SEATTLE – Patricia Barker, a principal dancer with Pacific Northwest Ballet who is considered one of the world’s finest ballerinas, has announced she will retire at the end of the 2006-07 season.
“Patricia Barker’s name is synonymous with the name Pacific Northwest Ballet,” Peter Boal, the ballet’s artistic director said in a statement released Friday. “It is hard to imagine the company without her. Her contribution to this institution cannot be measured.”
A native of the south-central Washington town of Richland, Barker, 43, joined the ballet as an apprentice in 1981 while she was still in high school. She got promoted to the corps de ballet in 1982, became a soloist two years later and has been a principal dancer since 1986.
She’s won critical acclaim for performances throughout North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.
In addition to her work at the Pacific Northwest Ballet, Barker has made guest performances with New York City Ballet, Boston Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre and Royal Danish Ballet.
Barker’s next performance will be the lead role in “Diamonds,” one of three ballets that comprise George Balanchine’s “Jewels,” which is scheduled to run June 1-3 and June 8-11 in Seattle.
Alaska: 2 Korean climbers rescued
Two Korean climbers were rescued from an Alaskan mountain after being stranded near its summit for more than a day without food or shelter, officials said.
Whang Cheung Sik and Hong Sung Hyun, both 35, were flown by helicopter Saturday evening to the base camp at the bottom of Mount Hunter, the third-highest peak in Denali National Park, officials said. Rescue efforts had been delayed because of severe winds.
The climbers were fatigued and dehydrated, but were in relatively good condition despite exposure to high winds and overnight temperatures near 5 degrees, park officials said.
Neither had a sleeping bag or tent, and each took shelter in crevasses to keep warm, McLaughlin said.
About 25 to 50 people climb the 14,400-foot Mount Hunter each year, she said. Last year, a record 1,340 climbers attempted the 20,320-foot McKinley, North America’s highest peak.
Also, a man survived a 2,600-foot fall off McKinley while attempting to ski down a treacherous gully nicknamed the “Orient Express,” park officials said.
Ed Maginn, 34, of Salt Lake City, was flown off the mountain Friday afternoon and was treated at an Anchorage hospital, they said.
“I feel rough, but nothing’s broken, and I’m getting around,” Maginn said. “I thought I was dead.”
Maginn’s fall ended at 15,700 feet. His friends were sure it was fatal, as did rangers they contacted by radio at a camp at 14,200 feet.
Rangers found Maginn as he was walking toward the camp, park officials said.
Oregon: Hood River gets free Wi-Fi
A free Wi-Fi network will cover three square miles in the Columbia Gorge city of Hood River for the next three months.
Embarq Corp., which was the local phone division of Sprint Nextel Corp. until it was spun off last week, is experimenting with wireless Internet access.
Hood River is the company’s second test site; the first one went online in Henderson, Nev., in March.
For the next 90 days, Embarq intends to test the network’s capabilities and explore ways to make it operate profitably. At the end of that time, the company hopes to sell or lease the network to the city of Hood River.
Judge reprimands city in Nike lawsuit
A Washington County judge has reprimanded the city of Beaverton for dumping thousands of pages of useless documents on Nike.
City officials have been ordered to turn over exactly what the company has requested, no more and no less.
The action came after city leaders had handed over 130,642 pages of documents to Nike in response to a pair of public-records lawsuits filed over the city’s annexation plans, including its employee handbook, a biohazard report and 223 pages of addresses surrounding Nike’s campus.
Circuit Judge Gayle Nachtigal gave Beaverton a week to hand over only the pages that truly respond to the lawsuits – about 150 pages.
“The city is to turn those documents over immediately,” Nachtigal said. “Do I need to define ‘immediately?’ “
Nike’s lawyers said Friday that some of the documents the city gave Nike included information about surfing in Panama, a product testing company seeking new testers and an e-mail about the Darwin Awards, which cite people who die doing stupid things. The documents were collected from city-owned computers used by City Council members.
Nike leaders filed the lawsuits after the city in late 2004 started forcibly annexing unincorporated properties surrounded by city land. The Nike campus, just outside the city, fell into that category, though Beaverton did not move to annex Nike.
Associated Press
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