Award winning bronze artist June Towill Brown of J.T. Brown Sculptures will present an educational tour of her sculpting career that “started over a glass of wine” during the North Tahoe Women’s Club monthly meeting on May 16.

Women who live in the Reno/Lake Tahoe region are welcome to attend this luncheon at the Incline Village Community Hospital’s Community Meeting Room.

Tickets are $17 and the price includes a catered lunch and presentation.

The event starts at noon and generally concludes about 1:30pm. Seating is limited and advance reservations are suggested by May 12; contact Florine Kubel at (775) 831.9235.

It was standing room only for the inaugural book launch for Bona Fide Books, the only small press operating on the South Shore.

The Meyers-base publishing house came out with “Permanent Vacation” on May 4. It’s a collection of 20 stories from people who have worked in a national park in the West. Publisher Kim Wyatt whittled the 200 submissions to 20 that stretch from Alaska to the California.

Publisher Kim Wyatt speaks about "Permanent Vacation" at LTCC May 4. Photo/Kathryn Reed

With more than 70 people, some who had to stand, it was a night about writers, about literature, about the written word. The May 4 event was part of the Writers Series at Lake Tahoe Community College.

Two of the authors read passages from their entries. Janet Smith, an instructor at LTCC, captured that teenage angst and wanderlust spirit that led her to be a maid at Yosemite National Park at age 18.

Tahoe City’s Joseph Flannery makes Tahoe’s black bears seem like house pets compared to the grizzlies he encountered while working in Yellowstone National Park.

Wyatt, publisher of Bona Fide, said her goal is to publish three to five books a year, offer classes through the Tahoe Center for Writers, and to create a literary center for the Lake Tahoe Basin.

— Kathryn Reed

The second annual Lake Tahoe Basin Wildfire Wildfire Summit is June 24 from 9am to 4pm at Granlibakken Resort in Tahoe City.

The goal of the summit is to provide information and tools to assist residents to reduce wildfire risks to their homes and communities in the Tahoe basin and to develop recommendations for each Tahoe basin fire district on reducing wildfire risk in those communities.

The event will include several overview presentations on wildfire history in Tahoe and informational sessions on reducing the vulnerability of the built environment, wildfire behavior and effectiveness of fuels treatments at reducing wildfire severity in the Tahoe Basin. Participants will choose between available field trips including a walking tour of nearby community to view home construction, a walking tour of thinning project at Granlibakken resort, or a driving tour to the Washoe Fire.

The event will conclude with an interactive session for participants to identify reasons that members of their communities do not implement defensible space and brainstorming with their fire district staff on how to overcome these barriers. An optional “ask an expert” session and no-host bar will be at the end of the day.

Anyone interested in learning about wildfire issues in the Tahoe basin including residents and homeowners, staff and decision makers with state, local, federal and tribal agencies concerned with defensible space, emergency preparedness and forest management is invited to attend.

Registration is free, but required and limited to the first 150 people.

For more information, contact Susie Kocher at (530) 542. 2571 or sdkocher@ucdavis.edu..

A renaissance of sorts is being celebrated at Ski Run Marina this weekend.

Ski Run Marina Art Galleries are bringing an eclectic collection of art to the South Shore.

This area in the center of South Lake Tahoe is billing itself as the heart of the South Shore. It now features exclusive galleries, a community art gallery, interactive art, guest art shows, Wednesday evening wine tasting and more community events in the future.

The grand opening May 7 includes an art show by South Tahoe and Whittell high school students. A silent auction and raffle hosted by the Ski Run Marina Merchants will benefit the art departments at both schools.

Music students from South Tahoe High will perform Saturday afternoon.

There will be interactive art demonstrations in the courtyard, face painting for the kids and complementary hors d’oeuvres in the galleries.

The festivities will carry over into Mother’s Day.

The Lake Tahoe Community College Theatre Arts Department will be presenting a special theatrical performance to commemorate the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

There will also be special events connected to the performance to honor the victims and heroes of 9/11.

The performance will be a collection of monologues from “With Their Eyes” and “The Guys.” As this will be presented as a staged reading, rehearsals will be flexible.

Participants must be available the weeks Aug. 29 through Sept. 11. Rehearsal days and times TBA.

Auditions will be May 7 at 11am in the Duke Theatre, or by appointment by calling (530) 541.4660, ext. 240. Casting a variety of men and women from high school age to 65-plus. Audition sides will be available at the Theatre Department callboard prior to auditions.

TastyPlacement, which has a satellite office in South Lake Tahoe, released its first book, “WordPress 3.0 Search Engine Optimization” through IT publisher, Packt Publishing.

The book is authored by its founder and president, Michael David.

“WordPress 3.0 Search Engine Optimization” is a complete guide to optimizing a website or blog on the WordPress content management web platform for high performance in search engines. The book also teaches advanced social media and local marketing techniques.

This book is written for anyone building or publishing a website with WordPress, ranging from owners of business sites to website developers and blog owners. Any WordPress user who wants to sell products or services, or send out a message to the world will find that getting better rankings in the search engines will help them reach their goal faster.

The book is available through online retailers, local bookstores, and through PacktPub.com.

MontBleu goes comedic when “Saturday Night Live” funny man Seth Meyers takes the stage May 28 in Stateline.

A member of the “SNL” staff for the past nine years, Meyers is the show’s head writer, but is probably best known as the co-anchor of the “Weekend Update” segment and the other half of Tina Fey’s parodies of Sara Palin, with Meyers composing some of the sketches’ most memorable lines.

Meyers is also well-known for his impressions of Russell Crowe, Richard Dawson, Hugh Grant, Tobey Maquire and Ewan McGregor.

Tickets are $30/$40, plus fees.

Doors open at 8pm; show at 9pm.

By Tia Rancourt

North Lake Tahoe Fire Protection District will be celebrating National Emergency Medical Services Week throughout May. Celebrated nationally during the week of May 15-21, this special week acknowledges the outstanding services performed by our first responders nationwide.

This 38th annual event brings together local communities and medical personnel to publicize safety and honor those that serve on the front line, providing day to day life-saving services for those in need.

This years theme “Everyday Heroes” recognizes the commitment that emergency medical personnel make to the communities they serve.

“Part of our Fire District’s mission of protecting life and property, includes providing round-the-clock care for our community. This is something we take very seriously,” said Fire Chief Mike Brown. “Our partnerships with local and regional medical facilities and law enforcement are an integral piece to the end result of quality patient care.”

Throughout May, the fire district will be hosting a number of education opportunities in collaboration with our several of our community partners, including Incline Village Community Hospital, Incline Village Parks & Recreation Senior Programs, American Heart Association, Red Cross and Sierra Nevada College. On May 18, there will be a Community Health & Wellness event at the Incline Village Community Hospital starting at 4:30pm. There will be a panel of guest speakers talking about health, wellness, injury prevention and more. Appetizers and salads will be served. Please come socialize and take advantage of this wonderful opportunity to learn from our local professionals.

The fire district will be hosting ambulance tours at the schools, and educating children about the Emergency Medical System, how to recognize a medical emergency and the importance of dialing 911 in case of a medical emergency.

In conjunction with EMS Week, the fire district will be promoting Hands-Only CPR campaign to increase awareness of and confidence in giving hands-only CPR. Hands-only CPR is a two-step technique that involves calling 911 and pushing hard and fast in the center of the chest until help arrives.

A survey conducted by the American Heart Association reveals that hands-only CPR can be just as effective as traditional CPR (increase from 53 percent to 63 percent), anyone can do hands-only CPR (up from 52 percent to 58 percent), and people were very likely or extremely likely to perform hands-only CPR in an emergency (from 39 percent to 44 percent).

Tia Rancourt is the community safety and education specialist with NLTFD.

U.S. Forest Service fuels management crews will continue prescribed fire operations on Kingsbury Grade near North Benjamin through May 8.

Crews expect to treat 5 to 10 acres per day, weather permitting.

Residents and visitors can expect to see smoke from prescribed fire project areas. 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.

By Peter Hecht, Sacramento Bee

Dr. Marion P. “Mollie” Fry packs for federal prison in her red “Marijuana Medic” T-shirt.

She is an activist who wears her cause, who clutches a medical cross with a cannabis leaf, who points animatedly at her chest hollowed by radical breast cancer surgery. Her emotional account has stirred rallies demanding acceptance for the “medicine” that alleviated her suffering.

Now, in a widely followed saga, Fry, 54, and her husband, Dale Schafer, 56, are to surrender Monday to serve five years in federal prison for conspiring to produce and distribute marijuana.

They are headed to prison after spurning a plea deal that would have spared Fry any time behind bars and given her husband 1 1/2 years. They are losing their freedom, said federal Judge Frank Damrell, due to their own “self-aggrandizement” as “missionaries for marijuana” that left them feeling impervious to the law.

To California medical marijuana advocates, Fry and Schafer are martyrs for the cause. They portray the El Dorado County couple, a physician who recommended pot and an attorney who counseled patients on marijuana law, as compassionate servants who believed in the healing properties of cannabis.

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