Tahoe athlete, Claire Hewitt-Demeyer, will be featured in a film produced by Tahoe Backcountry Alliance Executive Director Anthony Cupaiuolo – Photo by Anthony CupaiuoloProvided/Anthony Cupaiuolo
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – For the first time ever, the Backcountry Film Festival will be visiting the South Shore. On March 20, Tahoe Backcountry Alliance is partnering with Lake Tahoe Community College’s (LTCC) Wilderness Education & Outdoor Leadership Program to host the film festival at Duke Theater. The night will consist of showing winter films celebrating backcountry experiences while offering attendees a chance to participate in a raffle to win some amazing prizes.
“The films celebrate human powered backcountry adventures and feature a mix of great action and beautiful scenery along with several that hit on some deeper themes,” said Anthony Cupaiuolo, Executive Director of Tahoe Backcountry Alliance. “There’s even one short film that I produced featuring local pro athlete, Claire Hewitt-Demeyer, that showcases Claire’s snowboarding skills on snow…and sand.”
Hewitt-Demeyer is a snowboarder from South Lake Tahoe. She specializes in splitboarding, a backcountry method using a board that splits into two skis for traversing uphill and then reconnects as a snowboard to shred downhill.
Hewitt-Demeyer will be featured alongside others, sharing stories of hope, the love for snowsport and the love for nature.
Claire Hewitt-Demeyer photographed by Anthony CupaiuoloProvided/Anthony Cupaiuolo
Local nonprofits including Tahoe Backcountry Alliance, Tahoe Area Mountain Bike Association, Tahoe Rim Trail Association, Keep Tahoe Blue and Sierra Nevada Alliance will be at the event talking to attendees, answering questions and spreading awareness regarding ways to get involved.
After eight or so short films totaling two hours, folks have a chance to win an assortment of raffle prizes ranging from Rocky Talkie Radios, outerwear from Flylow and Patagonia, as well as backcountry-specific gear from Sports LTD. Gift certificates to local businesses like Summit to Shore Chiropractic can also be won, with Cupaiuolo noting that more items are coming in daily to be added to the raffle.
For the past seven years, Tahoe Backcountry Alliance has been hosting the Backcountry Film Festival in Truckee and Incline Village.
“We’re really excited that the first South Shore screening is at the Duke Theater at LTCC. It’s a perfect venue and the Wilderness Education & Outdoor Leadership Program is the perfect partner. The classes they teach help people learn how to recreate safely and responsibly in our amazing backyard. With this being our first year hosting it on the South Shore, we’re looking at it as a ‘base building’ event and hope to grow the event going forward.”
Doors to the Backcountry Film Festival open at 6 p.m. on Friday, March 20. The films will start at 6:30 p.m. and by 8:45 p.m., the films wrap up and the raffle winners will be announced.
LAKE TAHOE, Calif./Nev. – From seasonal landscape maintenance using his father’s borrowed trailer to extensive landscape design, construction and outdoor living projects, Tahoe local Billy Landis has worked his way from the ground up.
During his time as a general manager for a restaurant, Landis ran a landscaping business on the side while harboring goals to stay in the hospitality industry. He had dreams of, one day, owning and operating his own restaurant – that is until COVID-19 shut the hospitality industry down, forcing him to forge a different path.
“At that time, I just had to pivot and figure out ‘what can I do?'” said Landis, and like many of us who still had mouths to feed and bills to pay, Landis got creative. “I called everyone I knew in Tahoe, and pretty much just asked them, ‘Do you want me to come clean up your yard?'”
In COVID’s wake, Landis’s side hustle, Tahoe Seasonal Solutions, became a trusted service and people kept calling. With his background studying business and entrepreneurship at the University of Oregon, he had the skills to maintain a high-quality business. “I made sure my guys and myself did a great job. Everything was clean, the communication was there with the client, the pricing was right, and it just kept growing slowly from there,” Landis said.
Eventually, Landis began thinking outside the box of yard clean-up and realized there was also a need for a different type of landscaping. One where functionality meets creativity. Thus, Tahoe Haven Outdoor Living was born.
Tahoe Haven Outdoor Living is the design-build division of his company specializing in natural stonework, custom patios, fire features, artificial turf and outdoor gathering spaces. The company’s services span from beautifully designed, full-featured outdoor kitchens to retaining walls and heated driveways. With knowledge and experience of the Sierra Nevada climate, Tahoe Haven Outdoor Living creates spaces specifically designed to thrive, long-term, in mountain environments.
“What really makes a patio last a long time is what’s under it. We want to put in something that grandkids will be able to enjoy in 20 to 30 years,” said Landis. “We want longevity. We’re a contractor that wants to be able to share our projects down the road and see that, even though we had 60 feet of snow, everything is still holding up fine.”
Tahoe Haven’s uniqueness stems from the passion and pride that Landis has for Lake Tahoe. He doesn’t just occupy a business mindset when it comes to creating beautiful outdoor spaces that are custom-designed for people who love Tahoe as much as he does. He has an emotional attachment rooted in family and legacy.
“My family has been here for a long time. A lot of families really enjoy this place, even if they don’t live here full-time. This is their haven, their sanctuary, their place they can enjoy with family and friends,” Landis said. “I just think that’s really important, because that’s the thing about outdoor living spaces – it’s where memories are made for families.”
Whether you’re surrounded by towering Jeffrey pines or you’re overlooking the Sierra Nevada desert, Tahoe Haven Outdoor Living works with your space and your vision and turns it into a reality.
Tahoe Haven can transform your outdoor area into a space you can enjoy year-roundProvided/Billy Landis
Landis’s family-owned business continues to grow, and you can now find Tahoe Haven Outdoor Living working on projects all the way from Rubicon Bay to Incline Village and everywhere in between, including Truckee and Reno. They’ve started migrating their operations to the Tahoe Keys area depending on the project’s capacity.
For those in need of things like landscape maintenance and seasonal property services, Tahoe Seasonal Solutions is still hard at work.
Growth, however, doesn’t come without challenges, and Landis knows better than anyone that seasonality is one of Tahoe’s biggest obstacles. Finding quality employees is a continued goal.
Because of TRPA rules, excavation and digging are allowed from May 1 to October 15, making the season a short one. To solve that problem, Landis is now licensed in Nevada with goals of providing his employees with year-round work.
Both Tahoe Haven Outdoor Living and Tahoe Seasonal Solutions are currently hiring. “We create a community where people can start a career with us. Someone can start as a technician and work their way to an irrigation foreman, or a landscape installation foreman.”
Tahoe Douglas Rotary President Elect Bob Fores and keynote speaker David Gallagher in front of an iron lung Victoria Mastrocola/Tahoe Daily Tribune
STATELINE, Nev. – Tahoe Douglas and South Lake Tahoe Rotary Clubs joined hands on Tuesday, March 17 to host a presentation centered around their decades-long efforts to eradicate polio disease. In addition to a 1950s iron lung being on display, long-time, nationally recognized Rotarian, David Gallagher, was the keynote speaker. During the event, a fundraiser took place and 50% of proceeds raised were donated to end polio.
Since 1987, Gallagher has been in the Rotary world, serving as President of Modesto Rotary before going on to become Centennial District Governor for District 5220 in 2004. Along with his international humanitarian service, he received Rotary International’s Service Above Self Award, the Rotary Foundation’s Award of Citation for Meritorious Service and the Distinguished Service Award. Gallagher has been a member of the Rotary Club of Reno since 2018 and has traveled all over the world doing Rotary humanitarian projects.
“Somebody asked me to join Rotary,” Gallagher told the Tribune. “I was young, I had a family at home, my business was just starting out and the reason I stayed in Rotary was because it had a softball team. So we had fun! From having fun, we learned more about what Rotary does. The more you put into Rotary the more you’re going to get out of it.”
Bob Fores, President elect of Tahoe Douglas Rotary, has known Gallagher since 1993. Fores was able to obtain an iron lung from his old Rotary district, put it in on a trailer and wheel inside the convention center at Bally’s to be on display. The event was organized to spread awareness about polio, its history, the fight to eradicate it and how that fight has paid off in the last 45 years.
During his keynote speech, Gallagher discussed polio and its history. Caused by a virus that attacks the central nervous system including the neurons essential for muscle control, polio became life-threatening to patients whose respiratory muscles were also affected. The disease primarily infected children under five years old. To this day, there is still no cure, and when annual outbreaks occurred from the 1920s to the 1950s, people were terrified. Schools would close and the only preventative measures that could be taken were quarantines.
Up to the 1980s, there were 125 countries with 350,000 new cases a year. Through immunization, polio numbers have dwindled significantly in the last 40 years. Yet for those who contracted the crippling and highly infectious disease, they had to find ways to ease symptoms. That’s where iron lungs came in.
This iron lung comes from the 1950s eraVictoria Mastrocola/Tahoe Daily Tribune
“The iron lungs were just in the large city hospitals. The small hospitals didn’t have the staffing,” Gallagher said. “One out of 120 people who get polio, it affects their limbs – mainly their legs.”
For those who experienced paralysis of the legs, about 5% would get paralysis of the chest, rendering them unable to breathe.
“[The iron lung] does the breathing for them,” said Gallagher as he explained that the machine would act as a pressure ventilator. With only their heads exposed, patients would be sealed inside while the iron lung created changes in air pressure. For inhalation, the pressure was reduced, and for exhalation, it would increase. Unlike respirators that pump air directly into a patient’s airways, the iron lung would expand the chest naturally.
Polio patients would be sealed into the machine to ease polio symptoms such as difficulty breathing and muscle paralysis Victoria Mastrocola/Tahoe Daily Tribune
“Certainly, the iron lung is the star tonight, the other part is the importance of vaccines,” added Gallagher. “And how much they work.”
After the U.S. approved the first vaccine in April of 1955, polio cases saw a dramatic drop. In the decade since the vaccine was administered, the U.S. had a near-total elimination of the disease, going from 35,000 to 121. Rotary helped reduce polio cases by over 99.9% since 1979, when the last case was seen in the U.S.
The Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) was launched in 1988, and was made up of Rotary’s PolioPlus, World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Center for Disease Control (CDC) and supported by the Gates Foundation and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. After global mass immunization efforts and more than $2.6 billion in contributions, cases went from 125 countries to its current standing of two countries.
For her community efforts, Gallagher paid special attention to Dr. Rowena Shaw, polio survivor and Tahoe local who worked for the Douglas County School District for 30 years as a psychologist and counselor.
As a child, Dr. Shaw came home with a sore throat. She was not yet vaccinated and was admitted into the hospital with a flu diagnosis. Three days later, she was told she had polio.
“She woke up in the hospital, she saw the iron lung, and said to her mom, ‘Is that my coffin?’ not knowing it would actually save her life,” said Gallagher. “Dr. Shaw turned this into everything positive. She saw the good in people so she went into a helping profession.”
Dr. Shaw had hoped to be in attendance at the evening’s event but was not able to make it due to chemotherapy treatment for leg pains caused by post polio syndrome, a disorder affecting polio survivors and stems from the reactivation of nerves. This process depletes a survivor’s energy and causes muscle weakness and pain.
Although the disease has been eradicated throughout most of the world, maintaining awareness and staying vigilant is a priority. “The people who are driving this whole effort have made very clear that until it’s gone, it’s not gone. We need to drive this to zero and keep it at zero for three years running for them to be convinced that it really isn’t going to come back,” said Greg Felton, treasurer of Tahoe Douglas Rotary.
Gallagher’s slide of the progress of global polio eradicationVictoria Mastrocola/Tahoe Daily Tribune
“All of us working together on the same goal, we’ve come this far. They’ve set out a special action plan for 2026, and they’re hoping they can do it. This is going to be a very, very important year,” said Gallagher.
Tahoe Douglas Rotary has some exciting things in store as they announced plans to reanimate their St. Patrick’s Day Spring Fling Fundraiser. The fundraiser, throughout its 50 years, would often draw in hundreds of people, raising upwards of $350,000 before it took a six year pause due to the start of COVID-19. The St. Patrick’s Day Spring Fling Fundraiser is set to take place next year on March 13. More details to follow.
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