By Ashley Cullins, KRNV-TV

Two weeks after nearly drowning near Sand Harbor, 19-year-old Jake Blackmon is expected to fully recover.

Blackmon was in Tahoe on vacation with a friend. The day before they were supposed to go home to Houston, he nearly drowned.

It’s a story that could’ve ended much differently if the people at the beach that day hadn’t acted quickly.

“Right before we boarded the airplane in Houston, I called the doctor to get an update and I’ll never forget he told me that they would try to keep his heart beating until we got here,” said Keith Blackmon, Jake’s dad.

Blackmon’s parents didn’t know if their son would survive nearly drowning in Lake Tahoe — neither did the people who helped save him at Sand Harbor two weeks ago.

Read the whole story

A South Lake Tahoe man with a history of battery arrests is behind bars for attempting to murder his longtime roommate.

The 46-year-old South Lake Tahoe woman who was nearly beaten to death the night of Aug. 12 with a mallet was clinging to life 24 hours later at Renown Medical Center in Reno. At this time her name is not being released.

Steven Post, 48, was arrested on attempted murder charges.

Sgt. Shannon Laney said a verbal argument escalated into Post grabbing a rubber mallet like one would use for camping and striking the victim several times in the head and arm.

“He admitted to everything,” Laney told Lake Tahoe News. “He was arrested on attempted murder based on the weapon and area he was striking.”

Being struck in the head often has fatal consequences.

The two have lived together for 18 years, most recently on Azure Avenue near the state line. Post told officers there is no romantic involvement between them at least at this time.

Post was arrested in 2010 and 2011 on charges of battering the same woman. He was not convicted.

— Lake Tahoe News

• The top four Douglas County manager candidates are Mary Lou Brown, Curtis Calder, Timothy Hacker and James Nichols. There will be a special commission meeting Aug. 18 at 9am in Minden. Final selection will be Sept. 4.
• The Kansas City Barbeque Society’s Great American Cookout is on a tour across the nation. It will be in Sparks Aug. 27-Sept. 1 at Victorian Square.
• Kim Chatfield on Aug. 16 will be signing copies of his recently released book about the Chinese herb Astragalus. The event is at Grassroots in South Lake Tahoe from 11:30am-12:30pm.
• There will be a murder mystery aboard the Virginia and Truckee Railroad steam train Aug. 15 from 6-8:30pm. For more info, call 877.724.5007.
• Douglas County Board of Commissioners have requested a state of emergency due to the cumulative series of flash floods that have taken place since July 20 in the valley. Douglas County’s flash flood hotline is 775.782.9993 or email flood@co.douglas.nv.us.

By Kathryn Reed

There will be no Catholic grade school on the South Shore this fall.

“We had a hail Mary pass out there with a donor who came in with great support, but it was just short of the goal line,” Stella Roper, spokeswoman for what was to be Lake Tahoe Catholic Academy, told Lake Tahoe News. “We had to look at it with less passion and with more responsibility.”

The decision to not open the South Lake Tahoe school was made Aug. 12.

A group of parents, teachers and community members had rallied together since June to try to open the academy after the Catholic Diocese said St. Theresa School had to close because of declining enrollment and not enough money being generated from the K-8 school.

The academy had hoped to open Sept. 2.

Roper said funding, and commitment from parents and teachers could have sustained the school for a couple years, but not in the long term. The decision was that it would be better for all involved to not open rather than to have to close again in what could be a handful of years.

The corporation formed to run the school still exists, and may continue to. Supporters of faith-based education are not ruling out trying again to create a sustainable education model for the area.

Roper said organizers are not upset they tried to resurrect the school, and found a tremendous amount of community support for such an education platform. But, ultimately, the numbers did not pan out.

Now those students, of which there were 50 last school year, need to find another place to be schooled this fall. Douglas County School District starts Aug. 18 and Lake Tahoe Unified’s first day is Aug. 25.

By Barry Starr, KQED-TV

Here in the U.S., we are bombarded with an almost constant barrage of information about the benefits of exercise. And those benefits are real. For example, exercise may help prevent at least 35 chronic unhealthy conditions and premature death.

Despite all of this, something like 90 percent of us over the age of 12 fail to get as much exercise as we should. This is almost certainly not because we don’t believe in those benefits. Instead, it looks like at least part of the reason may be that some of us are genetically programmed to hate exercise.

The evidence that genes play a big role in people’s interest in exercise comes mostly from twin and family studies. For example, a recent report found that genetics explained 47 percent of the behavior of people who like to exercise and 31 percent of the behavior of those who avoid exercise whenever they can. The rest of the reluctance to or enthusiasm for exercise can be chalked up to environmental factors like already being overweight or coming from a family that doesn’t exercise or about a thousand other possibilities.

What makes the obviousness of exercise motivation genes interesting is that if there is a biological link to lack of enthusiasm for exercise, then there is a chance that we might one day be able to tweak things to make exercise enjoyable for everyone. With a gentle prod from these new meds, people who get no thrill from exercise might now be able to love it. The health benefits of such a treatment would be staggering.

Read the whole story

To the community,

Bread & Broth would like to thank the Tahoe/Douglas Elks Lodge No. 2670 for sponsoring their third Adopt A Day of Nourishment for 2014 on July 28.

“Elks are always on hand to help our community and vets,” said Roger Barragan as he volunteered at B&B’s Monday evening dinner.

B&B appreciates the support that the Tahoe/Douglas Elks Lodge has given to aiding our program in feeding the needy of our community.

With the donation of $250, the Elks Lodge sponsored a spaghetti meal that fed 108 dinner guests with 32 diners coming back for seconds and many “to go” containers given out at the end of the dinner. These meals feed the elderly living on fixed incomes, families in need, the working poor as well as those living outdoors. On many cases, B&B’s meals are the only full course, nutritious meals that our diners receive.

In addition to the Elk Lodge’s financial support, lodge members Roger and Jeanne Barragan, and Don and Dee Young donated their time once again to come in and help the B&B volunteers.

“We look forward to helping our community,” said Jeanne Barragan.

B&B looks forward to teaming with the Tahoe/Douglas Elk Lodge No. 2670 in helping the less fortunate in the Lake Tahoe South Shore Community.

Carol Gerard, Bread & Broth

By Louis Sahagun, Los Angeles Times

Are wildfires becoming more extreme?

As part of an effort to answer that question, Nevada researcher Tamara Wall is calling on current and past wildland firefighters across the nation to share personal experiences of instances in which they witnessed surprising fire behavior.

“This project is driven by a phrase increasingly heard among fire agencies at the management level: I’ve never seen a fire behave like that before,” said Wall, who is leading a collaborative effort between the U.S. Forest Service and the Desert Research Institute, a nonprofit research campus of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Participants are encouraged to provide as many experiences as they want in an online program that takes as little as five minutes to complete.

Read the whole story

Deathways of the Comstock Chinese is the latest exhibit at the Comstock History Center.

The exhibit, which highlights the death and burial practices of the Chinese, features artifacts, photographs, video and an accurately reproduced, life-sized Chinese gravesite.

The free exhibit opens Aug. 14  at 11a.m.

The historic Chinese graveyard in Virginia City is no longer intact, so visitors will have an opportunity to see a replica Chinese burial site, complete with ornate decorations, reconstructed within the exhibit. The display illustrates the complex and symbolic death rituals that were part of China’s ancient, sophisticated culture.

The Comstock History Center is located at 20 N. E St. in Virginia City. It is open Thursday through Sunday from 11am-4pm.

:

Maria Mircheva, executive director of the Sugar Pine Foundation, will be talking about the work her groups does on Sept. 30 at 5:30pm.

There will be video showing how volunteers climbing trees to collect seeds. Plus, there is the chance to examine their giant slingshot.

The Sugar Pine Foundation is a local nonprofit dedicated to restoring sugar pines and western white pines by involving the community in forest stewardship. Since 2008, they have planted more than 70,000 seedlings with volunteer and school groups.

The talk at South Lake Tahoe Library (1000 Rufus Allen Blvd.) is free.

By Kathryn Reed

Summer is definitely the time of year when a variety of salads are easy to make because of the abundance of fresh ingredients available.

Barbecuing the corn gave it an added crunchiness and a hint of charred flavor that you won’t get from boiling the ears. But there would be nothing wrong with dropping the corn in hot water.

The lime adds a wonderful fresh, citrus flavor that with the cilantro is refreshing.

For those who are not big fans of cilantro, start out with less and keep tasting until you get it to your liking.

This salad would be best served a few hours after making it or the next day so the flavors come together more. If you can wait to serve, then adjust the final seasoning later on. This way you are less likely to put too much of something in.

Fresh Corn Salad

6 ears corn, cooked
3 T olive oil
1 large tomato, seeded
1 C fresh cilantro, chopped
1 medium red onion, diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
Garlic salt
Pepper
2 limes

Take corn off kernels with knife. Add tomato, onion and bell pepper. Mix veggies before adding cilantro, oil and lime juice. Season with salt and pepper to taste.