RYAN J. WALLIS, 32, of San Francisco, has been arrested for suspected drunken driving and vehicular manslaughter in the death of his younger sister in a 3am single vehicle crash near Navarro early Friday morning (October 12th). Wallis lost control of his full-size GMC pickup, careened off Highway 128 and into a redwood.
The passenger side of the truck contained Wallis's 20-year-old sister, a resident of Tucson who died instantly when the truck hit the tree. Two other passengers, Logan P. Duffy-Stanley, 31, and Jamie L. McAvoy, 30, both of Tahoe City, were treated for minor injuries at Coast Hospital in Fort Bragg and released. Wallis had been traveling at an estimated 60mph. He was treated for lacerations to his face before he was arrested for suspicion of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, a felony, and felony drunken driving. He is being held in the Mendocino County Jail on $200,000 bail.
NEVA DYER, Yorkville-based Hendy Woods Volunteer, tells us that the recycle stop that is now at the far right end of the Fairgrounds parking lot will credit your recyclables to Hendy Woods if you tell them to. These are pennies that will add up to dollars for our favorite park if we all take our CRV (deposit paid) recycled aluminum and deposit paid plastics there instead of to the dump.
AN ONLINE COMMENT re Steve Sparks' interview with Joe Dresch: “Despite the political and financial debacle of the USPS there are many, many wonderful employees. I know many by name and enjoy the brief opportunity to chat, some are Vietnam Vets waiting to get the final year in to retire, man have they paid their dues to society! Joe sounds like a balanced and positive person despite a very stressful job as postmaster… great interview, great guy thanks to Joe and the others who provide a great service to the public at a very reasonable cost.”
ON THE OTHER HAND, Chuck Wilcher of Comptche but temporarily in Ohio on family business hasn't received an AVA since September 19th.
CHRYS ORIANNE SAGRADA writes: “Join us at the Boonville Farmers' Market located at the Boonville Hotel from 10-12:30pm this coming Saturday October, 20th, 2012. This is the second to the last market for the summer. If you buy $10 or more of produce then you can participate in a raffle; we will be raffling a beautiful handmade bag from the Philippines. Snacks will be provided, so you don't want to miss out! Our musical guest will be singer/songwriter Jay Watkins. Come and support your local farmers!”
LANGUAGE CLASSES In Oaxaca Mexico For Anderson Valley Residents. The most effective way to learn a second or third language is to be immersed in a place where that language is spoken. This summer, Anderson Valley residents will have the opportunity to study Spanish for two weeks at the Instituto Cultural de Oaxaca. Participants will engage in language classes during the day, field trips on the weekend and get to know the fascinating and culturally diverse city of Oaxaca. Students have the opportunity to live with families or choose alternative living arrangements. The Instituto is housed in a beautiful colonial style hacienda where average class size is four to eight people with the same level of language competency. The cost of the language classes are $310.00 for two weeks for the main program (4 hours of language instruction in the morning, 4 hours of culture and conversation in the afternoon) or $290.00 for the 20 hour program (morning language classes only). Homestay prices are $18.00 a day for a single room or $14.00 a day for a shared room. The homestay includes breakfast, add $6.00 a day per person for comida (main meal at lunchtime). The trip is being organized by Kathy Cox who has taken three previous groups for language study at the Instituto. Each group has found the experience to be valuable in terms of language acquisition and cultural experience. It is also a lot of fun. There will be an organizational meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 7 at 5:30 in the Career Center Classroom of the High School for those who are interested. For more information contact Kathy Cox at 895-3955 or kcox@mcn.org .
HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL COACH John Toohey's dogged determination to re-establish Boonville as the small school powerhouse it once was, has certainly inspired The Valley's younger athletes to keep on playing hard against older, much more experienced teams. And it's a measure of Toohey's gifts that with each game his team improves. Beginning next season, Boonville will again be a pigskin power to reckon with.
THE COACH WRITES: “I thought I would e-mail you and give you some inside info on what's been happening this football season. You mentioned in Valley People that the JV's have been winning games. They have been winning, but by forfeit. We are currently the ONLY team in the league who has been able to field a JV and Varsity team each and every week. Mendocino cancelled the JV game last Friday at homecoming, citing low numbers for the week. Its been frustrating that the community has worked so hard to create such a strong football program from the youth level all the way through high school, and we have nobody for the JV team to play. This JV team is, in my opinion, the most talented this town has EVER had.
“THE JV's have only played one game, at the Apple Bowl, where they beat Point Arena 46-0. Since then, Potter Valley and Mendocino have both cancelled their JV games against us (they had been playing JV games up to the point they were scheduled to play us).
“SOME OF THE JV players who have been 'playing up' for the Varsity squad include: sophomores Diego Becerra and Jesse Owens, along with freshmen Jared Johnston, Cesar Soto, John Ornbaun, Will Lemons and Bobby Kuny who have all been playing varsity as underclassmen in their first year playing high School Football. Ornbaun has started at corner back for the varsity, Lemons starts both ways on the O and D line when he is playing varsity, and Jared Johnston has thrown for 9 touchdowns in the two varsity games he has started at QB, 5 of them to freshman Cesar Soto. Watching our freshmen outplay the competition's upperclassmen is something we hope isn't going unnoticed.
“OF THE 24 players we have in the program currently, only four have had any prior experience playing high school football. The most experienced players are seniors Drake Mezzanato and Scott Johnston, who each had a year and a half of football coming into this season. In total, there is only 5 years of experience amongst everybody in the program. After graduating 10 seniors, and losing 5 varsity returners for various reasons, fielding a team, let alone a competitive team, seemed next to impossible. However, many new faces and inexperienced upperclassmen have stepped in, courageously I might add, to fill out the roster and ensure we can field a team every week. Despite our win/loss record on varsity, there are some very good things happening. Senior Scotty Johnston, in the Apple Bowl, broke the school record for carries, rushing 40 times for 265 yards, 15 year old junior Andrew Espinoza is hands down the best offensive lineman in the league, newcomer Keenan Winters is coming off a 5 sack performance against Rincon Valley Christian, and another newcomer, Jesus “Chuche” Hernandez standing 5'2” and weighing 190 pounds, has earned a reputation as possibly the toughest runner in the league.
“ALL THE PLAYERS in the program have been making huge improvements as the season has progressed. I just wanted to make sure people have some context when they come out and support their team, and they get excited about the good things on the horizon for this PROGRAM.”
ANOTHER FOOTBALL FAN OBSERVES: “Scotty Johnston played well and ran very hard. Jared Johnston looked good as a freshman qb, and Cesar Soto, another freshman, was outstanding on defense and offense. He's our most aggressive defender at 130lbs and also had a great kickoff return all the way back to Mendo's 8. The team looked much improved from a few weeks ago but Mendo was just more mature and experienced. We had at least 4 freshman on the field at all times, and sometimes 6. The young guys all stepped up big. The crowd was definitely larger for the soccer game but above average crowd for both games.”
BRONWYN HANES is scheduled to plead guilty embezzling a large sum of money from the Anderson Valley PTA on October 25th at 8:30 AM in Judge Moorman's courtroom. Details of the plea are not yet available.
BILL ALLEN WRITES: “ I haven't driven on 128 South from Boonville for several weeks due to the repaving project. Returning from Santa Rosa a few days ago Nancy and I decided to take 128 anyway to check on the repaving progress and see a few vistas we had been missing. We were stunned when we went past the new CalFire station. With its menacing cyclone fencing topped by three lines of barbed wire, all surrounding some of the most unattractive industrial architecture imaginable, it looks more like a prison compound than a civil service facility. Are they planning to house prison fire crews there during peak season? What the hell are they preparing for? Martial law? The storming of the CalFire Bastille when Rombama eviscerates Social Security and Medicare? Whatever their reasoning we can be grateful this monstrosity is on the outskirts of town, though it certainly does not present a warm, welcoming prospect to visitors driving out of the hills. It ought to be viewed as a sore reminder that when the state or county bureaucracy plans to build any facility in our neighborhood citizens should demand and fight for aesthetic oversight and influence.”
I'VE LONG SUSPECTED a federal policy that mandates bad buildings. This thing, as Bill says, is certain to depress everyone who drives past it, and what a visual bummer it presents to people driving on into Boonville where they're greeted by Ricard's abandoned kindling pile.
OUR LOCAL tennis players swept Ukiah 3-0 in opening match play for the United States Tennis Association fall league. The match took place this past Saturday on the newly refurbished courts at the Boonville High School. Players and spectators particularly enjoyed the new, 8-foot long benches on the courts. Tina Walter and David Ballantine, playing 1st doubles, defeated the Ukiah team with a 6-1, 6-2 score. Camille and Bob Corby teamed up to beat the 2nd doubles team 7-5, 6-3, with some of the longest rallies of the day. Arnaud Weyrich and Clive Silverman easily dispatched their opponents with a 6-0, 6-3 score. Spectators are welcome. Come out this Saturday, October 20th at 10am and watch your local team play Healdsburg.
SPEAKING of the tennis courts, generously refurbished for public and school use by a terrific private effort by the ladies and gentlemen mentioned above, how come the school is locking their gates during non-school hours?
THE BOONVILLE SCHOOL BOARD has unanimously passed a resolution in favor of both the school funding initiatives, propositions 30 and 38.
THE INDEFATIGABLE KATHY BAILEY, with huge assists from lots of locals, has moved ordinarily immovable state government objects, to keep Hendy Woods open, and now reminds us: “If you’d like to do a favor for the trees in the Campground areas of Hendy Woods, you can join Senior Park Aide Dolly Pacella this Thursday and next for her annual nail removal foray. No volunteer paperwork will be needed to participate. Turns out one of the ways that some campers make themselves feel at home in the woods is to hammer nails and tent stakes, and what have yous, into the trees around their campsites. They then hang cups, frying pans, laundry lines, and perhaps a few hats from the nails. At the end of the season Dolly comes around and carefully marks the nails and removes them. You can join Dolly in this effort Thursday, October 18 at 10 AM and/or next Thursday, October 25th at 1 PM. Meet at the Campfire Circle near the Visitor Center. She’ll provide the marking tape and can provide tools, but if you happen to have a small pry bar and a block of wood (to protect the tree while you pull the nails), bring them along. She’ll show you her proven technique to pull nails without further damaging the trees. All nails will be collected and displayed in an effort to deter campers from starting the whole process over again next year!”
AND GOOD ON DOLLY PACELLA for her work. Probably never occurred to most of us — it certainly hadn't to me — that lots of contempo campers literally nail their stuff down when they visit.
STEVE SPARKS tells me there won't be an Anderson Valley Film Festival this year, but there will be film weekends in Boonville at selected local venues. He's too modest to say so, but the festival is too much work for one guy to pull off virtually by himself.
LAUGHING DOG BOOKS will be closed October 25-31st, while W. Dan and Loretta travel to Santa Barbara for a friend's wedding. If anyone needs to order a book while we're away, remember that is now possible at www.laughingdogbooks.com . “When we reopen on November 1st, we will begin new ‘winter hours’: still open every day except Tuesday, but now from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Happy Halloween!”
GRISLY RUMOR making the rounds in The Valley says that in the aftermath of their rape and assault of a then-14-year-old Navarro girl, Jose Lopez-Garibay was killed by local vigilantes while Julio Ceja-Rangel fled to Mexico. Ceja-Rangel has recently been extradited from Mexico and is presently in the Mendocino County Jail where he faces life in prison for the attack on the girl, But Garibay is alive and well in a small town not far from the Texas border. His wife, ill with cancer when she left the Anderson Valley for Mexico City soon after her husband fled The Valley, apparently survived the cancer and has, along with their son, rejoined Garibay.
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