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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County’s annual junior high and elementary school spellings took place this week, and two champion young spellers will represent Lake County at the state spelling bee in May.
The Lake County Junior High Spelling Bee for grades seventh and eighth was held at Upper Lake Middle School on Tuesday, March 12.
Mike Ray, an eighth grade student from Pomo School in Clearlake and Jason Gentle, a seventh grader from Mt. Vista Middle School in Kelseyville were the winners and will compete at the California State Junior High Spelling Championship in San Rafael on Saturday, May 11.
Eighth grader Kim English from Terrace School in Lakeport came in a close third, according to the Lake County Office of Education report.
Lake County “Super Spellers” who also participated in the competition include: Angelina Acosta, Burns Valley School; Melanie Blevins, Upper Lake Middle School; Evan Cromwell, Mt. Vista Middle School; Lauren Grubbs, Middletown Middle School; Mtoa Jones, East Lake School; Anisha Kalan, Lucerne Elementary; Sophia LaRose, Lower Lake Elementary; Takumi Mitchell, Terrace School; Julia Mooney, Upper Lake Middle School; and Kaily Spotswood, East Lake School.
Students who qualified to participate but were unable to attend the competition are: Catherine Oswalt, Lower Lake Elementary; Tyler Parrott, Middletown Middle School; Cyrus Pouladdezh, Pomo School; Angel Stith, Lucerne Elementary; and Stephani Utley, Burns Valley School.
A very special “thank you” goes to the staff at Upper Lake Middle School for hosting the spelling bee.
Thank you to Principal Jill Falconer and staff at Terrace School in Lakeport for hosting the Lake County Elementary Spelling Bee on Thursday, March 14.
In a heated competition between Lake County elementary students in grades fourth through sixth, the top two champions were Alex Thompson, a fourth grader from Minnie Cannon Elementary in Middletown and Lily Gardner, also a fourth grader, from Cobb Mountain Elementary in Middletown.
Both Alex and Lily will compete in the 2013 California State Elementary School Spelling Championship on April 20, at the San Joaquin County Office of Education in Stockton. Fifth grader Kali Martinez from Upper Lake Elementary School came in a close third.
Spelling champs who also participated in the competition are: Logan Blackburn, Mt. Vista Middle School; Tiera Bright, Burns Valley School; Nicabec Casido, Terrace School; Tasiana Collins, Lower Lake Elementary; Alessandra Diaz, Coyote Valley Elementary; Collin Dierssen, Riviera Elementary; Baylee Dymer, Coyote Valley Elementary; Jordyn Fields, Terrace School; Madison Hicks-Brackett, Upper Lake Elementary; Anna Jordan, Lucerne Elementary; Jordan Locke, Minnie Cannon Elementary; Jared Meek, Burns Valley School; Breaunna Moret, East Lake School; Natalia Schofield, East Lake School; Diego Silva, Kelseyville Elementary; Nevaeh Solorio, Lucerne Elementary; Kieffer Tan, Cobb Mountain Elementary; Tristin Tapia, Pomo School; Tyler Tucker, Pomo School; Aaron Vargas, Riviera Elementary; Amelia Weller, Kelseyville Elementary; Andre Williams, Mt. Vista Middle School; and Ashlynn Wolkenhauer, Lower Lake Elementary.
Spelling Champions Mike Ray, Jason Gentle, Alex Thompson and Lily Gardner were each awarded a Spelling Bee medal and a $25 gift card to Barnes & Noble.
The annual spelling competitions are coordinated by the Lake County Office of Education.
Master of ceremonies/spell master for both of the Spelling Bees was Stephanie Wayment, education specialist at Lake County Office of Education.
The judges for the competition were Robin Totorica, Jan Bailey and Tim Gill, also from LCOE.
KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – Barn raising activities at the Ely Stage Stop and Country Museum are in full swing.
Volunteers have ramped up their Saturday work as the weather continues to cooperate.
There have been reports of a curious “pink” barn on the site. That’s because the old barn wood had to have a special primer coat applied to both sides to provide extra protection for its new life at the museum. This week the final barn red color is starting to appear.
The Lake County Historical Society, operator of the museum, welcomes all interested volunteers to expedite the completion of this first barn.
Once the exterior is completed, the barn interior can be populated with the Lake County Historical Society’s collection of artifacts and can also be used as an event destination.
Old wood is needed for siding on this and future barns that will be constructed at the stage stop.
If anyone has a barn or building to donate, Ely volunteers can help take it down in exchange for the wood. Remember that donations to the Ely Stage Stop are tax deductible.
The museum is located at 9921 Soda Bay Road (Highway 281) in Kelseyville, near the Clear Lake Riviera.
Current hours of operation are 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. each Saturday and Sunday.
Volunteers will assemble at the museum site at 9 a.m. on Saturdays for barn raising activities.
Contact number for questions about volunteer work, donations of old wood or docent applications is 707-263-4180, extension 102.
Visit the museum’s Web site at www.elystagestop.com .
NORTH COAST, Calif. – A Laytonville man was arrested this week for assaulting his pregnant girlfriend.
Donald Wiltsey, 25, was arrested for domestic violence on Thursday, according to a report from the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office.
The agency reported that the victim in the case was a 24-year-old Clearlake woman, whose name was not released.
Mendocino County Sheriff's deputies were contacted by the Cahto Tribal Police Department regarding a domestic violence dispute that had occurred on Reservation Road.
Upon arrival deputies contacted the victim who stated that Wiltsey had punched her in the head. According to the victim she and Wiltsey had been living together for a number of years and they have a child in common.
The victim reported that she and Wiltsey got into an argument due to his illegal drug usage, according to the report.
During the argument Wiltsey got mad at the victim, who is six months pregnant, and punched her several times on the side of her head with a closed fist. Officials said the victim did not require medical attention due to her injuries.
Deputies contacted Wiltsey and placed him under arrest for inflicting corporal injury on a spouse, partner or co-habitant.
Wiltsey was transported to the Mendocino County jail where he was held on $25,000.00 bail, officials reported.
Not everyone who serves as a trustee expects or wants to be paid. But those who do want to get paid need to know up front whether or not they will be compensated for their work. They should also know how their compensation is determined.
Trusts may provide for no compensation, reasonable compensation, a fixed amount of compensation, or a formula to compute compensation.
Typically trusts allow “reasonable compensation”; if the trust is silent “reasonable compensation” is the statutory rule. Of course, a trustee may waive compensation.
What is reasonable compensation? What is reasonable is a facts and circumstances analysis that involves a variety of factors such as the following: the trustee’s qualifications and experience as relevant to trust administration; the time spent by the trustee in discharging his or her duties; the value of the trust; the complexity of the trust administration; and the good or bad outcome of the trust administration.
In order to substantiate a claim for reasonable trustee compensation a trustee should keep a detailed trustee log together with any underlying source documents.
The trustee log should be a chronological narrative specifically describing the activities, decisions, events and circumstances involved with the trustee’s discharge of his duties.
The narrative needs to include particular facts to tangibly show how the trustee solved problems and performed duties.
The log must also include the amount of time spent each day in these activities. All mileage and out-of-pocket expense reimbursement items need to recorded and proof of payment kept (e.g., travel receipts for meals, transportation, and lodging).
Typically, in the case of settling a deceased person’s trust estate, the trustee is paid at the conclusion of the trust administration when assets are distributed to the beneficiaries.
At that time an accounting is usually provided by the trustee to the trust beneficiaries. If the trust administration exceeds 12 months – such as with a protracted administration or with an on-going trust (e.g., a special needs trust or a support trust) – the trustee may receive compensation on an annual basis.
If the trustee is concerned that the beneficiaries might dispute the reasonableness of his compensation, or his actions as trustee, the trustee may petition the court to confirm the amount of the compensation.
This typically is done within a petition seeking court approval of the trustee’s acts, accounting, and compensation.
Recently the Sixth District Court of Appeals in the Thorpe v. Reese case denied a claim for trustee compensation requested by a court appointed temporary trustee.
It did so because the trust expressly disallowed trustee compensation. The appellate court ruled that the trust document controlled the issue of compensation.
The appellate court reasoned that when the trustee unconditionally accepted his appointment by the probate court he unconditionally accepted the existing terms of the trust.
If he wanted compensation he should have petitioned the court to reform the trust to allow for trustee compensation, or otherwise not have accepted his appointment.
While reforming the trust might seem reasonable, as a practical matter reforming a trust is an unpredictable and costly endeavor.
The ruling means that court appointed trustees in the Sixth District, at least, will be discouraged from accepting appointment to any trust that expressly disallows trustee compensation. Such trusts may have to be terminated for want of a trustee.
Allowing for reasonable compensation is a good practice. A trustee assumes significant responsibility with respect to safeguarding and managing the trust assets, making trust assets productive, dealing with creditor and tax claims, and responding to the concerns of beneficiaries.
All of which takes time away from his family, personal time and regular work. A trustee should not be expected to do this work without reasonable compensation.
Dennis A. Fordham, attorney (LL.M. tax studies), is a State Bar Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Probate and Trust Law. His office is at 55 First St., Lakeport, California. Dennis can be reached by e-mail at
For a comet, visiting the sun is risky business. Fierce solar heat vaporizes gases long frozen in the fragile nucleus, breaking up some comets and completely destroying others.
That’s why astronomers weren’t sure what would happen early this month when Comet Pan-STARRS, a first-time visitor to the inner solar system, dipped inside the orbit of Mercury.
On Sunday, March 10, NASA’s STEREO-B spacecraft watched as the comet made its closest approach to the sun only 28 million miles away. At that distance, the sun loomed three times wider and felt more than 10 times hotter than it does on Earth.
The comet survived.
Still intact, Comet Pan-STARRS is emerging from the Sun’s glare into the sunset skies of the northern hemisphere. Solar heating has caused the comet to glow brighter than a first magnitude star.
Bright twilight sharply reduces visibility, but it is still an easy target for binoculars and small telescopes one and two hours after sunset.
As of Friday, March 15, people are beginning to report that they can see the comet with the unaided eye.
Discovered in June 2011 by astronomers using the Pan-STARRS survey telescope atop the Haleakala volcano in Hawaii, the comet is paying its first visit to the inner solar system. It hails from the Oort cloud, a deep space reservoir of comets far beyond the orbit of Pluto.
Because Comet PanSTARRs is a newcomer, its potential brightness and ability to withstand solar heating was unknown.
Now we know.
“It is a gorgeous comet – one of the brightest in years,” said astronomer Matthew Knight of the Lowell Observatory.
Comet specialist Emmanuel Jehin of the European Southern Observatory has been monitoring Pan-STARRS using a remote-controlled telescope in Chile.
Based on his data, Knight concluded that “Comet Pan-STARRS seems to be producing quite a bit of dust compared to an average comet. This is very good for its visibility, because the extra dust is reflecting sunlight and making Pan-STARRS appear brighter than it would otherwise.”
The amount of dust and gas spewing from the comet implies a nucleus on the order of one kilometer in diameter – in other words, neither unusually large nor small. Size-wise, it is a fairly typical comet.
The comet’s tail is anything but typical. STEREO-B images processed by Karl Battams of the Naval Research Lab in Washington DC reveal many wild and ragged striations in the cloud of dust trailing behind Pan-STARRS.
“Wow!” said Battams. “The fine-structure is breathtaking. We think this is caused by some fairly complex interaction between the solar wind and the comet’s rotating nucleus. It’s going to take computer models to figure this one out.”
The comet is now receding from Earth. It will slowly dim as it heads back into deep space. Ironically, though, its visibility will improve for a while as it heads into darker skies away from the sun. In the last weeks of March it could become an easy naked-eye object.
Step outside after sunset, face west, and take a look.
Dr. Tony Phillips works for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – A continuing investigation by the Lake County Sheriff’s Major Crimes Unit has resulted in positively identifying the suspect allegedly responsible for two bank robberies in Middletown.
On Friday sheriff’s detectives obtained a felony arrest warrant in the amount of $750,000 for 23-year-old Joshua James Metoxen of Napa, according to Lt. Steve Brooks.
Brooks said Metoxen is the prime suspect in the Feb. 27 robbery of Westamerica Bank and the March 7 robbery at Tri Counties Bank, both in Middletown.
Through the efforts of the Lake County Sheriff’s Major Crimes Unit Metoxen also identified as the suspect in at least six unsolved bank robberies in Marin and San Mateo counties.
Sheriff Frank Rivero expressed his gratitude for the dogged investigation conducted by the detectives in the Major Crimes Unit.
The unit is headed up by Lt. Brian Kenner and Det. Sgt. Corey Paulich. “Without their efforts this case would have gone cold and the outside agency cases would have remained cold,” Rivero.
There is currently a multiagency manhunt underway for Metoxen, officials reported.
The Lake County Sheriff’s Office requests the public’s assistance in locating Metoxen.
Anyone with information concerning his whereabouts is encouraged to call the Lake County Sheriff’s Office or 911.
Metoxen should be considered armed and extremely dangerous and should not be approached.