Articles on PR for People

A Garden’s Most Successful Yield is Community Connection

Barbara McMichael

November 13, 2018

A neighborhood called “Pacific Ridge” might conjure up visions of estate homes with saltwater views, but nothing could be further from the truth in Des Moines, Washington. This small town, situated midway between Seattle and Tacoma and founded by Midwestern pioneers, was for decades home to small businesses and a beachfront Bible camp. But it began to see substantial change in the 1960s, when Interstate 5 punched through the area and suburban sprawl followed, with the paving-over of the waterfront to make room for a marina, the selling-off of small farms, and the building of high-density housing in their place.

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Green

After coal: recreating a local economy

Barbara McMichael

October 07, 2018

For more than a century, the town of Centralia in southwestern Washington has largely depended on extractive industries for its economy. Logging and coal mining typically provided jobs that paid pretty well. But the forestry industry took a big hit back in 1981 when Mt. St. Helens erupted, and then the coal mine just outside of town closed in 2006.

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Arts & Culture

Investigating destiny through sociopolitical art

Barbara McMichael

September 19, 2018

Holly Ballard Martz has always been an artist, but she didn’t start out creating work with any specific political agenda. That all changed seven years ago, when a family member suffered through a debilitating bout of depression and anxiety, and encountered numerous obstacles in her quest to get the help she needed. That’s when Martz’s work took a significant turn.

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Entertainment

Liberty Theatre lights up revitalized Camas

Barbara McMichael

August 02, 2018

The Liberty was constructed in 1927 as the Granada Theatre – a popular art deco icon in the heart of town. But over the succeeding 80-plus years, there were ups and downs in the economy, the name change to Liberty, and a fire that ravaged the building’s interior. By 2011, the theatre had been dark for a couple of years when Thornsley and his partners invested in it.

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Fashion

Expressing individuality, one necklace at a time

Barbara McMichael

July 31, 2018

Anita Corby believes that everyone is born with an innate sense of beauty and an intuitive sense for shape and color. But she thinks the entertainment industry wields too much influence in dictating styles and setting trends.

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Small Business

Communication coach helps improve workplace culture

Barbara McMichael

July 01, 2018

Betty Lochner believes that good communication is the cornerstone of building a successful work environment. A longtime employee of state government, the Olympia, WA, resident was handed her biggest challenge in the field of workplace communication several years ago when she was charged with taking over a state program where the employees had not been working well together as a team, but weren’t enthused about welcoming a change of leadership, either.

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Local

Providing Support to Immigrant Detainees

Barbara McMichael

May 21, 2018

As an employee at the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project office in Tacoma, Maria Cordero-Miranda administers the Legal Orientation Program at the Northwest Detention Center, one of the largest immigration prisons in the U.S. Her position is almost entirely funded by the federal LOP grant.

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People

Helping veterans become effective entrepreneurs

Barbara McMichael

April 23, 2018

Thomas Kuljam is director of an innovative program specifically designed to serve veterans as they transition from the military to a campus environment and ultimately the civilian world.

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Arts & Culture

Beyond the Frame: Revisiting the Photographs of Edward S. Curtis

Barbara McMichael

April 07, 2018

More than 100 years after they were taken, the photographs that Edward S. Curtis made of Native Americans across North America remain the iconic images of the race. Wearing trappings of skins and feathers, shells and beads, the subjects of the photographs look directly through Curtis’s lens and into the 21st century viewer’s soul, conveying a moment captured for all time.