When Blossom Grocery moves into its new location in early 2016, it will at once be the newest and oldest natural foods grocery store in San Juan County. Since Jeff Nichols opened Blossom in 1977, Lopez has watched the store grow and change – along with the consumption habits of the island. When I recently asked Blossom co-owner,…
“I love entropy.” This is how my conversation started with Nikyta Palmisani, the Outreach and Education Coordinator for the Lopez Solid Waste Disposal District (LSWDD, aka The Dump). I scheduled coffee with Nikyta expecting to learn a few data points about Lopez Island’s garbage habits. I left that conversation with that and an entirely new perspective on human…
“You’d be hard pressed to find an event with so little impact that brings as many people and raises as much money as the Tour de Lopez.” That’s what Becky Smith, lead organizer for the Tour de Lopez, had to say after a few days to reflect on this year’s annual ride. If you experienced…
It was a sunny morning on Lopez Island, Aug 23, 2001. Jeff Nichols and the staff of The Galley Restaurant and Lounge were scurrying around making sure everything was set for The Galley’s reopening under new management. Jeff was nervous. Not entirely confident that The Galley was ready for business – especially at the height of tourist…
Several years ago, the Chief Marketing Officer for a large software company in Redmond, WA called me in a panic. Her company’s reputation was in a tailspin. Her marketing materials were full of technical jargon. And, if customers told stories about her company over social media, they’d talk about the last time their computer crashed.…
Most people, after a long, successful career, choose to turn things down a notch. Even though retirement doesn’t look like it used to, if people keep working, they’ll choose not to work as much; or they’ll focus on more leisure activities like golf or traveling. Doug Benoliel and Tamara Buchanan are not like most people.…
Over the years, Lopez Island Family Resource Center Executive Director, Celia Marquis, has been asked, “What does the LIFRC do?” A better question to ask might be, “What doesn’t the LIFRC do?” This week I met Celia, Patsy Haber, Susie Teague, Heather Gladstone and Alaya Battalia at the LIFRC in Lopez Village to find out. To put it simply,…
If it was the beautiful country roads and Tour de Lopez that helped establish Lopez as “the biker’s island,” it will be entrepreneurs like Heidi Hernandez and Michael Cherveny who will help the island keep that reputation. Heidi and Michael opened Village Cycles four years ago and have been steadily putting more Lopezians and island visitors on…
Someone recently told me that it takes about eighteen months to determine whether a newcomer to Lopez is going to stay. As a relative newcomer to the island, I can understand that. With a population of only 2200, this tight-knit community isn’t necessarily hard to break into; but it does have a unique vibe that…
It was the spring of 2013. Life was pretty good for the Rovente family. Anthony and Crystal Rovente owned a small farm outside of Binghamton, NY, where they were raising four boys and thirty sheep. They liked their community, and Anthony loved his teaching job at the local school, where he’d been teaching for ten years.…
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