Fall is in the air. Back to school this week. The weather has been rainy and cooler. The leaves are changing. It’s fair time. It is a time of new beginnings. Football season. And the holidays are right around the corner.
There are many positive aspects of the Bonney Lake plateau. One is Beautify Bonney Lake, which is in its 10th year. The event will take place on September 21 from 8:30 a.m. to noon. Community volunteers, local businesses, and the Beautify Bonney Lake organization join forces to make permanent improvements to the city. The mission of Beautify Bonney Lake is to enhance the beauty of the city, by providing a vehicle to easily capture the goodwill of the citizens via their willingness to create permanent and positive improvements to the city.
Why have I been involved all 10 years of the event? Besides to create a more beautiful city, meet my neighbors, and get a free lunch and T-shirt? I enjoy working outdoors. It is satisfying to see the transformation of a flower bed weeded, pruned and new bark. Or the anticipation of how that bag of 100 daffodil bulbs you just planted will look next spring, like the seas of yellow seen this spring around the city. Thorns have roses, too. I take pride in my community, especially the projects I have worked on like Ken Simmons Park, Ascent Gateway, the triangle at Sumner-Buckley Highway and 198th, the rain garden at the Public Safety Building, Main Street, Cedarview Park, Viking Park, and the library/Justice Municipal Center. The opportunities to help are many and a great many hands are needed. Please meet at the Pierce Transit parking lot behind Wendy’s off 410 starting at 8:30 a.m. to be assigned your work location.
By coming together as a community we can put in some hard work in a few short hours. For more information visit: http://www.beautifybonneylake.org/The following month, on October 19 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., the second annual Milotte Film Festival will be held at the Justice & Municipal Center, 9002 Main Street East in Bonney Lake. Alfred and Elma Milotte were true pioneers in the motion picture industry. Through their work with Walt Disney and the True Life Adventure series between 1946 and 1954 they gave the world a view of nature that most people have never seen before and then they came to live in Bonney Lake. They retired to the home they built on the hilltop with panoramic views of the Cascades and Mt. Rainier, the Fennel Creek Valley, the Puyallup Valley, Commencement Bay and the Olympics. They never really retired, but became active in the community, were writers, artists, puppeteers, lecturers and tree farmers in addition to their photography. They called their 160 acre home their Island in the sky. Upon their death, their home became the homes to many in Sky Island and Panorama Heights.
The Greater Bonney Lake Historical Society (GBLHS) is the recipient of the Milotte collection and will be hosting this event which will include viewings of two Disney movies. The African Lion is a True Life Adventure filmed by the Milottes and released by Disney Sept. 14, 1955 and runs 75 minutes. The promo says: “Out of the heart of Africa now comes nature’s greatest drama. Three years of waiting, watching, stalking in the shadow of the brooding Kilimanjaro, and on the wide expanses of the Serengeti Plains to capture on film the drama, the entertainment, the excitement of the animal kingdom. An intimate close-up of Africa never before seen.”
The African Cat is also a Disney film released April 22, 2011 and runs 89 minutes. The promo states: “An epic true story set against the backdrop of one of the wildest places on Earth, “African Cats” captures the real-life love, humor, and determination of the majestic kings of the savanna.
Narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, the story features Mara, an endearing lion cub who strives to grow up with her mother’s strength, sprit, and wisdom; Sita, a fearless cheetah and single mother of five mischievous newborns; and Fang, a proud leader of the pride who must defend his family from a rival lion and his sons.”
There will be items such as the 2014 GBLHS calendars, Milotte photography, Milotte books “The Story of the Platypus” and “The Story of the Hippopotamus,” and Winona Jacobsen’s “Bonney Lake’s Plateau” for you to purchase. The 2014 calendar has a back to school theme for the month of September. Refreshments will be available. There will be displays of Milotte artifacts, artwork and the puppets they created. And like Beautify Bonney Lake, it’s free. For more information visit: http://www.mwlff.org/
So bring your family out, join your neighbors and enjoy these two very different events that will be sure to warm your hearts this fall season. See your there!
