Dear Neighbors:

We did it friends! In spite of unprecedented heat on Saturday and Sunday over Labor

Day weekend, the 54th Annual Kings Mountain Art Fair came off without a hitch. The hundreds of moving parts it takes to produce a quality event of this size meshed seam-lessly all three days. Even when you thought you might melt like the cheese on mountain nachos, community residents turned up to spend many hours making artists and fairgoers happy and as comfortable as possible under the circumstances. It was a minor miracle. Your editor hopes you all feel a pronounced sense of accomplishment for a job well done (and had fun doing it, besides.)

Next month’s Echo will offer complete Art Fair coverage after all Committee Chairper-sons have submitted volunteer names and we have received a wrap up message from our Executive Director, Bev Abbott. This issue completes our Mountain Artist series and focuses on some of the behind the scenes planning and prep work that is so necessary, but is invisible to most. We salute our neighbors who chair the various committees and wish we could adequately quantify the countless hours put in by each of them.

Kings Mountain kids are back in school. Please check out our first day of school activi-ties and the unique “Advice from a Tree” teachers and students will use to build roots of knowledge in each classroom this year. Where else could such a wonderful learning experience be possible? Our kids were visible all over Art Fair too, volunteering at zero waste stations, trays, popcorn, cookie sales, face painting and more. It truly takes a mountain! Also, don’t miss reading about Fire Brigade activities and about the KMA spon-sored Ridge Trail meeting. Concerned neighbors should stay connected and get involved now if you want to affect the outcome of this proposed project in our neighborhood.

We hope the Amelia Earhart search story will give you an even greater appre-ciation for the unique place that is Kings Mountain. There are links to help you stay informed as the world’s greatest aviation mystery further unfolds. Just remember, you heard it first in the Echo!

Best regards, Eileen Fredrikson, Editor Bill Goebner, Echo Photographer Marty Eisenberg, Echo Columnist

September 2017 Volume 13, Issue 9

Labor Day Crowds Jam the Art Fair

2017 Kings Mountain Art Fair

The 54th Kings Mountain Art Fair closed with a flurry of action and big crowds as the weather cooled off. Operations at every level went smoothly, in spite of two days of stifling heat, which were quite the opposite of last year’s challenging cold, rain and drippy fog. While it is impossible to explain how this tiny community seamlessly produces an annual event of this size and quality, the bottom line is this:

It Takes a Mountain! Virtually everyone: young & old, (make that “not so young”); long-time residents & newcomers; friends & relatives; people who moved away years ago & people who never lived here come to-gether in an Art Fair esprit de corps rarely seen anywhere. The helpful attitude among volunteers is palpable with every job contrib-uting to the whole. Next month’s issue will carry details and proper thank yous to the many volunteers from our thirty plus Art Fair Chairpersons. Their ongoing commitments, along with time freely given from a few “jack of all trades” handymen, make everything possible. Here are just a few pictures of the behind-the-scenes action of the preparations for Art Fair 2017.

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The Kings Mountain Art Fair Marketing Group consisting of Sandy Shapero, Sheena Mawson, Carrie German, Dawn Neisser and Cindy Oldham, started working on our campaign plan in January.

We started by identifying our “best customer”, where they come from, income level, age and interests. We then chose products accordingly. Some of the changes were an increased digital presence with over 400,000 digital impressions on SF Gate, Metro of Silicon Valley, The Bay Area News Groups Audience Extension Network and Embarcadero Publishing’s Weekend Express (The Almanac and LOTC). Since this traffic will be directed to our website, we also updated the website and added Google Analytics so we can target even more effectively next year. Increase in Social Media-In addition to Daily posts, again targeted to the right art fair customer, we are doing a “like us for a lollipop” campaign on Facebook. As fairgoers arrive, they are encouraged by the Info Center folk to “like” us on Facebook. They get an organic lollipop that is compostable! Our hope is that this will spread our reach even further. Calendar Listings- were placed in 37 local publications!

Post Cards-Our beautifully designed cards were inserted into the Country Almanac, Los Altos Town Crier and Half Moon Bay Review, but in addition we added 5,000 copies that were inserted into the Palo Alto Weekly, newsstands for all 3 publications and copies are dropped off at the Ritz Carlton HMB!

Print- Our ads were placed in the Mercury News, East Bay Times, The Country Almanac and Metro Silicon Valley (the only newspapers allowed on the Google Campus

All these Marketing efforts where accomplished without an increase in the budget over last year.

Editor’s note: Our intrepid marketing team kicked up both digital and social media outreach this year. Facebook sent an interviewer to catch the Art Fair action. Video interviews include Executive Director Bev Abbott, various chairmen in action, juried artists, many volunteers, mountain artists, KMVFB firefighters, parents and kids in the KMES cookie booth and more. Check out the action here; https://www.facebook.com/pg/KingsMountainArtFair/videos/?ref=page_internal. In addition, Info Booth volunteers pumped up our Zero Waste marketing effort with compostable lollipop gifts to fairgoers who would post their picture with the “lolli” at the fair. We hope Google Analytics will help us sharpen outreach even further next year.

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Our Mountain Artists

Although neighbors will receive this issue shortly after Art Fair, we feel certain you will all have visited the booths of our September featured Mountain Artists. They represent both the longevity and diversity of our community artisans. Their back stories are instructive and inspirational. Anyone considering participating in the 2018 Art Fair should be very encouraged by the advice so freely offered by each of them. Enjoy the history and wis-dom presented now and save these pages to re-read as you contemplate applying to Art Fair next year.

Rebecca Holland, Painting

kids in school. I remember sitting at Jean Cole'sI started drawing as a very little child and be-gan working in oils at the age of nine. I sold or traded my drawings of horses to the other kitchen table with Betty Bradley and Ardyth Woodruff. That is where the idea of raising money for a fire truck by having an arts and crafts fair was hatched up. I was in my early 20's and rode horses with Johnny Bradley and Jeff and Michelle Woodruff. Johnny took my drawings off my wall and said I had to sell them to raise money. I didn't sell anything that first year in the old red barn, but that is where the Kings Mountain Art Fair started for me. Brock had a little bar at the top of Kings Mountain Road. When I was a teenager, I would ride my horse up from Woodside for a hamburger. Brock also sold real estate on the side, and I bought 3 acres on Ware Road on his advice. I borrowed the down payment and built two houses. I moved a little way down the hill to Lobitos Creek Road some years ago. The independent rugged style of life that was necessary to be on the Mountain still suits me fine. We as neighbors may have different opinions and

ideas, but being far from the services of the urban life has brought us together. Living on Kings Mountain, both because of the beauty and because of the Art Fair, has shaped my career as an artist. I have seen other young people grow up developing their talents as well, because of where we live. I'm proud to be show-ing my art in the Mountain Artists sec-tion. The Art Fair is an example of what people can accomplish when they work together.

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Xuan My Ho, Mosaic

I was one of the boat people refugees after the Vietnam War ended in 1975. Before immigrating to the United States in 1979, I was studying medicine in my home country of Vietnam. Once I arrived in America, I decided to change my career path to computer science, worked in the field of information technology for over 30 years, and recently became a full time mosaic artist. During a visit to Barcelona in 1998, I was awestruck by Antoni Gaudi’s use of mosaics in his architecture. Back home, I began to research the art of mosaics, took many mosaic classes from both international and statewide mosaic instructors, and became a mosaic artist in the year of 2000.

With the encouragement of my neighbor, I started joining the Kings Mountain Art Fair in 2001. Since now I am retired, I have participated in other shows in the Bay area, such as Saratoga Rotary, Los Altos Art & Wine Festival, and Palo Alto Festival of Arts. I also applied for the Call for Artists and was accepted to Filoli, Ruth Bancroft Gardens, Turtle Bay Exploration Park, and I am an active member of The Main Gallery in Redwood City. I am also a member of SAMA (Society of American Mosaic Artists). My artwork has been featured in eleven books (including two mosaic books) and two magazines, and two of my wall hangings, “Nature” and "Thirst", were accepted into the juried Mosaic Arts Inter-national Exhibition 2009 at San Diego’s Museum of Man and 2014 at The Williams Tower Gallery in Houston. My art collectors are mostly from the Bay Area, some are from South California, Texas, Ten-nessee, Utah, Australia, and Vietnam.

My husband, Hiep, and I have lived on Kings Moun-tains for 19 years. Before moving to Kings Mountain, I had no background in art. It looks like the beautiful nature of Kings Mountain made my artistic mind suddenly “pop-up” after living here for six months! From the first mosaic class I took at City College of San Mateo, I discov-ered that I have skills in mosaic and have been addicted to it ever since.

I really encourage any artists who live on the Kings Mountains to participate in the fair. In 2001, my first year in Kings Mountain Art Fair, I was very surprised that Neil Young bought my table set “Four Seasons”. That was a big motivation for me to continue participating in the show every year. Kings Mountain Art Fair is so popular that one year there was a couple from Texas who came to San Francisco for vacation and heard about the Art Fair. They came to visit, and bought my

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mosaic alligator and had that statue shipped to their home. There are people out there who would appreciate your art. Joining the Kings Mountain Art Fair is a good opportunity to have your art exposed to others, not only in the Bay area, but also from other places.

This piece, “Cinque Terre”, is the latest landscaping piece that I just recently completed. My mosaic art varies from both 2D to 3D. Most of my themes are story-telling, some landscape, and some abstract. For 3D, I have done mosaic benches, tables, water fountains, animals and also self-built mosaic sculptures.

Since I was a refugee and accepted to live in this country, I cannot express more that I owe a huge thank you to the United States - the country that gives me the freedom of life. Therefore, I wanted to do something that I can return to the community by holding community projects for the Kings Mountain Fire House. In 2009, we did five mosaic benches and the Verizon pedestal with 38 volunteers. In 2011, with 40 volunteers, we did the Phleger Station signage and the “Hiking on Kings Mountain” mural. In late September of this year, we will do “The Cookshack” signage in mosaic. I hope that we will have a big crowd of volunteers again and I am looking forward to work with Kings Mountain residents to complete this 3rd mosaic project for our lovely community.

You can review the previous community projects by visiting: http://www.swanmosaic.com/Public_Artwork.html. There were many familiar faces of Kings Mountain residents in the video clip of “Kings Mountain Mosaic Project.” Jim Talboy, Honey and Beeswax Candles

I was born in San Francisco and grew up in Emerald Hills. I moved to Kings Mountain in the late 1970’s. I started keeping bees as a hobby and I like bees. I had my first hive 46 years ago. Now, I have over 80 hives. I have been a Mountain Artist for over 30 years. I also sell at local Farmer’s Markets and sometimes help out a friend or neighbor remove a hive, mostly from their homes.

When I first did the Art Fair, it was not as big, the Cookshack was wild and people were driving private cars to shuttle customers to the Fair. So much has changed!

The bee situation has also changed a lot over the years. World wide, there has been a mass die off of Honey Bee Colo-nies. It is now the new normal to have about half of the colonies die over winter. I have been restocking the dead ones each spring. This year has been a good year for production of very good tasting honey!

I look forward to the Art Fair every year. I enjoy seeing old friends, neighbors and customers. If you are considering do-ing the Art Fair, just give it a try.

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Patrick Ruehl, Wood Turning

My first experience with woodturning was in mid-dle school during a woodshop class. I came in early to school on many days to practice the craft and later started working out of my garage. I started selling at the Art Fair four years ago, right after graduating from high school.

Although I was born in Kansas, I have lived on the mountain for most of my life. I recently graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara as a me-chanical engineering major. I started working with wood in middle school, but I never really considered myself an artist until starting at the Art Fair.

My work is as much science as it is art. The great-est challenge is that my art is meant to be used. It is not enough for a pen to be visually appealing; it must be durable and comfortable to write with. Internal mechanisms must be rigorously inspected and tested; a defective mechanism can ruin an otherwise excep-tional pen.

As a new artist, the advice I would share, espe-cially with other new artists, is to think a lot about your booth layout. How is your

work best viewed? What type of lighting do you want? Do you want people to touch the artwork? How much time do you need to set up and pack up? Taking the time to think through the organization of your booth definitely helps make a smooth and enjoyable fair. I would also encourage thorough docu-mentation of your booth and your sales. This helps you figure out how to improve next year and also helps in applications to other art fairs further down the road.

Thanks to everyone who volunteered to work at the

2017 Kings Mountain Art Fair!

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Inside the Kings Mountain Volunteer Fire Brigade

by Steve Johnson

September 2017

The Lighter Side There is a lot about being a firefighter that is just plain hard work. First, you train and train, then you go out at odd hours, get sweaty and dirty, and then go home and do it all over again on the next call. But there are a lot of fun things involved too. Here are some of them.

Did you ever want to ride in a fire truck when you were a kid? My dad always had to drive by the fire station on the way home when I was a kid, so I could see the fire trucks and firemen (the doors were usually open.) After I joined the fire department, I always had a thrill when leaving on a call, and turning on the lights and siren. Oh Boy! You still had to check both directions and yell “Clear!” to make sure the roadway was clear.

When you join the department, you are part of a team, training and working together, and forming lifelong friendships. There is also a bit of joking around and occasionally “funning” one of your colleagues during training and maintenance. We don’t do this on actual emergencies. Here are a few examples:

• Someone handed me a mike during training, to do a test radio transmission. But it was the PA mike, not the radio. Everyone within 100’ could hear me.

• The air horn button is on the floor of the passenger side of E-56. It’s fun to put a new person in the center seat (tight squeeze) so they can stomp on the horn.

• We have sent to look for fake tools such as a left-handed spanner wrench. Spanners are universal. Other great tools that don’t exist are the water hammer and a smoke shifter.

• And then there’s the henway. What’s a henway? About 5 or 6 pounds. • Many times, we have a new volunteer be a patient for a drill. We tie them down to a

backboard, turn them upside down for a minute or two, and then take a coffee break. • I remember a story from long ago about a newly-promoted Battalion Chief at Cal Fire who

ended up with a dead fish on the exhaust manifold of his new vehicle. Too bad, it took him 2 weeks to find it. The truck smelled pretty bad by then.

And I wish I had a camera to take pictures of responders to a 5 AM call, and compare hair styles and sleepy faces, not to mention rumpled clothing. If you look good at 5 am, more power to you!

Safety Tip of the Month: Brush Clearing. Now is a good time to clear the brush from around your house and grounds, and make sure you have a 100’ clear area of “defensive space.” Fire season is in full swing and will probably continue into the fall. Please email me at sfjohns@pacbell.net if you have any questions or comments, or call 650-851-8447 for more information.

Editor’s Note: Little has changed Steve was a kid. The KMES parents confirm that the “ride to school on a KMVFB truck has been their most popular auction item for years. Joe Lopez won the coveted ride as part of the Sweetheart Social fundraiser this year. (Picture from June Echo)

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MINUTES OF THE KMVFB MEETING on August 8, 2017

ATTENDANCE: Anna Roesch-Tubbs, Darrin Jewell, Jon Fredrikson, Joe Rockmore, Julia Simmons, Jim Sullivan, Matt King, Frank Adams, Bill Goebner and Tim German.

Board president Jon Fredrikson called the KMVFB Meeting to order at 7:31 pm. SECRETARY’S REPORT: The Board approved the minutes for the Board meeting on July 11, 2017. TREASURER’S REPORT: Anna Rosche-Tubbs said that all outstanding bills have been paid. BUILDING MANAGER’S REPORT: Kathy Shubin reported the following uses of the Community Center in July 2017:

Exercise/Dance Classes 18Monthly Community Board Meetings 3KMVFB Training & Maintenance 6Community Events/Parties 2Private Events/Parties 1

TOTAL USES FOR THE MONTH 30 FIRE CHIEF’S REPORT: July 2017

Medical aid 11 Vehicle accident 4 Public assist 1 Firefighter standby 0 Vehicle fire 0 Smoke check 2 Structure fire 0 Vegetation fire 0 Hazardous materials 0 Rescue 0 Cover assignment 0 Alarm sounding 2 Water tender group response 6 Trash fire 0 Total responses for March 26 Average # of Responders 4

Number of incidents with no Volunteer response:

0

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OLD BUSINESS:

RESCUE TRUCK REPLACEMENT: Jim Sullivan said that the team is continuing its research on the truck replacement. ART FAIR FIRE DEPT. RECRUITMENT DRIVE: The Fire Department is recruiting new volunteers. The team plans to step up recruiting efforts at the Art Fair. The large recruiting banner will be put up for the Fair. Jon Fredrikson asked all board members to help in the recruiting efforts and he distributed KMVFB recruiting cards to be given to interested candidates. Jim Sullivan said a new volunteer training school is being planned, possibly for early in 2018. KMEP (KMCERT) REVITALIZATION: There have been no new developments. COMMUNITY COMMEMORATIVE WALKWAY: Jon Fredrikson described plans and efforts being made for the proposed “Walk of Honor” adjacent to the Community Center. Carrie German requested two bids for brick paving of entire rear driveway, but they turned out to be very high. Sample bricks have been requested from several suppliers. Alternative walkway ideas are being reviewed. NEW BUSINESS:

MAIN PARKING LOT & PICNIC AREA SEALING: The sealing of the parking and picnic areas has been postponed until after the Art Fair. Jim Sullivan said that the concrete in the apparatus bay also needs to be sealed.

BAY AREA RIDGE TRAIL: Anna Roesch-Tubbs voiced concern about the fire danger of the heavy brush in the proposed Bay Area Ridge Trail in the SFPUC Peninsula Watershed. Careless hikers could start a brush fire, which could endanger nearby houses.

Meeting adjourned at 8:11 pm. NEXT MEETING: Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2017 at 7:30 pm Respectfully submitted, itÄxÜ|x gÜxÇàxÜ / Secretary (by Jon F.)

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Kings Mountain Community Assists in the Search for Amelia Earhart’s Remains

The Echo has printed pictures and stories about how our Fire Station/Community Center was built on donated land, designed, pro bono, by resident architect, John Cole, and built with Art Fair revenues by Kings Mountain volunteers working every weekend for years. It’s really an extraordinary story that we don’t think much about as we use the building for a myriad of events. How-ever, once in a while, something happens to remind us of how extraordinarily fortunate we are to have a property and building that serves so many purposes so

well. That happened to me recently as I watched mem-bers of the Institute of Canine Forensics train their in-credible dogs in the area that would soon become “biffy hollow” during Art Fair. The Institute’s work is immensely varied and interesting but represents quite an unex-pected use of our Community Center, especially on a wet, cold, foggy day. ICF dogs are a non-invasive search tool to locate hu-man remains. The teams are certified specifically in his-

toric human re-mains detection (HHRD). Their owner-handlers are all volunteers who take these uniquely trained dogs all over the world. Adela Morris, the President of the non-profit group explained that the day’s activity on Kings Mountain was certification training. Ms. Mor-ris lives on Skyline but Mid-Peninsula, GGNRA and most parks do not allow dogs off leash. Thus, she wanted Echo readers to know how grateful they were to train on our

perfectly suited forested private property. HHRD dogs don’t look for drugs or live people. They are trained to alert finders by sitting at the source of scent of human remains. They have been called in by many government agencies (Federal, State, Lo-cal), as well as by archeologists, anthro-pologists, cultural resource managers and more. In California, ICF does lots of Native American work, locating burial grounds 500 to 8000 years old. Members have done many Donner party searches and recently deployed for 4 days recovering victims at the OSO landslide in Washington State. In-terested readers can learn about their many projects and findings at the Institute’s web site: www.HHRDD.org.

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So, what does this have .to do with Amelia Earhart? The 80th anniversary of her dis-appearance has prompted renewed interest and investigation on the Island of Nikuma-roro in the Central Pacific Nation of Kiribati. Scientists have good reason to think that Earhart and her co-pilot, Noonan, crashed there and were alive for some time before they perished. There are lots of plot twists including bones recovered in 1938 but somehow lost, and problems caused by the island’s occupation by Japan during WWII. National Geographic has published several features detailing the search complications and how the use of forensic dogs may finally help resolve the mystery. Check out the fascinating story at http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/06/amelia-earhart-search-island-dogs. Naturally, the four dogs and their handlers flown to Nikumaroro were among those I saw training at the Kings Mountain Community Center. Stay tuned as the mystery unfolds. By Eileen Fredrikson

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KMA News There was no KMA Board meeting in August; however, there was an August 15th public

meeting at the CC regarding a SF Planning Commission/SFPUC proposal that has potential ef-fects on our community. The project would create an extension of the Bay Area Ridge Trail on SFPUC Peninsula Watershed property East of Skyline that would close the gap between High-way 92 and the Phleger Estate. Private property owners adjacent to the proposed trail route have the most obvious potential impacts, but community understanding and input could result in better design and operational outcomes for everyone.

To that end, KMA Board Member Betsy Rix moderated the well-attended meeting featur-ing Tim Rameriz of the SFPUC. The Bay Area Ridge Trail is a 500 mile trail that encircles the entire Bay Area and is about 70% constructed and in use. The new portion would include add-ing a parking lot and bathrooms on the cemetery side of 92 as well as off Skyline at the High-way 35 & 92 junction. Mr. Rameriz was very candid about the many design and operational de-tails still to be determined. Trail access and monitoring were the primary concerns of neighbors in attendance. Unlike Midpeninsula Open Space properties, the SFPUC has no ranger staff. Current trails across watershed property are led by volunteer docents on very limited sched-ules. The proposed extension planners are still considering a range of options, including an-nual permits and unrestricted access. Mr. Ramirez encouraged all interested members of our community to contact him regarding these options or with other questions that arise in the com-ing months. He took email addresses from everyone interested in receiving progress informa-tion.

The project description handout and map from the meeting are shown below and on the next page.

SFPUC Bay Area Ridge Trail Extension

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ZONE 1

100 FEET

30 FEET

10 FEET

ZONE 22

45

6

3

1

7

6 FEET MIN CLEARANCE

30 FEET REDUCED FUEL ZONE 70 FEET

VERTICAL SPACING

Large trees do not have to be cut and removed as long as all of the plants beneath them are removed. This eliminates a vertical “fire ladder.”

HORIZONTAL SPACINGCreate horizontal and vertical spacing between plants, the amount of spacing will depend on how steep the slope is and the size of the plants.

*For more information on creating defensible space and legal requirements visit

READYFORWILDFIRE.ORG

Defensible Space is your property’s front line defense against wildfire. Creating and maintaining defensible space around your home can dramatically increase your home’s chance of surviving a wildfire and improves the safety of firefighters defending your property. 100 feet of defensible space is required by law.*

TWO ZONES MAKE UP THE REQUIRED 100 FEET OF DEFENSIBLE SPACE:

ZONE 1: 30 feet of Lean, Clean & Green

1 Remove all dead plants, grass and weeds.

2 Remove dead or dry leaves and pine needles from your yard, roof and rain gutters.

3 Keep tree branches 10 feet away from your chimney and other trees.

ZONE 2: 30–100 feet of Reduced Fuel

4 Cut or mow annual grass down to a maximum height of 4 inches.

5 Create horizontal spacing between shrubs and trees.

6 Create vertical spacing between grass, shrubs and trees.

Use Equipment Properly to Keep from Sparking a Wildfire

7 Mow before 10 a.m., and never on a hot or windy day. String trimmers are a safer option (vs. lawnmowers) for clearing vegetation.

WILDFIRE IS COMING.

ARE YOU READY?

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Kings Mountain Garden Club September 2017 News

About a half dozen Garden Club members deployed on the Saturday before Art Fair to spruce up the Fire Station/Community Center entrance garden. They made quick work of the clean-up; thanks also to Cindy Pitt who was there during the week to clean up all the ferns. Betty Johnson headed the club’s annual potted plant purchase and sale (at cost) to neighbors at the close of the fair. The club makes strategic placements around the fair each year to add a bit of color and diversity to our naturally beautiful forested setting. Soaring temperatures, espe-cially the first two days, made watering a rather onerous task this year. We thank Garden Club for hanging in there and making the job look easy. The club held it’s final garden tour of the season just days before Art Fair. Coincidentally, Art Fair Executive Director Bev Abbott and husband JR hosted the event. Their property is mostly sunny and steeply sloped with alkaline soils so it's very different from much of the mountain, and requires a different gardening approach. The Garden Club toured here 5 or 6 years ago when it was in the throes of sudden oak death. Firs and Madrone are replacing the tan oaks now, making for an even nicer landscape. Club members were dazzled by the mix of foliage and flowering plants. Charming private spaces dot the various elevations with most having spectacular ocean views.

Eclipse Viewing The fanfare preceding the August 21st eclipse left many Mountain folk disappointed when overcast and fog obscured the phenomenon from many home sites. A break in the cloud cover just south of Kings Mountain Road brought a small crowd to observe the Eclipse in real time. Our intrepid Echo photographer, Bill Goebner, caught these pictures of the viewing action.

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KMES Art Fair Community Cookie Bake The energy level was high at Wedemeyer Bakery on August 26th as KMES parents, alumni, friends and family gathered to create 4,000+ colossal cookies to sell at the Art Fair. Months of planning, ingredient purchases, delivery and volunteer scheduling came together once again for this signature fundraiser. Beginning about 6 am with a dedicated set up and dough mixing team, volunteers arrived at 8 am to pick their stations and get right to work. Here is the process in pictures:

1. Intrepid chef team measures and mixes ingredients for each type of cookie in a giant mixer. 2. “Roller” team weighs dough forming balls exactly 7.2 oz. each and deposits them on baking trays. 3. “Smasher” team pushes down and shapes the dough into giant cookies of uniform size. 4. Stackers move trays into racks of 144 cookies per rolling rack. Racks are put into large ovens every 6 minutes. 5. The “Baker” team runs two ovens specially calibrated to bake KMES cookies, checking each rack batch for quality control. 6. “Movers” push racks of finished cookies to the cooling, wrap, label, and pack station. Action continues at all stations until 4,000+ cookies are boxed, transported to the Art Fair walk-in freezer, and stored.

The cookie bake day is all about fun as well as productivity. Comradery abounds as finished cookies make their way to the KMES Cookie Booth and into little red wagons during the Art Fair. Your editor cannot imagine a more collegial or enjoyable way to provide classroom enrichment program funding. Plan to join in on the cookie bake next year!

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2 3

5 6

Taking a break!

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September 2017 News First Day of School: The 2017-2018 school year began Monday, August 21st. KMES wel-comed a full complement of new and returning students. The day was a bit foggy for kids to observe the rare eclipse expected later that morning, but excitement ran high as lines of students ran, on cue, class by class, to their waiting teacher standing by each classroom door. Newly minted 5th graders formed a “welcome” arch through which their 4th grade classmates ran with a whoop to begin the school year! Veteran Kings Mountain School parents stayed to welcome new parents to the KMES Community at the traditional “Tea & Tissues” meeting in the Lion’s Den. A spread of delicious treats and a “welcome circle” of chairs greeted everyone. Principal Diane Siegel explained that sitting in a circle is part of the KMES ethos, making it easy to acknowledge each other and look each person in the eye as they share their thoughts. Introductions all around followed with returning parents offering helpful information and suggestions on topics ranging from their favorite classroom volunteer activities to car pool driving and variable clothing needed for recess play in mountain weather.

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The remaining week of classes flew by. As part of groundwork for the school year, teachers asked children to name their hopes and dreams. With teacher guidance, stu-dents were asked to think about what they enjoyed most in school, what they felt most successful about and why. Next, the teachers asked about areas students found most challenging and why. The resulting Hope and Dream Choices will become the basis of action plans to support each student’s goals for the year. In the weeks ahead, students and their teachers will use these hopes and dreams to create rules for their classes to live by. The classroom rules thus support the learning that helps each child achieve their goals.

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Parents packed the Lion’s Den to hear Principal Diane Siegel’s plans for the 2017-2018 school year. Ms. Siegel began by saying, “Sharing the year ahead, whether school wide, in our classrooms or our parent organizations, we begin the important partnership of supporting our students’ social, emotional and academic growth and success for the 2017-18 school year.” She went on to note that KMES has fully implemented the California Common Core State Standards. She will con-tinue to do “push intervention” team teaching in every classroom. She reported that, “This year, all classrooms have chosen a tree to study and explore what it means to fully engage in learning, persevere in learning, and reflect on our learn-ing. We are using the poem, Advice from a Tree by Ilan Shamir, to guide our year.”

As students begin to learn what it means to “sink your roots into the earth”, they will notice class learning will use multiple levels of thinking in all subjects; from recall- What is the knowledge?, to application- How can the knowledge be used?, as well as strategic-thinking, Why can the knowledge be used?, and finally extension- How else can the knowledge be used? Tree choices by class are Redwoods for K/1, Oaks for 2/3 and Madrones for 4/5.

Editor’s note: Parents can expect to see student work that reflects the deep roots and sensibilities of their chosen tree. Google “Advice from a Tree” to find the entire poem. You won’t be sorry. It provides food for thought for grownups too.

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September 2017

by

Marty Eisenberg

Sierra Gems Update: Just returned from 5 days at Gray Eagle Lodge; warm,

peaceful days; beautiful hiking. Shaded snow banks at 7,500 feet remain. The Lodge still has 2 and 3 consecutive night stays available in September!

A Different View: Participating in a local “food tour” can be a great way to see part of a city or community. It is a way to become informed about a neighborhood, its history, culture and some dining treasures. Tours are typically 3 to 4 hours, include visits, tastes and conversations with the proprietors of a half dozen eateries and cost $65 to $85 per person. Foodie Adventures in San Francisco has a great tour in San Francisco’s old Mission District and also a combination tour of Chinatown and North Beach. West Marin Food & Farm Tours offers pretty much day-long chauffeured trips through West Marin County with visits to a fascinating old-style bread bakery, a cheese maker, lunch at a grass-fed, sustainable, pasture-raised restaurant/meat shop (think goat ribs and water-buffalo gelato) and tour of an oyster farming operation – oysters included! (It’s more costly than typical food tours but really a treat.) Food tours of Oakland’s Chinatown/Jack London Square and Berkeley exist too.

College Avenue, Rockridge: I spent a recent Sunday afternoon wandering along College Avenue in Oakland’s Rockridge District. (Readily available by Bart!) What a wonderful experience. College Avenue for perhaps 6 or 8 blocks north and south of the dividing line between Berkeley and Oakland is a dozen blocks of culinary delights, interesting boutiques, old-fashion taverns and altogether general enjoyment. There are bakeries, farm-fresh meat and vegetable markets, fish-mongers, bookshops, florists, taquerias, pizzarias and eateries of all kinds. Market Hall is an incredible deli-bakery-butcher shop-grocery-cheese shop. Ask to sample any of its many, many cheeses and you will be accommodated. Stop by A-16, a southern Italian restaurant (named for a highway near Naples), order a perfect Margherita pizza (baked just 90 seconds in the wood-fired 800° pizza oven), beautifully paired with a glass of youthful, slightly effervescent Italian Gragnano wine. One afternoon along this stretch of College Avenue just won’t be enough!

Statistical imperatives: Art Fair time again! So… how many pounds of sautéed onions and peppers will The Cookshack prepare for its new Italian Chicken Sausage with grilled onions and peppers? Answer: A mere 125 pounds! And how many gallons of vegan Cookshack Chili do you suppose will be made this year? Answer: Just about 150 gallons which includes 10 gallons of sautéed bell peppers, onions and garlic. How many burgers of every sort will be served at the Fair this year? Answer: About 3,000! _______________________________________

[from The Boys in the Boat, by Daniel J. Brown; the story of nine Americans and their quest for gold rowing a 9-man shell at the 1936 Berlin Olympics] “It’s hard to make that boat go as fast as you want to. The enemy, of course, is resistance of the water, as you have to displace the amount of water equal to the weight of men and equipment, but that very water is what supports you so that very enemy is your friend. So is life: the very problems you must overcome also supports you and make you stronger in over-coming them.” -- George Yeoman Pocock; 1891 – 1976; leading designer/builder of 20th century racing shells.

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September 2017 Kings Mountain Community Calendar

The Kings Mountain Echo is published monthly by the Kings Mountain Volunteer Fire Brigade, Inc, a non-profit, volunteer organization. The Editor is Eileen Fredrikson. All opinions are those of the commentator/writer and not those of the publisher. Echo submissions should be emailed to eileenfredrikson@comcast.net Please reference “the Echo” in the subject line. The Echo deadline is the 26th of each month. The editor retains discretion to edit all submissions for space and content.

5:00 pm—6:00 pm Pilates-All Levels

Kings Mountain Art Fair

Kings Mountain Art Fair

Kings Mountain Art Fair

Community Center grounds Closed for pavement sealing

CC grounds Closed for pavement sealing

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REDWOOD CITY, CA

Kings Mountain Volunteer Fire Brigade13889 Skyline BlvdWoodside, CA 94062