Instructions on how to build a homecoming parade float

Here are a few of the rules on how not to build a float for the Sept. 30 Douglas High School Homecoming Parade. The introductions are mine, but the answers are direct quotes from the rules grid that came with the application.

What would be bad for a theme? "Your float has no tie-in to the theme of the parade at all."

How much would be too much to spend on my float? "You spend more money on your float than all the others combined."

What if I had trouble getting help from an adult. "What adult?"

What should I avoid in the way of obscene or negative comments on my float? "Something so offensive that we ask you to leave the parade."

What would be bad in terms of distributing materials from my float? "You throw something from your float that ends up taking someone out."

There goes my catapult-launched bowling ball idea.

The homecoming parade will start 7:30 p.m. at Minden Park and will go down County Road wrapping up with a lap around the track at Douglas High. The theme this year is the Decades.

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Congratulations to former Nevada Appeal desk editor Jason Kellner who is the proud papa of a baby boy named Jared, born at Tahoe Truckee Hospital on Tuesday.

Mama Lee Kellner is doing fine. The boy weighed 6 pounds, 1 ounce and is about 18 inches long.

Jason wrote the entertainment column at the Nevada Appeal back when the guide was known as Action (or was that Jackpot?)

He is presently working as assistant editor for the Reno Gazette-Journal's Calendar section where he writes the Scene Here Column.

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Carson City bird book author Jack Walters will be signing "Bird Stories and Sightings In Nevada, Vol. 1" at the Borders in Indian Hills on Sept. 25.

Jack will be sitting behind the table with all the books on it between 2 and 8 p.m.

Jack's lived in Nevada since 1977 and has been the National Audubon's compiler for the annual Carson City Nevada Christmas Bird Count since 1983, when he moved to Carson.

These days Jack and former The Record-Courier writer Linda Hiller teach a bird identification class at Western Nevada Community College.

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The Lutherans in Norway and America honored John "Snowshoe" Thompson with a plaque on his grave at Genoa Cemetery on Saturday afternoon.

On the plaque are three Lutheran churches in Norway and the U.S., including the first Norwegian Lutheran Church in the United States.

"Snowshoe" hauled the mail over the Sierra for 20 winters. He hauled a load of type over the Sierra so the Territorial Enterprise could begin its existence in Genoa, where it was established.

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I can say this because this column does not appear until after the awards ceremony. Last night in Las Vegas, R-C Sports Editor Joey Crandall was named the Nevada Press Association's journalist of merit. He will be the second reporter in two years from the paper to achieve that honor. Maggie O'Neill got the nod last year.

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I was thumbing through the latest edition of Nevada Magazine on Thursday night when I realized there were no fewer than five present or former R-C staffers whose names appear inside.

The cover was shot by photographer Jay Aldrich. Turn to the contributors' page and there is an article about Guy Clifton written by the magazine's associate editor Joyce Hollister.

Christy Chalmers has a nice article on the flume trail.

And the fifth? C'est moi.

Kurt Hildebrand is editor of The Record-Courier. Reach him at khildebrand@recordcourier.com or 881-1215.