Living histories of
local family farmers
Our hope …
… is to help sustain local family farming through storytelling. We honor generations of local fair, farm and food history.
Community context
There once were 2,000 dairy farms in Whatcom County. Today there are about 50.
There once were nearly 2,000 newspapers in America. Since 2008, about one-quarter have closed and more than 50,000 journalists have been laid off.
Like us. We used to write and shoot for the Arizona Republic, Bellingham Herald, Colorado Springs Gazette, Miami Herald, Phoenix Gazette and Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Now …
We put a face on farming
If you’re fascinated by food production, curious about critters, beguiled by bygone days — or just want a great muffin recipe — settle into the nearest rocking chair and explore our stories.
Support our stories and local farming!
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Homegrown and heartfelt: who we are
Our journalism is rooted in Whatcom County. Blue Ribbon Stories is produced by seasoned journalist Sarah Sakurazawa and a merry band of Western Washington University students and recent graduates. We all either live here or recently graduated from WWU.
All our music is by local bands, mostly recorded by Sarah’s son Erik Takuichi Wallace, who teaches at WWU.
Like a farm, BRS is a learning environment. Agriculture reporting is yet another skill that’s we’re losing with the implosion of legacy media—so we provide opportunities for journalism students to learn about everything from teat brushes to timing swine insemination.
For third-generation dairy farmer Sherm Polinder, farming is constant discovery: “I’ve never walked on a farm yet where I haven’t learned something.” Now in his 80s, he says, “We all do things a little different. Might be the way we lock a gate or the way we pen up our cows. There’s no two farms the same.” Same with journalists. We’re an idiosyncratic bunch!
Mount Baker High School teacher FFA adviser Todd Rightmire laughs thatfarmers have to be a veterinarian, computer technician, truck driver, scientist, accountant, tractor mechanic, you name it –sometimes all in one day. Likewise, journalists have to wear many hats.
Sarah Sakurazawa
Born in Iowa and descended from German immigrant farmers, Sarah Sakurazawa wrote “100 Years at the Northwest Washington Fair.” She worked at Phoenix New Times, the Arizona Republic, Phoenix Magazine, and The Bellingham (Wash.) Herald under her former byline Sarah Eden Wallace. She enjoyed a college summer job on a Vermont dairy farm but would rather do barn duty with a microphone.
Jady Ankeny
Multi-talented Jady Ankeny holds a degree from WWU in graphic design with a minor in audio engineering. He built this website and is an ace video and audio editor –ask him about ducking tape and temporal stabilization. His great uncle Dennis Ankeny was a dairy farmer in Skagit County who now raises beef and turkeys.
Whitney Flinn
A talented musician and songwriter, Whitney graduated from WWU in 2018 with a degree in graphic design. She created the first batch of Blue Ribbon Stories logos and its overall aesthetic. Some of our stories feature music from her surf rock band Cat Valley. Her father is a retired entomologist from Kansas who specialized in grain beetles.
Alex Hodson
Third-year WWU journalism student Alex traveled to South Africa for a family reunion … and to farthest Ferndale and the hinterlands of Skagit Valley for his 2025 internship. He enjoyed tasting dairy products in development (lemon yogurt!), seeing baby goats and pregnant cows, and learned to see manure in a whole new way.
Tyler Noonan
A versatile problem solver, Tyler dives into data fearlessly. A 2026 business graduate of WWU with a minor in marketing, he strategizes our social media and wrangles the logistics of interviews that have to work around haying and when our co-host is home from vet tech school.
Alex O’Connell
After growing up home schooled on a small Granite Falls working farm, Alex earned a 2026 degree in political science from WWU. He’s a camera geek Alex P. Keaton reincarnation who, of course, made a goofy music video for a poli-sci presentation–and got an A! He’s heading to law school but made a huge contribution to Blue Ribbon Stories organizing thousands of photos, demystifying Dropbox and shooting interviews.
Rae Osbourne
After learning to garden in Girl Scouts, Rae still gets her hands in dirt as often as possible. While completing her degree in recreational therapy at Western Washington University in 2025,
she discovered WWU’s Outback Farm — “it stuck!”–and had a side gig helping a client with vegetable gardening and landscaping. She has a gift for bringing things to bloom, including our social media.
Kourtney Roberts
With a 2022 degree in graphic design from WWU, Kourtney put sit to amazing use elevating the visual experience of our media story telling and website. She grew up in a hunting and fishing family in Gig Harbor —we’re working on a story about their annual “shot or caught” potluck. Her mom never goes to the grocery store for meat!
Rowan Westwood
Stories with WWU fourth-year journalism student Rowan Westwood were completed as part of a 2022 agriculture-reporting internship with the Whatcom County Dairy Women underwritten by the Dairy Farmers of Washington. She visited cattle barns, interviewed farmers and 4-H kids, talked to veterinarians and equipment experts, and learned lots about animal anatomy–who knew cows have four-part stomachs!
Music
The music used on Blue Ribbon Stories is all local: created and produced by Whatcom County musicians and audio engineers, including Sarah’s son Erik Takuichi Wallace, a senior instructor of studio recording at WWU and owner of Shibusa Sound.
Photographers
Meryl Schenker
Photographer Meryl Schenker of Seattle worked at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for 12 years until the newspaper’s closure in 2009. She currently has her own photography business covering a variety of subjects.
Mike Urban
Photographer Mike Urban worked at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for 20 years until the newspaper’s closure in 2009. He is also a metal sculptor and glass artist. Urban and his family raise chickens and grow their own produce on seven acres on Vashon Island.
Jack Carver
Many historic photos on Blue Ribbon Stories and in “100 Years at the Northwest Washington Fair” were taken by Jack Carver, a news photographer for The Bellingham Herald from 1945 to 1981. His work is now part of the Jack Carver Photographic Collection at the Whatcom Museum in Bellingham and is used with permission.
Sharing the photos
We’re happy if you share photos from Blue Ribbon Stories on your social media but we ask that you always credit the photographer and Blue Ribbon Stories.