Downieville High School Riley Pearmund in front of the Yube Theatre

DOWNIEVILLE - DHS Senior Riley Pearmund amazed the audience viewing his senior project, A Theatre Story- A Short Film By Riley Pearmund. While Pearmund has worked on films in the past during an internship, this project was his first solely produced feature.

Attendees sitting in the Yuba Theatre, built in the 1940s, were immediately wowed by incredible drone footage of the theatre and upbeat music. The project revolves around a series of interviews with B.J. Jordan, Director of the Sierra County Arts Council, The Turnpike Players, and the Downieville High School Drama class, including teacher Amber Baca- Sainsbury, and students Landon Jackson, Mia Martinelli, Natalie Rust, Ariann Jackson, and Logan Kinneer.

Questions raised and answered during the interviews pertained to how long folks lived in Downieville and what brought them to our mountains. For example, B.J. Jordan reflected on how her family goes back six generations...

The Western Pacific Railroad (WPR) Museum held a media day on May 18 at the railroad museum in Portola. A presentation was given by Eugene Vicknair, one of the board of directors and board of secretaries for the museum.

The exciting presentation was held in a California Zephyr diner car, built in 1948, and is the only intact diner car from the California Zephyr. They recently received a $6,000 grant to redo the tables and chairs in the car and renovate the car with paint, electrical updates, and more to "return it to a showpiece."

The presentation began with the history of the WPR, whichstarted in 1903. At the time, the Southern Pacific Railroad (SPR) dominated California. Chairman of UPR and president of Southern Pacific Railroad (SPR), Edward H. Harriman, threatened the life of George Gould if WPR were to be constructed.

George J. Gould (son of Jay Gould, a reputable financier) controlled the eastern railroads. He partnered with Walter Bartnett, who had a coal-hauling railroad in the ba...

Pictured Left to Right: Ron Otero, Vera Otero, Michael Taylor, Connie Johsnon, Greg Johnson, Robert Baker, Leslie Baker Not Pictured: Sandy Loving, Brenda Black, Ryan Black and Logan Birkendahl

DOWNIEVILLE — A thank you to those who participated in this year's annual Cleanup Day, which was performed on Saturday, May 20th.

The group gathered at 8am at Gold Rush Park for coffee, juice and donuts prior to doing their good deeds for the day, with suggested cleanup tasks posted on postits on the visitor's center window.

The Cleanup Day is an annual event organized by DIG (Downieville Improvement Group) and is scheduled a week or two prior to Memorial Day Weekend, to assist with preparing the town for the peak tourist season.

The Sierra County Chamber of Commerce took an initiative this year to venture into a digital transformation of their annual printed Sierra County Visitor's Guide. The Chamber currently budgets and spends close to $16k/year on printed copies of their guide.

While they foresee providing printed guides for visitors, they hope to reduce the printing costs and also gain more on-line presence and provide better service to potential visitors to our county. The result is an app that just went live on Wednesday, May 18th. The app is entitled "Visit Sierra County CA" and can be located in the app store for both iOS and Android devices. The app provides a lot of the same information as the printed guide, but is interactive and makes use of location based services not only for the businesses within the county, but also lists of trails with links for more on-line details. The Chamber of Commerce's list of events is also available on-line and is able to keep more accurate and up to date than a printe...

Left to right, Ariann Jackson, Abby Sainsbury, Mia Martinelli, Riley Pearmund, and Landon Jackson, the organizers of the fundraiser.

The people of Downieville are mostly aware of the activities surrounding the Downieville School fundraiser we call the Cancer Awareness Walk. But for our town's guests and those who don't, this article is for all of you.

The Cancer Awareness Walk is an annual Mother's Day weekend event. This year it was held on May 13th from 9:30 a.m to noon. The event is sponsored by DHS's CSF (California Scholarship Federation) chapter as one of their community service projects.

The very first Cancer Awareness walk was in 2008, almost as long as I've been alive. The fundraiser was started as a senior project by former student Stacey Hallman. The money raised goes through a program involving our friend Frank Lang and SFMR. It is distributed to local cancer patients who need financial help with transportation costs to appointments (including reimbursement of gas costs), spec...