Jamie “Senorita Smoke” Bartlett, enjoying her days as an Oak Harbor High School softball star. (Original photos by Geoff Newton)
So much joy every time she stepped on the diamond.
Jamie Bartlett was always so happy to be on a softball field.
Big win or tough loss, her joy at getting to play, her love for her teammates and her favorite game, is something which has always stuck with me.
Back in 1993, Jamie was a sophomore at Oak Harbor High School, and I, not quite six years older than her, was stumbling through a two-year run as Sports Editor at the Whidbey News-Times.
With not a single day of college to my credit, my run in the big chair had its highs and lows.
One of those peak moments was when I started referring to Jamie as “Senorita Smoke” because of the way she torched batters with her blazing fastball.
Many stories, and many nicknames later, I continue to write, and, while my focus has been firmly on Coupeville in recent years, I don’t forget my Oak Harbor roots.
From late ’89 to ’92 as a freelancer, and then ’92 to ’94 as Sports Editor, I covered many athletes whose names still invoke memories.
Manny Martucci to Natalie Turner, Gretchen Talmadge to Joe Sarpy and Pickle Sullivan, and two who have passed too soon.
Two years ago, we lost Jon Diem and now Jamie.
As I read her obit last night, discovering that my “Senorita Smoke” nickname was something which her family fondly remembered, the cancer she fought was a footnote, as it should be.
Instead, the focus was on her life with her husband, Joel, and her children, Joel, Jr. and Tayah, who are students at their mom’s alma mater.
It’s a story of a young woman of great promise who fulfilled that promise, who achieved much in what time she had.
I left the News-Times after Jamie’s sophomore year, so my image of her is somewhat frozen in time.
Staring down batters from behind her glasses, then zipping fastballs past their bats, #11 was a star. Her pitching records still stand at OHHS two decades later for a reason.
But, while the the individual strikeouts, which came one after another, fade into memory, it’s the happiness which stays with me.
Jamie played with pure joy, every single time I saw her on the diamond, and it spread to her teammates.
I am sad for her family and friends. They shouldn’t have to lose someone so dear to them just shy of her 42nd birthday.
But I am also happy for them, that they got to be part of her life, and to be touched by her joy.
Our paths crossed briefly, a writer in his early 20’s, and an athlete on the cusp of going from a teen prodigy to an all-time Wildcat legend.
A part of “Senorita Smoke” will always be with me, forever kickin’ and firin’, forever lighting up the diamond with nothing but pure joy.
To read Jamie’s obituary, jump to:
Coupeville Sports 