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Weekly News
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Sandwiches, sums nourish middle schoolers |
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Friday, 05 March 2010 |
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Youngsters teach
as well as learn
in lunchtime peer
tutoring program By Wendilyn Grasseschi
and Savannah Meyer
Mammoth Times staff writer and intern
 The long-awaited lunch bell at Mammoth Middle School sends most students scurrying from their classrooms to the cafeteria, yet 30-40 students eagerly enter sixth grade math teacher Ruth Hensley’s classroom to participate in a peer tutoring program.
It doesn’t take long for the hallways to go silent. Within minutes, the students in Hensley’s classroom have taken out their textbooks covered in brown paper bags as well as their lunches and have begun studying without any sign of reluctance.
This same routine has been carried out steadily most days since the beginning of this school year.
The students doing the tutoring during their lunch hour have willingly volunteered to participate in this peer-tutoring program, which is based on a high school program called Supporting Peers as Resources of Knowledge, or S.P.A.R.K. It’s a program that Hensley found when she realized that she simply did not have enough time to tend to each student’s needs.
“If I could just clone myself, I could give kids the help, but I can’t, so the next thing I did was to use the resource that I did have, which is capable math students, and get the kids involved,” she said.
Hensley had noticed that students who did not complete their homework were not necessarily simply refusing to do their work, but rather, they needed help understanding the math concepts.
“The whole point is to be proactive, rather than punitive, to give students support so that they can get their homework done,” she said. |
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Hidden Hills boarder dies in tree well |
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Friday, 05 March 2010 |
By Catherine Billey
Mammoth Times Staff Writer
Following the death last Saturday of a 43-year-old snowboarder near the Secret Spot run at Mammoth Mountain Ski Area, Lt. Robert Weber of the Mono County Sheriff’s Department confirmed the cause of death as asphyxiation and suffocation from fresh snow, secondary to the snowboard accident.
Erica Patterson, a mother of two from Hidden Hills, had been snowboarding in the Chair 12 area with her husband Joseph when they became separated. He reported her missing shortly thereafter at 1:30 p.m., when she failed to meet him, and an extensive search of the area began, Weber said.
Nearly three hours later, ski patrollers found her in a tree well, head first in deep powder 50 yards off the side of the Secret Spot run. There were no signs of trauma, Weber said, and no indication she hit a tree. “She was covered by almost two feet of snow.”
After resuscitation efforts by ski patrollers proved futile, Patterson was pronounced dead at 5:05 p.m. by Mono County Paramedics.
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Town can turn Utility Users Tax into specific use |
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Friday, 05 March 2010 |
Final hearing will send
measure to voters
on June 8 ballot
By Catherine Billey
Mammoth Times Staff Writer
Because the Utility User’s Tax approved by voters in 1996 lapses in mid-2011, voters on June 8 are slated to approve an extension or a repeal of the general tax, which is currently set at 2.5 percent on electric, propane and telephone bills.
But a group of local opinion leaders met on March 1 to evaluate whether the ballot proposal, which will appear as Measure U, could be a specific tax legally dedicated to special programs, such as the Whitmore track or a roof on the ice skating rink, rather than a general tax going into the general fund.
The Mammoth Mountain Ski Area is the largest payer of the tax and supports its extension. Estimated revenue for 2009-10 on the 2.5 percent tax is $878,790. If the rate were lowered by a half percent, revenue projection would be $702,032.
Town manager Rob Clark organized Jay Deinken, Rusty Gregory, Bill Sauser, Elaine Smith, Teri Stehlik, Tony Taylor, Maggie Thompson, John Walter and John Wentworth in advance of the public hearing at town council on March 3.
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Police Beat |
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Friday, 05 March 2010 |
The following individuals were arrested/cited by the Mammoth Lakes Police Department last week. Since most cases have yet to be adjudicated, all charges should be considered allegations.
Monday, February 22
• Steven Michael Blackwelder, 19, arrested for theft; appropriation of lost property
• Amanda Noel Ross, 20, arrested for receiving/concealing known stolen property
Thursday, February 25
• Jacob Garrett Vanderschuit, 24, arrested for driving with suspended license
Friday, February 26
• Carlos Roberto Castaneda, 24, arrested for DUI alcohol or drugs
Saturday, February 27
• Matthew Scott Boswell, 27, arrested for DUI alcohol/drugs
• Heather Mary Baldwin, 53, DUI alcohol; violation of probation
MLPD Tipline
If you have information to report to the police department you can use MLPD’s anonymous tipline. Access the line by calling (760) 934-3261 or visit www.mammothlakespd.org to send a tip in by |
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A different rescue Saturday ends well for Mammoth woman |
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Friday, 05 March 2010 |
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Quick thinking saves skier from fall into ‘warm spot’
By Wendilyn Grasseschi
Mammoth Times Staff Writer
 submitted photo Kristen Dorough and her son Carson Last Saturday morning began as a perfect day for local resident Kristen Dorough.
The 46-year-old operating room nurse had headed up to Mammoth Mountain Ski Area to ski, leaving her 8-year-old son Carson with a class of kids his age.
She got in a few runs and at about 10 a.m., headed down Roger’s Run following the wind fence toward Knee Deep when she abruptly, with absolutely no warning, dropped through the snow into a hole.
A deep hole, she saw, as she peered down, with no bottom in sight. Even worse, she found she was stuck.
“Every time I’d wiggle, I’d sink in farther, she said. “I was lying horizontally, about four feet down, on my back with my skis suspending me above the hole. I thought about kicking off my skis, but I realized if I did, I’d fall in farther.”
Dorough had moved to Mammoth in 2006, the same year three ski patrollers perished in a carbon dioxide filled hole called a fumarole. It would be a lie to say that Dorough didn’t think about that tragedy as she struggled to free herself, until she finally realized that all she was doing was making it worse.
Getting out
“I had heard about the danger, I was a nurse, I was here, so I knew what had happened,” she said.
“And I thought, this can’t possibly be another fumarole, I thought for sure they had roped them all off.”
And indeed, as it turned out later, Dorough had not fallen into a fumarole. Rather, the hole was something Mountain officials would later say was a newly discovered (by Dorough) “warm spot,” an area of geothermal activity that is slightly warmer than the surrounding ground. At first, snow doesn’t stick to these areas, but once enough snow falls, the warm spot is effectively camouflaged, as though it does not exist.
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