Cemetery secretary hangs up her note book

There aren't many Gardnerville natives who can claim to actually have been born and educated within the confines of the town, but longtime Garden Cemetery Association secretary Dorothy Thran is one.

Dorothy was born to Anna and Henry Atcheson in 1918 in the Gardnerville Hospital, which is now known as the Manoukian Building.

At age 87, Dorothy is retiring from the cemetery board after an estimated quarter century of service.

Her father was the ranger at Bridgeport and worked for District Supervisor William Maule. Their home was at the intersection of Gilman and Douglas avenues.

"He was gone most of the summer and then would come home in the winter," she said. "That's when they had a cabin and we would go and visit him during the summer."

Dorothy grew up in Gardnerville and graduated from Douglas County High School in 1936. According to The R-C report, she had the highest average grades in her class of 21 when she graduated. She attended the University of Nevada and graduated in 1940 with a degree in business administration.

Dorothy married Douglas High classmate Earnhart Thran in 1941. Earnhart was elected Douglas County Clerk-treasurer in 1954 and held the office for several terms.

She raised a family and sometime in the early 1980s was asked to join the cemetery board.

"They just asked me to be on the board," she said. "They were looking for someone to do the bookkeeping and secretarial work."

She said when she was first involved in the cemetery, it was in need of some maintenance.

"I've watched it grow from a weedy patch to the very nice cemetery it is today," Dorothy said. "There were years when we didn't have the assessments we do now and people were supposed to take care of their own. It got pretty bad there for a few years."

Dorothy said she served with some very good Garden Cemetery board members, including current president Bill Schwake, Tom Cook, Bill Lovelady, Dennis Bruns, Linda Reid and Doug Sonnemann and many others over the years.

She's happy to turn the reins over to Linda.

"I think it is a good thing to get new ideas and new blood," she said. "It has been very nice."

n n n

I was visiting East Fork Justice Court on Wednesday when I noticed I had an unfettered view of the court office, thanks to a new set of windows they've recently installed. I'm sure the usual notices and cautions will go back up soon, but it was quite a change.

n n n

We're celebrating Minden's birthday on Sunday and we hear the word to politicians is to leave the bumperstickers and campaign buttons at home. Frankly, the road around the park will be closed that day anyway, so any candidate bringing down a motor home is going to have a tough time getting it anywhere near the celebration, anyway.

The town's streets are pretty wide, but not that wide.

n n n

The Jazzercise Class held at the CVIC Hall in Minden hosted a birthday party for Genoa resident Dorothy Heacock, who turned 87 on Monday. Dorothy has been attending the class for two years, According to Karen Pratt and rarely misses a class. Dorothy has been a dancer all of her life and looks like she's enjoying the class.

The classes are 9 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays. For information, call 775-588-2859 or www.jazzercise.com.

n n n

We will be taking the Fourth of July off next week, which means we need to put the paper together on Monday instead of Tuesday. Anything of critical importance that needs to be in the paper on Wednesday should be in by noon today.

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