Features

What is the value of play in young children’s lives?  Is play essential for developmental growth and school readiness? These are questions that are being asked as the pre-school years receive national attention from parents, educators and the government.

Sure, you can learn about the Manhattan Project through countless books, photographs and articles, but there is another way to be exposed to this significant period of time. There are actual physical artifacts, right here in Los Alamos, which can transport you back through history and into the era of the atom bomb.

Ellen McGehee, an archaeologist and historian with Los Alamos National Laboratory, will discuss these artifacts, these historic buildings, during the Los Alamos Historical Society’s lecture series at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Pajarito Room in Fuller Lodge.

A beneficial bevy of bowls are gracing store windows this week as the annual Empty Bowls Project to benefit Self Help Inc., which will be held Saturday, approaches.

The 16th annual event will feature hand -painted masterpieces currently on display at The Coffee Booth Café, Mesa Public Library, CB Fox, Village Arts, Ruby K’s and the KRSN AM 1490 studios. The hand-painted bowls, cups, plates and mugs will be available for purchase next weekend at the Betty Ehart Senior Center from 11 a.m.-2 p.m.

White Rock Presbyterian Church will host a yard sale and Navajo Taco sale March 14 to support the church’s Navajo Mission Project. The event begins at 9 a.m. at Presbyterian Church’s Memorial Hall located at                     310 Rover Blvd.

The yard sale will feature clothing for all sizes, household items, appliances and tools.

A treat for tough times, Los Alamos Light Opera’s production of “The Sound of Music” is wholesome family entertainment with the uplifting music of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II not to mention the cutest kids in town.

Director Laurie Tomlinson said, “Musical Director Gretchen Amstutz and I chose this musical because of its universal appeal and the cast requirements. The seven Von Trapp children and an abbey full of nuns gave members of the community a great opportunity to participate.”

This season, Mesa Public Library celebrates not only 60 years of filmmaking in New Mexico, but 60 years of sweeping change.

The line-up begins Thursday with “Santa Fe Trail” (1940), a politically incorrect film that could never be made today and continues to offend many people.

Nevertheless, it’s well worth watching because it offers a compelling case that America, for all its faults, has come a remarkably long way.  

It’s also pure Hollywood and therefore funny, sweet and even a little endearing.

It was a different world for Robert Efroymson back in September 2006 when he plumped down a hefty advance for a Tesla electric sports car, which was then expected for delivery in early 2008.

Since then, the scientist and venture capitalist met his wife, moved to Albuquerque and had a son.

Now he has a piece of the future.

Tesla meanwhile had moved to Albuquerque to set up operations and then in the ups and downs of take off, moved back to California.

Scale cliffs, creep up rocks and conquer mountains through the Los Alamos Mountaineers’ climbing school.

The education in endurance begins March 23 and runs through May 2. Classes are held Saturdays in April and Monday nights from March 23 through April.

Monday sessions are classroom lectures and demonstrations and the Saturday sessions will take students to various locations around White Rock to climb and practice various climbing skills.

In June, 10 high school students and four chaperones from Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church will travel to Honduras to volunteer at Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos (NPH) orphanage near Tegucigalpa.

The parish has sponsored mission trips to NPH in Honduras annually for 12 years.  NPH, translated Our Little Brothers and Sisters, is made up of about 500 kids, up to age 18, and their adopted “abuelos” who are brought into an environment of unconditional acceptance, sharing and work.