Vicki Strait, a "retired" public information officer going after a bachelor's degree, wrote these great ledes:
Journalism school graduates are ill-prepared to work as reporters, according to an editor who retired last year after more than 50 years in the newspaper business.
In an interview Monday in Bellingham, Frederick Cole, 68, said, "Too many applicants lack a working knowledge of the English language. Some can't even type. Others can't spell."
Cole, whose frequent smiles belie his reputation as a tough editor, did not graduate from high school or attend college.
From a City Council meeting:
A skateboard park is a step closer to reality after the Bellingham City Council approved preliminary plans for it and an extension of Puget Street Monday night.
The proposal will now be sent on for public hearing and comment, according to city officials. Public Works Department officials plan to meet with residents in the neighborhood.
Bill Hawk, a communications major hoping to graduate this summer, produced one of the cleanest ledes on the Jane Goodall speech:
She is not the Jane who lived with Tarzan in the jungle for those many fictional years. But she has realized her childhood dream by living with chimpanzees in the jungles of Tanzania for the past 35 years.
"Imagine waking up in the morning to find out the dream is real," famed chimpanzee expert Jane Goodall asked of a near capacity Carver Gym crowd Monday evening.
Goodall, who is on a seven-week tour, shared the results of realizing her dreams and her message of hope for the future.
Danny Hiestand, an Air Force "brat" and a master at the indirect, or delayed, lede, began his enterprise story with this anecdote:
Last year, on the September night her life changed forever, Janeen Gunn was eating soup on her dinner break.
Gunn, 23, was sitting in a back room just to the side of the front desk at the Best Western Heritage Inn, near the Guide Meridian, when a man walked through the hotel's front door.
"I could tell something was wrong. His face looked freaky, and I knew he was high on drugs," Gunn said.
The next few moments, Gunn said, are moments she will never forget.
"I was just about to ask the man, 'Can I help you?' when I noticed he had a gun," she said. Gunn said the man was hiding the weapon under his jacket before he pointed it at her.
The man waved the gun in her face and told her to put all the money from her cashier till into a bag he was carrying. Without hesitation, Gunn complied, in hopes of speeding the man's departure.
Then the phones started ringing.
"I thought he was going to shoot ... when the phones started. He started yelling, 'You sounded the alarm! You sounded the alarm'"she said. But just as quickly as the man entered the hotel, he was gone.
"I'll never forget that," she said.
Last year in Bellingham, according to the Police Department, robberies increased 16 percent from 1995.
... The story goes on to talk about what security measures businesses are taking to prevent crime.
Kim Vincent, a soft-spoken Mariners' fan from Longview, gave her readers a good idea of what to expect at the Jane Goodall speech:
In the summer of 1960, at a time when few women held jobs in the workplace, let alone in the wild, 26-year-old Jane Goodall arrived in East Africa. Now, 36 years later at 63, her research and work in the wild has made her the world's leading expert on chimpanzees.
Goodall will share her experiences at 5:30 p.m. Monday, April 28, in Western Washington University's Carver Gym as the final speaker for the 1996-97 Distinguished Lecture Series, sponsored by the Western Foundation.
Snohomish County native Amy King wrote some clear and simple ledes from an interview and a City Council meeting:
Journalism programs at colleges and universities are inadequately preparing future journalists for the work force, retired journalist Frederick Cole said in an interview Wednesday.
Voters will decide on the new Greenways levy in the general election, not the primary.
The Bellingham City Council voted Monday to move the levy from the Sept. 16 ballot to Nov. 4 because more voters are expected to turn out in November.