2007 Best of Puget Sound: The best of Times

The men, women and institutions that have made this region a better place in which to live is the basis for The Seattle Times Editorial staff's annual "Best of" recognitions. A strong economy, a vibrant city and a growing metropolitan city-state on the shores of Puget Sound provided us with lots of choices this year. Among the many, we chose these representative groups and individuals who have contributed to the way we live.

• For those who remember the dark days of downtown Seattle, when the Frederick & Nelson and I. Magnin department stores were shuttered and the city's retail core was imperiled, the recent holiday seasons of bright lights and crowded streets must seem like a miracle. They're the result of hard work and unshakable faith. Through it all, Kate Joncas and the Downtown Seattle Association have pushed, cajoled and kept spirits up as the neighborhood's No. 1 advocate. Challenges remain, from congestion and street crime to the need for affordable housing. Joncas, the DSA president, knows the litany — and, also, the progress of the city's keystone tract.

• Island County Beach Watchers work hard to protect the best of Puget Sound, rallying and training citizens to care for their marine surroundings. The program of Washington State University Extension, started in 1989 by Island County extension agent Don Meehan, is a model for renewed efforts to broaden Puget Sound cleanup efforts.

• Dr. Lawrence Corey established the first human clinical trial of HIV/AIDS drugs more than 20 years ago, and is part of the brainpower that is transforming the South Lake Union biotech hub. Corey, a leader in basic and applied research at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, helped convene 1,000 scientists to Seattle for the AIDS Vaccine 2007 Conference. Funded through the Gates Foundation, 165 scientists from 19 countries are collaborating in an effort to find an effective vaccine.

• Roaring Redmond didn't just mean the city of Microsoft and massive growth. It also meant the city of Mayor Rosemarie Ives. In her 16 years in public office, Redmond's best and most ferocious promoter and defender also became a regional voice for Metropolitan Seattle. Ives was not content with reaping growth but also using it to fashion a city and a community. Redmond was an early leader in denser housing, in battling for more buses, for greener corridors to jobs and homes. Some of her ideas never levitated to reality, but her imprint on the region is profound.

• Sutapa Basu is executive director of the University of Washington Women's Center's "Making Connections" program, which helps high-school women from underserved populations get into college. At the center's annual dinner, scores come forward offering testimonials of Basu's impact on the lives of young women challenged by poverty, domestic abuse and other problems.

• Longtime public-schools volunteer Lisa Macfarlane was topping off her gas tank when she overheard a radio news announcer report that Seattle Public Schools had failed its levy for the second time in a row. The double failure was cataclysmic for the public schools but it galvanized Macfarlane to cofound the League of Education Voters and launch an 11-year battle to eliminate the supermajority requirement for school levies. Along the way, Macfarlane became one of the most influential players in public-education policy.

• Debra Glassman, faculty director of the Global Business Center at the University of Washington's business school, makes the list for her work to create and build a worldwide competition among students in socially oriented business plans. The Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition has included plans for a $25 mini-sleeping bag to incubate newborns, a hand-cranked radio for herders on the Mongolian steppe, a home-based kit to purify water, bricks made from the waste products of steel mills and a health-care-insurance plan to be sold in India for $7.50 a month. The competition, now directed by lecturer Jane George-Falvy, has grown every year and has become a star program of the university.

• Jonathan Lawson, executive director of Seattle-based Reclaim the Media, is a major player in the media-reform movement. Lawson's amazing organizing abilities helped ensure that Town Hall was packed with more than 800 people for a Federal Communications Commission hearing in November.

• Michael Herschensohn was recruited in 1998 to help a foundering Northwest Folklife Festival survive. He rallied the talents, energy and generosity of the festival board and the arts community in a united effort to save a cherished spring event. As he steps down, the festival faces new challenges and opportunities, but it is here to embrace them.

• Opened in January, the Olympic Sculpture Park folded into Seattle's side along the waterfront as if it should have been there all along. Besides bringing art outdoors on the nine-acre site, the park makes it accessible and sittable. The Seattle Art Museum's $85 million project is a real gift to the urban landscape, with panoramic views of the Sound, the Olympic Mountains, the city and a restored beach.