Organization brews up annual festival
March 18, 2014
Lakeport >> Lake County’s annual Home Wine and Beer Makers Festival, briefly sidelined last year by a ruling by the state, is back in business.
The festival, presented by Clear Lake Performing Arts (CLPA), will be held June 21 from 1 to 5 p.m. at Library Park in Lakeport.
Home winemakers and home brewers are invited to pour tastes for attendees who will rate them for the “Peoples Choice” ribbons, according to CLPA President Ed Bublitz. Those who entre their amateur efforts for judging by a panel of professionals are also eligible for awards. A nominal fee is charged for judging.
The California Alcohol Beverage Control (ABC) agency had ruled that pouring tastes of homemade wines or beers was the equivalent of selling those products, which is illegal under both state and federal law.
Last year’s legal challenge resulted in amateurs being barred from the festival, but the slack was taken up by many of Lake County’s leading commercial wineries who stepped in to save the day, according to Bublitz. However, the event held last summer, dubbed Art and Wine in the Park, raised about 25 percent less than previous festivals.
Online poker champ to head to big tournament
March 18, 2010
Lower Lake >> Lower Lake man Jason Teixeira is living the dream. Reminiscent of the 2008 Zak Penn movie “The Grand,” Teixeira is an online poker champion headed for Connecticut to compete in a live tournament in April.
“I feel like I’m living every average, online poker player’s dream. It’s just unreal,” Teixeira said. “I can’t tell you how excited I am to be representing Clearlake in this huge tournament. One tournament could change mine and my son’s lives. Last year’s winner took home $822,000.”
Teixeira said he competed in two, online “Texas Hold ‘Em” tournaments in the North American Poker Tour on PokerStars.net. “I spent a total of 13 hours online between both tournaments and it cost me nothing to play,” he said.
“There were 10,000 people competing in the first tournament and the top 36 qualified for the championship tournament. There were 501 people in the championship tournament that I won to get me a spot in the live tournament in Connecticut, which is going to be covered by ESPN2.”
The long wait for justice: Gerald Stanley’s long and violent history
March 16, 2005
Lake County >> Gerald Stanley’s road to death row was a long one that involved at least three — and perhaps four — murdered women.
A former outdoor guide and hunter, Stanley committed his first murder when he killed his second wife, Kathleen Anne Rhiley, in January 1975 in Concord.
Rhiley, who had two children with Stanley, left him after he was arrested by Concord police for 14 charges including receiving stolen property. She went into hiding and refused to meet with Stanley, who sent her several threatening letters indicating that he would kill her if she didn’t return to him, according to an Aug. 22, 1980, Record-Bee article.
Stanley waited for Rhiley at the elementary school where she had enrolled their children. When she arrived on the morning of Jan. 14, 1975 Stanley jumped into the car with her and the children, according to a Record-Bee report.
The couple argued and he shot her in the head with ha small caliber pistol. Stanley then jumped out of the car, fired another shot and grabbed their youngest child. He was arrested a short time later.
Found guilty of second-degree murder in Rhiley’s case, Stanley served four and a half years in prison before he was released on parole.
Bosco visits school, expresses ‘dismay’ over flood project
March 17, 1990
Kelseyville >> U.S. Rep. Doug Bosco, in town Friday to talk with middle school students, said he was dismayed when the Cache Creek Flood Control Project was canceled recently, ,and he is now pursuing funding to find an alternative that will halt Clear Lake’s flooding.
“It was a disappointment to find the project wouldn’t work. We do have to come up with a plan. People have to understand that we can’t tolerate the flooding anymore,” the Democratic congressman from Occidental said, following a school assembly at the Mountain Vista Middle School in Kelseyville.
Twice while in office, Bosco said, he has seen the hardship and devastation caused by the flooding of the lake. He said during years of normal rainfall it is easy for people to forget, and that is the problem.
Last month, the U.S. Corps of Engineers announced the estimated cost of the project far exceeded the limit imposed by federal law, and therefore the project was “dead” after 15 years of work and $2 million in planning and research. A “Gross” underestimate of the amount of earth moving required was to blame, corps officials conceded.
Grand Jury indicts on county airport charge
March 18, 1965
Lakeport >> Indictments have been returned by the Lake County Grand Jury against Supervisor Arbis D. Shipley of District two and Ernest Diener, Lower Lake heavy equipment operator.
Supervisor Shipley is charged with conspiracy to commit perjury in connection with payment of a money claim against the county to Mr. Diener in the amount of $800.
The complaint charges that Mr. Shipley conspired with Mr. Diener to commit perjury in violation of penal code section 118 when he signed his name in his official capacity as supervisor of Lake county approving payment to Mr. Diener or $800 for installation of 20 tie-downs at Hoberg’s field well-knowing that said articles and services had not been rendered by Mr. Diener by and before the date of the claim which was June 30, 1964.
Mr. Diener is charged with two felony counts, conspiracy to commit perjury and perjury, in the indictments.
Hostel is urged at lake end
March 20, 1940
Clearlake Highlands >> A project that, it is believed, may lead to the establishment somewhere at this end of the lake of an American youth Hostel, where young girls and boys may come and go the year round, most of them traveling inexpensively on bicycles or motorcycles and where they may cook their own meals, sleep in their own blankets and remain at their heart’s desire, is proposed for this area and will be the subject of a special meeting on Saturday night, March 30.
A field representative of the movement, now part of the youth movement in almost every state and thoroughly established in twenty nine foreign lands will be here on that occasion to give not only young folks but elders a comprehensive talk on the plan and to show how it works elsewhere, by means of motion pictures. The meeting will be held at Acme Inn.
Lower Clear Lake Recreation Association committeemen, meeting last night at the office of Dr. L, J. Calahan, president, were acquainted with the movement by Addison Janes and a committee of Lower Lake high school students. They gave endorsement to the project and will foster it here.
J. Mack Sleeper, pioneer resident, called by death
March 19, 1926
In the death Sunday morning of Jerome Mac Sleeper a long and active live of one of Lake county’s early settlers was brought to a close.
Jerome M. Sleeper was born in Vermont, Dec. 17, 1839. When he was a child his parents moved to Buffalo, where about six years were spent, then they returned to Chelsea, Vermont, where he lived with his parents until March 1863, when he sailed for California, arriving the April following. He settled on his present ranch, a mile west of town, where he has ever since been actively engaged in farming and stock raising. On April 22, 1874, he married Miss Mary E. Sleeper, a native of California, eldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. D. O. Sleeper and nice of Morean Sleeper, all well known early settlers. Mrs. Sleeper preceded her husband to the Great Beyond 14 years ago, Oct. 12, 1912.
