In July 2006, the South Tacoma Way project started with a conversation. Restaurant critic Ed Murrieta suggested a project at features staff meeting while talking about a grocery store in the street’s international district. Then, feature reporters started talking about all the things on South Tacoma Way they had seen and what fascinated them about the thoroughfare. Debbie Cafazzo mentioned she wanted to write about the Rescue Mission. Niki Sullivan was interested in the B&I Public Marketplace. Bill Hutchens said the car culture would make a good story.

Confronted with a huge list of story ideas, team members started narrowing the scope of the project six month ago. We decided to organize stories using the actual geography of the street. First, we limited the stories to places with an actual street address on South Tacoma Way. Second, we divided the project into three sections: Pacific Avenue to 37th Street; 38th Street to 56th Street and 57th Street to SR 512. The first section appears in Sunday Sound Life. The second appears in Monday Sound Life, and the third in Tuesday Sound Life. (The entire project will publish online Sunday.)

Next, the team worked on the project’s focus. What did we want to tell readers about South Tacoma Way? The answer: Life on the street today, yet not ignoring how it was built or changed over time. The result: A story that weaves the street’s past with its present, providing context for the thoroughfare’s place in South Sound history. Niki wrote the story for Sunday’s Page One. Debbie wrote a historical timeline of significant events, which is divided into three parts.

South Tacoma Way is about the people who call the South Sound home, and the team wanted to capture the diversity of culture, the entertainment of generations, the entrepreneurial spirit of ownership and the local sense of place that builds a community. Thus, the team settled on 14 stories, and some members reported outside their area of specialization. For example, movie critic Soren Andersen wrote about a Tacoma police officer who works a night shift patrolling South Tacoma Way. Outdoor writer Craig Hill profiled a driving school instructor who closed his business. Arts reporter Rosemary Ponnekanti wrote about the 50-plus generation ballroom dancing at a community center. And, outdoor editor Jeff Mayor asked community leaders about the future of the street.

Besides police officer on the night shift, other team members took to the street after sunset. Music writer Ernest Jasmin reported on the flourishing nightclub scene on the thoroughfare, and he tackles the urban legends and documented history of the Java Jive. And, Arts and Entertainment Editor Craig Sailor, who is also a photographer, shot storefronts at night. It’s a visceral element, viewable in a slide show on our website.

Staff photographer Peter Haley told South Tacoma Way stories with engaging and compelling photography. He shot most of the images for the project, with one major exception, the Olympus Spa. Staff photographer Alison Yin took the photos at the Korean-style women-only spa. And, staff artist Fred Matamoros gave the project’s geographic structure a cool map, with each place we wrote about pinpointed.

We had about 10 phone calls today asking what happened to the Amish Cook column, which I edit every week for the Wednesday SoundLife section.

I usually get her column by e-mail on Mondays from her editor, Kevin Williams. But instead, I got this e-mail on Monday:

Hello - For reasons unknown, Lovina's column did not show up in the USPS on Friday or Saturday as usual, even though Lovina did send it....One of those inexplicable USPS delays.

It's unusual for something like this to happen with any of our other columnists. If we don't get a column from Larry Meeks, for instance, all we have to do is call the syndicate. They'll e-mail us another copy right away. But in keeping with Amish tradition, Lovina doesn't own a computer or a telephone. Her only method of communication with us is through her editor and the postal service.

I've had a conversation with her editor Kevin about sending us a "backup" column that we could use if there is a delivery problem in the future. Readers expect a columnist to appear every week and we always try to deliver. A backup column seems like a good plan.

There is something else we usually do when we have a columnist go missing. We typically run a box telling readers when the columnist will return, but we forgot to run the box today. For that, our apologies.

She will return next Wednesday, watch for her then. In the meantime, if you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me at sue.kidd@thenewstribune.com. Or give me a call at 253-597-8270.

Thanks for reading us.