Page 7 - Mid Valley Times 2-20-20 E-edition

The View From Here
The weather has been ex- ceptionally pleasant the last few days. The first day of Spring is still weeks away but the
weather has made us believe that Spring is already here.
A few events that also accompany this time of the year, aside from President’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day and Easter, is another "not so pleasant" event.
That not so pleasant event is taking place on March 8 and it’s the beginning of Day- light Savings Time.
In recent years, a few pe- titions have been put in place to do away with Daylight Savings Time once and for all. I am not opposed to that.
Not sure how anyone else handles Daylight Savings Time, but for me it’s not ex- actly a smooth transition.
The first day after Day- light Savings Time begins with me waking up late. No exceptions. So, in essence, the day already starts off bad.
If I manage to wake up on time, I’m really tired throughout the remainder of the day, not to mention grog- gy and irritable.
According to themuse. com, a study by an assistant professor of management and organization at the Uni- versity of Washington re- cently found that most peo- ple tend to lose 40 minutes of sleep after Daylight Savings Time. Additionally, those 40 minutes also lead people to slack off on 20 percent of an assigned task on the follow- ing Monday.
In other words, we are all so tired that we don’t accom- plish anything on the Mon- day after Daylight Savings Time starts.
From my understand- ing, the purpose of Daylight Savings Time was to help the farming community and to make “better use of day- light.”
To move that daylight from the morning to the eve- ning. As many times as I’ve had this concept explained to me, I’ve never been able to fully wrap my mind around its intended benefit.
So as wonderful as this time of the year is, com- plete with the Blossom Trail, warmer weather, March Madness, and all the other exciting things happening, Daylight Savings Time is not one of those for me.
So maybe it's time we look into doing away with Day- light Savings Time again to increase our productivity and more importantly, catch up on sleep.
By Juanita Adame
Mid Valley Times
There are some milestones that have stood out for Reed- ley native Marco Solis, an en- gineer with the Reedley Fire Department.
One of those milestones happened when he was just 10-years-old and involved a large fire in his neighborhood.
That fire jump started his interest in the fire service.
“There was a propane tank that exploded in one of the houses on our street,” Solis re- called on the afternoon of Feb. 13. “I remember it was in the back yard of that home, there were flames about 50 feet in the air. At ten years old I was looking up at the fire with shock and surprise.”
Solis said he witnessed fire-
fighters arrive on his street and begin the process of ex- tinguishing it.
“I remember the fire truck in front of the house and they were in the backyard work- ing on containing the fire, I was at a small park across the street,” he said. “I remem- ber I just watched them work and thought wow that’s pretty cool.”
Years after that fire and then a senior at Reedley High School, Solis said he was still highly interested in the fire service.
He enrolled in the fire ex- plorer program at the Reedley Fire Department and quickly realized it was going to be more difficult than he thought.
See SOLISonpageA8
Juanita Adame
Helping to inspire Reedley's young firefighters
Sanger Police welcomes newest officer
Juanita Adame / Mid Valley Times
Marco Solis, an engineer with the Reedley Fire Department was born andraisedinReedley. Herunsthefireexplorerprogramalongwith help from other former explorers who are also now firefighters with the department.
Dinuba High School's talent is on display during show
Contributed
Noah Garza was the first place winner of Dinuba High School's tal- ent show, held Feb. 7. Garza took home $150 for his performance.
Contributed
Friends, family and support staff turned out to watch the Dinuba High School's annual talent show on Feb. 7. It was held at the school’s auditorium.
This year’s first place winner was Noah Garza, who performed a hip hop dance Garza won $150. Sec- ond place was awarded to Citalli Garcia. Garcia won $100. And third place was awarded to Arturo Ramos, Israel Mosqueda and Jose Rodrigues, who received $50. The crowd favorite was Wyatt Tomlinson.
Photo Courtesy The Sanger Police Department
The Sanger Police Department welcomed its newest officer, Eder Andrade on Feb.18. Eder served as a volunteer and also filled in for the city's Animal Control Officer before becoming a police officer.
Contributed
Citalli Garcia performed during the annual Dinuba High School talent show.
Reedley Drama club hosts Oscar-winning screenwriter
Contributed
The Reedley Drama Club held its February meeting on Feb. 11 at the home of Joyce Huebert. Author and Oscar-winning screenwriter Pamela Wallace (pictured in middle) was the guest speaker.
scholarships, allowing her to attend UCLA. She has been a writer almost all of her adult life. After college she began writing for magazines, pub- lished her first novel and eventually started writing screenplays. She has a num- ber of screenplay credits to her name and currently has two screenplays on the mar- ket.
At the February meeting Wallace shared her inspira- tion for writing "Witness" as well as background informa- tion on her current screen- play about legendary Native American athlete Jim Thorpe. She also outlined the differ- ences between writing novels and writing screenplays.
Contributed
The Reedley Drama Club met on Feb. 11 at the home of Joyce Huebert. She was assisted as hostess by fellow members Penni Johnson and Mary Thonesen.
The speaker for the Febru- ary meeting was author and Oscar-winning screenwriter Pamela Wallace. The Central Valley native has written 25 novels, published under her name as well as pseudonyms, and several screenplays. She
received the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1986 for her work on "Wit- ness."
Wallace grew up in Exeter and Visalia. She credits sup- portive high school teachers for helping her earn college