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Valley People (Dec 10, 2014)

AN OLD FASHIONED TRASH MOVER will hit the Anderson Valley on Wednesday afternoon. Rain fall is expected to measure as much as four inches in some places over a twenty-four hour period and the Navarro River is expected to overflow.

WHEN'S THE LAST TIME you watched some good high school basketball? Mendocino County's oldest high school hoops tourney, Boonville's Redwood Classic, was played last week. On offer was an eclectic mix of skill levels, ranging from rural-primitive to state champ-quality, with such perennial excellencies as Cloverdale, Hoopa and Branson School of Marin typically drubbing overmatched outback quintets in the early rounds Wednesday and Thursday. But by Friday the overmatched teams are gone and the surviving teams, some from as far away as LA, are pretty well matched and feature any number of kids who will go on to play at the college level.

THIRTY YEARS AGO, the $40,000-a-year prep schools got run right out of the Boonville gym. "Take that, rich boys!" Then the private schools started passing out scholarships to kids who could also play basketball, perhaps taking their cue from the Catholic schools who have scoured their catchment areas for athletic talent for many years now, leaving public schools at their athletic mercy. Of which they have none, running up lopsided wins for decades now over the undermanned public schools. The frenzied contests for prep sports titles are objectively crazy but alumni steadily push their favorite sports to the limits of prep crazy. Here in Boonville at our Redwood Classic there are way too many mismatches as these high school private school powerhouses drive up from the city to beat Mendo teams by fifty points. Only Cloverdale is consistently competitive or, from the north, Hoopa, and one year Hoopa showed up with this huge German kid from Argentina, descended, perhaps, from one of the Boys From Brazil.

BRANSON SCHOOL, now a prep hoops powerhouse in the tough Marin County league, was once a sleepy girl's school tucked away among the impenetrable mansions of Ross. Julia Child is perhaps the school's most illustrious graduate, and up until the fraught 1960s, Branson was a secure place for the ruling class to stash their debutantes to keep them from unsuitable matches. Of course all that social precaution flew out the wide-open window of 1967 when the debs began flying off with guitar players. Lately, Branson has been much in the news because its headmaster was discovered in a grungy Sacramento motel room with an impressive array of drugs and a girl young enough to be his granddaughter passed out on the bed. The scandal would have been nicely rounded off if she'd been a Branson Girl, but no such luck.

REDWOOD CLASSIC  2014

Boys basketball tournament held at Anderson Valley High School

Wednesday’s results

Cloverdale 68, Round Valley 22
Marin Academy 66, Laytonville 24
Valley Christian 105, Anderson Valley 82

Thursday’s results

Pinewood 98, Point Arena 16
Stuart Hall 72, California School for Deaf 28
Liberty Christian 79, International 56
Bentley 64, Tulelake 25
Branson 53, Hoopa 28

Friday’s results

Consolation rounds

California School for Deaf 66, Round Valley 36
International 63, Laytonville 41
Hoopa 74, Point Arena 38
Anderson Valley 51, Tulelake 31

Championship rounds

Stuart Hall 58, Cloverdale 55
Liberty Christian 78, Marin Academy 62
Bentley 101, Valley Christian 67
Branson 62, Pinewood 55

Saturday’s games

California School for Deaf 62, International 41
Hoopa 71, Anderson Valley 64
Stuart Hall 65, Liberty Christian 45
Branson 59, Bentley 39
Marin Academy 46, Cloverdale 45
Pinewood 113, Valley Christian 57

Consolation final: Hoopa 71, California School for Deaf 49

3rd place: Bentley 74, Liberty Christian 58

Championship: Stuart Hall 62, Branson 49

ALL-TOURNAMENT PLAYERS SELECTIONS:

  • Pavlos Peritos - Stuart Hall
  • Henry Feinberg - Branson
  • Connor Jackett  - Branson
  • Isaiah Wood - Bentley
  • Joro Dimitrov - Liberty Christian
  • Chandler Baer - CSD
  • Than Blake - Hoopa
  • Ryan Brice - Pinewood
  • John McMillan - Cloverdale
  • Kyle Roach - Marin Academy

HIS MANY OLD FRIENDS were delighted to see Ken Jones at last weekend's Redwood Classic Basketball Tournament. Ken organized and directed the tournament for the many years he taught at Anderson Valley High School, and his dismissal still rankles many locals, especially because it was carried out in the underhanded manner we always expect from the Nice People but distressingly unfair nevertheless. As I recall, Ken was purged, fundamentally, because he was a registered Republican, a condition local lib labs regard as akin to active leprosy. He was the very last member of the high school faculty to coach (girl's basketball) a sport and otherwise involve himself in extra-curricular activities.

THE OMNI-TALENTED OLIVIA ALLEN is presently in England where she is starring in the University of Sussex's stage production of Revolutionary Road. A theater natural, Olivia, who grew up in the hills west of Philo, is a 2012 graduate of Anderson Valley High School. Soon, we'll all be saying, "Hey! I knew Olivia when…"

Olivia@Sussex

AV FIRE CHIEF Andres Avila reports: “Saturday’s Volunteer Firefighter Appreciation Dinner at River’s Bend was very successful and the crew had a great time! Rookie of the Year:  Otto Fraser. Engineer of the Year : John Keeven-Lynch. Officer of the Year: Jim Minton. Medic of the Year: Kyle Clarke. And Firefighter of the Year: Angela DeWitt.

BOONVILLE WINTER MARKET, rain or shine, Saturday in front of the Boonville General Store, 10-12:30. (Some vendors will not be there, as they will be selling all day at the Holiday Bazaar in the Apple Hall at the Fairgrounds in Boonville.) You will still find some of your favorite produce, meat and other products at the BWM.

PETIT TETON FARM put a holiday page on their website: http://petitteton.com/holidays.html. The farm is at 18601 Hwy 128, 4 miles south of Boonville, and is open most of the time during the week, Saturday after 2pm, and most Sunday afternoons. Stop by or email farmer@petitteton.com or call 684.4146 to find out if we're open and what's available or just drop in. We look forward to seeing you.

DON’T MISS the second photo set photos by the Kalantarians of the Mouth of the Navarro River after the recent rains: “We returned to the mouth yesterday, and added more photos and commentary (at bottom of article). Here's two photos of the same rock, taken four days apart, showing how the opposite bank changed (the changes on the near-side bank were more drastic and pronounced, but I could not get a good photo of it). You can also see the increase in turbidity.”

November 30
November 30
December 4
December 4

AN UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN left a message on our machine one morning last week: “Did you catch this morning’s talk show on KZYX? What an ego! He repeats words so much that it takes twice as long for him to say anything! Twice as boring!”

CURIOUS, we looked it up and she’s right! This guy's even beyond the usual aural tedium the publicly-funded but strictly private KZYX club serves up, a kind of Tourette's delivery so extreme it was hard to figure out what Stuttering John's topic was: http://considerthis.us/

GENE HERR WRITES: "For those of you who do not read the AVA, or who missed Kathy Cox's letter, Claudia Jiminez, owner of All That Good Stuff, a variety and notions store in Boonville, located next to the fire station, has been threatened with economic retaliation if she does not resign from the health center board of directors, and/or vote the way the thug requires.

Claudia was appointed to the board of directors in November, accepting after much encouragement from community members who know her to be smart, sensible, independent, and able to express community views and concerns. She was appointed after the (fortunately temporary) firing of new doctor Logan McGhan and subsequent personnel crises.

Thuggo stormed into her store, charged her with McGhan's firing, and told her he would not patronize her business, and would see that his buddies joined in the boycott. Subsequently other such bully ignoramuses have come into the store to loudly and lengthily express similar views.

"Claudia reports a noticeable drop in commerce since this incident. She needs her regular customers in order for her new business to continue to survive. She carries an eclectic selection of cards, jewelry, clothes, seasonal decorations, posters, stuff for kids and everyone else. Her store is close, convenient and always a happy place to shop. Go take a look, and tell her thank you for being willing to help the AVHC to get and stay on the right road. But please, do not engage her in lengthy conversation about it at the store She is a one-woman operation and it needs her full attention. If you have disagreements (and hopefully you do) with management and board direction of the AVHC, it would be great if you wrote them to directors and copied us at this address so we all may know of areas of concern. AVHC President: Ric Bonner rabonners@gmail.com.

"We need smart people, a variety of ages and occupations and backgrounds, on the AVHC board of directors. We need more accurate information from the board of directors on actions taken and to be taken by the clinic. We do not need directors to be threatened and bullied by dumb, ignorant thugs… Something that can only impede our recent baby steps toward open communication between board and AVHC community clients."

I THINK INDICTMENTS as severe as this one should include the name or names of the guilty. Not that I'm skeptical necessarily, fully aware, as I am, that they walk among us, but this kind of name withheld accusation does induce skepticism. Also, the libs get all het up but are left with no one specific to lynch.

LAST MINUTE HOLIDAY SHOPPING? The Jug Handle Creek Farm & Nature Center is having a Book Sale Sunday Dec 21st from 9 to 3, just north of Caspar on Highway 1. Discards from the Nature Library include older collectible books 50 to 100 years old! Every nature subject available, for all ages, and dirt cheap. Being cash. Call Katy Tahja at 937-5854 for more info. — Katy Tahja

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