Closing out 2014 with our most-read stories | Editor’s Notebook
Published 12:04 pm Tuesday, December 23, 2014
From the eye-opening activities of the “Odysseo” horses and acrobats to the head-shaking disruption of local phone, television, hi-speed Internet and 911 services due to fiber and copper cables being accidentally cut, tons of readers scoured our website and perused our stories over the past year.
This year, we not only attracted local readers, but people from across the nation with our story about the “Merry Christmas” signs. I was even featured on a radio station out of Texas about the signs.
In October, reporter Samantha Pak and myself received six awards — including two firsts — for writing and photography at the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association Annual Better Newspaper Contest.
Some stories were fun to cover and others were tough to relay to our readers.
Here’s our top 10 rundown, according to Google Analytics:
1. ‘Odysseo’ opens at Marymoor — Feb. 14:
Cavalia’s $30 million theatrical production of “Odysseo” took place under the White Big Top at Marymoor Park and ran February through March.
The show featured equestrian arts, stage arts and high-tech theatrical effects.
The King County Medical Examiner’s office confirmed that a man in his 40s, who was struck by a car in a crosswalk while out walking his dog in Kirkland on Sept. 15, died. Kyle Warnick was sent to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle with life-threatening injuries. He died on Sept. 16.
3. Former Redmond police chief Harris, teen die in car accident — Aug. 25:
Former Redmond Police Department (RPD) chief Steven Harris, who spent 40-plus years in law enforcement, died in a head-on car crash at around 10 p.m. on Aug. 24.
4. Redmond High sports trio signs letters of intent — Nov. 12:
On letter-of-intent signing day on Nov. 12 in one of the Redmond High classrooms, future University of Washington fastpitch softball player Amirah Milloy sat next to Washington State University baseball player to-be Kevin Calderhead. Future University of Wisconsin rower Saylor Martin also sat at the table wearing a red Badger T-shirt and was the first of the trio to place her John Hancock to paper.
A construction crew working on the Redmond Way Stormwater Treatment Facility project on Sept. 20 cut through fiber and copper cables and disrupted Frontier Communications FiOS and copper services for phone, television and hi-speed Internet, as well as some 911 services.
The crew caused the outage at 15802 Bear Creek Parkway at the corner of Bear Creek Parkway and Redmond Way, affecting about 6,000 residential and business customers.
6. Community meeting regarding mosque draws large crowd at Redmond City Hall — May 1:
It was standing-room only in the Redmond City Council chambers on April 30 as residents from Overlake and members of the Anjuman-e-Burhani Mosque gathered for a community meeting regarding a mosque proposed for an empty plot of land near Microsoft.
The meeting was the result of neighbors’ concerns about the possibility of the religious group building its new mosque at 15252 N.E. 51st St. — putting it in the middle of a residential neighborhood.
7. Resident concerned about mail theft from overflowing collection box — March 13:
In early March, Joanna Pine drove to the Bella Bottega shopping complex in downtown Redmond to drop something off at one of the blue outgoing United States Postal Service (USPS) mailboxes.
But when she got there, she found she couldn’t send out her mail because the box was already full.
“I could reach my hand in there and pull mail out,” she said about how overflowing the mailbox was. “I went back the next day and it was even fuller.”
8. Rape case of former Microsoft employee dismissed — July 8:
After multiple continuations, the case against Vineet Kumar Srivastava, a former Microsoft Corp. employee who was charged with second-degree rape of a Microsoft janitor a year ago, was dismissed.
9. Frontier Communications officials meet with Redmond customers to discuss outages — Sept. 25:
As Bret Larsen glanced at the screen displaying photos of the mangled underground cables, he noted, “It’s not a pretty sight.”
Melinda White added, “It’s a major catastrophe that happened in our network.”
On Sept. 24, the two Frontier Communications executives addressed a crowd of about 100 Redmond residents and business owners about what happened at 9:30 a.m. on Sept. 20 and what the plan of action was to repair the unpleasant situation.
10. Bottle bomb explodes at Dickinson, Explorer elementary schools — Nov. 3:
At about 7:40 a.m. on Nov. 3, a bottle bomb exploded between two school buses parked at Emily Dickinson Elementary School and Explorer Community School in unincorporated King County near Redmond.
A bus driver sustained minor injuries.
