Thumbs up to the local libraries for giving a boost to their communities’ poets and the overall literary level.

On the surface, it may not seem all that significant that Friends of the Covington Library, Friends of the Black Diamond Library and the Maple Valley Library Guild jointly sponsored a poetry contest. But consider this: In an age when literature sometimes fades in the haze of technology-generated interests, validation of old-fashioned literary pursuits is more than a worthy thing. It’s essential.

A school teacher from Maple Valley and girls from Maple Valley and Kent won the contest’s age-group categories. In the case of the teacher, Wayne Collette, the emphasis that was placed on encouraging poetry practitioners was as important as any individual recognition.

“This warms my heart, seeing all these people here for poetry,” said Collette during a “coffeehouse” May 22 at the Covington Library when poems were read aloud and winners were announced.

Affirmation of the literary world is good, indeed.

Thumbs up to an award-winning street project in Covington.

The city’s Southeast 256th Street/164th Avenue Southeast improvements received a national Project of the Year Award from the American Public Works Association. APWA, which knows good roadwork when it sees it, singled out the state-of-the-art roundabout, among other things, generated by the city, Gray and Oborne Inc. (engineering consultant) and R.W. Scott Construction (contractor). A busy intersection is better off as a result.

Editor Pat Jenkins