By Shanna McCord, Santa Cruz Sentinel
SANTA CRUZ — Deja vu might best describe Henry Brzezinski’s career in protecting animals.
Brzezinski, head of the county’s Animal Services Authority, is moving back to El Dorado County to take the same position he held there for nearly six years before landing the Santa Cruz job in June 2008.
Before working in El Dorado County, Brzezinski ran the Santa Cruz SPCA briefly in 2001.
By Jonathan Wright, Reno Gazette-Journal
There is the regular way to make a recipe, proceeding by ingredient and method, and then there is the television way. Nancy and Joe Horn, the owners of DISH Café, learned that in January when a Food Network crew occupied their restaurant.
The crew was shooting an episode of “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives,” the popular show in which host Guy Fieri visits homegrown restaurants across the country. The episode in which DISH appears is scheduled to air beginning Monday.
It’s a gorgeous day in Lake Tahoe. Head for the slopes. Here is the ski report from Curtis Fong, the Guy from Tahoe.
During the Olympic Games last month, Procter & Gamble presented a $10,000 check to Squaw Valley native Julia Mancuso, who was fresh from winning a silver medal in women’s downhill and another in the women’s Olympic combined. Procter and Gamble, Crest & Oral-B recognized Mancuso as one of five Team USA Olympians for the “Smile with U.S.” campaign.
Mancuso has turned that check over to the Tahoe Truckee Unified School District.
“I achieved what I did at the Olympics in large part due to my childhood growing up in the Tahoe-Truckee region and all the programs I was allowed to be involved in,” Mancuso, who was a student of TTUSD, told the district. “Giving back in this way feels so good and is a small token of my appreciation for all the people who helped me along the way.”
Julia Mancuso
Mancuso asked for the funds to be earmarked for physical education and health. Besides skiing, Mancuso also suited up for the soccer and track teams at North Tahoe High School in Tahoe City.
Competing at the international level at such an early age made it difficult to maintain a normal high school schedule at Lake Tahoe and Mancuso ultimately landed at Park City where she attended the Winter Sports School. Mancuso’s young Tahoe-Truckee ski racing successors don’t have to move away to realize their dreams. Three years ago, TTUSD launched the North Tahoe Ski Academy.
Acknowledging the snow sports competitors’ often hectic travel schedules, the program allows students to schedule a portion of their course load at the high school, freeing them to train in the afternoons with the ski or snowboard team of their choice. Students then make up the balance of their required curriculum through independent study programs.
By Kathryn Reed
One month ago today, Marty and Leslie DeTarr’s vacation plans got shaken up a bit in a way that could never have been predicted.
The South Lake Tahoe couple was in Chile when the deadly and devastating 8.8 earthquake struck the South American country.
They were supposed to fly back to the States on March 1. That didn’t happen.
“We were emailing American Airlines and the travel agent. There was no response,” Marty DeTarr said. “(March 2) we got a response from the travel agent who said it might be 10 days.”
The airlines said things would be back to normal at the Santiago airport in three days. That didn’t happen.
“We heard later the ceiling at the airport terminal had caved in and wiped out all the computers,” DeTarr said.
They didn’t feel the earth move because they were about 1,000 miles from epicenter down in Patagonia near Torres del Paine.
But many of the people working at the resort they were staying at were from that country’s capital and knew of family and friends who had died. One worker relayed stories about the tsunami on the small coastal town of Constitución.
“He said cars were in the street at night and the next morning they were gone. They had rolled out into the ocean,” DeTarr said.
With no one coming and going, the Explora Lodge had no problem putting the DeTarrs up for a couple nights – for free.
“We weren’t in fear or concerned about our lives,” DeTarr said of the experience.
By March 3 their 3.5-week vacation was just about over. It meant riding a bus for more than four hours to Calafate, Argentina; finding their luggage at a different location across the border than where the bus parked; and then paying $250 for a taxi ride to Buenos Aires. From there, it was a plane ride into Reno.
Squaw Valley is hosting the first U.S. Professional Ski Patrol Olympics April 16-18.
While several regions have hosted patrol contests in previous years, never before have ski patrollers from across the continent united for one epic competition. In honor of the 50th anniversary of the 1960 Squaw Valley Olympic Winter Games, Squaw Valley has invited patrollers from the East Coast, Rockies, Sierra Nevada and the Pacific Northwest to partake in this inaugural event. Several international patrol teams have also been invited to attend.
Competition includes an array of events from sled races and beacon competitions to simulated bomb throws. Registration costs $89 per patroller, and tickets include a two-day lift ticket to Squaw Valley, two mid-mountain, on-snow BBQ lunches and admission to the Sunday night Awards Ceremony with live music. Discounted lodging is available for patrollers and spectators through Squaw Valley Central Reservations at 800.545.5585.
Friday
6-9pm – Registration Party
Saturday
9:45am РRandon̩e Race
10am – Beacon Competition
noon – GS Race
12:30-2pm – On-Snow BBQ
5pm – Awards Ceremony
Sunday
10am – Sled Race
10am – Bamboo Throw
10am – Bomb Throw (long/short)
12:30-2pm – On-Snow BBQ
7pm – Awards Ceremony
For more information about the Professional Ski Patrol Olympics, contact Squaw Valley Ski Patrol at (530) 452.7124 or by email at eknudson@squaw.com.
By Ed Vogel, Las Vegas Review-Journal
CARSON CITY — Mrs. Joe Leavy was sitting on the bed in her home up the road from the Hoover Dam construction site when a mammoth wind on July 24, 1931, shook the house and carried her out of a window and into the sky.
Leavy was spirited away on a “magic carpet ride” on her mattress as a twister ripped apart 12 nearby homes and left seven people injured.
She “landed in a heap with the mattress, shaken up but unhurt,” according to the seemingly straight account in the Review-Journal.
“Autoists” described the tornado “as bounding along, in zig-zag fashion, coming down with its point here and there.”
A tornado in Nevada?
By Frank X. Mullen Jr., Reno Gazette-Journal
The more horses that are removed from the range, the higher federal care and feeding costs soar.
They are about to go a lot higher.
President Barack Obama’s 2011 budget proposal calls for a $12 million increase in the Bureau of Land Management’s $64 million wild horse and burro program. If approved, that would bring that portion of the agency’s budget to $75.7 million.
To the community,
If a fire broke out tonight while you were sleeping, would you and your family get out alive? Today is a great time to develop a home fire escape plan.
Teach it to and practice it with your family on a regular basis. Check your smoke detector and replace the battery at least once a year.
And finally, remember, if there is a fire, teach everyone to get out and stay out. It’s your best fire- safe response.
Sallie Ross-Filgo, South Lake Tahoe Fire Department
U.S. Forest Service fuels management crews will conduct prescribed fire operations in the Mt. Rose area, off Highway 431, beginning March 27.
Operations are expected to continue through the weekend and the following week as weather and staffing allow.
Residents and travelers can expect to see smoke from prescribed fire project areas. Be aware that other fire protection agencies, state and local, may also be conducting prescribed fire operations during this time.
This and other prescribed fire projects are designed to reduce wildfire risks to communities and critical resources. Smoke management is part of every prescribed fire burn plan, and efforts will be taken to reduce actual or potential smoke impacts on community areas.