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Carson City is pleased to offer Christmas Tree Recycling in cooperation with Capital Sanitation/Waste Management, Inc.

As in previous years, Christmas trees can be placed curbside on your regular trash collection day or taken to one of the drop off locations. Trees will be chipped in the springtime and used as mulch. This program continues to be a huge success.

Please remove all decorations, lights, tinsel and bases prior to recycling; if the tree is longer than six feet, cut the tree into pieces.

The Carson City School District is celebrating two new National Board Certified Teachers from the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards. The teachers to be recognized earning certification are Patricia Ababio, Graphic Arts teacher in the Career and Technical Education program at Carson High School, and Rhonda Holloway, English teacher at Carson Middle School.

Happy Wednesday Carson City! Have you figured out what you’ll be doing to celebrate the holidays during these trying times? Here’s a suggestion: by bringing a brand new love into your life!

The Carson City Symphony Association presentation of “Joyful Noise — A Holiday Treat” concert is available for viewing on the Carson City Symphony channel on YouTube here and from Facebook.com/CarsonCitySymphony here. The concert features John and Cherie Shipley with their Joyful Noise Chorus and Band. They have been performing "Joyful Noise" concerts each December since 2002.

The Dayton Valley Golf Course has been acquired by Tour Specs Golf Management from Duncan Golf Management in a deal that was finalized this week. Tour Specs Golf Management principal owner, James (Jim) Kepler will also serve as course general manager. Kepler is a well-known PGA professional in Nevada and west coast golf communities.

Jonah Toral, Nathan Parsons, and Bita Jazani were awarded the fifth annual Rosemary Nebesky Memorial Scholarships by the Carson City Symphony Association this month. The scholarship was established by John and Jennifer Webley of Santa Rosa, Calif., in memory Rosemary Nebesky, who loved music, loved children, and had been a friend and board member of the Carson City Symphony Association.

Gov. Steve Sisolak announced on Sunday that he is extending current coronavirus health and safety restrictions for another month and putting in place a new moratorium on evictions through the end of March.

NEW WASHOE CITY — Enjoy some holiday cheer at Washoe Lake State Park with a sparkling drive-through festival of lights. Campground Loop B will be decorated with a jolly display of twinkling lights and holiday scenes. Stay warm and merry as you listen to your favorite holiday music while driving through the campground, enjoying the cheerful decorations.

Editor’s Note: Margarita Portillo-Hernandez is a school social worker and safe school professional at Eagle Valley Middle School in Carson City. The following is her report:

This year has been extremely challenging and with the impact of Covid; many of our families are struggling to ensure they can celebrate Christmas. However, generous community members have come together determined to help these families have a Christmas celebration not even Covid can stop.

For the week ending December 5, initial claims for unemployment insurance (UI) totaled 8,783, up 2,341 claims, or 36.3 percent, compared to the previous week’s total of 6,442 claims, according to finalized data from the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation (DETR). This is only the second increase in regular initial claims activity since October 24. Through the week ending December 5, there have been a total of 783,384 initial claims filed in 2020, 761,732 of which have been filed since the week ending March 14.

On Friday, the Greenhouse Project held a ribbon cutting ceremony for the new outdoor classroom which will be used to host both students from Carson High School as well as community classes on gardening and agriculture.

In our region, as well as in many areas across the country, there have been massive spikes in COVID-19 transmissions over the past few months. Even as restaurants and bars were reopened, daily positive cases were generally staying within single digits inside the Quad-County region.

However, between October and December, both test positivity rates as well as overall cases — and deaths — have seen a massive increase. Local health organizations are now not only fighting against the disease, but against misinformation campaigns as well.

Two Carson City leaders have teamed up to help slow the spread of COVID-19 and provide information on how families can protect themselves and others during the holidays.

Carson City Elks Lodge No. 2177 held a raffle drawing recently for a wooden American Flag. Proceeds from the raffle benefitted Holiday With a Hero, which is a local program that buys gifts for children and delivered by our first responders.

The Carson City Sheriff's Office Reserve, which has hosted an annual Christmas Eve program for decades with pre-arranged visits by Santa and elves to local homes, has been canceled and replaced instead with a virtual message greeting for families. The reason for the change this year is due to COVID-19 concerns.

Do you know of a woman in our Carson City community who is dedicated to improving the lives of women and girls and should be recognized for her efforts? Soroptimist International of Carson City is accepting sponsorship submissions for our 2021 “Women Helping Women” honorees.

Carson City's DARE program, an anti-drug cooperative effort between the Carson City Sheriff's Office and the Carson City School District, remains active but has been through a difficult time due to COVID-19 and the retirement of longtime officer Lisa Davis.

The Carson City School District and Carson High School are pleased to announce CHS Senior Cristian Garcia Perez has been named a semifinalist for the 2021 class of the Coca-Cola Scholars Program, putting him in the running for one of the 150 college scholarships worth $20,000.

Sometimes to make things happen, you must just reach out and ask for help. With so many unusual challenges and disappointments facing us this year, the thought not being able to light up our capitol or the Governor’s Mansion for the holidays due to the pandemic was unacceptable.

Nevada is set to receive more than 164,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine throughout the month that will be used for hospital staff, skilled nursing facility staff and residents, and other Tier One individuals as outlined in the state's COVID-19 Vaccination Program Playbook, according to state health officials.

Many in Carson City do everything they can to help the less fortunate, and those opportunities never cease being opportunities. With this in mind, the holidays are here, the semester at Carson High School is almost over, Christmas vacation, also known as winter break, begins Dec. 19, and there is another opportunity to be generous for those who have plenty.

Carson High School (CHS) is pleased to celebrate Senior Brandon Engels’ commitment to bowl for Hastings College, one of the top college bowling teams in the country.

Nevada Indian Commission Commissioner Lori Pasqua will be honored with a posthumous Bachelor of Arts degree by the University of Nevada-Reno at its winter commencement on Saturday. Her family will accept this honorary degree on her behalf.

Join us for a new program, Girls Who Code! Gain future job skills, promote STEM interest, foster camaraderie and inspire confidence, all while learning the basics of coding!

A Washoe County judge has determined that Nevada is in contempt of a court order issued this summer that mandated the state promptly pay thousands of people who had been receiving benefits but saw them stopped without an allowable reason or a hearing.

For the week ending November 28, initial claims for unemployment insurance (UI) totaled 6,442, down 1,679 claims, or 20.7 percent, compared to the previous week’s total of 8,121 claims, according to finalized data from the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation (DETR).

The Carson City Democratic Central Committee is currently accepting monetary donations for Carson City Toys for Tots, which has been adversely impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mahatma Gandhi said, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” Putting gratitude into action by helping others is an authentic way to express an attitude of thanksgiving. Students at Pioneer High School (PHS) “lost themselves” in service by assembling Thanksgiving dinner baskets for those in need.

CARSON CITY — Students in grades K-5 at Empire Elementary School have been learning and working on hydroponics in their classrooms as well as remotely from home this past semester and are enjoying the fruits of their labor.

Fred Lokken, political science professor at Truckee Meadows Community College, will be the featured speaker at Monday's Democratic tele-luncheon. He will extend the post-election review of the local, state and national political scenes begun when he spoke at the November 16 tele-luncheon. As always, Prof. Lokken can be counted on to highlight key facts and in-depth analysis that can be found nowhere else.