Average White Band plays at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe.

Tickets are $30.

For more South Shore Room information, show times, tickets and reservations, call 800.786.8208 or go to www.SouthShoreRoom.com.

Night Ranger plays in the showroom at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe.

Tickets are $35.

For more South Shore Room information, show times, ticket prices and reservations, call 800.786.8208 or go to www.SouthShoreRoom.com.

By Kathryn Reed

Skid marks remain at South Tahoe High School where a truck at 1:30 one morning last week did a few doughnuts in the circular entryway.

Cameras captured a truck, believed to be a black Ford, 2008 era, with wide wheels. Enhanced equipment will soon be installed to make sure the next person who vandalizes school property can be definitively identified.

The skid marks will be cleaned up and Aspen Hollow will replace the damaged landscaping. It may not be done by Thursday’s open house.

School officials are not happy with skid marks at STHS. Photos/Kathryn Reed

Much of the short Lake Tahoe Unified School District meeting on Aug. 24 pertained to surveillance equipment. The board unanimously agreed to spend $15,483 on the Career Technical Education building and $23,338 on the Overcrowded Relief Grant classroom wings. The equipment is being bought with Measure G money.

Measure G is the $64.5 million facilities bond voters approved in 2008. Another $30 million has been secured in matching grants from the state.

With millions being spent at the high school, officials want to secure the entire facility. A perimeter fence is not being talked about, but it’s likely a gate on Viking Way will be installed. Already speed bumps have been put in to slow traffic.

“We will do it tastefully,” Superintendent Jim Tarwater told the board.

Motion sensors are going into classrooms.

“If someone breaks in, we’ll know about it,” Steve Morales, facilities director, said.

New gates would look better than the 13th Street entrance to STHS.

At the two-story Stadium View building every teacher has a unique code to gain access to the building and then their classroom. This is an added layer of security in such a large building so staff does not have to worry about someone being in the building who shouldn’t be.

Board member Sue Novasel expressed concern staff may give out the code to students. She pointed out how when her kids were at STHS they ended up with keys to the school.

Morales explained that a record is kept of who enters when so it will be easy to know whose card is being used when.

The other idea brought up to better secure the campus is to have cantilever gates installed between buildings. They would be open during school hours and closed off all other times.

By Kathryn Reed

This is the second day in a row I will be in food heaven. That’s because I know what’s in the fridge – three salads made mostly with ingredients from Tuesday’s farmers’ market.

The added bonus is I was disinvited from a lunch today that would have meant less than good mass produced casino food or something I wouldn’t eat. Things have a way of working out.

Immediately after getting home from yesterday’s market in South Tahoe I started unloading my canvas reusable bag that I know how to wash if it gets dirty.

I started the green beans boiling. Then the lettuce started to be torn into bite size pieces. Fresh lettuce — oh my. It’s so tender and flavorful. It’s like the nutrients ooze out with each bite.

I chop up carrots, cucumbers and a tomato to go on top. I go out back to my pathetic barrel of herbs to get some spearmint. Yes, chopped mint on a salad is yummy. (It works well on vanilla ice cream and some chocolate sauce too.)

This first salad gets covered and goes into the fridge.

Beans are done, so they go into the colander to cool.

Next up is the tomato salad. (Recipe below.) It had been a while since I have taken the recipe card out. I usually just toss some things in and call it good. What I had forgotten is that it calls for onion and garlic salt. Because I use fresh minced garlic and don’t use much salt in my diet I skipped both of these and instead used some coarse salt with the fresh garlic.

The recipe also calls for basil and oregano – dried. I tend to forget the oregano, but think I’ll start remembering it. I’ll always try to use fresh basil.

I had also been using balsamic vinegar instead of wine vinegar. The latter changes the flavor. I think I will go back to it. The balsamic has the salad tasting more like bruschetta.

The recipe, from my Mom’s longtime friend Bev Adams, says to quarter the tomatoes. Even though I buy small ones, I cut them into bite size wedges, which is sometimes more than quarters.

Toscano and Sons tomatoes at Tuesday's South Tahoe farmers' market. Photo/Kathryn Reed

Adams doesn’t give measurements for the ingredients. It really depends on how many tomatoes you use. It’s best if you can make this a couple hours before serving so all the flavors meld. It’s a hit at summer barbecues. I only make it with farmers’ market tomatoes – none of those waxy things from the grocery store.

A little tip – if your knife doesn’t easily cut the skin of the tomato, it needs sharpening.

The third salad is spicy green beans. I toss some rice wine vinegar, sesame seed oil, hot chili oil and toasted sesame seeds together. When I have slivered almonds, I add those to the green been mixture.

Tomato Salad – by Bev Adams

Fresh tomatoes, quartered

Wine vinegar

Olive oil

Sweet basil

Oregano

Onion salt

Garlic salt

Add all ingredients. Let chill a couple hours.

Sierra Nevada College, together with Clay Times magazine and Northstar-at-Tahoe, is hosting a national juried ceramics show beginning Sept. 18th in the Village at Northstar and continuing through Oct. 16.

The exhibit “A New Decade of Clay: 2010” will feature ceramic pieces from artists across the country to be juried by internationally renowned ceramist Richard Shaw. A kickoff celebration/opening is taking place on Sept. 18, with events from 1-5pm to include ceramic demonstrations, a kids’ clay table, and “pottery Olympics.” A reception will be afterward beginning at 6pm.

Submissions were accepted in two categories, open and student, and closed on July 23. More than 200 entries were received, and 40 were selected — 34 in the open category and six in the student category. Most of the exhibited artwork will be available for sale, with Sierra Nevada College receiving 20 percent of the proceeds. Winners will receive cash awards and prizes, including a Clay Times cover story, Sierra Nevada College ceramics scholarships, and weekend lodging at Northstar-at-Tahoe.

For more information, visit www.sierranevada.edu/clay or email sleigh@sierranevada.edu.

By Mel Shields, Sacramento Bee

United States mints tended to be built where the action was. The California Gold Rush created the San Francisco Mint, and the Comstock Lode created the Carson City Mint.

From 1870 to 1893, the Carson City Mint produced 50 issues of silver coins and 57 issues of gold coins, all bearing the distinctive “CC” mark. It is now the Nevada State Museum, but it hasn’t given up its origins entirely.

The museum hosts the Carson City Mint Coin Show on Friday and Saturday, featuring more than 30 dealers, free appraisals and plenty of activities for kids.

“With the price of gold going sky-high, all of us should take up panning for gold,” said Deborah Stevenson, the museum’s curator of education. Panning may not be necessary: In the gaming spirit of Nevada, there is a raffle.

Read the whole story

By Phillip Reese, Sacramento Bee

Lake Tahoe has long been a hot spot for weddings — the romance of exchanging vows near the lake’s deep blue waters and surrounding mountaintops is undeniable.

Regan Beach in South Tahoe is a year-round wedding spot. Photo/Kathryn Reed

But, like many other destination wedding hubs, Lake Tahoe is seeing far fewer nuptials these days.

About 1,100 fewer people tied the knot in El Dorado County last year than during 2006 — a nearly 30 percent decline.

Read the whole story

By Michelle Aguilar

As the orange trees start to bear fruit once again, I am reminded that I have been in country through a full harvest cycle. Aug. 11, 2009, I said goodbye to the world I knew and all the comforts of an American lifestyle to embark on a journey known as Peace Corps.

It is amazing how much your life can change in one year. Before arriving in Panama, I definitely was not measuring calendar days based on the harvest cycle of a citrus tree. To be honest, I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I joined the Peace Corps. Typically, I find there is a sort of thrill in the unknown. But this was the first time in my life where one decision had so many unknown factors, each with such life changing gravity. Thus, diminishing the usual thrill and making me question myself. Had I taken on too much? Could I truly handle this? Twenty-seven months is a big commitment.

Michelle Aguilar

What if I don’t have electricity? Won’t I be lonely? I don’t even speak Spanish. Am I even qualified to help these people? Am I going to have to eat meat? I can’t live without my Mom’s cooking. What happens if I get sick? Who is going to kill the spiders? With the support of my family and friends, coupled with a positive and adventurous attitude, I surrender to the unknown.

Now, 365 days after a tearful goodbye, I am experiencing my version of what is named “The toughest job you will ever love.” If you speak with any prior Peace Corps volunteer, you are likely to hear they either loved their experience or they hated it.

Just like fingerprints or snowflakes — more appropriate for Tahoe — no two volunteer experiences are the same. So far, I am in the “love it” group. I am experiencing what one would call the more traditional Peace Corps experience, in the setting of a small indigenous community on the Caribbean side of Panama. I am a Community Economic Development volunteer and the first volunteer in my community. I live, work, serve and share cultures daily with the 257 Ngobes Indians in my community.

In Panama there is a huge financial disparity between the rich and the poor. My community is among the poorest. Of the 257 people, only six of the men have jobs, and they make less in one day than you make in one hour. The average household has eight children. Transportation is all via dugout canoes. Most children do not continue their education past the sixth grade. This is grass-roots development in every sense of the word.

As with most things, time is the only thing that could answer all my questions. And time did just that. I have found the answers to some of the questions I had a year ago. It turns out, yes, I can live without electricity, and without running water, too. Apparently. I can learn a language in a year, and spiders are not so much of a worry when you have scorpions to deal with. The loneliness, lack of Mom’s cooking and sickness can de endured with a “this too shall pass” mentality and a cup of hot chocolate with cocoa that was harvested that very day. I am 12 months in, with 15 more to go, and yes, I think I can handle it.

Pretty soon I am going to be asking myself whether I can handle going back.

Twelve months ago, I saw Peace Corps as a journey. True, it has proved to be a journey so far, but not the sort of journey where you have a road map or GPS. And surely not the type of journey where you know there is always a gas station or a fast food drive-through close by. I would describe my Peace Corps experience more as the type of journey one would have riding a rollercoaster ride. There are ups and downs and moments when you question whether you’re going to make it out alive, every turn is different and unforeseen. The speed at which the ride passes is fast, and when it is all over you can only hope for no regrets for the time you spent waiting in that long line, and that it was all worth it. I think you all know what this feels like … this is just life.

That is why Peace Corps asks in its recruiting campaigns, “Life is calling, how far will you go?” Life took me 3,000 miles south of Lake Tahoe, the place where I grew up and my comfort zone, to the distant and unfamiliar country of Panama. And in one year, my Peace Corps Panama experiences have been the most intense and life changing part of my rollercoaster ride so far. I look forward to seeing what the next year has in store.

If you would like to ride along, you can check out my blog or check Lake Tahoe News for frequent updates.

Michelle Aguilar graduated from South Tahoe High School in 2005. In 2009, she graduated from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo with a business administration degree, with a concentration in nonprofit studies and an emphasis in marketing.

ngg_shortcode_0_placeholder (Click on photos to enlarge.)

(Photos provided and some taken by Michelle Aguilar.)

By Kathryn Reed

Even though state lawmakers this week decided to shore up part of the state’s money shortage by burdening school districts, Lake Tahoe Unified School District is not sweating the decision.

“It was something we all anticipated,” LTUSD CFO Deb Yates told Lake Tahoe News. “It has no real impact this year.”

The action on Aug. 23 means K-12 districts will not receive the scheduled $2.5 billion from the state in September. The deferral was expected in October, not a month sooner.

Some districts will have to borrow money to cover the shortfall.

Lawmakers still have not come to any resolution about the $19 billion deficit the state faces. The budget for the current fiscal year was supposed to be in place June 30. IOUs are expected to be issued by the state in one to three weeks.

Yates said enough money sits in all of the district’s accounts to cover the lapse in payments from the state. But if this happens next year, she said, the district may be forced to take out a short-term loan.

By Kathryn Reed

Two in-house candidates were vying to be interim dean of Instruction and Social Sciences at Lake Tahoe Community College, with Kurt Green coming out on top.

The English instructor will not have any teaching responsibilities while he is in this role. Green served as interim administrator at the South Lake Tahoe college several years ago.

He takes over for Diane Rosner who retired earlier this summer.

LTCC is juggling administrators.

The Aug. 24 meeting was the final meeting for Susan Middleton, who for the past month has been acting president for the past month. Her main job had been as vice president of Academic Affairs and Student Services. She has been with the college for a quarter century.

This leaves Cynthea Preston, dean of instruction, and Virginia Boyar, head of career and technical education, as the most tenured administrators on campus.

Susan Niehoff came on board in January as vice president of Business Services; Tom Greene started this month as Middleton’s replacement; and Steve Maradian starts Aug. 31 as interim president.

Green is not expected to be in the interim dean role for longer than this academic year that is about to start.

“We are looking at potentially restructuring the administrative team and the administrative duties,” board President Kerry David told Lake Tahoe News.

Until the board, with input from faculty, staff and administrators, comes up with a plan, the future hierarchy of the college remains an unknown.