Mike Dashiell was born into a U.S. Navy family and spent his younger years crisscrossing the county with his family until settling in the Kitsap County area, where he graduated from Central Kitsap High School. He developed a love for words early on, and found his future vocation at Olympic College’s journalism classes. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in journalism at Western Washington University.
For that degree, he needed an internship, and found one working for editor Jim Manders and publisher Frank Garred at the Sequim Gazette in 2001. After the internship was over, he stayed on as a general assignment reporter, and a couple of years later took on the role of sports editor. He earned Washington Newspaper Publisher’s Association’s Sportswriter of the Year four times.
In 2010 Mike was promoted to editor, and for the next 15 years — a time that included two ownership changes — he oversaw a newsroom that was regularly named one of the top weeklies in Washington state, success he credits in large part to former owner Brown Maloney, publishers Eran Kennedy, John Brewer and Terry Ward, longtime coworkers Matthew Nash and Linda Clenard, and dozens of fellow journalists and support staff.
Along with that work came covering the past 25 iterations of the Sequim Irrigation Festival.
“I have always felt that telling the stories of our citizens is a privilege and an honor,” Mike said. “I was truly blessed to do so for so many years.”
When not photographing and writing about the community, Mike has volunteered with a number of groups, including Sequim High School’s Career and Technical Education advisory committee, First Teacher and other school activities, helped found and organize the Back 2 School Family Fun Run, and serves on the worship team at Dungeness Community Church.
Mike met his future wife Patsene in 2002 and they married in 2007. They have two daughters: Chelsea, of Fort Collins, Colorado; and Hallie, of Leeds, Massachusetts. He now works as Tribal Communications and Publications Specialist for the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe.