At the beginning of this year, Jeremy Bos was promoted as the Chief of Police for the City of Lynden. Born and raised in Lynden and playing basketball for Lynden Christian High School, Jeremy Bos knew he wanted to be a police officer since he was a high school sophomore. He was familiar with the lifestyle as his father was a reserve police officer. Chief Bos’s career began after a 2-year criminal justice college program led him to a position for the Everson Police Department. A patrol officer position came available in Lynden in 1990 and thus started his career here. He worked his way up as a sergeant, then a lieutenant and even took a few interim positions as the Lynden Chief before it became official at the beginning of this year.
It is a challenging time to be the Chief of Police in Lynden. Financial challenges with the City of Lynden puts pressure on the Chief to meet the appropriate staff levels and vehicle needs to keep Lynden safe. Chief Bos indicated they are currently down five police officers and are putting off needed vehicle replacements running their resources down and stretching 24/7 public safety to two officers per shift often working overtime. There is a bit of a silver lining in the way of some State appropriated funds specifically for the hiring of new employees. Though, the earmarked funds require the acquisition of entry level staff only and does not address the need for retaining more seasoned staff risking the loss of valuable institutional knowledge. There is some encouragement on that front, however, as many Lynden Police Department staff indicate a love of working for the City of Lynden specifically as they feel welcomed and supported here.
When asked what the Lynden Noon Kiwanis could do to help support the Lynden Police Department, he encouraged them to be good advocates of the police department and recommended organizations like C.O.P.S. Chief Bos also noted that one of their staff’s biggest challenges was keeping up with public records requests, he clarified that he strongly believes in departmental transparency with the public, but unfounded and often malicious records requests can bog down the department. When asked what could be done about that, he encouraged people to contact their congress people to make needed changes to how records requests are made.
Chief Bos was receptive to partner with outreach opportunities such as having an officer available to join an organized bike rodeo and/or participate in a future Noon Kiwanis STEAM Expo with a police car tour for examples. All-in-all the Chief Bos’s presentation, be it sobering, was extremely informative, encouraging and hopeful for the future.
Lynden Christian High School FFA Student: Maddie Delange
FFA LC Student Maddie Delange practiced her competition speech on the topic of foreign ownership of US farmlands at the Lynden Noon Kiwanis meeting. Her speech was an impassioned take on the national security and US food and land use protection risks taken when properties are sold to foreign entity, highest bidders that might not have the property’s nor the local population’s concerns at heart. Her argument proposed federal and state level policy changes that prioritize what is in the best interest of the land and the local area affected by it highlighting current federal policies such as the Agriculture Foreign Investment Disclosure Act. Maddie encourages landowners and communities to take an active role, communicate with their congress persons and support the necessary oversight needed to protect US lands from foreign investors whose use of our lands could be destructive to it and/or neighboring communities. To help hone her skills, Maddie took questions from the Lynden Noon Kiwanis group to help sharpen her knowledge and delivery on the topic. She remained calm and responsive with her learned understanding of the issue. We wish her well with her FFA debate competition and remain proud of our future generations.
Lynden Christian High School FFA Debate Team
The Lynden Christian Debate Team practice their skills on the Noon Kiwanis Members at our March 11th meeting providing us a townhall style presentation on the question of Are Our Small Family Farms Still Relevant? The team provided a solid understanding of both sides of the argument and the multifaceted challenges within the industry including perspectives from a local government, USDA as well as new and multigenerational family farmers. The Noon Kiwanis group was impressed by their understand of the issues complexity and added other questions and considerations for them to consider as they prepare to compete at state tournaments and maybe off to national? We wish them the best and are encouraged with the bright future they represent.
Lynden High School FFA/Ag. Department
John Grubbs Lynden High School CTE coordinator gave a report on the High Schools Agriculture/Innovation Department. He talked about the types of CTE training and career advising their clubs and classes offer Lynden students. The teachers and advisors work to ‘think outside the box for pairing kids interested to the Ag. and tech. industries.‘ He gave detailed information about class/club oversight and how they are developed to give students opportunities to directly apply what they learn in an industry relevant way. He gave an example of how one student took his education to Spokane, WA, trained and received his private pilot license and currently flies drones for the agriculture industry. Likeminded participating youth can participate in state and national competitions and provide useful student training work in areas of GIS, drone and robotics application, and Arduino programming using Microsoft provided kits to streamline needs like soil crop data collection. From there, the student participants learn how to analyze their collected data, compare results and provide competently researched recommendations in professionally written proposals in preparation for their future employers and/or clients. A well delivered presentation of a well-rounded FFA/ Ag. Department opportunity for our youth!
Whatcom Community Foundation Presentation
At our February 11th Lynden Noon Kiwanis meeting, we heard from Shannon Elmendorf, Director of Community Resilience & Opportunity at Whatcom Community Foundation. She presented an overview of the wonderful work the Foundation does, ‘amplifying Whatcom philanthropy‘ by way of:
Nonprofit Support
Assisting Interested Donors Identify Local Needs
Initiatives Building for the Needs in Whatcom County
Shannon also gave a historical overview and a current status report on the funding sources available to Whatcom flood communities. She shared about their strong partnership with Whatcom Long Term Recovery, including what work they have been doing together, along with others, to recover families to wholeness at home again as well as funding towards rebuilding resiliency into our community’s longer term.
Skookum Kids Presentation
During our January 14th, 2026 Lynden Noon Kiwanis meeting, we heard from Ray Deck III about Skookum Kids, a nonprofit organization committed to smoothing out the transition process for kids moving through the foster care program while their biological families work to become the better parents they strive to be. Serving now eight counties in the Pacific northwest region of Washington, Skookum has been easing this transition into foster care for the last 10 years and boast a 87% reunification rate of those children back with their birth families. Providing a ‘landing’ temporary shelter while their case workers find them the best foster home they can within 72 hours, Skookum also provides support and counseling to the children themselves, their foster families and their biological families to build stronger and more success homes. Successfully reunited families are rewarded with a family camp experience called Family Night Out held the last weekend of summer break. Lynden Noon Kiwanis supports the endeavors of Skookum kids and we hope you might consider do so also!
Tour of Technic Training Center
During our November 19th, 2025, Noon Kiwanis Meeting, we had opportunity to tour the
Technic Training Center. What they have to offer in the way of woodworking CTE training and experience for our local youth is impressive. Program Director, John Slagle, shared with our Noon Kiwanis members a bit about:
How the training center was started,
How it is supported by local businesses like Lynden Door and our communities in general,
What they can offer middle, high school and even homeschool students in the way of training at no cost to them,
How they have given back in the way of service projects to local nonprofits such as Whatcom Pregnancy Center in the way of tall storage shelving.
It is truly a full circle learning service center for the benefit of our youth and community. We encourage everyone to learn more about what they do and consider donating volunteer time and talent and/or consider a donation to their endeavors. Currently, youth participants our creating wonderful tree and star holiday decorations for donations to support their work.
Student, Colton Peterson, sharing his experience working with Technic Training Center
Noon Kiwanis Blog
Lynden Police Chief, Jeremy Bos
At the beginning of this year, Jeremy Bos was promoted as the Chief of Police for the City of Lynden. Born and raised in Lynden and playing basketball for Lynden Christian High School, Jeremy Bos knew he wanted to be a police officer since he was a high school sophomore. He was familiar with the lifestyle as his father was a reserve police officer. Chief Bos’s career began after a 2-year criminal justice college program led him to a position for the Everson Police Department. A patrol officer position came available in Lynden in 1990 and thus started his career here. He worked his way up as a sergeant, then a lieutenant and even took a few interim positions as the Lynden Chief before it became official at the beginning of this year.
It is a challenging time to be the Chief of Police in Lynden. Financial challenges with the City of Lynden puts pressure on the Chief to meet the appropriate staff levels and vehicle needs to keep Lynden safe. Chief Bos indicated they are currently down five police officers and are putting off needed vehicle replacements running their resources down and stretching 24/7 public safety to two officers per shift often working overtime. There is a bit of a silver lining in the way of some State appropriated funds specifically for the hiring of new employees. Though, the earmarked funds require the acquisition of entry level staff only and does not address the need for retaining more seasoned staff risking the loss of valuable institutional knowledge. There is some encouragement on that front, however, as many Lynden Police Department staff indicate a love of working for the City of Lynden specifically as they feel welcomed and supported here.
When asked what the Lynden Noon Kiwanis could do to help support the Lynden Police Department, he encouraged them to be good advocates of the police department and recommended organizations like C.O.P.S. Chief Bos also noted that one of their staff’s biggest challenges was keeping up with public records requests, he clarified that he strongly believes in departmental transparency with the public, but unfounded and often malicious records requests can bog down the department. When asked what could be done about that, he encouraged people to contact their congress people to make needed changes to how records requests are made.
Chief Bos was receptive to partner with outreach opportunities such as having an officer available to join an organized bike rodeo and/or participate in a future Noon Kiwanis STEAM Expo with a police car tour for examples. All-in-all the Chief Bos’s presentation, be it sobering, was extremely informative, encouraging and hopeful for the future.
Lynden Christian High School FFA Student: Maddie Delange
FFA LC Student Maddie Delange practiced her competition speech on the topic of foreign ownership of US farmlands at the Lynden Noon Kiwanis meeting. Her speech was an impassioned take on the national security and US food and land use protection risks taken when properties are sold to foreign entity, highest bidders that might not have the property’s nor the local population’s concerns at heart. Her argument proposed federal and state level policy changes that prioritize what is in the best interest of the land and the local area affected by it highlighting current federal policies such as the Agriculture Foreign Investment Disclosure Act. Maddie encourages landowners and communities to take an active role, communicate with their congress persons and support the necessary oversight needed to protect US lands from foreign investors whose use of our lands could be destructive to it and/or neighboring communities. To help hone her skills, Maddie took questions from the Lynden Noon Kiwanis group to help sharpen her knowledge and delivery on the topic. She remained calm and responsive with her learned understanding of the issue. We wish her well with her FFA debate competition and remain proud of our future generations.
Lynden Christian High School FFA Debate Team
The Lynden Christian Debate Team practice their skills on the Noon Kiwanis Members at our March 11th meeting providing us a townhall style presentation on the question of Are Our Small Family Farms Still Relevant? The team provided a solid understanding of both sides of the argument and the multifaceted challenges within the industry including perspectives from a local government, USDA as well as new and multigenerational family farmers. The Noon Kiwanis group was impressed by their understand of the issues complexity and added other questions and considerations for them to consider as they prepare to compete at state tournaments and maybe off to national? We wish them the best and are encouraged with the bright future they represent.
Lynden High School FFA/Ag. Department
John Grubbs Lynden High School CTE coordinator gave a report on the High Schools Agriculture/Innovation Department. He talked about the types of CTE training and career advising their clubs and classes offer Lynden students. The teachers and advisors work to ‘think outside the box for pairing kids interested to the Ag. and tech. industries.‘ He gave detailed information about class/club oversight and how they are developed to give students opportunities to directly apply what they learn in an industry relevant way. He gave an example of how one student took his education to Spokane, WA, trained and received his private pilot license and currently flies drones for the agriculture industry. Likeminded participating youth can participate in state and national competitions and provide useful student training work in areas of GIS, drone and robotics application, and Arduino programming using Microsoft provided kits to streamline needs like soil crop data collection. From there, the student participants learn how to analyze their collected data, compare results and provide competently researched recommendations in professionally written proposals in preparation for their future employers and/or clients. A well delivered presentation of a well-rounded FFA/ Ag. Department opportunity for our youth!
Whatcom Community Foundation Presentation
At our February 11th Lynden Noon Kiwanis meeting, we heard from Shannon Elmendorf, Director of Community Resilience & Opportunity at Whatcom Community Foundation. She presented an overview of the wonderful work the Foundation does, ‘amplifying Whatcom philanthropy‘ by way of:
Shannon also gave a historical overview and a current status report on the funding sources available to Whatcom flood communities. She shared about their strong partnership with Whatcom Long Term Recovery, including what work they have been doing together, along with others, to recover families to wholeness at home again as well as funding towards rebuilding resiliency into our community’s longer term.
Skookum Kids Presentation
During our January 14th, 2026 Lynden Noon Kiwanis meeting, we heard from Ray Deck III about Skookum Kids, a nonprofit organization committed to smoothing out the transition process for kids moving through the foster care program while their biological families work to become the better parents they strive to be. Serving now eight counties in the Pacific northwest region of Washington, Skookum has been easing this transition into foster care for the last 10 years and boast a 87% reunification rate of those children back with their birth families. Providing a ‘landing’ temporary shelter while their case workers find them the best foster home they can within 72 hours, Skookum also provides support and counseling to the children themselves, their foster families and their biological families to build stronger and more success homes. Successfully reunited families are rewarded with a family camp experience called Family Night Out held the last weekend of summer break. Lynden Noon Kiwanis supports the endeavors of Skookum kids and we hope you might consider do so also!
Tour of Technic Training Center
During our November 19th, 2025, Noon Kiwanis Meeting, we had opportunity to tour the
Technic Training Center. What they have to offer in the way of woodworking CTE training and experience for our local youth is impressive. Program Director, John Slagle, shared with our Noon Kiwanis members a bit about:
It is truly a full circle learning service center for the benefit of our youth and community. We encourage everyone to learn more about what they do and consider donating volunteer time and talent and/or consider a donation to their endeavors. Currently, youth participants our creating wonderful tree and star holiday decorations for donations to support their work.
Student, Colton Peterson, sharing his experience working with Technic Training Center