As part of our conversations for KNKX Connects to Olympia, we’ve heard lawmakers talk about homelessness as a priority for this 60-day session. It’s a growing issue in many parts of our state, not just cities. But it is perhaps most visible there. Later this month, KNKX Public Radio and The Seattle Times Project Homeless will launch Outsiders, a podcast exploring homelessness from right here in Olympia. Our own Will James is the host and one of the reporters working on this. KNKX All Things

Never walk across the state Capitol Campus with Austin Jenkins if you’re in a hurry. Fortunately, we are not in a hurry as Jenkins shows us around today, which is good, because he stops every so often to chat with someone he knows: a staffer at the front desk of the Capitol visitors’ office, a lawmaker making his way across the rotunda to a meeting, an acquaintance whose son was on the same basketball team as his. The truth is, Jenkins gets around this place with plenty of speed — he says he can

Olympia is home to about 52,000 people, and it’s growing. Rob Smith is one of the new arrivals. He came here about six years ago, and was so taken with the city that he started a podcast about it. “Welcome to Olympia” explores not just the sights in Washington’s capital city, but also the stories. As we explored stories from Olympia for our KNKX Connects reporting project, we wanted to journey beyond the Capitol Campus. Smith showed us some of his favorite places. WATERSHED PARK Built around the

In celebration of our 200th episode, this week’s Sound Effect theme is “Suite 200,” where all of the stories connect to a place with Suite 200 in their address. First, two sisters follow up their brush with scientific fame by tackling homelessness in Seattle . Then, we meet a mom who helped raise money for childhood cancer research with help from some special athletes. We learn about a population boom in Bremerton that puts 21st century Seattle to shame. Finally, we meet one of Tacoma’s biggest

If you know someone who lives in Tacoma, it’s likely they have made one thing clear to you: they love Tacoma, and are very territorial about it. And make no mistake, Marguerite Martin loves, and probably always will love, Tacoma. It wasn’t just that she created the website movetotacoma.com . It isn’t just that she created Tacoma-related podcasts. It isn’t that she participated in civic conversations. Tacoma is a community that you can only really understand if you live there, and Marguerite was

By the time they were 10 and 12, the Yeung sisters had been on national TV, gotten a personal tour of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab and had a face-to-face meeting with President Barack Obama. This early notoriety followed their forays into space exploration — or at least, space-adjacent. Rebecca, now 14, and Kimberly, now 12, had visited the stratosphere three times with their Loki Lego Launcher , a homemade weather-balloon-borne science probe.

Seattle was the nation’s fastest-growing big city over the past decade, having swelled by over 20 percent . But that pales — proportionately, at least — in comparison with Bremerton in the 1940s. Bremerton’s population was 15,134, according to the 1940 census . Five years later it had more than quintupled, to more than 82,000.

Before the Sounders were a Major League Soccer powerhouse, they were part of a minor league outfit called the USL. They also were in a different building back then, and one of the businesses down the hall from the Sounders office is where Christine O’Connell worked doing graphic design. As a result, Christine got to know some of the Sounders players, including now-retired Sounders defender Zach Scott. She and Zach became friends, and when Zach decided to retire at the end of the 2016 season,

This show originally aired on October 27, 2018. A violinist with the Seattle Symphony talks about having perfect pitch , and offers a demonstration. A University of Washington gymnastics coach discusses the constant pressure for elite gymnasts to be perfect . A Seattle photographer takes us out to try and find the perfect shot . A glass chemist talks about her secret recipe for creating perfect colors. Also, a story about a woman who has spent her life battling OCD. Sound Effect is stories

This story originally aired on October 27, 2018. Bulgarian-born Momka Peeva knows a thing or two about glass. In fact, she probably knows everything there is to know about all kinds of glass. She even wrote a book about it, which is still the go-to text on glass composition and manufacturing used in Bulgaria today. Momka grew up in communist Bulgaria during a time when all people, including women, were encouraged to become engineers. So that’s what Momka did: She became a chemical engineer