Here is an snippet. Click on the cover for the full article. 


 

It is common for people to know what they want to do in life, but rare for them to actively pursue it. We often chase money, fame, or convenience instead of pursuing what we really want to do. We go through life telling ourselves we will follow our passion when we reach a specific point in life, but often that point never arrives. South Hill resident Bo Bestvina has chosen a different approach. He explores his interests and turns them into ways to support himself and the community.

​

Bestvina arrived in Bellingham four years ago equipped with a master’s degree in cultural anthropology and a teaching certificate. Thinking that teaching was what he wanted to do, he worked in the Nooksack School District for a couple of years before realizing that while he enjoyed working with youth, the traditional classroom experience wasn’t for him. While teaching elementary school music, he volunteered at the Whatcom County Juvenile Detention Center, where he taught music. This experience gave him the idea that he could still work with youth teaching music, but in a different capacity. Knowing that as long as he was playing guitar, he was happy, he leaned into that. Bestvina began teaching private music lessons on guitar, piano, and ukulele while continuing to volunteer at the detention center, using the skills he had learned in the classroom.

​

“Teaching music at an elementary school really helped me understand voice and how music works at a real elementary level. That served me so well, and I think that experience was probably better than any amount of education I could have gotten,” said Bestvina.

​

While teaching music, both on an individual level and with youth facing life struggles, Bestvina felt things were coming together. As a teen, he had struggled with behavioral issues and hadn’t made the best choices. Just as music had helped him, he could see that the music was helping the kids in the detention center, both to build confidence and to get a break from everything the kids had to face. One of the best moments was when he bumped into one of the kids he had taught in the detention center at the Bellingham Public Library. The kid was there with his grandma, and they both thanked Bestvina and told him that in the future, he would stay out of trouble. It showed Bestvina that while all the interventions in the world can happen, sometimes it’s simply a positive, supportive adult that a kid needs most.