Big surprise for Douglas County volunteer

No one was more surprised when she was named volunteer of the year than Beverly Thayer.

Beverly was honored at the Active Volunteers in Douglas barbecue at the Corley Ranch on Sept. 19.

"I had no idea," she said. "I was totally taken aback by it. Because my husband is involved in the volunteers, sometimes we have an idea who the volunteer of the year might be. While Sheriff Ron (Pierini) was making his speech, I had somebody in mind, I thought it was going to be. When they said my name, my mouth fell open. It was a very nice surprise."

She earned the award not for some spectacular burst of volunteerism, but by always being there when she was needed.

Beverly is the wife of Citizen Patrol chief Warren Thayer. Warren suffers from macular degeneration, which keeps him off the roads.

That leaves Beverly to do all the driving.

"She drives him around and they both go in on Sunday to check on the records," said Roger Arthur who alerted me to this story. "She rides with a team on Thursday and goes through all the stuff and keeps everything straight. She's the gal behind the man. I think this award she got is something well-deserved."

Beverly and Warren have been volunteering pretty much since they arrived in the Valley 12 years ago.

"We really felt like we wanted to be part of the community and that the best way was to volunteer," Beverly said. "We started volunteering when they opened the Indian Hills substation 10 years ago. I also volunteer at Carson Tahoe Hospital. I started that about 11 years ago."

The 71-year-old came to the Valley from Huntington Beach, which grew to big for the couple.

"We like the idea of a small town," Beverly said.

In all 250 volunteers attended they barbecue run by the Carson Valley Kiwanis.

In addition to Beverly, several volunteers were recognized at the barbecue.

Anthony Barton who serves with the Douglas County Sheriff's Department received the president's gold volunteer award for contributing in excess of 400 hours of community service over the last year.

The Food Closet of Douglas County recognized Fred Asmann as their outstanding volunteer of the year for 2006.

Ester Hildebrand was recognized by the Douglas County Senior Center having received the president's lifetime volunteer award for her more than 4,000 hours of volunteer service.

Ester gets my award for person who is asked most often whether she is related to me. For the record, whatever that familial connection might be lies in a distant land in the distant past. Ester is a great lady whose name I'm proud to share and she deserves the recognition.

Anyone who wants to find out about AVID. or volunteer, should contact Douglas County Sheriff's Sgt. Tom Mezzetta at 782-9931.

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Kerry Dinardo made it to the taping of Ellen DeGeneris program on breast cancer survivors Monday.

"It was an awesome show," she said. "There were so many survivors there. It was the best show anyone in the world could do."

Kerry, who is a breast cancer survivor, was invited to participate in the show, which also featured survivor Sheryl Crowe and actress Christina Applegate.

"There were a lot of great messages that went out to young women, such as getting early detection," she said.

She said she got to dance with Ellen at the beginning of the show and heard lots of stories about breast cancer survival.

"It was the most humbling experience I've ever been through," she said. "My story doesn't seem like a bad one after hearing all the other stories."

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Jason Gardner of Minden said he found a fishing pole up at Red Lake that he thinks belongs to a Gardnerville resident named Andre.

Jason has lived in the Valley for seven years and said it is a nice pole. Anyone with information about Andre should call Jason at 267-5452.

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I attended the fundraiser for Ted and Katie O'Neill at the Orchard House on Saturday and the conversation turned naturally to the Sept. 20 fire that destroyed the house they were living in.

Many people said was that it was important to debunk the rumor that the fire was the result of a drug still. Fire Capt. Terry Taylor and I talked about it last week and neither of us could point to a single instance in Douglas County where a drug still was responsible for a house burning down. There might have been one, but I've been paying attention to that sort of thing here for 17 years and I don't remember one.

There was a case in Lyon County. Other things we've yet had happen to my knowledge is junkies sleeping in our parks or terrorists hijacking crop dusters.

We are an imaginative people and come up with things to scare the bejeebers out of ourselves for fun. But the fun stops when folks like the O'Neills are hurt by a rumor cooked up in someone's overactive imagination.

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