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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Selecting qualified families for the Habitat for Humanity Homeownership program is a responsibility and process that involves numerous volunteers.
The family selection caseworkers collects preliminary applications, meets with prospective families to discover their needs and explain how the program works, and, if a family chooses to continue the process, the caseworkers will assist them throughout the application process.
Qualified prospective families are selected by the Habitat for Humanity Board of Directors, after which time the caseworkers continue to work with partner families as long as is needed to help the family through the homebuilding process to the day the keys are presented and the partners become homeowners.
Guiding our partners through the process takes dedication, and the volunteer caseworkers who undertake this work spend many hours working with applicants and sorting through the necessary documentation that must be gathered in order for qualification to be determined.
Anyone interested in assisting the family selection group is encouraged to contact the office for a volunteer application and to talk with the family selection group volunteers to learn how you can help.
Preapplications for homeownership or volunteer applications can be found at www.lakehabitat.org , picked up at the office at 16285A Main St. in Lower Lake, or via mail by calling 707-994-1100.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Mendocino College Lake Center and Lake County Theatre Co. production's of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is now in rehearsal.
The play will be performed in Library Park in Lakeport, on Saturday, July 30 and Sunday, July 31. Entry to the event is free. Reserved seating for both shows will become available soon.
Actors have been practicing their roles in the play, one of Shakespeare’s most popular.
Director John Tomlinson, has selected the cast from Lake County’s most prominent and popular actors.
According to Tomlinson, “These are fine actors that will give memorable performances. They are taking to Shakespeare.”
As this farcical mixup of lovers opens, Theseus (Charles Berry), Duke of Athens, is preparing for his marriage to Hippolyta (Sharri Moore), queen of the Amazons.
Egeus (Mel O’Meara), an Athenian nobleman, marches into Theseus’ court with his daughter, Hermia (Helen McMahon), and her two suitors, Demetrius (Christopher Griffith) and Lysander (Zachery Kimbell-Auth).
Egeus commands Hermia to marry Demetrius, who actually loves her. But Hermia is in love with Lysander and refuses to comply. Egeus determines to put her in a nunnery or kill her if she does not follow his decision.
Hermia and Lysander plot to elope and tell their plan to Hermia’s friend Helena (Hayley Martin). Helena is in love with Demetrius, so does not want him to marry Hermia.
Helena tells Demetrius of the planned escape, and he strides into the woods intending to break up the rendezvous, followed by the doting Helena.
Will this tangled mess be resolved by a band of fairies and a group of would be thespians that inhabit these strange lands? Much wild merriment follows.
The production is sponsored by Friends of Mendocino College, Education Leadership Solutions LLC, Lakeport Main Street Association, Rotary Club of Lakeport, Strong Financial Network, Judy Conard and the Smith Family Trust. Many other sponsors have made contributions to the artistic effort.
To become a sponsor, call C. Richard Smith at 707-533-9230.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Mark your calendar – the Lake County Weed Management Area is hosting its 13th annual “Invasive Weeds Tour” on Thursday, July 28.
The tour is free and the public is welcome and encouraged to attend.
The third week of July is California’s annual “Invasive Weed Awareness Week.” This statewide program is designed to educate citizens about the undesirable effects and impacts of non-native invasive weeds.
Participants will gather at the Anderson Marsh ranch house at 9 a.m., take a leisurely guided walk of about two miles to see the amazingly diverse array of invasive plants that flourish in the park and the effects of control mechanisms such as control burns, and return to the house for lunch and discussion of aquatic invasive weeds under the trees.
Although the event is completely free and all members of the public are invited, reservations are required. Please RSVP with the Lake County Agriculture Department at 707-263-0217 by July 25.
The tour is sponsored by Lake County Department of Agriculture, the Lake County Department of Water Resources and the Lake County Resource Conservation District.
The end-of-tour lunch is free but donations to help offset the cost of lunch and refreshments will be greatly appreciated and cheerfully accepted.
After an extensive review process and passing a major development milestone, NASA is ready to proceed with final design and construction of its next Mars rover, currently targeted to launch in the summer of 2020 and arrive on the Red Planet in February 2021.
The Mars 2020 rover will investigate a region of Mars where the ancient environment may have been favorable for microbial life, probing the Martian rocks for evidence of past life.
Throughout its investigation, it will collect samples of soil and rock and cache them on the surface for potential return to Earth by a future mission.
“The Mars 2020 rover is the first step in a potential multi-mission campaign to return carefully selected and sealed samples of Martian rocks and soil to Earth,” said Geoffrey Yoder, acting associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “This mission marks a significant milestone in NASA’s Journey to Mars – to determine whether life has ever existed on Mars, and to advance our goal of sending humans to the Red Planet.”
To reduce risk and provide cost savings, the 2020 rover will look much like its six-wheeled, one-ton predecessor, Curiosity, but with an array of new science instruments and enhancements to explore Mars as never before.
For example, the rover will conduct the first investigation into the usability and availability of Martian resources, including oxygen, in preparation for human missions.
Mars 2020 will carry an entirely new subsystem to collect and prepare Martian rocks and soil samples that includes a coring drill on its arm and a rack of sample tubes.
About 30 of these sample tubes will be deposited at select locations for return on a potential future sample-retrieval mission. In laboratories on Earth, specimens from Mars could be analyzed for evidence of past life on Mars and possible health hazards for future human missions.
Two science instruments mounted on the rover’s robotic arm will be used to search for signs of past life and determine where to collect samples by analyzing the chemical, mineral, physical and organic characteristics of Martian rocks.
On the rover’s mast, two science instruments will provide high-resolution imaging and three types of spectroscopy for characterizing rocks and soil from a distance, also helping to determine which rock targets to explore up close.
A suite of sensors on the mast and deck will monitor weather conditions and the dust environment, and a ground-penetrating radar will assess sub-surface geologic structure.
The Mars 2020 rover will use the same sky crane landing system as Curiosity, but will have the ability to land in more challenging terrain with two enhancements, making more rugged sites eligible as safe landing candidates.
“By adding what’s known as range trigger, we can specify where we want the parachute to open, not just at what velocity we want it to open,” said Allen Chen, Mars 2020 entry, descent and landing lead at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. “That shrinks our landing area by nearly half.”
Terrain-relative navigation on the new rover will use onboard analysis of downward-looking images taken during descent, matching them to a map that indicates zones designated unsafe for landing.
“As it is descending, the spacecraft can tell whether it is headed for one of the unsafe zones and divert to safe ground nearby,” said Chen. “With this capability, we can now consider landing areas with unsafe zones that previously would have disqualified the whole area. Also, we can land closer to a specific science destination, for less driving after landing.”
There will be a suite of cameras and a microphone that will capture the never-before-seen or heard imagery and sounds of the entry, descent and landing sequence. Information from the descent cameras and microphone will provide valuable data to assist in planning future Mars landings, and make for thrilling video.
“Nobody has ever seen what a parachute looks like as it is opening in the Martian atmosphere,” said JPL's David Gruel, assistant flight system manager for the Mars 2020 mission. “So this will provide valuable engineering information.”
Microphones have flown on previous missions to Mars, including NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander in 2008, but never have actually been used on the surface of the Red Planet.
“This will be a great opportunity for the public to hear the sounds of Mars for the first time, and it could also provide useful engineering information,” said Mars 2020 Deputy Project Manager Matt Wallace of JPL.
Once a mission receives preliminary approval, it must go through four rigorous technical and programmatic reviews – known as Key Decision Points (KDP) – to proceed through the phases of development prior to launch.
Phase A involves concept and requirements definition, Phase B is preliminary design and technology development, Phase C is final design and fabrication, and Phase D is system assembly, testing, and launch. Mars 2020 has just passed its KDP-C milestone.
“Since Mars 2020 is leveraging the design and some spare hardware from Curiosity, a significant amount of the mission's heritage components have already been built during Phases A and B,” said George Tahu, Mars 2020 program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “With the KDP to enter Phase C completed, the project is proceeding with final design and construction of the new systems, as well as the rest of the heritage elements for the mission.”
The Mars 2020 mission is part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program. Driven by scientific discovery, the program currently includes two active rovers and three NASA spacecraft orbiting Mars. NASA also plans to launch a stationary Mars lander in 2018, InSight, to study the deep interior of Mars.
JPL manages the Mars 2020 project and the Mars Exploration Program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
For more information about Mars 2020, visit http://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020 .
LAKEPORT, Calif. – In Dr. Gary Maes’ opinion, he served Lake County during the most unique period of family practice medicine in recent memory.
“I knew I wanted to be a family physician; that was my goal from the beginning,” said Maes. “It was exciting; for the first time, it was a specialty with prescribed training.”
When he started medical school at UCLA 43 years ago, family practice had only recently emerged as a specialty field. Maes’ path to medicine, however, did not begin as straight and narrow.
“I studied political science at Stanford,” said Maes. “After college I taught English in Indonesia to people in the medical field. My time in Bali got me interested in medicine. When I came back to the U.S., I got involved with my wife Pam, who was attending nursing school. She encouraged me in the right direction. I took premed classes for a year and started medical school three years after I graduated college.”
After a residency and 16 year tenure in Santa Rosa, Maes felt inspired to return to the rural roots of his childhood.
“I love the sense of being in the country and the mixture of folks,” said Maes. “It’s a beautiful place, and home to more diverse people. We’ve made good friends here; there’s a genuine sincerity to people. There are newcomers as well as generations of families who go back a hundred years in this county. There’s a breadth of people.”
As a small town family physician, Maes has delivered babies, watched them grow up and cared for multigenerational families.
“Getting to know people and playing a role in their lives generation after generation has been very rewarding,” said Maes. “I’ve been with my patients through many different seasons of their lives. Not many professions take you to that wide a span of life; until a few years ago, I still provided newborn care. Now most family docs are either hospitalists or have an outpatient practice. Not as many bridge that gap. I’m glad my career happened during such a rich era.”
Dr. Maes and his wife Pam will retire locally, but look forward to travelling and enjoying time with family.
“Pam and I have always worked together as doctor and nurse practitioner,” said Maes. “We’re excited to have more time together that doesn’t revolve around work. We want to see corners of California and the United States that we haven’t explored yet, and visit our sons and grandkids.”
In a town where “goodbye” usually means “see you later,” Maes offers one last piece of advice to his patients.
“Stay active; get out and exercise. Take a walk in your neighborhood every day. That’s the best medicine.”
Morgen Wells is community relations and fund development coordinator for Sutter Lakeside Hospital.
UPPER LAKE, Calif. – The Lake County History Roundtable's July meeting will explore the mysterious death of Harry “Hal” Floyd Gopcevik and consider if it was natural causes or murder.
The group will meet beginning at 6:15 p.m. Monday, July 18, at the Tallman Hotel, 9550 Main St. in Upper Lake.
In 1903, 30-year-old Lake County Heiress Harry “Hal” Floyd married a San Francisco cable car grip man, Milos Gopcevik, who claimed to be of European royal descent.
Three months later she was dead, and her new husband inherited nearly all of a substantial estate.
Officially, she died of an illness. Her family claimed she was murdered. The outcome of the trial that contested the will changed Lake County's history forever.
Was her husband a member of the Serbian royal family? Was she murdered? Did the event that may have triggered her alleged murder also set in motion the events that led to World War I?
Phil Smoley will explore the background of the bizarre chapter of Lake County history and try to get to the bottom of how Harry Floyd died.
Smoley, is a 35-year resident of Lake County, a former president and current director of the Lake County Historical Society, in addition to being a founder of the Lake County Historical Roundtable and a local real estate broker.
The Lake County History Roundtable (formerly the Redwood Empire Civil War Roundtable) is open to the public and all ages and all levels of interest in history are welcome.
For more information, contact Phil Smoley at