Kuna High science teacher earns prestigious fellowship

Congratulations to Kuna High science teacher DaNel Huggins, who has been selected for an Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship.
I have always heard fantastic things about Mrs. Huggins from her students and their parents, so this should come as no surprise. We, as a community, should be very proud that she is receiving this fellowship.
Huggins was selected as one of 28 educators for this prestigious Fellowship after an intense national screening process.
Huggins will be serving her fellowship at the US Department of Energy, Office of Workforce Development. As an Einstein Fellow she will have an opportunity to attain new skills, knowledge and resources related to the national education issues she is exposed to, particularly those related to science, technology, engineering and math education. She will gain a working knowledge of educational policy, exposure to a network of education, and particularly STEM-related, experts, an increased awareness of the depth and variety of resources available through federal agencies, insight and experience into the grant writing and reviewing process, and to numerous resources and opportunities accessible to students and teachers.
She will have access to first-line discussions on education related to the President’s administrative agenda, Congressional initiatives and actions, and those of national organizations to move the needs of STEM education forward in this country.
“As a result of her immersion in this unique environment, she will serve as a valuable resource to your school and district while in Washington and also upon returning home in
2012,” according to a letter to the school district from Kathryn G. Culbertson, program manager for the Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship Program. “You must be very proud of Ms. Huggins. Not only does DaNel have exceptional credentials as a teacher, she also made a lasting impression during the sponsor interviews in Washington, DC. Certainly she will be missed at home, but rest assured that this experience will provide myriad opportunities to contribute to local education issues and to grow professionally and personally.”

Dominos in Kuna under new ownership

The Dominos Pizza, at 1027 E. Kuna Road in Kuna, is under new ownership. A big welcome to new owners Chad and Shelby Bittner. I had the pleasure of meeting them when I took this photo for this week's issue of the Kuna Melba News. They seem like terrific additions to the Kuna community, and I look forward to them being a great success in Kuna.
The restaurant's phone number is 922-3399, and their hours are Sunday – Thursday 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., Friday – Saturday 11 a.m. to 12 a.m. The couple purchased the business in February.
Welcome to the Bittners!

Today is the last day to sign up for the $10 Kuna Melba News subscription

Just a reminder everyone: Today is the last day to sign up for the $10 Kuna Melba News subscription. Starting tomorrow, April 1, we're going back to the regular rate of $28 per year, which is still just 54 cents per week to have a bunch of local news delivered right to your mailbox. Call us at 922-3008 or sign up at www.kunamelba.com.
If you're already a subscriber, we're doing a special customer appreciation deal for the month of April. We're taking $10 off the regular rate of $28 (or $26 if you're a senior) if you renew your subscription in April. If your subscription doesn't expire for a while, we'll just tack on a year to whenever your subscription expires.
So the cost will be just $18 to renew for a year or $16 if you're a senior.
Why are we doing this?
Because we feel strongly and passionately that everyone in this town should be reading the paper every week. We feel strongly and passionately that everyone in this town should know when and where there will be a school levy vote and how much it will cost you. Everyone in this town should be informed about your city taxes and utility bill. We have no filler in our paper. We are jam-packed with real, local news and information that you need to stay an informed citizen.
And just for good measure, we have plenty of news of neighbors, a community calendar, library news, high school sports coverage, school news, we tell you when sports signups are, we have crossword and sudoku puzzles, weather from KBOI-TV's Vin Crosby, etc. The list goes on and on.
Once you subscribe and start getting that paper in the mail every Thursday, you'll be hooked.

No Park N Ride lot for Kuna

Ada County Highway District commissioners last week unanimously decided to not build a Park N Ride lot in Kuna for the time being.
Commissioners voted against seeking a federal grant to build the parking lot, given the city of Kuna’s concerns about ACHD staff’s preferred site on Deer Flat Road near Meridian Road.
As I reported in last week’s Editor’s Notebook, the city and ACHD staff were at odds over where to put the parking lot. ACHD staff favored a site on Deer Flat Road near Meridian Road, while the city of Kuna staff preferred a site along Ten Mile Road.
The two sides discussed the issue at a March 15 City Council workshop attended by ACHD staff members.
ACHD staff argued that the Deer Flat site makes the most sense because it lies in the direction of travel for many commuters, namely, up state Highway 69 to Boise. It is also near a proposed future bus route. Secondly, the money that would be used to build the parking lot would come from the Federal Transit Administration, which is looking for traffic congestion relief projects. The current traffic at Deer Flat and Linder is a “poster child” for traffic congestion relief, according to ACHD staff.
But the city raised a number of — legitimate — issues with the Deer Flat site, perhaps chief among them was that the site already had preliminary plat approval and a development agreement and that changing things around to accommodate a Park N Ride lot would create a land use approval process that could take as long as a year. In addition, Ten Mile and Lake Hazel would not require any land purchase because the city already owned the land. Plus, once the Ten Mile interchange opens, Ten Mile Road will become a major thoroughfare and will become the direction of travel for many residents.
At the March 15 City Council meeting, city officials several times criticized ACHD for not including the city in the planning process from the beginning.
But at the ACHD commission meeting on March 23, it was revealed that city planning director Steve Hasson had been involved right from the beginning at the kickoff planning meeting on Oct. 12, 2010. I find it unfortunate that City Council members were misled to believe that ACHD hadn’t involved the city from the beginning. And I find it unfortunate that that message was conveyed in this column last week. I wish someone — ACHD officials or Hasson — had set the record straight at the council meeting that the city of Kuna had been involved in Park N Ride lot planning. Why no one did, I don’t know.
Hasson told ACHD commission members that it was an intentional decision to leave the Kuna City Council members out of the early discussion in order to avoid jeopardizing future land use decisions that council members might make.
ACHD commissioner Dave Case, a former Kuna Planning & Zoning Commission member, wanted to make it clear for the record that it was an administrative decision on the part of Hasson and Kuna Mayor Scott Dowdy to not involve the City Council and in no way was a decision by ACHD to keep the process a secret.

Luke does a good job with photojournalism

You may have noticed the credit on last week's photo of the vandalism at the Kuna Cemetery as being "Luke McIntosh." The photo was taken by my son, Luke, who turns 9 in a couple of weeks. On the day that I went out to cover the story, Nicola had a meeting with an advertiser, and I had to go home to meet Luke after school. When he got home, I said, "Come on, we have to go out to a breaking news story and you're going to be my photographer." I could sense Luke's suppressed excitement as we headed out the door. When we got to the cemetery and met with Marie Beatty and Efren Garcia, Luke got to clicking away. Just like his dad, he took well over 100 photos. Marie told me that the two people responsible for the vandalism were a 12-year-old and a 13-year-old, not much older than Luke. It served as an interesting juxtaposition.
This isn't the first time Luke's taken photos for the paper. He took photos of the Kuna FFA auction a couple of years back and he took a great photo of then-Rep. Walt Minnick visiting SPI Transportation in Kuna.
No pressure, but Luke sure has a talent for it and enjoys it.

Looking for something to do today? Check out this concert in Kuna

Paul Saik is an accomplished vocalist and pianist. He is the Artist-in-Residence at the Cathedral of the Rockies in Boise. His passion is leading people in worship, and his music has touched many people, as he has performed in numerous churches throughout the country. His concerts are a unique journey through his life as he performs various styles of music. You can hear everything from opera, Broadway, piano and vocal solos. But everything leads to his desire to bring comfort, guidance and the presence of God to each listener, so that they may know that God truly loves them. “I don’t know why God has blessed me with the talents He has, just as He blesses every person with their own…but I want to use them to honor Him, to thank Him, to lead others in worshipping Him. My prayer is that all who see how I live my life, find Him in me.” Paul lives his purpose with every breath and every step armed with a passion for sacred music and a sincere desire to reach others with the powerful message of Christ’s love. He will perform at 2 p.m. today, March 27, at the Kuna United Methodist Church (260 W 4th St.). The public is invited to attend this special event.

Kuna cheer team takes top places at state

Congratulations to the Kuna cheer squad, which took first place in the 4A district tournament, two third-place trophies from the state tournament and a state championship for the Stunt Team — the only all-male stunt team at the tournament.
This is the first year that the Idaho High School Activities Association has recognized cheer and dance as a sport, and Kuna really showed how competitive we can be in this sport.
I see these guys at the games cheering and doing stunts, and I am always amazed at some of the things they do. Now we all know that they're the real deal in a competitive setting.
In the photo, Kuna's stunt team Chris Millspaugh, Ralph Rivas, Eli Crespin, Nick Morgan and Ryan Morris celebrate their first-place state victory.
Great job, guys. Keep up the great work.

Kuna should capitalize on local farm movement

Thank you to Sharon Fisher, chairwoman of the Kuna Chamber of Commerce's economic development committee, for putting together last week's agribusiness panel.
It was an interesting conversation at the very least. I hope it serves as a springboard for future cooperation and a joint project among Kuna's agriculture interests, particularly Kuna's agritourism businesses, such as Vogel Farms Country Market, Cabalo's Orchard, Indian Creek Winery and Linder Farms.
While the Kuna Farmers Market is a good starting place, unfortunately, “a bad day in Eagle is a good month in Kuna,” according to one of the vendors who left the Kuna Farmers Market.
That’s because there’s not enough awareness of the market in the local community. Even though local residents can get an entire meal at the Kuna Farmers Market, from produce and bread to meats and milk, not enough people know about what the market has to offer.
Debi Vogel said she'd like to see a directory of all the farms in the Kuna area all in one place, so that people from outside of Kuna can make a day of it in Kuna. A visitor could go to Linder Farms in the morning, head over to Cabalo’s for some apples or produce, go to Indian Creek Winery for some wine, take a tour of Stewart Dairy, go to Vogel’s to pick up some steaks for dinner that night, have lunch at El Gallo Giro, stop off at Paul’s on the way out of town. There’s a tremendous opportunity for Kuna to package that experience and sell it to the outside world.
Great idea, that I think Kuna could execute — if the businesses can come together. If they join the Kuna Chamber of Commerce, as they should, the chamber could help facilitate such a project.
Who knows, if some people who live in Kuna take a look at people from Boise and Meridian coming down to Kuna, they might think to themselves, "Hmm, maybe I should check out Kuna, too."

Kuna High School students homeless this weekend

The Kuna High School Honor Society/Sociology Class Homeless Project will take place this Friday and Saturday at the high school outside the library windows facing Deer Flat Road. Students from the Honor Society and Mr. Krumm’s Sociology classes will be living in cardboard boxes and under tarps, experiencing for two days, what homeless people go through every day.
As a part of this exercise, Honor Society advisor, Rodger Huckabee, says he wants to bring awareness for what life is like for over 2300 people in Idaho today. There are families in Kuna who are experiencing this most humbling existence and those students who have a warm bed and a full stomach every night should be aware of what we take for granted and a better understanding of those who do not have those benefits.
As a part of this project initiated by the Honor Society, there will be a “fill the boot” drive along Deer Flat and in downtown Kuna on Saturday in an effort to raise funds to help the homeless in our own community. Again, according to Huckabee, there has been an amazing amount of interest by the students of KHS to participate in this event, and members of the staff, and the local law enforcement have offered to chaperone and help keep the students secure during their “ordeal” expected to run from about 3:30 Friday afternoon until Midnight on Saturday.
Those interested in making contributions to this activity may contact the high school at 955-2000 or look for participants on Deer Flat Road at the school or downtown on Saturday.

One week left in the Kuna Melba News $10 subscription deal

There's just one more week left in our $10 one-year subscription to the Kuna Melba News. We've been offering the deal — 64 percent off the regular subscription rate (take that, Groupon!) — for the month of March. We started out the month sending out a Money Mailer coupon then followed up last week with a postcard delivered to every household in the Kuna school district.
Can't say we aren't trying.
If you're a subscriber and got the postcard, please pass it along to a friend and if you like the Kuna Melba News, recommend that they subscribe.
We just had a subscriber come into the office to renew his subscription telling us that he looks forward to Thursdays because he enjoys the paper so much. He said he likes the variety.
That was music to my ears. I see so many community weeklies that focus on just city council meetings or car accidents but no features. Or papers that do all features but no government watchdog stories. Or papers that have mostly submitted items and no enterprise or investigative stories.
I love it when a subscriber tells me that they love the variety of stuff in the paper: hard news, features, city council, school board, student achievement, high school sports, puzzles, weather, history page, etc.
So sign up by Thursday, March 31. Deal is over at midnight.
You can call us at 922-3008, do it online at www.kunamelba.com or just send us a check for $10 to Kuna Melba News, PO Box 373, Kuna ID 83634.