Sanger Herald 4-12-18 E-edition

9066 and its meaning to Sanger
Looking for a home
Sanger cheer team makes history
page 8A
Lifestyles 3B
Sports 1B
Weekly Newspaper
Mother of the Year Nancy Kacerek
Sanger (Fresno County) CA 93657
Hall of Fame Rene Gonzalez
50¢ (tax included)
Off to the world championships
Community service all stars will be honored on April 20 by the chamber
City council gets a do-over
Nominated by the family of Nancy Kacerek
Nancy Kacerek is a first-generation American who was born and raised in Sanger. Her parents immigrated to the United States in the early 1900s and were married and settled in Sanger. They founded Pistac- chio Pump Company, which is still an active family busi- ness in Sanger today.
Nancy graduated from Sanger High School and went on to Fresno State to earn her teaching credential. She taught home economics for many years.
She married Jim Kacerek (also of Sanger) and had three children; Joe, Kathy and James. Nancy took a leave from teaching to raise her kids and help with the family farming business.
Having to be self-suffi- cient on the farm, she put her innate homemaking abilities to good use. Nancy cooked, sewed and gardened, as well as kept the books for the ranch.
To this day she is an amaz- ing cook and has made
it a point to pass down the traditional family recipes to her kids and grand-kids.
Each year just before Christmas she gathers everyone over to her house to make ravioli in anticipa- tion of the Christmas Eve family dinner. No one
ever goes hungry at Nancy's table!
She is an excellent gar- dener, and to this day has planters full of flowers and vegetables, which she shares with all her neighbors.
As kids we can remember going down into the
cellar and seeing row upon row of freshly canned fruits and vegetables, all grown in her own garden.
We remember sitting around the table in the evenings stemming raisins, shelling peas and cracking
walnuts.
Once her children were
old enough, Nancy went back to work at Sanger High School working in the attendance office. After sev- eral years, she moved to the district office and worked as the payroll administrator until her retirement.
Her oldest son, Joe, is the founder and owner of Sanger Iron Works. He is married and has two children and
one granddaughter. Kathy is married and living in the Los Angeles area. She has two children and works as the office administrator of
her husband's law firm, and does part-time work for her church. James is married and has one step-daughter. He is an electrical foreman for PG&E and also lives on the ranch.
Throughout her life Nancy has been active in St. Mary's parish in both the Altar Soci- ety and the Italian Catholic Federation. We kids remem- ber many a Saturday morn- ing going to the church to help vacuum, dust and make flower arrangements for the altar. She is still involved in decorating and caring for both of St. Mary's churches and donates her time once a week to help count the collec- tion money.
Not one to stay idle after her retirement, Nancy played a significant role in
helping to start HOPE Sanger in 2010. In this vol- unteer capacity Nancy has been instrumental in working with many religious and social service organizations in Sanger to help develop HOPE Sanger into a non- denominational ministry, touching the lives of hun- dreds of people through meal preparation, distributing clothing, providing back packs and school supplies for underprivileged children, as well as assisting with obtain- ing employment and housing
Nominated by Ron Karle
Rene Gonzalez, who has five sisters, is the only son of Francisco and Dolores Gonzales.
In 1948 the family moved from Texas to California to pursue a better life.
Rene graduated from Sanger High School in
1961. He married Delores Villalobos, the love of his life, whom he met in the 5th grade. They soon began
their beautiful large family: Rene and wife Margaret; Gil- bert deceased in 1991; Phillip and wife Norma; Frank, our Sanger Mayor; Joni Wolfe and husband Mark; Ron and wife Jamie; and the baby, Donald.
Rene was very involved in all the kids' sports including Pop Warner football, Sanger Apache football, basketball, baseball, track, wrestling and volleyball.
He is the proud grandpar- ent of 14. These apples of his eye have taken to him many places and he's been very busy with them.
Rene always taught his family to never miss work unless there is a family emergency or a funeral.
Never quit, be a good citizen and always remem- ber, a happy worker is a good worker.
The most important is God first, Rene has always emphasized.
He has raised a very pros- perous and successful family.
Rene knew as he worked in the fields with his father that this was not what he wanted to do. Once out
of high school he started at Sanger Ice and Cold Storage. He found a very rewarding job at Pittsburg Plate Glass in 1967 and retired after
36 years as a maintenance supervisor.
By Dick Sheppard
Sanger Herald
A "do-over," according to the Oxford English Diction- ary is "A chance of doing something for a second or further time, after an unsuc- cessful or unsatisfactory first attempt."
City attorney Hilda Cantu Montoy said the do-over at the April 5 city council meet- ing would fix a problem that occurred back in December of last year when the council on a 4-1 vote, with mayor pro tem Eli Ontiveros dissenting, approved a contract with a firmcalled NewEconomics and Advisory in the amount of $77,900.
A problem arose when it was discovered by an alert citizen, Henry Provost, that the contract that had been approved was not in the council agenda packet, nor on the city website at the time of the vote. It was not available to be reviewed by either the council or the pub- lic.
The council took the word of community develop- ment director Tom Navarro that it was a good deal and
• April 17 - Community
at Quail Lake Community Church, 3350 N. McCall Avenue.
• April 19 - City Council meets at 6 p.m. at city hall, 1700 7th Avenue.
• April 20 - Annual chamber of commerce awards banquet
• April 21 - Annual Jensen Avenue Cleanup from 8:30-11:30 a.m. Volunteers meet behind Walmart.
By Dick Sheppard
Sanger Herald
The young robotics pro- gram, it only got started in 2015, at Sanger High School is making a habit of winning the right to compete at the world level.
This year the young team won its way to the World Championships in Hous-
ton on April 18-21 with an impressive showing last weekend at the Seventh Cen- tral Valley Regional Robotics Competition in Fresno.
"We did very well. We got into the semi-finals against the No. 1 and No. 2 ranked teams and we made them fight for every point. We ended up getting awarded the Engineering Inspiration award which affords us an entry to world champion- ships in Houston Texas," said coach Ramon Cuevas.
The reporter can be contacted by email at sang- erherald@gmail.com or by phone at the Herald at (559) 875-2511.
Read more about the chamber banquet on page 6A
He has given back to his community by serving as a Sanger councilman for 12 years and Sanger mayor for two years. He was president of the League of California Cities. He co-chaired along with Dean Nicholson
the naming of the Dr. Marvin Call press box at Tom Flores Stadium. He sits on the board of the Sanger Cemetery Dis- trict and is very proud of the cemetery's beauty.
With his dream to cook, Rene attended San Francisco Culinary School on weekends earning his cap and apron.
His dream has allowed himtostarthis ownbusi- ness, Rene's Catering.
Rene works hard for his church, St. Mary's. He is a prociaimer of the word and is on the list monthly for different masses. He has worked on the St. Patrick's Day Fund Raiser since the early 70s, taking the job
of chairman serving 500 plus people a delicious barbecued chicken dinner.
He has served as chair- man and sits on the board
of Hannibal House. Rene helps by picking up two days a week for the pantry and
he belongs to the Knights of Columbus.
Whenever anyone asks, "who can help", Rene always volunteers.
Delores gets Rene in- volved in many things. She's very good at volunteering him to make lasagna or pilaf for the Sanger Woman's Club or breakfast for 200 for the Altar Society.
Whenever mama is happy everyone is happy, is Rene's motto.
approved it with apparently none of the councilmembers realizing the contract was missing.
After the city attorney made sure the contract was properly posted on the web- site and was available for review at the April 5 meeting she had the council ratify the approval of the agreement back in December.
Montoy said she didn't want to minimize the prob- lem, but the do-over would fix it.
Once again four members of the council, mayor Frank Gonzalez, Humberto Garza, Melissa Hurtado and Daniel Martinez voted to approve the agreement and this time Ontiveros abstained.
Coincidentally, that action was taken after a presenta- tion to the council by the firm of New Economics and Advisory.
The presentation outlined the opportunities and chal- lenges of attracting new businesses to the proposed "North Academy Annexation Project."
The essence of the presen-
See COUNCIL, page 8A
He was awarded the honor of Man of the Year for PPG for the entire United States.
Rene is very deserving of Sanger's Hall of Fame Award.
See MOTHER page 6A
SANGER HERALD: A MID VALLEY PUBLISHING NEWSPAPER • (559) 875-2511 • www.thesangerherald.com
THURSDAY
APRIL 12, 2018
VOL 129 NO. 15
2 sections, 14 pages
CLASSIFIED 3B LEGALS 4-5B BUSINESS DIRECTORY 6B LIFE STYLES 2B OBITUARIES 2A OPINION 3A SPORTS 1B POLICE LOG 2A
Task Force meets at 8:30 a.m.