Stories That Shaped My Life

When I married Chuck in 2012, I didn’t know much about diabetes. I knew he took medication, although it didn’t seem that he took it every day. In 2013, we were on vacation with my brother Dick and his wife, Sharon. We had been traveling in their motorhome for two weeks through Arizona and California when we stopped for the night at the Orange Grove in Bakersfield, California. Sometime before dinner, Chuck got up from the sofa. I noticed that he was mumbling and had lost some

I was 7 years old the first time I sat at the sewing machine, and my mother gave me my first sewing lesson. My mother gave birth to 8 children and I was the 7th. Both my parents were 4-H leaders for many years. They believed in the 4 H’s…Head, Heart, Hands and Health. They also believed that 4-H training taught life skills, hands-on project knowledge, personal leadership, and perhaps most importantly self esteem. They felt there would be no better place to raise children with

The phone rang. It was 1991 and our tenth year in business. I was in my office at the Dutch Cup Restaurant in Sultan with an employee, single mom with five children. She had just returned from the hospital after her third suicide attempt. On the other end of the line was Rene Perea from Snohomish County Human Services. Rene and I had known each other through work while I was on the Snohomish County Health Board. Rene wanted to know whether Sultan wanted- or needed- a Fam

When I arrived in Olympia for my first legislative session in 2018, I thought everyone knew about family support centers. After all, ours in Sultan had been serving the community since 1992. But as I began talking with people, I discovered that many had never heard of them. One of those early conversations was with my colleague, Representative Tom Dent. Our offices were next door to each other, and we often had morning coffee together. During one of our first coffee conversat

In 2007, the voters of Sultan elected me mayor, and I took office in January 2008 as the Great Recession was unfolding. This was my second time running for mayor; my first attempt a few years earlier had been unsuccessful. Before becoming mayor, I spent 20 years owning and operating the Dutch Cup Restaurant, from 1981 to 2001. During those years, my involvement in local government began with an appointment to the Sultan City Council in 1996, followed by election in 1998 and a