Teacher-student sex; meth in classrooms; woman denies she's dead
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Odd and interesting news from around the West.
- By MARK FREEMAN Mail Tribune
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BUTTE FALLS, Ore. (AP) — Fish raceways used to raise millions of young salmon and steelhead for nearly a century could be used to grow shiitake mushrooms, wasabi and perhaps even shrimp, all cultivated by kids and sold for profit.
Footpaths over Ginger Creek will get new bridges wide enough for golf carts to ferry disabled kids into old-growth Douglas fir groves and grassy expanses at the former Butte Falls Hatchery, reported the Mail Tribune (http://bit.ly/2c427m8). Two adjacent homes on the property could house homeless kids, while another could provide quarters for college students working on research projects.
Four years after it took possession of most of the former hatchery, the Butte Falls School District is launching an ambitious effort to turn the retired facility into a destination learning center with myriad ventures so it could eventually pay for itself.
The district, which took possession of 10 acres of the 13-acre site just outside of town in 2012, is on the cusp of acquiring the remaining 3 acres, which include the hatch house and three residences from the federal Department of Education, where the deed landed after that sliver of the property reverted to the federal government in 2011.
The district has set aside about $160,000 as seed money for grants and in-kind contributions needed to get the estimated $600,000 in improvements and upgrades over the next three years to create the learning lab that was envisioned when the district took possession of the property.
It's a big vision, but the district is all-in on making it happen.
"This is the part where it becomes real," says Chris Mathas, hired by the district to shepherd the project, collect donations and acquire grants.
"What we have is a collaborative effort that I'm building right now, and it's going to generate a lot of industry support," Mathas says.
Plans are to cut about a dozen drought-stressed trees on the property to use as lumber for construction projects that, over time, will create a natural resources center that would be used by Butte Falls Charter School's 160 students and visiting kids from regional school districts.
"We could be talking about thousands of students annually," Mathas says.
So far there's been mostly talk about what to do with the property since it fell to the district after spending 95 years raising salmon, steelhead and trout.
The hatchery, which was opened in 1915 to take advantage of crystal clear Ginger Creek water, was operated for decades by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, and after numerous financial and structural problems, it was rebuilt in 2003 and judged Oregon's best state-run hatchery in 2006.
But a disease outbreak shuttered production that same year. Four years later, the hatchery was deemed disease-free, but efforts to reopen it sank from the weight of $1 million in required improvements amid agency budget cuts.
ODFW looked to divest itself of the property, and after being approached by Jackson County, ODFW deeded its 10 acres to the school district in 2012.
The deed includes the acreage as well as an old house used as an office, a garage, a cold-storage building once used to store fish feed and a dried-up pond. The district also has access to a sliver of the hatchery's old water right to fill the concrete raceways, but not the three residences and the hatch house.
A 1941 agreement meant the remaining 3 acres with those structures on them had to revert back to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service when ODFW stopped hatchery operations. The land eventually ended up in the hands of the DOE. As with the state-owned piece of property five years ago, the school is the only potential taker for the remaining acreage, Mathas says, and a land transfer could be completed "any day now."
The past four years have been slow-go at the center, which has housed some school events and boasts a partnership with Southern Oregon University, but it hasn't gelled as originally envisioned.
"A lot of it was because we didn't have a lot of money, and we didn't have the whole hatchery," school Principal Dianne Gorman says.
"Some dreams are bigger than what you can make happen," she says. "I think we need to take baby steps."
A big step came in July with the hiring of Mathas to shepherd the project, Gorman says.
Butte Falls leads Oregon in homelessness, with a high rate of sofa-surfing kids who need stable settings.
"It became apparent that, hey, we need to help those kids," Gorman says. "Getting those other houses made it seem kind of obvious."
But the big push will be the educational component centered on hydroponics, Mathas says.
The shiitake mushrooms, wasabi and shrimp will be grown in the concrete raceways and sold for profit. Other ventures eyed for the center include growing industrial hemp, a museum, amphitheater and even a bicycle repair shop.
Mathas says he knows it's a big dream, but the district has to occupy the usable buildings within a year of taking possession of them to help kids learn about the natural environment while cranking out mushrooms and wasabi to pay the bills.
"It will be self-sustaining at some point, but we don't know when," Mathas says. "I think the story here is going to be pretty interesting in the next couple years."
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Information from: Mail Tribune, http://www.mailtribune.com/
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PHOENIX (AP) — Traces of methamphetamine have been found at a suburban Phoenix high school.
KPHO-TV reports (http://bit.ly/2bEEiPv) that air and surface testing detected a trace amount of the drug in three classrooms at Mountain Pointe High School in Ahwatukee.
The school's principal shared the findings Thursday at a meeting with staff and parents of students who had to be relocated.
The testing was done between Aug. 17 and Aug. 19 after an apartment occupied by a former live-in security guard had an unknown odor.
Principal Bruce Kipper says the amount found was less than 100 nanograms.
An independent toxicologist says the amount is not enough to cause any effects.
But nobody will be allowed back in those classrooms until they are professionally cleaned and retested.
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Information from: KPHO-TV, http://www.kpho.com/
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PHOENIX (AP) — Almost a third of Arizona high school senior athletes say they've sustained a concussion.
That's according to Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, which says it has done the first statewide concussion-related study of teenagers.
Barrow is part of Dignity Health's St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center.
The survey released Friday shows concussions are having a direct impact on sports participation.
One in four boys decided not to play football because of concussion concerns and one in 10 girls declined to play soccer for the same reason.
While the issue of concussions in football has been widely discussed, the rate of brain injury in girls' soccer is less well known.
The report also found 79 percent of student-athletes say they'd tell their coach if they thought they had suffered a concussion.
- By NICK BOWMAN Ketchikan Daily News
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KETCHIKAN, Alaska (AP) — The Cassiopeia is a boat grand enough for a cowboy hat.
The 72-foot, custom-built Davidson sailboat has been an eye-catcher in Casey Moran Harbor this summer. It's owned by Ketchikan urologist Gary Schoenrock and his wife, Carolyn.
Talking to the Ketchikan Daily News (http://bit.ly/2bJvYvK ) aboard the Cassiopeia on a Friday in August, Schoenrock said he's the second owner of the vessel, which even at low tide has a mast that competes with Knob Hill above the tunnel for the Ketchikan skyline.
Inside, the 23-year-old composite sailboat — made with a combination of epoxy, Kevlar and foam — is surprisingly roomy for a vessel designed with the America's Cup in mind.
It's because the Seattle banker who commissioned the vessel from New Zealand builder Davidson Yachts, and who eventually sold it to Schoenrock, had a son.
That son liked cowboy hats, and he wanted to wear his hat inside the Cassiopeia.
"That's why the ceilings are so high, but if you look from the outside, the lines ... are good," Schoenrock. "It doesn't look like it's too bulky."
Though the boat has a "generous" amount of room for a 72-foot sailboat, he said, it still can get along at more than 20 knots.
It also can survive 40-foot drops.
"It's extremely tough, although the outer skins can be fragile," Schoenrock said. "But the boat itself, we've been in hurricanes and fallen off of 40-foot waves and nothing happens to it."
Years ago, the Cassiopeia caught a Japanese typhoon while Schoenrock was sailing from Kauai, Hawaii, to Homer.
"We had like 55-knot winds and 40-foot waves for about five days," he said.
The fall from crest to nadir was "like you're falling out of a window four stories," he said. "The whole boat just shudders and you think it's going to break in half. That was an experience I don't want to repeat."
The mostly retired doctor has fond memories of sailing on clear nights.
"The stars and the moon — and you have running lights on usually, so as you're going through waves there's green and red coming back on each side," he said. "To me, it's almost psychedelic."
The Cassiopeia has a draft of just more than 13 feet. While a close fit to older America's Cup boats, its interior is designed for comfort.
The vessel was built in Christchurch, New Zealand, and is equipped a 135 horsepower single engine and a carbon fiber mast rising almost 100 feet.
"Out in the ocean with good wind we could do 18 knots for days on end," Schoenrock said.
The Ketchikan doctor has worked in a few areas in the United States and owned a practice in Soldotna, but now works one week a month for the Ketchikan Medical Center.
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Information from: Ketchikan (Alaska) Daily News, http://www.ketchikandailynews.com
- By SUDHIN THANAWALA Associated Press
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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A 12-year-old girl's lie on the witness stand cost Luther Jones 18 years.
A judge in California's Lake County ordered Jones released from prison earlier this year after the girl — now 30 — came forward and said her mother told her to falsely testify in 1998 that Jones molested her.
"It's a horrible injustice," Jones' attorney, Angela Carter, said. "Not just for Luther. His kids, his grandkids, the entire family has been affected."
Perjured testimony such as that of Jones' accuser is rampant in courts across the country, yet rarely prosecuted, legal observers say. A registry of exonerations in the U.S. by the University of Michigan Law School found perjury or false accusations were factors in more than half of the nearly 1,900 wrongful convictions the registry has tracked since 1989.
"You have a lot of cases where witnesses on opposite sides tell incompatible stories," said Samuel Gross, a University of Michigan law professor who edits the school's registry of exonerations. "Somebody wins, somebody loses, but no one is prosecuted for perjury."
The district attorney in Lake County, spurred by Jones' case, wants to change that. Don Anderson appointed one of his 14 prosecutors to a new perjury investigations unit earlier this year that may be the first of its kind in any district attorney's office in the country.
The unit is investigating the mother of the girl who accused Jones of molesting her for a possible perjury charge. It is also looking at a handful of civil disputes between family members — cases, attorneys say, that are rife with false claims as husbands and wives fight over children and alimony.
"We are so plagued with lying in the courtroom that it seems to have become just accepted," Anderson said.
The perjury unit in August filed its first case, prosecuting a woman who lied and fabricated documents when she was accused of failing to submit probation reports, Lake County Deputy District Attorney Daniel Flesch said.
Flesch said the woman was facing a 30-day jail sentence after the judge found she violated her probation, but prosecutors didn't want her to get away with lying. The perjury and other charges she now faces carry a minimum sentence of 18 months in prison.
Perjury can be difficult to prove. In California, prosecutors have to show people knew what they were saying was false, but went ahead and said it anyway.
"If the person was just deluded, that's not intent," said Geoffrey Hazard, a professor emeritus at the University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco.
District attorneys may not have the resources to mount complicated perjury cases, Hazard said.
Richard Underwood, a law professor at the University of Kentucky, said there is also a sense among prosecutors and attorneys that cross-examining witnesses will bring out the truth and juries will be able to spot liars.
Prosecutors often turn to perjury charges when they are pursuing someone prominent or they couldn't get the person on other charges, Underwood said.
Mark Fuhrman, the investigator in the O.J. Simpson case, pleaded no contest to perjury in 1996 for denying at Simpson's trial that he had used a racial epithet in the previous decade. Federal prosecutors charged baseball slugger Barry Bonds in 2007 with lying to a grand jury about using performance-enhancing drugs.
A jury deadlocked on the perjury charges, and a federal appeals court threw out Bonds' sole obstruction conviction.
In Jones' case, the girl testified that he molested her on five occasions, according to prosecutors. A jury convicted Jones of lewd and lascivious acts on a child, and a judge sentenced him to 27 years in prison.
The girl told investigators in February that she lied about the abuse at the behest of her mother, who was in a custody dispute with Jones. Prosecutors moved to overturn the conviction, and a judge found Jones, 72, innocent.
Carter said Jones is suffering from kidney failure and has been in an out of a coma.
Other district attorneys applauded Anderson's efforts, though they cited additional factors that might prevent prosecutors from filing perjury charges.
Michael Ramos, the district attorney in California's San Bernardino County and president of the National District Attorneys Association, said victims in gang and domestic violence cases might lie because they are afraid for their lives. He questioned whether it would be appropriate to prosecute those people.
Steve Wagstaffe, district attorney in the San Francisco Bay Area county of San Mateo, said judges may sentence a defendant more harshly if they think the person has lied, so pursuing a separate perjury case might not be worthwhile.
"(District attorneys) will say if it's really egregious, we'll look at it," he said.
Anderson said he knows the obstacles to prosecuting perjury, but he hopes his efforts send a message.
"There's no way you're going to completely eliminate perjury," he said. "I'm not a dreamer. But we do hope to deter a lot of people from blatantly lying."
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BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A bar that served alcohol to a minor who was later charged with homicide in the death of a man has lost a $4.6 million lawsuit filed by the parents of the victim.
Stillwater County District Court Judge Blair Jones ruled that the Five Spot Bar was negligent in the death of Forest Dana, who was found dead in Absarokee in 2013.
Authorities are still investigating. Police believe he was hit by a car while walking through an alley.
Michael Holtz was charged with Dana's homicide, but the charges were later dropped after no witnesses were located who saw the accident.
According to the Billings Gazette (http://tinyurl.com/z8e9m4w), investigators later found DNA on Holtz' car that they say matched Dana's DNA.
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Information from: The Billings Gazette, http://www.billingsgazette.com
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ROY, Utah (AP) — A Utah woman is trying to come back from the dead, at least in the federal government's eyes.
Barbara Murphy, of Roy, told the Deseret News (http://bit.ly/2bq3FnV) this week that a death certificate has made it appear that she died in July 2014.
She says the Social Security Administration has been trying to reclaim two years' worth of payments as a result.
The government has also been trying to get back any Medicare or Medicaid money spent on care she received.
The 64-year-old says has no idea how to resolve the situation.
Social Security Administration regional spokeswoman Cindy Malone says she could not release information about Murphy's case because of privacy laws.
Murphy discovered her status earlier this month when her credit card was declined because assets had been frozen.
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Information from: Deseret News, http://www.deseretnews.com
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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A man is accused of opening fire on a group of hunters with a high-powered rifle in central Utah.
Utah County Sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Spencer Cannon told Salt Lake City's KSL-TV (http://bit.ly/2c4c7dI) that 32-year-old Jentry Joyner was booked Friday on charges of aggravated assault and drug use.
According to Cannon, the incident unfolded Thursday night in Diamond Fork Canyon.
He says the archery deer hunters were hunting on public property when Joyner got into a fight with them and started shooting.
No one was injured.
Cannon says deputies later determined that Joyner was under the influence of drugs and alcohol.
Deputies say the hunters responded correctly by leaving the area and calling 911.
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Information from: KSL-TV, http://www.ksl.com/
- By ASHLEY DETRICK Gillette News Record
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GILLETTE, Wyo. (AP) — Susan Sherwood sells more than just peaches and produce when she pulls her trailer into Gillette early on Fridays.
"We don't sell food, we feed people," she said.
Each week, Sherwood and her family (her mother, sister, nieces and nephews and, sometimes, her brothers) drive to Grand Junction, Colorado, from their home in Glenrock to visit four orchards to pack a trailer full of fresh fruit and vegetables to sell in four towns across Wyoming: Casper, Glenrock, Douglas and Gillette.
"You just can't get this fresh of produce (in Wyoming) unless people bring it," she said. "We are selling on Friday what was picked on Thursday."
For years, the closest to Gillette they came was Douglas and people begged them to come to Gillette. Seven summers ago, they decided to give it a try. They've been a fruit and produce staple ever since, reported the Gillette News Record (http://bit.ly/2bKun9U).
When they roll into town and set up their trailer and tent on the Douglas Highway, they always have familiar faces waiting to greet them.
Many of her customers have been visiting her each week for years. They picked over the peaches, plums, apricots, melons, squash, beets and peppers.
Moms who were pregnant last season bring the baby the following season.
"My customers are also friends," Sherwood said. "People in Gillette bring me a lot of joy."
She may only be in Gillette a few days a week every summer, but she sure feels like a part of the community.
"I'm always exhausted by the time I roll into Gillette, but I pull into the parking lot and see people that I've hired and then set up and the first customer arrives and it's like family. I get so excited," she said.
It was important to Sherwood in running the business that the money stayed in the community. She hired help from Gillette and continues to hire more as the business booms. Plus, she gives extra produce to the Soup Kitchen. Nothing goes outside the state, except for the original money for the produce.
"We are not just a seller, but part of the community," she said.
Like everyone and every business, Wyoming's downturn also has affected her. But she doesn't care so much about the money.
"Some customers have lost jobs, but we got through the ups and downs with everyone. We all help each other all of the time, because everyone needs support some of the time," she said.
Her customers have helped her through wind storms, helped set up the tent and supported her family over the years, so a supportive ear or a free peach is nothing.
"We feed people on plates and in hearts," she said.
Which is why her favorite motto is: Home of the happy mouth.
Between the people and the peaches, Sherwood doesn't believe it could get much better.
"You just take one look at those peaches and think, 'How could I live without them?'" she laughed.
Which is exactly how the whole business began.
"When my mom was a little girl, her father worked in Grand Junction and they would eat Palisade peaches," she explained.
The memory and taste of those Palisade peaches stayed with her all those years and even when she started her own family.
So when a truck carrying Palisade peaches arrived in town at the bowling alley in Casper, her mother bought a box and shared it with everyone she knew. Just like her, they fell in love with the taste of these specific peaches and begged for more.
Little did they know the seed was already planted. Pat suggested the possibility of selling the peaches as a side hobby to their real jobs. Then they bought a trailer and began going to Grand Junction to pick up the peaches everyone had fallen in love with.
Originally, they delivered the fruit to the Casper bowling alley and sold their own in Glenrock and Douglas. They weren't interested in competing with another local business.
That was 18 years ago.
Eventually, when the bowling alley no longer sold peaches, they took over the Casper market and, later, Gillette.
Sherwood continues to be very proud of what they sell
"These are small farmers, not big ones," she said.
They have been buying from one Grand Junction farmer for years. They call him the "fruit whisperer," because his peaches are the best around. But they also visit three more to round out the supply of fruits and vegetables.
All the produce is fresh and delicious, but it started because of peaches, so they are near and dear to her heart.
"Georgia peaches taste great, but only in Georgia," Sherwood said. "These peaches ripen on the trees and are put right into a box into the orchard."
Then they're loaded into her truck.
When she gets there each week, she is never quite sure which kind of peach she is going to get. There are New Havens, Globes and O'Henry's.
"It's like Christmas when you open the lid to see all these beautiful peaches in the box," she said.
She often explains to her customers the importance, and the difference, of leaving the fruit on the tree to ripen.
"The longer the fruit is on the tree, the more sugar is in the fruit, which means the more flavor. At the grocery store, they are picked much more green and left to ripen in the truck," she said.
There are more than 2,000 varieties of peaches and Pat's Peaches and Produce sells about eight.
Each summer in August and September, she watches the peaches change from one kind to another, each with different flavor and different size. But when she gets those boxes of the O'Henry's, she knows what's coming. The end.
O'Henry's are the last of the peaches they sell to ripen. Ironically, compared to the others, they have the longest shelf life, too. But those globes of yellow, orange and red signal to the Glenrock teacher the winding down of the summer, the growth and the start of the school year.
"By the end, I get sick of peaches," she said. "But then you see the first fresh peach (in summer) and you just can't wait."
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Information from: The Gillette (Wyo.) News Record, http://www.gillettenewsrecord.com
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SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A former Orange County high school teacher who had a long affair with a 15-year-old student has been sentenced to six months in jail.
Thirty-seven-year-old Rebecca Diebolt of Brea was sentenced Friday and ordered to register as a sex offender for life.
She pleaded guilty in January to sex acts with a minor.
Diebolt was a language-arts teacher and swimming and water polo coach at Valencia High School in Placentia.
Prosecutors say she began a sexual relationship with the female student in 2004 and it continued until 2008, when the victim was in college.
The victim reported the acts to police in 2014.
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LAS VEGAS (AP) — The wife of a Henderson police lieutenant is facing charges she cashed a stolen check so she could buy drugs.
The Las Vegas Revew-Journal says (http://bit.ly/2boJN1y) 50-year-old Heidi DeVaney told officers upon her arrest earlier this week that she had a pill and drug addiction and was desperate for cash, according to a police report.
DeVaney has been booked on one count each of burglary, forgery, theft and fraud.
A $1,000 check was reported stolen and cashed by an employee of the College of Southern Nevada, where DeVaney works as an administrative assistant.
Investigators identified the suspect from bank surveillance footage and arrested her Wednesday.
DeVaney is the wife of Lt. John DeVaney.
A Henderson police spokeswoman declined to comment.
A message left with DeVaney was not immediately returned Saturday.
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Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal, http://www.lvrj.com
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SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A former Santa Fe area veterinarian has been found guilty on multiple charges of animal cruelty.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports (http://bit.ly/2bWJbT5) that it took a jury one hour Friday to convict Debra Clopton on 22 counts. She was also convicted of one count of practicing veterinary medicine without a license.
She could face nearly 23 years in prison.
Authorities raided Clopton's Edgewood home in 2013. They found 48 dogs living in squalor.
Some had to be euthanized but most were adopted.
Clopton, who lost her veterinarian license after working for 20 years, admitted during her three-day trial that she disobeyed a county ordinance limiting dog ownership to 10 dogs.
She was initially charged with 48 counts of animal cruelty and for illegally possessing veterinary drugs.
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Information from: The Santa Fe New Mexican, http://www.sfnewmexican.com
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LAS VEGAS (AP) — State gaming officials and two Las Vegas casinos have settled a complaint about a $5,000 payout that was missing a paper trail.
The Las Vegas Sun reports (http://bit.ly/2cioTXC) that the owners of Golden Gate casino and sister casino D Las Vegas announced Friday they have agreed to pay a $250,000 fine for improperly documenting customer payouts.
The Nevada Gaming Control Board filed a complaint against them Tuesday.
Officials say Golden Gate casino never recorded the payout transaction on its books in January 2015.
D Las Vegas is accused of providing $25,000 credit to a different customer without checking that person's credit.
Majority owner Derek Stevens says both incidents were honest mistakes.
He says staff failed to file the appropriate paperwork when checking the D casino customer's credit.
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Information from: Las Vegas Sun, http://www.lasvegassun.com
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KALISPELL, Mont. (AP) — Kalispell police are rounding up people living in transient camps around a park because of a large amount of garbage and human waste.
On Thursday, Kalispell police officers cleared the woods of temporary residents who remained and they're working to keep them from coming back.
Police stapled notices onto trees around the park and the Stillwater River footbridge warning that people living in makeshift shelters and tents in the park could be arrested for criminal trespassing.
Eight Kalispell Police officers combed the woods for any of the temporary residents who remained on Thursday.
Kalispell Police Patrol Capt. Tim Falkner said five people were cited for trespassing and released.
"Last week when we posted the signs, we think at least there were several dozen. Evidently our fliers worked, because we only came across five or six today," Falkner said.
"We're always dealing with transients, but I've never seen it this bad back here, not with camps," Falkner said.
Officers also confiscated bicycles, a patio heater and child bicycle trailers.
Falkner said shelters are available for people who are homeless.
Police said they were responding to complaints of disputes, campfires, drinking in the park, aggressive panhandling and concerns about safety and sanitary conditions, the Daily Inter Lake reported (http://tinyurl.com/gqy53ss ).
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Information from: Daily Inter Lake, http://www.dailyinterlake.com
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MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) — A hash oil explosion has sent a man to the hospital and destroyed a house and garage.
The Mail Tribune reports (http://bit.ly/2bPI1KO) the explosions and fire on Thursday also damaged two nearby homes.
Greg Kleinberg of Medford Fire-Rescue says there were a couple hundred containers of butane in the garage.
Marijuana plants were found in a room.
Butane is used in the process of extracting hash oil from marijuana.
Medford police Lt. Kevin Walruff said illegally producing hash oil is a felony in Oregon.
Property records say Jackson County Circuit Judge Ron Grensky owns the property along with some others in Medford.
He lives in Jacksonville and could not be reached for comment.
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Information from: Mail Tribune, http://www.mailtribune.com/
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LAS CRUCES, N.M. (AP) — Fresh chile, watermelons, zucchini and other vegetables were up for grabs as La Semilla Food Center debuted its mobile market in southern New Mexico.
Elena Acosta, the center's community and donor relations manager, says the Farm Fresh Mobile Market is the only one of its kind in the region, the Las Cruces Sun-News reported (http://bit.ly/2btkACx ).
"We're pushing for a healthy food financing initiative," Acosta said. "Part of the financing initiative is demonstrating to consumers the need for healthy foods in their lives."
Mobile market coordinator Alex Bernal said farmers grow most of the produce locally and sell it on consignment.
"We'll have seasonal food, like eggplant, summer squash, melons, and chile," Bernal said. "We will also offer local eggs. The prices will be comparable with other stores, and might be cheaper because there would be lesser cost to us to sell it."
The market is housed in a refurbished bus and can be found in different locations depending on the day.
U.S. Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich attended the recent ribbon cutting.
"We've been getting food wrong for 40 years," said Heinrich, at Wednesday's ribbon-cutting ceremony for the mobile farmers market. "We changed our agricultural focus. We lost that focus on horticulture. This project ... is turning us back to what we need.
"It's a model of how we can bring fresh healthy foods back into our neighborhoods."
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Information from: Las Cruces Sun-News, http://www.lcsun-news.com
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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah nonprofit program is replacing chicken nuggets and hot dogs with choices like pumpkin soup and red quinoa salad.
The Utah Community Action Program Central Kitchen serves meals made from scratch to children at a range of local charter schools, preschools and after-school programs, the Salt Lake Tribune reported (http://bit.ly/2bOwWs7 ).
Food contracts generate revenue for the community services group to put toward programs.
The YMCA uses the meals for kids in a local after-school program. Administration director Jenni Ericksen said packaged snacks would be the alternative for kids.
"We wouldn't do hot meals, for sure," Ericksen said.
Nothing on the menu is processed or fried and every meal comes with fresh fruits and vegetables.
Nutrition program manager Hayden Seeley says kids are given food seven times before the staff considers whether to pull the item.
"Brussels sprouts weren't popular," he admits. "But lima beans were a huge success."
Pork is excluded due to certain religious beliefs and nuts are eschewed to avoid exposing kids who are allergic.
"We are exposing them to a much more sophisticated menu than you would think," he said.
Ericksen said the kids mostly like the meals.
"They love the rice and beans and surprisingly they like the salads," she said. "It's amazing how much they will try."
Meals also come with lean meats and bread and pasta made from whole grains.
"They're never going to get hot dogs, they're never going to get pizza," he said.
The pilot program has grown from 300 daily meals five years ago.
The kitchen expects to serve 5,000 meals this school year and has the capacity to serve 6,000.
"We are scrambling to meet demand," said Seeley. "No one else is really offering such high-quality meals."
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Information from: The Salt Lake Tribune, http://www.sltrib.com
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CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Paleontologists digging at the bottom of a strange cave in northern Wyoming say they have uncovered a trove of animal bones from the last ice age this summer and have enough funding to head back at the same underground site next year to continue their search.
Scientists digging in July and led by Des Moines University anatomy professor Julie Meachen excavated wolf, bison, lion, cheetah and wolverine bones from Natural Trap Cave.
"We started finding really whole, complete specimens, which is a little different from what we've been finding in the past," Meachen said in an interview this week. "The quality of the specimens is really good this year."
The only way into or out of Natural Trap Cave on the arid western slope of the Bighorn Mountains is a 15-foot-wide hole in the ground. The hole is right at the top of a bell-shaped cavern eight stories deep.
The paleontologists and their research assistants have to rappel down into the cave and bring lighting equipment to illuminate it. They use buckets hooked to ropes to lift specimens out.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management reopened the cave to Meachen and colleagues in 2014 for the first excavations in more than 30 years. National Geographic paid for the first season, the National Science Foundation the last two and Meachen said there's enough money from the NSF to dig again next summer.
Three consecutive seasons of fieldwork have boosted knowledge about the animals that roamed northern Wyoming in the late Pleistocene, the era of ice ages that ended almost 12,000 years ago, Meachen said.
For millennia, all animals that fell into the cave were doomed. Now there's a locked grate over the opening and only people taking part in scientific research are allowed inside.
Meachen is especially interested in the wolves that fell into the cave. From measuring their jawbones, she theorizes they were Beringian wolves, an extinct type that ranged between Alaska and Wyoming when massive ice sheets covered much of northern North America.
Cool cave temperatures and high humidity have helped preserve genetic material. She hopes DNA analysis will provide new insights into Beringian wolves.
"Maybe we will know whether the Beringian wolf, at least at Natural Trap, is a different species or if it's a subspecies of the living gray wolf," she said.
Scientists plan to create a three-dimensional map of the remains found. They suspect a cone-shaped pile of snow used to linger year-round beneath the cave's entrance.
The map could show how thawing of the snow pile spread animal bones around the cave's floor.
"There may have been different amounts of snow on the sediment at different times of year," Meachen said. "It would have melted and thawed, melted and thawed. And I think that action probably would have broken up the skeletons and sort of scattered them around."
Enough NSF funding remains to go back next year, though for a shorter season than the recent three-week expeditions, Meachen said.
"We've made that money stretch," she said.
- By MARK FREEMAN Mail Tribune
BUTTE FALLS, Ore. (AP) — Fish raceways used to raise millions of young salmon and steelhead for nearly a century could be used to grow shiitake mushrooms, wasabi and perhaps even shrimp, all cultivated by kids and sold for profit.
Footpaths over Ginger Creek will get new bridges wide enough for golf carts to ferry disabled kids into old-growth Douglas fir groves and grassy expanses at the former Butte Falls Hatchery, reported the Mail Tribune (http://bit.ly/2c427m8). Two adjacent homes on the property could house homeless kids, while another could provide quarters for college students working on research projects.
Four years after it took possession of most of the former hatchery, the Butte Falls School District is launching an ambitious effort to turn the retired facility into a destination learning center with myriad ventures so it could eventually pay for itself.
The district, which took possession of 10 acres of the 13-acre site just outside of town in 2012, is on the cusp of acquiring the remaining 3 acres, which include the hatch house and three residences from the federal Department of Education, where the deed landed after that sliver of the property reverted to the federal government in 2011.
The district has set aside about $160,000 as seed money for grants and in-kind contributions needed to get the estimated $600,000 in improvements and upgrades over the next three years to create the learning lab that was envisioned when the district took possession of the property.
It's a big vision, but the district is all-in on making it happen.
"This is the part where it becomes real," says Chris Mathas, hired by the district to shepherd the project, collect donations and acquire grants.
"What we have is a collaborative effort that I'm building right now, and it's going to generate a lot of industry support," Mathas says.
Plans are to cut about a dozen drought-stressed trees on the property to use as lumber for construction projects that, over time, will create a natural resources center that would be used by Butte Falls Charter School's 160 students and visiting kids from regional school districts.
"We could be talking about thousands of students annually," Mathas says.
So far there's been mostly talk about what to do with the property since it fell to the district after spending 95 years raising salmon, steelhead and trout.
The hatchery, which was opened in 1915 to take advantage of crystal clear Ginger Creek water, was operated for decades by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, and after numerous financial and structural problems, it was rebuilt in 2003 and judged Oregon's best state-run hatchery in 2006.
But a disease outbreak shuttered production that same year. Four years later, the hatchery was deemed disease-free, but efforts to reopen it sank from the weight of $1 million in required improvements amid agency budget cuts.
ODFW looked to divest itself of the property, and after being approached by Jackson County, ODFW deeded its 10 acres to the school district in 2012.
The deed includes the acreage as well as an old house used as an office, a garage, a cold-storage building once used to store fish feed and a dried-up pond. The district also has access to a sliver of the hatchery's old water right to fill the concrete raceways, but not the three residences and the hatch house.
A 1941 agreement meant the remaining 3 acres with those structures on them had to revert back to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service when ODFW stopped hatchery operations. The land eventually ended up in the hands of the DOE. As with the state-owned piece of property five years ago, the school is the only potential taker for the remaining acreage, Mathas says, and a land transfer could be completed "any day now."
The past four years have been slow-go at the center, which has housed some school events and boasts a partnership with Southern Oregon University, but it hasn't gelled as originally envisioned.
"A lot of it was because we didn't have a lot of money, and we didn't have the whole hatchery," school Principal Dianne Gorman says.
"Some dreams are bigger than what you can make happen," she says. "I think we need to take baby steps."
A big step came in July with the hiring of Mathas to shepherd the project, Gorman says.
Butte Falls leads Oregon in homelessness, with a high rate of sofa-surfing kids who need stable settings.
"It became apparent that, hey, we need to help those kids," Gorman says. "Getting those other houses made it seem kind of obvious."
But the big push will be the educational component centered on hydroponics, Mathas says.
The shiitake mushrooms, wasabi and shrimp will be grown in the concrete raceways and sold for profit. Other ventures eyed for the center include growing industrial hemp, a museum, amphitheater and even a bicycle repair shop.
Mathas says he knows it's a big dream, but the district has to occupy the usable buildings within a year of taking possession of them to help kids learn about the natural environment while cranking out mushrooms and wasabi to pay the bills.
"It will be self-sustaining at some point, but we don't know when," Mathas says. "I think the story here is going to be pretty interesting in the next couple years."
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Information from: Mail Tribune, http://www.mailtribune.com/
PHOENIX (AP) — Traces of methamphetamine have been found at a suburban Phoenix high school.
KPHO-TV reports (http://bit.ly/2bEEiPv) that air and surface testing detected a trace amount of the drug in three classrooms at Mountain Pointe High School in Ahwatukee.
The school's principal shared the findings Thursday at a meeting with staff and parents of students who had to be relocated.
The testing was done between Aug. 17 and Aug. 19 after an apartment occupied by a former live-in security guard had an unknown odor.
Principal Bruce Kipper says the amount found was less than 100 nanograms.
An independent toxicologist says the amount is not enough to cause any effects.
But nobody will be allowed back in those classrooms until they are professionally cleaned and retested.
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Information from: KPHO-TV, http://www.kpho.com/
PHOENIX (AP) — Almost a third of Arizona high school senior athletes say they've sustained a concussion.
That's according to Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, which says it has done the first statewide concussion-related study of teenagers.
Barrow is part of Dignity Health's St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center.
The survey released Friday shows concussions are having a direct impact on sports participation.
One in four boys decided not to play football because of concussion concerns and one in 10 girls declined to play soccer for the same reason.
While the issue of concussions in football has been widely discussed, the rate of brain injury in girls' soccer is less well known.
The report also found 79 percent of student-athletes say they'd tell their coach if they thought they had suffered a concussion.
- By NICK BOWMAN Ketchikan Daily News
KETCHIKAN, Alaska (AP) — The Cassiopeia is a boat grand enough for a cowboy hat.
The 72-foot, custom-built Davidson sailboat has been an eye-catcher in Casey Moran Harbor this summer. It's owned by Ketchikan urologist Gary Schoenrock and his wife, Carolyn.
Talking to the Ketchikan Daily News (http://bit.ly/2bJvYvK ) aboard the Cassiopeia on a Friday in August, Schoenrock said he's the second owner of the vessel, which even at low tide has a mast that competes with Knob Hill above the tunnel for the Ketchikan skyline.
Inside, the 23-year-old composite sailboat — made with a combination of epoxy, Kevlar and foam — is surprisingly roomy for a vessel designed with the America's Cup in mind.
It's because the Seattle banker who commissioned the vessel from New Zealand builder Davidson Yachts, and who eventually sold it to Schoenrock, had a son.
That son liked cowboy hats, and he wanted to wear his hat inside the Cassiopeia.
"That's why the ceilings are so high, but if you look from the outside, the lines ... are good," Schoenrock. "It doesn't look like it's too bulky."
Though the boat has a "generous" amount of room for a 72-foot sailboat, he said, it still can get along at more than 20 knots.
It also can survive 40-foot drops.
"It's extremely tough, although the outer skins can be fragile," Schoenrock said. "But the boat itself, we've been in hurricanes and fallen off of 40-foot waves and nothing happens to it."
Years ago, the Cassiopeia caught a Japanese typhoon while Schoenrock was sailing from Kauai, Hawaii, to Homer.
"We had like 55-knot winds and 40-foot waves for about five days," he said.
The fall from crest to nadir was "like you're falling out of a window four stories," he said. "The whole boat just shudders and you think it's going to break in half. That was an experience I don't want to repeat."
The mostly retired doctor has fond memories of sailing on clear nights.
"The stars and the moon — and you have running lights on usually, so as you're going through waves there's green and red coming back on each side," he said. "To me, it's almost psychedelic."
The Cassiopeia has a draft of just more than 13 feet. While a close fit to older America's Cup boats, its interior is designed for comfort.
The vessel was built in Christchurch, New Zealand, and is equipped a 135 horsepower single engine and a carbon fiber mast rising almost 100 feet.
"Out in the ocean with good wind we could do 18 knots for days on end," Schoenrock said.
The Ketchikan doctor has worked in a few areas in the United States and owned a practice in Soldotna, but now works one week a month for the Ketchikan Medical Center.
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Information from: Ketchikan (Alaska) Daily News, http://www.ketchikandailynews.com
- By SUDHIN THANAWALA Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A 12-year-old girl's lie on the witness stand cost Luther Jones 18 years.
A judge in California's Lake County ordered Jones released from prison earlier this year after the girl — now 30 — came forward and said her mother told her to falsely testify in 1998 that Jones molested her.
"It's a horrible injustice," Jones' attorney, Angela Carter, said. "Not just for Luther. His kids, his grandkids, the entire family has been affected."
Perjured testimony such as that of Jones' accuser is rampant in courts across the country, yet rarely prosecuted, legal observers say. A registry of exonerations in the U.S. by the University of Michigan Law School found perjury or false accusations were factors in more than half of the nearly 1,900 wrongful convictions the registry has tracked since 1989.
"You have a lot of cases where witnesses on opposite sides tell incompatible stories," said Samuel Gross, a University of Michigan law professor who edits the school's registry of exonerations. "Somebody wins, somebody loses, but no one is prosecuted for perjury."
The district attorney in Lake County, spurred by Jones' case, wants to change that. Don Anderson appointed one of his 14 prosecutors to a new perjury investigations unit earlier this year that may be the first of its kind in any district attorney's office in the country.
The unit is investigating the mother of the girl who accused Jones of molesting her for a possible perjury charge. It is also looking at a handful of civil disputes between family members — cases, attorneys say, that are rife with false claims as husbands and wives fight over children and alimony.
"We are so plagued with lying in the courtroom that it seems to have become just accepted," Anderson said.
The perjury unit in August filed its first case, prosecuting a woman who lied and fabricated documents when she was accused of failing to submit probation reports, Lake County Deputy District Attorney Daniel Flesch said.
Flesch said the woman was facing a 30-day jail sentence after the judge found she violated her probation, but prosecutors didn't want her to get away with lying. The perjury and other charges she now faces carry a minimum sentence of 18 months in prison.
Perjury can be difficult to prove. In California, prosecutors have to show people knew what they were saying was false, but went ahead and said it anyway.
"If the person was just deluded, that's not intent," said Geoffrey Hazard, a professor emeritus at the University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco.
District attorneys may not have the resources to mount complicated perjury cases, Hazard said.
Richard Underwood, a law professor at the University of Kentucky, said there is also a sense among prosecutors and attorneys that cross-examining witnesses will bring out the truth and juries will be able to spot liars.
Prosecutors often turn to perjury charges when they are pursuing someone prominent or they couldn't get the person on other charges, Underwood said.
Mark Fuhrman, the investigator in the O.J. Simpson case, pleaded no contest to perjury in 1996 for denying at Simpson's trial that he had used a racial epithet in the previous decade. Federal prosecutors charged baseball slugger Barry Bonds in 2007 with lying to a grand jury about using performance-enhancing drugs.
A jury deadlocked on the perjury charges, and a federal appeals court threw out Bonds' sole obstruction conviction.
In Jones' case, the girl testified that he molested her on five occasions, according to prosecutors. A jury convicted Jones of lewd and lascivious acts on a child, and a judge sentenced him to 27 years in prison.
The girl told investigators in February that she lied about the abuse at the behest of her mother, who was in a custody dispute with Jones. Prosecutors moved to overturn the conviction, and a judge found Jones, 72, innocent.
Carter said Jones is suffering from kidney failure and has been in an out of a coma.
Other district attorneys applauded Anderson's efforts, though they cited additional factors that might prevent prosecutors from filing perjury charges.
Michael Ramos, the district attorney in California's San Bernardino County and president of the National District Attorneys Association, said victims in gang and domestic violence cases might lie because they are afraid for their lives. He questioned whether it would be appropriate to prosecute those people.
Steve Wagstaffe, district attorney in the San Francisco Bay Area county of San Mateo, said judges may sentence a defendant more harshly if they think the person has lied, so pursuing a separate perjury case might not be worthwhile.
"(District attorneys) will say if it's really egregious, we'll look at it," he said.
Anderson said he knows the obstacles to prosecuting perjury, but he hopes his efforts send a message.
"There's no way you're going to completely eliminate perjury," he said. "I'm not a dreamer. But we do hope to deter a lot of people from blatantly lying."
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A bar that served alcohol to a minor who was later charged with homicide in the death of a man has lost a $4.6 million lawsuit filed by the parents of the victim.
Stillwater County District Court Judge Blair Jones ruled that the Five Spot Bar was negligent in the death of Forest Dana, who was found dead in Absarokee in 2013.
Authorities are still investigating. Police believe he was hit by a car while walking through an alley.
Michael Holtz was charged with Dana's homicide, but the charges were later dropped after no witnesses were located who saw the accident.
According to the Billings Gazette (http://tinyurl.com/z8e9m4w), investigators later found DNA on Holtz' car that they say matched Dana's DNA.
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Information from: The Billings Gazette, http://www.billingsgazette.com
ROY, Utah (AP) — A Utah woman is trying to come back from the dead, at least in the federal government's eyes.
Barbara Murphy, of Roy, told the Deseret News (http://bit.ly/2bq3FnV) this week that a death certificate has made it appear that she died in July 2014.
She says the Social Security Administration has been trying to reclaim two years' worth of payments as a result.
The government has also been trying to get back any Medicare or Medicaid money spent on care she received.
The 64-year-old says has no idea how to resolve the situation.
Social Security Administration regional spokeswoman Cindy Malone says she could not release information about Murphy's case because of privacy laws.
Murphy discovered her status earlier this month when her credit card was declined because assets had been frozen.
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Information from: Deseret News, http://www.deseretnews.com
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A man is accused of opening fire on a group of hunters with a high-powered rifle in central Utah.
Utah County Sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Spencer Cannon told Salt Lake City's KSL-TV (http://bit.ly/2c4c7dI) that 32-year-old Jentry Joyner was booked Friday on charges of aggravated assault and drug use.
According to Cannon, the incident unfolded Thursday night in Diamond Fork Canyon.
He says the archery deer hunters were hunting on public property when Joyner got into a fight with them and started shooting.
No one was injured.
Cannon says deputies later determined that Joyner was under the influence of drugs and alcohol.
Deputies say the hunters responded correctly by leaving the area and calling 911.
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Information from: KSL-TV, http://www.ksl.com/
- By ASHLEY DETRICK Gillette News Record
GILLETTE, Wyo. (AP) — Susan Sherwood sells more than just peaches and produce when she pulls her trailer into Gillette early on Fridays.
"We don't sell food, we feed people," she said.
Each week, Sherwood and her family (her mother, sister, nieces and nephews and, sometimes, her brothers) drive to Grand Junction, Colorado, from their home in Glenrock to visit four orchards to pack a trailer full of fresh fruit and vegetables to sell in four towns across Wyoming: Casper, Glenrock, Douglas and Gillette.
"You just can't get this fresh of produce (in Wyoming) unless people bring it," she said. "We are selling on Friday what was picked on Thursday."
For years, the closest to Gillette they came was Douglas and people begged them to come to Gillette. Seven summers ago, they decided to give it a try. They've been a fruit and produce staple ever since, reported the Gillette News Record (http://bit.ly/2bKun9U).
When they roll into town and set up their trailer and tent on the Douglas Highway, they always have familiar faces waiting to greet them.
Many of her customers have been visiting her each week for years. They picked over the peaches, plums, apricots, melons, squash, beets and peppers.
Moms who were pregnant last season bring the baby the following season.
"My customers are also friends," Sherwood said. "People in Gillette bring me a lot of joy."
She may only be in Gillette a few days a week every summer, but she sure feels like a part of the community.
"I'm always exhausted by the time I roll into Gillette, but I pull into the parking lot and see people that I've hired and then set up and the first customer arrives and it's like family. I get so excited," she said.
It was important to Sherwood in running the business that the money stayed in the community. She hired help from Gillette and continues to hire more as the business booms. Plus, she gives extra produce to the Soup Kitchen. Nothing goes outside the state, except for the original money for the produce.
"We are not just a seller, but part of the community," she said.
Like everyone and every business, Wyoming's downturn also has affected her. But she doesn't care so much about the money.
"Some customers have lost jobs, but we got through the ups and downs with everyone. We all help each other all of the time, because everyone needs support some of the time," she said.
Her customers have helped her through wind storms, helped set up the tent and supported her family over the years, so a supportive ear or a free peach is nothing.
"We feed people on plates and in hearts," she said.
Which is why her favorite motto is: Home of the happy mouth.
Between the people and the peaches, Sherwood doesn't believe it could get much better.
"You just take one look at those peaches and think, 'How could I live without them?'" she laughed.
Which is exactly how the whole business began.
"When my mom was a little girl, her father worked in Grand Junction and they would eat Palisade peaches," she explained.
The memory and taste of those Palisade peaches stayed with her all those years and even when she started her own family.
So when a truck carrying Palisade peaches arrived in town at the bowling alley in Casper, her mother bought a box and shared it with everyone she knew. Just like her, they fell in love with the taste of these specific peaches and begged for more.
Little did they know the seed was already planted. Pat suggested the possibility of selling the peaches as a side hobby to their real jobs. Then they bought a trailer and began going to Grand Junction to pick up the peaches everyone had fallen in love with.
Originally, they delivered the fruit to the Casper bowling alley and sold their own in Glenrock and Douglas. They weren't interested in competing with another local business.
That was 18 years ago.
Eventually, when the bowling alley no longer sold peaches, they took over the Casper market and, later, Gillette.
Sherwood continues to be very proud of what they sell
"These are small farmers, not big ones," she said.
They have been buying from one Grand Junction farmer for years. They call him the "fruit whisperer," because his peaches are the best around. But they also visit three more to round out the supply of fruits and vegetables.
All the produce is fresh and delicious, but it started because of peaches, so they are near and dear to her heart.
"Georgia peaches taste great, but only in Georgia," Sherwood said. "These peaches ripen on the trees and are put right into a box into the orchard."
Then they're loaded into her truck.
When she gets there each week, she is never quite sure which kind of peach she is going to get. There are New Havens, Globes and O'Henry's.
"It's like Christmas when you open the lid to see all these beautiful peaches in the box," she said.
She often explains to her customers the importance, and the difference, of leaving the fruit on the tree to ripen.
"The longer the fruit is on the tree, the more sugar is in the fruit, which means the more flavor. At the grocery store, they are picked much more green and left to ripen in the truck," she said.
There are more than 2,000 varieties of peaches and Pat's Peaches and Produce sells about eight.
Each summer in August and September, she watches the peaches change from one kind to another, each with different flavor and different size. But when she gets those boxes of the O'Henry's, she knows what's coming. The end.
O'Henry's are the last of the peaches they sell to ripen. Ironically, compared to the others, they have the longest shelf life, too. But those globes of yellow, orange and red signal to the Glenrock teacher the winding down of the summer, the growth and the start of the school year.
"By the end, I get sick of peaches," she said. "But then you see the first fresh peach (in summer) and you just can't wait."
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Information from: The Gillette (Wyo.) News Record, http://www.gillettenewsrecord.com
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A former Orange County high school teacher who had a long affair with a 15-year-old student has been sentenced to six months in jail.
Thirty-seven-year-old Rebecca Diebolt of Brea was sentenced Friday and ordered to register as a sex offender for life.
She pleaded guilty in January to sex acts with a minor.
Diebolt was a language-arts teacher and swimming and water polo coach at Valencia High School in Placentia.
Prosecutors say she began a sexual relationship with the female student in 2004 and it continued until 2008, when the victim was in college.
The victim reported the acts to police in 2014.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — The wife of a Henderson police lieutenant is facing charges she cashed a stolen check so she could buy drugs.
The Las Vegas Revew-Journal says (http://bit.ly/2boJN1y) 50-year-old Heidi DeVaney told officers upon her arrest earlier this week that she had a pill and drug addiction and was desperate for cash, according to a police report.
DeVaney has been booked on one count each of burglary, forgery, theft and fraud.
A $1,000 check was reported stolen and cashed by an employee of the College of Southern Nevada, where DeVaney works as an administrative assistant.
Investigators identified the suspect from bank surveillance footage and arrested her Wednesday.
DeVaney is the wife of Lt. John DeVaney.
A Henderson police spokeswoman declined to comment.
A message left with DeVaney was not immediately returned Saturday.
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Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal, http://www.lvrj.com
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A former Santa Fe area veterinarian has been found guilty on multiple charges of animal cruelty.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports (http://bit.ly/2bWJbT5) that it took a jury one hour Friday to convict Debra Clopton on 22 counts. She was also convicted of one count of practicing veterinary medicine without a license.
She could face nearly 23 years in prison.
Authorities raided Clopton's Edgewood home in 2013. They found 48 dogs living in squalor.
Some had to be euthanized but most were adopted.
Clopton, who lost her veterinarian license after working for 20 years, admitted during her three-day trial that she disobeyed a county ordinance limiting dog ownership to 10 dogs.
She was initially charged with 48 counts of animal cruelty and for illegally possessing veterinary drugs.
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Information from: The Santa Fe New Mexican, http://www.sfnewmexican.com
LAS VEGAS (AP) — State gaming officials and two Las Vegas casinos have settled a complaint about a $5,000 payout that was missing a paper trail.
The Las Vegas Sun reports (http://bit.ly/2cioTXC) that the owners of Golden Gate casino and sister casino D Las Vegas announced Friday they have agreed to pay a $250,000 fine for improperly documenting customer payouts.
The Nevada Gaming Control Board filed a complaint against them Tuesday.
Officials say Golden Gate casino never recorded the payout transaction on its books in January 2015.
D Las Vegas is accused of providing $25,000 credit to a different customer without checking that person's credit.
Majority owner Derek Stevens says both incidents were honest mistakes.
He says staff failed to file the appropriate paperwork when checking the D casino customer's credit.
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Information from: Las Vegas Sun, http://www.lasvegassun.com
KALISPELL, Mont. (AP) — Kalispell police are rounding up people living in transient camps around a park because of a large amount of garbage and human waste.
On Thursday, Kalispell police officers cleared the woods of temporary residents who remained and they're working to keep them from coming back.
Police stapled notices onto trees around the park and the Stillwater River footbridge warning that people living in makeshift shelters and tents in the park could be arrested for criminal trespassing.
Eight Kalispell Police officers combed the woods for any of the temporary residents who remained on Thursday.
Kalispell Police Patrol Capt. Tim Falkner said five people were cited for trespassing and released.
"Last week when we posted the signs, we think at least there were several dozen. Evidently our fliers worked, because we only came across five or six today," Falkner said.
"We're always dealing with transients, but I've never seen it this bad back here, not with camps," Falkner said.
Officers also confiscated bicycles, a patio heater and child bicycle trailers.
Falkner said shelters are available for people who are homeless.
Police said they were responding to complaints of disputes, campfires, drinking in the park, aggressive panhandling and concerns about safety and sanitary conditions, the Daily Inter Lake reported (http://tinyurl.com/gqy53ss ).
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Information from: Daily Inter Lake, http://www.dailyinterlake.com
MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) — A hash oil explosion has sent a man to the hospital and destroyed a house and garage.
The Mail Tribune reports (http://bit.ly/2bPI1KO) the explosions and fire on Thursday also damaged two nearby homes.
Greg Kleinberg of Medford Fire-Rescue says there were a couple hundred containers of butane in the garage.
Marijuana plants were found in a room.
Butane is used in the process of extracting hash oil from marijuana.
Medford police Lt. Kevin Walruff said illegally producing hash oil is a felony in Oregon.
Property records say Jackson County Circuit Judge Ron Grensky owns the property along with some others in Medford.
He lives in Jacksonville and could not be reached for comment.
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Information from: Mail Tribune, http://www.mailtribune.com/
LAS CRUCES, N.M. (AP) — Fresh chile, watermelons, zucchini and other vegetables were up for grabs as La Semilla Food Center debuted its mobile market in southern New Mexico.
Elena Acosta, the center's community and donor relations manager, says the Farm Fresh Mobile Market is the only one of its kind in the region, the Las Cruces Sun-News reported (http://bit.ly/2btkACx ).
"We're pushing for a healthy food financing initiative," Acosta said. "Part of the financing initiative is demonstrating to consumers the need for healthy foods in their lives."
Mobile market coordinator Alex Bernal said farmers grow most of the produce locally and sell it on consignment.
"We'll have seasonal food, like eggplant, summer squash, melons, and chile," Bernal said. "We will also offer local eggs. The prices will be comparable with other stores, and might be cheaper because there would be lesser cost to us to sell it."
The market is housed in a refurbished bus and can be found in different locations depending on the day.
U.S. Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich attended the recent ribbon cutting.
"We've been getting food wrong for 40 years," said Heinrich, at Wednesday's ribbon-cutting ceremony for the mobile farmers market. "We changed our agricultural focus. We lost that focus on horticulture. This project ... is turning us back to what we need.
"It's a model of how we can bring fresh healthy foods back into our neighborhoods."
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Information from: Las Cruces Sun-News, http://www.lcsun-news.com
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah nonprofit program is replacing chicken nuggets and hot dogs with choices like pumpkin soup and red quinoa salad.
The Utah Community Action Program Central Kitchen serves meals made from scratch to children at a range of local charter schools, preschools and after-school programs, the Salt Lake Tribune reported (http://bit.ly/2bOwWs7 ).
Food contracts generate revenue for the community services group to put toward programs.
The YMCA uses the meals for kids in a local after-school program. Administration director Jenni Ericksen said packaged snacks would be the alternative for kids.
"We wouldn't do hot meals, for sure," Ericksen said.
Nothing on the menu is processed or fried and every meal comes with fresh fruits and vegetables.
Nutrition program manager Hayden Seeley says kids are given food seven times before the staff considers whether to pull the item.
"Brussels sprouts weren't popular," he admits. "But lima beans were a huge success."
Pork is excluded due to certain religious beliefs and nuts are eschewed to avoid exposing kids who are allergic.
"We are exposing them to a much more sophisticated menu than you would think," he said.
Ericksen said the kids mostly like the meals.
"They love the rice and beans and surprisingly they like the salads," she said. "It's amazing how much they will try."
Meals also come with lean meats and bread and pasta made from whole grains.
"They're never going to get hot dogs, they're never going to get pizza," he said.
The pilot program has grown from 300 daily meals five years ago.
The kitchen expects to serve 5,000 meals this school year and has the capacity to serve 6,000.
"We are scrambling to meet demand," said Seeley. "No one else is really offering such high-quality meals."
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Information from: The Salt Lake Tribune, http://www.sltrib.com
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Paleontologists digging at the bottom of a strange cave in northern Wyoming say they have uncovered a trove of animal bones from the last ice age this summer and have enough funding to head back at the same underground site next year to continue their search.
Scientists digging in July and led by Des Moines University anatomy professor Julie Meachen excavated wolf, bison, lion, cheetah and wolverine bones from Natural Trap Cave.
"We started finding really whole, complete specimens, which is a little different from what we've been finding in the past," Meachen said in an interview this week. "The quality of the specimens is really good this year."
The only way into or out of Natural Trap Cave on the arid western slope of the Bighorn Mountains is a 15-foot-wide hole in the ground. The hole is right at the top of a bell-shaped cavern eight stories deep.
The paleontologists and their research assistants have to rappel down into the cave and bring lighting equipment to illuminate it. They use buckets hooked to ropes to lift specimens out.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management reopened the cave to Meachen and colleagues in 2014 for the first excavations in more than 30 years. National Geographic paid for the first season, the National Science Foundation the last two and Meachen said there's enough money from the NSF to dig again next summer.
Three consecutive seasons of fieldwork have boosted knowledge about the animals that roamed northern Wyoming in the late Pleistocene, the era of ice ages that ended almost 12,000 years ago, Meachen said.
For millennia, all animals that fell into the cave were doomed. Now there's a locked grate over the opening and only people taking part in scientific research are allowed inside.
Meachen is especially interested in the wolves that fell into the cave. From measuring their jawbones, she theorizes they were Beringian wolves, an extinct type that ranged between Alaska and Wyoming when massive ice sheets covered much of northern North America.
Cool cave temperatures and high humidity have helped preserve genetic material. She hopes DNA analysis will provide new insights into Beringian wolves.
"Maybe we will know whether the Beringian wolf, at least at Natural Trap, is a different species or if it's a subspecies of the living gray wolf," she said.
Scientists plan to create a three-dimensional map of the remains found. They suspect a cone-shaped pile of snow used to linger year-round beneath the cave's entrance.
The map could show how thawing of the snow pile spread animal bones around the cave's floor.
"There may have been different amounts of snow on the sediment at different times of year," Meachen said. "It would have melted and thawed, melted and thawed. And I think that action probably would have broken up the skeletons and sort of scattered them around."
Enough NSF funding remains to go back next year, though for a shorter season than the recent three-week expeditions, Meachen said.
"We've made that money stretch," she said.
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