Back to the beginning Kentfield page.

Other Olympia Kiwanis members.

By Walter Neary, The Olympian March 22, 1998
State Worker is Kiwanis' enthusiastic president.
    Marla Kentfield, Kiwanis Club President, takes on projects that make a difference, friends say.
Age: 46
Years In the community: She came to Olympia 11 years ago, after working in Orange County, Calif.
Occupation: Information services director for the state treasurer's office.
Organizations: Olympia Kiwanis Club.
Roll models: Older Kiwanians who are both physically fit and heavily involved in community. She mentions Les Metzger, a retired Olympia High School principal. "That whole group for me, it's like having this whole big group of dads to be with.
Quote: "Once you do something for someone and see how it makes you feel, why would you ever want to stop?"
         Olympia, Lacey and Turnwater are very much "company towns" with their economies dominated by state government.
    And unlike many large private employers, the state generally doesn't give its employees time of to volunteer in their communities.
    That's why it's somewhat surprising that this year's president of the Olympia Kiwanis Club is Marla Kentfield, who supervises about 20 people as the information services director for the state treasurer's office.
    But she got involved in community work when she worked as a manager with Fluor Co, a construction company based in Orange County Calif. Fluor has a nonprofit arm that organizes community projects: the Fluor Community  Improvement Team. It takes on projects like building laygrounds, shelters or even pens for sea lions.
    Kentfield not only volunteered for Fluor. but was involved in other groups. including the board of directors of the company's credit union.
    Kentfield came to Washington in 1986 because she had family in Lacey. She got a job as a quality assurance manager with the Department of Licensing, and has been working in state government ever since. She's worked at the treasurer's office for about a year and a half.
    Kentfield says that after all her time at Fluor, the idea of community involvement just came naturally. Another state worker introduced her to the Olympia Kiwanis Club, which had only recently agreed to admit women to the club - something Kentfield was unaware of.
    "Had I known, I don't know," she says now. "I don't know if I would have joined."
    But she says she no longer hears as many comments that make her wince. "If there's chauvinism, it's a respectful chauvinism," Kentfield says. "They weren't putting us down; they just grew up in a different era when all the women stayed home."
    What she's enjoyed are the many Kiwanis programs that do good in the local community and beyond, plus the Monday meetings where speakers address current issues. The club also grows food for the local food bank in a west Olympia garden, and supports UNICEF to eliminate iodine deficiency disorders, the world's leading cause of mental  retardation.
    Kentfield became chiarwoman of the committee that oversees student activities, such as the Key Club at Olympia High School. Kentfield says she enjoys worlding with youth.
    "I've had a blast. It's so encouraging to know that so many parents are doing a wonderful job raising the people who will lead the world during my old age," she says. "We'll be OK There are many wonderful young people out there."
       That said, Kentfield doesn't necessarily think like a parent herself. "I don't come across as a parent, because I've never been one," she says.
    Last year, she went to a convention in Portland with Key Club members. "I like to dance. They like to dance. I like to stay up late. They like to stay up late," Kentfield says.  She smiles when she tells how she joined in during a student dance that featured songs from the 1970s  and '80s.
    Her efforts on behalf of the Kiwanis Club have been recognized. In 1993, then-Kiwanis president Bob Van Schoorl named her Kiwanian of the Year.
    Van Schoorl says he gave her the award for her dedication, particularly to the Key Club and youth groups. "She's willing to take on projects that make a difference," he says. "She has a great way about her to get other people to help."
    "And she doesn't stop there," Van Schoorl says. "She's out working in the garden. She's making roast beef sandwiches. She's really dedicated."
    Kentfield made a point of showing up for the Key Club's early Tuesday meetings, says Danise Ackelson, the club's adviser at Olympia High.
    "She has a way of making Key seem important to kids, because it is so important to her," Ackelson says. "Her enthusiasm is infectious.
    "She brought a joy to the whole thing. The kids really related to her enthusiasm. They knew she cared a lot about them. They knew by her smile. And by the way she talked with them, not down to them. She treats them as adults."
    Absolutely, agrees Brian White. He was  co-president of the Key Club last year, and is now a student at Saint Martin's College in Lacey.
    "She's got a good charisma, and she's very open," he says. "You know when you talk to her that she is genuine.
    She really puts a lot of effort into the club. Arid she never treated us like kids."
    Kentfield also aggressively recruited other Kiwanis Club members to visit the high school. "She kind of dragged us all out there," Van Schoorl says, laughing.
    White says he appreciated meeting the Mwanis Club members. "It meant a lot to me," he says. "They're community leaders. And it meant a lot to me that she was taking time out of her day. I'm sure she's very busy."
    She is. As president, Kentfield gets to preside over Monday meetings. What that means in practical terms is that Kentfield usually takes a two-hour lunch, then makes up for it in her work week.
    "I don't think I ever worked a 40-hour week." she says.
    She's took leave to attend the International Kiwanis Convention last year in Nashville.
    "I'm a public servant," she says. "'And while I think it's good for the state to encourage community involvement so its employees learn leadership skills and more, it's difficult to get across the concept that the state should pay for that."
    In fact, Kentfield takes precautions to make sure she is not accused of using the state to subsidize her club. For example, when she takes items in to be copied at Kinko's, she is careful to keep the receipt to ensure no one can say she made the copies on a state machine.
    Kentfield says community involvement is a good way for people to enrich themselves.
    "You learn how to organize, and you learn how to ask," she says. "That's a big thing. I still have trouble asking for help. And is that something you would use at work? Sure enough."
    Kentfield suspects state employees - and others - would get more involved in the community, if only someone approached them.
    "Sometimes I think we just need to ask," she says. "If you can just get someone to do this just once, they'll see how it makes them feel."

Below is an e-mail I received from a former Olympia, Washington resident.

From: ~~~~~~~~@aol.com
To: Louis Bloom manaco@whidbey.net
Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 1999 11:34 AM
Subject: OKBR
Just came across your pages and felt the urge to respond... In the early 80's (81-83) I was at the OKBR frequently as a young kid walking to/from school, I became friends with some of the boys. At one point a small boy confided to me that he was being raped by another boy in the home. The abusing boy talked about it openly!
Days later I walked the victim to OPD where we both gave statements. Later that evening I began to receive these incredibly threatening phone calls from a woman employee of the ranch who's name I believe was Paulette at my home. She kept calling over and over screaming at me calling me names. It was horrible. I thought I was helping someone. Nothing came of it. Then all these years later, it all comes out ... one of the boys that I had known there left as a young adult and still couldn't get it together, he eventually killed himself. As an adult now I don't often think back to those times but it still saddens me. All those boys that needed a safe nurturing place to be, and how many of them were better off for having been taken there? It's not about money. It cost these boys their lives, their souls, their trust. Those people who knew, who didn't care, they should feel such shame. Just my opinion.

From: louis a bloom manaco@whidbey.net
To: ~~~~~~~@aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 1999 7:30 PM
Subject: Re: OKBR
thanks for your e-mail. from what i've read, dshs, the olympia police department, and other "authorities" didn't consider child on child rape to be against the law. it was considered "normal experimentation". The "paulette" you mention, may have been Collette Queener who was an assistant director at the OKBR. Collette, OKBR Director Tom Van Woerdan, and OKBR counselor Laura Rambo Russell were ineptly charged by Wa. St. with "criminal mistreatment for failing to stop abuse". The charges were dismissed by Thurston County Judge Daniel Berschauer on technicalities. The lawyer who represented Collette Queener said, (Nov. 14, 1996 Olympian), that it was a "witch hunt", and that " a more innocent person (than Queener) you could not have for a client. She's an ex-nun ..... I don't see how you could view her in an evil or negative light."
I congratulate you for doing the right thing, when all those adults looked the other way. I repeat on most pages that the " OKBR has cost the Washington State taxpayers over $35 million dollars (so far)", because I think most people don't care about the kids involved, but they may care that it has cost them (taxpayers) money.
louis bloom

manaco@whidbey.net