Celebrating 90 years of living and a Sparky victory

Lucille Petty celebrated her 90th birthday Sept. 1 with family members at the Carson Nugget Steakhouse.

Attending the party for Lucille were her husband, Dr. Richard Petty, daughter and son-in-law Bev and Don "Gooch" Davenport, granddaughter-in-law Nicole Davenport, brother Hal Emmert of Portland, Ore., and Lucille's great-granddaughter Shalece Davenport.

Lucille and Richard are longtime Carson City residents, having arrived in the 1950s.

Richard, a medical doctor, was one of the founders of Carson-Tahoe Hospital.

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Douglas County resident Al Lewis was one of an estimated 5,000 submariners who attended their annual convention last week in Reno.

Al, 61, served aboard U.S. submarines from 1960 to 1967, making the transition from diesel to nuclear power. He started out on the famed USS Rasher, the World War II sub that racked up the second-highest tonnage of shipping sunk during the war.

He then went to Naval Nuclear Power School for a year before reporting aboard the USS Sargo. He was what we sailors call a plankholder on board the USS Henry L. Stimson, meaning he was there when they commissioned the Polaris missile submarine.

"It was commissioned on my birthday," he said.

When I asked Al his rate, or what his job was in the Navy, he said IC man. The IC stands for Intercommunications and was closely associated with my own rate in the Navy, electrician's mate.

Al says he was proud to be in the submarine service and was up for chief when he decided to leave the service.

The convention, which is part of the U.S. Submarine Veterans Inc., was a successful one for Al. He said he talked to a guy who was onboard the Swordfish on the day the Japanese attacked the Philippines and he met his leading petty officer from the Sargo.

Presently Al is self-employed doing computer network consulting and remaining active among submariners.

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Nevada Appeal sports writer Jeremy Evans has left the building.

Jeremy, who has worked for the Appeal for more than three years, left Carson last week to take his new job at The Columbian in Vancouver, Wash.

He will be the low man in a nine-member sports team at the larger newspaper. In addition to the Appeal, Jeremy is the author of an article in this month's Nevada Magazine about last summer's 10-in-10 Challenge.

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Lisa M. Helget and Dean Ramsey sent me an e-mail regarding my item about Wally the Wiener Dog's third place showing at the Nevada State Fair.

Unlike Wally, their wiener, Sparky, won his heat race to qualify for the finals.

"Sparky beat out seven other young, frisky wieners in his heat despite Sparky being 10 years old, carrying a little more than he should on his low rider frame and having a bad left leg," they said. "He also had to run around a cameraman that got into his path! He lost in the finals but is a true champion in our home!"

Go Sparky.

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Virgil Bucchianeri told me that Jack's Bar has been leaning for more than 50 years.

"When my dad was in there, he left in 1951, it was leaning over an inch or two then," the western Nevada native said. "It would take quite a bit to shore up the foundation. The walls probably are crumbling."

Back in the days when Appeal staffers would visit after a hard night's work, I guess I never noticed a starboard list. We would drink $1 drafts and sometimes play a little video poker while we discussed the evening's events. I occasionally tended to list a tad to starboard myself during those evenings, so it looked like it was straight.

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