POULSBO — As a child, George Titterness remembers fishing in Dogfish Creek at the intersection of Bond Road and State Route 305.

“I didn’t catch anything because I was too little,” recalled Titterness, who is now the Washington state Department of Transportation construction engineer for the $14.9 million SR 305 widening project.

He attended grade school at Poulsbo Elementary School, which was where Christ the King Academy is located on 8th Avenue, and graduated from North Kitsap High School in 1973.

“I was in third grade when John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and I remember the teacher saying we’re going to have a prayer,” he said.

At that time, the U.S. Supreme Court had just banned prayer in schools, but the teacher did it anyway, he said.

Rangvald Kvelstad, or Mr. K as he came to be known, was also one of his teachers in high school, and Titterness said he still has fond memories of the man for whom the Kvelstad Pavilion in Waterfront Park is named.

“He was one of my favorite teachers,” he said.

Even though SR 305 was built shortly before he was born, Titterness said he has talked with some of the men who worked on the project and vividly remembers how the highway looked before development took hold in Poulsbo.

“There was a lot of undeveloped land and Poulsbo Village was still a farm before it was a golf course,” he said.

Now, the shopping center is one of many commercial and retail entities along the busy thoroughfare, which is in stark contrast to 30 years ago, he said.

“About the only thing up there was the bowling alley, and Poulsbo was downtown,” he said. “The Idle Hour Coffee House was one of the old hangouts.”

Go cart races downtown along with hydro races in Liberty Bay are among the things Titterness said he remembers from his childhood days in Poulsbo. About the only thing that hasn’t changed in downtown is Sluys Bakery, where his grandmother worked for a time, he said. City hall is dramatically different, and the National Guard armory has changed as well, he said.

“It used to be next to city hall and we’d go and play on the tanks,” Titterness said, recalling the increased military presence during the Vietnam War.

During his high school years, the war was something he was faced with often, even though he wasn’t drafted into the service, he said.

“We were all aware of it and knew that at any time we could be called up,” Titterness said.

However, that wasn’t the only danger in the area as the Bond Road/SR 305 intersection was known as “Deadman’s Corner,” because of all of the accidents that occurred there, he said.

“There were no signals. It was just a flashing light,” he said.

When he left town to attend college in Port Angeles in 1977, the city’s population was only 2,500 and now 30 years later much has changed, he said.

“It’s nonstop change. It’s booming,” said. “People know Poulsbo by 305. When I say Old Town, they ask where that is.”

As he has climbed his way up the WSDOT ladder from being a temporary land surveyor to his current position, Titterness said he has worked on numerous projects, but the SR 305 project is special.

“It’s significant for me, because I’m getting to contribute back to a place that gave me so much,” he said.