Mark Stilwell to fill vacancy on Carmel Unified School District board

Mark Edward Stilwell Sr., executive vice president for the Pebble Beach Company and a 12-year resident within the boundaries of the Carmel Unified School District, has been appointed to fill a vacancy on its board of education.  The appointment was confirmed late Tuesday at a special meeting.

Stilwell and his wife Susan have three children who attend Carmel High School. He's been an involved parent, volunteering as a youth sports coach in soccer, basketball and baseball for the Monterey YMCA and Carmel Unified Youth Baseball. In addition, he volunteers as an alumni interviewer for Yale and has interviewed seniors at Carmel High and other local schools for many years.

Mathew Fuzie has resigned from the board effective June 5, and Stilwell will be in office until the next election scheduled for November.

CSUMB's Barbara Sayad takes Carmel children to Nepal

Barbara Sayad, a lecturer in the Health, Human Services and Public Policy Department at CSUMB, took sixth graders at Carmel Middle School on a virtual tour of Nepal on Monday, when she shared her experiences from a trip she took to the Asian country.

Language arts teacher Shelly Glennon had recently assigned "The Homeless Bird", a novel by Gloria Whelan which narrates the life of a 13-year-old girl in India who's sold into marriage. The book,  music, art and stories of life in south Asia had so moved the Carmel students that they went into the community to raise funds for Empower Nepali Girls, a non-profit that gives out scholarship to needy girls in Nepal.

The students raised $5,700, according to Sayad, enough to send 57 girls to school for a year. Sayad will give the money to a professor at CSU Fullerton, the organizer of the CSU's yearly trek to Nepal, who will be bringing the money along with a backpack full pen-pal letters to the rural Himalayan villages this month.

The 50th anniversary of Captain Cooper School is coming up...

And Carmel Unified School District Officials would like you to share your memories for their celebration.

The big bash will take place from 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday, September 15, at the school in Big Sur. Community members, alumni and staff are welcome.

For more information click here or RSVP at 667-2452, extension 11.

Eyeing more taxes in Carmel and Salinas

** UPDATE. I stand corrected. The Carmel Unified special meeting is scheduled to take place Thursday, April 19. Thanks to alert reader Marry3000 for the correction.

Administrators with the Carmel Unified School district will host a special meeting THURSDAY to explain how the proceeds from their 2005 bond have been used. They'll also have a cost/benefit analysis of the remaining projects -- some of which are yet to be built. All these eyeing a potential bond to complete some improvements officials still would like to see. And perhaps convince voters their projects are worthwhile.

The special meeting will take place at 4:30 p.m. at the Carmel Middle School library, 4380 Carmel Valley Road, Carmel. While some people seem

I detect increased eagerness from administrators and public officials to ask the voters to tax themselves in benefit of schools and students. Both the Monterey Peninsula Unified and the Salinas Union High school districts are exploring possibilities of tax measures. And there's already signs voters are not excited about the idea.