1. sports
2. golf

MONDAY • JUNE 15, 2015
TACOMA, WASHINGTON • $1.00
T H E N E W S PA P E R F O R T H E S O U T H S O U N D
THENEWSTRIBUNE.COM
MARINERS: They lost. 13-0.
• SPORTS, B1
All-new jet
from Boeing
considered
Playing the home sand
and backyard grass
If plane is built, it could enter
service in middle of next decade
PETER HALEY Staff photographer
From left, brothers Joel and Michael Putnam and cousin Greg Bodine stand Friday in the backyard of Michael’s home in University Place.
All three will participate in the U.S. Open golf championship this week. Michael will play while Joel and Bodine will be caddies.
Putnam
family has
enjoyed
watching
their town
grow to host
the US
Open
BY TJ COTTERILL
Staff writer
A young Michael Putnam
hopped into the passenger seat in
his father’s blue pickup. The
Putnams, like a throng of their
neighbors, occasionally spent part
of their Saturdays driving to a
nearby quarry after a pile of sand
had been dumped there the
previous day.
They’d shovel as much as
necessary into the bed of the
truck and make their way back
home. Michael’s sandbox needed
some freshening up.
“I just built sandcastles out of
it,” Michael said. “I guess I got to
know that sand.”
That quarry is now a U.S. Open
golf course. That sand now fills
bunkers instead of sandboxes.
That boy became a U.S. Open
golfer.
“He’s going to try to stay out of
the sand this weekend,” added
Michael’s father, Dan Putnam.
Much had to materialize to
shape what is believed to be the
first time in U.S. Open history
that one golf family will leave
such a widespread mark on a
tournament so close to their front
door.
BY DOMINIC GATES
The Seattle Times
PARIS — Boeing is moving forward with a study of
an all-new commercial jet that would enter service
in the middle of the next decade, sales chief John
Wojick said in an interview ahead of the Paris Air
Show.
In the past year, Wojick’s sales team has had
detailed discussions with airline customers and has
determined that the market is big enough to
potentially go forward with a multibillion-dollar
investment to build the first all-new jet since the 787
Dreamliner, launched in 2003.
A final decision on launching such a jet remains
far off, likely not before 2019. But Boeing’s
determination that there is a market worth chasing
is a necessary early step that triggers further detailed
study of the business case for going ahead.
“A year ago, we weren’t convinced the market was
large enough to be of that much interest,” Wojick
said. “What we’ve determined over the past year is
that it’s larger than we thought.”
Boeing internally refers to the proposed jet as a
“middle of the market” airplane, because it’s
intermediate in size between the 737 single-aisle
family and the 787, which is Boeing’s smallest
wide-body.
See BOEING, A12
AIDED HIS FELLOW COUNTRYMEN
Nepalese soldier
from JBLM sent
to help after quake
DREW PERINE Staff file, 2007
Michael Putnam follows his drive off the 10th tee while playing the Chambers
Bay course for the first time in May 2007.
Chambers Bay wasn’t even a
thought when the Putnam’s drove
to that former sand and gravel pit.
University Place wasn’t a city until
1995. Michael Putnam made
sandcastles, not birdies.
Older brother Joel, who said
he’s caddied about 500 rounds of
See BACKYARD, A12
INSIDE SPORTS
Trading chalk for walks: A former UP
teacher will caddie this week for a
Masters champion. Plus, find some
of the best caddie-golfer pairings. B1
BY ADAM ASHTON
Staff writer
Lt. Birat Thapa couldn’t concentrate when he
showed up for another day of work at Joint Base
Lewis-McChord in late April.
His mind was 7,000 miles away
with his friends and family in his
home country of Nepal.
“I heard about the earthquake,
and I was really sad to see all these
ON THE WEB:
people and videos from Nepal,” he
For a video with
said. “I didn’t feel like my head
this story, go to
was at work at all.”
thenews
Thapa didn’t have to watch the
tribune.com.
disaster from afar for long. The
Army sent him to Kathmandu in
the first week of May, where he joined two U.S.
See NEPAL, A12
TBILISI, GEORGIA
People follow a
hippopotamus
that was shot
with a tranquilizer dart after it
escaped from a
flooded zoo in
Tbilisi, Georgia,
on Sunday.
Zoo animals escape following flooding
BY NEIL MACFARQUHAR
The New York Times
MOSCOW — The Georgian
capital, Tbilisi, became the city
where the wild things are
Saturday night, with lions, tigers,
bears and other carnivorous
animals roaming the streets after
catastrophic flooding destroyed
the enclosures of the main zoo.
Residents were warned to stay
indoors after heavy rains and
roiling waters inundated the
center of the city. At least three
zoo workers were dead, according
to local press reports, which
BESO GULASHVILI
AP
See ZOO, A12
ON THE WEB
ONLINE
CONVERSATION
Re: Waiting for the facts
kept suicide story straight
“Finally, responsible news
reporting. Thank you TNT
for wanting to get it right
and not worrying about
being first.”
— Anthony Angeline
“At the end of the day, this
beautiful young lady
shouldn’t have had to
come to the conclusion
that suicide was her only
option ... She needed
someone.”
— Jeanna Adams
“You did right with
waiting for the facts. Hope
it helps the family come
to terms with this.”
— Mary Jo Robinson
THE GALLERY
See photos and video from Sound
to Narrows at thenewstribune.com.
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High: 84. Low: 49.
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HAPPY TRAILS
Project unites governments
Officials with Lakewood, Pierce
County and University Place hope to
build a 2.5 mile nature trail. A3
MILITARY
Base bids au revoir
Top brass holds ceremony as
Canadian general’s two years at
Joint Base Lewis-McChord ends. A3
Where sea meets land:
“Sea Branches and Pearls,” by
artists Diane Hansen and Jennifer
Weddermann, was recently
installed at Bay Terrace, a housing
development in Tacoma. The piece,
wrapped around concrete, uses rusty
metal to call to mind undulating kelp.
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