Best of Puget Sound 2006

Each year, members of the Editorial Board of The Seattle Times name the people and organizations who have made a difference in our lives, our landscape and our aspirations for this region. This year, we recognize:

• Doreen Marchione, for 15 years, has helped needy people weather the financial and emotional storms that buffet their lives. As president and CEO of Hopelink, the Eastside's largest human-services organization, she led the agency to its own financial stability and service expansion that provided assistance for 50,000 clients in 2006. Her retirement comes as Hopelink celebrates its 35th anniversary. Marchione's leadership has been a strong link from despair to hope.

• Former Gov. Gary Locke was instrumental in the visit here of Hu Jintao, president of China. Hu is young for a Chinese leader and may be president a long time. Our state cannot make foreign policy, but we can put a face on it. It was important to invite Hu here, to persevere when the first invitation had to be canceled and to greet China's leader properly. Many others deserve praise, but Locke was the key player.

• The Total Experience Gospel Choir traveled in August to visit some of the hardest-hit victims of Hurricane Katrina, still struggling to recover from the storm a year earlier. The choir, led by Pastor Patrinell Wright, performed at a series of fundraisers as well as impromptu soul-raising serenades for people it encountered, an inspiration through and through.

• Richard Anderson-Connolly, associate professor at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, successfully led the campaign for instant runoff voting in Pierce County. IRV is radically different: Voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate has a majority of first-place votes, the last-place candidate is eliminated and his or her voters are assigned to other candidates based on their second-place choices. Do this until someone wins. In theory, this is a fairer system. In practice, the voters of Pierce County shall find out.

• Laina and Egon Molbak are celebrating a half century of making a corner of the world a prettier place to live. The first tendrils of Molbak's greenhouse and nursery appeared 50 years ago this month in Woodinville. The young family from Denmark put down roots that became a thriving business, a regional destination for gardeners and a generous community asset. Molbak's Poinsettia Festival dazzles during the holidays and helps draw some of the nursery's 1 million visitors a year.

• TVW, short for TV Washington, is expanding its window into the workings of government with the Jan. 6 dedication of the new Jeannette C. Hayner Media Center and a major digital-equipment upgrade. The private, nonprofit network is a blessing for voters who want to see candidates speak for themselves — and a way for residents to bring the proceedings in Olympia to the far corners of the state.

• Technology Access Foundation represents the best of innovation and philanthropy in the public schools. TAF Executive Director Trish Millines Dziko has focused on nurturing the talent of minority students and encouraging more to study science and technology. Many lament the plight of struggling students; Dziko and TAF are doing something about it.

• Timothy Egan, Seattle author and New York Times correspondent, won the 2006 National Book Award for nonfiction for "The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl." His writings for years have brought greater national understanding of the western reaches of the country.

• Dan Evans, former University of Washington regent, The Evergeen State College president, senator and governor, is still serving his community. At 81, he ran the Seattle Half Marathon after soliciting pledges for the UW's Students First scholarship program. He made both his goals — to raise more than $100,000, which attracted a $50,000 match, and to finish the 13-mile route in less than three hours 40 minutes. And he did it on two knee replacements.