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Features

  • Don’t miss AP Night

     Students and parents are invited to attend the second annual AP Night at Los Alamos High School, from 6:30-8 p.m. Tuesday.
    The evening will begin with a brief presentation in the ’Topper Theater.
    Attendees will then be able to meet with teachers and students to learn more about AP and honors course offerings at LAHS.
    Representatives from the University of New Mexico-Los Alamos will also be on hand to discuss the dual credit/concurrent enrollment program.
    All LAHS students must take an AP class, an honors class, an online class, or a dual credit class to graduate.
    “AP Night provides students and parents a great opportunity to learn more about the AP program at the high school and what we have to offer in preparing students to be successful in college,” said Principal Sandra Warnock. “With registration for the 2013-2014 school year fast approaching, this is the perfect time to talk with our knowledgeable staff before selecting courses for next year.”
    AP courses are college-level courses offered in high school. At the end of the course, students are required to take the AP exam. Currently, LAHS offers more than 20 AP courses, five honors classes and four dual credit courses on campus in addition to UNM-LA offerings.

  •
    2013 Los Alamos County Science Fair...

    Editor’s note: Below are a portion of this year’s science fair results. Because there was such a large volume of results, they will be published over a few days.

    Animal science
    Junior Division,
    grand award
    First place
    Megan Dahl, Chamisa Elementary, LANL Participation Award $10
    Second place
    Hannah Coy, Aspen Elementary, LANL Participation Award $10
    Third place
    Philo Shelton, Aspen Elementary, LANL Participation Award $10
    Honorable mention
    Xavier McTeigue, Aspen Elementary, Pajarito Environmental Education Center $30, Sierra Club, Pajarito Chapter student membership

    Tazler Smith, Aspen Elementary, Mountain PTA $10

    Devin Simpson, Barranca Elementary, Barranca PTO $5

    Behavioral and Social Science
    Junior Division
    First place, Junior Life Sciences Grand Award
    Sam Menefee, Mountain Elementary, LANL Participation Award $10
    Second place
    Janessa Gonzales, Piñon Elementary, Mountain PTA $10
    Third place
    Josh Stein, Aspen Elementary, LANL Participation Award $10
    Third place
    Hannah Carrara, Los Alamos Middle School, Superintendent’s Choice Award, Haagen Dazs certificate, Mountain PTA $10

  • Salute to senior service

    The search is on for New Mexico’s outstanding senior volunteer.
    The Salute to Senior Service program, sponsored by Home Instead, Inc., the franchisor of the Home Instead Senior Care network, honors the contributions of adults 65 and older, who give at least 15 hours a month of volunteer service to their favorite causes.
    Nominations for outstanding senior volunteers will be accepted between Feb. 1 and March 31. State winners then will be selected by popular vote at SalutetoSeniorService.com.
    Online voting will take place from April 15-30. From those state winners, a panel of senior care experts will pick the national Salute to Senior Service honoree.
    Home Instead, Inc. will donate $500 to each of the state winners’ favorite nonprofit organizations and their stories will be posted on the Salute to Senior Service Wall of Fame. In addition, $5,000 will be donated to the national winner’s nonprofit charity of choice.
    Senior care professionals and those who work at hospitals, senior care facilities and other places where seniors volunteer are encouraged to nominate older adults. So, too, are family caregivers and the adult children of aging parents. Older adults also may self-nominate.

  • Scouts can enter to win a VFW...

    The Veteran’s of Foreign Wars Post 8874 is seeking a scout to compete for this year’s VFW Scout of the Year Scholarship. This is a program that provides a $5,000 scholarship award.
    Scouts who are registered, active members of a Boy or Girl Scout Troop, Venturing Crew, or a Sea Scout Ship who have received the Eagle Scout Award, Girl Scout Gold Award, Venture Silver Award or Sea Scout Quartermaster Award are eligible to enter.
    Scouts must be 15 years of age and have demonstrated practical citizenship in school, scouting and the community.
    Scouts must be enrolled in high school at the time of selection.
    All applicants still in high school who reach their 18th birthday during the nomination year remain eligible if otherwise qualified.
    Scouts should submit the completed VFW Scouting Scholarship form, resume of high school activities, scouting record, community service record and letters of recommendation to the Veterans of Foreign Wars John D.
    Gamble Post 8874, no later than March 1, 2013.
    A Scout can enter through one VFW Post only.

  • Restaurant Inspections 01-31-13

    The following restaurant inspection reports were provided by the New Mexico Environment Department.

    Española

    Giant #862, 1616 N. Riverside Dr.
    Date inspected: Jan. 28, other
    Notes: Recall recon, Annie’s rising crust frozen pizza. No product sold at this location, Manager advised, copy of recall left.
    Status of establishment: Approved

    Joann’s Restaurant, 938 N. Riverside Dr.
    Date inspected: Jan. 22
    Violations: Three high-risk violations, two for contaminated equipment — can opener dirty, corrected on site; auto dishwasher not dispensing sanitizer. Owner fixed, corrected on site. One for poor personal hygiene — hand sink had hot water turned off. Corrected, still needs repair. One moderate-risk violation for contaminated equipment — cutting boards needs replacement or to be resurfaced. Two low-risk violations for floors/walls/ceilings — floors/walls/ceilings need repair, cleaning and painting; walls/ceilings need painting, cleaning.
    Notes: Salads stored in Coke/beverage unit, holding at 35-43 degrees. Soda merchandising refrigerators are not designed for non-packaged foods. Need proper refrigeration units for non-packaged foods.
    Status of establishment: Approved

  •
    Get outside with PEEC

    The Pajarito Environmental Education Center’s Summer Outdoor Adventure Programs consist of two weeks of day programs for students entering fourth through sixth grades; one week for students entering seventh and eighth grades, and now, a four-day overnight survival skills camp for adults and families with children ages 12 or older.
    Rourke McDermott will run the new camp titled, “Medicine Hawk’s Summer Survival Skills,” from June 6-9 in the Jemez Mountains.
    Participants will learn skills including primitive fire making, shelter building, making ember bowls and spoons, wild crafting (finding and eating edible wild plants), hunting with throwing sticks, traps and snares, making cordage, locating and purifying water primitively, weaving baskets, making primitive pottery and primitive camouflage.
    The weekend will be packed full of demonstrations and hands-on lessons, with plenty of time to perfect new skills. It will conclude with night survival games.

  • FAFSA Fast Five Grant Workshop

    A representative from the New Mexico Educational Assistance Foundation will be at Los Alamos High School to help students and parents complete the Financial Aid Application at the FAFSA Fast Five Grant Workship, from 6:30-8 p.m. Thursday, in the Mac Lab.
    By attending a FAFSA Workshop and completing the FAFSA, students could win a $500 grant to help them with their college expenses. To reserve a space in the Mac Lab, contact Connie Goettee at 663-2595 or email c.goettee@laschools.net.
    Parents and students will need to bring several important documents to complete the FAFSA, including a 2012 Federal Income Tax Return, W-2 forms, birthdate, Social Security Number, any 2012 business and investment mortgage information, business farm records, stock, bond and other investment records, and current bank statements.
    To be eligible for the FAFSA Fast Five Grant, you need to be a U.S. citizen, a New Mexico high school senior and resident, attend a FAFSA Fast Five Grant Workshop and submit your FAFSA application during the event and attend a U.S. college or university the Fall of 2013.
    Student participants will be required to complete an online application and survey on NMknowledge4college.org website.
    The deadline to submit a 2013-2014 FAFSA application and complete the online application and survey is April 1. 

  •
    Brown recognized for work

    The Los Alamos County Science Fair, with the help of coordinator Dawn Brown, runs like a well-oiled machine. In fact, some may say that she’s helped make the fair an event worthy of praise.
    The praise was heaped upon her last weekend, when volunteer, and husband, Art Brown was asked to stop the awards ceremonies for a brief pause, as Los Alamos Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Gene Schmidt acknowledged Brown before the crowd.
    “Dawn Brown is terrific,” Schmidt said. “Under her guidance and direction, participation in the science fair has become the thing to do. What makes her special is her ability to stay in perpetual motion. As a community, we need to offer one giant collective thanks.”
    Brown, along with committee members Andy Erickson, Mary Ethel Plotner, Ryan Ross, Randy Ryti, Eva Abeyta, Heather Coy, Barb Musgrave, Katie Tauxe, Becky Steritz, Becky Littleton, Amy Gilbert, Debbie Smith and Susan O’Brien, work behind the scenes for months, to pull off the day’s events.
    More than 321 students represented 309 projects on Saturday, filling Los Alamos High School with science, technology and more volunteers than can possibly be named in a single story.

  • Assets In Action: Be the change you...

    There are so many things I want to write about, this week.
    I think I have settled on the topic of Manti Te’o. I will take a different approach, though.
    The background story is that this is a 20-something college student and football star that appears to have been duped, at least a portion of the time, in an online romance.
    If we set the issue of guilty or not guilty, of knowing or not knowing, of being naive or being a master of deception aside, we have many other, more important issues to discuss.
    When I watched the interview on the ABC show, “Katie,” the thing that bothered me the most were some things that related to his relationship with his parents.
    I will start by saying that this appears to be a lovely family with only the best interest of each other at heart. A family with great core values, among them a love for each other.
    The trouble comes when Te’o made several references of wanting his parents to be proud of him.
    At the heart of that statement, is a lovely sentiment. A child actually cares what his parents think of him.
    The problem I have, is that he was so worried that his father wouldn’t be proud of him, that he lied about ever meeting her face to face, so as not to disappoint him.

  •
    Animal Shelter 01-27-13

    The Los Alamos Animal Shelter, 226 East Road, 662-8179, has a great selection of onsite adoptable pets waiting for their forever home. Others are currently off-campus in loving foster homes.
    Be sure to visit the Friends of the Shelter website, lafos.org, where you can get more information about volunteering, adopting and donating. Also check out the Petfinder page for pictures and to learn more about all of the adoptable pets, petfinder.com/shelters/friendsoftheshelter.html.
    This would be a wonderful time to consider giving a home to one of the animals in the shelter.
    All adoptable pets are spayed or neutered, have their shots and are micro chipped.

  • Ahrens awarded for good deed

    When you take a second to make a difference, people tend to take notice.
    Los Alamos High School Hilltopper Daniel Ahrens did just that — and many people will benefit because of his compassion.
    The LAHS junior is the Speech and Debate team captain and the captain of the Lincoln Douglas debate team, but that isn’t what he was rewarded for.
    “Daniel is an outstanding student who is articulate, well-mannered and blessed with an excellent sense of humor,” said LAHS Speech and Debate coach Margo Batha.
    Ahrens is the second of four boys, the last two of which are twins, so he learned at an early age to be calm and collected.
    He is a five-year member of the YES Corps program and as such, had honed his first aid skills with years of first aid classes and lots of trail work.
    At the La Loma Invitational, the Hilltalkers 50th annual speech and debate tournament, this particular skill set came into use.
    The event hosted 235 students from all over the state, along with more than 100 adult judges and volunteers.

  • Chavanne to give presentation,...

    Noted French experimental writer Michel Butor, having taught in many countries around the world, was teaching at the University of Albuquerque in 1973-74 when he began a long series of communications and collaborations with French poet and Post-war School of Paris painter, Camille Bryen.
    The two men exchanged letters, drawings, paintings and collages over the course of their correspondence, which were later published in a book, “Bryen: En Temps Conjugués.” Blandine Chavanne, director of the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes (Museum of Fine Arts in Nantes) is curating an exhibition of their work during this period and will speak about the men and their project in a lecture Feb. 4 at the Santa Fe Art Institute.
    Admisson is $10 for general admission, $5 for students and seniors.
    Author and curator Chavanne was named director of the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes (Museum of Fine Arts in Nantes) in 2006.
    After earning her Diplôme d’études appliquées in fine arts in 1978, Chavanne received a Diplôme from l’Ecole du Louvre in 1982 and became the curator of the City of Poitiers Museums until 1991.

  • Restaurant Inspections 01-24-13

    The following restaurant inspection reports were provided by the New Mexico Environment Department.

    Española

    Dixon Co-op Kitchen-Deli, 215 Hwy. 75
    Date inspected: Jan. 16, pre-opening
    Violations: None
    Notes: Pre-opening inspections, Dixon Co-op Kitchen-Deli propose to prepare deli-type foods, sandwiches and salads. Floor-tile, walls F.R.P., ceiling surface with paint lighting covered with diffusers. Community water will be used. Door needs screen that will seal better to keep insects/vermin out. Septic system permitted, inspected, approved. Plumbed for hand wash sink, three-compartment sink, veggie/food sink. Not installed yet, also may have auto dishwasher, hot water-type stainless steel table present. Bathroom next door, will have toilet, lavatory, soap/towels. Facility will not do any cooking, only warming of foods and cold prep. Future expansion possible, may install hood/vent system for store/range addition. Advise NMED prior to installing. Insure all equipment is ANSI/commercial-type.
    Status of establishment: Approved

  • Get a paddler’s perspective

    The Los Alamos Geological Society will host a banquet and talk at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Christian Church, featuring Dr. Paul Bauer, of the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources.
    This talk is a geo-photo-journey down the northern Rio Grande, with an emphasis on the river hydrogeology and the evolution of the sublime landscape.
    It will include some thoughts on the birth and adolescence of the river, where it gets its water and its system of springs.
    They will also explore the geologic setting of rapids along the river, the Tertiary battles between water and lava and tidbits of riverside human history.
    Bauer is a principal geologist and associate director at the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources at New Mexico Tech.
    He received a doctorate in geology from New Mexico Tech in 1988. He served as manager of the state’s Geologic Mapping Program for 12 years and was program coordinator for the New Mexico Decision-Makers Field Conferences for 10 years, a program designed to bridge the gap between earth scientists and policy makers.
    Since his first Taos Box rafting trip in 1980, he has spent much of the last 30 years investigating the geology and hydrogeology of north-central New Mexico. He has led many field trips to the area, including educational whitewater rafting tours.

  • Learn the art of Romanian Point Lace

    Local embroiderers have an opportunity to learn Romanian Point Lace and Surface Embroidery from guest teacher Sylvia Murariu, at a workshop, April 27 and 28.
    The class, “Gentle Zephyr,” is sponsored by the Pajarito Chapter of the Embroiderers Guild of America and is open to non-members.
    It will be from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. in the classroom of the Fuller Lodge Art Center. Registration with a deposit for $70 must be received by Feb. 15.
    The cost of the two-day session will be less than $90.
    The exact amount depends on expenses and number of participants. In addition, the price of the kit, which contains complete materials to stitch this flower cluster, is $85.
    This new form of expression incorporates Jacobean style crewel embroidery, Romanian Point Lace, golden coils and beads.
    The Romanian Point Lace that is a large part of this design and includes crocheted cord and needle-lace stitches.
    Murariu, a native of Romania now living in Oregon, learned this traditional form of lace making as a child.
    Over the years, her collection of stitches has grown to more than 400. She has authored books and taught the art for a number of years at venues across the country.

  •
    LACS celebrates 70th anniversary

    The Los Alamos Choral Society and the Los Alamos Symphony Orchestra will present “Messiah” by George Frederick Handel, from 3-6 p.m. Sunday at the Duane Smith Auditorium, 1300 Diamond Dr. Dr. Mary Badarak will direct the performance. The chorus of about 80 singers and the orchestra ensemble of about 40 musicians, are featured in this performance.

  •
    Thomas helps promote NJROTC Booster...

    Cadet Ensign Jodi Thomas, the public affairs officer for the Los Alamos NJROTC Unit, has one public affair that she would like everyone to attend.
    Their monthly brisket night will take place on Jan. 31 and local cadets could use some support.
    “The academic team will be going to Las Vegas, Nev. for the annual Brain Brawl, where they will compete against Area 13,” Thomas said. “The money raised will help pay for the transportation, hotel rooms and meals.”
    Thomas became interested in the Los Alamos NJROTC Unit when she was in middle school, after target shooting at the Sportsman Club. She now competes on the unarmed regulation drill team, the unarmed exhibition drill team, the academic team and the tug-of-war team.
    “Once I got involved with the unit and the people, I realized they had much more to offer other than just shooting.”
    Thomas said she had a wonderful time after joining the drill team and gained personal experiences with the unit.
     “I have learned endless amounts of leadership skills by participating in various activities in our class, in a leadership camp over the summer and have been put in many leadership positions that helps me and many others learn leadership hands-on,” Thomas said.

  •
    Chamisa students raise funds

    Colleen Goddard (third from left), poses with Chamisa students Tuesday morning, as they fundraised for field trips. Students hand made key chains and bracelets to sell. 

  • Assets in Action: MLK Day and the...

    I hope you spent some time yesterday taking in the 2013 Inauguration.
    The politics of the day don’t matter when you have a chance to witness history in the making — especially if you can share it with youth.
    I viewed the event from a different perspective, taking in all the SPARKS or passions that were represented on a grand stage.
    As a speech communications major, I like to watch for the speeches, the pomp and circumstance and I love a good military march from the Marine Corps Band, also known as The President’s Own.
    We had the representation of music from instrumental to James Taylor, Kelly Clarkson and Beyoncé. How wonderful for every age to be able to relate.
    There was also the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir and the solo of Alicia Olatula, during the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Think of the possibility that elementary-aged kids can see what can become of their passions. I understand that it is even available on iTunes.
    There was fashion and hairstyle discussion throughout the day and I’m sure that will continue for the days ahead.
    Poetry from Richard Blanco was part of the program and Blanco even used it to pay tribute to his mother’s work, to provide him the moment. How neat to see so much art and culture throughout the morning.

  •
    Get an introduction to obsidian...

    Learn about how archaeologists study ancient sites in the wake of forest fires, from 7-8 p.m. Tuesday at Pajarito Environmental Education Center. Dr. Anastasia Steffen will give a hands-on introduction to archaeological obsidian analyses and an overview of current projects underway at the Valles Caldera National Preserve.
    The large forest fires of the last few decades have burned much of the eastern Jemez Mountains, including about one-third of the Valles Caldera. Culminating with the recent Las Conchas Fire, this spate of wildfires burned hundreds of archaeological sites, including more than 80 percent of the prehistoric obsidian quarries.
    In this talk, Steffen will consider the methods archaeologists can use to understand how past peoples made tools, when they were making them, how past forest fires may have affected the archaeological sites, how the soil deposits at these sites have changed over the centuries, and ways that the volcanic glass was transported and traded across the continent.
    Steffen is cultural resources coordinator at the Valles Caldera National Preserve and adjunct faculty in the Anthropology Department at the University of New Mexico. She has worked in the Jemez Mountains since 1990 and has led archaeological inventory and research at the preserve since 2001.