In 2009, 7.8 million children lived with at least one grandparent, a 64 percent increase since 1991 when 4.7 million children lived with a grandparent, according to a report from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Among children living with a grandparent, 76 percent also were living with at least one parent in 2009, not statistically different from the 77 percent who lived with at least one parent in 1991.

“The people with whom children live affect their well-being,” Rose Kreider, a family demographer with the U.S. Census Bureau, said in a statement. “These statistics give us a lot of detail about the number of parents children live with, as well as whether they live with siblings, grandparents or other relatives.”

These statistics come from the household relationship module of the Survey of Income and Program Participation collected in 2009 and published in the report Living Arrangements of Children: 2009.

In 1991, 5 percent of white, 15 percent of black and 12 percent of Hispanic children lived with at least one grandparent. By 2009, 9 percent of white, 17 percent of black and 14 percent of Hispanic children lived with at least one grandparent, a significant change for white children but not for black or Hispanic children.

Many children who do not live with a parent live with a grandparent. More than half of the children living with no parents were living with grandparents. Percentages for black children (64 percent) and non-Hispanic white children (55 percent) did not differ from Hispanic children (61 percent), but the percentage of Asian children living with no parents who lived with grandparents was lower, at 35 percent.

In 2009, 69 percent of the 74.1 million children under 18 lived with two parents. Four percent (2.9 million) of all children lived with both a mother and father who were not married to each other.

Between 1991 and 2009, children living with only their mother increased from 21 percent to 24 percent.

The percentage of children living with their mother without a father present varied widely among race and origin groups in 2009, from 8 percent for Asian children to 50 percent for black children. Seventeen percent of non-Hispanic white children and 26 percent of Hispanic children also lived with their mother only.

Seven percent of all children lived with an unmarried parent who was cohabiting. The percentage of all children who lived with a cohabiting parent ranged from 2 percent for Asian children to 9 percent for Hispanic children. Falling between these were non-Hispanic white children (6 percent) and black children (7 percent), not different from each other or the percentage for all children.

Overall, 16 percent of children lived with a stepparent, stepsibling or half sibling. Thirteen percent of children living with one parent and 18 percent of children living with two parents lived in these blended families.

By Kathryn Reed

When Ronald Regan in 1984 created July as National Ice Cream Month and the third Sunday of the month as National Ice Cream Day, he said the dessert was fun and nutritious.

Well, having just made some ice cream last night, I can attest to the fun part. But, nutritious? That’s as logical as me claiming an order of French fries qualifies as a vegetable serving for the day.

Some foods are to be enjoyed and the healthy or unhealthy aspects should be ignored.

I joke the reason I’m not a vegan is because I refuse to give up real ice cream. There’s more truth than fiction to that statement.

I’ve been eating ice cream for as long as I can remember. Each birthday all of us kids as well as my parents had homemade chocolate chip ice cream on the menu. The maker came out on other occasions, too. I think it’s best when it’s first made – before it’s hardened up in the freezer.

Chocolate chip is one of the top flavors in the United States. The most popular flavors are vanilla (27.8 percent of people), followed by chocolate (14.3 percent), strawberry (3.3 percent), chocolate chip (3.3 percent) and butter pecan (2.8 percent), according to NPD Group, a market research firm.

No one knows where ice cream first came from, though the International Ice Cream Association says frozen desserts have been reported as far back as the second century B.C.

Here are some other stats from the IICA:

• The first official account of ice cream in America was recorded in 1700 from a letter written by a guest of Maryland Gov. William Bladen.

• In 1812, Dolley Madison served a strawberry ice cream creation at President James Madison’s second inaugural banquet at the White House.

• Italo Marchiony produced the first ice cream cone in 1896. Marchinoy, who emigrated from Italy in the late 1800s, invented his ice cream cone in New York City.

Last night I pulled out a recipe I’ve had since junior high. I took home ec (aka food) from Mrs. Eng. (Back then teachers didn’t have first names other than Mr. or Mrs.)

Instead of using the chocolate chips, we grated a large semi-sweet chocolate bar. What makes this recipe different from the family chocolate chip one is that it is cooked. With mint chip being my store bought favorite and Sue’s favorite, I thought I would see what she thought of the homemade version. It looks like she will be requesting homemade ice cream for her birthdays from now on.

Mrs. Eng’s Pine Hollow Intermediate School Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

1½ C sugar

¼ C flour

dash salt

2 C whipping cream

4 eggs slightly beaten

1 quart half and half

¾ tsp green food coloring

3 tsp peppermint extract

6 ounces chocolate chips, chopped

Combine first four ingredients in medium sized saucepan, adding whipping cream gradually. Stir constantly until mixture thickens and bubbles. Remove from heat.

Slowly stir half the mixture into beaten eggs, then stir back into saucepan. Cook for another minute, still stirring.

Chill.

Add cream, coloring and extract.

Poor into ice cream freezer. Add chips when ice cream is partially frozen.

ZEPHYR COVE — Taking a conservative approach to the 2011-12 fiscal budget allowed Douglas County School District to hire back 29 of the 40 teachers who were told in the spring they would not have a job this coming school year.

The board on July 12 voted to reinstate the positions along with several classified jobs. Some classified employees also had their hours upped, which means they will qualify for benefits.

“We worked off the governor’s proposed budget in late January. We were hoping it was a worst case scenario,” Superintendent Lisa Noonan told Lake Tahoe News during a break in the meeting. “The Legislature approved more money than we planned for.”

Even though the Nevada Legislature meets every other year, the funding is one year at time. This means the district could be faced with more cuts in the following school year.

In other action at the meeting, Noonan gave the board members (Karen Chessell was absent) information to read about having an appraisal done at the shuttered Kingsbury Middle School at the lake.

At the special meeting July 25 at 3:30pm in Minden, the board will be asked to appoint Johnson-Perkins & Associates of Zephyr Cove to be the district’s appraiser. The state will pick a second appraiser per state law.

— Kathryn Reed

• South Lake Tahoe has track meets for all ages on Thursdays from 5-8:30pm through July 28 at South Tahoe Middle School.

• Scott Lankford, author of “Tahoe Beneath the Surface: The Hidden Stories of America’s Largest Mountain Lake”, will sign books July 19 from 3-5pm at Explore Tahoe, 4114 Lake Tahoe Blvd., South Lake Tahoe. Call (530) 542.4637 for more details.

• The Village at Northstar’s Sterling Napa Estates Wine Walk is July 30 from 2:30-5:30pm. Cost is $30/person.

• Sierra Nevada College humanities Professor Robert King won the Purdue College of Liberal Arts Distinguished Dissertation Award for 2011. His dissertation research focused on the ontology of systems in the history of philosophy.

• Looking at airports with less than 15 million annual passengers, Air Transportation Research Society of Canada named Reno-Tahoe International Airport the second most efficient airport in the United States and Canada.

• This is Caltrans’ Sierra roadwork schedule for the coming week.

Publisher’s note: This editorial is from the July 16, 2011, Sacramento Bee.

After far too long, the shocking details of how federal probation officers completely failed to supervise Phillip Garrido are coming to light.

The hard-to-believe mistakes and horrendous judgment are as bad as, if not worse than, those of California parole agents. Those who were supposed to protect society from the likes of Garrido let him keep Jaycee Lee Dugard prisoner for 18 years.

By stonewalling, the U.S. Parole Commission tried to escape being held to account. It failed in that, too.

This month, James Ware, the chief U.S. District Court judge for Northern California, took it upon himself to make public a confidential report issued in December by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts that is unsparing in its criticism of federal parole officers and their supervisors. “I believe that the strength of our public institutions is tied directly to their openness to public scrutiny,” wrote Ware, who deserves full credit for releasing the report.

Then Monday, Garrido’s 351-page federal parole file was released through a Freedom of Information request filed by The Bee in September 2009.

Together, they itemize an inexcusable record of ineptitude and leniency – “clearly substandard,” the report concludes – during the nearly 11 years that Garrido was under federal parole supervision, from December 1988 until his early discharge in March 1999.

During all that time, officers made less than a dozen home visits. One of those rare checks came in June 1991, only nine days after Garrido snatched 11-year-old Jaycee near her home in South Lake Tahoe.

Read the whole story

By Kathryn Reed

CUSTER STATE PARK, S.D. – Where the buffalo roam, granite presidents dominate, Indians try to assimilate and families reunite.

South Dakota. It’s my home and I’ve never lived there. That’s what happens when your parents are high school sweethearts, your three sisters are born there and family reunions are scheduled every five years.

And I’m OK with that.

Buffalo enjoy the grass inside Custer State Park. Photos/Kathryn Reed

The Black Hills is gorgeous, with a ruggedness and beauty that conjure images of the Sierra and Rockies – it’s all the granite and pines.

And just like the more famous destinations, the Black Hills is a recreation spot for all things outdoors.

One morning is spent hiking to the top of Harney Peak – elevation 7,242. It’s the highest peak west of the Pyrenees. The 6-mile roundtrip trek provides stunning views of The Hills, especially from the lookout tower at the top.

The youngest to complete the trip – albeit with some help from his dad – is my 4-year-old grandnephew. And the oldest is my mom, at age 76.

We’ve been spending several days every five years in Custer State Park cabins since the 1990s.

It’s a bittersweet trip this time. We are burying my dad’s ashes. My parents have had plots in The Hills for years. It makes my connection to this part of the world so much stronger now.

While the family changes – in appearance and numbers – we have a closeness I cherish. Some I see in between these gatherings, for others this is the only opportunity. We are dispersed across the world.

We meet at Mount Rushmore to the see The Faces as the sun is setting and stay for the lighting. (This is a must for anyone who visits.) Five years ago we were there for Fourth of July fireworks – something magical about being someplace so American on that holiday.

I can’t count the times I have seen those four stone presidents. I never get tired of going there. Partly it’s the knowledge environmentalists would never allow something like this to be chiseled again, partly because we could never agree whose faces to carve, and partly it’s the sense of patriotism that envelops me.

Earlier we had visited Crazy Horse, the even larger carving of the Sioux Indian who won the Battle of Little Big Horn over Custer. Although it’s hard for me to tell the change in five years, clearly there has been some. I keep wondering if I’ll see its completion in my lifetime.

Custer State Park isn’t like any state park I’ve been to in California. It feels like a National Park. President Calvin Coolidge considered it his summer home.

A herd of about 1,300 bison call the 71,000-acre park home. They are best viewed along the 18-mile Wildlife Loop Road.

Mom has to tell us not to get out of the car – yes, even at our age.

Burros, prairie dogs, antelope and deer are other animals along the route.

One of the things about this part of the Midwest is there is so much to do – from touristy sites that take your money, to paddling on Sylvan Lake which is walking distance from our cabin, to checking out Rapid City.

Maybe I should have voted to return in three years instead of five.

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By Kathryn Reed

STATELINE – People swarm Tim Tebow for his autograph. No one yells to John Elway at the driving range.

Oh, the contrasts of being the current Denver Broncos quarterback compared to the former. While Tebow has the imminent conclusion of the NFL lockout on his mind, Elway is ready to open his fifth Colorado restaurant – the latest at the Lodge at Vail.

Quarterbacks seem to do well at the American Century Celebrity Golf Tournament. After play was over Saturday, Tony Romo was in second place and Chris Chandler in third.

Remaining atop the leader board is actor Jack Wagner.

Jack Wagner is the leader of the tournament for the second day in a row. Photos/Kathryn Reed

Dressed all in black, he looked more like he should be headlining the concert that night at Harveys.

One woman yelled to him, “You’re all I need.” Wagner’s 1985 ballad “All I Need” topped the Billboard Charts.

At 51, he still has a boyish appearance that makes women who followed his early acting career on “General Hospital” want to call him Frisco instead of Jack.

Charles Barkley is in the cellar, but not at the very bottom. That honor goes to Jay DeMarcus, with Jimmer Fredette separating the two.

Barkley looked a bit winded by the late afternoon, needing to summon a chair to sit in and have autograph seekers come to him one at a time on the putting green.

At the same time, Fredette, the rookie who signed with the Sacramento Kings, is walking the rope, signing everything put in front of him, smiling with fans for photos and looking about 10 years younger than his 22 years.

Asked how he likes like California, the New York native said, “Nice weather. Better than New York.”

While this tournament is about the golf for many of the players, for the fans it is part golf and part seeing their idols.

In an hour Joey Werblun, 13, of San Francisco secured 28 autographs. Elway was his most cherished signature at that point.

Guy Fieri of Food Network fame is using the woodfire oven on a trailer he built at his home in Santa Rosa to create pizzas fans at the driving range were raving about. Joe Theismann comes up to give his buddy a hug and then is asked what he wants on his pie.

“I’m a simple guy. I like tomatoes,” Theismann says. Fieri convinces him to put some barbecued chicken on his personal pizza.

For fans who don’t want to leave the action at the 17th hole, Jennifer Emkjer and Allie Brascia are delivering cocktails from the Edgewood concession. The UNR students work for a promotions company that sends them to different events to work.

The final round of the three-day tournament starts Sunday at Edgewood Tahoe at 8:05am with Deron Williams, Tim Brown and Mason Crosby.

Susan Wood contributed.

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Tahoe Youth & Family Services is saying thank you to the community for 40 years of support with an event in the parking lot by Red Hut on Ski Run Boulevard in South Lake Tahoe.

Free ice cream cones, popcorn, cotton candy and a bounce house will be part of the party on July 21 from 2:30-6:30pm.

By Jeff Delong, Reno Gazette-Journal

An international sportsmen’s group is attempting to intervene in a lawsuit filed by critics to block Nevada’s first black bear hunt.

Safari Club International filed a motion to intervene in the suit Monday in district court in Carson City, contending the hunt is “well-reasoned and justified.”

“Obviously, this is the first time Nevada has approved a bear hunt, and we think it was a good decision. We want it to go forward,” said Doug Burdin, a Safari Club attorney.

“This is a unique opportunity to hunt the black bear, and it hasn’t happened in the state before,” Burdin said. “It would be unfortunate if this opportunity got taken away at the last minute.”

If the motion is granted, the move will up the ante in the legal battle over the highly controversial hunt, approved in December 2010 by the Nevada Wildlife Commission despite widespread opposition.

The citizens group NoBearHuntNV.org filed suit June 7 to block the hunt, set to begin Aug. 20. A hearing on the lawsuit is scheduled Aug. 1 in Carson City.

Read the whole story

Jon Foley, director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota, will present “Solutions for a Cultivated Planet: Learning to Feed 9 Billion People While Sustaining the Global Environment” on July 28 from 6:30-8pm at the North Tahoe Event Center in Kings Beach.

The world population is growing by 75 million people each year. That’s almost the size of Germany. Today it’s close to 7 billion people.

The lecture costs $10.

For more information, email info@squawvalleyinstitute.org or call (530) 581.4138.