By Ed Koch, Las Vegas Sun

While driving home to California following his less-than-triumphant two weeks at the Last Frontier in Las Vegas in February 1954, song-and-dance man Ronald Reagan, then at the lowest point in life, shared his sorrows with Nancy Reagan.

“I hope I never have to sink this low again,” said Ron Reagan, whose acting career had been on a nosedive since the release of the 1951 film “Bedtime For Bonzo,” in which Ron’s co-star was a chimp — and after Reagan was forced to play Vegas because he was $18,000 in debt, out of work and badly in need of a paycheck.

Nancy, his wife of less than a year, consoled the future two-term Republican president and vowed to strongly support her husband through whatever lay ahead — and she would continue to do so until his death 50 years later.

Nancy Reagan’s death Sunday at 94 conjured memories of how she helped lift Ronald Reagan’s spirits on that desolate Nevada highway, how she and Ron fought to preserve Lake Tahoe and how Nancy tried unsuccessfully to persuade Ron to pick former Nevada Gov. Paul Laxalt — and close friend — as his vice president.

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By Deborah Netburn, Los Angeles Times

Visitors to Colorado might want to think twice before lighting a joint or biting into a pot brownie, even if it is legal in the Centennial State.

A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine finds that out-of-state tourists in Colorado are more likely to end up in the emergency room with symptoms related to marijuana use than local residents.

The authors report that cannabis-using tourists were responsible for 168 out of every 10,000 ER visits in 2014. The ER visits made by pot-using local residents accounted for just 112 out of every 10,000 visits.

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The annual Kings Beach Snowfest Parade will be March 12 from 11:30am-12:30pm along Highway 28 starting at Secline Street and ending at the Coon Street roundabout.

It will feature creative entries from 29 community nonprofit organizations, government agencies, service groups and local businesses.

The announcer’s stand will be in front of the King Building on Highway 28 at the Bear Street roundabout. The parade will take place snow, rain or shine.

Motorists should be aware that Highway 28 in Kings Beach will be closed between Highway 267 and Fox Street for the parade.

Before and after the parade there will be various events including the North Tahoe Public Utility District Pancake Breakfast, Dress-Up-Your-Dog Contest, Snow What? Snow Building Contest, Chili Cook-Off, an after parade party at the Grid Bar & Grill and more. The Snowfest queen raffle drawing will take place at Steamer’s Beach Side Bar & Oven starting at 3pm.

For a complete schedule of Snowfest events, go online.

The South Lake Tahoe Library is inviting teens and young adults to meet up with fellow writers for an afternoon of socializing, discussion, and writing.

Bring whatever you happen to be working on, whether it is a book, poem or short story. Some laptops will available for use in the library.

The Young Adult Writers Meetup is the first and third Saturdays from March 5-April 16, from 3-4pm.

There is no cost to attend.

The library is located at 1000 Rufus Allen Blvd, South Lake Tahoe.

Lake Tahoe Dance Collective opens its 2016 season March 18-20 with the 8th annual Winter Repertory at the Tahoe Art Haus in Tahoe City. The performance celebrates diversity in dance with three new creations, while honoring the classicism of yesterday.

This year’s program includes the classic Paquita featuring guest Jakob Pringle (Ballet West), and new works by Jacqueline Lopez (Ballet Nacional de Mexico), Erik Wagner (San Francisco Ballet, Bern Ballet) and LTDC’s Isabella Terrazas.

The evening opens with the world premiere of a work by Lopez that she created for the Collective in January. The program continues with the premiere of a creation by Terrazas entitled Initium.

Tickets available online, at Trunk Show in Tahoe City, or by calling 800.838.3006.

• Performances are:
  March 18 at 7pm
  March 19 at 2pm and 7pm
  March 20 at 2pm.

High school artists have the opportunity to leave their mark on Nevada by redesigning the state’s welcome signs.

The Nevada Department of Tourism and Cultural Affairs in partnership with the Department of Education and the Department of Transportation is coordinating the contest that runs throughApril 25.

The contest will be conducted within Nevada’s high schools and is primarily aimed at students enrolled in the CTE Level 2 or higher graphic arts courses, although each school may determine eligibility.

Approximately 50 entry points exist on Nevada’s major interstate freeways, state highways and small roadways bringing people into the state. Because of the natural and cultural diversity of the state, the entry points will be divided into four regions. Designers are asked to convey the most important resources of the selected region while conveying the overarching brand, Nevada: A World Within. A State Apart, in their designs.

Entrants will be provided a toolkit with specific components that need to be included.

Each participating school will select up to five finalist designs that will be submitted to a review committee composed of professional graphic artists and state representatives. Three finalists from each region will be selected at which point the public will be able to choose the winning design via an online voting tool.

The winning designs will be installed on Nevada’s roadways beginning in the summer of 2016.

For more information and contest rules, go online.

Alexander Osti

Longtime South Lake Tahoe resident and business owner Alexander Osti died of heart failure Feb. 21, 2016. He was 85.

Born in Santa Monica to immigrant parents, Alexander was a first-generation Californian. His first job at age 13 was in a slaughterhouse. He retired as a journeyman butcher in 2006. During his career he worked in numerous slaughterhouses in Southern and Northern California, and at Harveys Casino as a meat cutter before establishing his own business in Tahoe, the Ranch Butcher.

The joy of his life was his family and the love of his life was his wife, Elvira. The two were inseparable. If you saw one, you knew the other was somewhere close by.

Alexander was always telling the story of how he met Elvira and their 90-day romance that lasted until her death in 2007.

Alexander is survived by his son, Lamont “Buffy” Osti, and his wife, Constance Osti; daughter Margo Osti; grandson Adam Osti, his wife Allegra Osti and their daughter Alexis Osti; grandson Eric Osti, his wife Trisha Osti and their children Hayden and Sophia Osti; and many nieces and nephews.

A funeral will be on March 3 at McFarlane Mortuary in South Lake Tahoe. The rosary will be recited at 10am, the Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at 11am, with the burial at Happy Homestead Cemetery immediately to follow.

By Robert Salonga, Mercury News

Jaycee Lee Dugard, who miraculously resurfaced in 2009 after 18 years of captivity in an Antioch back yard during which her kidnapper fathered two daughters with her, will release a second memoir chronicling her life since being freed, her publisher announced Tuesday.

“Freedom: My Book of Firsts,” is set for a July 12 release, five years to the day from the publication of her first memoir, “A Stolen Life,” a heart-wrenching, disturbing autobiographical account of Dugard’s life between her abduction as an 11-year-old girl from her Meyers neighborhood in 1991 to when she revealed herself to be still alive in a Concord parole office.

In a press release, publisher Simon & Schuster says the new book details her first experiences upon being freed from the clutches of captors Phillip and Nancy Garrido in August 2009, by which point she had two daughters by Phillip — who first impregnated her when she was 13 — who are now teenagers.

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By Trevor Hughes, USA Today

BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. — Chicago-based travel agent and mother-of-four Lynn Farrell represents a kind of worst-case scenario for Colorado’s ski towns and resorts.

“Who really wants to ski where everybody’s stoned?,” asks Farrell, president of Windy City Travel. “It is a concern.”

It’s the second full ski season since Colorado legalized recreational marijuana sales, and the cannabis culture — or at the very least, concerns about the cannabis culture — remains very much top of mind for many out-of-state visitors. Talk to East Coasters, particularly, and you hear worries about pot smokers lighting up in the lift lines or filling gondola cars with pungent smoke, an image at odds with Colorado’s carefully crafted and otherwise well-deserved image as a clean-living destination for families.

And while most Colorado residents would tell you very little has changed since marijuana sales began, the perception this is the Wild West of Weed persists.

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Mark Reeves, front, likes working along side his staff in the ski rental shop at Sierra-at-Tahoe. Photo/Kathryn Reed

By Kathryn Reed

TWIN BRIDGES – Controlled chaos. That’s what the rental shop at Sierra-at-Tahoe looks like on a busy Saturday.

Workers stand out because of their royal blue shirt or jacket. They are surrounded by a sea of people trying on boots, having bindings worked on and getting sized for skis and poles. And while they are all eager to hit the slopes, there is a sense of calmness – no yelling, no whiny kids, no sense of distress.

It’s hard to know Mark Reeves is the boss. He looks like one of the guys, maybe a tad older than the average worker. He’s sliding skis across the waxer, then snagging poles for people. Later he has a screwdriver in his hand as he adjusts bindings and then makes sure they release properly.

“My favorite part is still adjusting ski bindings because you get to talk to them. You are helping them to have fun,” Reeves told Lake Tahoe News as he took a quick break from the floor.

He has been working for Sierra since 1989 – always in the rental shop. Only now the 52-year-old is the boss. He oversees about 50 employees between the ski, snowboard and repair shops.

“It’s really important to the employees that you are working next to them and not just sitting in your office all day doing paperwork. That’s the last place I want to be,” Reeves said.

What has kept Reeves at the job all these years is that it isn’t a desk job, it’s physical. Much of the day is spent on his feet – sometimes 12 hours a day, six days a week. The interaction with customers is what is most fun, and meeting people from all over the world.

While some businesses in the basin say it’s hard to retain good employees, Reeves said that isn’t a problem at Sierra.

“It’s up to you to train and teach employees. If they don’t understand guest services, you have to train them,” Reeves said. “It’s more the culture of the company, than the pool of people.”

He also only had good things to say about his bosses.

Reeves’ only complaint is that he knows plenty of people who don’t work at a ski resort who get in more days on the mountain than he does.

Looking at the number of people lined up, this is going to be another non-ski day for Reeves.

And while it appears to be a jumbled mess, there is sense of organization to the process. It’s all about the flow, Reeves said. It’s also about keeping it cool in the rental shop because people are dressed for the outdoors. This little trick helps calm any potentially frayed nerves. The idea is to get people in and out as fast as possible, but the reality is that it takes time to rent boots, skis and poles, and then pay for them.

Mark Reeves is all about being a hand’s on boss at Sierra-at-Tahoe. Photo/Kathryn Reed

It’s not just first-timers or newbies to the sport who are in the shop. Sierra has a program where skiers and snowboarders (snowboard rentals are in a different location) may rent basic, performance or demo gear for the season. It means not having to schlep equipment from home to the resort every day, and it allows people to try different skis.

This is one of the biggest changes Reeves has seen during his tenure. “Fewer people have their own equipment these days than in the past.”

There are all mountain skis, ones for carving and those designed for powder. Snowboards also have become specialized.

Demo and high performance skis turn over every year. The basic skis are replaced about every three years; it all depends on their use.

“They got destroyed last year. There were rocks everywhere,” Reeves said. The 2014-15 season was sketchy at best at most Tahoe area resorts, with Sierra having its earliest closing date on record.

“A lot of stuff ends up in the repair shop. We are constantly tuning and filling,” Reeves said.

It’s already time to figure out what the inventory will be for next ski season. Two weeks ago Reeves was at a trade show in Mammoth riding equipment. On March 3 he will be at a Reno trade show making the final decision about what gets purchased for the 2015-16 season. During the summer the manufacturers create the product.

Before the resort opens in late fall Reeves is getting the equipment ready.

“Every binding has to be tested. It takes up to two months to do that,” Reeves said of the 1,500 pairs of skis. The heel and toe are checked multiple times. (They are routinely tested during the season, too.)

While it’s all about having fun for the customers, for those working in the rental and repair shops at Sierra, safety comes first.