Kirkland Patch Turns 1; Join Us in Taking a Look Back at 2011

One year ago today, Kirkland Patch went live on the World Wide Web, and looking back, I can say a few things with certainty. First, there are fewer hairs on my head. Second, those that remain are a touch grayer. And third, it's been quite an eye-opening, learning experience that makes me proud on a couple of levels.

I’m really proud of Kirkland--the place it is and the people who live here. It’s a wonderful community that I’ll always call home. I’m also proud of the content we’ve posted on Kirkland Patch, more than 2,060 articles, by myself and a solid crew of freelance writers. We also need to mention the fine work by a very strong group of bloggers on our Local Voices platform, launched May 4 and now totalling 102 posts.

Not all of the content we’ve posted has been prize-winning stuff, but it's all been honest, relevant content of importance or interest to the people of Kirkland.

The things I’ve learned have been a bit sobering. One is that online journalism is not going away. It’s just too dynamic. It allows the community to participate, by commenting on individual stories and our social network posts. That activity often advances stories.

We learn without asking that a Kirkland man who stopped to help at a traffic accident on Interstate 405 and died suddenly of a heart attack was a respected, contributing member of the community, a beloved father, husband and brother active in his church. Stopping to help was in his very nature.

The other sobering thing I’ve learned is that despite Kirkland being one of the best places in the world to live, bad things happen all around us.

So as Kirkland Patch reaches our one-year anniversary, we look back at the year's 10 most viewed stories. (Some include multiple posts on the same subject.)

1) The Nov. 30 murder of Scarlett Paxton. This heartbreaking story about the seemingly random murder of a well-liked 19-year-old Kirkland woman has resulted in many posts, and more will come. Murders don’t happen often in Kirkland and this one is shocking.

2) The . Little Sky still has not been found, and this continuing story generated so many posts we gave up counting the pageviews as too time consuming. It could well be the top story, but if not, No. 2 for sure. Sky’s father, Solomon Metalwala of Kirkland, continues the search.

3)  . It proved a false alarm in Washington, but not in Japan, where a March offshore earthquake resulted in a devastating tsunami. Although it had little to do directly with Kirkland, it certainly resonated here.

4) . An interesting thing occurred when we posted this ongoing story last fall. Our metrics showed views increased markedly on earlier stories we had written about the restaurant, including its opening last winter and initial stories during the summer about the alleged assault.

5) The death of Steve Lacey in a crash on Rose Hill last July. Another that continues, Lacey was a respected and well-known Google software engineer from Kirkland whose car was hit and destroyed by an out-of-control driver prosecutors say was drunk. Our latest post on this was just Thursday, when Lacey’s widow Nabila Lacey joined prosecutors in urging stiffer DUI penalties.

6) The death of bicyclist John Przychodzen on Juanita Drive. This very sad story of the bicyclist hit by a pickup truck in July was by guest editor Jeanne Gustafson. It generated anger and concern among the bicycling community and concern about the safety of the bike lanes on the wooded, winding and heavily traveled road.

7) Another bicycle fatality, the in the Totem Lake area that killed Kirkland’s Brad Nakatani. He died instantly while riding his bike when he was hit by a vehicle that was driven by a Redmond man who prosecutors say was drunk.

8) For Rescue at Rainier National Park. This is a good news story and lands on our list almost by a fluke that illustrates the power of the Internet. We thought it was cool that these two soldiers were recognized for helping save a man stuck in his car in a river. So we shared it, courtesy of University Place Patch. It took off, we think, because someone, perhaps in the Army, put a link to it on a large email list.

9) . When a local man apparently down on his luck allegedly robbed a local bank, we posted a story with surveillance photos, and it generated a lot of attention around Kirkland.

10) Good Samaritan Collapses and Dies at Scene of I-405 Accident. This is the story mentioned above, about the sudden death of Kirkland’s David Ward, 52.

So it has been an interesting year indeed. Kirkland Patch would like to thank all who visited in 2011, and encourage you to keep coming back and join the conversation in 2012.