By Mark Anderson, Sacramento Business Journal

The El Dorado Lake Tahoe Film & Media Office is hosting its annual film industry mixer, and this year the featured speaker is a local resident and Hollywood veteran who worked on “The Artist”, the film that won the Best Picture academy award last month.

The I Love Film mixer is from 4 to 8pm on March 16 at the El Dorado County Fair Grounds in Placerville.

Admission is free and open to the public, said Kathleen Dodge, El Dorado County film commissioner.

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By Kathryn Reed

Before the book drive officially started, the initial goal of 250 books was met. Now organizers want to double or triple that number by the end of the month.

With April being National School Library Month, one of the six Leadership Lake Tahoe groups decided to focus on literacy on the South Shore. The goal is to collect new and used books this month that will then be redistributed next month to ages newborn to 16.

Local nonprofits and the libraries are likely beneficiaries.

Look for these boxes on the South Shore to drop books for ages zero-16. Photo/Provided

“We’re not focused on low income families. We are just trying to hit as many people as possible,” Peter Lavallee, one of the team members, told Lake Tahoe News. “We didn’t look into any background data as to whether there was a specific need for children’s books in the community. But the way technology is going, even with e-readers, people are getting away from hard copy books. We think getting books into children’s hands is a good way to go.”

The two chambers of commerce on the South Shore that eventually became Lake Tahoe South Shore Chamber of Commerce created Leadership Lake Tahoe in 2003. Now the classes are broken into groups, with each one having to do a project.

The Children’s Book Drive Team members are: David Landry (Tahoe Regional Planning Agency), Lavallee (South Tahoe Public Utility District), Nick Exline (Midkiff and Associates), Shelly Stalter (Barton Health) and Darcie Carpenter (Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics).

Books will be collected at: South Lake Tahoe branch library, what was known as the women’s center, Choices for Children, El Dorado County Superior Court in South Tahoe, Tahoe Turning Point, Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, Heavenly Mountain Resort Human Resources Department, Round Hill General Improvement District, Kahle Community Center, and Barton Memorial Hospital.

The group is connecting with people through its Facebook page, where more information can be found, or email Groupfor2012@gmail.com.

UC Davis’s Tahoe Environmental Research Center in partnership with Lake Tahoe School and Tahoe Expedition Academy will host the seventh annual Science Expo this month.

The Science Expo features interactive experiments and demonstrations for children ages 6 to 12 and their families.

The Science Expo is open to the general public on March 14 from 4–6pm at the Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences in Incline Village. Ice cream will be provided by Susie Scoops of Incline Village. Admission is free.

The 2012 Science Expo will showcase 20 hands-on exhibits, activities and demonstrations emphasizing Life Science concepts including:

Different forms of life

Microorganisms

Nano-, micro- and macro-scales of life

DNA

Plankton

Fish of Lake Tahoe

Metamorphosis

Photosynthesis

Pollen, seeds and plants

And much more.

Last year, nearly 700 people, students and parents, came through the Science Expo event. The event is hosted annually on a three-year cycle with emphasis on Life Science (2012), Physical Science (2013) and Earth Science (2014).

This year, students from Kings Beach, Incline Village, Tahoe City, Truckee and South Lake Tahoe will be attending during the school days of March 12-15.

The Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences is located at 291 Country Club Drive in Incline Village.

For more information, call (775) 881.7566.

Truckee Elementary is going green. Designated as the flagship school to lead the greening of the Tahoe Truckee Unified School District, the students and staff of Truckee Elementary will be pioneering a path toward an environmentally sustainable future for the entire district.

During the next few years, Truckee Elementary will undergo a green transformation: in the building, in the classrooms, and ultimately, in the minds and hearts of its students. School operations will employ sensible, sustainable practices to reduce carbon footprint and waste. The teaching staff will inject environmental science and responsibility into educational programs.

In 2011, key pieces started falling into place. The PTO and TTUSD began tossing around ideas to improve the school’s sustainability and reduce consumption. What was missing was the means. Enter the Shane McConkey Foundation.

In September, the McConkey Foundation granted $20,000 to the TTUSD for the purpose of putting its schools on a path toward sustainability and environmental responsibility.

Inspired by the McConkey Foundation’s mission and grant, the Truckee Elementary PTO stepped up, offering to match the Foundation’s grant to the school, dollar for dollar.

The linchpin in bringing green practices and environmental education to the school’s students is SWEP, the Sierra Watershed Education Partnerships, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting environmental stewardship in the region’s students.

SWEP established the school’s Green Team, currently comprised of 27 eager Truckee Elementary fifth-graders, supported and mentored by motivated, environmentally-conscious Truckee High School Envirolution Club student volunteers.

With help from SWEP, the TTUSD and the PTO, Truckee Elementary teachers will be latching on to a wide range of pilot programs designed to integrate environmental awareness and build on the base curriculum. Students will take math and science principles learned in the classroom and apply them in the cafeteria, in the school’s gardens and in nearby forests and watersheds. They’ll be applying book and chalkboard learning to environmental reality when attending the school’s existing Sagehen Creek field-study program (run in conjunction with UC Berkeley).

Tahoe Production House is having a casting call for a five episode web series to be aired in Lake Tahoe, Carson City, Reno, Sacramento, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

This is a comedic love story. The webisode has been sold to major distributors. It will shot HD and distributed worldwide.

The plot: a city couple comes to Tahoe for a vacation, get engaged, then the episodes follow the comedy that goes along with planning the big event. Photography will be begin this spring.

Non-union actors with theater background and other experience are encouraged to submit a headshot and resume to info@tahoeproductionhouse.com as soon as possible.

The male and female characters are between the ages of 25 and 35.

The North Lake Tahoe Chamber of Commerce and the Truckee Donner Chamber of Commerce in partnership with the Sierra Human Resources Association are offering “Time Management for Busy People: Getting Things Done in 2012” on March 13 from 9am to noon.

Registration begins at 8:30am at Cedar House Sport Hotel, 10918 Brockway Road in Truckee.

Attendees will learn how to identify timewasters and the reasons why they procrastinate, explore the reality of the demands of their jobs, discover if they are addicted to urgency, get perspective on what matters most in their lives, prioritize what is important and what is urgent, uncover their prime real estate, as well as become skillful in the 50 high-impact tips to beat the clock and time management tools.

The workshop will be lead by Laura Moriarty, president of the SHRA and co-founder of Tahoe Training Partners, which is a human resources and management-training solutions consulting firm located near Lake Tahoe, California.

Registration is $49 for chamber of commerce and SHRA members and $59 for non-members if registered before March 12. Last-minute registration runs $59 for chamber and SHRA members and $69 for non-members. Seating is limited.

To register and for more information, call Moriarty at (530) 573.0224.

Publisher’s note: This is reprinted from the January-February 1989 Lake Tahoe Historical Society Newsletter.

From the beginning, John A. Thompson was the stuff of which legends are made. Tall, rangy and taciturn, he had come to America from Norway as a boy. When the mountain passes of the Sierra were closed by snow, both California and the Carson Valley were cut off from the rest of the country, isolated from news, supplies and mail. Thompson, to whom snow was a playground not an obstacle, made a pair of Norwegian snowshoes from a downed oak tree on his farm. His “snowshoes” were 10 foot long flat boards, 4 inches wide, weighing 25 pounds. He could travel faster than anyone on conventional snowshoes.

In 1857, he began carrying mail and supplies from Placerville to the Carson Valley. It took 3 days on the eastward trip and took 2 days coming back. He carried no blankets or pistols because of their weight but he found ways to keep warm, to protect himself and sleep a little on each trek. It was the birth of a legend as well as the ski industry. Snowshoe would be amazed.

With two teams of horses and two sleighs, he also met loaded freight wagons at the snow line and took their goods across the mountains on his sleighs.

By the time he returned from his first trip, he was not only in business he was on the way to becoming a living symbol of the hardy, strong individual admired by American. In February of 1857, Hutchings’ California Magazine carried his story and the most famous and often reprinted sketch of him. His name and exploits became known throughout the country and gave an added dimension to the character of the west.

He continued his winter crossing of the Sierra for twenty years but, in spite of weeks spent in Washington D.C. in 1874, Congress never paid him more than a pittance for carrying the U.S. mail for 20 years!

At the age of 49, John Thompson died in 1876. He remains a symbol of the Sierra, of rugged westerners and of many tales illustrating it.

Adriana is a special little kitten. She is very friendly and energetic, and wants to be around people and other cats as much as possible.

She has very pretty blue-gray fur, and is quite playful. You would never know that Adriana is blind based on the way she gets around and likes to explore. She has been blind from birth.

She will make a very nice pet in a home where only minor accommodations are needed.

Adriana 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 to Pet Finder to see photos and descriptions 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

El Dorado County this month began the Best Rx Savings Program for all county residents, as well as residents of the Sacramento region.

By using the free card, residents will be able to save up to 75 percent off generic medications, with overall average savings more than 40 percent across brand and generic medications combined.

No personal information is required to obtain the card. Tear-off brochures featuring two ready-to-use El Dorado Best Rx Savings Cards are being available at various locations throughout the county.

Residents can also print an El Dorado Best Rx Savings Card by going online or calling 877.684.0032.

El Dorado Best Rx Savings Cards are already available at county offices including Health & Human Services Agency offices (public health, senior centers), veteran services, and library branches.

No tax dollars are used to make the El Dorado Best Rx Savings Card available. A public-private partnership between El Dorado County and Envision Pharmaceutical Services makes the discounts possible.

Will Richardson of the Tahoe Institute for Natural Science will speak about Winter Wildlife Survival: Strategies for the Tahoe Basin on March 8.

The 7pm event at Emerald Bay Physical Therapy is sponsored by the Tahoe Area Sierra Club.

Have you ever wondered what Tahoe’s animals do for the winter? Do Tahoe’s bears really hibernate? Exactly what is hibernation, anyway? Where do the frogs go? What about the birds, squirrels, and insects?

This talk will present an overview of the strategies used by Tahoe wildlife for enduring long Sierra Nevada winters, and highlight many fascinating examples of how these strategies are employed.

Emerald Bay Physical Therapy is at 812 Emerald Bay Road, South Lake Tahoe.