Arlington honors police and volunteers

The Arlington Police Department recently recognized volunteers, officers, city staff and others at an annual awards ceremony.

There was a special dedication for retired Arlington Police Chief Steve Robinson, who died in September after a lengthy battle with Alzheimer’s disease.

Here’s a list of recognitions:

Community Awards: Cascade Valley Health Foundation for the donation of an ATV to the department and Rotary Club of Arlington for the donation of AEDs (Automated External Defibrillators) to the department.

Chief’s Service Award for improving technology systems: Tony Orr, the City’s Information Technology department, and the City of Arlington.

Volunteer Awards: Rich Stommel and Kimberly Casteel.

10 Years of Service: Officers Stephanie Ambrose and Mike Sargent as well as Police Services technician Karen Waidman

15 Years of Service: Sgt. Mike Gilbert and police services officer Val Copeland

20 Years of Service: Officer Ken Thomas and Detective Mike Phillips

Chief’s DUI Award: Officer Alex Donchez

Chief’s Traffic Enforcement Award: Officer Stephanie Ambrose

Chief’s Community Engagement Award: School Resource Officer Justin Olson

Commendations:

Merit: Detective Mike Phillips, Officer Molly Ingram and Sgt. Kay Schander

Life-Saving: Officer Shelly Hamel

Valor: Mike McQuoid and Mike Knight

Bothell grad lands fellowship

Samara Almonte, a Bothell High School graduate, was one of two Western Washington University students to be awarded a prestigious two-year Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program fellowship.

Almonte is completing her fellowship at the University of Michigan.

The goal of the grant program is to serve students from groups traditionally underrepresented in conservation, across disciplines, who can contribute to diversifying, redefining, and strengthening efforts to protect land, wildlife and water. Five universities host DDCSP summer programs across the country: the University of Washington, UC Santa Cruz, University of Florida, Northern Arizona University and the University of Michigan.

Almonte and fellow WWU student Celida Moran of San Francisco completed the first summer of work for their fellowships, and will be heading back to their respective campuses this summer to finish. Almonte said the experience has been transformative.

“Most of the projects we worked on were based around water issues in some way; the Great Lakes and the water problems in Flint, for example. And I spent a lot of time working on a professor’s research on organic farming. It was a ton of hands-on, practical research work,” she said.