The Sacramento Bee from Sacramento, California • G1

OUTPUT: 061703 14:03 USER: DSWEENEY NEIGHBROAD MASTER 03-04-01 The Sacramento Bee sacbee.comnatomas NATOMAS RIO LINDA ELVERTA DEL PASO HEIGHTS NORTH SACRAMENTO NORTH HIGHLANDS FOOTHILL FARMS ANTELOPE ROBLA NATOMAS Section THURSDAY June 19, 2003 PEOPLE G2 COMMUNITY CALENDAR G4 SPORTS G6-G7 Funding may delay aircraft home Dahill said Thursday in a memo to McVay. The park property would be covered by a steel mat that would hold the weight of the aircraft and give them a place to sit while a $15 million building is constructed for the planes. The building could take several years to complete. "Ever since this was brought to us, we've been real concerned about your funding," park board vice chairman Alan Matre told Daniel D. Whitney, president of the museum foundation's board of directors.

tiate a four-month lease, pending a purchase agreement, but park officials would rather have a quick sale. "We're more comfortable selling outright than leasing," park board chairwoman Joanna McVay said June 12 after a meeting during which she and Kay F. Dahill, park district administrator, were authorized to open negotiations. Park officials are concerned about what will happen if the foundation can't complete the deal. "Once approval is given, and the planes moved to our property, the district will assume many risk factors," Park board secretary Michael Monk said, "We could never move your planes if you default.

Whitney told the board there is a $15,000 fund to cover the cost of towing the aircraft to another part of McClellan Park in case the foundation can't complete the park purchase. But Whitney is optimistic about funding for the museum. "It's going to work. We've got some pretty excited people," he said. Once the Aviation Museum gets a permanent site, it will become eligible for fi- MUSEUM, page G3 enough money for the property.

The McClellan Aviation Museum Foundation offered $530,000 for a section of the 27-acre Freedom Park more than a year ago, but the North Highlands Recreation and Park District hasn't disclosed its asking price. Negotiations were expected to begin Wednesday. Museum aircraft must be moved from the former Air Force Base by Sept. 30 to create room for parking and other development of the McClellan Park business community. Museum and park officials could nego Officials worry McClellan aviation museum may not be able to pay for land.

By Dirk Werkman BEE STAFF WRITER McClellan Aviation Museum officials are eager to house 30 military planes and artifacts depicting decades of Air Force history on seven acres of a North Highlands park they are trying to buy. Park officials, however, question whether directors of the aviation museum foundation can come up with Alliance will bring services to students Representatives of community organizations will rotate regular time slots at Highlands High. By Jocelyn Wiener BEE STAFF WRITER North Highlands residents will have access to the services of dozens of community organizations thanks to a pilot project that puts representatives of the groups on the Highlands High School campus later this summer. The program, which organizers hope eventually to expand for the entire Grant Joint Union High School District, is an outgrowth of a community alliance several years in the making. By bringing services on campus, officials hope to help students and families overcome barriers such as lack of time or transportation or cultural issues that prevent them from addressing problems.

"We're not designed or staffed to deal with a family-type issue, but we often see the results of those kinds of problems show up at school, and then our whole system is disrupted," said Superintendent Larry Buchanan. Buchanan was at a meeting of the Child and Family Policy Board in Sacramento more than three years ago when he heard about the idea of coordinating and tailoring services to meet needs of specific families. "Upon hearing that, I thought that schools need that kind of help," he said. Buchanan raised the idea with other administrators and board members. Two years ago, Maxine Pepper, district coordinator of parent and community involvement, sent lunch invitations to representatives of several community organizations.

"It was very small," Pepper said. Today, dozens of groups, including People Reaching Out, Communities and Schools, the Mutual Assistance Network and the Sacramento County Probation Department, are involved in the effort, meeting once a month in the school district boardroom. They focus on mental and physical health, parenting, tutoring, mentoring, family reunification and community-based governance. Some groups, including the Voice Empowered Technology Organization, focus on technology, and others, such as the University of California at ALLIANCE, page G2 Sacramento BeeManny Crisostomo Fredrick C. Joyce School kindergarten teacher Rae Wilson, right, gets a hug from former student Tatiana Ventus, who graduated sixth grade Friday.

After 46 years, teacher says goodbye "They're amazing, very loving, they want to please and they find everything is fun." Rae Wilson on her kindergarten students By Dirk Werkman BEE STAFF WRITER When the final bell of the school year sounded in Rio Linda on Friday, it signaled the end of 46 years of kindergarten classes for Rae Wilson. Wilson is retiring after teaching for almost half a century in the Rio Linda Union School District. An estimated 1,500 people, ranging in age from 5 to 51, have shared the experience of having Mrs. Wilson for kindergarten, said Tim Hammons, principal of Fredrick C. Joyce School, where Wilson taught since 1961.

"We will miss her in every aspect of the school," Hammons said. According to the district, only 222 of California's 355,900 public school teachers have been on the job as long as Wilson. Some of her pupils include not only the children but also the grandchildren of her first students. The California State University, Chico graduate began teaching at the district's Village Elementary School in 1957, hired by superintendent Fredrick C. Joyce.

Four years later, she transferred to Fruitvale Elementary School, which eventually was renamed in honor of Joyce. "It would clearly be an understatement to say that you've seen many changes since 1957 when you first walked onto campus at Village School," Superintendent Frank Porter wrote in a letter to Wilson. "In those days, moms wore hats and gloves to PTA meetings and children came to kindergarten primarily to learn how to play with others. "In the time that you've taught at Village and Joyce, the expectations for kindergarten students have grown significantly," he wrote. The times have changed, Wilson agreed.

But students "are still enthusiastic and here to learn," just as they were in 1957, she said. "They're amazing, very loving, they want to please and they find everything is fun," Wilson said Friday. TEACHER, page G3 Signs sought to note historic highway role of The Boulevard built Curtiss' first motorcycle engine and, in 1908, helped Curtiss put an engine in his first airplane. Then they came west. In 1911, on San Francisco Bay, a Curtiss flier made the first land Remember when President Bush made a showy landing in a fighter jet on the USS Abraham Lincoln? Well there's a local connection.

McClellan Park has a road known as Bailey Loop, named after Carlos Alcala Baghdad-by-the-Hay: San Francisco columnist Herb Caen dubbed that town Baghdad-by-the-Bay, but hay is more characteristic of the Rio LindaElverta area. As for the Baghdad, a regular e-mail correspondent from Elverta decided to call me the "embedded RLE reporter," so I figured I must be in Iraq. I've yet to hit Elkhorn Boulevard in a Bradley armored vehicle, and I haven't seen many battles in this bucolic corner, except for what my correspondent calls the water district's "Waterloo." Still, I'm ready for action, just as soon as they issue me some flood-season waders and a pack of 55 Most Wanted Rio Lindans cards. The Bee's Carlos Alcala can be reached at (916) 773-6847 or calcala sacbee. com.

Memory lane: in the old days, pre-Interstate 80, Highway 40 entered North Sacramento from south of the river and ran up Del Paso Boulevard. The Boulevard could become the first area in the city to get signs marking the historic route of that early transcontinental highway. "I'm trying," said Councilwoman Sandra Sheedy. Sheedy wants the City Council to recognize the route through town. "It brings interest to The Boulevard." She's also signing up merchants to sponsor the signs.

One sponsor she won't get is the defunct Highway 40 drive-in she remembers going to for burgers when her family came to town. She couldn't recall the place's name, though. Councilman Robbie Waters could, though it closed decades ago. Anyone else recall Stan's? Street whys: The Whys Guy is getting into old news, like last month. Happily ever after: The last time we saw Del Paso Heights student Guadalupe Zavala, she was oohing over a blue dress for her Grant High School Senior Ball, courtesy of Cinderella's Closet.

The nonprofit boutique is the fairy godmother to girls at several local schools who can't afford to buy dresses for fancy school functions. The Closet's parent organization (fairy School Activities for Everyone, also helped Zavala with expenses for the Grant spirit squad. "My parents didn't really know what to do and how to get the money," she said. SAFE did. As of last week, Zavala is a high school graduate and the first in her family to head to college.

She looked dreamy at the ball in May (I saw the pictures), got to participate in school activities and now is bound for Sac State. "Everything worked out well," she said. With no messy pumpkin carriages. Jacob M. Bailey.

The Whys Guy isn't going to blame Bailey for Bush's exploit, but there is a plausible chain of events that starts with Bailey pumping up his bike tires and ends with the President pumping up his troops. Old newspapers in the McClellan archives say Bailey met famed aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss when young Bailey, low on air, went to Curtiss' New York bike shop around the turn of the century. Eventually, according to Ray Oliver's booklet on McClellan place names, Bailey became a mechanic for Curtiss, ing on a naval ship a precursor to the Bush pilot. Somewhere in there Bailey and Curtiss split up. Bailey landed at McClellan, managing military aircraft maintenance until he retired in 1943, 60 years before one president (George landed on another (USS Abe).

Did Bailey really have a hand in Curtiss' innovations? Hard to say. The Whys Guy looked at Curtiss' history books and e-mailed current Curtiss fans but found nothing about Bailey. Perhaps there's one of his family members still around who can clear it up. SACBEE NE NORTH 1 061903 BLACK MAGENTA PAGE: 1.