CASSIDY HOLLINGER, a senior at Anderson Valley High School, will attend Vassar College in the fall, which makes this impressive young Boonville woman the first local girl we know of to be admitted to a prestigious, highly competitive Ivy. The dauntless Cassidy, who waitresses at the Boonville Lodge where her mom tends bar, will soon be holding her own with very smart girls from the best public and private schools in the country. Cassidy's mom, Cyndee, is justly proud of her high achieving daughter. "Cassidy," she says, "is the first of either the Ahrens or the Hollinger families to go off to a 4-year, let alone Ivy League school," adding that her late parents Bill and June Ahrens, and her late brother Wayne Ahrens, "would all be very proud, too."
RUMORS that Dig, the popular Philo family farm emporium, is not paying its bills are completely unfounded, unfounded to the point of mystifying since the business's energetic young proprietors enjoy an A-1 credit rating and also enjoy a local reputation for paying their bills in full and promptly. How do these things get started? It must be winter in the Anderson Valley.
ROBBIN LEGERE HENDERSON'S fetching local landscapes are presently on display at Mosswood Market where a reception for the artist will be held Saturday, January 17th, 5-7pm. Ms. Henderson's work is called, "From Comptche to Berkeley and Back."
MARTHA IBARRA, the 15-year-old Boonville girl who left town with Jorge Ayala, a young man in his early twenties, remains with Ayala at a distant location Martha refuses to divulge.
THAT CONSTRUCTION underway maybe fifty yards east of the Zina-Hyde Cunningham tasting room in downtown Boonville will soon be the home of Steve Ledson, Zina Cunningham's owner.
THREE BIG moving trucks appeared at the Toll House over the weekend to carry away the goods and occupants as the economy claimed another lease-option. The Toll House folks had been with us for a year.
BLUE CONTAINER MAN, also of Bell Valley, appeared over the weekend. He fired off guns, admired the eyesore he's created on 253, returned to the city.
POWER was out last Wednesday — New Year's Eve — from about 8:30am until 10am, and long enough for a couple of stores to crank up their generators.
GWYN SMITH of the school district office informs us that the "water system separation project" tersely described here last week will "improve the quality of the drinking water at the high school by using new sources of water (from two new wells) and then separating the potable water from the ag water system." Gwen says the State Department of Health is putting up 80% of the money, which came to about $219,000.
SPEAKING OF THE SCHOOLS, poor old superintendent JR Collins hasn't so much as mentioned retirement but already the prevalent gossip sees his successor as either the formidable Donna Pierson-Pugh, Elementary School principal, or high school principal Jim Tomlin. Put the AVA down in the Pierson-Pugh column, please. Best of all though, probably, would be a completely new person from outside as a wind of change through an entrenched apparatus which has made itself its first priority. But the last time this incestuous district tried an outsider the poor thing was assaulted from so many directions she never knew what hit her and was soon outta here.
NEW YEAR'S EVE came and went in Boonville with large, peaceful crowds ushering in the New Year at Lauren's and the Boonville Lodge. Unknown revelers did ignite a couple of post midnight explosions in the middle of 128 described by nearby residents "as a lot bigger than cherry bombs or M80's," but in the old days the hills echoed with celebratory fusillades and merrymakers were still sleeping the night off two days later.
MENDOCINO COLLEGE if offering a pair of art classes in Boonville beginning January 20th. Tuesday nights: Book Arts — Learn how to create handmade books for self-expression and experimentation taught by Susan Gross. On Thursday nights: Drawing With Colored Pencils taught by Elizabeth Ross. Information from Susan at 895-3938 or Elizabeth at 895-3711.
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