The Associated Press and the Peninsula Daily News
BREMERTON — Chimacum — suggested by a Chimacum High School graduate — will be the name of the newest Washington state ferry.
The state Transportation Commission selected the name for the ferry, which is expected to be delivered in 2017 for the Bremerton-Seattle route, at its meeting Wednesday in Lakewood.
The name was suggested by Emily (Russell) Thompson, a 1985 graduate of Chimacum High School, who spearheaded the campaign to get Chimacum selected as a ferry name, according to Whitney Meissner, principal of the high school.
Thompson now lives in Seattle. Her parents, Chuck and Karen Russell, live on Marrowstone Island, according to the weekly Port Townsend & Jefferson County Leader newspaper.
“Her dad still owns a business in the area and is an active member of East Jefferson Rotary, so we’ve been following it along the way and are very excited about the fact that our town name and our school’s name will be represented on a ferry,” Meissner said in an interview..
Chimacum High School is “certainly part of the group that is celebrating the selection of the name Chimacum for the ferry,” she added.
Two other recent ferry names have come directly from nominations out of Jefferson County: the 64-car ferry Chetzemoka, and the name Kwa-di Tabil for the class of 64-car boats.
Construction on the $123 million ferry begins this fall at the Vigor Industrial shipyard in Seattle.
Chimacum is a tribal name, following the tradition for most state ferries.
The boat will be the third new 144-car ferry after the Samish and Tokitae. The fleet also has the 64-car ferry Salish.
With the names Sammamish, Suquamish, Chimacum and Cowlitz under consideration, ferry employees said the state has enough S boats.
“The most important thing they told us was they wanted to avoid S names,” director Lynne Griffith told the commission.
Although Cowlitz had some support, the commission went for Chimacum.
“We were particularly concerned about Sammamish,” Griffith said later.
“That would’ve been real confusing with the Samish. There were a lot of people supportive of Chimacum. It’s a fun name to say.”
The name was chosen after nearly 6,000 people from across the state shared their preferences for the next ferry name in an online survey sent to members of the Voice of Washington State and the Ferry Riders Opinion Group survey panels, the state Department of Transportation said.
The commission also heard from about 100 people via email, and received input from members of ferry advisory committees throughout the ferry system and from Washington State Ferries.
There’s a chance another name will be needed in the not-too-distant future.
The ferry system has submitted a request to fund a fourth 144-car vessel, Griffith said.
