Sherry Grindeland / Times staff columnist
Staff lounge gets extreme makeover

By Sherry Grindeland
Seattle Times Eastside columnist

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Unlike the TV show of the same name that fixes up people, this makeover refers to the staff lounge at the Newcastle school. On a recent Monday morning, teachers walked into a transformed room. It went from tattered and battered industrial furniture to designer-modern in one weekend, thanks to the Hazelwood PTA make-a-wish committee.

"Usually the requests are for things like staplers," said co-chair Jennifer Hiemstra. "But one staff member wished for new furniture for the staff lounge. The school is 16 or 17 years old. The furniture had been there from the beginning and it was used when they got it."

Hiemstra; her husband, Syb Hiemstra; and make-a-wish co-chair Debbie Tracey did the makeover, with help from Jennifer Hiemstra's sister, Carolyn Gladwell. She's a vice president with CamWest Development, Inc. The building company had a storage unit filled with slightly used designer furniture left over from model homes. Gladwell gave the makeover team the pick of the lot.

To get weekend access to the school, the team had to share its plans with Hazelwood Principal Mary Ford.

"We cleaned up the bulletin boards and painted some tables with chalkboard paint," Hiemstra said. "We brought in three sofas, some chairs and ottomans, lamps and knickknacks."

Ford hung out in the lounge Monday morning to watch the teachers when they arrived.

"It almost brought tears to my eyes," she said.

Some credit, said the team, needs to go to Lynn Staats. She's the staff member who made the wish.

Not all wishes are as easy to grant, Hiemstra said.

"We don't have a budget," she said. "When a teacher wishes for a stapler or a pencil sharpener, we go begging to find them."
 
Ford added that the PTA usually puts its money and efforts into education projects. The group underwrites a school reading program and a computer-learning curriculum.

The makeover effort did have a big impact, she said. "You can't believe how much this improved the staff morale."

Patience: Neil Larson's inspiration came from his son's elementary-school band concert.

"We got there early and got a seat but there wasn't enough room in the Leota Junior High gym for all the parents of the orchestra and choir to come inside," he said. "They stood outside in the dark and rain trying to hear their child perform."

That night, Larson decided that the Woodinville-Bothell area needed a performing-arts center and not long after that he started the Northshore Performing Arts Center Foundation. Other parents got aboard the project, and eventually a partnership was formed with the Northshore School District.

Ground was recently broken at Bothell High School for a 600-seat performing-arts center. It should be completed by fall of 2005. However, money is still an issue and the group needs to raise an additional $2.5 million for construction, plus $1 million for an endowment fund, Larson said.

"We have no big events planned right now but we're still actively fund raising," he said.

Larson no longer worries about getting to elementary-school concerts early enough to get a seat.

"My son, Tyler, is now 23," he said.

Brief point: Bellevue High School Principal Mike Bacigalupi recently attended a Washington Scholars meeting in Olympia and was delighted with a story told there.

A teacher felt brevity was an important trait. She asked her fourth-grade students if they could tell something about Socrates. A little boy raised his hand and said: "He lived a long time ago. He was very bright and insightful. He gave long speeches. His friends poisoned him."

One last grin: Al Finegold is proud to be retired. He even advertises it on his license plate that reads: HPLYRTD. And one of the advantages of being retired, said the Bellevue man, is he can lunch with his other ROMEO friends. That stands for Retired Old Men Eating Out.

Sherry Grindeland: 206-515-5633 or sgrindeland@seattletimes.com