Bev Whipple

After high school, I stayed local and went to YVC and then graduated from CWU in music education. Although teaching band and classroom music in West Valley for three years was a good job and I liked it, I needed something different in my life. I left to drive a long-haul truck. Now that was definitely not what I was looking for. Nor was my stint as a disco DJ. But when I co-founded the non-profit organization, Feminist Women’s Health Center in Washington in 1979, I had found my life’s calling – providing the services that allow women to have control over their lives and become more informed health care consumers. Thougn it was not without its struggles. An expansion to Everett brought relentless attacks and three fire-bombings of the clinic which was eventually forced to closed. I testified in Congress regarding abortion clinic violence. The clinics (called Cedar River Clinics) are now in Yakima, Tacoma, and Renton serving the entire Northwest including Alaska and Canada with women’s health services including abortions for fetal indications, annual exams, birth control and other women’s health services. If you are interested, you can read more about that history at http://www.fwhc.org and Yakima herald http://www.yakima-herald.com/stories/2009/09/05/09-06-09-whipple

I met my life partner, Mike, in 2000. He is now retired but is busier than ever. He has two daughters and we have fallen in love with our twin grand children who turned two on February 29 – leap-lings they are called. We live in Selah, sort of, and enjoy an apartment in Renton where we spend a good amount of time. We enjoy downhill skiing, motorcycling (yes, I have my own), scuba diving (both cold and warm water), world travel, hiking, biking, swimming, boating, and even took surfing lessons in Costa Rica while we were going to Spanish school there. Motorcycle adventures through Thailand and the Baja were high points. Sprint triathlons are my latest indulgence. Our motto is, “if you put a whole bunch of good days together, you end up with a good life.”

I played keyboards in a rock-n-roll cover band, Trauma, for 13 years. Then a few years with The Plains who played some original music. We recorded a CD and once even opened for a Leon Russell concert.

My younger sister, Darlene, (1973) and I spend time caring for our 91 year-old mother in Yakima. Our older sister, Sandra, (1969) whom some of you know, died in April of an aggressive cancer.

Oh yes, and I was married and divorced twice.