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Two arrested in

Three Rivers burglary case

   Acting on information developed during an investigation of a South Fork Estates burglary, Tulare County Sheriff’s deputies arrested David Lee Ray and Richard Clark of Three Rivers. The two men were taken into custody Saturday morning, March 14, and booked into the Tulare County main jail.
   Both men were reportedly living at a Sierra Drive residence. According to a Sheriff’s Department spokesperson, David Lee Ray, 28, remains in custody on an “out-of-county hold” and a parole-violation warrant.
   Ray was also charged with receiving stolen property in connection with at least two local burglaries, possession of a firearm, and possession of a controlled substance. Owing to the hold, Ray cannot make bail and is currently being held in the county’s pre-trial facility.
Richard Clark, 22, was also implicated in the South Fork Estates burglary and is free on bail pending charges for receiving stolen property.
   Anyone with information about this or other local burglaries is urged to contact Detective Martin of the Tulare County Sheriff’s Department, 733-6211.

Eagle Booster Club

honors TRUS supporters

   Annually since 1951, the Three Rivers School PTA and, since 2004, the Eagle Booster Club has bestowed upon one or more Three Rivers residents recognition for their dedicated commitment to the students of Three Rivers Union School. This year’s “Volunteer Recognition Night” was held Thursday, March 5, and the following were honored for their service:
   KACEY FANSETT moved to Three Rivers with her family in 2000 when her eldest son Ryan was entering kindergarten at Three Rivers School. Kacey volunteered in Ryan’s class while also caring for her younger son Kyle, who had been diagnosed with a pervasive developmental disorder.
   In 2001, Kacey was asked to donate time in the face-painting booth at the Halloween Carnival. This booth has since become a family tradition and favorite attraction for kids of all ages.
   Kacey has also generously donated her time and creative efforts to TRUS by teaching watercolor classes each year for the Visiting Artists program. In order to ensure proper display of each piece of art, Kacey provides the frames for the students’ creations.
   She has also graciously donated her own watercolor prints to be raffled in the Pick-A-Prize for the Carnival and at the annual TRUS Foundation Dinner. Additionally, Kacey donated her time and talents to design the logo for the TRUS Foundation.
   She has presented at Woodlake High’s annual Career Day for several years, speaking about graphic design, as well as encouraging art as a meaningful career path.
   SUSAN LAMBERSON moved to Three Rivers with her family 12 years ago. Susan volunteered in her daughters’ classrooms (they are now both in college), was active in PTA, and founded a local yoga studio.
   She was a member of the grant-writing team that wrote and was awarded The Heritage Project for Three Rivers and Woodlake schools and communities. In addition, Susan was hired as the director of the local program. Under her leadership, students and community members participated in a multitude of classes geared to expanding world views — from nighttime computer courses to daylong whale-watching field trips, women’s self-defense courses, visual and performing arts instruction, and so much more.
   Susan is currently pursuing her Master’s degree in Transformative Leadership. She and her husband Bill Kaage will be relocating from Three Rivers to Boise, Idaho, next month as Bill has accepted the position of national fire management officer for the Park Service.
   JIM MATHIAS is the former maintenance engineer of Three Rivers School, which meant that he was the “master of all trades.” Beginning this job in 1977, Jim was the school carpenter, plumber, landscaper, and the cabinetmaker. He was also instrumental in developing the school’s primary playground.
   Jim drove the school bus and coached track-and-field for more than 10 years. In 1980, he received his substitute-teaching certificate, which is when he realized that some students need hands-on activities to complement classroom instruction.
   So Jim began a woodshop elective that at the time was one of the only such classes for middle-schoolers in the state. Under his direction, students excelled at making stepstools, bowls, and other woodturning projects.
   One year, teacher Suzanne Rich had an idea for a holiday project for her second-graders: wooden snowmen. It was a simple request that quickly turned into a much-anticipated and longstanding tradition.
   Jim created wooden shapes from old fence posts that the students then paint and decorate, creating beautiful snowmen that now adorn hundreds of Three Rivers homes each Christmas.
   SUZANNE RICH moved to Three Rivers in 1970 with her family and after teaching two years in Woodlake, taught third grade at TRUS before taking 10 years off to raise her own children, Darren, Laurienne, and Darla.
   When she returned to teaching, Suzanne accepted a second-grade position, which is what she continued to teach until her retirement in June 2008, concluding a 30-year teaching career.
   Suzanne developed a summer school literacy program for fourth through eighth-graders at TRUS. She has always been interested in the process of learning to read and specialized in the reading field.
   Suzanne received training in Reading Recovery and made it a priority that students become proficient in reading. Suzanne may be retired these days, but she remains a familiar face at TRUS as she continues to volunteer and substitute teach.

Cherokee Oaks bridge widening complete

   Using Measure R funds, the bridge near the entrance to the Cherokee Oaks subdivision has been completed. Next on the County of Tulare’s to-do list is to widen the entire approach from Highway 198.

Exhibit reveals life and times of 3R artist

   The new exhibit opening this weekend at the Discoveries West Gallery in Three Rivers is a bold venture into uncharted territory for the two-year-old private repository. Entitled “Reflections and Revelations,” the display of the art by Adrian Green, native son of Tulare County and resident of Three Rivers for four decades, is the first major exhibition solely devoted to a local artist.
   John McWilliams, curator of the gallery’s extensive collection of Tulare County artifacts and archives, said he has been truly been inspired by Adrian’s work.

  “The exhibit featuring a local artist is in keeping with what we are trying to do here at the gallery,” McWilliams said. “Adrian’s work represents an important expression of local culture and offers a penetrating glimpse into the history of Tulare County.”
   Adrian, who just turned a spry 84, has offered an impressive sampling of his life’s work that reveals his own journey as an artist and a spiritual quest to know the Earth Mother.

  “I was raised on a citrus ranch in Venice Cove [near Ivanhoe] and was encouraged as a child to spend lots of my time outside with nature,” Adrian recalled. “I literally ran wild in the hills and endless orchards.”
   To escape the oppressive heat, like nearly all Valley farm families, the Greens found respite in the nearby mountains. His parents, Eugene and Mabel, discovered Mineral King in the Sequoia National Forest and with children in tow, spent many summers camping at the old Sunny Point campground.

  “In the summertime, I roamed up and down the Mineral King valley, hiked every trail, and climbed in and out of every canyon I could find,” Adrian said. “It was a wondrous childhood.”
   At age 15, Adrian said he already knew he was an artist.
During one of those summers in Mineral King, the Greens bought the Holly Cabin.

  “It was an old miner’s cabin that my father bought for $60,” Adrian remembered. “When that cabin was razed we were given another lot closer to the ranger station and started work on a new cabin on that site.”
   Adrian’s Tulare County tenure was interrupted by World War II. During those years, he served a tour with the U.S. Navy in the South Pacific.
   Some of the earliest works, mostly pen-and-ink during this period, have been made available and are displayed as a part of this exhibit.  After the war, Adrian entered the art program at U.C. Berkeley.
   Here he met his mentor and most influential teacher, Henry Schaefer-Simmern, who taught the aspiring artist how the brain processes genuine artistic activity. Like most traditional art programs, Adrian began by learning to paint.

  “He would tell the class when you get to a stopping place call me,” Adrian said. “He would come over and say emphatically: ‘…don’t look at me, look at your work. What can you see to improve your work?’”
   More than anything else, Adrian said, his instructor taught students how to be self-critical. For those willing to make a commitment to their work, the artist was able to move beyond the childish to genuine artistic expression.
   Learning his lessons well, Adrian received his B.A. degree in Art from Cal in 1948. After graduating, he traveled extensively in Mexico and became affiliated with a school of Mexican masters at San Miguel de Allende.
   But it was his forays into the Yucatan where he saw the Mayan temples and discovered a spirituality of an entire culture expressed in clay and stone.

  “I always had a natural ability for the ancient and the archaic,” Adrian said, “so when I first saw that ancient art it was like, ‘Oh my God.’ The painting didn’t last long, and I began to work in clay and then in stone.”
   In 1950, Adrian carted a Kaweah River rock all the way up to Mineral King and sculpted his first masterpiece. Since that time, he has worked nearly every summer at his cabin site [the cabin was destroyed by fire in the 1970s] and the rest of the time at one studio or another, producing exquisite stone carvings.
   Adrian said he’ll never stop drawing but his real passion is for working in stone. His publicly commissioned works are at churches and schools in Tulare County, in Eagle Rock, Calif., and as far away as Toulon, France.
   Examples of each period of his life’s work are included in the exhibit at Discoveries West.

  “My life has had its share of suffering and pain but what I will always remember is its wonderful gifts,” Adrian mused. “When you have such a harmonic conjunction of timing and grace, one’s wholeness is a work of art in itself.”

Golf tournament will aid cancer patient

   Roger Remillard of Three Rivers is in the fight of his life. A familiar face around town, he has worked in recent years at the Chevron mini-mart before taking employment at Three Rivers Golf Course.
   To help with his mounting medical expenses, friends are organizing a golf tournament on Saturday, March 28. Sign in at 9 a.m.; shotgun start at 9:30 a.m. Teams of four will play using a scramble format.
   The cost is $40 per person, which includes lunch and beverages. All donations will be gratefully accepted.
   Sign up at the golf course. Information: Bill Clark, 561-4400.

HEALTHY LIVING
Weekly tip

   SLEEP has long been underrated, and only recently is its importance to overall health and wellbeing beginning to be understood by medical professionals.
   When people chronically get less than 6 or 7 hours of sleep each night, their risk for developing diseases begins to increase.

  —Heart. Lack of sleep has been associated with worsening of blood pressure and cholesterol, risk factors for heart disease and stroke. Your heart will be healthier if you get between 7 and 9 hours of sleep each night.

  —Cancer. People working the late shift have a higher risk for breast and colon cancer. Researchers believe this link is caused by differing levels of melatonin in people who are exposed to light at night. Light exposure reduces the level of melatonin, a hormone that both makes us sleepy and is thought to protect against cancer. Melatonin appears to suppress the growth of tumors. Be sure that your bedroom is dark to help your body produce the melatonin it needs.

  —Stress. When the body is sleep deficient, it goes into a state of stress. This causes an increase in blood pressure and the production of stress hormones. These stress hormones, in turn, make it harder to sleep.

  —Inflammation. The increase in stress hormones from lack of sleep raises the level of inflammation in the body. Inflammation is thought to be one of the causes of the deterioration of your body as you age.

  —Alertness. A good night’s sleep obviously makes you feel energized and alert the next day, but because you feel refreshed, you can be productive and active during the day, which in turn helps you get another good night’s sleep.

  —Memory. Your dreams and deep sleep are an important time for your brain to make memories and links. Getting more quality sleep will help you remember and process things better.

  —Weight loss. Researchers have recently found that people who sleep less than 7 hours per night are more likely to be overweight or obese. It is thought that the lack of sleep disrupts the balance of the hormones ghrelin and leptin, important for the regulation of appetite.

  —Naps. Napping during the day is not only an effective and refreshing alternative to caffeine, it can also protect your health and make you more productive. A study of 24,000 Greek adults showed that people who napped several times a week had a lower risk for dying from heart disease. People who nap at work have much lower levels of stress. Napping also improves memory, cognitive function, and mood.

  —Depression. Sleep impacts many of the chemicals in your body, including serotonin. People with a deficiency in serotonin are more likely to suffer from depression.

  —Heal. Sleep is a time for your body to repair damage caused by stress, ultraviolet rays, and other harmful exposures. Your cells produce more protein while you are sleeping. These protein molecules form the building blocks for cells, allowing them to repair damage.

LOOKING BACK
10 years ago in

The Kaweah Commonwealth

— MARCH 12, 1999 —

   Celtic meets cowboy in Three Rivers— David Wilkie and his Cowboy Celtic Orchestra played the White Horse Inn and treated the packed house to a Gaelic celebration. The show was produced and hosted by John Dofflemyer, a Dry Creek rancher and award-winning cowboy poet who made the connection with Wilkie at the annual National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nev.
   Parks Fire Management Plan subject of Three Rivers town meeting— Public comment was invited to assist in developing a range of alternatives and determine the extent of potential environmental impacts that should be addressed in the process to revise the Park Service’s local Fire Management Plan. Public meetings on this subject were also held in Fresno, Visalia, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
   Cyber Students: Reading, writing and arithmetic go high tech— It’s hard to imagine in 2009 that computers haven’t always been a part of everyday life, but 10 years ago, Three Rivers School was just beginning to integrate the machines into the curriculum. Every weekday morning at Three Rivers School, at 45-minute intervals, a class would rotate into the newly created computer lab “in anticipation of traveling to where no textbook has gone before.” Students in first grade dabbled in beginning keyboarding, second and third graders honed these typing skills by practicing spelling words, grades four and five typed reports, and six through eighth-graders were introduced to the research capabilities of the Internet.
   Finding Flowers— There was breaking news about which flowers were in bloom on Three Rivers hillsides.

OBITUARY

Bud Thorn
1928 ~ 2009

   Craig Stover “Bud” Thorn Jr. died Sunday, Jan. 18, 2009, in Woodlake. He was 80.
   Bud was born Dec. 7, 1928, in Visalia to Bernice G. Thorn and Craig Stover Thorn Sr. He attended Three Rivers Union School, Woodlake High School, and University of California at Davis.
   In 1916, the Thorn family purchased the former Griffes ranch, located at the beginning of North Fork Drive. Bud was raised on the family’s cattle ranch, eventually took over the business, and raised his family there.
   Bud’s careers included ranching, trucking and, as a young man, packing from the family’s Sierra pack station. He was a longtime member of the Three Rivers Lions Club.
   Bud was preceded in death by his son, Craig S. Thorn III (1954-1989).
   He is greatly missed by his survivors, sister Barbara Helgeson and husband Warren; his daughter Kathryn Montejano and husband Michael; son Matthew Thorn and wife Elise; grandchildren Heather, Megan, Nicki, Haley, Maggie, Tucker, and Max; and great-grandchildren Craig, Kelsi, Alijah, Michael, Avery, and Sabine.
   Private services were held.