Will Fessler be the new Athletic Director at CSUB? And noting the stream of paroled state prisoners walking our streets

* ... CAL STATE: There is a lot of speculation over who will replace the retiring Rudy Carvajal as athletic director at Cal State Bakersfield. This will be one of the bigger decisions made by President Horace Mitchell, who successfully pushed through the effort to bring CSUB sports up to the Division 1 level. Insiders tell me the only real inside candidate appears to be Roger Fessler, the former general manager of American General Media who joined CSUB as associate athletic director last year. Fessler's passion is college sports, and he has previous experience as athletic director at St. Francis University in Pennsylvania. But Mitchell could always choose to look outside the campus to bring in his own personal pick. A search committee has been formed, but anyone with any experience with university politics know this is the president's call at the end of the day. This is not an all inclusive list but among those on the search committee are assistant athletic director Gloria Friedman, Foundation athletic committee chair Greg Bynum, Roadrunner Club president Alan Wade, coaches Alan Collatz and Tim La Kose, associate vice president of enrollment Jackie Mimms, faculty athletic representative Jackie Kegley and John Holtzman, vice president of student affairs. (Rudy Carvajal with President Mitchell pictured below, followed by Roger Fessler)

 
 * ... HARVEY HONOR: Mayor Harvey Hall was honored with Cal State's John Brock award Thursday night at a dinner and reception at Seven Oaks Country Club. Organizers were thrilled the event sold out, particularly considering it was up against a number of other events: the opening of a new show at the Bakersfield Museum of Art, a private dinner and fundraiser for Meg Whitman at Barbara Grimm's estate, and the big NFL game between the New Orleans Saints and the Minnesota Vikings.

 * ... SPOTTED: A group of eight to 10 newly released state prisoners, all in matching white T-shirts, khaki slacks and black canvas prison slippers, walking west from the Greyhound Bus station into the heart of Westchester Wednesday morning. Ever get the feeling that these parolees are just being dumped into our community by the overburdened state prison system?

 * ... MAHAN OUT: Heard the bad news that Will Mahan, a Bakersfield High School and Bakersfield College alum, tore his ACL in practice and is out for the year at the University of Washington. Mahan is the starting punter on the Husky football team and will apparently take this year off and return next season.

* ... BAKERSFIELD INN: Reader Denise Irvin wrote to talk about her high school years when she would visit the old Bakersfield Inn and enjoy its pool. "There wasn't a swimming pool in every backyard then, but we 'younger ladies' soon discovered that we were welcome at the Bakersfield Inn for an impromptu swim party. We could order a lime Coke from the bar and spend the entire Saturday afternoon sunning and swimming at the Inn's pool, and if we got lucky there might even a bunch of cadets from Minter Field there to flirt with. Ah! Those were the days!"

 * ... LA CRESTA: Reader Gene Buchanan is another who recalls the old La Cresta Air Park off Panorama Drive. "It was my understanding that La Cresta was closed to private aircraft until Meadows was cleared by the Air Force. Until then we were flying off a dirt strip about 10 miles east between Breckenridge and Kern Canyon Road just east of Hillcrest Memorial park. It was August 1945 and I was a student pilot. When Meadows opened we moved there. Got word that La Cresta was going to have a small air show and Batman was going to jump from a plane. He went up in a J3 to about 6,000 feet and jumped. He had wings sewn to his sleeves and between his legs. You could hear the wings flapping, sounding like machine guns. He opened his parachute and his feet swung forward and then when they swung back he hit the ground. I was 16 at the time and was very impressed. And by the way, you know you're from Bakersfield if you remember the hamburgers served with a special sauce at Bloomfield's drive-in on Niles Street."

 * ... BAKERSFIELDISM:  You know you're from Bakersfield "if you consider 10 percent seasonal unemployment the norm."

Bako Bits: Confusing a Husky with a Cougar, a valentine to the historic Noriega Hotel and budget woes at CSUB

  Wrapping up some nuggets from around our community and trying to outrun some angry University of Washington alumni who are after my hide ...

 * ... MAKE MINE A PICON PUNCH: Always nice to see Bakersfield's rich culture recognized by the national media, and the September edition of the Altantic magazine turned its attention to the historic Noriega Hotel, one of our renowned Basque dining establishments and home of the famous Picon Punch. (read the entire story here) The writer Wayne Curtis gives the Noriega its due, even if he did focus primarily on the punch and not the terrific food. From the story:

  "But what lured me here was the Picon Punch. The early history of the drink remains murky, but it appears to be a Basque-American concoction, without antecedent in the old country. The punch has some variants within its broad range. But it’s usually made with grenadine, club soda, a float of brandy, and Amer Picon, a bitter French aperitif made with herbs and burnt orange peel. I’m told in some Nevada bars it’s served in a mug, rather than the standard old-fashioned glass."

  * ... WITH APOLOGIES TO THE HUSKIES: I erred in a recent item noting that former Bakersfield High Driller Will Mahan was punting for the University of Washington Huskies. I actually called the school the "Washington State Huskies," which given college rivalries these days is enough to get me tarred and feathered by the Husky faithful. It's like confusing UCLA and USC or the Georgia Bulldogs with the Florida Gators. KERO-TV anchor Jackie Parks, herself a University of Washington alum, told me she just about "choked on my coffee" when she read her beloved Huskies were mentioned in the same sentence as that "cow town" college across the state, the Washington State Cougars. So with apologies to Jackie and the Husky faithful ... mea culpa.

 * ... DIVISION ONE REPORT FROM CSUB: Karen Langston, one of the marketing folks over at Cal State Bakersfield, turned me onto the Athletic Department's  "Roadrunner Report" blog which is rich in information on the university. (you can read it here) In it, Athletic Director Rudy Carvajal gives an update on the school's move to Division I and how the recession and budget crisis is affecting the program. Tough times all around. In Rudy's words:

 

 "The bad news is that the budget crisis, particularly as it impacts CSUB’s Athletics Program, has been significant. Not only has it reduced staffing and state support, it has also increased our scholarship fees this year by 30%, which amounts to more than $250,000 in additional and unexpected expenses. Cumulatively, it also marks the third consecutive year of state budget reductions. Our ability to turn this around will depend upon our ability to encourage community volunteers to help us and to make significant progress in growing our donor base. Without considerable growth and support in both of these areas, it will have a profound effect on our future.

One can easily see that we need growth and not reductions in support to be able to sustain the 19 Division I sports we currently offer. While the average donation has grown over the last few years, the number of donors has fallen. We really need your help, and there are many ways that you can assist us. For example, if each of our current donors recruited just one new donor, we could double our donor base. It is that simple, and you could make that happen." (photo of Rudy courtesy of CSUB)

 

* ... REMEMBER THE GARCES, CSUB BARBECUES: Don't forget two important fund raisers coming up that need our support. The first is the annual Garces Memorial High fall barbeque, featuring the famous "Icardo special" New York steak or Teriyaki chicken dinner. Cost is $25 a person and doors open at 5 p.m. This comes up Thursday, October 1. My elder daughter graduated from Garces and I know the folks work hard and do a good job, and even when money is tight, this is a fund raiser to support. The next week, on Thursday October 8, you can dine again at the 31st annual Cal State Bakersfield athletics barbeque. Doors open at 5:30 p.m.. Tickets are being presold for $25 each and are $30 at the door. Call 661-654-3473.

Short takes: From waterfowl hunting to a blog on white tablecoth dining to hopes for a better economy

Some short takes around our community:

* ... MORE MIXED SIGNALS: This is starting to sound like a familiar refrain, but every time we get some good news on the economy it's followed by yet more words of caution. Wayne Kress, the always optimistic partner in the local commercial firm CB Richard Ellis, sent a Twitter feed on a Washington Post story saying that manufacturing and housing - two sectors that have suffered the most in this economy - are now expanding. As the Post said, the development offers "fresh evidence that the economy has begun to grow." That's certainly good news and I join with Wayne in celebrating any bit of good news. But there is plenty of evidence to indicate that any incipient recovery will be a slow one, particularly if it is a jobless recovery. Even the Post story recognized this, quoting an economist as saying "the bad news is that it is still not creating any extra jobs, meaning that the U.S. is heading for yet another jobless recovery." Meanwhile, I had lunch with a local high-end custom home builder and his outlook was bleak, noting that the recent upturn in residential sales have all been on the low end and most of them foreclosures working their way through the system. He pointed me to a recent analyst study out of San Diego (I haven't found it yet) which apparently said it would take until 2016 (seven full years) for our residential market to begin to resemble the way it looked in 2005. Ugh.

* ... SERVING DOVE ON A WHITE TABLE CLOTH: Looks like local Bakersfield High grad Paige Hill is making good use of her masters in writing. The daughter of San Joaquin Bank president Bart Hill and wife Napier, Paige is wrapping up her masters in writing at the University of South Carolina and has started a blog about cooking. (check it out here at www.forkenvy.com) Paige, who got her undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina, lends her own personality to the blog and brings in her own personal experiences, including her familiarity with hunting and shotguns.



From her blog:
"It’s September first. The opening day of dove season. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m not a vegetarian. My father is the resident hunter in our family, as my hunting license has only served to allow my downing clay birds at the skeet range. Some meats mark the seasons, like lamb in the spring and dove in the fall. As much as I impatiently await the days when I get to put on my brown leather boots when September nears, my tongue equally longs for the taste of game bird when the days grow shorter and colder. If you are a fan of duck, you will enjoy dove. If you are a fan of chicken, you will enjoy dove. If you are stuck in a chicken rut, treat your taste buds to something wonderful and unique. It is a bit lighter meat than duck, but more game-y in flavor and tender. Like other birds, dove can be roasted or broiled whole; but, if you want to leave the bones out of the equation (recommended) cut into breast pieces and sauté. You can ask your butcher for this service, too."

* ... PARADISE FOR HUNTING WATERFOWL: Speaking of birds and hunting, ran across an interesting story in the Ducks Unlimited magazine citing the Central Valley as one of the top 15 areas to hunt waterfowl in the country. It's easy to underestimate the popularity of bird hunting locally, and apparently we live in one of the prime locations. (read the full story here) According to the story:

"Acre for acre, the Central Valley of California supports more wintering waterfowl than anywhere else in North America. At peak times, this region hosts 5 to 7 million wintering waterfowl—more than 60 percent of the Pacific Flyway’s ducks and geese. As you would expect, the high ratio of birds to habitat results in some superb waterfowl hunting. This is especially true on private duck clubs in places such as Butte Sink, Suisun Marsh, and the Grasslands. Good public hunting is also available on several intensively managed national wildlife refuges and state wildlife areas in the region, which also support large numbers of wintering waterfowl.

The abundant species: pintails, mallards, wigeon, green-winged teal, Aleutian cackling geese, white-fronted geese, light geese



* ... MORE CHANGES AT CSUB: Yet another person is leaving the fund raising arm at Cal State Bakersfield, the third to leave that I know of (joining Laura Wolfe and Sheri Horn Bunk) That's the word from Athletic Director Rudy Carvajal, who sent an email to supporters updating them on changes. The latest to leave University Advancement will be Christene Kimmel, according to Rudy. In addition, he said Ashley Sodergren is moving to Stockton to work on Relay for Life for the American Cancer Society, and Brian Powell has accepted a development position at James Madison University in Virginia, which is within driving distance of his hometown. Their last working day is September 11.