New CEO at Helm of 2008 Show

Tulare - Eight months into his new job as chief executive officer, Geoff R. Hinds finds himself smack in the middle of his first Tulare County Fair and taking notes for the next one.

When he started his job on Jan. 15, most of the contracting and planning for the fair was well under way, but Hinds is nevertheless leaving his mark on this year's edition of the popular event, fair board Chairman Pete Alvitre said.

“This young man is just full of technological communication ideas,” Alvitre said.
In addition to making it possible for fair-goers to purchase admission and ride tickets on the fair's internet Web site, Hinds also is requiring food vendors to accept credit cards, making the Tulare fair only the second in California to offer such convenience to patrons.

“We're second only because the Los Angeles County Fair opened first, Hinds said. “We did some research to find the technology the fair needed to install to make this work for the vendors.”

The fair ended up installing a back-up double-redundancy system, which allows the fair to shift to a Wi-Fi, if the cell phone network that handles the credit transactions fails, he said.

The appearance of the fairgrounds also has improved, Alvitre said, reporting Hinds has had staff clean up the grounds and has introduced new color schemes.
While there has been discussion of possibly relocating the fair at or near the International Agri-Center, it has only been talk and has not influenced Hinds' attitude toward the current site.

“We are working hard to maintain and upgrade the facility with the mind-set we're not going anywhere soon,” Hinds said.

In the area of entertainment, the fair is also offering open bull riding and free-style motor cross events this year for the first time.

Registration for Saturday's bull riding actually filled up three weeks ago, Hinds said, explaining the idea for holding this type of event came out of informal focus groups and polling the fair did.

'New Excitement’

Introduction of a free-style motor cross stemmed from the popularity of the monster truck program at previous fairs, he said. “Monster trucks were well-received, but we wanted to bring in new excitement.”

Although he is only 28 years old, Hinds has “demonstrated a level of maturity that has impressed me,” Alvitre said. “I'm delighted with the way the young man has come into the position and forged a relationship with staff and put a cohesive team together.”

As for Hinds, he is impressed with Tulare County residents. “They really support the fair and enjoy it,” he said.

Throughout this week's fair, which ends at midnight Sunday, Hinds said he will be jotting down ideas for next year's event.

“I want to go through this fair and see what this fair does,” he said. “I want to understand how it works… and make sure we don't change traditions that shouldn't be changed.”

Hinds, who came to the fair with more than 11 years experience in fair and festival management, grew up in the fair industry. His grandfather, Ralph Hinds, was manager of the Big Fresno Fair and then the Los Angeles County Fair before he was inducted into the Western Fairs Association's Hall of Fame for manager.
“It's nice to be part of the Central Valley, where my grandfather started his career,” Geoff Hinds said.

Prior to coming to Tulare, Hinds was the fair and festivals manager of the San Mateo County Fair, which saw a dramatic increase in both attendance and revenues during his tenure, which began in 2004.

That fair also was voted the Best Family Outdoor Event on the San Francisco Peninsula by the readers of Bay Area Parent Magazine for three years running and was voted into the Bay Area Parent Hall of Fame in 2007.

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'Mulcahy Nation' Posts
Huge Test Score Gain

Tulare - After failing to meet its goal on state standardized tests for eight consecutive years, a revitalized Mulcahy Middle School has logged the largest growth in test scores in the Tulare City School District.

Mulcahy, which has completed six years as a state program improvement school because of stagnant test scores, needed to add nine points to its 2007 score to meet its 2008 goal.

But what did those “proud, tough and determined” fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth-graders do? They added a whopping 39 points to bring their score up to 653.
“We're thrilled out of our minds,” Principal John Pendleton said last Thursday after the scores were released to the public.

“This is a great way to kick off the year,” said Dr. Guadalupe Solis of the Tulare County of Education. Solis has headed up the alternative governance board that the state mandated for Mulcahy because of its long-term program improvement status.
Despite the huge gain, Mulcahy will retain its program improvement status until it meets state goals for two consecutive years.

After thoroughly examining Mulcahy's scores, the governance board and the Mulcahy leadership decided the middle school needed to develop strategies for sharpening critical thinking skills and for improving school culture.
“I think the staff and principal have been doing a good job of implementing intervention strategies,” Solis said.

For Pendleton, improving school culture was key to allowing academic strategies to work.

“Proud, Tough and Determine” has been the school's motto for the past two years and students are reminded daily of the importance of being proud of themselves and wanting to make their families and school proud of them; tough enough to do the right thing; and determined to succeed in life.

Teachers and students also are expected to treat visitors and each other with dignity, respect, class and poise.

“You guys were by far the best behaved of the middle schools,” Pendleton told the student body last Friday in announcing that Mulcahy logged the fewest suspensions — 56 — among the district's four middle schools. [The highest number was 135, he said.]

The principal told students they “looked different” when they sat down to take last year's state tests.

“You looked like you were confident,” he said. “You looked like you had a whole lot of information in your head.”

Pendleton told the students they were making outstanding progress-just as are there brothers and sisters across the street at Roosevelt Elementary School, where scores jumped 20 points. “So it runs in the family,” he said.

Solis said Mulcahy's progress cannot be attributed to just one thing. “It all is very important,” he said, adding that “certainly the culture of a school has a lot to do with academic results. You have to create a very positive culture and the belief you can do it.”

The state's goal is for all schools to score at least 800 on the standardized tests.
Mulcahy has a long ways to go, but Pendleton has no idea that will happen one day.
“When Mulcahy ultimately becomes the highest scoring school in the district, you can say it started with you,” who told students.

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Tonight’s Race Track Meeting Postponed

Tulare - The Town Hall meeting on the proposed Tulare Motor Sports Complex that was planned for tonight has been rescheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 25.
The 34-member Motor Sports Community Advisory Committee postponed the meeting because it wants to first meet with Rob Johnson and Dave Swindell, project partners with Fresno developer Bud Long.

The group, which includes proponents and opponents of the project, as well as members who are undecided, spent 21/2 hours on Sept. 4 meeting with Long and Tulare City Manager Darrel Pyle.

That session included questions about the city's involvement in the 711-acre project — a mix of racing, recreational, office and commercial uses — infrastructure improvements, traffic control, air pollution, hotels and other issues, according to those who attended.

The meeting with Johnson, former president of the now defunct Pike's Peak Racing Association and a well-known person in the racing world, and Swindell, who runs racing facilities in Santa Maria, is expected to occur next week, said Lynn Dredge, president of the non-profit Tulare Industrial Site Development Foundation (TISDF), which is facilitating land purchases for the 711-plus acre project.

“I think these guys will bring a whole different perspective,” Dredge said, adding they will be able to answer questions about the types of races the proposed racetrack and drag strip would attract.

The TISDF's original timeline for the citizens committee called for presentation of a community impact report to the Planning Commission and City Council in early October, but Dredge said that timeline is not feasible, given the amount of fact-finding and discussion members will need before they can write the report.
At least 30 committee members have attended each of the two meetings.

“The people have just been remarkable,” Dredge said, explaining members are asking good questions and while they differ in their opinions, there has been no “sniping” or other disrespectful behavior.

“There were a lot of good questions asked by committee members [at the meeting with Long and Pyle],” said co-chairman Rob Fletcher. “I think everybody came away with a better understanding of the project.”

Fletcher has said he is inclined to favor the project. The committee's co-chair is Tricia Stever, who is executive director of the Tulare County Farm Bureau, which opposes the project.

Planning Director Mark Kielty said he now plans to bring the racetrack project to the Planning Commission on Oct. 20.

Dredge said the committee could also issue a minority report if there is a difference of opinion among members.

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Wanted: Volunteers for Grandma's House

Tulare - Retired teacher and school principal Flora Gibson Johnson has a dream and she admits with gentle laughter she is “flunking retirement” to make sure that dream comes true.

The dream is Grandma's House, A Vision of Hope, a free afterschool tutoring program for students in grades kindergarten through sixth who are academically and/or behaviorally at risk.

Johnson plans to launch Grandma's House this fall in a two-bedroom house on R Street, which is close to both Lincoln and Wilson schools.

“I'm not too young to retire, but I have too much energy to just go home and put my feet up,” Johnson said. “There's just too much to be done.

Johnson retired in 2007 after spending 32 years in education, including 10 as a vice principal or principal in the Elk Grove Unified School District near Sacramento. In 1997, she was named the district's Teacher of the Year.

A 1960 Tulare Union High School graduate, she began her career here after the late Pauline Friedman, a much beloved principal at Lincoln School, urged her to go back to school to become a teacher and the local Soroptimist Club offered her a scholarship in 1975 that made that possible.

“Pauline went with me to accept the scholarship and she cried the whole time,” she recalled.

Although officially retired, Johnson has worked as a substitute teacher to raise money so she could transform the two-bedroom home next door to Mt. Zion Temple into a comfortable tutoring center with all the trappings of a grandmother's home.

She has done a good job. Comfortable sofas and chairs are in the living room, where pictures hang on the walls and children's books beckon to be perused.
The large table in the dining room, where children will have a snack before tutoring begins, is covered with a lace tablecloth and the two bedrooms have tables and chairs where a tutor can work with three children at a time in a cheerful, well-lit environment.

Another area of the house will become a small computer center if equipment is donated. In addition to computers, she is seeking a commercial color printer, “so it will last three to four years,” Johnson said.

Sharing Wisdom

“I'm working now on getting volunteer grandparents,” Johnson said. “I think this is an excellent opportunity for grandparents to give back, if we're retired and healthy.”
Grandparents can be a tremendous resource for children, said Johnson, who became a grandmother herself two years ago. “We have the experience, the wisdom and knowledge,” she said.

Volunteers will be trained and can select the hours they want to work, she said. Grandma's House will offer two tutoring sessions on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, each involving a maximum of 12 students for about an hour. Students in K-3 will attend the early session because they are dismissed from school before the older students.

To make sure children are safe, fingerprinting and background checks will be required for all volunteers, Johnson said.

The need for programs such as Grandma House was evident to her even when she worked in the Elk Grove district where students were from families of higher socio-economic status, Johnson said.

“You saw kids coming to school with issues,” she said. “We had lots of kids sitting in the office because they needed extra support.”

Grandma's House will work with students who are performing below the state standards for their grade level, Johnson said, adding that it is the parent, not the school, that must make the request for tutoring.

“Once the parent enrolls their kids, we can collaborate with the kids' teachers,” she said.

Tim Williams, Lincoln School's principal, a member of the Grandma's House board and a close friend of Johnson's, said he looks forward to the program's start.
“I think it will be highly significant for students who need afterschool tutoring and need extra help specifically with math and language arts,” Williams said. “Right now we don't have any afterschool tutoring.”

Johnson said her dream is one-day each school area within the Tulare City School District will have a Grandma's House.

She believes strongly in the African proverb that “it takes a village to raise a child” and said that with the help of “loving, patient, kind and experienced volunteer grandparents, Grandma's House will be the village in the community, supporting our children, community and our schools.”

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Eye-Catching Vehicles
on Tap for Cruizers' Show

Tulare - Mark Norby drove around the 1934 Chevy Cabriolet he had purchased on a hot summer day in Santa Barbara for 11/2 years before his wife, Ramona, made her announcement.

“She said, 'Today's the day. Today's the day you need to tear this car apart,'” Norby said, reporting the vehicle was painted a flat black in a gel coat and looked like a “rat rod.”

So Norby stayed home that day and began a 1 ½-year rebuilding odyssey that resulted in a stunning, award-winning vehicle that will be one of many on display Saturday when Small Town Cruizers' hosts its Summer Send Off Car Show to benefit Hospice of Tulare County.

In October, Norby's car and another vehicle shared top honors for the most outstanding color in a PPG brand of paint at the National Street Rod Association show in Sacramento, which featured more than 2,000 vehicles.

The car , with its sorrel green fiberglass body and bright silver top, caught the eye of Blackie Gejeian, who invited him to the Fresno Autorama, which Norby said is one of the top five shows in the U. S.

“That started everything off,” he said. “Blackie looks at 60,000 to 70,000 cars and only invites 175 to his show, so when you get picked to go to Blackie's, you're very special.”

From there he was invited to the Grand National Roaster Show in Pomona and the Sacramento Autorama, garnering awards at both events. He also has shown the car at the indoor Rogue Valley Street Rod show in Medford, Ore.
Norby, who retired from Land O'Lakes in April, said he plans to eventually sell the car and then build another one.

Long Wait

Richard Albright, another Tulare resident, will show his 1967 Corvette Sting Ray big block convertible — with its original power train — at Saturday's show.
“We [he and his wife, Mary Jo] completely restored it,” Albright said, adding the process took more than a year.

This is a vehicle Albright first tried to purchase in 1980, but the owner, a Lemoore resident, would not sell it.

“He parked it under a canopy in 1979 and it sat for 26 years deteriorating,” he said.
When the owner died, Albright purchased the car from his brother.

The vehicle is rare because Chevrolet made only 2,000 Sting Ray's with a tri-power 427 engine that produces 435 horsepower for road races, Albright said.

Albright is only the third owner of the car. Robert Graff, a Lemoore Naval Air Station pilot, was the original owner and had purchased the vehicle in Philadelphia at Roger Penske Chevrolet, Albright said. His family sold the vehicle after Graff died during the Vietnam War.

Albright, retired from Southern California Edison and self-employed, likes to go to car shows and cruise nights with his wife in the striking Marlborough maroon-colored car, which has nabbed several first place awards in the Corvette class.
He, like Norby, is a member of Small Town Cruizers, which was founded seven years ago. Saturday will mark the club's fourth car show.

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