Sally Springmeyer celebrates 103rd birthday

Sally Springmeyer celebrated her 103rd birthday last week with the help of her family and friends.

Sally has lived in Nevada since she came here for a divorce in 1931, met and married attorney George Springmeyer and raised a family.

Her birthday was Aug. 22, but she celebrated with her family on Aug. 23 and with members of her church the next day.

Sally has lived on the family ranch near Mud Lake, south of the Gardnerville Ranchos, since the 1960s when George died.

She was born in New York and married once before she met Springmeyer. George was a member of a pioneer family, who followed the last gold rush to Goldfield, where he served in the Esmeralda County District Attorney's Office just after the turn of the century and then volunteered to serve in World War I.

Sally's daughter, Sally Zanjani, is an adjunct professor in the Department of Political Science at UNR.

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Gardnerville author Frank Rocha has his second novel out, "The Scope of Death II: The Secret of Pine Summit" and will be signing copies at Shady Grove Coffee Co. on Sept. 9.

Frank was a police lieutenant in Salinas and wrote at least four novels after he moved to Gardnerville in the early '90s. They sat on a shelf until they were discovered by his daughter last year.

His second novel is set in a rural Nevada farming community called Bitterweed Valley, which is suddenly beset by illicit drugs and includes a visit to a ghost town.

The book is available through Amazon.com or www.novelsbyrocha.com, should their Web site come back to life.

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I was a little concerned about the story on the Cordes cousins compiling Frieda Godecke's column in The Record-Courier. When I talked to Joyce Hollister, she pointed out Frieda had two books about Centerville. As it turns out Myllie Hoover and Patty Myers were perfectly aware of the books, which were "Remembrances of Centerville" published in 1973 and "After Centerville" published a few years later.

Both books are presently available for purchase in the gift shops of the Carson Valley Museum & Cultural Center and the Genoa Court House Museum.

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My timing was pretty good on Monday, but not as good as the pilot of a glider who was able to bail out to safety after colliding with an executive jet.

The story we're hearing is that after Akihiro Hirao lost a wing tip in the mid-air collision, his glider went into a flat spin, which was what allowed him to escape the glider and deploy his parachute.

I arrived at the airport at about 6:30 p.m. and was listening to Lyon County Capt. Jeff Page talk to the Channel 8 news crew when Carson City Sheriff Kenny Furlong stuck his head out of the Minden-Tahoe Airport admin building and yelled cut, making a sweeping gesture across his neck to tell Page he had news.

As Page was walking back to us, a cheer went up among the searchers, because they learned Hirao was alive and had been found safe.

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Jill Davenport Horn, daughter to Gardnerville residents Larry and Gail Davenport, has released an album "Trespassing through Time."

Davenport Horn is a member of the duo Trusting Calliope.

The couple owns Davenport Landscape. Their daughter lives in the Bay area.

n Kurt Hildebrand is editor of The Record-Courier in Gardnerville. Reach him at khildebrand@recordcourier.com or 782-5121, ext. 215.