Mystery of the phantom delivery orders

Carson City resident Roger Laird says he has been the subject of several fake orders to local contractors.

Cinderlite called his house on May 9 and told his wife they were running a little early and would be over with 3 yards of bark. Roger, a Carson City native, called Cinderlite and told them he didn't order 3 yards of bark. Shortly after that Capital City Concrete shows up with 5 yards of concrete, which Roger says he didn't order.

After a quiet weekend, Roger said his wife gets a call from Dayton Floral, saying they would be over to do a full backyard landscaping, which neither he nor his wife ordered.

Roger said he wasn't sure he wanted to do anything about this until Wednesday, when Quality Curb called to ask when they could come out and do the curbing in the back yard.

"This keeps happening," he said. "I can't call every contractor in town. We've printed notices that say no deliveries and no services on this property."

Carson Toyota, Capital Ford and Carson City Mazda workers gathered together to raise $4,865 for the March of Dimes.

Co-captains Lisa Baker and Vicki Hitchcock organized the group for the second annual Walk America fund-raiser for the car dealer.

Not content to just walk, Lisa said, the group also held a pie throw and a raffle to pump up the donations.

Lisa said Vicki did a lot of the footwork for the raffle.

"Lots of companies donated prizes to the raffle," she said.

Lisa's motivation for participating in the March of Dimes WalkAmerica is her 5-year old daughter Chelsea, who was born premature.

"The money goes to help find cures for prematurity," Lisa said. "A lot of money goes toward research, helping young babies."

Chelsea is a happy, healthy Dayton Elementary School kindergartner.

"She is one of the lucky ones," said Lisa, who has lived in Western Nevada since 1998.

Western Nevada Community College student Jenna Reith won the Friends of the Carson City Library Logo contest.

Jenna is a student in the college's graphic design program. She was selected from among 15 applicants. She won $100.

I last saw her Wednesday for the final in my desktop publishing class.

With all the concerns about the math proficiency test, it was good to hear one Carson City student is doing something to help his classmates.

Matt Henry was a math tutor at Western Nevada Community College in fall, but decided to take his show to the high school beginning in February.

His senior project was to hire four other students to be tutors.

"Sometimes we see two or three students a day," he said.

After graduation, Matt says, he will attend the University of Nevada, Reno and plans to go on to graduate school after that.

"I might like to teach mathematics at a college or university," he said. "But I don't think I want to teach high school."

Matt, 18, is the son of June and James Henry.

I heard former Record-Courier writer Sadie Jo Smokey is in town this weekend to watch her brother Rollin graduate with a teaching degree from UNR. Sadie Jo writes for the Arizona Republic in Phoenix.

Gardnerville's Smokey family is producing another graduate, Jenny, who is attending the University of Santa Clara. Jenny graduated from Douglas High School in 1999 and plans to attend medical school, I'm told.

Books by two longtime Carson City residents have come to my attention.

One is by retired UNR history professor Jim Roberts. I haven't managed to open it but once since he brought it by two weeks ago, but at 346 pages I'm sure it will keep me busy through the summer. The book is called "The Bois Blanc Island Affair," and it is about an island in Lake Huron that becomes isolated from the rest of the world.

Jim says this is a different kind of a novel, and that is why I can't wait to start reading it.

"I tried lots of publishers, but I was told that they can't make money, because there is no violence and no salacious sex in it."

Another kind of publication is an e-novel by Carson City veterinarian Gary Ailes called "Happy Tails -- Hilariously Helpful Hints for Dog Owners." Gary brings 31 years of experience to the project, published on-line by fellow Rotarian Genevieve Frederick.

A snippet of the book may be viewed free at www.pawpublishing.com.

Genevieve said she, Gary and Rafael Cappucci combined their resources to establish PawPublishing.com. She said they are working on a second book about cats, but she doesn't think they will stray from animal topics.

Kurt Hildebrand is acting city editor at the Nevada Appeal. Reach him at 881-1215 or e-mail hildebrand@nevadaappeal.com