Mushing mortician; cops shoot dog; lender must pay homeowner

WILLOW, Alaska — Eighty-five mushers set off Sunday to conquer the toughest terrain this nation has to offer, vying to become the first to reach Alaska's western coast with their dog teams.

Scott Janssen, an undertaker from Anchorage who is known as the Mushing Mortician, was the first to leave across Willow Lake in the staggered started.

Dallas Seavey was only wearing a long-sleeved shirt as he packed his sled under blue skies and warm temperatures. He said it felt just like another day for him and his dogs, doing their thing.

That could be bad news for the field as Seavey has won three out of the last four races.

"If we have a good race, we should have a good finish. If we can maximize this team, we'll get their fast," he said of the dash for the finish line under the burled arch in Nome. The winner is expected in about nine days after traveling over two mountain ranges, the Yukon River and battling the fierce winds along the Bering Sea coast.

He said there are "a lot of really good teams, there's a lot of people who could win. There's a lot of people that maybe should win that won't. That's actually why we go run the race, and we'll figure it out in a couple of weeks," he said.

Besides Seavey, there are six other former champions in the race, including four-time winner Lance Mackey.

Last year, Mackey struggled to finish the race. The cancer survivor also has a condition which affects blood circulation in his hands, and he had problems caring for his dogs last year. His brother, musher Jason Mackey, helped with dog care so Lance could finish the race.

When asked Sunday if his hands were good, Lance Mackey said, "Well, to a degree."

He has had continued treatment on his hands, including a surgery last month that took out a nail bed on one finger. He said the pain level has been reduced a bit, and he was ready to get the race started.

"If we don't have a good run this year, it's not the dogs' fault. This team, in my opinion, and I know what kind of dogs it takes, this team has what it takes. It's up to me now to show the world, and they deserve it," he said.

Also in this year's race is two-time champion Robert Sorlie of Oslo. He leads a large Norwegian contingency among the mushers. But Mats Pettersson will tell you there are eight Norwegians in the race, and not nine.

"I feel a little bit lonely," he said because everyone believes he's Norwegian, too. "I have to tell every guy I'm Swedish."

Adding to the international flair of the race is Kim Franklin, a 49-year-old musher from Herts, England.

This is her second race to Nome, but she's still considered a rookie after being withdrawn at the Rohn checkpoint in 2008. She had to qualify for the Iditarod last winter.

"It sounds like it's going to be a hard, fast trail and it's going to be a rough start to the race, I think," she said, adding her goal is to keep everything under control.

"I just want to run a slow, steady, safe race," Franklin said.

The winner is expected in the old Gold Rush town of Nome in about nine days.

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Police in Anaheim have shot and critically wounded a suspected robber at a Subway restaurant after seeing him hold two employees hostage at knifepoint.

Sgt. Daron Wyatt said officers went to the restaurant Sunday afternoon after receiving a call from a woman who whispered from there.

Wyatt said when the officers arrived, they saw the man take two female employees to the back of the restaurant at knife point. No customers were inside.

When they went into the restaurant, Wyatt said the officers fired at the suspect.

He was taken to the hospital in critical condition. The employees escaped injury.

Wyatt said the shooting was under investigation.

PACIFICA, Calif. — Officials in Northern California say work crews will tear down a second vacant apartment building that massive erosion had left teetering on the edge of a cliff in the city of Pacifica.

Pacifica City Manager Lorie Tinfow said Sunday the 20-unit coastal complex will be demolished on Tuesday.

A neighboring two-story building was razed in February by its owner. It had been vacant since its 12 units were red-tagged after a storm in 2010.

Officials say they are trying to get the owner of the third apartment building to demolish it.

The bluff was once big enough to accommodate playgrounds and a swimming pool in the space between three apartment complexes and the cliff in Pacifica, one of the most erosion-prone stretches of the state's coastline.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Jason Langlois and Will Bladh are in the early stages of making plans for their summer 2017 wedding, and they don't want their excitement pierced by the pain of being rejected by a venue, florist and photographer who have a legal right in Utah to refuse to serve a gay couple.

That's why they joined several hundred people Sunday at a gay and lesbian wedding expo in Salt Lake City aimed at connecting couples with businesses who want to make it known they're open to doing same-sex weddings.

"We don't have to worry about, 'Will they or won't they,'" said Langlois. "It's a group of businesses that are LGBT friendly."

With a string quartet playing on one side of the exhibit hall and pop music on the other side, gay and lesbian couples chatted with businesses showing off fancy wedding cakes, fun photo booths and elaborate floral arrangements.

Karl Jennings and Chris Marrano were looking for a cake baker and photographer for their June wedding. They said they've had a heterosexual friend helping them make wedding plans by calling ahead to businesses to make sure they'll do a gay wedding. That wasn't an issue Sunday.

"We know that whoever is here isn't going to turn us away because we're gay," Jennings said. "It's very relaxing and makes you want to give people business here. I want support people who want to support us."

Utah is one of 29 states where it is legal for businesses to refuse services to same-sex couples, according to the Human Rights Campaign. A proposal to change that law died last week in the Utah's Republican-controlled legislation. There are no estimates of how often it happens, but most gay couples know somebody who has been rejected.

The Salt Lake City event was the first of kind since gay marriage became legal in Utah in 2013, said Michael Aaron, the show organizer and publisher of QSalt Lake, a magazine that caters to the LGBT community.

For wedding-related businesses, gay marriages represent a growth market. Gaining a toehold requires spreading the word you're open to LGBT weddings — and not just doing it for the money, said Annie Munk, who along with her wife Nicole Broberg rents photo booths for weddings.

"Couples need to feel comfortable with the person they're working with and know that's not going to be any judgment, or awkwardness or whispering behind the counter," said Munk, owner of Utah Party Pix.

Same-sex weddings have been happening at a brisk pace over the last three years as judges declared gay marriage legal in a number of states, including Utah in December 2013, and finally the U.S. Supreme Court in the summer of 2015.

As of last fall, an estimated 486,000 same-sex couples were married — more than double the figure in 2013, according to the Williams Institute, a LGBT-issues think tank based at UCLA's School of Law. That figure represents 45 percent of all same-sex couples.

Though no hard figures exist yet for how big the wedding industry has become, the Williams Institute estimated in 2014 that making gay marriage legal across the country could generate a total of $2.6 billion across the country within the first three years.

The LGBT population has an estimated buying power of $884 billion annually, according to a report from Witeck Communications and the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce.

The rise of gay wedding expos, which have been around for more than a decade, is reflective of corporate America's expanding embrace of the LGBT market, said Beck Bailey of the Human Rights Campaign.

The LGBT population has an estimated buying power of $884 billion annually, according to a report from Witeck Communications and the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce.

The Salt Lake City expo marked another step into the public sphere for an LGBT community in Utah that was relegated to the shadows, due in large part to a conservative culture rooted in a Mormon faith that teaches its members that acting on homosexual attraction is a sin.

The Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints still opposes gay marriage and recently drew the ire of gay rights advocates for banning baptisms for children living with gay parents.

But the religion has made strides in recent years to become more accepting of gays and lesbians — including backing a law in 2015 that protects gay and transgender people from housing and employment discrimination, while also protecting the rights of religious groups and individuals.

Last November, Salt Lake City elected its first openly gay mayor: Jackie Biskupski.

"Having an event like this out in the open shows how much we've changed," said Sophia Hawes-Tingey, a transgender woman representing the Utah Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. "Six years ago, there would have been a lot of public complaints. I haven't heard one at all this time."

LOS ANGELES — Authorities say a man died and at least 10 other people were injured in a shooting at a warehouse party in Compton.

Los Angeles television station KTLA reports thatthe shooting before dawn Sunday happened inside a warehouse where up to 150 people were attending a party was gang-related.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department says one man was rushed to a hospital, where he died.

It says seven of the injured were transported to hospitals by Compton and Los Angeles fire departments and that the rest used personal transportation to get to a hospital.

Investigators say more than one gunman may have been involved.

No arrests have been reported.

PHOENIX  — Maricopa County authorities say they found three pipe bombs and meth in a stolen vehicle in Florida.

Maricopa County Sheriff's spokeswoman Courtney Palma says deputies arrested 41-year-old Michelle L. Buck for driving without a license in the north Phoenix area on the Carefree Highway on Saturday.

Deputies discovered her car had been reported stolen by a rental company in Jacksonville.

Authorities searching the vehicle discovered meth and a meth pipe.

They say a passenger, 44-year-old Steve Aron Scott, indicated explosives were present.

Palma says a bomb squad found the pipe bombs and safely removed them.

So far, both Scott and Buck each face a charge of making a false report with law enforcement.

SEATTLE — A nationwide mortgage lender is appealing a $213,000 emotional distress judgment awarded to a Bellevue mom who was fighting to keep her home.

KING-TV reports Leticia Lucero sued Cenlar after the company failed to notify lenders her home was no longer in foreclosure. She then noticed charges amounting to more than $26,000 on her mortgage.

Judge Robert Lasnik found the company was annoyed Lucero sued and was tacking its legal fees related to her case onto her mortgage.

The judge wrote in his January opinion that nothing in state law allows Cenlar to make Lucero pay the company's legal fees.

Cenlar could not be reached for comment.

An attorney for Lucero says the ruling could mean other cases where homeowners argue lenders are causing emotional distress during negotiations.

BOISE, Idaho — Northwest fisheries managers are creating a response plan should there be a return of warm water conditions that scientists say was a main factor in killing 90 percent of the adult sockeye salmon returning to the Columbia Basin last summer.

The report expected this spring will also suggest ways to cool water temperatures that became lethal in June and July for most of the 510,000 adult sockeye that entered the Columbia River to spawn.

But Ritchie Graves with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said options are limited when an extended heat wave coincides with low flows in rivers as in 2015, pushing water temperatures above 70 degrees.

"If the tributaries are all pouring hot water into the main system, then the system is going to be hot," he said, noting the high temperatures in the basin last year had not occurred since at least the 1950s.

In a separate action, a coalition of environmental groups in a February letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said the agency needs to implement emergency measures or risk violating the Endangered Species Act should more massive fish kills occur. Thirteen species of salmon and steelhead are listed as endangered or threatened in the Columbia River basin.

Kevin Lewis of Idaho Rivers United said the Clearwater and Salmon rivers supply cold water to the system that's negated by the four dams on the lower Snake River where the water warms. He said removing those dams would cool the Columbia.

"It's unacceptable for myself and many others that hundreds of thousands of our fish our dying in the Columbia and Snake and the only response from the federal government is a shrug of the shoulders," he said.

Graves said early suggestions in the plan include putting in new temperature sensors that update faster and would give managers more advance warning about warm water conditions.

Last summer, cold water releases from Dworshak Dam was used to cool the Snake River, and Graves said examining how that could be done more effectively will be considered.

Some physical changes are also being made, including drawing cooler water from deeper in the pool behind Lower Granite Dam this year to be used in the dam's fish ladder. Managers say fish previously halted migrating due to warm water in the ladder.

Another aspect would be to set criteria for when emergency actions would go into effect, such as emergency captures of Snake River sockeye.

Graves said the basin's sockeye salmon were the hardest hit by last year's warm water conditions, mainly because of the June-July timing of the migration run.

The Columbia basin at one time had up to 10 runs of lake-spawning sockeye, but now has three. Of last year's 510,000 fish that entered the Columbia River, about 400,000 were headed for the Okanogan River and Okanagan Lake in British Columbia. Graves said about 5 percent of them made it.

More than 100,000 were headed for the Wenatchee River and Lake Wenatchee in Washington state. About 10 to 15 percent of those fish arrived.

Counts at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River showed 4,000 endangered Snake River sockeye salmon passed through on their 900-mile river journey to high-elevation Sawtooth basin lakes in central Idaho. Managers counted 55 that arrived.

When the severity of the fish kill became apparent, workers set up a trap at Lower Granite Dam and captured another 35 Snake River sockeye. Of the 90 total fish, 85 went to a hatchery for artificial spawning. Five were released into Pettit Lake to spawn naturally as part of efforts to rebuild a wild run.

Idaho managers say a captive breeding program for Snake River sockeye means the fish kill in 2015 is not a disaster for efforts to rebuild the run.

"What it did do, though, is set us back a little bit with the overall goal of slowly moving them more and more toward natural reproduction," said Russ Kiefer of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.

He said workers released about 500 hatchery-raised adult fish into Redfish Lake last fall, and about 100 into Pettit Lake.

Graves said salmon and steelhead have life histories that spread the risk so one bad year won't wipe out an entire population. The big question for biologists now, he said, is how often warm-water events like last year are likely to occur.

"Once in 10 or 20 years, it's a setback," he said. "If it's a one in two- or three-year event, it's going to be a problem."

BOULDER, Colo. — A compact college community of 100,000, Boulder has an image of being liberal and generous. Visitors stroll by shops selling hipster outdoor wear and ads for yoga classes. Neat, Victorian homes exude charm. But for all of its ambiance, a homelessness problem mirrors those of bigger, grittier urban centers.

A proposal to build a three-story complex to provide long-term housing and services for young people struggling to find shelter is challenging Boulder's sense of itself.

Anxious residents have traded questions: Could the housing bring more traffic and crime? Would children be safe walking to school past new neighbors who might be dangerous drug addicts or unpredictable because of mental illness?

John Spitzer, a real estate agent who lives near the proposed site, said he has occasionally allowed a homeless person to camp in his attic. "There's probably more homelessness now than there was 30 years ago," Spitzer said. "It is a problem in Boulder."

But Spitzer balks at having an "institution" in his neighborhood and worries Boulder could be overwhelmed by homeless people.

Attention Homes, which will run the complex, has worked with runaways and troubled teenagers for decades in Boulder. In each of the last two years, it has helped nearly 750 young people at its day drop-in and overnight emergency services facility, up from 196 in 2011.

Pinning down numbers nationally for homeless young people can be difficult because agencies have different definitions. Jasmine Hayes, who focuses on youth for the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, says national data shows that communities need a range of responses to help tens of thousands of homeless teens and young adults.

Ty Ridenour hasn't had a fixed address for most of the four years since turning 18. Ridenour noted what sounds like stereotypes in Boulder's conversations about housing the homeless.

"I've never touched a drug in my life, and I've been homeless and mentally ill," Ridenour said.

Ridenour has worked two jobs but is unable to afford housing. It's unlikely anyone for whom Ridenour made change at a grocery store help desk or meals at a fast food restaurant knew the neatly dressed worker was homeless and had bounced around foster care. Ridenour said being transgender caused friction with some foster parents and prompted beatings from adult shelter residents.

Ridenour has a place in a housing program where most residents are much older but still hangs out at an Attention Homes drop-in center, a quick bus ride from downtown.

Attention Homes plans its new complex near downtown, on the edge of a neighborhood of peaked-roof homes that would look alike if their owners weren't so playful with exterior paint and lawn ornaments. One residence was used as the home of Mork and Mindy in the 1978-1982 TV sitcom of the same name.

The complex would house about 40 people between the ages of 18 and 24 in efficiency apartments and peer mentors. The site is a parking lot for First United Methodist Church, which counts among its members 92-year-old Phyllis Olson, who 50 years ago was part of a Bible study group that helped found Attention Homes.

Church members voted recently to offer the lot under a 60-year lease option agreement. Olson said she is confident opponents will see that building the housing is "a good thing to do."

Attention Homes has had several meetings with neighbors. Residents in the complex will likely have been in foster care or were victims of violence, materials state. Underage drinking will be prohibited, and residents won't be allowed to use drugs that are illegal under federal law — including marijuana, though its use is legal in Colorado.

Plans have yet to reach city zoners. But city planner Chandler Van Schaack expressed surprise at the attention the proposal has sparked so early, even in a city where homeless shelter plans have been contentious.

The complex would be the first of its kind in Boulder, home of the main University of Colorado campus, but other cities have such housing. In 2011, New York's West End Residences opened a 30-unit project in Harlem for young people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. In Fort Wayne, Indiana, a 36-unit project opened two years ago by Stop Child Abuse & Neglect isn't problem-free, but its problems would be familiar to anyone living near an off-campus apartment building, executive director Rachel Tobin-Smith said.

Regina Cowles lives four blocks from the Boulder site, but her concerns have been allayed, she said.

"Boulder cares," said Cowles, who runs campaigns for local ballot issues. "We talk about (compassion) like we talk about diversity and equity."

POCATELLO, Idaho — Pocatello's zoo will open this season as Zoo Idaho, a new name unanimously approved by city officials.

The Idaho State Journal reports (http://bit.ly/1p0ggBv) last week's name change approval also came with the council's decision to allow the zoo to apply for a $5,000 grant that would fund a new master plan.

City Parks and Recreation Director John Banks says the current plan is almost two decades old.

Banks says the new name reflects the zoo's evolving role as an ambassador for Idaho native wildlife.

Planned improvements include changes to the entrance and a new building for admissions, restrooms and a gift shop.

Landscaping is expected to be done by this summer.

Officials estimate rebranding costs at less than $5,000.

The zoo's opening is set for April 1.

FARMINGTON, N.M. — San Juan County officials say they will be left holding the bag if New Mexico State Parks is allowed to stop patrolling thousands of acres around Navajo Lake.

The Farmington Daily Times reported (http://bit.ly/21Rd7CI) Saturday that officials are up in arms over a proposal to reduce the area overseen by parks personnel.

Under the proposal, the San Juan County Sheriff's Office could potentially be forced to patrol 15,000 more acres of land by the end of the year.

San Juan County commissioners plan to pass a resolution condemning the idea.

County Undersheriff Shane Ferrari says the state continues to push more duties onto local agencies despite a lack of funding and resources.

State Parks Deputy Director Toby Velasquez says there are not enough personnel to enforce such a large area.

BOISE, Idaho — A key Republican lawmaker says he won't allow legislation seeking to modify Idaho's faith-healing exemption to be introduced during this year's legislative session.

Senate Health and Welfare Chairman Lee Heider, a Republican from Twin Falls, had previously said he would allow a hearing on modifying the law, which currently allows families to cite religious reasons for medical decisions without fear of being charged with neglect or abuse.

The Times-News reports that Heider never received a request for a hearing from the bill's sponsor.

Democratic Rep. John Gannon, of Boise, had been working on the legislation after failing to get a legislative hearing for a similar proposal in 2014.

The issue has gained attention over the years awareness has increased over the deaths of numerous children of members of the Followers of Christ group in southwestern Idaho from treatable conditions, including pneumonia and food poisoning.

Many children are buried at a cemetery overlooking the Snake River.

LARAMIE, Wyo. — A University of Wyoming coalition has put together online maps that provide companies with the information they need to find the best places to find oil and gas.

The interactive map has been posted to make the information available to the industry and the public. It includes well sites and pipelines.

The Laramie Boomerang reports (http://tinyurl.com/gv3fffe ) the maps mark all known flowing and abandoned oil and gas wells and list ownership, well depth and other information.

Industry officials say the information will allow drillers to recover gas and oil that otherwise wouldn't be available.

DARBY, Mont. — The Darby School Board is holding a special board meeting to discuss a planned school presentation on Islam by a University of Montana professor.

Professor Samir Bitar says people need to be informed about current issues, including the discussion about Islam and its role in American culture.

The library board recently held a special meeting about Bitar's presentation after receiving about a half dozen complaints and some calls of opposition to the presentation. The library board voted to go ahead with the lecture.

The Missoulian reports (http://tinyurl.com/hxwq7de ) Bitar uses literature, film and other resources to inform audiences about the heritage of Islamic civilizations and the religion of Islam.

Bitar says he loves teaching and wants to give back to the community.

MESA, Ariz. — A family's pit bull has died after being shot by a Maricopa County Sheriff's deputy in Mesa.

KPHO-TV in Phoenix reports that the dog, named Blue, died from complications related to his injuries.

The incident happened Saturday morning near Ellsworth Road and University Drive.

Blue's owner, Debbie Holm, tells the TV station that deputies serving a search warrant were looking for her son when Blue accidentally pushed through the screen door.

Deputies say they were on the sidewalk when the dog charged at them.

A deputy says he shot the animal fearing for officers' safety.

A bullet struck the dog in the cheek, resulting in the loss of five teeth.

Deputies were wearing body cameras and the video has been requested.

SPOKANE, Wash. — She's an old soul, really. There's no better way to describe Jill Chandler than that, an old soul.

Back in the Disco 1970s, for example, while her teen peers were fixated on booty shakers like the Bee Gees and Donna Summers, Chandler was mailing pen pal letters to luminaries who had long lost their luster.

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Benny Goodman, Harry James, Count Basie .

And if Chandler's passion for collecting autographs and personal letters had stayed in that golden oldies realm, well, she'd still have a compelling story to tell.

Then in 1982, fresh out of Newport High School and 18 years old, Chandler set her sights much higher.

She began contacting World War II aviators, both the famous and the unsung flyboys who once helped save the world.

This happened years before the Internet, remember.

Chandler conducted her research the old-fashioned way, scouring public libraries for names and addresses.

She mailed inquiries and requests to national and private military organizations.

And then amazing things began to happen.

Scores and scores of personal letters and signed photographs flooded back to this young woman in Spokane.

Which transformed Jill Chandler's hobby into one of the most moving collections I've ever seen.

Chandler calls them "My Guys." They are celebrated former aces and obscure gunners and crew members who dropped bombs all over Hitler-held Europe.

She estimates her collection at some 400 photos and several thousand letters.

"When I read the letters, I cry," said Chandler, now 53. "If I ever get a chance to read these in public, I won't be able to hold the tears back."

I met Chandler one day last week in her mother Ruedene's North Side condo. Chandler works in the medical records department for Group Health, a job she's held for the past 28 years.

On this day, Chandler brought a sampling of the correspondence she keeps in plastic bins.

It was still way too much to assimilate at one sitting, but a signed and framed color photograph caught my eye.

In it a pilot sat grinning in the cockpit of his World War II fighter plane. The side of his plane is all but covered with four rows of red-and-white Nazi flags - 28 in all, one for each destroyed German plane.

The inscription reads, "To Jill Chandler with kind regards and best wishes, Francis Gabreski, Col. U.S.A.F."

Nicknamed "Gabby," Gabreski was the top Army Air Forces fighter ace over Europe. He was a prisoner of war for a time and, if that wasn't enough, Gabby became a jet fighter ace with the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War.

Gabreski died in 2002 at age 83.

Chandler began her quest at the perfect time. You couldn't even begin to replicate it since nearly all of her "Guys" are now dead.

"They were already old when I wrote to them," she said, adding that "stamps weren't very expensive back then."

Even so, Chandler was attending Spokane Community College and working a janitor job on the side.

"I was really surprised at the number I was getting back, and it's sad that I have to keep them in boxes. If I had a house, I would have them all over the walls and a museum in my basement."

So how did this all begin?

Family ties. Chandler said her father, Bruce, who was a boy during World War II, was "always talking about the trains going through downtown, moving tanks and armament through Spokane. He shared that all my life."

That was just part of it.

Chandler's uncle, Wayne Miller, died while on a mission to bomb a German ball bearings factory on Oct. 20, 1944. Miller was a waist gunner on a B-24, part of the 460th Bomb Group, 15th Army Air Forces stationed in Italy.

Flying in formation, Miller's aircraft was accidentally struck by a plane flying below.

All 10 men perished on the lower airplane. Miller's B-24 actually inverted from the impact.

In the calamity and chaos, the bail-out procedures began. Miller and two others went out the rear hatch over stormy seas and were lost forever.

Moments later, however, the pilot managed to right the airplane and somehow limp back to base.

"Never found any of them," said Chandler, who learned the story after contacting two of her uncle's former crewmates.

Visits with another relative, Fred Shaw, added to Chandler's aviation interests. Shaw, who settled in Spirit Lake, was a master bombardier on a TBM Avenger, flying off the USS Bunker Hill. He made it home but not unscathed, losing an eye from shrapnel.

Many of these letters contain intimate accounts, stark reminders of the wartime dangers that these warriors took for granted.

Take this excerpt from Jay Coberly. The first lieutenant was captured after being shot down over Schweinfurt, Germany, in 1943.

"I ended up in Stalag (Luft) III near Sagan Poland and later was taken to Moosburg, near Munich when the Russian Army came close to my POW camp. We were liberated by General Patton's 14th Armored Division on April 29, 1945 when they entered southwest Germany."

Coberly died last year at age 98.

Another prize came from Capt. David McCampbell, the Top Gun of Top Guns.

McCampbell, who died in 1996 at age 86, is the U.S. Navy's all-time flying ace by downing 34 enemy aircraft.

Becoming an ace generally takes five or more kills.

McCampbell almost doubled that in one day, Oct. 24, 1944.

In his Grumman Hellcat, he shot down nine enemy planes, setting the all-time single-mission combat record.

"I just kept on shooting," the future Medal of Honor recipient said after he landed.

But consider this: A website reports that McCampbell, who would also fly in the Korean War, had just two rounds remaining in his six machine guns and fuel enough for only 10 more minutes of flight.

"I brag about all the planes I shot down," McCampbell once said. "But I don't brag about the number of people I killed."

Coeur d'Alene-born Gregory "Pappy" Boyington was the larger-than-life World War II ace and leader of the famed Black Sheep Squadron. He was also the first aviator to respond to one of Chandler's letters.

"From Pappy to Jill Chandler with Black Sheep greetings," Boyington wrote on green stationery festooned with his own snappy black letterhead, dated March 8, 1982.

This dude was something else.

A POW. A Medal of Honor recipient. Boyington never shied away from the limelight.

A highly fictionalized TV show was made about him. The Coeur d'Alene Airport now bears his name. Pappy left the world in 1988 at age 75.

"The aces were the superheroes, the jockeys of the sky," Chandler said.

"The guys who flew on the bombers, I wrote to them differently than the aces. The men in the bombers kept more to themselves and didn't seek notoriety."

So what does Chandler hope to do with all this?

A book for starters, working title: "Forever In My Mind. Stories the Airmen Told."

This could be the foundation for speaking engagements, as well.

Whatever she does, compiling such an irreplaceable and compelling collection is an incredible accomplishment.

"They're all heroes," Chandler said. "These men sacrificed it all for our country, and I don't want their stories to be forgotten."

PACIFIC CITY, Ore. — How do you get 19-year-olds to pay attention to warning signs?

That's the question, in a nutshell, that state parks officials, lawmakers and community members face as they attempt to reduce the troubling number of deaths at Cape Kiwanda State Natural Area.

Seven people have died at the popular Oregon Coast destination since 2009, including five during the past eight months. The average age of the victims is 19.

Most of the time, the victims hiked up a sand dune, disregarded fencing and signs, climbed onto a hazardous sandstone bluff and fell into the ocean.

"It's a beautiful place, it's easy to reach, and there are lots of people that climb up there," said Chris Havel, a spokesman for the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department. "It's one of those places that draws people in and, even when they're confronted by signs and fences, they stop thinking about safety."

In response to the most recent incidents — two fatal accidents in February — state and county officials, along with Sen. Arnie Roblan, are taking part in a town hall meeting March 17 in Pacific City to discuss how to prevent future incidents.

There have been fencing and signs warning people to stay off the bluff since 1996. The fencing was extended to 1,275 feet long following a fatal accident in 2009.

Parks officials are hoping for more input from the community on what things they could try to dissuade people from climbing to the dangerous location.

"More fencing and signs — along with devoting more staff time through park rangers — are the things we know how to do, and that's where we'll start at the meeting," Havel said. "But we want to hear from the community and listen to other suggestions."

Slick Rick Nelson, a 17-year-old football player from Sprague High School, fell backward off the cliff at Cape Kiwanda in June 2015 and died from traumatic injuries.

"We were just hanging out, having a bonfire, and some people went up to the top (of the dune)," Brendan Hassler, 16, who was present at the time of the accident, told the Statesman Journal this past June. "It was dark, and he tried to sit down and there was nothing there (to sit down on), and he was just gone."

Havel said most accidents follow a familiar pattern.

People begin at the popular parking area near the Pelican Pub and Brewery. They climb the large sandy dune — a popular hike — but then walk around or through the fencing and warning signs toward the sandstone bluff.

"In terms of what makes that specific area so dangerous, a big part is that the sandstone bluff is not strong, especially being so exposed to wind, rain and the ocean," Havel said. "It looks safe, but it really is not stable."

In February, David Lopez, 19, of Woodburn and Megan Owens, 17, of Marysville, Washington, fell from the cliffs into the ocean. Both went around the fencing and past the signs.

The problem, officials said, is trying to come up with ways to keep people — and specifically risk-taking teenagers — from going past the fencing.

The "signs and fences are not designed to stop a determined person from putting themselves at risk," Havel said.

"In our opinion, no matter what kind of fence you put up, they'll probably go around it," Tillamook County Sheriff Andy Long told The Oregonian.

Not all fatal accidents occur in the same way, however. In 2014, James Alejandro, 25, was swept out to sea and drowned after setting up a slack line — or tightrope — in a cove near a cliff.

By JOHNATHAN L. WRIGHT

Reno Gazette-Journal

RENO, Nev. (AP) — If Smiling With Hope Pizza didn't train people with learning disabilities; if it didn't have this mission; if its only purpose was to send out thin-crust pies bubbling with mozzarella — if all that were true, would the slices taste as good?

Call it the pizzeria take on that old question about a rose and any other name.

For you and me, the answer to the question would be yes. Yes as in pungent oregano and fresh garlic, crushed; as in gusty basil and dough given a final stretch before topping.

But for Walter Gloshinski, who owns Smiling With Hope with his wife Judy, the answer is more complicated.

While proud of his pizza craft, "I wouldn't want to have just a regular restaurant. I wouldn't like it. The cause is the whole enchilada." Or, in pizza parlance, the whole New York-style pie lined with Parmigiano-Reggiano and Pecorino Romano.

"We train people in hands-on work skills," Gloshinski continued. "My goal is to create sustainable lives for our trainees, our employees. Here, they don't feel disabled."

Big business

Smiling With Hope couldn't have been anything but a pizzeria.

Walter Gloshinski's mother comes from a family of bread makers in the Abruzzo region of central Italy. His grandmother baked pizzas in between bread batches at the family bakery and butcher shop in northern New Jersey.

A teenage Gloshinski "ended up getting a job helping a guy named Alfredo at his pizzeria. He taught me everything about dough and pizza. I used to take wet towels and practice throwing them to emulate throwing the pizza dough."

And during the years he worked as a musician, "I supplemented my income working in a bakery, working in a pizzeria, working with dough."

Along the way, Gloshinski got a master's in special education, and for the past 25 years, in schools in Texas, California and Ohio, he's run culinary education programs for students with learning disabilities.

Before he and his wife retired (is that the right word?) to Reno, Gloshinski and seven of his students ran a commercial kitchen at a high school outside Columbus, Ohio. The business, he said, sold about 100 to 150 pizzas a week at $7 a pop, plus several thousand chocolate chip cookies a month, the treats made using a healthful recipe Gloshinski developed.

"We also partnered with the food service vendor for Denison University (a nearby school)," he said. "They would hire my students once they got up to speed."

Training time

Today, Smiling With Hope works with the Bureau of Vocational Rehabilitation, a division of the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation. Potential trainees are interviewed, and "if it feels like a good fit, we give 'em a shot," Gloshinski said.

Trainees work in four-hour shifts and are paid for up to 80 hours of work. After that, there's the possibility of being hired by the pizzeria as a standard employee.

The other afternoon, trainee Emma Crow worked with Gloshinski as he fashioned classic New York-style pies. A round of dough was removed from the dough box. Gloshinski floured it, then stretched it as it spun. On went swipes of tomato sauce and the cheese: Parmigiano-Reggiano, Pecorino Romano, whole-milk mozzarella from Wisconsin.

"Everybody in New York and New Jersey uses Wisconsin cheese," Gloshinski said. "It has a better flavor to me." When the pie was done, Gloshinski tore apart the edge of the crust to show off the airy crumb.

Across the kitchen, chef Mark Granucci, a volunteer at Smiling With Hope, showed trainee Cody Hand how to make garlic knots.

"My girlfriend's son has Down Syndrome, so I'm very aware of people with special needs," Granucci said, explaining what inspired him to volunteer.

The son's name is Jackson, and art by him hangs for sale on the restaurant's walls. Two standout pieces: an ink-on-paper cemetery scene and a watercolor of outer space. All proceeds go to the artist.

Oven duty

The Lakeside Drive digs now occupied by Smiling With Hope have housed a succession of restaurants over the years, including the original Blue Moon Pizza far back in the day.

Walter and Judy Gloshinski said they deployed beaucoup elbow grease getting the space shipshape after the most recent tenant. "The kitchen! I had to use 12 gallons of de-greaser on my hands and knees," Judy Gloshinski said. "How do you get a layer of grease under the sink?"

Now, the space is roomy and bright, with two 800-pound stainless steel gas deck Blodgett pizza ovens commanding the kitchen. "We brought them with us," Judy Gloshinski said. "They were next to our bed in the moving van."

Besides traditional New York pizzas, Smiling With Hope also offers a ricotta pie (with egg mixed into the ricotta), thicker-crust Sicilian versions, pizza by the slice, and accoutrements like calzones and pepperoni rolls.

But no matter the dish, the mission of Smiling With Hope is an essential ingredient.

"We want to create an environment where everyone feels totally supported and is never judged," Walter Gloshinski said. "Where it's OK to make mistakes because everybody makes mistakes."

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Information from: Reno Gazette-Journal, http://www.rgj.com