Snohomish County NewsLions Club sponsors First Street flags
Photo courtesty of the Lions Club
U.S. flags are again visible on First Street in downtown Snohomish. Twenty-two flags are now hanging from lampposts on First Street, from Union Avenue to Avenue D, in a project sponsored by the Snohomish Lions. The flags will fly 24 hours a day, seven days a week through the end of September.
Tribune archive photo
Cannon tradition over
Teen who nearly lost his leg in the 2006 cannon accident settled with the Snohomish School District earlier this year. Brett Karch, who suffered permanent injuries, will be paid $660,000. The district, regretful of the accident, will be covered through insurance, officials said. The cannon, found to be faulty at the time of the accident, was a fixture at Snohomish High School football games, shot off when the team scored touchdowns. There are no plans to bring the tradition back. “We have heard the last of the cannon,” Superintendent Bill Mester said.
SHS magician featured on PBS program
EDITOR’S NOTE: A version of this story originally appeared in the Arrowhead, Snohomish High School’s student paper.
By STACY RUTHERFORD (SHS reporter)
SNOHOMISH — Sitting in his third period English class, sophomore Adam Truitt seems like an average Snohomish High School student. Get to know Truitt and you’ll soon learn that this student is also a professional magician who uses his skill to help him overcome Asperger’s syndrome.
“It started with a book order,” Truitt said. His school book order came “with this thing of magic tricks. It eventually grew and I joined a magician’s club,” he said. The club, Northwest Ring of Fire, opened many doors to conventions, competitions and learning. Truitt is the youngest member of the Lynnwood-based club.
“I was pretty much self-taught … and it eventually grew into getting a couple mentors,” Truitt said.
Truitt started competing a few years ago when the club introduced a convention.
“I decided to go there and they announced a competition,” Truitt said. “If you wanted to compete you could sign up, so I signed up, and it just turned out that I won People’s Choice award.”
Since that first competition, Truitt has continued competing and performing at events, such as birthday parties.
Truitt is paid to perform his magic at birthday parties and other events. This has won him the recognition of the PBS program “Biz Kid$.” Truitt will be featured on the show April 15 at 7:30 p.m. The program showcases young entrepreneurs and encourages youth to save their money and use it wisely.
Over the past five years, Truitt has been competing and performing. Truitt competes against magicians between the ages of 30 and 50.
“The most recent one was last year … (I) was third place in the close-up competition against all adults,” Truitt said. His competitions allow him to travel a little too, to places like Vancouver, British Columbia and Portland.
“They have trophies and stuff, but I haven’t won any money,” Truitt said.
While Truitt enjoys magic, he has also found that it has helped him with a more difficult aspect of his life.
“I was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, which is in the same spectrum as autism,” Truitt said.
Asperger’s syndrome is characterized by severe difficulty with social situations and has a multitude of symptoms. Some of these symptoms include inability to pick up on social cues, avoiding eye contact and preoccupation with one or few interests, however, they vary widely depending on the child. Asperger’s syndrome is usually diagnosed in children, but symptoms can continue into adolescent and adult life.
Truitt describes the disorder as “an inability to connect with other people.” Through developing his magic skills and performing, Truitt has been able to overcome the hurdles that Asperger’s creates.
“It’s been very hard to make friends growing up and the magic has definitely helped me develop people skills,” he said.
Truitt’s favorite thing about performing is clearly the people he gets to meet.
“It’s not just … the same cliques or same group of people, but you get to meet all sorts of people so it’s really fun,” he said.
He said he is currently working on better stage magic, but he enjoys “close-up, intimate magic” the most. “It’s really cool to connect with them, (they’re) totally diverse people.”
Truitt spends a great deal of time practicing his tricks, but the tricks are not the most important part of performing, he said.
“The most important thing is that any magician can do a trick, but all you need to have is entertainment value,” Truitt said. “If you can connect with the audience and make sure they’re having a good time … that would be the key to being a great entertainer.”