Gardnerville resident celebrates 90th birthday

Longtime Gardnerville resident Luke Neddenriep celebrated his 90th birthday at his home in Gardnerville with a barbecue hosted by his daughter Katie Sarratea and her husband Pete.

According to family members, more than 60 people attended the party which featured five generations represented by Luke and his wife, Martha.

Born in Reno in 1916, Luke has lived on Douglas Avenue for most of his life.

Stepdaughter Barbara Neddenriep took the photos at Luke's birthday party. She used to write a column for the old Corner Post which has been gone for quite a few years now.

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Gardnerville resident Steven Stapleton recently completed Marine Basic training and is on leave before reporting for infantry training battalion.

Steven is a 2004 graduate of Douglas High School and is the son of Minden resident Barbara Stapleton. He attended Pau-Wa-Lu Middle School and grew up in the Gardnerville Ranchos.

An Eagle Scout, Steven came out of basic training a private first class.

"I did pretty well," he said. "It was pretty hard. I wanted a challenge, not a walk in the park."

An infantryman, he plans on applying for jump school or scout/sniper school. He expects to be deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan in the next six months unless he is successful. That training will delay his deployment.

Either way, Steven said he is ready to serve.

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Melanie Shamblin called to ask if I could put something in the newspaper about the trash building up in the sandpits south of the Gardnerville Ranchos.

Melanie and her family like to use the off-highway vehicle track there to ride their quad-runners. It is only two blocks from her house and is pretty convenient, but for the garbage being dumped there.

"There's televisions, couches, mattresses being dumped there," she said. "Somebody blew up a highchair with a gun, which is a little disturbing. There are engine blocks and pieces of cars and it's irritating there is so much broken glass and bottles."

Melanie said she didn't have any problem with people shooting, but thinks they should pack out the stuff they use for target practice.

The sand pits are on federal land and so it's sometimes difficult to find someone who can help with a clean-up.

"Even if we went and cleaned everything up, we wouldn't be able to keep it that way."

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A Gardnerville Ranchos Boy Scout will be providing information and raising money for the Douglas County Sheriff's Search and Rescue dogs.

Landon Wynar, 14, said the fundraising is part of his Eagle Project to benefit Douglas County.

He will have a booth at the Sertoma Carson Valley 14th annual Chili Cook-off and Craft Fair on Saturday and Sunday in the Carson Valley Inn parking lot.

In addition to raising money for the search and rescue dogs, Landon will be collecting soda cans and towels at the event for the Douglas County Animal Shelter.

Landon is the son of Deborah and Mark Wynar. He is a ninth-grader at Pau-Wa-Lu Middle School.

n Kurt Hildebrand is editor of The Record-Courier. Reach him at khildebrand@recordcourier.com or 782-5121, ext. 215.