A fine wine, your favorite jeans, a drop-top Chevy…so many things get better with age. Unfortunately, your home’s most important systems aren’t among them. From inefficiencies to unexpected repairs, if your HVAC equipment, water heater, or fireplace is over the hill, it’s likely costing you money.
It’s no surprise that much of your home’s equipment requires a lot of energy to operate. Many comfort systems work continuously day in and day out, providing us with hot water or warm air. In fact, water heating and space heating/cooling accounts for over 40% of your home’s combined electricity consumption (www.eia.gov). And if your equipment is old, that percentage—and thus the price tag to operate it—could be much higher.
Safety can also be a concern with older equipment. Like all fuel-powered systems, gas furnaces that are not well maintained run the risk of becoming a fire hazard or leaking fumes into your home. Fireplaces are much the same, especially as older wood-burning styles can create hazardous gases from the buildup of creosote and soot. And a water heater that’s near its end times…you can imagine the horror. Besides electrical hazards or improper heating, a leak or burst tank can cause substantial water damage to your home very quickly—all malfunctions that could be disastrous for you and your family.
Photo courtesy: Barron Heating AC Electrical & Plumbing
Safety concerns like these impress the importance of routine maintenance for all equipment. But they also serve as a reminder that your neglected unit might need more than just a pat on the back for working so hard all these years. So, while there’s no shame in “being classic,” hanging onto your age-old equipment may finally be paying off! Barron’s historic Pay Back Program has been extended through February 28, with big savings on everything Barron installs. So whether you’re housing a dinosaur furnace that somehow keeps chugging along, or if you’ve been dreaming of an instant-heat, efficient tankless for your home, Barron Heating AC Electrical & Plumbing is offering big deals company-wide.
Photo courtesy: Barron Heating AC Electrical & Plumbing
But we’re not stopping there! One lucky customer will win a free installation for the oldest heat pump or AC replaced. Plus, the first 25 customers to install a heat pump or full system can choose between a $200 Costco gift card, half-price air duct cleaning (a $600 value), or half-price air cleaner (a $600 value). That’s a lot of happy folks, and the odds are in your favor!
Ready to cash in on the nostalgia? With this year’s Pay Back Program, you’ll get $110 for every year of your equipment’s age. That means your old furnace could get you up to $1,100 off a new unit of your choice or up to $2,200 on a full HVAC system replacement. Select heat pumps are even up to $6,000 off. And your old water heater that just can’t keep up? Replace it for up to $550 off a new tanked unit or up to $1,250 off a tankless upgrade you’ve been dreaming of. Fireplaces? Save up to $550 (double that for in-stock units!), and don’t forget electrical: save up to $1,100 on a WholeHome™ generator or up to $10,000 off a solar system installation. You name it, it’s on sale.
Photo courtesy: Barron Heating AC Electrical & Plumbing
Sound great?! We sure think so. With thousands in potential savings, Barron’s extended Pay Back Program makes now the perfect time to replace your old equipment and invest in modern comfort and efficiency for your new year. So, show us your oldies—we can’t wait to transform your home. As your Pacific Northwest home and building performance experts since 1972, we stand by Our Mission: Improving Lives™.
Enhanced 4K provides customers with an unmatched viewing experience with the best picture and audio quality, delivered to the home in the fastest way possible so the action customers see in their living room is only seconds behind the game in New Orleans. Photo courtesy: Comcast
In a groundbreaking announcement, Comcast and Dolby have revealed that Super Bowl LIX on FOX will be broadcast in both Dolby Vision® and Dolby Atmos® for the first time ever. This cutting-edge experience will be available to Xfinity TV customers in Whatcom County through Comcast’s new Enhanced 4K offering on X1 and the Xfinity Stream App.
Enhanced 4K promises an unparalleled viewing experience, delivering the highest picture and audio quality to homes with minimal delay, ensuring that the action in living rooms is nearly simultaneous with the game in New Orleans. Vito Forlenza, Vice President of Sports Entertainment, Connectivity & Platforms at Comcast, emphasized the significance of this innovation:
“The Super Bowl is another example of how Xfinity is redefining the sports viewing experience through innovations in our network and with the latest innovations from partners like Dolby. With the clearest picture quality and the most realistic audio possible, we’re offering customers a viewing experience they can’t get anywhere else for the biggest live sporting event of the year.”
Jason Power, Vice President of AV Ecosystem at Dolby Laboratories, echoed this sentiment, highlighting the long-standing partnership between Dolby and Comcast: “Together, we continue to raise the bar by offering Xfinity customers an immersive experience that brings the sights and sounds of the game to life like never before.”
Xfinity customers can enjoy this state-of-the-art viewing experience in 4K with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos through the Xfinity Stream app, available on compatible Dolby-enabled streaming devices and TVs. Enhanced 4K, first introduced for the Paris Olympics 2024, sets a new standard for live sports broadcasting. It leverages Comcast’s superior network technology to deliver the best possible 4K video, ultra-low latency, Dolby Vision, and Dolby Atmos.
In addition to Enhanced 4K, X1 offers a range of immersive and interactive features, including multiview, which allows customers to watch up to four events simultaneously on the same screen; aggregated sports hubs for quick and easy access to any game; and Odds Zone, a companion experience where fans can watch and wager with leading sportsbooks directly on TV.
Dolby Vision enhances the viewing experience with incredible brightness, lifelike colors, sharp contrast, and richer detail. At the same time, Dolby Atmos provides an immersive, multi-dimensional sound experience, capturing every snap, tackle, and touchdown in pristine detail.
Disclaimer: Andy Colley is a senior director and copywriter for Comcast NBCUniversal.
This 1891 photo of Fairhaven Hotel's Black waitstaff is one of just a few images that Jeff Jewell notes as including Bellingham's early African-American population. Photo courtesy: Galen Biery Papers and Photographs, Center for Pacific Northwest Studies, Heritage Resources, Western Libraries, Western Washington University
Black History Month, held in February to honor the achievements and struggles of African Americans, has served to re-center and preserve an often marginalized or erased history. In regions such as the Pacific Northwest and cities such as Bellingham, recognizing Black history also means recognizing an underrepresented population in our communities. The 2020 Bellingham census records 1,253 people as Black or African-American, 1.37% of the population in a 75% white city.
Black history in Bellingham has often appeared in obscure sources, making it ever more critical to preserve and acknowledge. Our city’s Black history reveals not only how diversity and Black excellence have persevered despite structural limitations but also how citizens can work toward an inclusive and equal future.
Paul Robeson (pictured) followed up his famous Peace Arch performance in 1952 with return concerts in the following years, and there was a 2002 tribute at Peace Arch for the 20th anniversary. Photo courtesy: Gordon Parks, Office of War Information / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain
Early Business and Public Life in Whatcom County
The 2012 Bellingham Herald article “Few Blacks Settled in Whatcom County” states, “Fairhaven and New Whatcom had just 30 black residents in 1900.” Western (then State Normal School) made local headlines in 1906 when Alma Clark became its first Black student. Clark “was also an assistant librarian in Seattle,” the Timeline notes, “and a strict member of the Baptist church, and was described as modest and intelligent.” Addressing both controversy and support, the school declared that “neither race nor color” would determine their admissions.
This 1907 Bellingham Herald story on the Wayman Chapel, African Methodist Episcopal Church led by Reverend Cate (pictured) appeared in Bellingham Library microfilm recovered in 2021. Photo credit: Jeff Jewell
Bellingham’s early Black business owners include Oliver O’Ree (1854-1917), the “pioneer barber.” He moved from Canada in the 1890s, lived with family in York Neighborhood, and owned a barbershop at Bay and Holly Streets until 1911.
Today’s Old Town Cafe notes on its website, “In 1904, the space was one of the only African-American-owned businesses in Whatcom County, called The Mobile Restaurant. It specialized in short orders, an early form of fast food.”
Bellingham’s historic hotels also had Black employees. Fairhaven Hotel is the source of one historic 1891 photo of its Black waitstaff led by maître d’ Sam White. Whatcom Museum Archivist Jeff Jewell writes, “My other find was Manuel Wells, the shoe shiner at the Leopold Hotel. The museum has a photo – a copy of which is now framed in The Leo’s bar/restaurant Amendment 21.”
Jewell also notes the 2021 rediscovery of a Black church listed only in 1907. The Bellingham Herald article dated April 20, 1907, reads: “The Wayman chapel, African Methodist Episcopal Church, has purchased a building at the corner of Ellis and Kentucky streets, to be used for church purposes. […] The pastor, Rev. T. L. Cate, recently determined that the congregation should have a church of its own, and after a vigorous campaign for funds, he has succeeded in his plans.”
Mid-Century and Civil Rights Era
Throughout the mid-twentieth century, the Civil Rights movement to end racial segregation saw support on college campuses nationwide. In 1968, Western’s Black Student Union (BSU) formed and addressed a letter to President Charles Flora. “Western Washington State College has been, and is a racist institution,” their letter opens, and it outlines six demands for change. They urged the administration to involve BSU in plans, financial support, and curricula for Black students, hire more Black administrators and faculty, and investigate racism (especially housing discrimination).
Western’s College of Ethnic Studies started in collaboration with BSU the following year but only lasted eight years after minimal administrative support. Decades later, students in the 2020s led efforts to reestablish the Department of Ethnic Studies.
On the national stage, Whatcom County saw notable performances by Black musicians who precipitated the Civil Rights Era. In 1941, after her Lincoln Memorial performance with 75,000 attendees, contralto singer and civil rights activist Marian Anderson sold out Bellingham High School Auditorium and visited Lairmont Manor. In 1952, Paul Robeson performed at Peace Arch for an estimated 30,000 people to protest his Red Scare-influenced international travel ban. He spoke, “I stand here today under great stress because I dare, as do you — all of you, to fight for peace and for a decent life for all men, women and children.”
The 2012 Herald article places the city’s Black population at 22 in 1960 and 135 in 1970: “0.3 percent of the city’s population — the first time since 1900 that the percentage had topped 0.2.” Recent growth has accompanied Bellingham’s cultural shift toward inclusivity, but much work remains to redress inequality.
Marian Anderson (pictured) played an influential role in integrating music in the United States with her Easter 1939 performance at Lincoln Memorial; two years later, her performance in Bellingham was warmly received by sold-out venues. Photo courtesy: Carl Van Vechten Photographs / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain
With an understanding of our city’s history and present, we can celebrate how diversity has made Bellingham’s culture of “subdued excitement” possible and work to make it inclusive and welcoming to all.
Old Town Cafe started as one of Bellingham’s first and only Black-owned businesses as The Mobile Restaurant in 1904. It later became Matt and Millie’s Place in the 1930s, serving mill workers, and finally, Old Town Cafe in 1967, when it became a favorite among Bellingham’s hippie community. Photo courtesy: Anna Diehl
The Bellingham Symphony Orchestra is proud to announce two local pianists are set to solo with the orchestra in two separate concerts this winter and spring—and they just happen to be mother and daughter.
Milica Jelaca Jovanovic will be the featured soloist at BSO’s upcoming Making Waves concert on March 23 at Mount Baker Theatre; she last performed with the BSO in 2018 for Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the Animals.
Maria Horja performs on February 6, 2025, as part of BSO’s 2025 Educational Concert Peter and the Wolf, playing the third movement of Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2. This will be her first time performing with the BSO, though her mother jokes that it’s Maria’s second.
“She was ‘unofficially’ on stage in 2008, about a month before her birth,” says Milica, “which was my first performance with the Symphony in the Prokofiev Concerto No. 3.”
Born into a family of professional musicians in Belgrade, Serbia, Milica began giving recitals at the age of 8 and went on to a career that’s had her perform around the world. Critics describe her playing as “extraordinary” and “poetic” and call her a “pianist of great energy and charisma.” She recently played Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor with the Seattle Philharmonic at Benaroya Hall.
Maria, also the daughter of Paul Horja, won 1st place in the 2024 BSO Young Artist Competition and is currently a junior at Bellingham’s Sehome High School. She began playing piano at the age of 5.
About the Bellingham Symphony Orchestra
The Bellingham Symphony Orchestra is the resident orchestra of the historic Mount Baker Theatre. It performs seven concerts per season in addition to a variety of community and youth engagement programs across the calendar year. Details about the BSO and ticketing information for the current season are available here.
Chuckanut Drive started as a logging road in the 1890s and joined Highway 99 as the primary route to Burlington until the later branch. Photo courtesy: Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain photo
From nostalgia for a dawning Automobile Age to “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66,” the U.S.’ original Numbered Highway System has become legendary Americana. Between 1924 and 1968, the Pacific Highway (U.S. Highway 99) spanned the U.S. borders with Canada and Mexico across Washington, Oregon, and California. Bellingham’s stretches of its earliest highways and roadside businesses survive as relics along the modern interstate.
The Pacific Highway started with the Good Roads Movement, a rural Progressive reform led in Washington by Peace Arch architect Samuel Hill. He envisioned transnational peace and tourism that transportation would facilitate.
Bellingham incorporated roads such as Northwest Avenue, Elm Street, Holly Street, Samish Way, State Street, and Chuckanut Drive – shifting the center of commerce on the road to modern development.
On the Road to (and from) Bellingham
Bellingham’s routes north to Blaine and south to Mount Vernon grew along Highway 99. Both routes comprise highways and bridges that date back to the area’s early pioneer settlements.
The northern route incorporated parts of the Whatcom Trail from the 1858 Fraser River Gold Rush and Bellingham’s first bridge on Dupont Street. Formerly named for George Pickett, whose men built it for a (never completed) Military Road to connect Fort Bellingham and Fort Steilacoom, the 1857 wooden bridge was twice rebuilt before becoming today’s 1918 concrete structure that joined the Pacific Highway.
Chuckanut Drive has famously featured in travel guides for Whatcom County since the era of tourism the Pacific Highway made famous. Photo courtesy: Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain photo
Highway 99 wound north to Ferndale on present-day Northwest Avenue, where disused patches of the road now lie between Barrett Road and La Bounty Drive. It incorporated Portal Way, which paralleled the BNSF tracks, and Sam Hill’s Peace Arch. The 1921 monument, a State and Provincial Park, joined Semiahmoo Club across the border per Hill’s vision of a transnational resort along the Pacific Highway.
The Pacific Highway route south to Mount Vernon drove the mystique of Chuckanut Drive (present-day State Route 11). Starting as Waterfront Road in 1890, it opened transportation for Skagit Valley farmers. Motorists made it a renowned scenic route to visit beautiful destinations such as Larrabee State Park, Washington’s first state park, in 1915. It wound south to Blanchard, connecting to Fairhaven via Valley Drive (present-day Old Fairhaven Parkway) and Old Chuckanut Drive (present-day Donovan and 24th).
The Pacific Highway’s Samish Branch to Skagit County encompassed present-day Samish Way through Lake Samish Road and Old Samish Road. The latter connects westward to Chuckanut Drive, and the former intersects Old Highway 99 into Burlington.
By 1940, Highway 99 also included the Mount Baker Highway (present-day State Route 542) to Artist Point.
Pictured is Crest Haven Motel and Trailer Park on Samish Way, one of many roadside motels that boomed along the original state highway. Photo courtesy: Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain photo
99’s Travel Boom and Bust
As the country’s number of cars reached 23 million by 1930, Highway 99 became Bellingham’s primary route for transportation. Tourist-centered businesses such as gas stations, motels, and diners sprang up to meet the travel boom – some of which survive today.
Near Bellingham International Airport on West Maplewood Avenue, Shamrock Motel has survived several nearby motels between the 1940s and 1960s for its spot near I-5. City Center Motel (circa 1950) on Elm Street is now Heliotrope Hotel. Other lodgings, such as the Northwest Motel log cabins on Northwest Avenue, Bellingham Travel Lodge on Holly Street, and Hotel Henry at the Whatcom Family YMCA Exchange Building on State Street, are lost to time.
Auto Courts (such as Wegley’s Auto Court in Bellingham in this postcard from 1940) were motels built for automobile parking when this practice was novel. Photo courtesy: Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain photo
Travelers during these decades enjoyed diners such as the 1933 Hamburger Express, built from a Seattle Interurban Railroad car, and the Horseshoe Cafe, which opened in 1886 and is still operating today. Wahl’s and the Grand Theatre provided goods and entertainment, and Ennen’s Thriftway provided groceries for Western students. The 1949 story of the world’s tallest Christmas tree in Bellingham featured Holly Street as the thoroughfare.
The interstate highway system emerging from President Truman’s Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 spelled the end of the old state highways. The need for speed slowed traffic on Bellingham’s Highway 99 to a crawl and prevented parking. Interstate 5 underwent construction from 1960 to 1966, and the state highway lost its status in 1968. Today, retail stores, gas stations, and tourist businesses now cluster around I-5. Only the location of downtown Bellingham, well away from its path, reflects the landscape through which the old roads ran.
Peace Arch is the final stop on the original Pacific Highway and current Interstate 5 before Canada, created by Sam Hill as the good roads advocate who promoted travel to it. Photo credit: Anna Diehl
Remembering Our State Highway
The ethos of Pacific Highway 99 has inspired online resources such as the City of Bellingham’s historical tour and the Pacific Highway website by Curt Cunningham. These interactive sites detail history, maps, and prominent businesses that came and went on the road to now.
Picturesque road trip destinations such as Chuckanut Drive, Peace Arch, and Mount Baker Highway continue to put Whatcom County on the map regionally and nationally. Bellingham’s main U.S. Post Office branch also reflects its placement along Highway 99. When we traverse the city’s slow ride of crossroads, lights, and stop signs, we continue in the path of all those travelers before us.
Hill’s focus is on individual consistency, rather than hard-and-fast rules about bowling style. Pictured: Audrey Terpstra.
Photo credit: Gregg Hill
Don’t be alarmed: if you’ve never considered bowling a high school sport, you are not alone. The trend only started about 25 years ago and is mainly concentrated on the East Coast. While only a few colleges in the West have teams, high schools across Washington and Whatcom County are jumping on the bandwagon in a big way. And Meridian girls bowling coach Gregg Hill thinks it’s about time that everybody knew.
Meet Bowling’s Biggest Supporter
Originally from the Kent area, Hill earned a degree in Psychology and Sociology from Western Washington University and a Masters in Teaching from City University. He also met his wife in Bellingham and took a job with Cascade Connections. Twenty-five years later, he still works on and off with Cascade Connections – the current teacher with their Community Transition Program – is raising four daughters and has spent the last eight years teaching math, science, English and more at Ferndale, Nooksack and Meridian High Schools.
Perhaps most importantly, he has spent the last four years as a bowling coach. It all started with his second-oldest daughter, Emma. Two of Emma’s friends told her in the hallway at school that they signed her up for bowling, and then she texted her parents not to pick her up from the high school but from Mt Baker Lanes in Ferndale.
As a growing sport, athletes and coaches enjoy a bowling community that is more cooperative than cutthroat. Pictured: Claire Hinkleman. Photo credit: Gregg Hill
Then, the first match came around, and she texted her dad, “The coach gave us uniforms. They’re going to keep score.” I said, ‘Sure, it’s a sport.’ And she said, ‘No, it’s not, it’s bowling.’ And then, around the third or fourth match, she texted ‘Dad, they don’t have enough people on varsity, so I’m going to bowl for varsity this week – it’s a sport!” Hill says with a laugh.
Because Hill went to every match and practice during Emma’s first year, then head coach Mike Holz suggested that he apply for the assistant coaching position in the second year of the program.
“That was the COVID year, and the season was shortened, and teams were limited to four bowlers,” says Hill. “The following year, I found myself in the head coaching position of a three-year-old program that stumbled into existence during COVID. We had no equipment, and bowlers were borrowing shoes and using house balls wherever we went.”
Bowling as a school sport is so new that even dedicated local bowlers are surprised to hear about local high school teams. Pictured: Anabelle Thornton. Photo credit: Gregg Hill
The Coach Learns Along With The Players
With a lifelong bowling experience of only playing “a half dozen times, at youth groups and birthday parties,” Hill needed to learn quickly. Fortunately, the local scene is small and new enough that rival teams are willing to work together to strengthen the overall program. “My first year, the coach at Jackson [High School in Everett] gave me all of his information, he made copies of everything for me and every time we would see them at a match, he would ask me how it was going, and work with me,” he says. And, of course, Hill will go online to pick up pointers from professionals like Verity Crawley.
Through his own experience playing sports in school, Hill knows that he needs to prioritize a different set of needs than most other coaches because the sport is so new to the athletes. “Most of the girls on the team have never been in a competitive sport, so I’m just helping them mentally to remove all that negative thinking. That way, they can just go out there, be consistent with how they release the ball and compete to be successful,” he says.
Rather than trying to be positive 100% of the time, Hill suggests finding a neutral mindset and allowing progress to happen on its own. “When they see they have two pins left, I want them to think, ‘I’m going to pick up my spare.’ You can see the shift in their mindset from ‘Don’t miss it’ to ‘I’ve got this, it’s already done, I’m just going through the motions.’ It helps them figure out who they are and what they can accomplish, and that’s going to help in bowling and school, and it’s going to help them in life,” he says.
Hill’s daughter Dakota is the second family member he’s coached, with his first already competing at the college level. Photo credit: Gregg Hill
A Home-Grown Success Story
Hill’s investment in the team is easy to understand since it started at home. His daughter Emma had an athletic background from her years of studying different types of dance, but she had no experience with sports. On top of that, she was navigating high school during the COVID pandemic and decided to finish high school in Running Start Whatcom and attend Western online when she graduated, staying at home as much as possible rather than running the risk of being out in public.
But once she bowled with her friends and joined the team, her drive and personality made her an obvious choice as team captain. And her confidence exploded. “On a scale of one to ten, she probably went from a two to an eight in just a couple of months,” Hill says. It wasn’t long before she earned a spot at District and State competitions and decided to find a collegiate bowling program. “She might not have the highest average on the team, but her drive and leadership skills are going to help the team. And the confidence that allows her to do that speaks volumes about what she accomplished in high school,” says Hill.
Hill’s focus is on individual consistency rather than hard-and-fast rules about bowling style. Pictured: Audrey Terpstra. Photo credit: Gregg Hill
The Road From Local To National Success
Hill recently got an overall view of the sport when he traveled to Las Vegas to watch Emma compete in a national tournament. Fifty-six men’s varsity teams and a combined 56 men’s JV and women’s varsity teams from different colleges and universities competed for four days, followed by another two days of individual tournaments.
Here in Whatcom County, he can already see the potential to set some of his bowlers on the path to those competitions. “If they want to bowl in college, they can probably get a scholarship with a 145-150 average. If they want a full ride, they’d probably need to bowl a 170 plus,” Hill says. Diva Marsh of the Bellingham Co-Op team (which blends students from combines Sehome, Squalicum and Bellingham) earned the season’s highest average, 193.1.
Coach Greg Hill concentrates on the mental side of the game, allowing his athletes to leave negative thoughts behind and simply do their best. Photo credit: Gregg Hill
Hill’s second youngest daughter, Dakota, ranked tenth, with a 138.8 average. With bowlers from Mount Vernon, Burlington-Edison, Everett, Anacortes, Ferndale and Blaine filling out the standings, Hill has plenty of reason to spread the word about his team’s accomplishments. And he is always ready to remind people that some of his athletes’ successes aren’t shown in the statistics, although the Meridian girls bowling finished 11-3 in the regular season, good enough for 2nd place in the Northwest Conference, a high school conference for 1A, 2A, 3A, and 4A schools in Whatcom, Skagit, and Island Counties.
“I grew up playing baseball, basketball and football, and you’d have competition within your own team, with everybody trying to tear each other down,” says Hill. “But bowling is a community, a big huge family where everybody is supporting everybody, and it doesn’t matter that you’re competing against each other. It’s just a very different community.”
Television personality, author, and famed foodist Alton Brown announced his national theater tour that will visit more than 60 U.S. cities in 2025. Alton Brown Live: Last Bite will launch February 13, 2025, in Melbourne, Florida, before making its way to cities across the country, including a stop in Bellingham, Washington, at the historic Mount Baker Theatre on Sunday, March 30
During Alton Brown Live: Last Bite, the famed foodist reflects on his decades in food media, presents several of his favorite culinary mega-hacks, sings some of his funny food songs, and, in general, offers a culinary variety show the likes of which human eyes have never seen. VIP ticket holders will be treated to a Q&A session in the theatre as well as a signed copy of Brown’s newest book.
Brown, who has more than eight million social media followers, has created some of the most popular and successful live, interactive culinary variety shows ever. His “Edible Inevitable,” “Eat Your Science,” and “Beyond the Eats” tours performed in more than 200 cities with more than 550,000 fans in attendance. Now, Brown has cooked up a buffet of new surprises for this new tour show,
Brown’s tenth book, a collection of essays and ruminations, Food forThought, will be published by Gallery Books in February 2025, just in time for the tour launch. Before performing to sell-out crowds around the country, Brown started his career directing TV commercials when he got the crazy idea to go to culinary school and reinvent the cooking show. The result was “Good Eats,” an irreverent, science-forward program with Brown as its star; 256 episodes aired across 16 seasons. He also hosted the iconic programs “Iron Chef America,” “Food Network Star,” and “Cutthroat Kitchen.” Among his various mantle candy are a pair of James Beard awards and a Peabody. He lives in Atlanta with his wife, the designer Elizabeth Ingram, and a trio of nefarious canines.
(Tickets are only available at mountbakertheatre.com. Beware third-party ticket resellers and other websites that may advertise MBT performances.)
About Mount Baker Theatre
Mount Baker Theatre is a 501(c)(3) non-profit arts organization dedicated to enriching the region’s culture through dynamic performances, arts education, inspiring engagement in the community and stewardship of a national historic treasure. Located in the heart of downtown Bellingham’s Art District, MBT is the largest theatrical venue north of Seattle in Washington State. Built in 1927, MBT is the only survivor of the five original movie palaces built in Whatcom County between 1914 and 1930. The building itself is a beautifully restored architectural treasure listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Since opening day, MBT has been dedicated to showcasing top touring performing arts events, as well as presenting community-driven events and performances, to audiences in the North Puget Sound and the Lower Mainland of British Columbia.
The BSO's Trailblazers String Quartet performed last summer at Boundary Bay. Photo credit: Stacee Sledge
The Bellingham Symphony Orchestra continues to launch innovative concerts and programs to enrich the Bellingham arts community and beyond.
Dawn Posey, Concertmaster with the Bellingham Symphony Orchestra, is in her fourth season with the BSO. She first started playing in her father’s community orchestra when she was 13.
BSO Concertmaster and violinist Dawn Posey performs at the Jansen Art Center with the Trailblazers String Quartet. Photo credit: Stacee Sledge
Posey is also the go-to person for the BSO’s Trailblazers educational outreach program. She put together a similar series years ago with the chamber group Kassia Ensemble in Pittsburgh and has modified it for a string quartet to take it into as many area schools as possible.
Trailblazers tells the stories of female composers and female historical figures who have paved the way for so many future women to flourish, she explains. Each composer is paired with a trailblazer from their same country. The ensemble plays music and talks about women from Peru, Bolivia, France, China, and the United States.
Posey appreciates the leadership, both artistically and administratively, at the BSO. “It allows me to dream big and play my best,” she says. “The orchestra is a great team, and I always enjoy how everyone brings 110% to our performances.”
Executive Director Gail Ridenour guides a student at an Instrument Petting Zoo event at Mount Baker Theatre. Photo credit: Stacee Sledge
Instrument Petting Zoos
Another fun program the BSO is committed to is its instrument petting zoos, which is coordinated with Bellingham Wind Works.
“The instrument petting zoos are all about the opportunity for kids — and their adults! — to discover and participate in music in ways they might not have access to in their everyday life,” says Kat DeVaney of Bellingham Wind Works. “At the petting zoo, people can hear up close, touch, and even play a variety of instruments they see on stage, such as violins and violas, cello, bass, drums, shakers, and even a mini marimba!”
The entire string and percussion family is presented to the young ones to admire and explore. Wind Works volunteers talk about the materials the instruments are made of, how they make their sound, and differences when materials or sizes change.
“The most exciting part is letting the kids try out the instruments,” says DeVaney. “Some of them come in with experience on one instrument but have always wanted to try another; some want to sample the whole world. We end up seeing all these connections formed between kids and music, and, for some, it can be the start of a whole new facet of their life.”
BSO violinist John Tilley shows an Instrument Petting Zoo the proper way to hold a bow. Photo credit: Stacee Sledge
Bellingham Symphony Orchestra is Adding a Chorus
The BSO is adding a community chorus to its repertoire for the 2025/2026 season. It will be led by Music Director Dr. Frederick B. Mabalot.
“The symphony’s 50th anniversary felt like the perfect time to establish a new choir,” says Maestro Yaniv Attar, who is in his 11th year leading the orchestra.
“Joining this esteemed organization offers an extraordinary opportunity to contribute to the artistic and cultural vibrancy of the Bellingham community, a place where music is deeply cherished,” says Dr. Mabalot, who also is artistic director and conductor for the Bellingham Chamber Chorale and director of music and liturgy for the Church of the Assumption.
Mabalot’s compositions have been performed in Australia, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, the Philippines, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
“What excites me most about my role with the BSO is the power of collaboration — bringing together passionate musicians to create performances that inspire, uplift, and unite,” Dr. Mabalot says.
“Choral-orchestral music holds a unique and transcendent beauty, where the union of individual voices and orchestral sound creates something far greater than the sum of its parts,” he continues. “To be a part of this transformative process is both an honor and a deeply fulfilling calling.”
Our region has numerous choirs, but Mabalot says, “The BSO Chorus will be a distinctive ensemble, defined not only by its technical excellence but also by its commitment to connecting deeply with the emotional and spiritual essence of the music we perform.”
Dr. Frederick B. Mabalot is joining the Bellingham Symphony Orchestra to lead a new BSO Chorus for the symphony’s 50th anniversary. Photo courtesy Bellingham Symphony Orchestra
Dr. Mabalot says that at the heart of his work lies a deep and abiding passion for sharing music as a transformative and healing force. “I believe that music has the unparalleled ability to transcend barriers, awaken empathy, and unite us in our shared humanity.”
Through the BSO Chorus, he aims to create performances that are not merely entertaining but also deeply meaningful — that invite reflection, evoke profound emotion and nurture a sense of hope and connection.
“Our goal is to create a seamless integration with the orchestra, resulting in performances that are artistically stunning and profoundly moving,” he says. “Audiences will have the opportunity to hear the BSO Chorus perform great masterworks that celebrate the triumphs, struggles, and beauty of the human spirit.”
The BSO Choir, led by Dr. Mabalot, will join the orchestra in the 2025/2026 season for performances of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, “Ode to Joy,” The Planets, and additional works by Brahms and Bach.
For those wishing to join the new chorus, Dr. Mabalot invites singers who are skilled and passionate, ready to dedicate themselves to this musical mission.
Those interested in learning more or joining the BSO Chorus can visit online here to schedule an audition.
Oasis, a non-profit serving migrant Latinos in northwest Washington, has been selected by PeaceHealth as a recipient of a $35,000 grant. PeaceHealth’s “Women of Peace” movement, which recognizes women leaders and changemakers inside of PeaceHealth, is starting the new year honoring the courageous work of three women non-profit leaders partnering with PeaceHealth to advance health justice and respect for all. The Northwest network recipient is Marcela Leonor Suárez Díaz, Oasis founder.
Oasis was founded in 2024 in response to the great challenges faced by the migrant Latino community that has made the Pacific Northwest their home, especially members of the Indigenous community of México and Guatemala. Suárez Díaz has made it her life’s work to compassionately serve the Latino migrant community to improve their quality of life in Whatcom, Skagit and San Juan counties. She was the long-time Sea Mar Promotores manager and received the 2019 Peace Builder Award, the 2020 Beti Thompson Community Trailblazer Award as well as the 2024 Liberty Bell Award for her service and dedication to health equity.
Two additional organizations led by women in Oregon and Washington will also receive $35,000. Each of the recipient organizations are led by changemakers known for their fierce advocacy and efforts in the care of underserved and marginalized communities.
“Oasis has bravely stepped forward to support our migrant Latino community, and they do so with great humanity and empathy. We’re honored to recognize the work of this important local non-profit,” said Rachel Lucy, community health director, PeaceHealth Northwest network.
“We hope stories like Marcela LeonorSuárez Díaz’s will inspire our own Women of Peace to see the intertwined nature of our shared missions fueled by the charism of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace,” said Sarah Ness, PeaceHealth executive vice president and chief administrative officer. “It’s clear we can accomplish more together. It’s time to soar!”
About Oasis
Oasis believes in offering tools so that individuals can weather crises and come out on the other side stronger and more self-sufficient. Oasis does not work alone and believes the community is best cared for when local organizations are working in synergy to pave sustainable pathways. Oasis team members have firsthand experience, networks, and expertise to connect community members with just and equitable service regardless of how they are perceived in the world. Oasis is dedicated to compassionately assisting the migrant Latino community to improve their quality of life. Visit us online at Oasis.
About PeaceHealth
PeaceHealth, based in Vancouver, Washington, is a non-profit Catholic health system offering care to communities in Washington, Oregon and Alaska. PeaceHealth has approximately 16,000 caregivers, nearly 3,200 physicians and clinicians, more than 160 clinics and nine medical centers serving both urban and rural communities throughout the Northwest. In 1890, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace founded what has become PeaceHealth. The Sisters shared expertise and transferred wisdom from one medical center to another, always finding the best way to serve the unmet need for healthcare in their communities. Today, PeaceHealth is the legacy of the founding Sisters and continues with a spirit of respect, stewardship, collaboration and social justice in fulfilling its Mission. Visit us online at PeaceHealth.
The library interior also features ornamentation, such as this stained glass window in the children's section. Photo credit: Anna Diehl
Since 1891, Bellingham Public Library has provided the community free access to books and other information. In addition to over 1.6 million books and other items, they offer professional training, storytelling for children, community events, and more to nearly 60,000 card holders.
As the library has endeavored to meet the needs of a growing community, art has been a constant companion to its learning environment. Outdoor sculptures, monuments, and garden decorations showcase local artistry and educate on culture, history, and other knowledge the Bellingham Public Library strives to illuminate for all.
Arch of Healing and Reconciliation
In 2018, a community committee unveiled the Arch of Healing and Reconciliation outside Bellingham Public Library to honor the history of immigrants and remember the local history of anti-immigrant exclusion. The monument features four plaques: three describing specific instances of exclusion and one describing the monument’s purpose to promote unity and healing from this past by learning from it.
The Arch of Healing and Reconciliation stands between the library and City Hall, symbolizing Bellingham’s commitment to diversity and the remembrance of injustices in history. Photo credit: Anna Diehl
The earliest event on the plaques is the 1885 expulsion of Chinese residents from Whatcom County. Through “threats, boycotts, and insistence that the immigrants were taking jobs away from white residents,” the mayor and newspaper editors led expulsions of thousands of Chinese residents. The perpetrators faced indictments, but charges were dismissed, and similar campaigns culminated in anti-Chinese violence and looting in Seattle, Tacoma, and Issaquah.
A fictionalized account of this history features in Annie Dillard’s novel “The Living.” One Fairhaven historical marker also notes the segregation of Chinese migrant workers at the Pacific American Fisheries cannery from the rest of town from the 1890s through the 1930s, updated in 2011 with a mayor’s apology.
The community’s rediscovery of the race riot on September 4, 1907, motivated the monument’s creation. As it describes, hundreds of Sikhs, Muslims, and Hindus worked in Bellingham’s lumber industry until a mob of nearly 500 white men drove them out of town with violence overnight. “Racial fear and prejudice combined with economic competition” drove the attacks. The police held immigrants in “protective custody” at Bellingham City Hall but left them no options but to flee. “Most fled to settle in California and British Columbia,” the plaque says, and South Asian immigration to Bellingham did not largely resume until the 1980s.
Another plaque describes Whatcom County’s role in the anti-Japanese internment camps of World War II. The 120,000 Japanese immigrants and American-born citizens interned under Order 9066 under racist suspicions of treason and espionage included all 33 Whatcom County residents by June 3, 1942. Washington’s former Camp Harmony in Puyallup, which confined 7,390 people, received a memorial sculpture in 1983, and the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 issued an apology nationally. “None of the former Japanese American residents returned to Whatcom County,” the Arch’s plaque says.
At the monument’s unveiling, Western Washington University President Dr. Sabah Randhawa spoke on the history and Bellingham’s commitment to acknowledging and healing from it. The Arch’s final plaque includes a joint proclamation to celebrate diversity by Bellingham Mayor Tim Douglas and Whatcom County Executive Pete Kremen.
According to the Bellingham Sister Cities Association, the Tateyama Friendship Garden strives “to provide an aesthetically satisfying, emotionally quieting, and intellectually stimulating space.” Photo credit: Anna Diehl
Japanese Stone Lantern
By far, the oldest sculpture at Bellingham Public Library is the “Japanese Stone Lantern,” tucked away in a tranquil garden outside the main lawn. It was a 1965 gift from Tateyama, Japan, under the Bellingham Sister Cities Association.
As a previous article on sister cities notes, the Tateyama Friendship Garden started in 1958 and receives continued stewardship by the association’s Friends of the Tateyama Garden. It features Japanese plants such as cherry and maple trees, serving as a quiet space and cultural education venue.
The garden and sculpture feature plaques on the dedication by Mayor John Westford of Bellingham and Mayor Yuzuru Hon-ma of Tateyama.
According to a contemporary “Bellingham Herald” article, “It is a copy of one in a shrine in Nara, the ancient capital of Japan. The hole in front represents the sun while in back is a crescent.”
“Upright Observation Table” is one of the older sculptures visitors interact with, like a bench or other functional architecture. Photo credit: Anna Diehl
Local Whatcom County Artists
The library lawn is also called Lee Memorial Park for Peter P. Lee, the Bellingham wholesale grocer whose heirs owned Woodstock Farm in the early 1900s. It features regional artists’ sculptures throughout the outdoor reading space.
“Delilah,” the giraffe sculpture, remains popular among children and adults. Cheryl Box, Mary Kuebelbeck, Bob Larson, and Stan Richardson created her from recycled steel for the 2002 Welding Rodeo at Bellingham Technical College.
“Meeting of the Minds” by Ed Haddaway inspires young minds to read from outside the ground floor window. This 2003 painted steel piece resembles many of the artist’s other works depicting stylized people.
The 1992 “Amending Table for Talking” by Kay Kammerzell and 1994 “Upright Observation Table” by Andrew Wachs combine form and function in the built environment with steel and wood construction.
The library’s Poetry Walk in front features placards with winning entries of the Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest. With indoor sculptures donated locally and new City of Bellingham installments anticipated, the library’s learning landscape constantly changes with the minds it inspires.
Submitted by First Fed
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