Pacific County people impress me.

And my, er, retirement hobby, allows me to meet folks who make the Long Beach Peninsula the best place I have ever lived.

Editor’s Note

Editor’s note: Patrick Webb has been named Feature Writer of the Year by the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association for the past two years. He also won the WNPA sports writer of the year award, an accolade he won in 2016, a year after resuming newspaper writing after a three-decade career as an editor. While delighted with the recognition, he says the biggest reward of writing for the Chinook Observer is the people he encounters.

My newspaper career began in England then took me to five towns in the United States. At 40, I decided to give up the nomadic job-shifting lifestyle for a static managerial role in Astoria. That would spawn my Observer adventures when the vagaries of health tossed me a curveball a decade ago.

In many ways writing about “interesting people doing interesting things” — with a pinch of sports for variety — returns me to my roots as a 19-year-old cub reporter hired by the Coventry Evening Telegraph in 1976.

My interviewing style has gained confidence since I was that nervous teenager, but the task of the storyteller has not changed (though I drive on the “other” side of the road and spell humour and programme differently).

Variety

In the past year, I have written for the Observer about myriad matters:

I have described inspirational Dana Larsen’s grief for her lost mother-in-law, who helped their children out of their burning home then collapsed from exertion. I have asked Hailey Hightower why she loves to cheer for her school. I have highlighted Bette Lu Krause’s father’s heroism in World War II, coincidentally in 1943 Italy where my own father was wounded. I highlighted the achievements of community servant Doug Sheaffer when he retired from the Olympic Area Agency on Aging, ignoring his modesty.

In learning about the Borromean Ring design of a Seattle artist’s picnic tables, I again encountered Jackie Ferrier, leader at the Willapa National Wildlife Refuge. What an unsung hero she is! — in an age when federal workers are more vilified that praised.

Applause

Ira Kitmacher has quite deservedly earned a lot of “ink” since his retirement to Ocean Park a few years ago, writing books about local ghosts, the ugliest element of World War II, and even King Solomon’s decision making. But when his family moved here the community benefited greatly because it heralded the arrival of his charming wife, Wendy.

Like hubby, she had a career as a high-powered federal executive. As the American Association of University Women hosted a candidates forum in October between Pacific County Sheriff Robin Souvenir and his earnest opponent, Daniel Garcia, she was working behind the scenes, efficiently ferrying audience questions to the moderator Natalie Hanson.

There is an old saying, “If you want something accomplished, give it to a busy person.” Hanson has been the go-to, do-good-stuff person on the Long Beach Peninsula for as long as anyone can remember. She was suitably feted in April when the city of Long Beach celebrated its centennial.

Jerry Phillips, mayor of Long Beach, was among those leading the applause for Hanson. He signed a certificate “for her outstanding work and dedication to the city of Long Beach, for her countless hours of community service to multiple organizations within the community, and genuine devotion to the people of the Long Beach Peninsula.”

Doing good deeds runs in the family: Hanson’s sister, Charlotte Paliani, is a key leader at Ocean Park Food Bank.

A gem

Nancy McAllister is another gem in our midst. There is an art, which I have never mastered, where you can be a leader in one group and an enthusiastic worker-bee in another. One day I greeted McAllister taking tickets at the door of a Peninsula Players’ production. Four days later, she was in the spotlight as president of Peninsula Poverty Response, leading one of our community’s most important programs.

One remarkable thing about the poverty group is the manner in which they describe the people they help. Most social service agencies use the somewhat impersonal jargony word “clients.” PPR uses “neighbors” and “community members.”

Later, typing a photo caption of leaders of Rebuilding Together, an excellent group that does small-scale construction projects to help low-income residents stay safe in their Peninsula homes, I saw her face again.

Impressed

Back in 1985, I appeared in a Vancouver theater production of “The King and I.” I portrayed Sir Edward Ramsay, governess Anna’s former love. He enters and gives a line, “I have never been so impressed by anyone in so short a time.”

That was my reaction on meeting Kathryn Arland to write about her opening a mental health therapy practice in Ocean Park. Longtime Peninsula residents may remember her as Ilwaco High School student Katie Freese. In her graduation speech, she said, “I hope everyone realizes that this is the only chance at life that we have.”

Arland is upfront that she had her own struggles before embarking on a career helping others. It gives me no pleasure to predict that economic hardships, the stress of ugly political divisions, and the lingering impacts of pandemic isolation will mean more caring souls like her will need to step forward to perform this important work.

Sports

Sports are big in my family on both sides of the Atlantic. I am the son of two “jocks” and I refereed soccer for 29 years. My late parents were both keen tennis and bowls players; an uncle was a champion bicycle racer and rifleman, an aunt was a pistol-shooting champ. They taught me sports build character, keep you healthy, and are simply fun.

I married into a family which had WSU and Blazers season tickets and included a martial arts exponent, a statistician-referee scheduler, and a 2A championship-winning volleyball coach. I am not often seen feeding a rugby ball into a scrum these days, but I savor being around folks for whom sweat brings a smile.

It may not be true to say she is the only varsity head coach who still practices her sport, because I suspect there are a bunch who still shoot baskets or kick soccer balls. But last fall Sarah Taylor ran a marathon. That’s 26 miles. Twenty-six miles!

Modest

One of my joyful memories of this past year was in late August when I greeted the Ilwaco cross country kids to write a season preview story. One boy asked, “Coach, have you ever run a marathon?” Taylor smiled and replied quietly, “Six.”

You Americans have an expression “It ain’t braggin’ if you can do it.” Taylor doesn’t brag. She just sets a terrific example to her student runners. I especially like the manner in which she teaches nutrition and the importance of rest; she nurtures, she cares.

If this year’s sophomore class continues its enthusiasm for the sport, it promises well for Ilwaco in the next couple of years. There is a young runner at Hilltop Middle School, too, who will be making headlines if she progresses.

And there are wrestlers from Hilltop who are signaling their presence, encouraged by dedicated coaches Larry Kemmer and Frank Womack, whose daughters are embracing Dad’s sport with gusto.

‘Delight’

There is a Beach Boys’ song called, “Be True to Your School.” In Naselle, that could be senior Kaylin Shrives’ theme song. She is a leader in three sports: volleyball, basketball and track, plus a member of the cheerleading squads in fall and winter.

A photo of her looking disconsolate last March, when hopes of a state basketball championship ebbed away, earned me an award at our newspaper convention in October. I felt like a total jerk pointing my camera at a teenager in tears, but her face told the story better than any clever words I could dream up.

If this year’s basketball season progresses well under Naselle’s admirable coach Marie Green, I hope to be photographing Shrives — smiling — in Spokane the first week of March. Wouldn’t it be fun to have all our local school basketball teams there with us? I know coaches Olsen, Bittner and McMillan will strive to make it so.

Other than my eastside hotel reservation for March, I have no idea exactly what 2023 will bring — and that’s the wonder of the newspaper business. Like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates, you never know what you will get. But I hope to continue surprising Observer readers with news about their interesting neighbors. I just delight in telling their stories.

As Johanna Gustafson said, when describing her new role as Ilwaco cheerleading coach, “I didn’t realize how much joy all this could be.”