Old School News

A slow week heading into summer, but issue 12 of Seattle Weekly (June 16, 1976) managed to find a few topics of general public interest. Business editor Bill Cushing took on the painful task of describing how Seattle was slipping (with the best intentions) into a segregated school system, and the district's increasingly frantic effort to portray the evolution to a skeptical Department of Health, Education, and Welfare as a positive move toward equity. (Sound familiar?) Washington state's biggest producer of cheap wine, Yakima's Seneca Foods, threw in the towel, overwhelmed by even cheaper (and better) wines from California. But simultaneously, new kid on the wine block Ste. Michelle Vintners, with a fresh infusion of capital from U.S. Tobacco, announced an expansion, which over the years evolved into the faux-chateau complex now located in Woodinville.

The bulk of the issue was devoted to the Wimbledon hopes (dim) of Seattle-born tennis star (and 1972 Davis Cup winner) Tom Gorman and to a really useful map displaying all the public courts from Haller Lake to Rainier Beach. Culture-wise, Seattleites got a close-up look at a real pro as Herschel Bernardi took on the role of the charmingly feckless Murray in Herb Gardner's A Thousand Clowns at the Cirque Dinner Theater in Madrona. (Remember dinner theater? The Cirque's food was lousy, but the shows were often just fine.)

rdowney@seattleweekly.com