Mary Jo Dawson and Dewey Fisher noticed their dogs kept nosing around a spot in a culvert on their property next to the main Garden Valley School driveway. When they investigated, they found one of their lambs had been killed and buried.
Having seen two small cougars in the vicinity, they called the USDA Forest Service for permission to shoot the culprits. The cougars returned to the scene of the crime three times. On Monday, the property owners lay in wait for them in the grass. One female cougar was shot with a 30.06 high-powered hunting rifle. The second cat was caught with a snare.
Garden Valley School Superintendent Mike Tomlin said one of the dead cats was donated to Mr. Foote's science class. Tomlin remarked, "What an opportunity to dissect and see the organ system and musculature of an animal like this, rather than the rats we have to purchase."
Dawson said, "After we shot it, we just looked at it. We were curious--we never see cats and they were incredibly beautiful."
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
PHONE DISCOUNT AWARENESS WEEK: NATIONAL LIFELINE & LINK UP TELEPHONE DISCOUNTS
In these times with so many struggling to get by, it is important that everyone understand all of the assistance that is available to help people stay afloat.
“Lifeline" and "Link-Up" are programs that ensure that all Americans can get basic telephone service, by providing limited discounts to consumers who might not otherwise be able to afford service. Lifeline involves discounts on the cost of monthly telephone service, and Link-Up involves a discount on the cost of initiating telephone service. The discount is available for the primary residential telephone, even if that phone is wireless.
The programs have been in place since the 1980s, administered by the federal government and the state public utility commissions, but, nationally, only about a third of low-income consumers who are eligible for the programs participate. To find out about how the discount works in your state and how to apply, go to http://www.lifelinesupport.org.
The Federal Communications Commission, National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, and National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates have adopted the first full week after Labor Day as “National Lifeline and Link Up Telephone Discount Awareness Week.”
“Lifeline" and "Link-Up" are programs that ensure that all Americans can get basic telephone service, by providing limited discounts to consumers who might not otherwise be able to afford service. Lifeline involves discounts on the cost of monthly telephone service, and Link-Up involves a discount on the cost of initiating telephone service. The discount is available for the primary residential telephone, even if that phone is wireless.
The programs have been in place since the 1980s, administered by the federal government and the state public utility commissions, but, nationally, only about a third of low-income consumers who are eligible for the programs participate. To find out about how the discount works in your state and how to apply, go to http://www.lifelinesupport.org.
The Federal Communications Commission, National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, and National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates have adopted the first full week after Labor Day as “National Lifeline and Link Up Telephone Discount Awareness Week.”
During the week of September 13 – 19, 2010, federal and state agencies and consumer advocates will be calling attention to the availability of these programs to ensure that more eligible consumers understand that this assistance is available. Several outreach tools to assist you are available at http://www.naruc.org/lifeline/default.cfm.
SCHOOL GIVES BIOMASS A BIRTHDAY PARTY!
IT'S MY PARTY.MY NAME IS BIOMASS AND I WAS INSTALLED IN MY NEW HOME AT GARDEN VALLEY SCHOOL ON AUGUST 17.
YESTERDAY, MONDAY SEPTEMBER 13, WE HAD A PARTY WITH CELEBRITIES AND DIGNITARIES AND OLD AND CURRENT BOARD MEMBERS AND SCHOOL KIDS AND THE PEOPLE WHO INSTALLED ME AND A GUY NAMED MR. FERGUSON WHO WAS SENT BY WALT MINNICK, AND THE SUPERINTENDENT RECOGNIZED ALL KINDS OF FOLKS WHO ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ME BEING HERE.
PETE WIER, FORMER ACTING CHAIR OF THE BOARD AND MEMBER OF THE BOARD THROUGHOUT THIS PROCESS, WAS GIVEN A NICE PRIZE FOR HIS TENACITY AND DILIGENCE FOR WORKING ON THIS PROJECT AND WRITING THE GRANT SO THEY COULD GET STIMULUS MONEY--THAT WAY, THE SCHOOL DOESN'T PAY (YEAH, I GUESS YOU TAXPAYERS GET TO SHOULDER IT SOONER OR LATER) BUT IT'S GOOD FOR THE SCHOOL AND THE KIDS AND TEACHERS. THEY ARE SAVING LOTS OF BUCKS WITH ME!
THE FOREST SERVICE SHOWED AND I HAD A CHAT WITH CECILIA SEESHOLTZ, BOISE NATIONAL FOREST SUPERVISOR--THEY'VE PREPARED A LOT OF GOOD WOOD CHIP DELICACIES FOR ME, BUT NO ONE GAVE ME A CUPCAKE WITH PURPLE FROSTING--WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO? A PARTY FOR ME AND NO CUPCAKE!
MUSIC DIRECTOR JAMES DEFOE CAN PLAY AND KEEP THE TALENTED KID GROUP IN ORDER AT THE SAME TIME. I'M IMPRESSED.
PETE WIER, ABOVE, RUNS WITH THE GOODS!
RIGHT, SUPER MIKE TOMLIN, CECILIA, PETE, MARLO GLAUSER (FORMER BOARD CHAIR)TERRY ELMORE (CURRENT ACTING CHAIR),
AND DAVID BIGWIG CUT THE RIBBON THAT MEANS I'M IN ACTION.
Monday, September 13, 2010
THIS WEEK IN GARDEN VALLEY!
IT'S NOT TOO LATE TO GET AWAY TO SAWTOOTH LODGE IN BEAUTIFUL GRANDJEAN!
Preferred customers at the Merc get a 50% discount
off of room rates through Thursday, September 16.
Grab yer honey and get up there for a couple of nights.
--------------------------------------------------------
GARDEN VALLEY SCHOOL
CELEBRATE THE RIBBON CUTTING FOR THE ENERGY-SAVING BIOMASS BOILER.
This is a $2.7 Million Project Completely Funded
This is a $2.7 Million Project Completely Funded
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, AT 2:OO PM. TREATS!
School Board Meeting at 6:00 PM Tonight! 9/13
MONDAY NIGHT IS SPAGHETTI NIGHT AT
WILD BILL'S BISTRO, DOWNTOWN CROUCH!
ALL YOU CAN EAT FOR $7.00
------------------------------------------
JOIN COMMUNITY CHOIR FOR HOLIDAY
SEASON REHEARSALS
BEGINS TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 7:00 p.m
LDS CHURCH, BANKS LOWMAN ROAD
Call 462-2500 for Information
GARDEN VALLEY SYRINGA CLUB
MEETS AT THE SENIOR CENTER
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, AT NOON.
LUNCH IS AVAILABLE.
Syringa is a service-oriented club and welcomes all women. For info, call 462-8069.
-----------------
MOUNTAIN RENDEZVOUS!!
SEPTEMBER 17--19
Sponsored by the
DIRTY SHAME SALOON
CLASSIC MOTORCYCLES
HOT RODS TRUCKS
BIKE RODEO HOG FEED
MUSIC GET WILD!
462-2000 for information
------------------------------
BIKE-A-THON FOR CROUCH VOLUNTEER AMBULANCE
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18
Sign up at GV School or Garden Valley Properties
(MIDDLE FORK ROAD FROM BANKS LOWMAN
HIGHWAY TO CROUCH CLOSED FROM 9-11 a.m., SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18.)
-------------------------------------------------
LOW-COUNTRY SHRIMP BOIL
5-10:00 PM, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18
Saturday, September 11, 2010
September 11: Et in Terra Pax Ominibus
On the morning of September 11, 2001, I walked out of my music theory class to find several classmates sitting on a low brick wall, looking contemplative. I hadn’t heard the news of the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and what my friends told me sounded terrible but didn’t touch me the way I remember the death of John F. Kennedy did when I heard it, also after a morning high school class, in 1963.
Why not? I can only think that as a sheltered fifteen year-old, I hadn’t much experience in watching violence on the screen or in watching murderous behavior being broadcast on television across the nation and the world. I certainly had never observed it first-hand.
The thought of an American president being shot in the head as he rode in a car waving at his supporters struck me cold, as it did my schoolmates. We were herded to the football field to sit in the bleachers and listen to the principal try to explain such a horror. I remember feeling a despondency I’d never felt before but didn’t place the meaning of it.
I remember my daughter, aged 14, sobbing in her room because of the state of the world. She said she couldn’t dream of living past 21 because she couldn’t see it, couldn’t see humans making it through the devastation caused by humanity...how could there ever be a future?
Later in the evening, on Setember 11, I watched re-runs of the Towers as they slowly began their meltdown; as the buildings, convulsed into calcinated materials, spewed dust for miles; as fused and twisted metals turned the stately structures into a morgue; as humans stampeded for their lives in horrified disbelief; and as emergency professionals threw themselves into almost certain death. I stood with my hairs on end and pupils wide, knowing through cameras and wires and airwaves what my daughter knew so many years ago. What I knew at sixteen when I wrote my own take on the human condition on this planet: “We’re here to kill each other.”
Let’s face it. No one on this planet survives without killing something.
Can we save ourselves from ourselves? We are very good at being kind during an emergency. We smile and float through Sunday services as the angels would approve. We tell ourselves it’s our Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish—godly to be sure and somewhat human—duty to be kind and share what we know and teach our children the importance of love and tolerance and peace on earth.
Where do we begin? I’ve done my share of spewing angry indignation at the injustice of seeing friends and myself attacked and humiliated in my town. You’ve done your share of harm, whether through resentment, jealousy, greed, fear, insecurity, or simple exasperation of wanting change in your life.
Do we stop the horror by attacking each other, whether our own family or our president or a culture we don’t understand? By talking in corners about them, whoever they are, because they are different?
What happened on September 11 is no different from what we do to each other every day. We are good at hating, at criticizing,at thinking we know more and are better.
When we get together, we are better at our hatred, stronger in unison and capable of all of the horrors we’ve seen others do. It’s only a matter of degrees.
I am not the most brilliant, perceptive, loving r psychologically balanced person on the planet, but I see one thing very clearly. If we take the deepest, purest, most profound and infinite part of our humanity and decide to make peace, we may not conquer the innate killer-survivor in ourselves, but we might be able to put the beast to rest.
Why not? I can only think that as a sheltered fifteen year-old, I hadn’t much experience in watching violence on the screen or in watching murderous behavior being broadcast on television across the nation and the world. I certainly had never observed it first-hand.
The thought of an American president being shot in the head as he rode in a car waving at his supporters struck me cold, as it did my schoolmates. We were herded to the football field to sit in the bleachers and listen to the principal try to explain such a horror. I remember feeling a despondency I’d never felt before but didn’t place the meaning of it.
I remember my daughter, aged 14, sobbing in her room because of the state of the world. She said she couldn’t dream of living past 21 because she couldn’t see it, couldn’t see humans making it through the devastation caused by humanity...how could there ever be a future?
Later in the evening, on Setember 11, I watched re-runs of the Towers as they slowly began their meltdown; as the buildings, convulsed into calcinated materials, spewed dust for miles; as fused and twisted metals turned the stately structures into a morgue; as humans stampeded for their lives in horrified disbelief; and as emergency professionals threw themselves into almost certain death. I stood with my hairs on end and pupils wide, knowing through cameras and wires and airwaves what my daughter knew so many years ago. What I knew at sixteen when I wrote my own take on the human condition on this planet: “We’re here to kill each other.”
Let’s face it. No one on this planet survives without killing something.
Can we save ourselves from ourselves? We are very good at being kind during an emergency. We smile and float through Sunday services as the angels would approve. We tell ourselves it’s our Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish—godly to be sure and somewhat human—duty to be kind and share what we know and teach our children the importance of love and tolerance and peace on earth.
Where do we begin? I’ve done my share of spewing angry indignation at the injustice of seeing friends and myself attacked and humiliated in my town. You’ve done your share of harm, whether through resentment, jealousy, greed, fear, insecurity, or simple exasperation of wanting change in your life.
Do we stop the horror by attacking each other, whether our own family or our president or a culture we don’t understand? By talking in corners about them, whoever they are, because they are different?
What happened on September 11 is no different from what we do to each other every day. We are good at hating, at criticizing,at thinking we know more and are better.
When we get together, we are better at our hatred, stronger in unison and capable of all of the horrors we’ve seen others do. It’s only a matter of degrees.
I am not the most brilliant, perceptive, loving r psychologically balanced person on the planet, but I see one thing very clearly. If we take the deepest, purest, most profound and infinite part of our humanity and decide to make peace, we may not conquer the innate killer-survivor in ourselves, but we might be able to put the beast to rest.
Friday, September 10, 2010
GARDEN VALLEY COMMUNITY CHOIR HAS OPEN DOOR FOR NEW MEMBERS!
It's that time of year...
Yes, when you have to get about thirty people in gear and tune for a holiday season, you start early. Rehearsals begin on Tuesday, September 14, at 7:00 p.m. and bring your friends. Make this the best year yet, for this group of music-minded singers.
You don't have to be a pro, just keep tune and mark the beat. The rest falls in place as eyes learn to read, ears learn to hear and hearts meld together in the joy of song.
Choir director, Gary Sherwood, says he has a few new songs to add to the repertoire, which inludes lots of wonderful holiday classics, contemporary carols and sacred and solemn compositions.
The choir begins its 5th year this month. There is a core group of about twenty who have been together since its inception and others have become a part of the group when they saw how much fun it can be to sing in their community. Some have extensive musical background, some a little and there are folks who just couldn't help themselves and finally had to jump in...who doesn't like to sing?
Don't be shy, just show up at the LDS church on Banks Lowman road in Garden Valley on Tuesday night. The choir meets once a week in the lovely music room, which the church has generously offered for rehearsals. For information, call Gary Sherwood at 462-2500 or Rich Wilson, at 462-2250.
PICK UP BAKED GOODS HERE Senior Center Has New Baker
If you are heading up to Garden Valley or already live here and have a special occasion, give the Senior Center a call and your specially ordered cake or other baked goods will be waiting for you when you get here.
The Garden Valley Senior Center has a new Baker and the new Bakery is already at your service. EOA Coordinator Marcie Pyorre, always one for a good idea, approached members of the board with the fundraising concept of having baked goods available for folks to pick up when the Center is open on meal days and also for pre-orders.
Rochelle Gepford specializes in cookies, bars and cakes, which will be available every Tuesday and Thursday, between 9:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. Gepford will also provide patrons with pies, wedding cakes, breads or other bakery items as special orders. Arrangements can be made for pick-up, outside of regular hours.
Expect prices to be reasonable. Hey, this is the Senior Center, which provides homey meals that you can actually afford, and Granny's Closet secondhand shop is the cat's meow in deals. $3 for a dozen cookies--take it from there.
The Center is located at 261 S. Middle Fork Road, in Crouch/Garden Valley. Phone Marcie for information and orders, at 462-3943. Breakfast is served hot at 9:30 every Thursday and Dinner is ready at 6:00 p.m Tuesdays and Thursdays, which always includes a salad bar.
Bring the whole family. Beverages and dessert are included in the price:
Breakfast: $5, adults under 60; $4 suggested donation, 60+; and kids under 12, $3.
Dinner: $6, adults over 60; $5 suggested donation, 60+; and under 12, $4.
Photo: Senior Center's New Baker, Rochelle Gepford, left, and Shelly Tolar, New Meals on Wheels Driver.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)