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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – A local teenager’s high school senior project came to fruition this week in the form of a donation meant to help children in need of comfort and support.
On Thursday Clear Lake High School senior Haley Garzoli presented 12 handmade blankets to Officer Kory Reynolds of the California Highway Patrol’s Clear Lake Area office in Kelseyville.
The donation came about as a result of Garzoli’s senior project, which focused on child psychology.
In researching the topic she learned how traumatic events such as a vehicle accident can dramatically affect a child.
She learned that a blanket can be a very comforting thing in a time of crisis.
After learning how helpful a warm blanket can be, she set out to raise money to fund her project.
By soliciting donations, she was able to raise enough money to purchase the blanket material needed.
She handmade 12 “tie” blankets and presented them the Officer Reynolds with the hope that each patrol car would have a warm blanket available to give to a scared child.
The donated blankets will be used by the CHP to help the children it comes in contact with in traumatic situations.
UKIAH, Calif. – Fans of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction are invited to celebrate local writers and poets in a one-day festival Saturday, April 20.
“LitFest 2013” will take place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the new Library/Learning Center at Mendocino College, 1000 Hensley Creek Road.
LitFest will feature readings, talks and workshops for aspiring writers, students and fans of the written word led by more than a dozen contemporary authors and vendors such as Tenacity Press and McCaa Books will be present to sell books.
Admission to the event activities, including workshops, is free and the public is invited.
“I’m really excited by the line-up for this year’s event. There’s a little of something for all kinds of interests. Whether it is poetry, fiction, nonfiction, or publishing, there’s something that is engaging and fun to attend at LitFest,” said John Koetzner, head librarian at Mendocino College. “Cultural and literary events such as LitFest and our annual readers series enrich students’ lives and we invite everyone in the community to discover all the great ways the college contributes back to the community.”
Some of the workshop topics include “The Trouble with Villains,” “Writing Narrative Nonfiction,” “Stuck!” (a workshop about writer’s block), “Some Perspectives on Point of View,” “Poetry, Fiction & Memoir,” and more.
New to the event this year will be the Ukiah High School Slam Poetry Team, a workshop called Mendocino County Poets – featuring Melinda Clarke, Nancy Horrocks, Ginny Devries, Helen Falandes and Maluma – a food writing panel featuring Nicholas Petti as moderator for Margaret Fox, Heidi Dickerson and Tom Liden.
Additionally, there will be a reading by Ukiah Poet Laureate Dan Barth along with Michael Riedell, and workshops by Doris Eraldi, Natasha Yim, Jean Hegland, Armando Garcia-Davila, Waights Taylor Jr. and Carl Brush.
This year’s LitFest celebration will be the sixth time the festival takes place.
The first was in 2007 and made possible by funding from the Community Foundation of Mendocino County, Mendocino College Foundation, and the Friends of the Mendocino College Library along with a variety of community sponsors.
“We would like to get additional community sponsorship to help build it into an even bigger annual event,” said Koetzner.
It is recommended that individuals who want to attend the writing workshops sign up in advance by registering online at www.mendocino.edu/litfest . For additional information, call 707-468-3051.
Another feature is the ability to order a chipolte chicken salad wrap or grilled veggie with gruyere wrap in advance that will be prepared by the Culinary Arts program at the college, because there is no food service on the weekend. If one does not want to order a wrap, it is advised that attendees bring a lunch or snacks.
The Mendocino College Foundation and its affiliate organization, the Friends of the Mendocino College Library, plus several additional sponsors such as Schat’s Bakery Café, Village Books, The Book Juggler, Wine Country Artisans, and the Healdsburg Literary Guild are making it possible to hold the one-day festival this year.
For more information about LitFest 2013, call the Mendocino College Library at 707-468-3051 or visit www.mendocino.edu/litfest .
NORTH COAST, Calif. – Mendocino County authorities have been conducting a search for a Fort Brag woman reported missing on Thursday.
Genevieve Kathryn Alexander, 30, was reported missing by her boyfriend shortly after 10:30 p.m. Thursday, according to the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office.
Officials said the boyfriend reported that he last saw Alexander walking away from the couple's residence, located at the Pomo Campground, at 3:30 p.m. Thursday.
Alexander is described as a white female adult, 5 feet, 6 inches tall, with brown hair and blue eyes. The sheriff’s office said she wearing a maroon fleece type of jacket, dark-colored pants and dark-colored tennis shoes at the time of her disappearance.
It was suspected at the time of Alexander's disappearance that she was having a delusional episode, according to the report.
A deputy sheriff conducted an immediate area search of the bluffs/beaches of Sunset Way, Belinda Point, Schoefer Lane and Pacific Way, which were identified as locations where Alexander frequented on occasion. The deputy was unable to locate Alexander, officials reported.
At 9 a.m. Friday Mendocino County Sheriff's Office investigators – with the aid of the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office Search & Rescue Team – initiated a further search for Alexander, the agency reported.
During the search it was learned that a resident who lived adjacent to the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens at 18220 North Highway 1 had contacted a person trespassing on their property at 4 p.m. Thursday. The sheriff’s office said the person who was trespassing matched Alexander's physical and clothing description.
A Mendocino County Sheriff's Office Search & Rescue Team bloodhound began a scent search from the location of the trespass scene and ended behind the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens along the bluff line at a trailhead that lead downward toward the beach, officials reported.
While conducting a search of the beach a pair was pants was found floating in the ocean a short distance out from the beach, according to the agency’s report. When the pants were recovered they were identified as being the pants Alexander was wearing at the time of her disappearance.
A further search of this area was conducted by personnel from the United States Coast Guard – via boat and helicopter – and the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office Search & Rescue Team, officials said.
As of Friday evening officials said Alexander's current whereabouts were unknown and no further items of clothing had been recovered.
The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office thanked the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens for aiding in the search efforts along with the United States Coast Guard and the many volunteers of the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office Search & Rescue Team.
Anyone with any information relating to Alexander's disappearance or whereabouts is urged to contact the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office dispatch center at 707-463-4086.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has found the farthest supernova so far of the type used to measure cosmic distances. Supernova UDS10Wil, nicknamed SN Wilson after American President Woodrow Wilson, exploded more than 10 billion years ago.
SN Wilson belongs to a special class called Type Ia supernovae. These bright beacons are prized by astronomers because they provide a consistent level of brightness that can be used to measure the expansion of space. They also yield clues to the nature of dark energy, the mysterious force accelerating the rate of expansion.
“This new distance record holder opens a window into the early universe, offering important new insights into how these stars explode,” said David O. Jones of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., an astronomer and lead author on the paper detailing the discovery. “We can test theories about how reliable these detonations are for understanding the evolution of the universe and its expansion.”
The discovery was part of a three-year Hubble program, begun in 2010, to survey faraway Type Ia supernovae and determine whether they have changed during the 13.8 billion years since the explosive birth of the universe.
Astronomers took advantage of the sharpness and versatility of Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 to search for supernovae in near-infrared light and verify their distance with spectroscopy.
Leading the work is Adam Riess of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., and Johns Hopkins University.
Finding remote supernovae provides a powerful method to measure the universe’s accelerating expansion.
So far, Riess’s team has uncovered more than 100 supernovae of all types and distances, looking back in time from 2.4 billion years to more than 10 billion years.
Of those new discoveries, the team has identified eight Type Ia supernovae, including SN Wilson, that exploded more than 9 billion years ago.
“The Type Ia supernovae give us the most precise yardstick ever built, but we’re not quite sure if it always measures exactly a yard,” said team member Steve Rodney of Johns Hopkins University. “The more we understand these supernovae, the more precise our cosmic yardstick will become.”
Although SN Wilson is only 4 percent more distant than the previous record holder, it pushes roughly 350 million years farther back in time.
A separate team led by David Rubin of the U.S. Energy Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California announced the previous record just three months ago.
Astronomers still have much to learn about the nature of dark energy and how Type Ia supernovae explode.
By finding Type Ia supernovae so early in the universe, astronomers can distinguish between two competing explosion models.
In one model the explosion is caused by a merger between two white dwarfs. In another model, a white dwarf gradually feeds off its partner, a normal star, and explodes when it accretes too much mass.
The team’s preliminary evidence shows a sharp decline in the rate of Type Ia supernova blasts between roughly 7.5 billion years ago and more than 10 billion years ago.
The steep drop-off favors the merger of two white dwarfs because it predicts that most stars in the early universe are too young to become Type Ia supernovae.
“If supernovae were popcorn, the question is how long before they start popping?” Riess said. “You may have different theories about what is going on in the kernel. If you see when the first kernels popped and how often they popped, it tells you something important about the process of popping corn.”
Knowing the type of trigger for Type Ia supernovae also will show how quickly the universe enriched itself with heavier elements such as iron. These exploding stars produce about half of the iron in the universe, the raw material for building planets, and life.
The team’s results have been accepted for publication in an upcoming issue of The Astrophysical Journal.
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, Md., manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Md., conducts Hubble science operations. The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Inc., in Washington operates STScI.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – Beginning this year, there will be two fairs in Lake County.
Lake County Fair Chief Executive Officer Richard Persons said that the fairgrounds will begin hosting a Lake County Spring Fair this June.
“It's an idea that has been considered for several years, but this year everything seems to be coming together, said Persons.
The Lake County Spring Fair will take place Friday, June 14, through Sunday, June 16, at the fairgrounds in Lakeport, 401 Martin St.
That’s in addition to the 2013 Lake County Fair, which runs from Thursday, Aug. 29, through Sunday, Sept. 1.
Persons said the spring fair won’t be as large as the main fair event, but is expected to be an important new source of revenue, since the state has stopped providing funding for the Lake County Fair – and other fairs around the state – over the last few years.
He said 2011 was the last year that the state provided capital improvement funding for the fairgrounds. That year, the funding for improving the fairgrounds totaled $250,000.
The fair’s operating stipend, which fluctuated from year to year, was $172,000 in 2011, the final year the fair received those funds from the state, according to Persons.
Since then, the fair has had to pursue new revenue sources in order to maintain operations, he said.
Helping the Lake County Fair’s financial picture in 2012 was the fact that the fairgrounds served as a Cal Fire base camp for the August Wye Fire and the September Scotts Fire, both of which brought in unanticipated revenue, according to Persons.
Persons also was hired to manage the Dixon May Fair last year.
Those sources of revenue, plus careful management and cutbacks, allowed the fair not just to keep running but to pay off a nearly $120,000 loan for its solar collection systems in February, five years early, as Lake County News has reported.
Persons said the new spring fair’s major attractions will include three nights of grandstand activities and a carnival produced by Midway of Fun, which also provides the carnival for the Lake County Fair on Labor Day weekend.
Additional activities will include two stages of entertainment and three buildings of various exhibits, including a home and garden pavilion produced by Bicoastal Media, he said.
Persons said one of the main factors in deciding to go ahead with the event was the ability to attract a carnival.
In past years, no carnival operators had spring weekends available in their routes, but that was not the case in 2013, he explained.
Grandstand events are expected to include an open mud bog competition on Friday night, open tuff truck races on Saturday, and an invitational auto race on Sunday, Persons said. All grandstand activities will be produced by Lakeport Speedway.
In addition to the home and garden pavilion, other buildings will house a laser tag arcade and a variety of vocational education exhibits, Persons said. An exhibition of student artwork from Congressman Mike Thompson's annual art contest may also be on display.
Persons said a battle of the bands is planned for the main stage, with local musical artists featured on two stages throughout the weekend, and a variety of fair food and exhibits are expected.
The fair also is working on several aspects of a car show activity. “We know it's Father's Day weekend, and we're trying to put together an event which will appeal to dads and their families, providing activities that dad's can do with their kids. School will just be out, and it seems like a great way to kick off the summer,” Persons said.
Businesses interested in indoor exhibit space should contact Bicoastal Media at 707-263-6113 to inquire about space in the home and garden pavilion. Other food and exhibit space will be handled by the Lake County Fair.
For more information, contact the Lake County Fair at 707-263-6181 or
Email Elizabeth Larson at
LUCERNE, Calif. – After passing a Thursday inspection, the Lucerne Alpine Senior Center’s appeal of the termination of its nutritional contract was confirmed, which will allow the center to continue to offer onsite meals and Meals on Wheels services to Northshore seniors.
On Feb. 28, the Area Agency on Aging of Lake and Mendocino Counties Board of Directors voted unanimously to terminate the center’s $66,000 annual contract after a state auditor concluded that its nutritional program was “high risk,” as Lake County News has reported.
After that action, a series of rapid changes were implemented at the center, including the March 4 hire of new Executive Director Rae Eby-Carl, who began the process of addressing the faults the Area Agency on Aging and the state had found with the center.
On March 28, exactly one month after the termination vote, the Area Agency on Aging Board voted to rescind the contract termination, as long as an inspection this week confirmed the changes.
AAA Program Coordinator Mike Parkinson inspected the facilities with AAA Director Janice Hubbell on Thursday.
“They have corrected all the health and safety issues that were related to the food/nutrition program,” Parkinson told Lake County News.
He said the center also put in place new policies and procedures to prevent similar problems from happening again.
“We were satisfied that the corrections have been done,” he said.
Eby-Carl said that means that the center won’t lose its funding for providing Meals on Wheels services, and that it looks forward to continuing delivery of nutritious and delicious meals to homebound throughout the Northshore.
Parkinson said the center also is addressing its fiscal issues, adding, “I think it’s going to take a little longer” to address those.
The center has struggled with funding, and Parkinson said fundraising and changing the thrift store to generate more income are some of the steps being taken.
“All in all, I think they have done an excellent job, considering a month ago they were on the verge of having their contract terminated,” said Parkinson.
Had the contract termination not been rescinded, it would have taken place on Friday, Parkinson said. As it is, the center’s funding from the contract has not been interrupted.
Eby-Carl said the dining room at the center, located at 3985 Country Club Drive, offers lunches for an affordable fee to diners of all ages from the community from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday through Friday.
The center also serves breakfast every Saturday from 8 a.m. to noon. Menu selections include biscuits and gravy, omelets, French toast, pancakes and more with all the trimmings like bacon, sausage, juice and coffee.
“You can bring the whole family. It’s a great way to find out about volunteer opportunities and services,” said Eby-Carl.
Eby-Carl said the center is looking to expand services with more activities and encourages community groups to contact her or staff to make arrangements to use the facility for a very reasonable fee. The center’s thrift shop is open Monday through Saturday.
“We are looking forward to good times together,” she said.
Parkinson said he was impressed with what the center, its staff and volunteers have accomplished in 30 days.
“They really love their center,” he said.
For more information about the Lucerne Alpine Senior Center, call 707-274-8779.
Email Elizabeth Larson at