Leg severed; teen sues for $20M; PB&J spat
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Odd and interesting news from the West
- The Associated Press
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SALT LAKE CITY — A man is recovering after a tractor with a lawn-mowing attachment cut off his lower leg in a community southwest of Salt Lake City.
The Salt Lake Tribune reports that a helicopter transported the unidentified 68-year-old man to a hospital in very serious condition Friday.
Tooele County Sgt. Eric McCollum said the man was trying to free equipment caught on a fence in Erda while a part continued to spin.
The man's right pant leg was snagged in the machine.
McCollum said the machine severed the man's right leg below the knee.
McCollum said bleeding was minimal and the man spoke coherently to emergency responders.
- The Associated Press
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PORTLAND, Oregon — An Oregon teenager who was disfigured during a school trip in Costa Rica has filed a $20.8 million lawsuit against his former high school.
The Oregonian/OregonLive reports that Joseph Christopher Johnson filed the suit earlier this week against Salem Academy, a private Christian school with around 700 students.
A school representative declined to comment Friday.
According to the lawsuit, Johnson's head and face were severely injured by a motor boat's propeller while out swimming on the seventh day of the Costa Rica trip in 2014. The trip was organized by a tour company the school had hired. The suit claims that students should not have been allowed to swim in the multi-use area known for having motors boats pass through.
The suit claims that Johnson has been in continuous pain for the past two years, has permanent scars because of the incident and has soaring medical bills.
- The Associated Press
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PORTLAND, Ore. — The Portland Public Schools Board has tabled a proposed contract to purchase pre-packaged peanut butter and jelly sandwiches after parents complained that they contain high-fructose corn syrup.
The Oregonian/OregonLive reports that on Tuesday the school board removed the $350,000 contract to purchase more than 600,000 Smuckers Uncrustables from the agenda.
The trouble started when longtime PTA leader Craig Williams posited on Facebook that the crust-free sandwiches aren't particularly healthy. Many area parents chimed in that they were unhappy with the corn syrup and that the sandwiches aren't locally sourced.
The district already uses locally sourced bread, pizza dough, meat and marinara sauce.
District Nutrition Director Gitta Grether-Sweeney says the Uncrustables meet school nutrition guidelines and are both shelf-stable and packaged in a way that ensures peanuts don't contaminate other food.
- The Associated Press
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RENO, Nev. — The Washoe County Sheriff's Office is warning that a number of residents in the area have received calls from someone posing as Sheriff's Office personnel in order to obtain money.
KTVN-TV reports that according to the Sheriff's Office, the scammer claims there is an outstanding warrant and that the victim must pay a fine in order to avoid arrest. The scammer then says the victim must either surrender themselves or pay through a cash card or a payment to a specified account.
Sheriff's officials say that they will sometimes make calls to inform someone about a warrant, but the Sheriff's Office will not ask for payment over the phone or allow payment in lieu of arrest.
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SANTA FE, N.M. — The state Attorney General is warning New Mexico residents of a scammer who has been threatening legal action unless they receive payment.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports that the New Mexico Attorney General's Office warned against the scam Friday, telling residents not to give out personal or financial information over the phone.
Officials say the Attorney General's Office has received nearly 700 reports of such calls since May 2.
Attorney General Hector Balderas said in a statement that government or law enforcement agencies will never call to make threats of enforcement actions or demanding that people appear before a judge or grand jury.
- The Associated Press
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SEATTLE — A school of what appears to be short-beaked common dolphins has been spotted swimming in northern Washington's Port Angeles harbor, a rare occurrence for the warm-water creatures.
The Seattle Times reported that Pacific Whale Watch Association officials say dolphins don't normally head to the inland waterway, as they generally live in tropical or warmer waterways.
Michael Harris of the association says the dolphins' presence indicates rising water temperatures in the Pacific Northwest.
Whale watchers first spotted the new dolphins June 11 and they remained in the area as of Friday afternoon.
Pacific white-sided dolphins are common in the area, but the short-beaked dolphins are much more rare.
- The Associated Press
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SALT LAKE CITY — As education authorities contemplate a teacher shortage, Utah's state school board has passed a new rule allowing schools to hire people who don't have a teaching license or any experience.
The new policy would allow administrators to hire applicants who pass a background check, have a bachelor's degree and pass tests on both ethics and subject areas, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.
Utah has long had a program that let people with bachelor's degrees get teaching jobs before they got a license, but the new policy change lets them get a license right away and drops a requirement that those people take college teacher-training courses, said Mark Peterson with the State Office of Education.
Those who are hired would be mentored and supervised by a master teacher for three years. The board is now accepting public comment on the policy. It's set to go into effect Aug. 7 if no one asks for a hearing.
Democratic Rep. Carol Spackman Moss of Salt Lake City says putting people who aren't trained teachers into classrooms is short-sighted. To be effective, teachers need experience with things like classroom management and breaking complicated ideas into more manageable pieces, she said.
"It's a science and an art," she said.
School Board chair Dave Crandall says people from other industries can bring an important perspective to the classroom, and the college courses required in the old alternative teaching licensure program didn't seem to be very effective.
The change could also help combat a teacher shortage that's left half of Utah schools with open teaching positions on the first day of school, according to district surveys. That could be because Utah colleges are turning out fewer teachers even as the number of students grows.
The state's student body is now at more than 640,000 students, up 10 percent over the last five years. Enrollment in collegiate teacher-training programs has dropped by about a third over the last decade.
Of those students who do become public school teachers, 2 in 5 leave the profession within five years. Utah lost teachers at a rate twice the national average in 2011-2012.
Utah lawmakers have asked the University of Utah Education and Policy Center to find out why teachers are dropping out. Two factors that researchers are looking at are the state's lower-than-average teacher salaries and Utah's relatively large, young families.
But those factors have long been in place, and don't fully explain the recent drops in the teaching ranks, center director Andrea Rorrer said. Researchers will look at "understanding what's changed and what's different," she said.
Her team is aiming to finish the study by the end of 2016.
- The Associated Press
- Updated
SALT LAKE CITY — Searchers have recovered the body of a 15-year-old girl who was cliff diving into a lake in Utah's Big Cottonwood Canyon.
The Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office says a search and rescue team found the girl's body in Lake Mary Friday night, just a few hours after friends called authorities.
According to deputies, the Sandy teen was diving with friends near the Brighton Ski Resort around 4 p.m.
Unified police Det. Ken Hansen says she jumped from a rock but leaped awkwardly or slipped.
Hansen says she hit the rocks on shore before landing in the water.
Bystanders could not find her.
Her body has been turned over to the Utah State Medical Examiner's Office.
The area where she was diving contains rock that stands 25 feet above the shoreline.
- By JUSTIN FRANZ Flathead Beacon
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KALISPELL, Mont. — In 1936, Franklin D. Roosevelt was reelected for a second term as president, Jesse Owens won gold in the 100-meter dash at the Berlin Olympics and American newspapers published the first comic strip to feature a superhero wearing a skin-tight costume.
Meanwhile, in northwest Montana, more than 210,000 people visited Glacier National Park and a new fleet of tour buses hit the road, the Flathead Beacon reported.
Eight decades later, Roosevelt and Owens have long secured their spots in the pages of history, superheroes wearing spandex are common and Glacier annually welcomes 10 times the visitors it did in 1936. But 80 years later, the buses remain, climbing Going-to-the-Sun Road every summer and giving visitors tours of the scenic park.
The first batch of Glacier Park's iconic Red Buses arrived from the White Motor Company of Cleveland, Ohio, in 1936 and replaced an older fleet of touring buses that had been in the park since the 1910s. The new buses were designated as Model 706.
Prior to the 1930s, there was no standard touring bus in America's national parks. In 1935, four automotive companies created their own version of the ideal touring vehicle and they were brought to Yosemite National Park for a road test. Loaded with sandbags to simulate a busload of passengers, White's Model 706 outperformed the rest and soon became the standard touring vehicle across the West. Besides being powerful enough to make it over the roller coaster routes of rugged national parks, the 706s also featured stylish lines that were the brainchild of industrial designer Alexis de Sakhnoffsky. Prior to designing the tour buses, the Russian immigrant made a name for himself designing vehicles for the Packard Motor Car Company.
Over the next few years, more than 500 touring buses were built for use in national parks across the country. More than 100 were sent to Yellowstone National Park and 35 were sold to the Glacier Park Transportation Co. In 1936, the first 18 buses, Nos. 78 through 95, arrived in the park.
Since then, the buses have provided tours in and out of the park, mostly during the busy summer season. Of the 35 built for the park, 33 are still in use. The National Park Service has retained No. 78, the first built for Glacier, as a museum piece and another was destroyed in a wreck.
Through the years, most of the national park's 706 touring buses were wrecked or sold off and Glacier's is the only remaining fleet. The current operator of the "Reds," Xanterra Parks and Resorts, frequently touts the fact that Glacier's buses are the oldest intact fleet of passenger vehicles in the world.
The beloved buses were almost taken off the road for good in the 1990s. In July 1999, after dropping off a load of passengers at Lake McDonald Lodge, the front axle of a Red Bus detached from its frame. An emergency inspection of the entire fleet revealed that almost all of the buses had cracks in their chassis and they were immediately sidelined. A subsequent inspection convinced one Glacier Park, Inc. official that the buses were "beyond repair."
Later that year, the Ford Motor Company offered to rebuild the entire fleet for nearly $7 million. The rebuilt buses returned to the road in 2002.
Today, when the buses are not traveling the park, they are stored at a state-of-the-art facility built in 2015 by Xanterra near Columbia Falls.
"The buses work hard three months of the year going up and down the mountain and then we work on them the other nine months of the year," Transportation Director Dave Eglsaer said, adding that each bus logs thousands of miles per season and annually hauls 50,000 passengers.
"These buses are going to be moving a lot of people this summer," Eglsaer said.
Fifteen years and nearly 150,000 miles after their last overhaul, Xanterra is preparing to refurbish the fleet again. Eglsaer said the company plans on refurbishing one this coming winter and then four or five each year after. The rebuild will feature new engines and chassis and is expected to cost upward of $8 million.
Eglsaer said the rebuild would ensure that the fleet is still climbing Glacier's iconic Sun Road eight decades from now.
- By WILL JARVIS The Gazette
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COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Hills have always been tough for Jessica Beecham. When she runs up, the pacing can wear her out. When she runs down, the steepness can change in an instant.
Beecham managed to conquer the hill-filled Garden of the Gods 10 Mile Run in 1 hour, 49 minutes and 42 seconds. Danel Girmany won the men's race in 52:21 and Valentine Kibet topped the women, finishing in 1:01:36.
In April, Beecham finished the Boston Marathon then ran the Colfax Marathon in Denver a month later. She's done all of this legally blind, The Gazette reported.
Bill Garner, her guide and pothole spotter, crossed the finish line alongside her.
"Bill has eyes and mine don't work so well," Beecham said, "so he guides me."
The two met through Achilles International, an organization with the mission of enabling people with disabilities to enjoy competitive running and promote personal achievement.
Garner runs weekly with the Achilles group in Denver and Beecham usually runs with the Achilles Pikes Peak branch. In Colorado, there are Achilles groups in Boulder, Denver and Colorado Springs.
For big events like the Boston Marathon and the 10-mile run, the two compete together, Garner making sure she knows when an upcoming hill could slow her down and calling out obstacles throughout the course.
"He paces me and then he encourages me when we're going along," Beecham said.
"Don't listen to her," Garner replied. "She pushes me."
For a 10-mile race, which is relatively short compared to marathons Beecham has finished, the event at Garden of the Gods Park tested the avid runner with its constant elevation changes and steep hills.
According to the race's website, the course elevation ranges from 6,210 to 6,530 feet, and over again. Runners from all around the country — from Pennsylvania to New Mexico — traveled to Manitou Springs to run through the park and see some of the most famous rock formations in the nation.
Beecham participated for other reasons.
"There are always new ways to challenge yourself," she said. "I've done a lot of flat races, so now I've started to do hills because they're a challenge."
The personal challenge and goal-setting is what she loves about running. She's training to run the Pikes Peak Marathon in August, a course with 7,815 feet of elevation gain and an average elevation grade of 11 percent.
And for the first time in a major race, Garner will not be joining her.
"He thinks I'm crazy for going downhill," Beecham said.
As Beecham and Garner sprinted past the finish line — accompanied by another Achilles runner — the two high-fived. Beecham's shoulders sank, exhausted, as she took a long, much-needed breath.
"No. 925, Jessica Beecham!" boomed over the loudspeaker.
Around them, family and friends of runners cheered loudly for those crossing under the race banner and sweaty athletes embraced.
"This community built around running is awesome," Beecham said. "You're in races and people are cheering you on and you can cheer others on. It's great that Achilles is here and helps provide guides so we can be a part of that community as well."
- By ELI SEGALL Las Vegas Sun
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LAS VEGAS — Sometimes, it doesn't take long to spot the flaws in lease documents submitted to the North Las Vegas Utilities Department to get the water turned on at a house.
The owner's name is misspelled or wrong. The landlord's signature looks like the renter's. Or the applicant's cellphone starts ringing when officials call to verify ownership.
"Sometimes, they get embarrassed and won't even pick it up," business services manager Romina Wilson said. "It's funny. You can tell."
North Las Vegas and the rest of the Las Vegas area is grappling with a squatter problem, fueled by a big inventory of empty houses abandoned by people with deep financial problems when the economy crashed — and by the widespread use of bogus leases, the Las Vegas Sun reported.
Local government agencies have taken different steps to clear squatters or prevent them from moving in.
Las Vegas police don't have a dedicated squatter unit, but received at least 4,458 squatter-related service calls in Las Vegas and unincorporated Clark County last year, more than double the tally in 2012.
Las Vegas city officials recently launched a pilot program to secure abandoned houses with a sheet plastic made of polycarbonate, a supposedly unbreakable alternative to plywood.
In Henderson, police and the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors created forms for landlords to fill out, to show whether the occupants signed a lease with the actual owners.
In North Las Vegas, police, code enforcement and utilities officials use paperwork traps to spot fake rental contracts and push squatters out.
"We're working as one to put it together, because without that, we'd be out there spinning our wheels," said police Officer Scott Vaughn, who leads the department's squatter enforcement.
By all accounts, it's not difficult for squatters to find an abandoned home, and it's easy to draw up a bogus lease. Vaughn said he has heard about how-to classes being taught to squatters.
In the first four weeks that North Las Vegas police targeted squatters, they cleared more than 50 houses and made four arrests, Vaughn said. Officers have been visiting six to 10 suspected squatter homes per week.
Squatters move to nice and run-down houses, come from "every walk of life" and target neighborhoods city-wide, according to Vaughn.
"It looks like a shotgun blast on a map — it's everywhere," he said.
Officers cleared a two-story house in May where a woman and five children lived for eight months, with no water service for the last two months, Vaughn said. An open box of Pop-Tarts, a child's bicycle, furniture, barbecue, mop, water bottles and other items were still inside on a recent visit.
The squatter showed up one day in a U-Haul truck, said she'd rented the place, and held two garage sales to sell furniture and other belongings left when the prior occupant moved out. She squabbled with neighbors, sent her kids with buckets to get water from neighbors' hoses, and ran an extension cord to another squatter house next-door for power.
Squatters in the two homes apparently knew each other, Vaughn said. The ones in the second house left when neighbors police.
Susan Ragsdell, who lives across the street, said the larger house has been vacant for two or three years; the smaller house for five years.
. . .
Southern Nevada's once-battered housing market is recovering from the Great Recession, but it's still ripe for squatting.
About 2.1 percent of Las Vegas-area homes, or 13,850 properties, are vacant, compared with 1.6 percent of U.S. homes, according to foreclosure-tracking firm RealtyTrac.
Squatter homes can become drug dens, weapons caches and fraud labs, and magnets for child neglect or other criminal activity, police say.
"We're finding hardcore felons, serious criminals in these houses," North Las Vegas police Officer Ann Cavaricci said.
Statewide, the state Legislature last year made crimes of housebreaking, or forcibly entering a vacant home to live there or let someone else move in without the owner's consent, and unlawful occupancy, or moving to an empty home without permission.
North Las Vegas City Councilwoman Anita Wood proposed creating a task force in May 2014 and tactics to target squatters. Today, if someone tries to get water turned on at a house listed in the city foreclosure registry, utilities officials are alerted to give the application closer scrutiny and try to contact the owner of record.
Water doesn't flow until officials verify the lease is real, utilities director Randy DeVaul said.
Another tactic: Code-enforcement officers, working with police, compare the landlord's name and signature on an applicant's lease with property records.
Code-enforcement officer Matt Meanea said squatters had used so many identical tactics that he looked online to see if someone posted step-by-step instructions.
A former North Las Vegas police chief, Joe Forti, said he didn't see squatters until the mid-1980s. He said fake leases surfaced about 15 years ago.
Today, it can be difficult to sort through foreclosure, bankruptcy, county recorder and other filings to figure out who owns the home, and track down owners who left the area when the economy collapsed.
"You don't even know which bank or mortgage company owns them anymore," Forti said.
North Las Vegas was one of the fastest-growing cities in America when the southern Nevada real estate bubble burst. State figures say it grew from 165,000 to 230,500 residents from 2004-2014, a more than 70 percent increase.
When the crash came, the city declared a financial emergency, its bonds fell to junk status and its housing woes became especially severe.
By early 2012, about 31 percent of U.S. homeowners with mortgages were underwater, meaning their debt outweighed their home value.
In southern Nevada, the figure was 71 percent, according to listing service Zillow. In North Las Vegas, it was about 81 percent.
In 2008 and 2009, lenders were filing more than 1,000 default notices and repossessing more than 500 homes in North Las Vegas a month, according to RealtyTrac.
With thousands of empty homes around the valley, a squatters market began to take shape, according to police and real estate pros.
People would break into a house, change the locks, draw up a fake lease to show a police officer or real estate agent if they stopped by, and post a Craigslist ad to "rent" the property to others. Squatters might meet their "landlord" at a convenience-store parking lot to pay rent in cash.
Nevada Bankers Association CEO Phyllis Gurgevich said it appears that some people collecting the "rent" are telling squatters that a bank will pay them to move out.
Gurgevich said lenders sometimes pay financially strapped homeowners to move out. But that cash-for-keys program is for the owner of record, not for anyone who happens to be living in the house.
Squatters won't get paid to leave, Gurgevich said, but they might get arrested.
- By CLAYTON GEFRE Herald Journal
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LOGAN, Utah — Twelve years ago, Preston was a town like any other, a relatively quiet part of southern Idaho with a population of just under 5,000 people. Known for That Famous Preston Night Rodeo and its close proximity to the site of the Bear River Massacre, most of the United States would likely have been unable to locate it on a map.
Things would change for the small Franklin County town with the release of "Napoleon Dynamite" in 2004. The quotable comedy film written and directed by Preston native Jared Hess became a surprise hit, earning $46.1 million at the box office on a budget of only $400,000. As the site of the film, Preston gained a foothold in pop culture, the Herald Journal reported (http://bit.ly/24IBmT4).
"Some people worry that the movie gives us a bad name," Preston resident Rhonda Gregerson said. "But really, it gives us a great name. The movie put us right on the map; it's our golden goose."
"All over the world"
Overnight, fans from all over the world descended onto Preston to tour all the places where the movie had been filmed, from the houses of the main characters to the multicolored lockers at Preston High School. Even 12 years past the movie's wide theatrical release, Gregerson said, every summer at least 50 groups of fans walk into the office of The Preston Citizen, the local newspaper where she works as the circulation manager, wanting to know more about the film.
"They come from all over the place," Gregerson said. "In the beginning it was just from the state, but as the movie became more popular, they started coming from all over the world. Germany, England, New Zealand, Korea, Japan, China . they've all come in and have been serious fans."
Although The Preston Citizen wasn't used as a film site, the newsroom nevertheless continues to serve as something of a hub for visiting fans as they tour the settings of their favorite scenes. Until recently, the office sold souvenirs from the movie, including "Vote for Pedro" T-shirts, tubes of ChapStick, boondoggles and more.
"I think we've had fans from all 50 states stop by at one time or another," Gregerson explained. "They all get so excited. I remember one gentleman spent about $200 on souvenirs without batting an eye."
In the years immediately following the film, Preston held a festival celebrating Napoleon Dynamite organized by the city's Chamber of Commerce. Gregerson recalled its popularity, drawing large numbers of fans each year for character lookalike contests, tater-tot eating contests, dancing contests, and the opportunity to meet Preston residents who played small roles in the film.
"If you talk to a lot of people in Preston, you'll find a lot of people who have become a bit sick of it," Gregerson said. "I still think it's great that there's still so much interest in the town this long after the movie."
Gregerson said she believed the film's popularity would wane as the years have gone on. Instead, she said, more visitors than ever before are stopping in Preston, primarily as a side trip as they make their way to Yellowstone National Park. As a fan of the movie with a personal connection to it — Gregerson's son-in-law is the brother of director Jared Hess — Gregerson is always happy to meet with visitors, lamenting that there no longer is a store in the city selling souvenirs related to the film.
"We've been hinting that someone else in the area should really pick it up," Gregerson said. "There is clearly still a demand for it, and I hate turning people away."
"Always making movies"
The movie's low budget meant most of the extras and bit parts featured Preston residents, some of them longtime friends of Hess. Thedora Petterborg, who played one of the secretaries at Preston High School in the film, was one such resident, having been one of Hess' neighbors as he grew up in Preston with his five brothers.
"Jared was always making movies," Petterborg said. "He and my grandson were always doing crazy things with a camera. It wasn't uncommon to hear about them making something big."
Hess has said many of the scenes and dialogue from the film were drawn from his own life as he grew up in Preston, which Petterborg could confirm from experience.
"A lot of what you see on the screen are the things he and his brothers would get up to all the time," she said. "They would actually slap each other and then run off. One of them really did drag action figures out the window of the school bus. They were all great kids, though."
As filming on "Napoleon Dynamite" began in the summer of 2003, Petterborg knew Hess was working on a major project, seeing how many people were coming and going from the house he grew up in.
"I knew it must have been something important, seeing so many people around," she explained. "Jared is a pretty smart guy. He knew exactly the places where he wanted to shoot. They were all in his head exactly as they came out on screen."
Petterborg herself was not asked to be on-screen until the final days of shooting at Preston High School. Petterborg had been a longtime secretary at the school, so when a scene came up with Napoleon needing to ask for the office phone to call his older brother, Kip, Hess asked Petterborg if she would be interested in helping.
"It was one of the funnest experiences of my life," she recalled. "It wasn't like I was doing anything different, but it was a lot of fun to get a behind-the-scenes look at how films like that are shot."
Petterborg admitted she doesn't share all of Hess's humor, but she was happy to see the film receive a positive reception at the Sundance Film Festival, which she attended the year the film premiered. She still has her original tickets as a keepsake. She said she felt a strong personal connection to the film, not just because she was in it, but because some of the locations had been built by her husband.
"It was fun watching the movie back and pointing out all the places he had worked on," she said. "There was always something new to find out."
Although Petterborg is not on-screen for much of the movie, she said she is still recognized by fans of the film. After the movie was released, she and other residents who appeared in the film took part in charity fundraisers, traveling all over the state in Uncle Rico's van to meet with fans.
"Whenever I say I'm from Preston, someone always says something about the movie," Petterborg said. "If they loved it, I'll say I was in it and then they get really excited. If they didn't like it, I keep quiet unless someone with me brings it up. It still comes up all the time."
"I can do that"
One of the most memorable scenes in the film comes when Napoleon greets his neighbor, Lyle, moments before the farmer cocks his gun and shoots a cow point-blank in the face — at the exact moment a school bus full of children passes by. Dale Critchlow, now 86 years old, was also a neighbor and friend of the Hess family, often seeking the help of Hess and his brothers following a near-fatal car accident in 1980 that impaired his eyesight and left his face partially paralyzed.
"I didn't even know he was making a movie at the time," Critchlow said from his home in Preston, still in the area after more than 40 years. "I was putting hay in my barn and my daughter came in with Jared and said he had a question for me. He said to me, 'Dale, I need a favor. I need you to be in my movie.' I asked what I needed to do, and he said, 'Oh, you just need to shoot a cow.' Well, I can do that."
Critchlow said the scene was shot near the end of the production cycle with a prized show cow worth $10,000.
"They wanted a cow that would be gentle and easy to handle for the cameras," Critchlow said. "She almost wasn't in the scene at all because her handler was late in arriving, but once she got here the scene was shot really quick. If the bus hadn't come by at the time it did, the camera would have seen the cow lick my barrel of the gun."
With his distinctive look and voice, Critchlow is among the most recognizable characters in the film, also playing the role of a worker on a chicken farm and the preacher in the film's post-credits scene, offering completely improvised advice for the couple of Kip and Lafawnduh: "When an argument arises, if you go outside and take a nice walk, you'll calm down and then you can come back and it won't be an argument. And you'll find that helps your health. All that fresh air and exercise will do you a lot of good."
Critchlow said he is still recognized all the time from the film. He happily accepts visitors into his home who ask about the film and his role in it. For a time, he even had photographs of himself on hand to autograph on request.
"I can go almost anywhere and someone will remember me," Critchlow said. "It was a lot of fun getting such a reception."
Llama drama
Not all the film's memorable sights remain in Preston. Uncle Rico's orange 1975 Dodge Tradesman van has long been sold, now located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where it may be rented out for events. The school bus Napoleon rode in the opening scene has left the Preston School District and is now busing students in Blackfoot, Idaho.
Rumors about the fate of Tina the llama, the Dynamite family pet who refuses to eat her dinner, have even Preston's residents divided. Gregerson at The Preston Citizen said she heard the llama had died, but Petterborg said Tina is still alive. She drove Herald Journal reporters past the alleged-Tina's residence, and a llama with similar facial markings was indeed seen on the horizon, staring over the hills.
The llama made an appearance at the 10th anniversary reunion of the cast in 2014, and Petterborg said her owners had to move her from her original location because of how many people wanted their picture taken with her.
"The word that's out there to most people is that she died," Petterborg said in reference to the rumor. "But she's still around and roaming. She's just living a more quiet life."
But will the popularity of the film change in the next 12 years? Gregerson doesn't think so, and neither do Petterborg or Critchlow.
"I thought the movie would have slowed down by now, but there's still such a demand for it," Gregerson said. "I don't think it will ever completely go away."
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Information from: The Herald Journal, http://www.hjnews.com
- By MICHAEL ARMSTRONG The Homer News
- Updated
HOMER, Alaska — On a good day when fishermen pull sea-bright king salmon out of the Nick Dudiak Fishing Lagoon faster than the tide runs, the cleaning tables fill up with people cleaning their catch. You'd better watch your back — and the sky — lest a ravenous gull scoops down and snags a fish.
"While trying to fillet their catches, anglers were under siege by a squadron of sky rats with the manners of turkey buzzards jazzed after power wolfing a commercial tanker of Red Bull," is how Homer News fishing columnist Nick Varney once described the assault.
Open to the air, the fishing tables and a carcass trailer attract dozens of glaucous or herring gulls, The Homer News reported. Hanging out on the roof of Pier One Theatre or sitting in the parking lot, the gulls wait like street punks eyeing a tourist's fat wallet.
That will end this year, and Homer's local avian scavengers will have to find better pickings. Thanks to a $60,000 grant from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, by fall the city of Homer plans to build a roof over the cleaning tables and carcass trailer that's similar to other fishing cleaning sheds at the Homer Harbor. Nets strung on the side also will keep birds from swooping in. Homer Harbormaster Bryan Hawkins called it "a reverse bird cage," where the people are inside the cage and the birds outside.
A protected table also will keep gulls from preying on hatchery-raised salmon fry held in pens in the lagoon before being released to the sea. With fewer gulls around, the problem of bird doo contaminating the fishing hole will be reduced.
"We're pretty excited," Hawkins said. "We've been talking with Fish and Game for years about making an improvement there."
At its May 23 meeting, the Homer City Council passed a resolution approving a cooperative agreement with Fish and Game and the city. Fish and Game will pay for design and construction. In return, the Port and Harbor Department will maintain and clean the tables.
For several years, fishermen have been clamoring for the same kind of protection enjoyed at the fishing hole cleaning tables near the harbor. Fish and Game officials knew of the situation, but didn't have funds available.
"It's been on our radar for several years for sure," said Carol Kerkvliet, assistant sport fish area management biologist in the Homer Fish and Game office.
This year, as the state's 2016 fiscal year came to an end, Fish and Game had some money available for the fishing table shelter "to take care of something we considered a high priority," said Tom Vania, regional supervisor in the Anchorage office for Fish and Game Region 2, Southcentral Alaska, Kodiak Island and Bristol Bay.
"I was completely surprised by it. It came out of the blue. Finally, we got some action," Hawkins said of the funding.
The city of Homer has been good to work with when it comes to cooperative projects, Vania said.
"They're willing to maintain it and operate it," he said. "It was kind of a good situation for both parties. We just made it happen."
Although Alaska doesn't have state sales or income taxes, in this case fishermen can say building the fishing hole cleaning shelter is their tax dollars at work. Funding for Alaska sport fish programs comes out of dedicated fishing license revenues as well as federal Dingell-Johnson money, Vania said.
The 1950 Sport Fish Restoration Act, commonly called Dingell-Johnson, was sponsored by Sen. Edwin Johnson of Colorado and Rep. John Dingell Sr. of Michigan. It collects money from the manufacturer's excise taxes on sport fishing gear and import duties on fishing tackle, yachts, pleasure boats and part of gas fuel taxes attributable to small boats.
Hawkins will work with Public Works Director Carey Meyer to design the fish cleaning shelter. A request for proposal will go out soon, with the hope that construction can start later in the summer and be finished before freeze-up, Hawkins said. Port and Harbor workers will maintain the shelter.
While gulls won't be able to get fresh fish, their food supply won't totally disappear. Fish scraps tossed in the harbor's carcass trailers get ground up at the city's grinding shed on Fish Dock Road and are sent out as slurry in a pipe ending off the Pioneer Dock in Kachemak Bay. Discharge of that fish waste is done under a permit from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
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Information from: The Homer (Alaska) News, http://www.homernews.com
- By PAULA ANN SOLIS Juneau Empire
- Updated
JUNEAU, Alaska — A few things set Juneau's first ever Celebration fashion show apart from ones often seen in media: the host spoke in Tlingit, a Native dancer opened the show and designs had history woven into their fabrics.
But one thing was the same — the clothes were incredible.
Sleek lines on gowns, shimmering fabrics and runway poses wowed the small crowd in the sold out venue, the Shuká Hít (clan house) in the Walter Soboleff Building. Garments, jewelry and body art by 18 Native designers were on display by models who did much more than just walk down the runway, the Juneau Empire reported.
Model Chris Bryant took the stage with apparel by internationally acclaimed Haida designer Dorothy Grant, whose work was recently seen on the Oscars red carpet by actor Duane E. Howard. Bryant posed in Native dance positions while wearing modern business attire — black pants with a white button up — accented with an indigenous-inspired vest.
It was a seemingly simple way of incorporating Native style into mainstream life, said Sealaska Vice Chair Jackie Pata.
"Not only is our culture special to us when we come to Celebration or when we put on our special regalia during ceremonies, but ... we are Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian every day," she said.
Work by Pata was also featured — a school uniform modeled by the young Hannah Watts was a crowd favorite. Watts' uniform, complete with skin-stitched trimmings and buttons with the Raven moiety, was designed to take her "from classroom to dance practice," said Lance Twitchell, the night's emcee. The outfit was inspired by what the designer wishes children in boarding schools would have been allowed to wear back when Native culture was forced out of the classroom.
Other styles also told stories, such as Kwakiutl and Squamish designer Pam Baker's "New Eagle" dress modeled by Brittinie Read. The black and white garment was crafted in a way to model an Eagle flying, telling the story of the bird that flies closest to its creator. Read "flew" down the runway in the dress with white feathers in her hair, motioning her arms as if taking flight.
Emcee Twitchell told the crowd that although all the design elements and the hard work behind them should be celebrated, what was most important that evening was the audience takeaway.
"One of the really important elements is you and your reaction to what you're seeing," he said. "Even in the smallest event, we lift each other up and it just becomes contagious."
Notable Tlingit weaver Clarissa Rizal was among the fashion show guests. She spoke afterward to the importance of lifting others through art. She was able to see work by her daughter Lily Hope and her sister Deanna Lampe displayed, and other pieces modeled by another daughter Ursala Rose. It was a family affair in many ways — for her immediate loved ones and for the tribe — and that's what she said matters most in the end.
"It's a celebration of one another," Rizal said. "When you please the Native community, when you please your own people, then you know you've done well."
Rizal went on to say that the fashion has the power to inspire Native and non-Native artists alike, and what was seen in the Shuká Hít was "just the beginning" of a Native couture expansion.
Guest Miranda Belarde-Lewis, a professor and curator visiting from Seattle, summarized the evening's show as "stunning," and something Natives and non-Natives can all get excited about.
A Tlingit and Zuni Native herself, she said she wears Native jewelry in her daily life because she is Native every day. She also said she's happy to see couture hit Juneau's Celebration scene for the first time because fashion has the ability to shift minds.
"If you can learn a little bit about a Native culture by a scarf or jewelry or a design in clothing, then hopefully that sparks awareness and compassion and a recognition of our humanity," Belarde-Lewis said. "There are people behind these designs."
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Information from: Juneau (Alaska) Empire, http://www.juneauempire.com
- By MORGAN LEE The Associated Press
- Updated
SANTA FE, N.M. — A federal appeals court is siding with an association of green chile growers in the Hatch Valley of southern New Mexico in a dispute over what food can be fairly labeled with the renowned Hatch name.
The U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday ruled in favor of the Hatch Chile Association and allied Albuquerque food distributor El Encanto in their efforts to subpoena records that may indicate whether a rival's products contain purely Hatch-grown chile as marketing suggests.
The subpoenas could influence the outcome of a related dispute before a federal trademark board over efforts by the Hatch Chile Co. to trademark the term "Hatch" for its exclusive use.
The written court decision pays tribute to the winding desert Hatch Valley for "producing some of the world's finest chile peppers," venturing that the area "may be to chiles what Napa is to grapes."
Reversing a district court decision, a three-judge panel noted that Hatch Chile Co. initially said it did not know where its chiles came from, and directed questions to supplier Mizkan Americas, the owner of Border Foods and its chile processing plants in southern New Mexico.
When a subpoena was issued to Mizkan asking about the provenance of its green chile, both Hatch Chile Co and Mizkan filed successful motions to block the request in U.S. district court.
"This seemingly mild dispute turned hot during discovery," the judges wrote. "After seeming to encourage El Encanto to ask its suppliers for just this information, Hatch Chile filed a motion seeking a protective order."
El Encanto does business under the Bueno Foods label.
Ross Perkal, an attorney for Hatch Chile Co., declined to comment on the ruling, citing pending litigation.
Hatch Chile Association board member Preston Mitchell applauded the decision as a possible step toward reserving the Hatch name for chiles that can be traced to the Hatch Valley through a shared certification process. The association is seeking a certification mark for Hatch chile to help consumers verify the source.
- The Associated Press
- Updated
PORTLAND, Ore. — Portland detectives who work on bias crimes are investigating an altercation between a transgender man and another man on a Max train.
Police say witnesses reported that a 20-year-old transgender man heard a 25-year-old man use a gay slur while speaking on a cellphone and that the two men then argued.
Police say the 20-year-old pushed and punched the other man, who punched back.
The Oregonian/OregonLive reports the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office will review the case to determine whether either man will face charges.
Responding police found the 20-year-old man at a transit station with non-life threatening injuries. He was taken to a hospital.
Police tracked down the other man, took him into custody and then released him pending further investigation.
- The Associated Press
- Updated
PORTLAND, Ore. — Officials say a Portland high school cafeteria has been closed after dangerous levels of cancer-causing radon gas were found in a second round of tests.
The Oregonian/OregonLive reported test results were emailed to the Portland School District on Tuesday and announced Friday.
The high levels of radon were found at Alliance High School, an alternative school serving about 200 students with a focus on professional-technical skills.
Earlier this month, district officials said roughly 800 rooms in 26 buildings were tested for radon, and nine rooms in six schools exceeded an Environmental Protection Agency threshold that requires immediate follow up testing.
Radon is an odorless and invisible gas that can cause lung cancer.
- The Associated Press
SALT LAKE CITY — A man is recovering after a tractor with a lawn-mowing attachment cut off his lower leg in a community southwest of Salt Lake City.
The Salt Lake Tribune reports that a helicopter transported the unidentified 68-year-old man to a hospital in very serious condition Friday.
Tooele County Sgt. Eric McCollum said the man was trying to free equipment caught on a fence in Erda while a part continued to spin.
The man's right pant leg was snagged in the machine.
McCollum said the machine severed the man's right leg below the knee.
McCollum said bleeding was minimal and the man spoke coherently to emergency responders.
- The Associated Press
PORTLAND, Oregon — An Oregon teenager who was disfigured during a school trip in Costa Rica has filed a $20.8 million lawsuit against his former high school.
The Oregonian/OregonLive reports that Joseph Christopher Johnson filed the suit earlier this week against Salem Academy, a private Christian school with around 700 students.
A school representative declined to comment Friday.
According to the lawsuit, Johnson's head and face were severely injured by a motor boat's propeller while out swimming on the seventh day of the Costa Rica trip in 2014. The trip was organized by a tour company the school had hired. The suit claims that students should not have been allowed to swim in the multi-use area known for having motors boats pass through.
The suit claims that Johnson has been in continuous pain for the past two years, has permanent scars because of the incident and has soaring medical bills.
- The Associated Press
PORTLAND, Ore. — The Portland Public Schools Board has tabled a proposed contract to purchase pre-packaged peanut butter and jelly sandwiches after parents complained that they contain high-fructose corn syrup.
The Oregonian/OregonLive reports that on Tuesday the school board removed the $350,000 contract to purchase more than 600,000 Smuckers Uncrustables from the agenda.
The trouble started when longtime PTA leader Craig Williams posited on Facebook that the crust-free sandwiches aren't particularly healthy. Many area parents chimed in that they were unhappy with the corn syrup and that the sandwiches aren't locally sourced.
The district already uses locally sourced bread, pizza dough, meat and marinara sauce.
District Nutrition Director Gitta Grether-Sweeney says the Uncrustables meet school nutrition guidelines and are both shelf-stable and packaged in a way that ensures peanuts don't contaminate other food.
- The Associated Press
RENO, Nev. — The Washoe County Sheriff's Office is warning that a number of residents in the area have received calls from someone posing as Sheriff's Office personnel in order to obtain money.
KTVN-TV reports that according to the Sheriff's Office, the scammer claims there is an outstanding warrant and that the victim must pay a fine in order to avoid arrest. The scammer then says the victim must either surrender themselves or pay through a cash card or a payment to a specified account.
Sheriff's officials say that they will sometimes make calls to inform someone about a warrant, but the Sheriff's Office will not ask for payment over the phone or allow payment in lieu of arrest.
SANTA FE, N.M. — The state Attorney General is warning New Mexico residents of a scammer who has been threatening legal action unless they receive payment.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports that the New Mexico Attorney General's Office warned against the scam Friday, telling residents not to give out personal or financial information over the phone.
Officials say the Attorney General's Office has received nearly 700 reports of such calls since May 2.
Attorney General Hector Balderas said in a statement that government or law enforcement agencies will never call to make threats of enforcement actions or demanding that people appear before a judge or grand jury.
- The Associated Press
SEATTLE — A school of what appears to be short-beaked common dolphins has been spotted swimming in northern Washington's Port Angeles harbor, a rare occurrence for the warm-water creatures.
The Seattle Times reported that Pacific Whale Watch Association officials say dolphins don't normally head to the inland waterway, as they generally live in tropical or warmer waterways.
Michael Harris of the association says the dolphins' presence indicates rising water temperatures in the Pacific Northwest.
Whale watchers first spotted the new dolphins June 11 and they remained in the area as of Friday afternoon.
Pacific white-sided dolphins are common in the area, but the short-beaked dolphins are much more rare.
- The Associated Press
SALT LAKE CITY — As education authorities contemplate a teacher shortage, Utah's state school board has passed a new rule allowing schools to hire people who don't have a teaching license or any experience.
The new policy would allow administrators to hire applicants who pass a background check, have a bachelor's degree and pass tests on both ethics and subject areas, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.
Utah has long had a program that let people with bachelor's degrees get teaching jobs before they got a license, but the new policy change lets them get a license right away and drops a requirement that those people take college teacher-training courses, said Mark Peterson with the State Office of Education.
Those who are hired would be mentored and supervised by a master teacher for three years. The board is now accepting public comment on the policy. It's set to go into effect Aug. 7 if no one asks for a hearing.
Democratic Rep. Carol Spackman Moss of Salt Lake City says putting people who aren't trained teachers into classrooms is short-sighted. To be effective, teachers need experience with things like classroom management and breaking complicated ideas into more manageable pieces, she said.
"It's a science and an art," she said.
School Board chair Dave Crandall says people from other industries can bring an important perspective to the classroom, and the college courses required in the old alternative teaching licensure program didn't seem to be very effective.
The change could also help combat a teacher shortage that's left half of Utah schools with open teaching positions on the first day of school, according to district surveys. That could be because Utah colleges are turning out fewer teachers even as the number of students grows.
The state's student body is now at more than 640,000 students, up 10 percent over the last five years. Enrollment in collegiate teacher-training programs has dropped by about a third over the last decade.
Of those students who do become public school teachers, 2 in 5 leave the profession within five years. Utah lost teachers at a rate twice the national average in 2011-2012.
Utah lawmakers have asked the University of Utah Education and Policy Center to find out why teachers are dropping out. Two factors that researchers are looking at are the state's lower-than-average teacher salaries and Utah's relatively large, young families.
But those factors have long been in place, and don't fully explain the recent drops in the teaching ranks, center director Andrea Rorrer said. Researchers will look at "understanding what's changed and what's different," she said.
Her team is aiming to finish the study by the end of 2016.
- The Associated Press
SALT LAKE CITY — Searchers have recovered the body of a 15-year-old girl who was cliff diving into a lake in Utah's Big Cottonwood Canyon.
The Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office says a search and rescue team found the girl's body in Lake Mary Friday night, just a few hours after friends called authorities.
According to deputies, the Sandy teen was diving with friends near the Brighton Ski Resort around 4 p.m.
Unified police Det. Ken Hansen says she jumped from a rock but leaped awkwardly or slipped.
Hansen says she hit the rocks on shore before landing in the water.
Bystanders could not find her.
Her body has been turned over to the Utah State Medical Examiner's Office.
The area where she was diving contains rock that stands 25 feet above the shoreline.
- By JUSTIN FRANZ Flathead Beacon
KALISPELL, Mont. — In 1936, Franklin D. Roosevelt was reelected for a second term as president, Jesse Owens won gold in the 100-meter dash at the Berlin Olympics and American newspapers published the first comic strip to feature a superhero wearing a skin-tight costume.
Meanwhile, in northwest Montana, more than 210,000 people visited Glacier National Park and a new fleet of tour buses hit the road, the Flathead Beacon reported.
Eight decades later, Roosevelt and Owens have long secured their spots in the pages of history, superheroes wearing spandex are common and Glacier annually welcomes 10 times the visitors it did in 1936. But 80 years later, the buses remain, climbing Going-to-the-Sun Road every summer and giving visitors tours of the scenic park.
The first batch of Glacier Park's iconic Red Buses arrived from the White Motor Company of Cleveland, Ohio, in 1936 and replaced an older fleet of touring buses that had been in the park since the 1910s. The new buses were designated as Model 706.
Prior to the 1930s, there was no standard touring bus in America's national parks. In 1935, four automotive companies created their own version of the ideal touring vehicle and they were brought to Yosemite National Park for a road test. Loaded with sandbags to simulate a busload of passengers, White's Model 706 outperformed the rest and soon became the standard touring vehicle across the West. Besides being powerful enough to make it over the roller coaster routes of rugged national parks, the 706s also featured stylish lines that were the brainchild of industrial designer Alexis de Sakhnoffsky. Prior to designing the tour buses, the Russian immigrant made a name for himself designing vehicles for the Packard Motor Car Company.
Over the next few years, more than 500 touring buses were built for use in national parks across the country. More than 100 were sent to Yellowstone National Park and 35 were sold to the Glacier Park Transportation Co. In 1936, the first 18 buses, Nos. 78 through 95, arrived in the park.
Since then, the buses have provided tours in and out of the park, mostly during the busy summer season. Of the 35 built for the park, 33 are still in use. The National Park Service has retained No. 78, the first built for Glacier, as a museum piece and another was destroyed in a wreck.
Through the years, most of the national park's 706 touring buses were wrecked or sold off and Glacier's is the only remaining fleet. The current operator of the "Reds," Xanterra Parks and Resorts, frequently touts the fact that Glacier's buses are the oldest intact fleet of passenger vehicles in the world.
The beloved buses were almost taken off the road for good in the 1990s. In July 1999, after dropping off a load of passengers at Lake McDonald Lodge, the front axle of a Red Bus detached from its frame. An emergency inspection of the entire fleet revealed that almost all of the buses had cracks in their chassis and they were immediately sidelined. A subsequent inspection convinced one Glacier Park, Inc. official that the buses were "beyond repair."
Later that year, the Ford Motor Company offered to rebuild the entire fleet for nearly $7 million. The rebuilt buses returned to the road in 2002.
Today, when the buses are not traveling the park, they are stored at a state-of-the-art facility built in 2015 by Xanterra near Columbia Falls.
"The buses work hard three months of the year going up and down the mountain and then we work on them the other nine months of the year," Transportation Director Dave Eglsaer said, adding that each bus logs thousands of miles per season and annually hauls 50,000 passengers.
"These buses are going to be moving a lot of people this summer," Eglsaer said.
Fifteen years and nearly 150,000 miles after their last overhaul, Xanterra is preparing to refurbish the fleet again. Eglsaer said the company plans on refurbishing one this coming winter and then four or five each year after. The rebuild will feature new engines and chassis and is expected to cost upward of $8 million.
Eglsaer said the rebuild would ensure that the fleet is still climbing Glacier's iconic Sun Road eight decades from now.
- By WILL JARVIS The Gazette
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Hills have always been tough for Jessica Beecham. When she runs up, the pacing can wear her out. When she runs down, the steepness can change in an instant.
Beecham managed to conquer the hill-filled Garden of the Gods 10 Mile Run in 1 hour, 49 minutes and 42 seconds. Danel Girmany won the men's race in 52:21 and Valentine Kibet topped the women, finishing in 1:01:36.
In April, Beecham finished the Boston Marathon then ran the Colfax Marathon in Denver a month later. She's done all of this legally blind, The Gazette reported.
Bill Garner, her guide and pothole spotter, crossed the finish line alongside her.
"Bill has eyes and mine don't work so well," Beecham said, "so he guides me."
The two met through Achilles International, an organization with the mission of enabling people with disabilities to enjoy competitive running and promote personal achievement.
Garner runs weekly with the Achilles group in Denver and Beecham usually runs with the Achilles Pikes Peak branch. In Colorado, there are Achilles groups in Boulder, Denver and Colorado Springs.
For big events like the Boston Marathon and the 10-mile run, the two compete together, Garner making sure she knows when an upcoming hill could slow her down and calling out obstacles throughout the course.
"He paces me and then he encourages me when we're going along," Beecham said.
"Don't listen to her," Garner replied. "She pushes me."
For a 10-mile race, which is relatively short compared to marathons Beecham has finished, the event at Garden of the Gods Park tested the avid runner with its constant elevation changes and steep hills.
According to the race's website, the course elevation ranges from 6,210 to 6,530 feet, and over again. Runners from all around the country — from Pennsylvania to New Mexico — traveled to Manitou Springs to run through the park and see some of the most famous rock formations in the nation.
Beecham participated for other reasons.
"There are always new ways to challenge yourself," she said. "I've done a lot of flat races, so now I've started to do hills because they're a challenge."
The personal challenge and goal-setting is what she loves about running. She's training to run the Pikes Peak Marathon in August, a course with 7,815 feet of elevation gain and an average elevation grade of 11 percent.
And for the first time in a major race, Garner will not be joining her.
"He thinks I'm crazy for going downhill," Beecham said.
As Beecham and Garner sprinted past the finish line — accompanied by another Achilles runner — the two high-fived. Beecham's shoulders sank, exhausted, as she took a long, much-needed breath.
"No. 925, Jessica Beecham!" boomed over the loudspeaker.
Around them, family and friends of runners cheered loudly for those crossing under the race banner and sweaty athletes embraced.
"This community built around running is awesome," Beecham said. "You're in races and people are cheering you on and you can cheer others on. It's great that Achilles is here and helps provide guides so we can be a part of that community as well."
- By ELI SEGALL Las Vegas Sun
LAS VEGAS — Sometimes, it doesn't take long to spot the flaws in lease documents submitted to the North Las Vegas Utilities Department to get the water turned on at a house.
The owner's name is misspelled or wrong. The landlord's signature looks like the renter's. Or the applicant's cellphone starts ringing when officials call to verify ownership.
"Sometimes, they get embarrassed and won't even pick it up," business services manager Romina Wilson said. "It's funny. You can tell."
North Las Vegas and the rest of the Las Vegas area is grappling with a squatter problem, fueled by a big inventory of empty houses abandoned by people with deep financial problems when the economy crashed — and by the widespread use of bogus leases, the Las Vegas Sun reported.
Local government agencies have taken different steps to clear squatters or prevent them from moving in.
Las Vegas police don't have a dedicated squatter unit, but received at least 4,458 squatter-related service calls in Las Vegas and unincorporated Clark County last year, more than double the tally in 2012.
Las Vegas city officials recently launched a pilot program to secure abandoned houses with a sheet plastic made of polycarbonate, a supposedly unbreakable alternative to plywood.
In Henderson, police and the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors created forms for landlords to fill out, to show whether the occupants signed a lease with the actual owners.
In North Las Vegas, police, code enforcement and utilities officials use paperwork traps to spot fake rental contracts and push squatters out.
"We're working as one to put it together, because without that, we'd be out there spinning our wheels," said police Officer Scott Vaughn, who leads the department's squatter enforcement.
By all accounts, it's not difficult for squatters to find an abandoned home, and it's easy to draw up a bogus lease. Vaughn said he has heard about how-to classes being taught to squatters.
In the first four weeks that North Las Vegas police targeted squatters, they cleared more than 50 houses and made four arrests, Vaughn said. Officers have been visiting six to 10 suspected squatter homes per week.
Squatters move to nice and run-down houses, come from "every walk of life" and target neighborhoods city-wide, according to Vaughn.
"It looks like a shotgun blast on a map — it's everywhere," he said.
Officers cleared a two-story house in May where a woman and five children lived for eight months, with no water service for the last two months, Vaughn said. An open box of Pop-Tarts, a child's bicycle, furniture, barbecue, mop, water bottles and other items were still inside on a recent visit.
The squatter showed up one day in a U-Haul truck, said she'd rented the place, and held two garage sales to sell furniture and other belongings left when the prior occupant moved out. She squabbled with neighbors, sent her kids with buckets to get water from neighbors' hoses, and ran an extension cord to another squatter house next-door for power.
Squatters in the two homes apparently knew each other, Vaughn said. The ones in the second house left when neighbors police.
Susan Ragsdell, who lives across the street, said the larger house has been vacant for two or three years; the smaller house for five years.
. . .
Southern Nevada's once-battered housing market is recovering from the Great Recession, but it's still ripe for squatting.
About 2.1 percent of Las Vegas-area homes, or 13,850 properties, are vacant, compared with 1.6 percent of U.S. homes, according to foreclosure-tracking firm RealtyTrac.
Squatter homes can become drug dens, weapons caches and fraud labs, and magnets for child neglect or other criminal activity, police say.
"We're finding hardcore felons, serious criminals in these houses," North Las Vegas police Officer Ann Cavaricci said.
Statewide, the state Legislature last year made crimes of housebreaking, or forcibly entering a vacant home to live there or let someone else move in without the owner's consent, and unlawful occupancy, or moving to an empty home without permission.
North Las Vegas City Councilwoman Anita Wood proposed creating a task force in May 2014 and tactics to target squatters. Today, if someone tries to get water turned on at a house listed in the city foreclosure registry, utilities officials are alerted to give the application closer scrutiny and try to contact the owner of record.
Water doesn't flow until officials verify the lease is real, utilities director Randy DeVaul said.
Another tactic: Code-enforcement officers, working with police, compare the landlord's name and signature on an applicant's lease with property records.
Code-enforcement officer Matt Meanea said squatters had used so many identical tactics that he looked online to see if someone posted step-by-step instructions.
A former North Las Vegas police chief, Joe Forti, said he didn't see squatters until the mid-1980s. He said fake leases surfaced about 15 years ago.
Today, it can be difficult to sort through foreclosure, bankruptcy, county recorder and other filings to figure out who owns the home, and track down owners who left the area when the economy collapsed.
"You don't even know which bank or mortgage company owns them anymore," Forti said.
North Las Vegas was one of the fastest-growing cities in America when the southern Nevada real estate bubble burst. State figures say it grew from 165,000 to 230,500 residents from 2004-2014, a more than 70 percent increase.
When the crash came, the city declared a financial emergency, its bonds fell to junk status and its housing woes became especially severe.
By early 2012, about 31 percent of U.S. homeowners with mortgages were underwater, meaning their debt outweighed their home value.
In southern Nevada, the figure was 71 percent, according to listing service Zillow. In North Las Vegas, it was about 81 percent.
In 2008 and 2009, lenders were filing more than 1,000 default notices and repossessing more than 500 homes in North Las Vegas a month, according to RealtyTrac.
With thousands of empty homes around the valley, a squatters market began to take shape, according to police and real estate pros.
People would break into a house, change the locks, draw up a fake lease to show a police officer or real estate agent if they stopped by, and post a Craigslist ad to "rent" the property to others. Squatters might meet their "landlord" at a convenience-store parking lot to pay rent in cash.
Nevada Bankers Association CEO Phyllis Gurgevich said it appears that some people collecting the "rent" are telling squatters that a bank will pay them to move out.
Gurgevich said lenders sometimes pay financially strapped homeowners to move out. But that cash-for-keys program is for the owner of record, not for anyone who happens to be living in the house.
Squatters won't get paid to leave, Gurgevich said, but they might get arrested.
- By CLAYTON GEFRE Herald Journal
LOGAN, Utah — Twelve years ago, Preston was a town like any other, a relatively quiet part of southern Idaho with a population of just under 5,000 people. Known for That Famous Preston Night Rodeo and its close proximity to the site of the Bear River Massacre, most of the United States would likely have been unable to locate it on a map.
Things would change for the small Franklin County town with the release of "Napoleon Dynamite" in 2004. The quotable comedy film written and directed by Preston native Jared Hess became a surprise hit, earning $46.1 million at the box office on a budget of only $400,000. As the site of the film, Preston gained a foothold in pop culture, the Herald Journal reported (http://bit.ly/24IBmT4).
"Some people worry that the movie gives us a bad name," Preston resident Rhonda Gregerson said. "But really, it gives us a great name. The movie put us right on the map; it's our golden goose."
"All over the world"
Overnight, fans from all over the world descended onto Preston to tour all the places where the movie had been filmed, from the houses of the main characters to the multicolored lockers at Preston High School. Even 12 years past the movie's wide theatrical release, Gregerson said, every summer at least 50 groups of fans walk into the office of The Preston Citizen, the local newspaper where she works as the circulation manager, wanting to know more about the film.
"They come from all over the place," Gregerson said. "In the beginning it was just from the state, but as the movie became more popular, they started coming from all over the world. Germany, England, New Zealand, Korea, Japan, China . they've all come in and have been serious fans."
Although The Preston Citizen wasn't used as a film site, the newsroom nevertheless continues to serve as something of a hub for visiting fans as they tour the settings of their favorite scenes. Until recently, the office sold souvenirs from the movie, including "Vote for Pedro" T-shirts, tubes of ChapStick, boondoggles and more.
"I think we've had fans from all 50 states stop by at one time or another," Gregerson explained. "They all get so excited. I remember one gentleman spent about $200 on souvenirs without batting an eye."
In the years immediately following the film, Preston held a festival celebrating Napoleon Dynamite organized by the city's Chamber of Commerce. Gregerson recalled its popularity, drawing large numbers of fans each year for character lookalike contests, tater-tot eating contests, dancing contests, and the opportunity to meet Preston residents who played small roles in the film.
"If you talk to a lot of people in Preston, you'll find a lot of people who have become a bit sick of it," Gregerson said. "I still think it's great that there's still so much interest in the town this long after the movie."
Gregerson said she believed the film's popularity would wane as the years have gone on. Instead, she said, more visitors than ever before are stopping in Preston, primarily as a side trip as they make their way to Yellowstone National Park. As a fan of the movie with a personal connection to it — Gregerson's son-in-law is the brother of director Jared Hess — Gregerson is always happy to meet with visitors, lamenting that there no longer is a store in the city selling souvenirs related to the film.
"We've been hinting that someone else in the area should really pick it up," Gregerson said. "There is clearly still a demand for it, and I hate turning people away."
"Always making movies"
The movie's low budget meant most of the extras and bit parts featured Preston residents, some of them longtime friends of Hess. Thedora Petterborg, who played one of the secretaries at Preston High School in the film, was one such resident, having been one of Hess' neighbors as he grew up in Preston with his five brothers.
"Jared was always making movies," Petterborg said. "He and my grandson were always doing crazy things with a camera. It wasn't uncommon to hear about them making something big."
Hess has said many of the scenes and dialogue from the film were drawn from his own life as he grew up in Preston, which Petterborg could confirm from experience.
"A lot of what you see on the screen are the things he and his brothers would get up to all the time," she said. "They would actually slap each other and then run off. One of them really did drag action figures out the window of the school bus. They were all great kids, though."
As filming on "Napoleon Dynamite" began in the summer of 2003, Petterborg knew Hess was working on a major project, seeing how many people were coming and going from the house he grew up in.
"I knew it must have been something important, seeing so many people around," she explained. "Jared is a pretty smart guy. He knew exactly the places where he wanted to shoot. They were all in his head exactly as they came out on screen."
Petterborg herself was not asked to be on-screen until the final days of shooting at Preston High School. Petterborg had been a longtime secretary at the school, so when a scene came up with Napoleon needing to ask for the office phone to call his older brother, Kip, Hess asked Petterborg if she would be interested in helping.
"It was one of the funnest experiences of my life," she recalled. "It wasn't like I was doing anything different, but it was a lot of fun to get a behind-the-scenes look at how films like that are shot."
Petterborg admitted she doesn't share all of Hess's humor, but she was happy to see the film receive a positive reception at the Sundance Film Festival, which she attended the year the film premiered. She still has her original tickets as a keepsake. She said she felt a strong personal connection to the film, not just because she was in it, but because some of the locations had been built by her husband.
"It was fun watching the movie back and pointing out all the places he had worked on," she said. "There was always something new to find out."
Although Petterborg is not on-screen for much of the movie, she said she is still recognized by fans of the film. After the movie was released, she and other residents who appeared in the film took part in charity fundraisers, traveling all over the state in Uncle Rico's van to meet with fans.
"Whenever I say I'm from Preston, someone always says something about the movie," Petterborg said. "If they loved it, I'll say I was in it and then they get really excited. If they didn't like it, I keep quiet unless someone with me brings it up. It still comes up all the time."
"I can do that"
One of the most memorable scenes in the film comes when Napoleon greets his neighbor, Lyle, moments before the farmer cocks his gun and shoots a cow point-blank in the face — at the exact moment a school bus full of children passes by. Dale Critchlow, now 86 years old, was also a neighbor and friend of the Hess family, often seeking the help of Hess and his brothers following a near-fatal car accident in 1980 that impaired his eyesight and left his face partially paralyzed.
"I didn't even know he was making a movie at the time," Critchlow said from his home in Preston, still in the area after more than 40 years. "I was putting hay in my barn and my daughter came in with Jared and said he had a question for me. He said to me, 'Dale, I need a favor. I need you to be in my movie.' I asked what I needed to do, and he said, 'Oh, you just need to shoot a cow.' Well, I can do that."
Critchlow said the scene was shot near the end of the production cycle with a prized show cow worth $10,000.
"They wanted a cow that would be gentle and easy to handle for the cameras," Critchlow said. "She almost wasn't in the scene at all because her handler was late in arriving, but once she got here the scene was shot really quick. If the bus hadn't come by at the time it did, the camera would have seen the cow lick my barrel of the gun."
With his distinctive look and voice, Critchlow is among the most recognizable characters in the film, also playing the role of a worker on a chicken farm and the preacher in the film's post-credits scene, offering completely improvised advice for the couple of Kip and Lafawnduh: "When an argument arises, if you go outside and take a nice walk, you'll calm down and then you can come back and it won't be an argument. And you'll find that helps your health. All that fresh air and exercise will do you a lot of good."
Critchlow said he is still recognized all the time from the film. He happily accepts visitors into his home who ask about the film and his role in it. For a time, he even had photographs of himself on hand to autograph on request.
"I can go almost anywhere and someone will remember me," Critchlow said. "It was a lot of fun getting such a reception."
Llama drama
Not all the film's memorable sights remain in Preston. Uncle Rico's orange 1975 Dodge Tradesman van has long been sold, now located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where it may be rented out for events. The school bus Napoleon rode in the opening scene has left the Preston School District and is now busing students in Blackfoot, Idaho.
Rumors about the fate of Tina the llama, the Dynamite family pet who refuses to eat her dinner, have even Preston's residents divided. Gregerson at The Preston Citizen said she heard the llama had died, but Petterborg said Tina is still alive. She drove Herald Journal reporters past the alleged-Tina's residence, and a llama with similar facial markings was indeed seen on the horizon, staring over the hills.
The llama made an appearance at the 10th anniversary reunion of the cast in 2014, and Petterborg said her owners had to move her from her original location because of how many people wanted their picture taken with her.
"The word that's out there to most people is that she died," Petterborg said in reference to the rumor. "But she's still around and roaming. She's just living a more quiet life."
But will the popularity of the film change in the next 12 years? Gregerson doesn't think so, and neither do Petterborg or Critchlow.
"I thought the movie would have slowed down by now, but there's still such a demand for it," Gregerson said. "I don't think it will ever completely go away."
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Information from: The Herald Journal, http://www.hjnews.com
- By MICHAEL ARMSTRONG The Homer News
HOMER, Alaska — On a good day when fishermen pull sea-bright king salmon out of the Nick Dudiak Fishing Lagoon faster than the tide runs, the cleaning tables fill up with people cleaning their catch. You'd better watch your back — and the sky — lest a ravenous gull scoops down and snags a fish.
"While trying to fillet their catches, anglers were under siege by a squadron of sky rats with the manners of turkey buzzards jazzed after power wolfing a commercial tanker of Red Bull," is how Homer News fishing columnist Nick Varney once described the assault.
Open to the air, the fishing tables and a carcass trailer attract dozens of glaucous or herring gulls, The Homer News reported. Hanging out on the roof of Pier One Theatre or sitting in the parking lot, the gulls wait like street punks eyeing a tourist's fat wallet.
That will end this year, and Homer's local avian scavengers will have to find better pickings. Thanks to a $60,000 grant from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, by fall the city of Homer plans to build a roof over the cleaning tables and carcass trailer that's similar to other fishing cleaning sheds at the Homer Harbor. Nets strung on the side also will keep birds from swooping in. Homer Harbormaster Bryan Hawkins called it "a reverse bird cage," where the people are inside the cage and the birds outside.
A protected table also will keep gulls from preying on hatchery-raised salmon fry held in pens in the lagoon before being released to the sea. With fewer gulls around, the problem of bird doo contaminating the fishing hole will be reduced.
"We're pretty excited," Hawkins said. "We've been talking with Fish and Game for years about making an improvement there."
At its May 23 meeting, the Homer City Council passed a resolution approving a cooperative agreement with Fish and Game and the city. Fish and Game will pay for design and construction. In return, the Port and Harbor Department will maintain and clean the tables.
For several years, fishermen have been clamoring for the same kind of protection enjoyed at the fishing hole cleaning tables near the harbor. Fish and Game officials knew of the situation, but didn't have funds available.
"It's been on our radar for several years for sure," said Carol Kerkvliet, assistant sport fish area management biologist in the Homer Fish and Game office.
This year, as the state's 2016 fiscal year came to an end, Fish and Game had some money available for the fishing table shelter "to take care of something we considered a high priority," said Tom Vania, regional supervisor in the Anchorage office for Fish and Game Region 2, Southcentral Alaska, Kodiak Island and Bristol Bay.
"I was completely surprised by it. It came out of the blue. Finally, we got some action," Hawkins said of the funding.
The city of Homer has been good to work with when it comes to cooperative projects, Vania said.
"They're willing to maintain it and operate it," he said. "It was kind of a good situation for both parties. We just made it happen."
Although Alaska doesn't have state sales or income taxes, in this case fishermen can say building the fishing hole cleaning shelter is their tax dollars at work. Funding for Alaska sport fish programs comes out of dedicated fishing license revenues as well as federal Dingell-Johnson money, Vania said.
The 1950 Sport Fish Restoration Act, commonly called Dingell-Johnson, was sponsored by Sen. Edwin Johnson of Colorado and Rep. John Dingell Sr. of Michigan. It collects money from the manufacturer's excise taxes on sport fishing gear and import duties on fishing tackle, yachts, pleasure boats and part of gas fuel taxes attributable to small boats.
Hawkins will work with Public Works Director Carey Meyer to design the fish cleaning shelter. A request for proposal will go out soon, with the hope that construction can start later in the summer and be finished before freeze-up, Hawkins said. Port and Harbor workers will maintain the shelter.
While gulls won't be able to get fresh fish, their food supply won't totally disappear. Fish scraps tossed in the harbor's carcass trailers get ground up at the city's grinding shed on Fish Dock Road and are sent out as slurry in a pipe ending off the Pioneer Dock in Kachemak Bay. Discharge of that fish waste is done under a permit from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
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Information from: The Homer (Alaska) News, http://www.homernews.com
- By PAULA ANN SOLIS Juneau Empire
JUNEAU, Alaska — A few things set Juneau's first ever Celebration fashion show apart from ones often seen in media: the host spoke in Tlingit, a Native dancer opened the show and designs had history woven into their fabrics.
But one thing was the same — the clothes were incredible.
Sleek lines on gowns, shimmering fabrics and runway poses wowed the small crowd in the sold out venue, the Shuká Hít (clan house) in the Walter Soboleff Building. Garments, jewelry and body art by 18 Native designers were on display by models who did much more than just walk down the runway, the Juneau Empire reported.
Model Chris Bryant took the stage with apparel by internationally acclaimed Haida designer Dorothy Grant, whose work was recently seen on the Oscars red carpet by actor Duane E. Howard. Bryant posed in Native dance positions while wearing modern business attire — black pants with a white button up — accented with an indigenous-inspired vest.
It was a seemingly simple way of incorporating Native style into mainstream life, said Sealaska Vice Chair Jackie Pata.
"Not only is our culture special to us when we come to Celebration or when we put on our special regalia during ceremonies, but ... we are Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian every day," she said.
Work by Pata was also featured — a school uniform modeled by the young Hannah Watts was a crowd favorite. Watts' uniform, complete with skin-stitched trimmings and buttons with the Raven moiety, was designed to take her "from classroom to dance practice," said Lance Twitchell, the night's emcee. The outfit was inspired by what the designer wishes children in boarding schools would have been allowed to wear back when Native culture was forced out of the classroom.
Other styles also told stories, such as Kwakiutl and Squamish designer Pam Baker's "New Eagle" dress modeled by Brittinie Read. The black and white garment was crafted in a way to model an Eagle flying, telling the story of the bird that flies closest to its creator. Read "flew" down the runway in the dress with white feathers in her hair, motioning her arms as if taking flight.
Emcee Twitchell told the crowd that although all the design elements and the hard work behind them should be celebrated, what was most important that evening was the audience takeaway.
"One of the really important elements is you and your reaction to what you're seeing," he said. "Even in the smallest event, we lift each other up and it just becomes contagious."
Notable Tlingit weaver Clarissa Rizal was among the fashion show guests. She spoke afterward to the importance of lifting others through art. She was able to see work by her daughter Lily Hope and her sister Deanna Lampe displayed, and other pieces modeled by another daughter Ursala Rose. It was a family affair in many ways — for her immediate loved ones and for the tribe — and that's what she said matters most in the end.
"It's a celebration of one another," Rizal said. "When you please the Native community, when you please your own people, then you know you've done well."
Rizal went on to say that the fashion has the power to inspire Native and non-Native artists alike, and what was seen in the Shuká Hít was "just the beginning" of a Native couture expansion.
Guest Miranda Belarde-Lewis, a professor and curator visiting from Seattle, summarized the evening's show as "stunning," and something Natives and non-Natives can all get excited about.
A Tlingit and Zuni Native herself, she said she wears Native jewelry in her daily life because she is Native every day. She also said she's happy to see couture hit Juneau's Celebration scene for the first time because fashion has the ability to shift minds.
"If you can learn a little bit about a Native culture by a scarf or jewelry or a design in clothing, then hopefully that sparks awareness and compassion and a recognition of our humanity," Belarde-Lewis said. "There are people behind these designs."
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Information from: Juneau (Alaska) Empire, http://www.juneauempire.com
- By MORGAN LEE The Associated Press
SANTA FE, N.M. — A federal appeals court is siding with an association of green chile growers in the Hatch Valley of southern New Mexico in a dispute over what food can be fairly labeled with the renowned Hatch name.
The U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday ruled in favor of the Hatch Chile Association and allied Albuquerque food distributor El Encanto in their efforts to subpoena records that may indicate whether a rival's products contain purely Hatch-grown chile as marketing suggests.
The subpoenas could influence the outcome of a related dispute before a federal trademark board over efforts by the Hatch Chile Co. to trademark the term "Hatch" for its exclusive use.
The written court decision pays tribute to the winding desert Hatch Valley for "producing some of the world's finest chile peppers," venturing that the area "may be to chiles what Napa is to grapes."
Reversing a district court decision, a three-judge panel noted that Hatch Chile Co. initially said it did not know where its chiles came from, and directed questions to supplier Mizkan Americas, the owner of Border Foods and its chile processing plants in southern New Mexico.
When a subpoena was issued to Mizkan asking about the provenance of its green chile, both Hatch Chile Co and Mizkan filed successful motions to block the request in U.S. district court.
"This seemingly mild dispute turned hot during discovery," the judges wrote. "After seeming to encourage El Encanto to ask its suppliers for just this information, Hatch Chile filed a motion seeking a protective order."
El Encanto does business under the Bueno Foods label.
Ross Perkal, an attorney for Hatch Chile Co., declined to comment on the ruling, citing pending litigation.
Hatch Chile Association board member Preston Mitchell applauded the decision as a possible step toward reserving the Hatch name for chiles that can be traced to the Hatch Valley through a shared certification process. The association is seeking a certification mark for Hatch chile to help consumers verify the source.
- The Associated Press
PORTLAND, Ore. — Portland detectives who work on bias crimes are investigating an altercation between a transgender man and another man on a Max train.
Police say witnesses reported that a 20-year-old transgender man heard a 25-year-old man use a gay slur while speaking on a cellphone and that the two men then argued.
Police say the 20-year-old pushed and punched the other man, who punched back.
The Oregonian/OregonLive reports the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office will review the case to determine whether either man will face charges.
Responding police found the 20-year-old man at a transit station with non-life threatening injuries. He was taken to a hospital.
Police tracked down the other man, took him into custody and then released him pending further investigation.
- The Associated Press
PORTLAND, Ore. — Officials say a Portland high school cafeteria has been closed after dangerous levels of cancer-causing radon gas were found in a second round of tests.
The Oregonian/OregonLive reported test results were emailed to the Portland School District on Tuesday and announced Friday.
The high levels of radon were found at Alliance High School, an alternative school serving about 200 students with a focus on professional-technical skills.
Earlier this month, district officials said roughly 800 rooms in 26 buildings were tested for radon, and nine rooms in six schools exceeded an Environmental Protection Agency threshold that requires immediate follow up testing.
Radon is an odorless and invisible gas that can cause lung cancer.
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