Bishop - A Preventable Scene

Simulation shows sad truth

Just weeks before graduation and the temptations of summer vacation, students from Bishop High School witnessed the stark and tragic realities of drinking and driving during Wednesday’s “Every 15 Minutes” program. With the grim reaper and hundreds of students from the high school looking on, emergency crews sped to the scene of a simulated, double-fatality crash that was staged outside the school on Pine Street. One of the two “sober students” who were hit by the “drunk” driver was pronounced dead at the scene and the Inyo County Coroner’s Office arrived to take him away. The second “sober” student was loaded by EMTs into an ambulance and taken to a waiting life-flight helicopter. As for the “drunk” driver, local law enforcement officers performed a field sobriety test and made an arrest. “Every 15 Seconds,” an annual program that refers to the statistic that a life is lost every 15 seconds in a drunk-driving accident, strives to give youth as realistic a picture as possible of the consequences of impaired driving. Photos by Mike Gervais




I was a long time Big Pine resident. My family from the city use to come up for Thanksgiving (a large family). We would go play in the snow and have family vollyball games at the park after the big feast. They would stay the whole, long holiday and they still talk about all the fun we had as a family. I have fond memories of Owens Valley. - Carol Bennett I grew up in the Owens Valley where we had a large gathering of family at our small house in Big Pine. After my father passed away on November 4, 1971, it became a tradition for all of my mother's extended family to spend the holiday with us. One of the memories that my cousins still talk about is all of the pies that my mom, sister and I would make, (thirteen one year). Over the years since my mother re-married, we have all drifted away from the family gathering in Big Pine. I miss those days of crowded, standing room only get togethers! - Janice Tull (Alpine, CA)