Other News

Brandon Hopkins was on track to become a high school biology teacher when he was invited by one of his professors at Washington State University to work in a lab with honey bees. “Yeah, I bought every kind of itch cream they sold in the store because my hands were swollen and itching from all the bee stings and I soaked my hands in ice every night and questioned my decision making,” recalls Hopkins. So, there are sperm banks for people. Repositories for this necessary ingredient to create life

When Hollywood needs a housefly, they call Graham Owen. The head of the company Film Flies is a specialist when it comes to creating fake insects (and spiders and centipedes) used in movies, print ads and commercials. Owen has watched his creations appear in a Spider-Man movie, alight on the lip of Adam Sandler and even the star in a Breaking Bad episode. Each bug is meticulously recreated, leading to specimens so realistic that they have fooled real bugs into trying to mate with them. And when

This week on Sound Effect, we hear stories of people who learned to hustle. The Cookie Hustle They may seem sweet (and they are), but sisters Hayden and Rena Korbol mean business. They are two of the top cookie sellers for the girl scouts in Western Washington, selling over 1,600 boxes each last year. The Bootleg King Back in the 1920s, during prohibition, Roy Olmstead supplied a dry Northwest with booze. Lots of booze. And we’re not talking moonshine here, this was the good stuff. Olmstead

Back in the 1920’s a Seattle police officer spotted a lucrative opportunity, and hustled fast to make it happen. His name was Roy Olmstead and for a time, he became a very rich man by running a highly illegal activity. During prohibition, Olmstead supplied a dry Northwest with alcohol. Lots of alcohol. The good stuff too. Not moonshine. No one is really certain how Olmstead went from being an enforcer of the law to a lawbreaker, but it’s believed he had a lot of help. “There were people in high

College is really expensive. People take out loans, they work a million odd jobs, and if you’re lucky, you have parents who set up a college fund. When Gracelynn Shibayama was 17 years old, she had a college fund. But then, she got an email from her parents. “We had to use your college fund to pay for Calvin’s rehab. So, at that point it was like, Oh, this is getting really serious and if I want to go to college, and I thought that was going to be there, I’m going to have to start thinking about

In the late 1990s, WIl MIller was working as a King County prosecutor in Seattle. And for the first time, he was exploring the gay nightlife. Spending his evenings in the city’s gay bars introduced him to his future lover and, through him, to crystal meth. “If you're a gay man in the 90s and you're a little overweight and you’re a little self-conscious, it really seemed to solve all of my problems,” Miller said. “It played into every one of my weaknesses.” Miller continued working for the

This story originally aired on May 13, 2017. When Washington state legalized recreational marijuana in 2013, the state held a lottery to award around 200 grower permits. Thousands applied, and on a whim, so did a group of friends that just happened to own a patch of land near Goldendale, in Eastern Washington. They never really thought they’d win, so when they did, it came as a shock. The group was met with the stark reality that starting a cannabis farm with no farming experience was a much

This show originally aired on May 13, 2017. This week on Sound Effect, stories of that moment when everything changes for better or worse. It's Showtime Seattle television director and producer Steve Wilson saw a live broadcast of one of his favorite local kid's shows at the 1962 World's Fair when he was just 6 years old. From that point on, he knew he wanted to work in show business. Wilson talks about that day and how it changed everything for him. O Tannenbaum In 1950, Northgate Mall was just

Television producer and director, Steve Wilson, says making television is just like making cheese. “People consume cheese. Some people make really good cheese. Other people make really terrible cheese. But, everybody eats cheese —and I make the cheese,” he told us. Steve’s decades-long love affair with television began when he was a kid growing up in Seattle. The 1960s was was a golden age in television for kids. This was when KING, KIRO and KOMO created their very own shows for children. Steve

This story originally aired on May 13, 2017. Back in 1950, Northgate Mall was just opening its doors. It was struggling to get off its feet and fill empty shops. Big local retailers like Nordstrom and Friedlander didn’t believe that a regional shopping center all the way up north could survive. At that time, downtown was where people went to shop. Jim Douglas set out to change this. Douglas helped launch major city legacies like SeaFair and the World’s Fair, b ut his crowning achievement was