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By Lillian O’Rorke

Twenty-seven pounds of flour, 48 eggs, 9 pounds of white sugar, 9 pounds of brown sugar, 15 pounds of butter and around 10 gallons of vanilla ice cream – those are just some of the ingre-dients that went into making the state’s (unofficially) largest ice cream sandwich Feb. 21.

There isn’t an official record in Washington for the biggest ice cream sandwich, but that didn’t stop the a group of middle school students from trying to set one by building the giant treat that eventually measured half-a-lunchroom table.

The group hailed from middle schools across the Issaquah School District and came together at Beaver Lake Middle School over the mid-winter break for a camp ran by !mpact, the district’s before and after school care program. Derrick Capdeville, an

!mpact program manager, ran the camp Feb. 18 through Feb. 22 and said he wanted the week to be record-breaking.

“I thought to myself, the kids, they would totally be excited about something sweet and something big,” Capdeville said. The group of about 40 students, he said, liked the idea of making a giant ice cream sandwich and voted for vanilla in the middle. “I did much, much research and officially there is no state record. So I feel we are going to set the record today....There is no record keeper of Washington State but you never know – maybe you can start some unofficial afterschool club of record-breaking events.”

The work began Feb. 19, when four students, Rachel Rosewater, Cindy Xiao, Katya Yegorova and Gwen Weldon, helped one of the district’s kitchen mangers, Jill Meitzel, bake the cookie crust.

“It’s really cool because not

every day you get to make an ice-cream sandwich — a giant ice cream sandwich,” said Yegorova, who attends sixth grade at Beaver

Lake.”Using the district’s large-quan-

tity recipe, Meitzel, ran the heavy mixer while her young helpers

added in enough fixings for 2,400 1-ounce chocolate-chip cookies.


The space where Anjali Grutzius usually parks her car has been taken over for the last several weeks with shoes — 440 pairs of shoes to be exact.

But they are not all for her, in fact none of them are. The 17-year-old Skyline senior has been running a shoe drive for South African children as part of her DECA project, which she will present at the DECA state compe-tition March 7 through 9.

Grutzius didn’t decide to undertake the shoe drive because she needed a good school project; she made the decision after visit-ing schools in Underberg, South Africa last April.

Grutzius went to Underberg with Generation Joy, a founda-tion run by Beaver Lake Middle School science teacher Curtis Betzler to help deliver goods to students.

During the trip, she visited 10 different schools, where the group handed out pencils, notebooks, stuffed animals and shoes.

“It was amazing,” she said. At one school, she explained “The looks on their faces just lit up my face because they were so aston-ished that they got 20 pencils.”

Grutzius noticed, though, that at some of the schools the shoes they brought were too big for the younger students, and

many of them ended up leaving without any shoes for them-selves.

“I wanted to find more ele-

mentary size shoes for these kids, and that was my goal for this drive.”

Grutzius worked with the stu-

dents at Endeavour Elementary to set up donation boxes at their school.

Before the drive even started, the bins were filled with 100 pairs of shoes, she said.

The younger students really got involved, she added, and even stood outside in the drop off area Feb. 14 and 15 to grab bags of shoes straight from people’s cars and put them into the dona-tion box.

By the time the drive fin-ished, Grutzius had to recruit the help of her DECA class-mates, Alyssa Holt, Cody Hatfield and Steven Richards.

The four spent the weekend of Feb. 16 and 17 sorting, tying and packing 16 boxes full of shoes size zero to six-and-a-half.

They then delivered the shoes to Beaver Lake Middle School so that they can be included in Generation Joy’s April shipment to South Africa.

While the shoe drive is over, Beaver Lake will be accept-ing donations for the first three weeks of March, includ-ing school supplies, stuffed animals, books, new clothes, which have to still have the tag attached for customs, sports equipment, art supplies and bikes.

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Photo by Nirmala GrutziusAnjali Grutzius, left, employed the help of her fellow DECA classmates, Alyssa Holt, Cody Hatfield and Steven Richards, to sort and box all 440 pairs of shoes.

Local students collect hundreds of shoes for Africa

Students devote mid-winter break to ice cream sandwich

Photo by Greg FarrarBeaver Lake Middle School students assemble a giant ice cream sandwich during their mid-win-ter break.

See ICE, Page 7

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Three days after Eric Harper ended his high school wrestling career by taking fifth at state, he was back in the wrestling room, but this time as a coach.

“I knew that I was going to be pretty sad when wrestling was done, and I wanted to still be around the sport,” he said. “I also wanted to help out the little kids and make them be able to be as good as they can be in the future.”

Like all 12th grade students at Eastlake, Harper has to com-plete an intensive senior project. For him, choosing to devote that project to working with the Inglewood Junior High School wrestling team was a natural choice.

“It’s fun working with the kids. I feel like I’m doing something actually productive too,” said Harper during his second prac-tice with the young athletes Feb. 21. “Here, I feel like I’m actually helping the Eastlake program, which is something I care about.”

The Eastlake wrestling pro-gram has struggled in the last five years, seeing almost as many coaches come and go. In the 2011/2012 season, the Eastlake Wolves were down to only 11 wrestlers. This year, that number

grew to 32. “Eastlake wrestling isn’t as

good as it could be, especially how good of athletes we have up here. Our football team is phenomenal. We have a ton of sports that are phenomenal,” said Harper. “I just want to help out the kids that are participating in it and hope that they can go to state and have success in wres-tling.”

Harper first took to the mat when he was in second grade and continued to hone his skills by joining the Inglewood team. That’s when Erik Nelson first started working with him.

“In the past six years it was more like he was coaching me,” said Nelson, who also helps coach at Eastlake. “He’s so much farther ahead than any other kid I’ve ever had. He’s very intuitive; he gets every move in wrestling and his mind is always thinking… and I hope that later on in life that he will be a coach, because I would love to be on his staff.”

Nelson was there at the state tournament Feb. 16 when Harper won his final 195-pound match to finish in fifth place.

“When he was done wrestling, he signed the bout sheet, and he just stopped and he took it all in. He just looked around the Tacoma Dome,” he said. “For me

to be there on the mat with him and watch him win, I couldn’t ask for anything better. And it will be long time before we see

another one like Mr. Harper go through here.”

But before Harper leaves for the next chapter in his life,

Nelson said he is happy to have his help in the middle school

Photo by Lillian O’RorkeEric Harper explains the mechanics of a move to Inglewood wrestlers Sam Kipfer, standing, and Zach Kaufman.

Eastlake’s Eric Harper turns from coached to coaching

See HARPER, Page 9

By Matt MasseySpecial to The Seattle Times

The last time the Skyline girls bas-ketball team reached the state quarter-finals, Rachel Shim was a spectator as a sixth-grader.

The last three seasons, she was ham-pered by knee injuries, missing most of her sophomore year and playing with a brace as a junior.

This time, she made a difference.Shim helped fuel a second-half rally

to propel the eighth-ranked Spartans past No. 10 Yelm 61-48 in the Class 4A regionals Friday night at Rogers High School.

Shim finished with 17 points, includ-ing 13 in the second half. Skyline (20-5) is in the state quarterfinals for the first

time since 2007 and just the third time in school history. The state tournament opens Thursday at the Tacoma Dome.

“Oh my gosh, this is an amazing feel-ing,” said Shim, who also had five assists. “Just the fact that it’s my senior year, and I get to lead my team and end it this way, is great. I want to help make his-tory for my school and leave a legacy.

“I haven’t been this happy in a long time.”

One more win will give the Spartans their best state finish and eclipse the 2007 squad’s seventh-place showing.

“Girls basketball at Skyline has come a long ways, and it’s been kind of a long time since we’ve been recognized and played at this level,” said fifth-year coach Greg Bruns.

Colorado-bound Haley Smith pro-vided Skyline with 15 points — 10 in the first half — and seven rebounds despite playing most of the second in foul trou-ble.

The 6-foot-1 Smith and Yelm’s 6-1 Anushka Maldonado dueled much of the night inside. Maldonado had 13 points

Skyline basketball surges past Yelm, 61-48

Photo by Greg FarrarRachel Shim (left), Skyline High School senior guard, is fouled dur-ing the fourth quarter by Yelm senior post Anushka Maldonado at the state 4A basketball regional Feb. 22 in Puyallup. Shim put up one of her team-high 17 points at the free throw line on the play. See SKYLINE, Page 9