SNOWBOARDS
Did you know that January is National Snowboarding Month? Let’s look into the history of this rapidly-growing sport! • Muskegon, Michigan’s Sherman Poppen is credited with the invention of the snowboard in 1965 and is hailed as the “Father of Snowboarding.” On Christmas Day of that year, after watching his daughters standing on their sled going down a hill, he raced to his garage and tied two skis together, then tied a rope to the front of the board for steering. Poppen called it the Snurfer, combining the word “snow” with “surf.” When his daughters’ friends saw the contraption, they all wanted one, and Poppen seized the idea of patenting and marketing his invention. He licensed his product to Brunswick who began manufacturing the Snurfer.
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• For a few years, the Snurfer was considered a kid’s toy, but in the 1970s, Poppen started scheduling snurfing competitions across the nation. It was at one of these contests that a young Jake Burton Carpenter became interested in the sport. In 1977, Jake moved to Vermont where he experimented with laminated, hardwood boards, adding bindings that the original Snurfer did not have. Avid snowboarders will easily recognize the name Burton as the leading snowboard equipment company in the industry today.
by Samantha Weaver
• As popularity continued to grow, the first national snowboard race was held in 1982, followed by the first World Championship half pipe competition the following year. In 1983, Vermont’s Stratton Mountain Resort became the first major ski resort to open its slopes to snowboarders, and in 1991, Vail, Colorado, became the first to establish a snowboard park. Many other major resorts refused to allow snowboarders because of the “bad boy” image many snowboarders had received.
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Weekly SUDOKU
• The first Rambo movie originally was shot with two different endings. The one that made it into the final cut, of course, left the title character spent, but alive. In the ending that was cut, Rambo was shot and killed by his nemesis. Just think of all • On average, 56,000 pounds the sequels that would never of ore must be mined in order to find one karat's worth of diahave been ... mond. • In China, farmers often use colonies of ants to control the • A man by the name of Walpopulation of insects that are ter Cavanaugh once possessed 1,196 different credit cards in detrimental to their crops. his name -- all of them valid. • Just 150 years ago, New York He was also known as "Mr. City was home to 10,000 free- Plastic Fantastic." range hogs. *** • According to the Talmud, a central text of Judaism, if Thought for the Day: "Who someone is bitten by a rabid overcomes by force hath overdog, the victim should write on come but half his foe." -- John Milton
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• The beer can was introduced in 1935 by the now-defunct Kreuger Brewery.
the skin of a male hyena, strip naked and bury the clothes for a year, then burn the clothes and scatter the ashes. Of course, early medical treatment for the bites wasn't much better. Some doctors recommended pouring boiling oil on the wound or cauterizing it with a red-hot iron. Some went as far as packing the bite with gunpowder, then igniting it. Greek doctors suggested that victims bathe in the juice of crawfish. Castration and massive doses of asparagus also were suggested as cures for rabies.
King CROSSWORD
• It was 19th-century German philosopher, poet and composer Friedrich Nietzsche who made the following sage observation: "He who has a 'why' to live can bear with almost any 'how.'"