New Unleashed Students Tour Newspaper

Each summer, new members of the Unleashed team get a behind-the-scenes look at the Yakima Herald-Republic during a tour of the newspaper building.

The tour, led by John O’Rourke, the newspaper’s facilities manager, takes students through the newsroom and packaging center to the press. Students learn about how the daily print product is put together and get a chance to see the press in action.

Here are some photos from this year’s tour, which took place earlier this summer.

Fruitful Fest Connects Past, Present

By ELISSA BERNSTEIN
INTERLAKE HIGH SCHOOL

Eighty years ago, Bellevue was characterized not by urban shopping centers and reflective skyscrapers but antique corn grinders, old-fashioned canning machines and small, family-owned farms.

These two Bellevues seem almost completely unconnected. That is, of course, except for the stirring smell of shortcake, brightened with red strawberries, melting in the sun and oozing vanilla ice cream.

In the 1920s and 30s, the Bellevue Strawberry Festival was meant to put the small, agricultural community on the map. Today, metropolitan areas like Bellevue Square have replaced the strawberry fields, but the festival is still held every June to celebrate Bellevue’s agrarian past and heritage.

“You would never have expected Bellevue to be covered in farm land when you see the city today,” says Heather Trescases, co-coordinator of the festival and director of the Eastside Heritage Center, or EHC, the non-profit organization that hosts the celebration. “[The festival] is a way to celebrate that heritage, and tell the story of the Japanese American farmers and all the other diverse cultures which have come to Bellevue.”

The festival, which took place June 28 and 29 this year, started as a dream. Jennie Ethel Bovee, the wife of Bellevue’s first mayor, Charles W. Bovee, wanted an event to bring both visitors and recognition to Bellevue. The abundance of fresh strawberries, grown mostly by local Japanese farmers, seemed like the perfect way to commemorate the town’s spirit and draw in visitors.

The first festival was held in 1925 at what is now known as the Old Main Street School. According to the EHC’s Web site, a committee of 10 men and women organized the festival on a budget of $40.

Despite these modest figures, the fest enjoyed startling success, attracting visitors from Renton and Kirkland, and even Seattle-ites, who crossed Lake Washington by ferry to attend.

Bellevue’s population hovered around 2,500, and the festival drew about 3,000 visitors. It featured fresh produce and “Strawberry Queen” pageants, and generated a real estate buzz around rural Bellevue.

By 1938, the event drew in crowds of five times the original amount. Four years later, however, the festival was stopped due to the Japanese internment during World War II.

It took 45 years to revive. In 1987, the Bellevue Historical Society brought back the event. Today, it’s still going strong – on a larger and more casual scale.

This year’s event, which cost more than $80,000 to put on, is expected to bring in 40,000 visitors. It will be held at Crossroads International Park on Saturday and Sunday. The celebration is sponsored by the City of Bellevue and local businesses, with many products – strawberries and shortcakes, for example – donated or sold to the EHC at discounted prices. The revenue from the festival funds the EHC.

“[The festival] just grew and grew,” says Trescases. “People came to the event to socialize … to see their neighbors and spend time together as a community, to enjoy the good food.”

With respect to previous traditions, the event includes historical exhibits, antique artifacts, old farming and dairy equipment, and even a classic auto show displaying cars that families might have used back when the festival began. Other old-time activities are three-legged races, sack races and contests in which participants balance strawberries on spoons.

The festival still sells strawberry shortcakes and holds an ever-popular strawberry shortcake-eating contest.

Along with a love for strawberries and the City of Bellevue, the desire to come together as a community is one of the only aspects of the current festival which remains unchanged.

“We stay true to the original purpose of the festival, and the basic elements of shortcake and entertainment are the same,” says Trescases. “But in order to make it a modern-day festival, we have added many things that would not have existed,” such as henna tattoos, yoga supplies and blown glasswork.

These products – arts and crafts, clothing and jewelry, home improvement items – are available at more than 80 vendor booths. Special guests, like Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, are also expected to stop by.

One of the festival’s most popular activities is a family fun center, which features clowns, face painting, puppet shows, inflatable play areas, a rock climbing wall and miniature golf.

Two stages offer eclectic entertainment, including performances from the Northwest Junior Pipe Band, Ugandan Children’s Choir, and the Y’chessa Dahli Middle Eastern Dance Ensemble.

Another characteristic which has not changed in more than 80 years is its dependence on volunteers, most of whom are teenagers and young adults.

“We’ve always relied on volunteers,” says Karen Klett, volunteer coordinator of the EHC. “Without volunteers there would be no Bellevue Strawberry Festival.”

The festival’s 155 volunteers work in three- to four-hour shifts and help prepare the park, greet visitors, answer questions, run booths and clean up. Despite the workload, the number of teen volunteers increases every year.

“There are a lot of kids working together, and they all enjoy that,” says Klett. “Lots of kids work in the shortcake booth. Everybody loves strawberries. It’s a nice way to spend the afternoon.”

Twenty-year-old Michelle Liu began volunteering at the festival in 2006 to gain high school community service hours. She enjoyed the experience so much that she’s returned every year since, and she’s not alone. Twenty of her Bellevue Community College classmates have responded to her posters promoting volunteer work at the festival.

“It’s a very good opportunity to meet local people from the community,” Liu says. “I am an ESL student and this helps me learn American culture. Every year when I go, I can discover some new things.”

Meantime, Trescases is gearing up for this weekend’s event.

“It’s only two days in the year, but we touch 40,000 people in the community,” she says. “We give them an opportunity to discover and participate in local history. It’s going to be the biggest and best ever.”

For more information: Call 425- 450-1049, or visit www.bellevuestrawberryfestival.org

Elissa Bernstein, 16, is a junior at Bellevue’s Interlake High School. She has interned at the Bellevue Reporter and the Kirkland Reporter. She wrote this story at the Journalism Summer Workshop at Seattle University. Unleashed coordinator Adriana Janovich served as her mentor.