News

UPPER LAKE, Calif. – In October 2016, the Upper Lake branch of Lake County Library, formally known as the Harriet Lee Hammond Library, will celebrate one hundred years of operation. Even now, plans for the celebration have begun.

To document the library’s story, the Lake County Library is looking for old photos of the historic building and people important to its history, in particular, photos of the construction of the building, the dedication, Lottie Mendenhall, Amy Murdock, any members of the Upper Lake Women’s Protective Club, or ULWPC, from about 1915 to 1920 and any ULWPC events connected with the library.

If you have any photos to lend, contact Linda Bushta at the Upper Lake Library, 707-275-2049, or Jan Cook at Lakeport Library, 707-263-8817, Extension 17106. The library can scan photos and return your originals.

The ULWPC started Upper Lake’s first library in J.N. League’s general store in 1914, but always hoped for a permanent library building.

With a donation of land from Lottie Mendenhall and Amy Murdock and $7,000 from Harriet Lee Hammond, Upper Lake’s library took shape over the summer of 1916 and opened that October.

Although the building might appear to have started out as a house, it has always been a library.
Its 100-year history as a library makes it one of Upper Lake’s oldest businesses.

The Lake County Library is on the Internet at http://library.lakecountyca.gov and Facebook at www.facebook.com/LakeCountyLibrary .

Jan Cook works for the Lake County Library.

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – Authorities in neighboring Glenn County are seeking information on a man reported missing earlier this week.

John Thomas Maiers was last seen on Monday at the Sacramento Airport, according to the Glenn County Sheriff's Office.

The following day, Maiers' friend, Brett McLucas, reported Maiers missing, authorities said.

The sheriff's office said Maiers was traveling to the Kettenpom Store in Zenia in a white 2006 Subaru Wagon, with a Minnesota Plate 005HYY.

Maiers was supposed to meet McLucas at the Kettenpom Store at 7:30 p.m. Monday but never arrived, according to the report.

On Wednesday, Lt. Sean Arlin of the Glenn County Sheriff’s Office conducted an extensive search of the Mendocino National Forest, the agency said.

The following day, authorities reported that Arlin requested assistance from the California Highway Patrol in conducting an air search of the Mendocino National Forest, but Maiers was not found.

The Glenn County Sheriff’s Office is asking for the public’s assistance in locating Maiers.

Maiers is described as being 6 feet tall, 170 pounds, with blue eyes, shoulder length brown hair and a long beard. He is known to carry a camouflage backpack with him.

Anyone with any information is asked to contact the Glenn County Sheriff’s Office at 530-934-6431.

What do we look for in a candidate who will govern us in a trusted position of authority?

Most of us could agree that we look for someone who supports our communities and is fair-minded as well as trustworthy.

There is a candidate chosen by the Republicans who stated that he is “trying to pay as little as possible” in taxes. His delegates should have good reasons to not support him at their convention and the rules committee should be looking into the transgressions that he has made.

He refuses to reveal his tax returns, which is the sort of financial disclosure that could reveal associations with foreign entities, criminal organization and conflicts of interest.

Our country has been in this position before, of conflict and unrest, with nothing certain on the national front.

With voting restricted so that people have unequal access to casting their ballot in 20 states, anything is possible for an outcome.

In 1968 George Wallace also promised destruction of all enemies and scapegoated minorities during a time of insecurity.

During that election, we lost Martin Luther King as well as Robert Kennedy. We ended up with Richard Nixon.

During such unstable times as these, simply stating “Trust me, it will be great,” is far from reassuring.

That statement has been frequently repeated by this candidate and is nauseating. People who have worked with him have been left with a lasting impression of being mistreated and preyed upon for any insecurity they may have.

Far from being a leader, he is often seen as crushing the human spirit. Promising the destruction of all of our enemies is not a unifying theme and is not practical. We do not need a repeat of the disasters of 1968 that were visited on us then.

I am not advocating any one candidate, but voters need to be informed. We don’t live in times exactly the same as 1968, but we need an honest leader no matter what times we live in.

Ellen Karnowski lives in Kelseyville, Calif.

The California Association of Clerks and Election Officials is reminding California citizens that the deadline to register to vote, or re-register with a different party, in the June 7 Presidential Primary Election is Monday, May 23, at 11:59 p.m.

Online voter registration is available, which allows new voters to complete the entire process online at www.registertovote.ca.gov .

Paper registration forms can be obtained at your local Registrar of Voters, post offices, libraries and city halls.

"California has seen record numbers of new registrations since January," said Neal Kelley, president of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials, or CACEO, and Registrar of Voters of Orange County. "CACEO is urging everyone that wishes to participate to be aware of the upcoming deadline.”

Bright, frosty polar caps, and clouds above a vivid, rust-colored landscape reveal Mars as a dynamic seasonal planet in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope view taken on May 12, 2016, when Mars was 50 million miles from Earth. The Hubble image reveals details as small as 20 to 30 miles across.

The large, dark region at far right is Syrtis Major Planitia, one of the first features identified on the surface of the planet by seventeenth-century observers.

Christiaan Huygens used this feature to measure the rotation rate of Mars. (A Martian day is about 24 hours and 37 minutes.)

Today we know that Syrtis Major is an ancient, inactive shield volcano. Late-afternoon clouds surround its summit in this view.

A large oval feature to the south of Syrtis Major is the bright Hellas Planitia basin. About 1,100 miles across and nearly five miles deep, it was formed about 3.5 billion years ago by an asteroid impact.

The orange area in the center of the image is Arabia Terra, a vast upland region in northern Mars that covers about 2,800 miles.

The landscape is densely cratered and heavily eroded, indicating that it could be among the oldest terrains on the planet. Dried river canyons (too small to be seen here) wind through the region and empty into the large northern lowlands.

South of Arabia Terra, running east to west along the equator, are the long dark features known as Sinus Sabaeus (to the east) and Sinus Meridiani (to the west).

These darker regions are covered by dark bedrock and fine-grained sand deposits ground down from ancient lava flows and other volcanic features.

These sand grains are coarser and less reflective than the fine dust that gives the brighter regions of Mars their ruddy appearance. Early Mars watchers first mapped these regions.

An extended blanket of clouds can be seen over the southern polar cap. The icy northern polar cap has receded to a comparatively small size because it is now late summer in the northern hemisphere.

Hubble photographed a wispy afternoon lateral cloud extending for at least 1,000 miles at mid-northern latitudes. Early morning clouds and haze extend along the western limb.

This hemisphere of Mars contains landing sites for several NASA Mars surface robotic missions, including Viking 1 (1976), Mars Pathfinder (1997), and the still-operating Opportunity Mars rover. The landing sites of the Spirit and Curiosity Mars rovers are on the other side of the planet.

This observation was made just a few days before Mars opposition on May 22, when the sun and Mars will be on exact opposite sides of Earth, and when Mars will be at a distance of 47.4 million miles from Earth.

On May 30, Mars will be the closest it has been to Earth in 11 years, at a distance of 46.8 million miles. Mars is especially photogenic during opposition because it can be seen fully illuminated by the sun as viewed from Earth.

The biennial close approaches between Mars and Earth are not all the same. Mars' orbit around the sun is markedly elliptical; the close approaches to Earth can range from 35 million to 63 million miles.

They occur because about every two years Earth's orbit catches up to Mars' orbit, aligning the sun, Earth, and Mars in a straight line, so that Mars and the sun are on "opposing" sides of Earth.

This phenomenon is a result of the difference in orbital periods between Earth's orbit and Mars' orbit. While Earth takes the familiar 365 days to travel once around the sun, Mars takes 687 Earth days to make its trip around our star.

As a result, Earth makes almost two full orbits in the time it takes Mars to make just one, resulting in the occurrence of Martian oppositions about every 26 months.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington, D.C.

For images and more information about the Mars observation and Hubble, visit http://hubblesite.org/news/2016/15http://www.nasa.gov/hubble or http://www.nasa.gov/hubble .

KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – Sponsors, supporters, volunteers and approximately 30 hikers recently helped Worldwide Healing Hands (WHH) raise more than $10,000 during this year’s Hike 4 Healing.

The event, an annual fundraiser to help the organization continue its delivery of much-needed health services in underserved areas of the world and free health screenings for homeless and impoverished in Lake County, took place April 30.

Event participants traversed the Wright Summit Trail on Mount Konocti, a trail with an elevation gain of 1,600 feet and a distance of a little more than 6 miles round-trip, on a breezy yet sunny Saturday.

A team of docents led by Val Nixon guided the group to the top of the trail, where the hikers were greeted by Dr. Paula Dhanda, WHH’s medical director, and Carol Stahr who had water and snacks provided for the participants by Foods Etc.

“We were thrilled to have such a wonderful group join us for our hike this year,” said Dhanda. “Even our youngest walkers, Mateo and Mark Pacheco, ages 6 and 8, completed the trek. We were also fortunate to have so many supporters help us with financial and in-kind donations. We are extremely grateful because the funds raised by this event go directly toward our work. Our volunteers pay for their own expenses to help us with our missions.”

Dhanda expressed thanks to several agencies and individuals who helped make the Hike 4 Healing possible this year, citing the county of Lake, Kelseyville Fire Department (especially crew members Tyler Nolan, EMT, and Matt Copenhaver, paramedic), Foods Etc. (owners Dennis and Ruth Darling) who donated snacks and water for participants, Tom and Val Nixon and their crew of docents, People Services and van drivers Ilene Dumont and Margaurite Alves, Mountain Vista Middle School and photographer Nathan DeHart.

Major sponsors for this year’s Hike 4 Healing included Diamond (donations of $1,000 each) sponsors St. Helena Hospital Clearlake, Dr. Marlene Quilala, and John Clarke; plus Gold ($500 each) sponsors Sutter Lakeside Hospital, Derrick and Alisa Barnes, Don and Anthy O’Brien, Top Speed Data Communication, Drs. Elyse and Keith Donald, and Dr. Ming-teh Chen; and Silver ($250 each) sponsors Dr. Diane Pege, Dr. Corey and Amber Warner, Nicole Hill (X2nSat), Lake County Lumber (Dan Nelson) and Dina Hutton.

WHH provides health care services to women and children in underserved areas of the world. WHH teams have traveled to Uganda, Nepal, Chad and Haiti to deliver health services. WHH volunteer medical teams have also provided free health screenings to homeless individuals in Lake County, as well as to fire evacuees following last year’s devastating fires in south Lake County.

Earlier this year, WHH sent a team of volunteers to Haiti for a week-long mission in conjunction with Project MedShare. While in Cap-Haitien, the WHH doctors and nurses conducted cervical cancer screenings and treatment for dozens of Haitian women and provided training to Haitian physicians and midwives.

The WHH Board of Directors is planning a second mission to Uganda for the organization later this year, following WHH’s successful 2015 trip to the Muko Health Center.

“Funds raised by the hike will help us acquire equipment and supplies for the clinic in Uganda,” says Dhanda. Doctors, nurses and staff who accompany Dhanda on the WHH missions are not paid for their time; they donate their services to WHH. However, there are other costs incurred, mainly for much-needed supplies and medicine, according to Dhanda.

For more information about Worldwide Healing Hands, call 707-279-8733. Visit WHH’s Web site, www.worldwidehealinghands.org , or its Facebook page to read more about the organization.