Author Laura Wetherington, part of Sierra Nevada College’s ongoing Writers in the Woods series, will read from “A Map Predetermined by Chance” on Feb. 15.

Wetherington grew up in Incline Village. She is the author of a National Poetry Series winner. She works as a professor at Sierra Nevada College in the MFA program.

The 7-9pm event reading is free. It will be at the Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences, room 139-141. Wetherington will also put on a writing workshop (free to SNC students; $50 for community members) from 9am-noon on Feb. 16. Click here to register for the workshop.

South Tahoe High School Young Women of Distinction: Morgan Kaufer, Liana Novak, Tammi Tu, and Christine Larrance.

Publisher’s note: Soroptimist International South Lake Tahoe on Feb. 13 recognized four Young Women of Distinction from South Tahoe High School. The following are comments Assistant Principal Marilyn Pawling said at the noon lunch at Harveys.

By Marilyn Pawling

Liana Novak

This young woman has had two unique experiences: She went on a Panama mission trip to help orphans, and a Japan youth exchange and stayed with a host family for six weeks. This experience earned her an award for being an ambassador for the United States. Liana Novak is an AP honor scholar, and a member of the National Honor Society, receiving an award for the National Honor Society for high school scholars.

She has participated in cross country running, Nordic skiing, and swimming. She has served on the South Tahoe Youth Commission and been president for the past two years. She is a member of Generation Green, S-Club, and is currently vice president of National Honor Society.

Influential people in her life are her family, from her grandparents who immigrated to the United States, to her parents who have pushed and encouraged her throughout her life.

In her spare time she enjoys baking, cooking, and dancing. She is a well-rounded young woman for sure.

Liana applied to schools in and out of California, but would love to go to UC Berkeley. Though no career plans are set, she is committed to excel in her major and future career.

She says, “All I hope is that I feel accomplished and happy.”

She carries a 4.33 gpa and enjoys history because she likes to learn about people’s decisions, and how their way of thinking has influenced the world.

Deb Johnston described Liana this way, “Despite her exemplary academic accomplishments, I feel that Liana Kovak’s most stellar attribute is her virtuousness. That is not a description to be taken lightly, nor is it a term that is used often. What makes Liana truly standout from her peers is her sense of righteousness — she is very true to herself and her values without waiver. I do not know how someone Liana’s age can have such a sense of purpose and compassion and selflessness, but her trip to Panama to serve is an example of such. Furthermore, I observed these qualities in my classroom everyday in her interactions with other students and with me. Liana is truly remarkable in that manner, and I am absolutely certain these qualities will assure a life of noteworthiness.”

Morgan Kaufer

Being a state volleyball champ last fall will no doubt be a highlight of her high school experience. Another highlight is being a member of S Club, serving as president last year. This has provided Morgan Kaufer with lots of opportunities for community service and she is proud that S Club has reached out globally, providing bikes to girls in third world countries who need a way to get to school, getting solar cookers to women to help keep them safe, donating to the Heifer project, and bringing the Invisible Children crew to South Tahoe High School to speak to our students. She has been in the National Honor Society and Key Club and joined ASB this year.

Morgan has a weighted 4.42 gpa, is an AP scholar, received the Violet Richardson Award, and selected for Girls State. She would love to do something to help humanity, the animal world, or the environment. She has applied to multiple colleges across the country hoping to play volleyball for them.

Besides loving volleyball, she boasts she “loves all things musical: like dancing, singing, and playing the piano.” She also enjoys being outside in beautiful Lake Tahoe: skiing in the winter; and boating, kayaking, paddle boarding, and playing beach volleyball in the summer. When asked where she sees herself in 10 years, she answered, “All I can hope for is to be happy, healthy, having fun, and surrounded by loving people and people I love. If I accomplish that, I will be successful.”

After Morgan saw a documentary on Invisible Children, an organization devoted to raise awareness about the LRA violence in central Africa, she applied and attended Fourth Estate, a four-day convention on the University of San Diego campus to learn more. She said every day was filled with so much emotion; leaving was bittersweet because she came out of the camp a whole new person.

Morgan has been influenced by her family and says, “My dad is so amazing because he has a demanding job as a firefighter, and I admire his professionalism. But at home, he has proven that you never really have to grow up: he is like a little kid and I love that about him. He is also so athletic, which is where I get my competitive drive. My mother is always instilling bits and pieces of wisdom in me, in her calm and loving way. She never fails to support me in whatever I do, keeps me healthy, and is the teacher in my life that has taught me the most valuable lessons. And lastly, my sister; I look up to her so much and we have a really close bond. She influences me because I aspire to be like her: funny, outgoing, extremely smart, driven, and always doing what is right. She is beyond amazing, and I would absolutely be nothing like the way I am without her vivacious and magnificent soul in my life.”

Janey Roeser, her S Club adviser, said of her, “Morgan is an intelligent young woman who is passionate about helping others. To this extent she has volunteered with the Invisible Children organization and brought this program to the high school so students could learn about the plight of these young children. She is determined and acts upon her beliefs to help others. Her global consciousness is to be respected and admired. Morgan is a young woman who will make a difference in our world. I look forward to seeing Morgan’s positive impact on our society and I am both thankful and grateful for all her efforts.”

Tammi Tu

Tammi Tu says her favorite subject is music because she enjoys the feeling that music brings and how it relieves a stressful day. Symphonic Band, Blue Ribbon Choir and Glee Club, which she is currently president of, keep music in her life. She is in the National Honor Society, the S Club, and Generation Green. She plays volleyball and has been in Track and Field on Varsity since 10th grade. She has participated in the Festival of Trees and Lights with the Blue Ribbon Choir, and National Honor Society for the Senior Center. She has been part of Bingo Nights, Optimist Pancake Breakfasts, Polar Express, and Community Clean-up days. Tammi was a Girls State delegate, nominated for the Rotary Youth Leadership Camp, and a Golden Star Student for El Dorado County.

This multi-talented girl plays flute, some guitar, speaks Chinese fluently, sings, and loves music, art, and photography. She also likes writing, hiking, yoga, and paddleboarding.

She has a 4.09 gpa. She hopes to attend UC San Diego, and her plans for the future are to pursue a career in acupuncture/medicine or psychology/social sciences.

The person who has influenced Tammi the most is her sister because she is the reason she continues to strive for success. She also says SHE has influenced herself because she is the reason why she doesn’t give up and always challenges herself to work hard. She says, “I am my own competition and I always want to do my personal best in order to achieve happiness within myself.”

Tammi says, “The first time I sang in front of an audience in 3rd grade, I knew that I would never want to stop singing. It helped me discover aspects about myself that I would have never thought I would obtain. Singing always makes me feel relief, happiness, serenity, excitement, and so many more feelings. It brought me out of my shell and made me the person I am today.”

Carla Zezula, her science teacher says, “Tammi Tu is a very bright, hard working student. She has very high expectations for herself; this trait runs in her family. She likes to challenge herself academically, yet manages to be involved with choir, and sports also. Tammi has a great sense of humor and she will be valued wherever she studies.”

Christine Larrance

This young woman wants to become a civil engineer. She hopes to attend San Jose State, Chico State, or Sac State to study. Christine Larrance has visions of someday working in an engineering firm to help design bridges and plan the layout of cities.

She was influenced to choose this field when her father sparked her interest while designing their house’s second floor, including introducing her to house plans. Her mother has influenced her by being so supportive throughout her academic career and inspiring her to achieve. She says that her sister is the best friend she could ever have.

Christine enjoys painting on canvas, skiing and fishing. While taking a class at South Tahoe High School with Ms. Lincoln, she has discovered a love for digital art. Christine’s niche at the high school is in the orchestra where she plays viola. She says she has had a position in the front row of the orchestra since fifth grade.

Christine says, “My favorite subject is computer aided drawing because it is a fun class that makes plotting floor plans easier.”

Her teacher Phil Williams describes her in this way, “Christine Larrance is an outstanding student and person. She has been a top student in both architectural design and computer aided drawing. Christine has an incredible eye for the details and a very clear vision of how to accomplish goals in drawing. She is truly a gifted young lady that has been blessed with a passion that is very obvious to all around her.”

Tahoe Arts Project is bringing the Utah Ballroom Dance Company to Stateline on March 1 at 7pm at the MontBleu Theater.

This company, which features some of nation’s top ballroom dancers, has performed nationally and internationally receiving numerous accolades and awards such as the coveted U.S. National Formation Championships.

Twenty of the best dancers in the industry will be here to perform numerous styles of ballroom dance including the Viennese Waltz, Swing, Tango, Cha Cha, Paso Doble, Samba, Foxtrot, Rumba, Mambo, Quickstep, Charleston and the Hustle.

Included is this special evening, six members of the community will be participating in Dancing with Your Stars – Carol Chaplin, executive director of the Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority; Joel Dameral, South Tahoe High School teacher; Wendy David, Lake Tahoe Unified School District board member; Curtis Fong, TGFT Productions-Bike the West; Deb Howard, Realtor; and Bueno Ketelsen, owner of Bert’s Café.

Similar to the popular TV show, they will be paired up with one of the professionals to learn a ballroom dance routine, complete with costumes.

Judges for the evening will be Marcia Sarosik, Pat Ronan and Paul Middlebrook. The final decision will be made by audience vote.

Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for children – (530) 542.3632.

Abby is a very playful gray and white medium hair cat who loves to rub up against everyone and everything.

She is about a year old, loves dogs and likes to play with other cats. She would be happy in a home with other pets and well behaved children.

Abby is spayed, microchipped, and vaccinated. She is at the El Dorado County Animal Services shelter in Meyers, along with many other dogs and cats who are waiting for their new homes.

Go online to see photos and description of all pets at the shelter.

Call (530) 573.7925 for directions, hours, and other information on adopting a pet.

For spay-neuter assistance for South Tahoe residents, go online.

— Karen Kuentz

By Kathryn Reed

When Rick Meyer wakes up a week from today he won’t be getting dressed for court, or even the office. And while his days as a criminal defense attorney will not be over, they will be when it comes to working for El Dorado County.

On Feb. 15, he retires as chief public defender, a position he has had since 1999. Meyer, 59, started working in the El Dorado County Office of Public Defender on Sept. 12, 1983.

Rick Meyer, El Dorado County public defender, will retire on Feb. 15. Photo/Provided

He has had his share of notorious clients through the years, pointing to the Coddington and Platz cases as two of the more memorable. Meyers described them both as challenging, and ones that consumed numerous hours.

Herbert James Coddington, who was in his 20s at the time, murdered two women at his residence in the Tahoe Verde Mobile Home Park on May 16, 1987, and kidnapped and sexually assaulted a 14-year-old and 12-year-old girl. He is sitting on death row.

In 2003, Lisa Platz was found guilty of the 2001 murder of her 9-year-old daughter, Rebbeca Aramburo. The child was found with her throat slashed inside a tent at Campground by the Lake. Platz was sentenced to life in prison. Her boyfriend James Csucsai hanged himself in jail.

“The public doesn’t always understand the intricacies of these things, how when you get these clients they are real live human beings you develop relationships with,” Meyer told Lake Tahoe News. “We are defending the constitutional rights of these people. Ninety-nine percent are good people who have done something wrong.”

While the number of residents and tourists in town has declined in the nearly 30 years Meyer has been a public defender, the caseload has remained fairly steady. A change is that in the 1980s and 1990s he said there were more drug cases than there are now.

Meyer started his professional career with a private law firm in Placerville after graduating from law school in 1978. He was recruited to join the Public Defender Office in 1983. He started off in South Lake Tahoe. When he was offered the top job in the department he said he’d take it as long as he could stay in Tahoe.

(Meyer is the only county department head based in South Lake Tahoe. When a replacement is named that person will be working out of Placerville.)

El Dorado County Superior Court Judge Suzanne Kingsbury first knew Meyer as a colleague. Meyer hired Kingsbury to work for him in the early 1990s.

“It was Rick that encouraged me to run for an open seat on the Superior Court that became available when Judge Terry Finney retired. I was not, nor am I now a political person, and the thought of running for office was abhorrent to me. I wasn’t sure that I could do it, or that it was the job for me,” Kingsbury told Lake Tahoe News. “Rick’s harping, hectoring and cajoling eventually wore me down. Those same persuasive powers have served him well during his legal career.”

Meyer, now that he is leaving and has nothing to gain by going on the record, spoke of his mutual respect for Kingsbury and the other jurists who are or have been on the local bench.

“We are very blessed in this community to have really fine judges. They all care about people and are uncommonly willing to go out of their way to do the right thing,” Meyer said.

Meyer has long been a champion for those who don’t always have a loud voice.

Beyond the courtroom, Meyer has been on the Family Resource Center board since 1999. Currently, he is president.

“He really works for the underdog. He has always been very conscious of the fact that the Latino population doesn’t get what the rest of the community gets,” Delicia Spees, executive director of the Family Resource Center said.

“I’m amazed how many times when he calls when his clients need to do community service, need a counselor. I don’t see a lot of attorneys do that. They let their secretaries do that,” Spees added.

He doesn’t just talk a good game, but is also a man of action.

Meyer with then Judge Finney was able to turn hard dirt that wasn’t being used for anything into a soccer field next to the center. This allowed the kids at the center to have a respectable play area.

While Meyer has a job that brings him into contact with people who are accused of a variety of crimes, he sees the good in most of them.

“Rick is a tireless advocate for the less fortunate members of our community. In particular, he is a champion for our Latino residents, especially the youth,” Kingsbury said. “He is not afraid to take on an unpopular cause if he believes it to be worthy. I don’t always agree with his positions, but respect what he has to say.”

Meyer will continue to work as Alpine County’s public defender. For the last two years it had been contracted out through El Dorado County, but will change next week to Meyer doing the work as a private individual on a contractual basis with Alpine.

But what Meyer really wants is to be hired full time by Lake Tahoe Community College to teach political science. He is an adjunct faculty member now. About five years ago he went back to school to obtain his master’s just for this purpose.

He also expects to be spending more time with his wife at their Echo Lake cabin, traveling and perhaps teaching abroad.

“It’s been interesting, challenging and very rewarding,” Meyer said of his time with El Dorado County. “All of us who do defense work love our work. It’s very gratifying to stand up for somebody.”

By Melinda F. Emerson, New York Times

Pretty much out in the middle of nowhere in Nevada, there is a little yarn store with a funny name, Jimmy Beans Wool. Actually, it’s in Reno, but it’s a small shop that sells a big assortment of knitting and crochet supplies and every kind of yarn you can imagine.

The store has become a fixture in Reno, but what is really amazing is that the store has annual revenue of more than $7 million, the vast majority from online sales. Some of those online buyers are so loyal to the store that they make pilgrimages to it from around the world. In fact, the store has become such a destination that its owner, Laura Zander, 38, installed a hot tub full of yarn in the warehouse to offer her customers a shared experience — and, more importantly, to create a photo opportunity. You can now find versions of these photos on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Flickr.

Laura Zander of Jimmy Beans Wool.

Here’s how Zander turned Jimmy Beans Wool into a social media phenomenon.

Zander and her husband, Doug, are former software engineers who decided to reinvent themselves after the dot-com bust of 2000. They left high-paying coding jobs in San Francisco and moved to Reno, where they thought they would start a software consulting business.

Along the way, Zander took a knitting class to relax and got hooked. “I became obsessed with knitting,” she said. “I had no idea there was so much fashion in it. When the Internet bust looked eminent we decided to turn our vacation home in Lake Tahoe into our permanent one.”

But when they tried to build their Web consulting business, they struggled to find clients. One client they did find, the owner of a hand-dyed yarn company, Lorna’s Laces, convinced Zander that she could make money opening her own yarn store and offered to be the company’s first adviser. “She lined up other yarn store owners for me to speak with to convince me it was a viable business model,” Zander said.

She decided to open a shop, and she decided to call it Jimmy Beans Wool. Zander says Jimmy refers to a much-loved character in a favorite Todd Snider song and Beans refers to coffee beans. In the beginning, along with everything you might need for knitting projects, the shop also sold gourmet coffee.

Within a year, the yarn and knitting supply sales were doing so well that Zander decided to ditch the espresso cart and focus on the yarn. But the name continues to help — unusual and memorable enough to stand out among the more than 2,000 other yarn vendors online.

It took five years for Jimmy Beans Wool to reach $1 million in sales. “The first five years in business we just focused on selling wool yarn,” Zander said. “In 2007, we started focusing on building a brand.” In particular, they studied how Tony Hsieh, chief executive of Zappos, used customer service to build sales online.

The first big step was to start posting instructional videos and product reviews on YouTube. “We wanted to position our business to answer any question our customers had about yarn and knitting, so we started doing video reviews of new products,” said Zander. “We noticed you got more space in Google search with pictures and video links.” The first Jimmy Beans Wool video went up on YouTube in June, 2008. Three months later, sales had increased 67 percent.

Today, the Jimmy Beans Wool YouTube channel has more than 1,500 videos and almost 1.5 million views. The store adds an average of two new videos every month. “Yarn is very tactile, and it’s tougher to sell it online because our customers like to have a relationship with people who they buy from,” Zander said. “We explain our products in videos as if we were talking to you in the store. We are purposefully unpolished. Our employees appear in the videos. They don’t wear makeup or have a script. They are all knitters, and they talk honestly about the products.”

Like Zappos, Jimmy Beans believes in giving its customers instant gratification. “We have a rule in our business,” Zander said. “All orders must go out in 24 hours.” The company ships 500 to 1,000 packages every day, seven days a week, and it includes free patterns on its custom shipping envelopes.

Early on, the business developed slow and steady, but its growth has been between 25 and 55 percent since 2007. It has been ranked on the Inc. 5,000 list of fastest growing private companies four years in a row.

Over the last few years, the company has introduced numerous marketing initiatives, including “Knit-A-Longs” tied to Downton Abbey and serving as the first official yarn supplier to the United States Snowboarding and Free Skiing Team. It has also created a Stitch Red campaign to raise awareness of heart disease in women and published a book called Knit Red (Sixth and Spring, June 2012) featuring designs of celebrities who knit. It even created Beans for Brains college scholarships for students who knit or crochet.

All of which may explain why its loyal customers are so eager to visit the little store in Reno, including the hot tub. Jimmy Beans Wool turns photos of its visiting customers into souvenir postcards to memorialize the trip.

Publisher’s note: This is reprinted with permission from the May 1990 Lake Tahoe Historical Society newsletter.

Lake Tahoe first appears as a small opening in the mountains labeled “mountain lake” on the Fremont-Preuss map in the expedition of 1844, only 146 years ago. It took thirty more years for mapmakers to place it accurately in California and Nevada and to show its size and shape correctly. Admittedly, Tahoe was not easy to explore in the 19th century and those who found it were sometimes engaged in activities that made the gathering of exact data difficult.

Exploration of the area was undertaken mainly to answer questions on the proper location of the boundary between California and Nevada or to lay out roads to facilitate the movement of traffic across these most difficult mountains. John “Cockeye” Johnson explored the area very early, laid out a route but did not produce a map. Asa Hawley circumnavigated the lake in 1857 with James Green and “Snowshoe Thompson”, none of them trained in mapmaking. Their knowledge did not find its way onto any map.

When it did appear on Bartlett’s map in 1854, Lake Tahoe was one hundred miles north of its proper location. George Goddard finally put it in the right place in 1857 as a result of his survey of the boundary line, but his Tahoe is the wrong shape. Henry de Groot created a map in 1860 that was closer to reality and George Bancroft’s 1863 map placed the lake in the proper place, but its shape was still fanciful. It took ten more years to show its shape properly on maps, a surprising figure considering the number of people who lived and visited in the basin or repeatedly traveled through it by 1870.

There was uncertainty about the name too, though most called it “Tahoe”, adapted from the Washo. Four different names appeared on maps and consideration was given to several others. Some were rejected because they were already in use like Sierra and Truckee. Some were fanciful, like Tula Tulia, or staid like Lake Union. People laughed at Lago Beergler, an Italianized form of Bigler, not believing that is was a serious suggestion.

It was called Lake Bigler on official documents in spite of esthetic and political opposition. The Department of the Interior listed it as Lake Tahoe beginning in 1862, recognizing the name used by residents, visitors, and local writers. By the last quarter of the 19th century, both its location and its shape were known. Mapmakers called it Lake Tahoe though politicians and journalists argued over the official name. Lake Bigler disappeared in 1945, and Lake Tahoe was finally in the right place with the right name.

By Kathryn Reed

Tracy Ross reads from “The Source of All Things” at LTCC on Feb. 7. Photo/Kathryn Reed

With raw honesty, Tracy Ross has confronted her demons in a poetic, thoughtful manner that makes listeners want more and yet has them feeling a bit voyeuristic because of that desire.

Ross was at Lake Tahoe Community College on Feb. 7 as part of the Writers’ Series. She was reading from “The Source of All Things”, which came out in 2011 and in paperback last year.

The accomplished magazine writer left her comfort zone of being a journalist to write this memoir. While the story is new to readers, it has been Ross’ reality since 1978. That’s when the abuse began. She was 8.

It was in 1985 that she first wrote a poem about what was going on. She continued writing in college.

Then Backpacker magazine paid for her to return to the Sawtooth Mountains of her youth. It was time to ask her father four questions. It was 2007 and Ross was 35 years old.

(During the talk she didn’t reveal the questions or answers, just that it took another meeting to get her dad to answer the fourth question.)

Not knowing if she wanted her story in print, her editor encouraged her to write the essay and they’d evaluate it and decide from there. It was published in Backpacker in December 2007. It won the National Magazine Award in 2009 – the highest award for a magazine writer.

And then she flushed it out to make it the book that people were lining up to buy Thursday night.

At LTCC she read three passages – interrupting each to add more detail for the more than 50 people listening.

With her forte being outdoor writing, Ross weaves in the splendor of nature in the book.

It’s a complicated tale. And she says to this day her relationship with her parents is complicated. They remained together through the strife. She still calls him dad. (Her biological dad died of an aneurysm while hiking in the Sierra. Ross was an infant at the time. Her mom remarried when Ross was 4.)

Ross says her relationship with her mom is the hardest.

“She was weak. She was so unprotective,” Ross said. “She has tried to apologize.”

Ross tried telling her mom, friends, others about the abuse and no one listened. Finally, a friend’s mom called the police. But this was the 1980s and in Idaho they didn’t know what to do with such a case. Her dad confessed to touching her once. (The abuse started when she was 8 and ended at age 14.) He had to stay away from her for a year and then the family was put back together.

Ross left. She found a boarding school in Michigan. There she reconnected with the outdoors. And finally, after college, she spent time in Alaska. That, she said, is where she was able to come to terms with what happened as a child.

But she also told the Lake Tahoe audience that hers is an evolving story. She’s married with children. And one day Ross knows her kids will read the book and that their relationship with their grandfather is bound to change.

By Deidre Wenge, Hotel Magazine

The facts are staggering. According to water.org, 780 million people around the world do not have access to clean and safe water; every 20 seconds a child dies from a water-related illness; and water, sanitation, and hygiene-related problems kill more than 3.4 million people each year.

But Karena Albers and Jennifer Willig, founders of Whole World Water, believe the hospitality and tourism industry can play a big role in solving the worldwide crisis.

Whole World Water is a campaign that asks hotels, resorts, spas, and restaurants to begin filtering, bottling, and selling their own water and donating 10 percent of the proceeds to the Whole World Water fund. The funds will be invested in approved clean and safe water projects around the world.

The Ritz-Carlton, Lake Tahoe is part of a project to conserve water. Photo/LTN file

Willig, who previously helmed RED, the organization founded by Bono and Bobby Shriver to fight AIDS in Africa, believes that the hospitality industry can come together to make a serious change.

“Hospitality and tourism is a multi-trillion dollar industry,” she says. “And if we can align, we could actually see this issue eradicated in our lifetime. It is the first time that a single industry has the potential to be united on a non-competitive platform and take action against this major global issue.”

Albers, a documentary filmmaker, explains that the idea was inspired when Sonu Shivdasani, chairman of Soneva Resorts, invited her to a symposium at Soneva Fushi in the Maldives. The focus of the symposium was to discuss how the hospitality and tourism industry could develop more sustainable business practices.

Soneva Resorts decided to ban imported bottled water from its properties a few years ago, and began to donate the proceeds from its own filtered, bottled water program to charities in 2009. Since then, Soneva Resorts has helped more than 600,000 people in 52 countries get access to either clean drinking water or basic sanitation services.

Albers explains that Whole World Water is based off of Shivdasani’s success and hopes to attract the industry at large to be a part of the campaign.

So far, Whole World Water has several hotel and resort partners including Oberoi Hotels & Resorts, Banyan Tree Hotels and Resorts, Six Senses Resorts and Spas, and Virgin Hotels. The Ritz-Carlton is also piloting the program at its Charlotte, N.C. and Lake Tahoe locations.

Willig says that the campaign is also designed to offer participating partners financial benefits and a sustainable business plan. If hotels choose to partner with Whole World Water, they can reduce carbon emissions from shipping costs associated with commercially bottled water and can cut down on waste through reusable glass bottles instead of plastic bottles. And the sale of filtered, bottled water can offer hotels a new source of revenue.

“First and foremost, this is a business-building initiative,” says Willig. “We’re estimating that serving filtered, bottled water instead of commercially bottled water can potentially build bottom lines by up to 25 percent.”

Participating hotels will need to pay a yearly licensing fee of $1,000 per property in order to help fund a multi-media marketing campaign that includes a social media platform, celebrity endorsements, global events and symposiums, and a feature-length documentary film. The fee will also allow members to access all campaign branding and materials for their own marketing and public relations efforts.

To make the implementation and transition to the campaign seamless and efficient, Whole World Water has partnered with Vivreau, a manufacturer of purified drinking water systems, to give hoteliers access to an easy turn-key filtration solution. Willig does stress that Whole World Water is not requiring hotels to use the Vivreau system, especially if they already have a filtration system in place.

The campaign will officially kick off March 22, World Water Day, and Albers says she expects it to be a big hit with not only with their hospitality partners, but with guests and consumers as well.

“The program has been very well received so far,” she says. “When a consumer understands that a percentage of the proceeds are going to address a global issue, they want to be part of that engagement.”

Deerfield Lodge in South Lake Tahoe is hosting an apres ski opening party for musician-artist Walter Alan Salas-Humara on Feb. 16 from 6-9pm.

His work will be at the lodge on Ski Run Boulevard Feb. 16-March 16.

Walter Alan Salas-Humara

In 1987, Salas-Humara’s rock band, The Silos, was voted Best New American Band in the Rolling Stone Critics Poll. During the past 25 years they have recorded 12 albums.

Salas-Humara began painting as a teen. His works are featured in the Universal Pictures release “Get Him To The Greek”. Salas-Humara founded the WaltersDogs Company in 2005.

The Deerfield Lodge is at 1200 Ski Run Blvd., South Lake Tahoe. For more information, email ropels@hotmail.com.