predict- ing a turnout of 38 to 40 percent. "We're happy with the turnout," Huennekens told The Journal. Primary elections ordi- narily don't bring out a lot of vot- ers. In the 1995 primary, just 25 percent of the registered voters cast ballots. In 1997, 35 percent voted, drawn to the polls that year by a partisan state senate race. A recap of Tuesday's election results follows this article. IN OTHER RACES on Tues- day's primary ballot, subject to change by additional votes to be counted: • Thomas Brokaw and David Tagye were the leading vote-get- ters for a position on the Fire Dis- trict 5 (Allyn) Commission. Theyll advance to the November ballot. • Fire District 5's ballot propo- sal for a permanent property tax levy for emergency medical ser- vices was heading for defeat. It garnered just 45.7 percent "yes" votes and needed 60 percent to pass. • Rose "Sandi" Kwmstrom and Edward Bish received the most votes in a race for a seat on the Fire District 9 (Skokomish Valley) Commission and will op- pose one another in November. • Also moving on to the No- vember ballot will be Jim LeBlanc and Ralph Herth in the race for a position on the Fire District 2 (Belfair) Commission. • Lorraine Kelly and Pennie Edwards received the most votes among ballots counted Tuesday for a seat on the Port of Dewatto. They'll advance to the November ballot. Thursday, September 16, 1999 113th Year - Number 37 4 Sections - 40 Pages 50 Cents Youth, 19, receives 52 years for murder James Wayne Anderson, 19, of Shelton was sentenced Thursday in Mason County Superior Court to 52 years and eight months in prison for murder in the first de- gree. Judge Toni Sheldon gave the youth double the standard range sentence for his role in the Janu- ary 4 beating and strangulation murder of 70-year-old Ronald Kerr, a trapper from Olympia. His cousin, 15-year-old Nathan C. Hughe, s of Centralia, was sen- tenced last month to 46 years and seven months for the same crime. Kerr was killed after he knocked at the door of Anderson's Shelton home and asked permis- sion to trap beavers in the SWamp behind 2241 East Agate Road. Po- lice say Hughes hit Kerr with the bowl of a blender and that he and Anderson then strangled him with an electric cord. THE TWO KILLED Kerr so they could steal his 1988 Ford Ranger pickup truck, according to confessions made by the two teen- agers. Hughes and Anderson were ar- rested in Port Townsend January 6 after law officers there spotted Kerr's pickup in the parking lot of the QFC Store. "The victim was a vibrant, alive individual," Deputy Prosecu- tor Reinhold Schuetz said. Schuetz argued for an exceptional sentence based on evidence that the youths continued to attack Kerr after he was rendered defen- seless. l'hey committed a series of as- saults with attempts to smother him, attempts to choke him and a series of brutal and vicious kicks to the head," he said. DEFENSE ATTORNEy Rob- ert Quillian said a few words about the victim to Kerr's family, who attended the sentencing of Anderson and Hughes. "By all ac- counts he was an exceptional man and on behalf of James and my- self yoh have our condolences," he said. Quillian noted that Anderson's parents split up when he was a few months old and that he hasn't had much contact with his father. "James has certainly not had the best upbringing, the best family life in the world," he said. He compared the kille,rs..to Lennie and George, the drifters in Of Mice and Men, a novel by John Steinbeck in which a big man of limited intelligence kills a woman by mistake. Hughes is slender and said to be quite intelligent while Anderson is said to weigh nearly 300 pounds. "George was a little-guy con man and Lennie was this big guy who was along for the ride and was manipulated by George. Len- nie, not knowing the bounds of his power, killed Somebody. [ think that James was Lennie and Mr. Hughes was George,,, Quil- lian said. Quillian said that Hughes ma- nipulated Anderson. "It Wasn't James Anderson who said as they were leaving the scene of this hor- rible crime, 'Score one for the Bear,'" Quillian said. That re- mark was attributed to Hughes, a (Please turn to page 2.) Speaks off to Cambridge to acquire her doctorate Recent University of Washing- ton graduate Rachel S. Speaks is off to England this fall to pursue her doctoral studies in science at Cambridge University. Speaks, the daughter of Jerry and Suzy Speaks of Union, gradu- ated August 20 from the Univer- sity of Washington College of En- gineering with a bachelor of sci- ence degree in ceramic engineer- ing from the UW Materials Sci- ence and Engineering Depart- ment. She received $85,000 in schol- arships to pursue an accelerated three-year PhD degree in the ma- terials science and metallurgy de- partment. Speaks received a Na- tional Science Foundation gradu- ate research fellowship to do re- search work on nanofabrication of functional devices. HER SUBJECT, nanofabrica- tion, Speaks explained, has to do with manufacture of minuscule items, "One nanometer is 50,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair, and nanotech- nology is the ultimate manipula- tion of matter," Speaks said. "The two biggest areas of research are mechanical and medical," she added, instancing computer chips, gears and motors in the former Rachel Speaks w# area and, for the latter, medica- tion delivery systems and biocom- patible tissues for artificial or- gans. Speaks will work with both areas of research and develop- ment, she said, though she will likely make a commitment to one area or the other in the course of her studies. Her awards were the latest in a series of academic distinctions for Speaks, who was valedictorian of her 1994 North Mason High School class. At the University of Washington, she received both the James I. Mueller Award for the most outstanding junior in her department and the Richard L. Norrist Award for the most outstanding senior in her depart- ment. She was active in clubs and ac- tivities on campus, serving as the professional mentoring co-chair for the Women in Science and En- gineering Center. SPEAKS GAVE presentations at three national conferences and is working on her third publica- tion. She received the University of Washington's Mary Gates Stu- dent Leadership Grant for her outreach work in developing hands-on experiments for high- school teachers to use to help stu- dents learn science and engineer. ing concepts. She was also honored for her volunteer work by receiving one of four S. Sterling Munro Public Service Awards. She worked for over a year at Intel as a process engineer in waf- er fabrication plants in Oregon. GF4OSSENBACHER BROS INC ; 106 NESIST AVE PORTLAND OR 97232 " i : =4(" '-- . ..... i .... i : # :# MOoN'SuITED MEN from the state's instant-response team Work to dismantle an alleged methamphetamine lab discovered in a trailer in the county's south end last week. Kerr, Taylor lead in city; District 5 EMS levy fails Barring a major turnaround in yet-to-be-counted ballots, Dick Taylor and Carolyn Kerr will vie in November h)r a seat on the Shelton City Commission. Following Tuesday's primary election, the first primary to be conducted here by mail, Taylor led Kerr by 64 votes. Kelly Buechel trailed Kerr by 111 votes and apparently is out of the race to replace John Tarrant as com- missioner of finance. Tarrant is running unopposed to replace Scott Hilburn as mayor. Hilburn is stepping down at year's end af- ter one term ill office. Meanwhile, it looks as if Diana Goldy and Mike Brown will con- tinue on to the November ballot in one of two heavily contested races for seats on the Mary M. Knight School Board. Brown led the next contender, Ira Brehmey- er, by just two votes at the end of ballot-counting Tuesday. In the other race, incumbent Kurt King- IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIll th lab probe here is Primary State s 182nd this year election MADDUX about as hot r afternoon can get, Mason County Yard on Johns Prairie, a silver-colored plastic and air-purifying t wields a a screwdriver on a the box yields and out a number of items, before handing md col- under an impro- awning. He's been going from a small, trailer that re- Sun like a radiant heat- advises him to take off the helmet, plenty more to do his five teammates real shade, decon- showers, relaxation. lrs and beakers and all stained with sort and boxes of as- to catalogue as the apparent clan- amphetamine labo- 182nd meth-lab in- year for members Instant Re- I Says Detective Cory s OVerseeing the ef- NOT THE only out the afternoon. 5 firefighters and a District 5 an aid vehicle are mandated standby, medic is soon to be the Scene of a brush that happens, she rangements for do the neces- checks on the both first-re- that the chemi- team members are of making the the lab ill. They e of the chemicals explosive, and Sheriffs Detec- Nick Patterson is With the county's Steve Ellison, Two de- the arcotics Enforce- keeping a techni- the inside cal eye on the follow-up to their arrests, made west of Shelton the previous Friday. This one is the result of a war- rant arrest. ACTING ON information that Jerry L. Morris and Carrie A. Hyder, both wanted on bench warrants, were living in the little travel trailer on, SE Highland Drive, south of Shelton, sheriffs deputies went to the site to serve the warrants on the two, accord- ing to Mason County Sheriff Steve Whybark. When they saw motion inside the trailer but no one answered their knock, and officers "detected paraphernalia and a smell con- sistent with a clandestine lab," Whybark said Friday, the depu- ties got a search warrant and brought Morris, 39, and Hyder, 35, out of the residence. They then called WESTNET agents into the action. whybark said the investigation will involve potential charges of manufacture of a controlled sub- stance against Morris and Hyder, who were identified in Mason County Superior Court and or- dered held pending their sentenc- ings, Morris on an escape charge and Hyder on a forgery convic- tion. The sentencings were set for September 23. WESTNET personnel hauled the subjects' car and trailer off to the impound yard to continue the investigation. "It's pretty unbelievable people were living in there," Drake said. "It's not a huge operation, but any of these operations can be pretty toxic. We can't tell the scale of this one at this point, but we sus- pect that the whole process isn't done here." He explained that often the first stages of methamphetamine manufacture will be done at one location, the final stages at anoth- er. The undercover detectives who work investigating the drug scene are at risk, he acknowledged. They're in and out of the places where people who have no under- standing of the dangers of the substances they're dealing with, like lithium from batteries, mix them in a chemical stew that makes a witches' brew sound be- nign. And they're in daily contact with people whose thinking is skewed to the next hit, the next high and where they'll get the dollars, or the ingredients, for the one after that. "Their decision- making processes are not conse- quence-based," one of the detec- tives said as he watched workers carry out contaminated items from the trailer. "And they won't be, not unless our jail and prison systems start providing treatment," he added. "METE[ IS A social epidemic," observed Ditmer as he doled out water to one dehydrated worker and advised another to get into the shade. "It started in Califor- nia, and it's been moving up the coast." His team, he said, is trained in strategic weapons work as well as drug investigations, and they used to be called in a few times a year. Now they're working full time dismantling clandestine lab- oratories. "We're trained to know the chemicals, to use the protec- tions and the tactics: fingerprint- ing, assessment of chemicals, tak- ing samples - and decontamina- tion," he said. Yet another agency was due on the scene to take dangerous resi- dues and contaminated materials away, Patterson said. "We're not even starting to estimate the cost of all the hours, all the agencies" that would be involved before the case is completed, he said. And Ellison, after the moon- suited, ventilated SIRT team peo- ple head off on other calls else- where, will be left with the task of husbanding the evidence as the case begins its long process through the court system. "who knows about the long- range effects of these things?" he queried. He laughed grimly when someone pointed out that the dark-gray bird circling overhead was a vulture, its turkey-red head bright in the hot sun as it checked out the scene. Firefighters kept busy; burning ban instituted By JEFF GREEN Fire crews around Mason County and in the Olympic Na- tional Forest were kept hopping this week by a rash of fires that broke out in the tinder-dry condi- tions that prompted a countywide burning ban order. The 90-acre fire in a steep and rocky area of the national forest drew a crew of 11 smoke jumpers who parachuted in to the area, as well as a four-member rappelling team that was airlifted in to the area aboard a helicopter. The fire was reported around midday Sunday in the Olympic National Forest in a steep area near The Brothers in southeast- ern Jefferson County. The cause remains under investigation by the U.S. Forest Service. However, a Forest Service spokesman said the probable cause was a lightning strike from an earlier storm that may have been smoldering for as long as several weeks and was kicked up Sunday by high winds. BY WEDNESDAY morning, the fire had consumed approx- imately 90 acres and was burning next to a conifer forest, said Verne Farrell, a Forest Service information officer. There was very little chance the fire could spread into nearby Olympic Na- tional Park, he added. A total of (Please turn to page S.) results Shelton City Commision Dick Taylor 488 39.5% Carolyn Kerr 424 34.3% Kelly Buechel 323 26.2% MMK School Board (including Gray ttarbor County) Pusilion 2 Diana Goldy 84 35.7% Mike Brown 62 26.4% Ira Brehmeyer 60 25.5% Jim Compton 20 8.5% Boyd Fite 9 3.8% l)i:;lrct 3 ' Kurt Kingman 87 37.2% Patsy Scott 50 21.4% Dante Elliott 39 16.7% Jenny Keesey 34 14.5% Pat Sykora 24 10.3% Fire District 2 Position 3 Jim LeBlanc 535 41.2% Ralph Herth 316 24.4% Kathryn Klusman 228 17.6% Marcia Hamilton 218 16.8% Fire District 5 Position 1 Thomas Brokaw 1,083 39.5% David Tagye 798 29.1% Lorne Hauser 519 18.9% Terry Eastman 341 12.4% Fire District 9 Position 2 "Sandi" Kvarnstrom 76 46.3% Edward Bish 54 32.9% Chuck Belander 34 20.7% Port of Dewatto District 1 Lorraine Kelly 44 58.7% Pennie Edwards 19 25.3% Stephen Vogt 12 16.0 Fire District 5 EMS levy Yes 1,457 45.7% No 1,728 54.3% IIIlUlIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIlIIIIIIIIIIIIIHUUlUlIIIIIHlUlUl Arrest story challenged A story in last 'week's Journal, detailing how a Grapeview wom- an will test the state's medical marijuana law after being arrest- ed, was in error, according to a friend of the woman. Helen E. Gardner was stopped by a guard at the Shelton Fred Meyer and accused of shoplifting, and a policeman arriving at the store found her in possession of drugs, according to the police. Last week's story said that when the guard detained Gard- ner, he asked her if there was anything else he should know about and she told him she had marijuana and cocaine in her fan- ny pack to be used for medical purposes. Gardner's friend said this week, in asking The Journal to correct the story, that Gardner never told the security guard she had cocaine in the fanny pack. "*,,,o,o, ...... ,.,,,.,30 .......... 36 g ..... 29 ....... 15 ............ 28 °°°tessos°*loe4 .......... 20 ............... 26 ......... 28 man and Patsy Scott were leading the pack. In all, five candidates filed for each of the two positions. "I can't complain," Taylor said. "Now is the time when the real race starts. It's going to take some work and we'll have at it." Kerr said the results were about what she and her campaign committee expected them to be. "Our goal was to survive the primary," she said. "Obviously I'm pleased. I appreciate people sup- porting me. (The general election) should be interesting." ELECTIONS OFFICE staff processed 6,381 mailed-in ballots in the various races and one bal- lot measure across Mason County Tuesday. Another 113 ballots came in too late Tuesday to be counted that day and Mason County Elections Supervisor Bill t{uennekens said he expected another 400 to 500 ballots to come in Wednesday's mail. Those ballots are due to be counted Thursday morning and whether they will change any of the current results won't be known until then. Huennekens said elections officials are predict- ing a turnout of 38 to 40 percent. "We're happy with the turnout," Huennekens told The Journal. Primary elections ordi- narily don't bring out a lot of vot- ers. In the 1995 primary, just 25 percent of the registered voters cast ballots. In 1997, 35 percent voted, drawn to the polls that year by a partisan state senate race. A recap of Tuesday's election results follows this article. IN OTHER RACES on Tues- day's primary ballot, subject to change by additional votes to be counted: • Thomas Brokaw and David Tagye were the leading vote-get- ters for a position on the Fire Dis- trict 5 (Allyn) Commission. Theyll advance to the November ballot. • Fire District 5's ballot propo- sal for a permanent property tax levy for emergency medical ser- vices was heading for defeat. It garnered just 45.7 percent "yes" votes and needed 60 percent to pass. • Rose "Sandi" Kwmstrom and Edward Bish received the most votes in a race for a seat on the Fire District 9 (Skokomish Valley) Commission and will op- pose one another in November. • Also moving on to the No- vember ballot will be Jim LeBlanc and Ralph Herth in the race for a position on the Fire District 2 (Belfair) Commission. • Lorraine Kelly and Pennie Edwards received the most votes among ballots counted Tuesday for a seat on the Port of Dewatto. They'll advance to the November ballot. Thursday, September 16, 1999 113th Year - Number 37 4 Sections - 40 Pages 50 Cents Youth, 19, receives 52 years for murder James Wayne Anderson, 19, of Shelton was sentenced Thursday in Mason County Superior Court to 52 years and eight months in prison for murder in the first de- gree. Judge Toni Sheldon gave the youth double the standard range sentence for his role in the Janu- ary 4 beating and strangulation murder of 70-year-old Ronald Kerr, a trapper from Olympia. His cousin, 15-year-old Nathan C. Hughe, s of Centralia, was sen- tenced last month to 46 years and seven months for the same crime. Kerr was killed after he knocked at the door of Anderson's Shelton home and asked permis- sion to trap beavers in the SWamp behind 2241 East Agate Road. Po- lice say Hughes hit Kerr with the bowl of a blender and that he and Anderson then strangled him with an electric cord. THE TWO KILLED Kerr so they could steal his 1988 Ford Ranger pickup truck, according to confessions made by the two teen- agers. Hughes and Anderson were ar- rested in Port Townsend January 6 after law officers there spotted Kerr's pickup in the parking lot of the QFC Store. "The victim was a vibrant, alive individual," Deputy Prosecu- tor Reinhold Schuetz said. Schuetz argued for an exceptional sentence based on evidence that the youths continued to attack Kerr after he was rendered defen- seless. l'hey committed a series of as- saults with attempts to smother him, attempts to choke him and a series of brutal and vicious kicks to the head," he said. DEFENSE ATTORNEy Rob- ert Quillian said a few words about the victim to Kerr's family, who attended the sentencing of Anderson and Hughes. "By all ac- counts he was an exceptional man and on behalf of James and my- self yoh have our condolences," he said. Quillian noted that Anderson's parents split up when he was a few months old and that he hasn't had much contact with his father. "James has certainly not had the best upbringing, the best family life in the world," he said. He compared the kille,rs..to Lennie and George, the drifters in Of Mice and Men, a novel by John Steinbeck in which a big man of limited intelligence kills a woman by mistake. Hughes is slender and said to be quite intelligent while Anderson is said to weigh nearly 300 pounds. "George was a little-guy con man and Lennie was this big guy who was along for the ride and was manipulated by George. Len- nie, not knowing the bounds of his power, killed Somebody. [ think that James was Lennie and Mr. Hughes was George,,, Quil- lian said. Quillian said that Hughes ma- nipulated Anderson. "It Wasn't James Anderson who said as they were leaving the scene of this hor- rible crime, 'Score one for the Bear,'" Quillian said. That re- mark was attributed to Hughes, a (Please turn to page 2.) Speaks off to Cambridge to acquire her doctorate Recent University of Washing- ton graduate Rachel S. Speaks is off to England this fall to pursue her doctoral studies in science at Cambridge University. Speaks, the daughter of Jerry and Suzy Speaks of Union, gradu- ated August 20 from the Univer- sity of Washington College of En- gineering with a bachelor of sci- ence degree in ceramic engineer- ing from the UW Materials Sci- ence and Engineering Depart- ment. She received $85,000 in schol- arships to pursue an accelerated three-year PhD degree in the ma- terials science and metallurgy de- partment. Speaks received a Na- tional Science Foundation gradu- ate research fellowship to do re- search work on nanofabrication of functional devices. HER SUBJECT, nanofabrica- tion, Speaks explained, has to do with manufacture of minuscule items, "One nanometer is 50,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair, and nanotech- nology is the ultimate manipula- tion of matter," Speaks said. "The two biggest areas of research are mechanical and medical," she added, instancing computer chips, gears and motors in the former Rachel Speaks w# area and, for the latter, medica- tion delivery systems and biocom- patible tissues for artificial or- gans. Speaks will work with both areas of research and develop- ment, she said, though she will likely make a commitment to one area or the other in the course of her studies. Her awards were the latest in a series of academic distinctions for Speaks, who was valedictorian of her 1994 North Mason High School class. At the University of Washington, she received both the James I. Mueller Award for the most outstanding junior in her department and the Richard L. Norrist Award for the most outstanding senior in her depart- ment. She was active in clubs and ac- tivities on campus, serving as the professional mentoring co-chair for the Women in Science and En- gineering Center. SPEAKS GAVE presentations at three national conferences and is working on her third publica- tion. She received the University of Washington's Mary Gates Stu- dent Leadership Grant for her outreach work in developing hands-on experiments for high- school teachers to use to help stu- dents learn science and engineer. ing concepts. She was also honored for her volunteer work by receiving one of four S. Sterling Munro Public Service Awards. She worked for over a year at Intel as a process engineer in waf- er fabrication plants in Oregon.