Semas releases book of essays

Sierra Sage Magazine publisher Len Semas has published a collection of his essays.

"Reason, Justice and Common Sense" was written over the seven years that Len has owned and published the Sage.

The Sage was one of the monthly newspapers born in Douglas County back in the first half of the 1990s. It was not the first of the litter. That was the Genoa Enterprise founded by Temple Stewart in 1992. The next monthly was former R-C publisher Tom Wixon's Carson Valley News, which published for about a year wrapping up just before the election of 1994. I still have every edition. In March 1994, the Sierra Sage was founded by a Gardnerville Ranchos couple. Looking back, I'm not sure I would have picked the Sage to be the winner in that horse race, but Len had a lot to do with that.

The collection of his columns has a forward by Barry Goldwater Jr. It's available for $19.95 at www.rj-cs.com. He'll be signing copies of the book at the Polo Lounge in Reno 3-5:30 p.m. today.

I attended John Soderman's first school board meeting as interim school superintendent on Tuesday.

"It was a little like taking a drink from a firehose," he said of his first day back in the saddle.

It wasn't a full board meeting, but it was agendized and took place in the basement of the old Minden Elementary School, where I attended my first school board meeting in 1989. John might even have been there. He was principal of Meneley Elementary, which was the pilot school for multi-track, the educational controversy du jour in December 1989.

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