Returning this month to the Tahoe Gallery, located on the third floor of SNC’s Prim Library, is accomplished tapestry and weaving artist Antonia Lowden.

According to Lowden, her act of weaving necessitates, “a different kind of attitude and a mode that requires you [to] express an idea….” By doing so, she has elevated her large-scale tapestries — which often reveal themselves more like paintings or sculptures — beyond a common “craft” to a well-received art form. A 2001 recipient of the Governor’s Arts Award for Service to the Arts, Lowden and her work are deeply woven into the fabric of northern Nevada’s art community.

Having founded Artouring (now Reno Open Studios) in 1999, a non-profit community program which offers a behind-the-scenes look at local artists’ in-home studios, Lowden ensures artists in the Reno-Tahoe-Virginia City area remain in the foreground of the art scene. Her long association with Reno’s Nevada Museum of Art as curatorial assistant, Museum School educator, and Board of Trustees member, as well as her dedication and service to the Nevada Opera confirm Lowden’s genuine status as a true champion of the arts in the state of Nevada.

“Sticks and Stones” runs through Oct. 15. On Oct. 7, Lowden will give a lecture on her work at 5:15pm in the Prim Library, room 320. The Gallery will host an opening reception that evening from 5-7pm. The public is invited to attend both of these free events; light refreshments will be provided.

Gallery hours are Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm. For more information, contact Tahoe Gallery Coordinator Ashley Aguilar at (775) 831.1314 or aaguilar@sierranevada.edu.

By Peter Hecht, Sacramento Bee

SANTA CRUZ – By his count, Don Ivey, 56, should have been dead six times by now.

The artisan and former competitive in-line skater survived both a stabbing and a scuba diving accident as a young man. Fifteen years ago, he was diagnosed with AIDS and hepatitis C. Five years ago, he crashed a motorcycle, landing facedown, partially paralyzed, in an ocean bay.

Recently, just 30 days removed from his second emergency room visit for internal bleeding and vomiting blood, Ivey walked up a terraced marijuana garden that is a medicinal and spiritual refuge for the sick, injured and dying.

Rising above rows of English lavender and shielded by a crescent-shaped ridge in the Santa Cruz Mountains, the pot garden for the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana is an icon in the history of the California marijuana movement.

The garden survives despite a 2002 raid – and seizure of the crop – by heavily armed federal agents. It thrives amid an aura of death, as members reap the harvest while grieving for those who succumb to terminal illnesses.

Read the whole story

South Lake Tahoe is like any other community. Drugs are a part of the equation. They are accessible to kids — sometimes in their home. Teaching youth the facts about drugs with the bigger picture focusing on making healthy choices is key to providing them with what they need to make healthy decisions.

This is what Drug Store Project is all about.

The daylong program is about preventing youth from experimenting with drugs, learning their actions have consequences, and providing families with resources.

Emergency room scene of Drug Store Project. Photo/Provided

Now in its eighth year, the Drug Store Project will be March 29 at Lake Tahoe Community College.

The event’s coordinating agency, Tahoe Youth & Family Services, in cooperation with 40 other agencies, and 160 volunteers, will educate sixth-graders in Lake Tahoe Unified School District, Zephyr Cove Elementary, St. Theresa, and Diamond Valley schools for a day about the consequences of drug use.

The daylong program places an emphasis on the health, legal, and social aspects of substance use and abuse.

Cash donations and volunteers are needed. For more information, contact Lisa Huard, program coordinator, at lhuard@ymail.com or (530) 318.5356.

By Sean Collins Walsh, Reno Gazette-Journal

Warning: Smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and an annual $2.6 billion drain on the Nevada economy.

At least, that’s what researchers found in a recent American Lung Association study, “Smoking Cessation: the Economic Benefits.”

Health economics and administration experts at Penn State University performed cost-benefit analyses for government spending on smoking cessation, programs aimed at getting people to quit, according to a Tuesday news release.

They came to the $2.6 billion total for Nevada by adding the cost of direct medical expenditures on smoking-related disease, more than $860 million; workplace productivity loss from smoking, more than $685 million; and the cost of many smokers’ premature deaths, more than $1 billion.

Smoking costs the entire country $301 billion per year, according to the same calculation.

Read the whole story

By Liz Benston, Las Vegas Sun

In a darkened conference room at the Tuscany, a group of casino surveillance managers lean forward in their chairs for a closer look at video footage of a man strapping a metal device to his left wrist and concealing it in his jacket sleeve. Caught red-handed by the casino, he is now demonstrating his crime to police.

“Now, watch this,” says Bill Zender, a security consultant who teaches casinos how to spot gambling cheats.

The man in the video takes the two cards he is dealt in a baccarat game and holds them up to the camera with his left hand, lowers his hand for a second, then holds up both cards again. One is a new, more favorable card that he has slipped out of its hiding place in the metal device as the less favorable card took its place.

The man glances nervously about the nondescript room, far from the glitz and glitter of the casino floor. Caught by a Cambodian casino, he is being asked to demonstrate his crime for the benefit of police. Behind him, a soldier in uniform holds a machine gun — foreshadowing the man’s uncertain future in a less forgiving culture for criminals.

Another part of the film shows the man’s stash spread atop his hotel bed: card-switching equipment, cards from multiple casinos and designer watches to bribe casino managers and other employees.

Read the whole story

Publisher’s note: This is from the April 1973 Lake Tahoe Historical Society newsletter.

By Marie Walsh, Lake Tahoe Historical Society

Glenbrook, that picturesque little community on the Nevada shore of Lake Tahoe, had its colorful past described to an overflow audience at the Feb. 28 meeting of the Lake Tahoe Historical Society.

Program guest for the evening was Bill Bliss, present owner of Glenbrook Inn and Resort, and fourth generation member of Tahoe’s’ legendary Bliss family.

Lake Tahoe Historical Society

Bliss is the great-grandson of Duane L. Bliss, “Grand Old Man of Tahoe,” whose interest included a lumbering empire, hotels, streamers, railroads and real estate.

An eventful year for Glenbrook and the entire Tahoe Basin was 1872, for that was the year that Bliss, in partnership with Yerington and Mills, entered into the lumber business. They formed the Carson and Tahoe Lumber and Fluming Company with Bliss as president and general manager, and purchased land and a sawmill from Capt. Augustus Pray [who had first settled Glenbrook back in 1861], as well as the Glenbrook House-Hotel, Summit Mill and Fluming Co., and other mills and properties in the area.

In 1875, Bliss and Yerington completed a monumental construction project, the unbelievably steep Lake Tahoe Railroad – a narrow-gauge line to carry lumber and cordwood from Glenbrook up to Spooner Summit, from where it was sent down water-sluiced flumes to Carson City, and then on to the Mines at Virginia City via the V and T.

The railroad was 8¾ miles in length, and consisted of 10 trestles and 2 switchbacks, one of them on a dead-end trestle which extended out over Lake Tahoe. The line climbed an average of 130’ per mile and after reaching Spooner Meadow from the northwest, followed closely the route of present-day Hwy. 28 to Spooner Junction and Hwy. 50 to the summit. A 270 foot tunnel bore took the racks thru the final ridge to the top [portions of the old roadbed and tunnel are still viable].

The main flume of the Carson and Tahoe Lumber and Fluming Company, running form Spooner Summit to Carson City, was 13 miles long, and could handle 500,0000 board feet of lumber per day! Portions of this, too, can still be seen.

As forests along Tahoe’s east shore were depleted [everything in sight was logged!] virgin timber on the west shore began being felled. Once into the water, the cut logs were chained into huge V-booms and then towed by company operated steamers [Meteor, Emerald I, Emerald II] across the lake to the Glenbrook mills.

Such exploitation of the Basin’s timber reserves soon took its toll by denuding the forest and by 1896 large-scale logging had virtually ceased.

The curtain was now rising on Tahoe’s fabulous resort era. And the Bliss family, observing the change in times, began moving its scope of operations over to the California side of the lake.

They formed the Lake Tahoe Railway and Transportation Company and purchased from the parent firm, the steamers “Meteor” and “Emerald I.” From Lucky Baldwin, they purchased the steamer “Tallac,” renaming it the “Nevada.” And in 1896 they built the 169-foot “Queen of the Lake,” the “Tahoe.”

In addition, they bought out both the Glenbrook and [Meyers-to-Bijou] Lake Valley Railroads, tearing up the rails and moving them [along with all the buildings and equipment they would need for their new operation] across the lake to Tahoe City.

Their new railroad, excursion in nature and featuring an open-air observation car and opulent parlor car, ran from Tahoe City 13 miles down the Truckee River Canyon to Truckee, where it met with the Central Pacific out of San Francisco.

In 1901, the same year their railroad was completed the Bliss family built world-famous Tahoe Tavern at Tahoe City. From the Tavern’s eighth-of-a-mile-long trestle pier which extended out over Lake Tahoe, passengers, mail and freight destined for ports of call around the lake were transferred to the company owned steamers “Tahoe” or “Nevada,” now providing mail and excursion service on an uninterrupted year-round schedule.

Meanwhile, over at Glenbrook the sons of Duane L. Bills built the present hotel and resort complex using some of the old houses and mill buildings. The year was 1906.

“Innkeeping was not a new thing when the resort complex went in,” said Bliss. “As far back as the 1860’s, Glenbrook House [a 2½ story wayside inn that fronted directly on the Lake Bigler Toll Road, the main artery of travel between Friday’s Station at the base of the Kingsbury Grade, and Carson City] catered to such distinguished patrons as Presidents Rutherford B. Hayes and Ulysses S. Grant, General William Tecumseh Sherman, Mark Twain and John Muir.”

“Perhaps the one question that is most asked of me,” said Bliss, “is why my grandfather [William Seth Bliss] sunk the Tahoe.” The “Tahoe” had been the Bliss family’s most famous steamer, and from 1896-1934 had carried up to 200 passengers, plus the mail and supplies to different ports around the lake [until the coming of improved highways in the late 1920’s].

“It was truly out of sentiment,” Bliss said. “Grandfather didn’t own the boat at the time and it was just sitting in a dry dock up at Tahoe City in a state of disrepair and being vandalized. Since it as fashionable to sell steel scraps to Japan in 1940, grandfather bought the hull [and later the hulls of the “Nevada” and the “Meteor”] for practically nothing. He then had her towed back across the lake to Glenbrook Bay, and in August of 1940 he sentimentally sunk her in the lake she had crossed and circled thousands of times in nearly half-a-century of operation.”

“The Nevada and the Meteor [which also met with identical fates] have never been located, but the Tahoe has been in approximately 370’ of water half-a-mile off Glenbrook pier. There have been parties interested in raising the Tahoe, but it appears it would just be too costly.”

“Ever wonder how Levi Straus, the famous jeans-maker, came up with his idea for the ever-popular levis?” asked Bliss.

“Legend has it that levis date back to the days when Hank Monk, pioneer stage driver along Tahoe’s Bonanza Road, often had Straus for a passenger. And Straus, taking notice that his driver wore a corduroy outfit, patched in spots with harness rivets, simply took up from there!”

Today, the historic little community of Glenbrook looks with pride upon its present role as a modern community with remarkably scenic grandeur, fine homes, sandy beaches, a public golf course, and a renowned resort complex – all situated near the Bliss family’s graceful old home, still standing in a peaceful setting of meadows, gardens and treeshaded lawns.

By Kathryn Reed

STATELINE — No wonder Lakeside Inn is a favorite with locals. Good food, excellent prices, fun dealers, great guest service. And no wonder tourists and locals like to stay there. Reasonable room rates, spacious hot tub, outdoor pool that isn’t visible from the highway, walking distance to lots of things.

Having never stayed at the hotel-casino, I didn’t know what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised.

Fries, beer and the Giants -- two out of three were good that night. Photos/Kathryn Reed

For starters, as a non-smoker it was so nice to walk into what’s called the Edgewood Lodge and not smell smoke on either of the two floors. I didn’t even know the lodging buildings existed because I’d only been to the main casino and Latin Soul.

Wow – was my initial reaction walking into the room – because of the balloons with a note wishing me happy birthday. Anytime the folks operating the inn know a special occasion is the reason for the overnight stay, something special like this is done for the guest.

It was that added little touch that started last weekend off right.

We had one of the suites – providing ample room for birthday gifts, to set up a makeshift office and to feel like we had a home away from home for a weekend.

What got me interested in staying at the Lakeside is getting an email saying they had a deal for me with September being my birthday month. Oh my. They know how to treat a girl right. (OK, everyone who gets older gets special treatment.) Lodging discounts, a free meal, free drink, buy-in deal on poker, match play at other tables, a T-shirt and free coffee are part of the deal.

Walking around

It was time to explore the other side of town. Being typical locals, we tend to hang out in our neck of the woods near the Y.

We decided to go check out Heavenly Village since it had been a while and we’d heard good things about the Stateline Brewery.

Sitting in the seasonal outdoor area, we had a beer. (Be sure to go during happy hour.) A group of guys probably in their 30s were in town to do a little bonding while their wives and children were at home.

People drifted in and out of the shops. It was good not to see too many vacancies. Others were attempting to sink the colored ball in one of the putt-putt golf holes.

I keep trying to be a believer in villages. And still, not a single one in California has won me over. Explore Tahoe and the Heavenly gondola are definite reasons to visit this village.

Walking back, we were going east with traffic along Highway 50. Not a great idea. No sidewalk past MontBleu made me think I was in South Lake Tahoe.

The next morning we walked to Rabe Meadow to Nevada Beach. All along the way we picked up trash as part of Coastal Cleanup Day. It’s nice having this acreage so close for people who want to get outdoors.

Food, glorious, food

Friday night’s dinner came with a sunset view of Lake Tahoe atop Kingsbury Grade at the Chart House. Yes, a vegetarian at a steakhouse. But have you seen this view? The $15.99 all you can eat salad bar is a treat in itself. I skipped the caviar, but I don’t know of another salad bar in the region that has the offerings this one has.

Sue was delighted with her $28.99 filet mignon.

Skip the fried asparagus. “Jumbo spears, topped with fresh tomatoes and blue cheese butter” sounds better than what was delivered.

Richard was a superb waiter and could show a thing or two about what guest service is all about to his brethren in other South Shore eateries.

As a little twist, the top of my menu said, “Welcome to the Lake Tahoe Chart House – Happy Birthday Kae!” The other birthday people around us thought this was a pretty cool way to start the night. And we could all take the menus home as a souvenir.

Definitely save room for the Hot Chocolate Lava Cake ($9.99). The only place I’ve been that does this type of dessert better is The Beach House in Kauai.

The next night we stayed in at the Lakeside, choosing to try Latin Soul again. We had been there shortly after it opened. The biggest complaint then was smelling smoke from the nearby sportsbook. Whatever they did to the ventilation system worked.

We should have shared an entrée – the portions are that big. Sue indulged in a chicken enchilada, while I had a burrito. Vincente said they could put portabella mushrooms in it instead of meat. Yummy!

Two entrees and two beers came to about $25.

The morning we left we chose to eat at Lakeside’s other restaurant – Timber House. We had spent a little time in the bar the night before – watching the Giants lose. It was hopping then and it was hopping mid-morning.

The wait staff said locals are the ones who are usually at the tables eating.

Sue chose breakfast – an omelet she would order again; and I went with a veggie sandwich that I would gladly have again. Two meals and two bloody Mary’s cost us another $25.

Chilling at Lakeside

After doing our volunteer work on my birthday, it was time to relax. The pool at Lakeside is inviting. It’s heated through September. With the outside temperature in the 80s, I was happy to bake in the lounge chair and catch up on some reading.

The night before we had met a couple women on a girls’ weekend away from home in Reno. They had left husbands and children behind to enjoy Tahoe and the Genoa Candy Dance.

An oversized tub with jets was a perfect place to land one night. The bath salts are a great touch.

With televisions in the main room and the bedroom, it means not having to watch the same thing if you don’t want to. A mini kitchen allows for refrigerating items and heating things up in the microwave.

With the property turning 25 years old in May, it looks a bit dated. But the rooms and property are clean, the guest service impeccable, the food delicious.

It’s a bit of that old Tahoe funky that some of us love and hope stays around to keep the South Shore from being something it will never be and yet so many want it to be – upscale and soulless.

Lakeside does want to make improvements. I just hope in doing so it doesn’t lose its character and the reasons why locals fill the tables, bars, restaurants, and hotel rooms.

Talking to employees they said Sept. 24 was one of the best days of the summer tourism season. The confluence of Street Vibrations (there were a lot of bikes in the parking lot), Lake Tahoe Marathon, events in Carson Valley and fall being the best season in the basin apparently made for a profitable weekend.

It was profitable for me on my birthday. Sit at Diana’s table next time you want to play blackjack. I like turning $20 into $200. It’s probably a good thing I only gamble every few years because I know this kind of luck doesn’t hold. After all, when I lived in Vegas I cashed a paycheck once and lost the whole thing. But that’s another story.

The story I’m sticking with for now is the Lakeside is a great escape – all six miles from home. I know I’ll be back to the restaurants before I get next year’s birthday coupons.

For more information:

Website

Telephone: 800.624.7980

Address: 168 Highway 50, Stateline

ngg_shortcode_0_placeholder (Click on photos to enlarge.)

Forty-four students at South Tahoe High School have earned AP Scholar Awards in recognition of their exceptional achievement on advanced placement exams. The College Board’s Advanced Placement Program provides students with the opportunity to take rigorous college-level courses while still in high school and to earn college credit, advanced placement, or both for successful performance on the AP exams.

About 18 percent of the nearly 1.7 million students worldwide who took AP exams performed at a sufficiently high level to also earn an AP Scholar Award. The College Board recognizes several levels of achievement based on students’ performance on AP exams.

David Wise qualified for the National AP Scholar Award by earning an average grade of 4 or higher on a 5-point scale on all AP exams taken, and grades of 4 or higher on eight or more of these exams. Wise is attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on a full scholarship.

Twelve students qualified for the AP Scholar with Distinction Award by earning an average grade of at least 3.5 on all AP exams taken, and grades of 3 or higher on five or more of these exams: Cameron Allen, Sarah Breisacher, William Caglia, Stephany Campuzano, Kory DiGrande, Hannah Elder, Kathryn Kalinowski, Michael Suglian, Anna Tikhomirova, Ariana Truszewski, Kyle Wilkinson and David Wise.

Nine students qualified for the AP Scholar with Honor Award by earning an average grade of at least 3.25 on all AP exams taken, and grades of 3 or higher on four or more of these exams: Nicholas Brower, Justin Dalton, Alexis Holmes, Annie Lineberry, Ellen Martin, Marriela Penollar, Tiffany Racz, Kelsey Smith, Hannah Wheelen.

Twenty-three students qualified for the AP Scholar Award by completing three or more AP Exams with grades of 3 or higher: Erika Cook, Erik Cramer, Kelsey Davinson, Elisa Escobar, Melissa Ewing, Kristine Guarino, Jennifer Gutierrz, Brady Hiob, Rachel Kaufer, Catherine Kushner, Jessica Levine, Marisol Lizaola, Melissa Miller, Peter Pielaet-Strayer, Nicholas Pillsbury, Ashleigh Richardson, Rebecca Sanders, Jaclyn Tain, Madison Treiber, Dana Tumbaga, Karla Virrueta, Jordan Yingling and Jordan Zager.

By Steve Timko, Reno Gazette-Journal

Writer Mark Twain is being honored by having a body of water at Lake Tahoe named after him.

But one Lake Tahoe writer opposes the honor because it perpetuates what he said is a myth that Twain had a connection to that specific location.

The Nevada State Board on Geographic Names voted recently that a cove on the eastern shore of Lake Tahoe, just south of Sand Harbor and north of Thunderbird Lodge, will be named Sam Clemens Cove.

Some think that’s the area where Clemens visited in 1861 when he planned to stake a claim on timber and accidentally started a forest fire 149 years ago.

Read the whole story

The art of longtime local artist Pat Edwards comes to the North Tahoe Event Center on Oct. 5 and will remain in the center until Jan. 4.

To celebrate this exhibit and allow the public an opportunity to meet the artist, a reception will be on Oct. 5th from 5:30–7:30pm at the North Tahoe Event Center in Kings Beach.

Edwards’ exhibit is an array of landscapes scenes, some of people, and others of Tahoe in her different moods with a mix of pastels, some acrylics, photos and mixed media.

Edwards has lived in North Lake Tahoe since she was 9. She works in oils, pastels, acrylics, mixed media and china painting as well as being an accomplished ceramicist working in clay, handbuilding, Raku and utilizing ceramic pieces as though they were canvases. Currently her focus is on painting in different mediums and has been plein air painting, painting outdoors in the changing lights and weathers, with several other artists in the area.

Since early childhood Edwards has loved expression through art, feeling that art is a way people can be healed from emotional trauma in their lives and loves the joy that comes when a piece is completed and accomplished what a person wanted to show.

The public is invited to come into center during normal business hours to view the art on display at no charge.