Tom Hays can be forgiven for bragging about his two children serving in the U.S. Navy.
His children, Amber and Andy Hays graduated from Douglas High School, Amber in 2005 and Andy in 2007.
Amber tried college for a year and then decided to follow in her old man's footsteps. She signed up without a guaranteed school in the summer of 2006. She reported to a ship in December and spent the last year and four months aboard.
She is home on leave before she attends corpsman school. Her hope is to graduate at the top of her class, so she can pick San Diego as her duty station.
Andy joined up right out of high school and got to go to hull technician school, where he learned welding, plumbing and a host of other skills. He is assigned to a submarine tender in Guam where he inherited a car.
"Andy gets on the ship, and his chief gives him a car after getting shipped back to San Diego," Tom said.
"I'm just proud of them," Tom said. "They're so motivated."
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Tom is a former sailor, who served off the coast of Vietnam on a minesweeper in the early 1970s.
He joined the Navy in 1972 as an able-bodied seaman before he was able to go to school to become a dental technician.
Every sailor has a rank and a rate. The rank is self-explanatory, but a rate is an enlisted sailor's job. Other services have the equivalent, but only the Navy uses the term.
Tom served in the Navy from 1972 to 1976 and served on the helicopter carrier USS Tripoli after he got out of school.
After the Navy, Tom got work doing dental work and arrived in Carson Valley about 10 years ago.
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Pine Nut resident Lura Morrison spent Earth Day cleaning up along her portion of Highway 395.
She filled eight bags of garbage by picking up one mile on one side of the highway. Among her discoveries were a tire for an 18-wheeler, a rim, a regular car tire and a handful of hubcaps.
"I made a sign that says Happy Earth Day with flags on the back of my truck," she said. "Picking up the highway is good exercise."
She said the letter written by Alisen Heinen pointing out the garbage along the route is dead on.
Lura said she noticed that the bottoms of the bottles thrown from passing vehicles don't break and typically land jagged side up.
"We've got the cattle and all the animals walking through here with those broken bottle bottoms."
Lura sent in a letter about her experience, which will appear in print next week.
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When I cover East Fork Justice Court I sit behind the defendant, so I can hear what's going on, no easy task.
That's where I was when two young men who were accused of destruction of property took their seats. They admitted to blowing up two plastic Record-Courier newspaper tubes worth $8.32 each using dry ice and water in a bottle.
That's when Justice of the Peace Jim EnEarl pointed out that the newspaper's representative was sitting right behind them.
The boys turned around and apologized for blowing up the tubes.
I told them not to do it again.
n Kurt Hildebrand is editor of The Record-Courier. Reach him at khildebrand@recordcourier.com or 782-5121, ext. 215
