Yellow Pages
We could fill a paper with all the infamous people within Skagit County. But there are quite a few who found fame after leaving the county, or returned to the county with national recognition. These are just a few.
Jim Caviezel graduated from Mount Vernon High School before he found fame on the silver screen. Caviezel has taken on a wide variety of roles, from early cameos on “The Wonder Years” or cult-film “My Own Private Idaho” to leading roles in films like “The Passion of the Christ,” in which he hauled a life-sized cross through the Holy Land and spoke Aramaic.
Ross Matthews is known nationally as “Ross The Intern” from “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.” The Mount Vernon High School alum interviewed celebrities on the show for red carpet events. He now hosts a Web-based talk show called “Inside Dish w/ Ross Matthews” and is a frequent contributor to programs on the cable channel E!
Edward R. Murrow was born in North Carolina, but eventually came to Skagit County. He attended Edison High School, where he played basketball and joined the debate team. He went on, after an education at Washington State University, to become an iconic radio and television personality. He is best known for reporting the London Blitz during World War II from the top of a building and his reporting and criticism of Sen. Joe McCarthy. He became well known for ending programs with the phrase “Good night and good luck.”
Mark Hendrickson played basketball and baseball for the Mount Vernon Bulldogs before he joined the National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball. He is just one of a select few athletes to have played for the NBA and MLB. Hendrickson played for the 76ers and the Sacramento Kings for his NBA career. In Baseball he played for the Toronto Blue Jays, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Florida Marlins. He will begin the 2009 season with the Baltimore Orioles.
Author Tom Robbins began his life in Blowing Rock, N.C., but eventually found a home in Washington, settling in La Conner. He worked for the Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intellinger, but is most famous for his off-beat novels, such as “Even Cowgirls Get The Blues” and “Skinny Legs and All.” His next book, “B is for Beer” comes out this year.
Glenn Beck, a popular but controversial conservative talk show host on Fox News Channel, was born on Feb. 10, 1964 in Mount Vernon. He began a career in radio before he graduated high school. Beck hosted a Top 40 radio station in Hamden, Conn. He went national with The Glenn Beck Program in Jan. 2002, eventually reaching 280 stations and XM. In 2006 he made the leap to national television, hosting a nightly news-commentary show on CNN’s Headline News Network. He joined Fox News Channel earlier this year. Beck drew fire in 2007 for comments comparing the techniques Al Gore was using to fight global warming to the way Hilter attempted world domination during World War II. Last month Beck launched what he called the 912 project, urging Americans to follow nine principles and 12 values that should be observed, and that Americans should act like they did the day after 9/11.
Actor Chad Lindberg, who has made numerous television appearances and had a supporting role in the movie “The Fast and the Furious,” was born on Nov. 1, 1976 in Mount Vernon. Lindberg has appeared in episodes of ER, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The X-Files, as well as movies including Jesse in “The Fast and the Furious,” which also starred Vin Deisel and Paul Walker. He has a recurring role on CSI:NY. He also had a supporting role in “The Rookie” opposite Dennis Quaid and starred in “The Flats,” an independent film shot entirely in Skagit County earlier this decade by Tyler and Kelly Requa.
Tobias Wolff’s memoir, entitled “This Boy’s Life,” featured Wolff and his mother traveling across the country and settling in Concrete, dubbed Chinook in the book. But in the book, his mother marries an abusive alcoholic and the duo try to escape the town. The book was made into a 1993 movie starring Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio and Eliza Dushku, and was filmed mostly in Concrete.
* This report is part of a special section celebrating 125 years of news coverage by the Skagit Valley Herald. To see others, click on the headlines below:
Newspapers have become a multiplatform business
Family’s newspaper lineage dates back to E.W. Scripps in 1878
Longtime carrier learned about dependability
Back in time, A look at some notable businesses of yesteryear
Company ‘lifer’ never planned to stay long
Readers share opinions of the newspaper, positive and otherwise
Newspapers provide link to past, present and future for local woman
