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So, just in case you haven’t spent a lot of time in the Seattle of the late 1800s, I can tell you it was a very different city.

For three years running, from 2015 to 2017, the Port Townsend Drizzle took home the gold medal in the over-50 women's division at the Washington State Senior Games . It's an impressive feat for a group of women without much basketball experience. It would be even more impressive if they'd had anyone to play against.

There’s a debate going on in American higher education about trigger warnings and safe spaces, orthodox thinking and free speech. Evergreen State College in Olympia became briefly famous in that debate in May 2017, when a discussion about campus equity spiraled into a true crisis, involving protests, counter-protests, death threats and neo-Nazis. Graduation had to be moved off campus because of safety concerns. In the fall of 2018, the crisis has subsided, but it isn’t really over. Enrollment is

It's our annual Thanksgiving week tradition, when we share our favorite music stories from the past year. We open with Karen Sakata, who has been running karaoke at Bush Garden for decades. We also meet Robbie Luna, who is a carpenter in Seattle, but by night he portrays the role of Prince in the Prince cover band Purple Mane. But Robbie would soon find that his Prince act had an even deeper impact than he’d imagined. Also, we meet a musician who continues to perform with his hardcore punk band,

This story originally aired on May 26, 2018. On a hot, windy night in San Francisco, a good friend of Everett musician Jason Webley climbed into a dumpster. His nickname was Chicken John, and he crouched at the bottom of the dumpster to light a cigarette. What he found, there among the garbage, turned out to be unexpected treasure: an oversized, handmade leather scrapbook that was falling apart. Chicken carried around the discarded, early-20th Century scrapbook for years. It contained items --

This story originally aired on September 2, 2017. Robbie Luna is a man of many hats, a Seattle area carpenter by day, and by night he fronts two bands, one of which is a Prince cover band called " Purple Mane ." With Prince's 2016 death the band suddenly found themselves carrying the weight of being both a fun sexy party band, while also being a respectful tribute to a beloved musical genius. No one is better suited for that challenge than Robbie. His performance as Prince is impeccable, he even

This story originally aired on October 21, 2017. Andre Sanabria discovered at 21 he had a deadly disease, and the only cure was a double-lung transplant. But that did not stop him from making music. In fact, he says music is what was keeping him alive. Fearing the risks of an operation, and facing his declining health, he instead focused his time and energy on composing, performing and touring even when he could barely hold a guitar. And this was not quiet music, but metal-tinged hardcore punk.

This story originally aired on May 26, 2018. Naomi Wachira was born and raised in Kenya, studied broadcasting in Chicago, then theology in Seattle. While she always had an impressive singing voice -- she sang in choirs since she was five -- becoming a professional musician wasn’t truly on the radar until 2013, after her father, a pastor in Kenya, passed away. “He followed his calling, he followed his life passion which was helping people and believing in people. And I think for me it made me

This story originally aired on October 21, 2017 It’s hard to imagine a time when karaoke did not exist in the Northwest. Today, any night of the week, you can go out with friends and find some place where you can belt out your favorite tunes in front of a crowd. But, everything has a beginning. Things have to start somewhere, right? For American style karaoke in the Northwest, it was at Bush Garden in Seattle’s International District. “When we first started out, people were a little bit shy,

Melba Ayco is the Artistic and Program Director for Northwest Tap Connection . The studio, located on Rainier Avenue in South Seattle, teaches children how to dance. Most of the students are African American. Along with learning how to shuffle and do a time step, Northwest Tap students get a lot of exposure to social justice issues, thanks in large part to Melba.