As 2014 comes to a close the Enumclaw Courier-Herald looks back at some of the top stories of the year.
10. Travis Martin Lear sentenced to 25 years
Travis Martin Lear was sentenced in September to 25 years in prison for first-degree child molestation.
The verdict was announced in King County Superior Court by Judge Chad Allred.
The 26-year-old Enumclaw resident molested an 11-year-old girl in the bathroom of the Enumclaw Library the afternoon of Jan. 30, 2013.
Lear had twice been convicted of sex crimes prior to the incident at the library. He was also registered as a level 1 sex offender.
According to court documents, Lear was sentenced to 300 months (25 years) and maximum of life. The court also sentenced him to community custody for life.
Lear was ordered to pay restitution, an amount to be set by the court following a hearing. He was also ordered to pay $1,495.81 in attorney fees and $230 in court costs.
KC Moulden took her second gold medal at the Mat Classic wrestling championships Feb. 22 at the Tacoma Dome.
Moulden pinned Shanelle Berry from Yelm in 54 seconds, and she pinned every opponent she faced during the two-day tournament.
“I wanted to go hard, not make any mistakes and get it done fast,” Moulden said of her championship match. “It’s good to know I can defend my title.”
“She’s an outstanding kid. She’s a leader on the team and at school,” said her coach, Jerry Scheidt.
Moulden was 25-1 on the season and was first in subdistricts, regionals and state.
8. Spring Sports Titles
• Track and Field
Moulden won the gold in the shot put with a throw of 44 feet, 0.25 inches. She took sixth in the discus at 125-01.
Maria Blad took the state crown in the 100-meters hurdles in 14.83 and sixth in the 300 hurdles in 46.94.
• Fastpitch
The Enumclaw Hornets fastpitch team finished an incredible season May 31 taking second in the 3A state tournament at the Regional Athletic Complex in Lacey.
The Hornets ended the season 28-1 overall and 15-0 in 3A South Puget Sound League. The girls were league and district champions. The only loss came in the battle for the title against Kamiakin from Kennewick with the Hornets losing 4-2. It was the third consecutive state title for the Braves.
7. Two friends die in Buckley plane crash
Rod Richardson and Jim Cawley shared many things – friendship, former careers, a love of flying and even a neighborhood.
The two retired commercial pilots perished the afternoon of June 4 when the small, vintage airplane they were flying went down in a wooded area not far from their rural Buckley homes.
Each man lived along an airstrip that straddles 112th Street, a neighborhood of small-aircraft enthusiasts. Cawley had recently purchased a vintage military airplane from his friend and the two had gone for a flight that Wednesday morning. When they returned to the sky that afternoon, it was immediately clear something was wrong. Area residents reported hearing the engine sputtering and losing altitude before it clipped treetops and crashed.
The plane went down in a wooded area north of state Route 410, in the 9200 block of 258th Avenue East. The wreckage was removed the following day.
6. Buckley toddler dies in tragic accident
It was shortly before 3 p.m. April 14 when a white pickup left state Route 410, banged through a ditch and traveled perhaps 500 feet over grass and along the paved Foothills Trail before striking a small wagon. Lincoln Person, nearly 2 years old, was in the wagon, which was being pulled by his father; Jason Person, who was not injured, attempted to pull the wagon away from the oncoming pickup, witnesses said.
Citizens attempted to revive the child, who was transported to Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital and was later pronounced dead.
5. Marijuana retailer opens in Buckley
The semi-sleepy burg of Buckley might suffer from a too-quiet downtown, but now, it also is among just a handful of towns where marijuana fans can flock to purchase their drug of choice, whether it be Pineapple Express, Lemon Skunk, Big Bud or any other item off the recreational menu.
With the opening of Mr. Bills of Buckley, the town of slightly more than 4,000 folks is the only Pierce County community – other than Tacoma – where marijuana can legally be purchased. Smokers cannot buy legal weed in Pierce County’s second-largest city, Lakewood, or No. 3 Puyallup.
Likewise, Buckley’s nearest neighbors have put the kibosh on anyone attempting to ply the marijuana trade made legal via passage of Initiative 502. Just to the north in Enumclaw, the Planning Commission and City Council have recognized that marijuana exists but used zoning codes to prevent the growing, processing or selling of the plant. To the west in Bonney Lake, city leaders maintain a prohibition on any phase of the marijuana trade.
The Green Door, opened later giving Buckley two marijuana stores.
An eastern wind sailed down the west face of the Cascades Nov. 11, slamming into Enumclaw and the surrounding area while knocking down trees, power lines, fences and anything not nailed or weighted down.
Enumclaw had sustained winds in the 40s with gusts hitting more than 60 mph, uprooting trees and sending roof shingles sailing.
The National Weather Service logged wind gusts at SeaTac of 43 mph with sustained winds of 30 mph.
At about 10 p.m. Nov. 11 a Douglas fir crashed down across state Route 169 between 400th Street and 424th Street. The tree took out power lines and telephone poles on both sides of the road.
SR 169 was closed until Nov. 14 while Puget Sound Energy workers repaired the damaged lines and power poles.
The cities of Enumclaw and Buckley squared off over money related to the natural gas system serving both communities.
There was some heated council meetings and plenty of complex engineering data, municipal mathematical methodologies and legal legwork.
As Kevin Hanson wrote May 21 edition of the Courier-Herald:
Eventually, money talks. And $100,000 made the ongoing troubles disappear.
The history between the two towns that straddle the White River might be one of mutual agreement, but it seemed there was no middle ground when it came to the recent fracas. Enumclaw claimed it was owed nearly a half-million dollars by its neighbor in Pierce County and equally adamant were those at Buckley City Hall, who asserted they owed nothing.
The fiscal flap came to a skidding stop when Buckley offered $100,000 to make the lingering problem go away.
2. Fire House Fights
The King County Fire District 28 had a rocky run for the first half of the year with hostility boiling over at the commissioner meetings.
In May Fire Chief Joe Clow resigned. A couple of weeks later Ted and Mary Fehr filed a complaint in King County Superior Court against fire commissioners Angie Stubblefield and Stan McCall alleging violations of the state’s Open Public Meetings Act.
Doug Dawson was hired as interim fire chief and the last half of the year has been quieter.
1. State Sen. Roach wins seventh term
Sen. Pam Roach won a seventh term and became the longest serving woman in the state Senate chamber.
The race for 31st District Senate seat between Roach and former Rep. Cathy Dahlquist, both Republicans, peaked the fire meter from mid-July until the November general election.
Campaign shots flew between the two campaigns with both sides making claims and allegations against the other. Roach criticized Dahlquist’s work on the tri-party agreement for schools on the two YarrowBay master planned developments in Black Diamond while she was a member of the Enumclaw School Board
Dahlquist said Roach’s expense reports mixed campaign and legislative functions. The senator ended up paying back $5,000 to the Senate administration.
The hot talk had little effect the outcome. Roach won by 54 percent of the vote.
She began serving in the Senate in 1990.
