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closeFrom the Editor: Relaxing isn't a skill I have mastered
Heather Meier/ of The Herald
There’s a point on Meridian that always makes me catch my breath. When the sun has started falling and I’m heading into downtown, I can see the fairgrounds sparkling and signs at the car dealerships glowing. And despite the darkness, Puyallup seems alive and vibrant with lights twinkling across the valley floor.
It’s hard for me to get too excited about the congestion in parts of South Hill, but I love the feeling of continuing along Meridian, past the restaurants and department stores, until Mount Rainier can be seen rising above the new developments. Suddenly, it’s easy to see why our community is growing so rapidly and why people would put up with the traffic — the chance to see the sleeping giant on the rare sunny day.
To the east, Sumner is maintaining it’s small town atmosphere with quaint shops and neighborhoods where people know one another.
I’ve come to love these parts of East Pierce County. The parades and downtown street fairs. The historical societies and the environmental groups. The arts associations and the business owners. These are the people who make those lights twinkle, who enjoy the spectacular views, who shop in our local stores.
These are the people who are found in the pages of The Herald each week — bits of their lives shared with their neighbors. That’s what makes us your community newspaper.
These are the people who we looked for when building our second guest columnist panel.
People like Kelda Miller (she tells people to pronounce her name like the video game Zelda but with a K), who grew up on South Hill and returned after graduating from Evergreen and years of travel to see what impact she can make on her hometown. She loves this area but hates to see it eaten up by rows of houses. As a Greener grad, she doesn’t have a defined major, but she studied what she calls “sustainable communities and how to end urban sprawl,” using South Hill as her case study. To help do just that, she owns a business called Divine Earth Gardening Project, which focuses on gardens and energy efficiency. As an environmental activist, Kelda belongs to several non-profit organizations and volunteers with the Puyallup School District as a mentor on sustainablity projects.
People like Joan Cronk, who has been writing feature stories for The Herald for a number of years but hasn’t had the chance until now to share her personal thoughts with the community. She was born and raised in Tacoma but made the wise choice of moving to Puyallup in 1982. She has stood in the rain to watch her children march in the Daffodil Parade and stood in the bleachers to see them graduate from Rogers High School. In 1999, Joan graduated from a 21-year career with the Teamsters Union. Then she returned to college and graduated from University of Washington, Tacoma with a mass communications degree in 2001, at the tender age of 58. Seven years later, she keeps herself busy as a grandmother of 10, a writer and doing volunteer work .
People like Tom Layson, who spent 22 years in television but still fondly recalls his days as a columnists for Pacific Lutheran University’s student newspaper. During his five years in the New York/New Jersey area cable news operation, he focused mostly on personal finance. Tom grew up in Maple Valley and returned to Puyallup to be close to family living in Roy, Kent and Gig Harbor. He now is the communications director for Windermere Puyallup/Canyon Road. But his passion isn’t limited to journalism. He’s an aviation buff who has gone along for the ride with the Blue Angels and the Gladiator Squadron. When he’s not up in the air, he enjoys playing euphonium and trombone, fly fishing and golf.
These are the people who help make up our community. I hope you look forward to reading their columns in the coming year as much as I do.