The Senior Scene

A new addition to the Navy’s fleet will be named for a Pacific Northwest leader of Native Americans.

Navy officials announced the USNS Billy Frank Jr. will be a Navajo-class towing, salvage, and rescue ship when it’s built. The name selection follows the tradition of naming such ships in honor of prominent Native Americans or Native American tribes

Frank was a Nisqually tribal member and an iconic Native American environmental leader and treaty rights activist before his death in 2014. His promoted cooperative management of natural resources while dedicating his life to activism. He served as chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission for more than 30 years.

“I am honored for the opportunity to name a naval ship after a man who was a proponent and leader for Native American rights,” said Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro . “Billy Frank Jr. spent his life serving others, and his namesake ship will do the same as it travels around the world enabling humanitarian assistance and the maintenance of freedom.”

If you love cheese, the Seattle area is your kind of place.

Seattle, buoyed by its prevalence of cheese and wine events and cheese-hawking farmer markets, is number 7 on the 2023 list of Best Cities for Cheese Lovers, as determined in a study commissioned by LawnStarter. Bellevue and Tacoma aren’t too shabby, either, ranking 34^th and 88^th, respectively.

Seattle trails only (in order) New York City, Madison, Wis., Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C.

More details from the full study are at lawnstarter.com.

From Janet McGiffin, a Tacoma resident, comes a story of two young women who join forces to survive the dangers and power of the Roman Empire of the East, and a city that is very much a man’s world.

The book series is about the Byzantine era in 8^th-century Greece and the woman, Princess Irini, who climbed (clawed, really) her way to power. This first book, “Betrothal and Betrayal,” introduces a young teen, Thekla.  She is impetuous, naïve, and formidable. She has been betrayed by her betrothed and her parents, who, times as they were, needed to marry her off.  They make plans to marry her to the old gravedigger in their village after Myri, her betrothed, betrays her for the second time. Horrified, Thekla sees a chance to escape from the city gates in Ikonion where she had been to meet Myri returning from war. She sees a coach leaving town and jumps on it, starting a remarkable journey to Constantinople, where she is certain she will find Myri and marry.

With McGriffin’s richly detailed description of the culture, food, politics, and relationships of the 8^th century, readers can almost taste, smell and feel the emotions Thekla experiences. It is classified as Young Adult fiction (it’s historical fiction), but just as Hunger Games was read widely by all ages, so, too, will this book.

McGiffin divides her time between her apartment in Manhattan, her home in Tacoma, and her friends in Athens, Greece. The book series. “Betrothal and Betrayal” and “Poison is a Woman’s Friend” (available on BarnesandNoble.com and Amazon), is the result of her time in Greece, where she lived for over a decade.  She spent 11 years researching and writing the series. Her previously published books are murder mysteries set in Milwaukee, where she lived for a time after she graduated from the University of Washington.

Source: Lisa Otto, content coordinator for The Heart of the North End magazine.

Befitting someone with such a distinguished career in public service, Dan Evans’ 98th birthday was marked during a meeting of the King County Council in October.
The meeting on Oct. 17 was one day after his birthday, but that didn’t stop the council and others in attendance from saluting Evans, who was on hand for the formal recognition that was initiated by council members Pete von Reichbauer and Jeanne Kohl-Welles.
Evans, who was Washington’s governor from 1965 to 1977, was instrumental in creating the first state-level ecology department in the United States, as well as co-founding the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Coalition and creating councils advancing the status of women, Native Americans, and Asian Americans.
Evans went on to serve as a U.S. senator for Washington, part of a legacy of effective governing, von Reichbauer noted.
“I would be hard-pressed to find a better example of the good in politics and public service than Dan Evans,” von Reichbauer said. “I was fortunate to serve in the state Senate while he was governor and to see his work firsthand. Today we live in an era of division at all levels of government, but when Dan served, he was a master” of bipartisanship.
After his political career, Evans filled prominent roles in education as president of Evergreen State College and later as a regent for University of Washington, which named its School of Public Affairs after him.
Before entering politics, he was a lieutenant in the Navy and was an admiral’s aide during the Korean War peace negotiations.