The Olympian from Olympia, Washington • 9

on cont, South Sound Baby celebrating Going boomers dye BACK hair's OF bottles are with THIS natural putting aside SECTION gray look. and the sale Most video Check including ordered week title, at out games platform takes new Living PEMBERTON ideas www.theolympian.com/southsound. "Pokemon to in Ceremony, vigil for shooting victims today The Evergreen State College will hold a commemoration ceremony at the memorial bench off Red Square at noon today for the victims of Monday's shootings at Virginia Tech. The public is invited. Art Costantino, Evergreen's vice president for student affairs, will offer remarks, and counselors will be available.

Campus police Chief Ed Sorger also will be available to answer questions about campus safety issues. Also today, Together and SafePlace are sponsoring a candlelight vigil in memory of the shooting victims from 7 to 8 p.m. at the Tivoli Fountain on the Capitol Campus. People are asked to bring candles in containers so wax doesn't drip on the campus grounds. For more information about the vigil, contact Mary Segawa, Together executive director, at 360-493-2230, ext.

12, or go to www.thurstontogether.org. Capital High's principal to leave at year's end Capital High School Principal Teri Poff plans to leave her post at the end of the school year to become the executive director for teaching and learning in the Franklin Pierce School District's administration office in Tacoma. Poff has been Capital's principal since 2002. Olympia School District officials plan a parent and community meeting to gather input about hiring a new Capital principal at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the school, 2707 Conger Ave.

N.W., Olympia. Staff meetings to gather input are set for after school Monday and before school Tuesday. Students can give input during their lunch periods Wednesday. District officials plan to begin interviewing candidates in late May, with an Olympia School Board vote to extend an offer to a new principal tentatively set for June 4, said Peter Rex, a district spokesman. Youth Services' awards dinner set for tonight Community Youth Services' annual Youth Awards Volunteer Recognition Dinner is tonight at the Governor Hotel in downtown Olympia.

The ceremony recognizes young achievers as well as volunteers and youth advocates. The event is sponsored by Comcast. Volunteers being honored are Virginia Gunderson, 2007 volunteer of the year, and Paul DesJardian, 2007 youth advocate of the year. For more information, contact J. Michelle Swope, volunteer coordinator, at 360-943-0780, ext.

148, or communityyouthservices.org. LACEY Mobile home destroyed by evening fire A fire destroyed a mobile home in the 11000 block of Riverside Place Wednesday evening, according to the Lacey Fire Department. Firefighters were dispatched to the blaze around 5:40 p.m. Wednesday, and found the mobile home completely engulfed, said Lacey Fire Capt. Tim Hulse.

A couple has been displaced by the fire, he said. The cause of the fire is under investigation, he added. No other information on the fire was available Wednesday night. THURSTON COUNTY Interstate 5 backups caused by 6 collisions Six collisions Wednesday afternoon on Interstate 5 created long backups in both directions between mileposts 105 and 111. The right two lanes of traffic on southbound I-5 at milepost 105 created the backups, a news release states.

All lanes were cleared by 4:45 p.m., the release states. The Olympian SOUTH SOUND DEATHS Nada G. Shafer, Lacey Phyllis G. Williams, Olympia Obituaries, B2 CORRECTIONS It is The Olympian's policy to correct all significant errors that are brought to the editors' attention. If you think we have made such an error, please call our newsroom at 360-754-5420 after 8 a.m.

on weekdays or send e-mail to theolympian.com. City editor: Steven Powell, 360-754-5423 Go online to www. theolympian.com for local news, obituaries and community events. THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 2007 SECTION Tumwater sizes up safety plans Similar plans are in place Officials highlight communications in wake of Virginia deaths in school districts throughout Thurston County and Wash- BY HEATHER WOODWARD THE OLYMPIAN TUMWATER This week's Virginia Tech shooting shows why schools must have a solid communication plan in place in case of emergencies, a Tumwater School District: administrator said Wednesday. For example, Tumwater's Black Hills High School has one phone line that doesn't go to voice mail and instead keeps ringing until someone picks it up, assistant principal Chris Cain told district officials.

"You've got to think about that," he said. "We did." A 23-year-old Virginia Tech student killed 32 people and committed suicide on the campus Monday in the deadliest one-person shooting rampage in modern U.S. history. Two hours lapsed between the first round of gunfire, a dormitory, and the second, in a classroom building. At a previously planned meeting Wednesday, Tumwater school officials discussed safety plans they have in place.

Many Tumwater students engage in emergency drills monthly, practicing how to respond to a fire, a natural disaster or school violence. And school officials meet regularly to review emergency plans and make improvements. New equipment to cut noise, emissions from idling engines (4002) 4002) Photos by Steven M. Olympian Coast Engine Equipment Company project manager locomotive. The device is part of some new idling equipment Ken Ward looks over a Hotstart device Monday afternoon to help reduce noise and diesel fumes that have been the that keeps the fluids warm in the engine on a Tacoma Rail source of complaints from East Olympia residents.

Company responds to residents' complaints about locomotives BY JOHN DODGE THE OLYMPIAN EAST OLYMPIA Noise and air pollution from two locomotives that sit with their engines idling day and night, frustrating people who live nearby, are about to be reduced. Tacoma Rail will retrofit the locomotives' diesel engines with equipment that will curb noise and reduce diesel fume emissions by about 90 percent, officials said. work should be completed next month. The $200,000 project, which involves the two locomotives that Tacoma Rail owns and operates in East Olympia and two others in Tacoma, is in response to complaints from East Olympia residents and prodding by the state Department of Ecology and two air-quality agencies that helped pay for the anti-pollution equipment. "It's purely a voluntary measure," Council vote won't stop Rafah visits BY VENICE BUHAIN THE OLYMPIAN Coast Engine Equipment Company electrician Stanley Abalos installs the wiring for the device.

OLYMPIA The Olympia City Council's 4-2 vote against supporting a sister-city relationship with Rafah, a Palestinian city in the Gaza Strip, won't stop the exchanges between the two cities. At the same time, supporters of the Olympia-Rafah Sister City Project said Wednesday that the proposal likely won't come before the City Council again anytime soon. "It didn't sound to me that the votes were going to change, that we could say anything more to change their minds," said Ron Eggleton, former board president of the Olympia-Rafah Sister City Project, who testified in favor of the sister-city relationship. After four years of visits and exchanges between Olympia ington. At Tumwater Middle School, safety practices also extend to how students are allowed to dress every day, Assistant Principal Cathy McNamara said, explaining a ban against hats and hoods.

See SAFETY, Page B3 'Bank' robbery ruling voided Proof of 'financial institution' term was questioned BY JEREMY PAWLOSKI THE OLYMPIAN TE said Frank Van Haren, an environmental specialist with Ecology's airquality program. Tacoma Rail is an 1 arm of Tacoma Public Utilities and owns the two redand-white locomotives. In November 2004, Tacoma Rail took over short-line freight service on the spur line that runs from the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway main line north into Olympia and Tumwater. Since, the company has left two locomotives parked and idling on the spur line near its terminus in East Olympia when they're not in use, much to the chagrin of residents and businesses near the railroad tracks. The trains are used nearly every day but sit idle during nights and weekends.

"Early in the morning, the diesel just hangs in the air out here," said Bob LaLonde, an East Olympia resident since 1949. "And it's a lot of noise when you are used to peace and quiet." LaLonde was less than enthusiastic about the news of the retrofit job, which still involves a diesel heating system operating on the locomotives. See LOCOMOTIVES, Page B3 The state Court of Appeals has reversed a Thurston County Superior Court judge's ruling that allowed a convicted bank robber to trade a first-degree robbery conviction for a second-degree robbery conviction and avoid a potentially stiffer prison sentence. Thurston County Superior Court Judge Paula Casey ruled at the conclusion of a December 2005 bank-robbery trial that prosecutors failed to prove that Heritage Bank in Tumwater is a "financial institution," allowing Scott Li- Casey Casey den to avoid a first-degree robbery conviction. In 2002, Washington law changed so that any bank robbery automatically met the qualifications for a first-degree robbery charge.

The new law included language defining a Direct proof argument Liden's attorney had argued that prosecutors had to present direct proof that a bank is a financial institution to produce a first-degree bank-robbery conviction. The appeals court's opinion, published Tuesday, says that argument "would produce an absurd interpretation of these 'financial institution' statutes. "We interpret the Legislature's statutes to avoid absurd results," reads the appeals court's April 17 opinion. In December 2005, Casey ruled that the law required direct proof that Heritage Bank is a financial institution as defined in the language of the first-degree robbery statute, as Liden's attorney had argued. No such proof was presented, she determined.

See ROBBERY, Page B3 and Rafah residents, the council was asked Tuesday to vote on officially signing off on a sister-city relationship. The city already has a 26-year sister-city relationship with a city in Japan that recently merged into Kato City. Another group hopes to establish a sister-city relationship with Zhang Zhou, China. Olympia-Rafah project board president Andrew Ford Lyons, who is in Morocco and missed Tuesday's meeting, said Wednesday that the group still plans to maintain its relationships. If the City Council had voted to recognize an Olympia-Rafah sister-city relationship, Sister Cities International also would have recognized their ties.

That would have helped with trip funding, Lyons said. See RAFAH, Page B2 "It didn't sound to me that the votes were going to change, that we could say anything more to change their Ron Eggleton, former board president of the Olympia-Rafah Sister City Project IN RAFAH The proposal to form an official sister-city relationship with Olympia also was controversial in Rafah, although the debate wasn't as heated as in Olympia, said Olympia-Rafah Sister City Project board president Andrew Ford Lyons. He said some municipal leaders in Rafah wondered whether such a relationship would be seen as an endorsement of President Bush's policies. But the municipal leaders there did sanction the sister- city relationship, Lyons said. Former Yelm mayor Kathy Wolf dies at 75 BY JERRE REDECKER Puget Sound Foundation, Briggs THE OLYMPIAN YMCA, Thurston County Fair, and Nisqually River Council.

YELM Former Yelm may- She was honored by the Ecoor and community leader Kathy nomic Development Council of Wolf, 75, died Tuesday. Thurston County for her role in Wolf died af- the city's economic growth. Othter a second bout er honors included Yelm Citizen with cancer, said of the Year, the Yelm Schools disher daughter, tinguished service award and a Kate Cook of Girl Scouts Pacific Peaks Council Olympia. Women of Distinction award. Wolf's most "She just was a person who public position loved people and respected was as mayor of people and brought out the Yelm from 1993 Wolf best in everyone she met," her to 2001.

She was on the City daughter said. "People stopped Council from 1984 until she be- her all the time to say how much came mayor. she meant to them." She was active in many as- Yelm City Administrator pects of the community. She Shelly Badger said she worked was a teacher in Yelm for 37 with Wolf for years. years and was instrumental in "She had such a positive canstarting the Title I and kinder- do spirit about her that went garten programs.

She also was through our entire organizaon the board of directors of sev- tion," Badger said. eral organizations, including the Capital Medical Center, South See WOLF, Page B2.