Two people died on Labor Day on Nevada highways, including a woman from South Lake Tahoe.

Jennifer Lyrea Leonard, 50, of South Lake Tahoe was riding on the back of a motorcycle driven by her husband Chuck Leonard, 53, of South Lake Tahoe. She was thrown from the motorcycle and sustained fatal injuries.

According to the Nevada Highway Patrol, the Harley Davidson struck a culvert warning sign on Highway 50 at Logans Creek Drive.

“For an unknown reason the Harley Davidson failed to negotiate the bend in the road and exited onto the south dirt shoulder of Highway 50,” NHP said in a press release.

Chuck Leonard was transported by CalStar to Renown Medical Center in Reno. His condition is unknown.

Another accident on Sept. 4, about 10 minutes later at 3:25pm, was on the Mount Rose Highway west of Sky Tavern.

Patrick M. Zielke of Fallon was driving a Yamaha motorcycle east on Mount Rose when he crossed the double yellow center line and hit a motorhome head-on, according NHP troopers. He was pronounced dead at the scene. No one in the motorhome was injured.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Amy Gardner, Washington Post

President Obama continued to foment interest in his beer-drinking ways Saturday by releasing the recipes for two White House home brews along with a video on how the beer is made.

The video shows White House assistant chef Sam Kass and sous chef Tafari Campbell making the beer, dumping hops and honey into a pot of boiling brown liquid, checking on five-gallon bottles in a tiny basement storage room, transferring it to bottles and finally, tasting it (and approving).

“Brewing beer is becoming a thing that Americans are doing in their homes and garages across the country,” Kass said in the video. “The president certainly thought it would be a good idea to see if we could join in that time-honored tradition and brew some of our own beer.”

Obama has been mentioning his love of beer regularly on the campaign trail in recent weeks, talking about how much he enjoys drinking a cold one at the end of a long day and even sharing a White House-made beer from his campaign bus with a man he met in Iowa last month. Although there’s no evidence that Obama is faking his love of beer, his regular willingness to pose with it is serving a political purpose: helping him appear to be an everyman who drinks a beverage favored by millions of Americans. And you can even serve the White House beer in a Vice President Joe Biden can holder.

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The Sugar Pine Foundation is putting on a tree climbing demonstration Sept. 15.

The free event is from 10am-noon at Sugar Pine Point State Park on the West Shore.

Experts will be climbing old-growth sugar pines to harvest their cones as part of the annual cone collection.

Bring a helmet and gloves to help out as ground crew.

By Kathryn Reed

So much of life is about the journey and not the destination.

Sometimes escaping the routine of our daily lives for an extended period of time helps bring clarity to the meaning of that journey. It did for Suzanne Roberts.

“Almost Somewhere: Twenty-Eight Days on the John Muir Trail” is more than a memoir of Roberts’ experience on this famous path through the Sierra. It is more than the story of what it’s like to spend a month hiking the 211-mile trail.

While she was a recent college graduate when she did the hike and now she is a college instructor, Roberts’ reflections on this time in her life is in some ways like a coming of age book.

Undoubtedly men and women will each get something different out of this book. People will relate to it in their own way. But it’s hard to imagine anyone describing it as just a hiking book. It is so much more.

Maybe being of a similar age, of having spent time a year after college on a solo backpacking trip in Europe it made me have a profound connection to this book – really, to the journey. Sometimes we have to prove things to ourselves and we don’t know what those things are or why.

With this book, Roberts, who teaches at Lake Tahoe Community College and Sierra Nevada College, has expanded her classroom to teach us all about the power of women, the sense of accomplishment in pushing oneself beyond her comfort zone and the realities of being immersed in nature day after day.

“Almost Somewhere” – it’s a 260-page journey that is bound to take you beyond the John Muir Trail.

To the community,

I wanted to give you an update on our son, Adam. He has been released from Renown and is at home, trying to heal as best he can.

He sustained a compound fracture of his left arm and has a steel rod implanted along with seven screws and a plate. He also sustained a compound fracture of two bones in his right leg and almost lost the lower leg and his right foot. That leg has a titanium rod, six pins, bolts and a plate. He has more than 100 sutures and staples and multiple abrasions and bruises. We are amazed he did not suffer any head trauma.

In the midst of such an incredibly difficult time, I have been so impressed by Adam’s attitude. I have not heard him complain one time.

Not only is he dealing with the physical pain and trauma, he has to come to grips with the way this will affect his ability to earn a living. He is trying to be upbeat and positive. We are so very proud of him.

Thanks once again to South Lake Tahoe residents for their wonderful help and support.

Kind regards,

Terry Soule

Publisher’s note: Adam Rose, 38, was on his bicycle Aug. 21 when he was hit by an alleged hit-and-run drunken driver.

On Oct. 13 at 7pm, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gretchen Morgenson who writes the Market Watch column for the Sunday Money & Business section of the New York Times will be the guest lecturer at the Squaw Valley Institute.

She is the co-author of “Reckless Endangerment,” published in 2011; author of “Forbes Great Minds Of Business,” published in 1997; and co-author of “The Woman’s Guide to the Stock Market,” published in 1981. She will give her perspective on the U.S. financial crisis and what Washington is doing – or not doing – to help.

For tickets and more information, go online.

A family of four from San Jose was involved in a personal watercraft accident Labor Day morning.

Sufian and Subia Kazmi, who had no experience driving personal watercraft, took their children onto Lake Tahoe on Sept. 3. At about 9:45am they crashed into each other about one-quarter mile north and west of Timber Cove Beach, where the devices had been rented.

“After a period of about 30 minutes, the mother’s craft crossed in front of the father’s craft. Both were traveling at about 30 mph. The front of the father’s craft struck the mother’s craft broadside,” according a South Lake Tahoe police press release.

Sufain Kazmi was not hurt. The 5-year-old boy was transported to Barton Memorial Hospital with his mother. Both sustained moderate head and leg injuries. The 7-year-old girl sustained severe injuries to her leg and foot. She was flown to Renown Medical Center. None of the injuries was life threatening.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

Bona Fide Books and the Lake of the Sky Outfitters will host a Tahoe Rim Trail Association Trail Talk on Sept. 6 at 6pm.

The goal of the TRTA staff is to take people on a tour that will engage all their senses, share inspiring stories, and leave people feeling like they were on the Tahoe Rim Trail.

If you’re thinking about submitting to Bona Fide Books’ forthcoming Tahoe Rim Trail collection, this free event will be worth attending.

The event is at 1023 Emerald Bay Road, South Lake Tahoe.

If you live in the South Y Industrial, Bonanza, Barton, Winnemucca or Airport neighborhoods in South Lake Tahoe, there will be a meeting Sept. 5 at 6pm at Lake Tahoe Airport.

These meetings are informal.

Volunteer “captains” are being sought to be the main point of contact for their neighborhood area. A neighborhood “captain” would act as the liaison for their immediate neighbors.

Some examples of tasks that the neighborhood captain would perform include:

· Gather information for the neighborhood directory, current names, addresses, phone numbers, of those neighbors who want to be involved (this is voluntary).

· Make sure all neighbors receive the neighborhood newsletter or other informational flyers.

· Send any information you would like posted on your neighborhoods website page to your city contact for posting.

· Assist neighbors in identifying goals and activities within your neighborhood.

· Be the main contact person for you neighborhood group.

· Gather any concerns of potential code enforcement issues (on behalf of your neighbors), such as nuisances, garbage, and inform the code enforcement department.

For more information, contact Tracy Franklin at (530) 542.6093.

Tahoe Writers Works will host the fourth annual Celebration of Writers Around the Lake on Sept. 14 at 7pm at the Valhalla Grand Hall at the Tallac Historic Site.

Enjoy a lively evening of literature at the lake with eight writers who call Tahoe home or find their inspiration in its depth.

The $10 admission includes a wine reception featuring the Après Wine Company followed by readings from award-winning writers. Books will be available for signing and purchase.

The event will showcase several local writers including Suzanne Roberts, reading from her just-released memoir, “Almost Somewhere: Twenty-Eight Days on the John Muir Trail”, Scott Lucas (“The Immersive Worlds Handbook: Designing Theme Parks and Consumer Spaces”), Jared Manninen (“Mega ’99: Tales of an Appalachian Trail Thru-Hiker”) and Tim Hauserman (“Tahoe Rim Trail: The Official Guide for Hikers, Mountain Bikers and Equestrians, 3rd edition”). Tahoe-influenced writers Stefanie Freele (“Surrounded by Water”) and Steve Robinson (“Why Stevie Can’t Date”) will also read from their latest books. Three readers from the recently released “Tahoe Blues: Short Lit on Life at the Lake” by local press Bona Fide Books will round out the evening.

Tahoe Writers Works, formerly the Lake Tahoe Writing Club, is a nonprofit organization based in South Lake Tahoe. Each year, the group organizes events to create a stronger literary and arts community in Lake Tahoe, including Bare Bones Open Mic and Murder Mystery Theater at Valhalla. The group also publishes the literary journal “EDGE”.