Bloedel’s Brown ties off his tenure

Richard Brown, long-time executive director of the Bloedel Reserve, will mark his retirement at a special celebration tomorrow afternoon.

“After 32 years directing one of the best public gardens in the country, it’s the least we could do,” Program Director Kate Gormley said.

Brown, who grew up in Seattle, began his career as a nurseryman and estate gardener before earning degrees in mathematics and botany, moving on to a position at the American Horticulture Society.

In 1976, Brown joined Bloedel, where he helped shepherd it from a private estate to a public reserve.

The search for a new executive director is ongoing; Gormley said the organization would like to fill the position by December.

– Lindsay Latimore

The only thing to fear is…fear?

The idea that even in the absence of a national or global disaster, people live with fear on a “micro level” interested Bainbridge therapist Charlene Moy.

“You just hear so much about how bad things are,” she said. “And there’s a sense that if that’s all you listen to, then that’s what you start to believe and think.

“And how we think is how we feel. They’re very tightly connected.”

So in conjunction with Cross Sound Church, Moy developed a class about fear, with an aim to help people explore the emotion and its attendant euphemisms – anxiety, stress, being freaked out – and offer them not only insight but calm.

Moy, a licensed marriage and family therapist, will lead “Your Fears: Hype or Hope” at 9 a.m. on three consecutive Sundays at the Bainbridge High School Commons, starting this weekend.

To register, email cmoy@thrivetherapybi.com

– Lindsay Latimore