Vail Co

The Ozark Mountains town of Mountain View (population 2,867) will hold the 39th annual Arkansas Folk Festival from April 19 to 21. The festival promises old-fashioned fun: a parade down Main Street, buggy and pony rides and Ozark crafts. Local musicians will gather at the town square to play, and anyone with an instrument can join them. For more information, contact the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce, P.O. Box 133, Mountain View, AR 72560; (870) 269-8068, www.mountainviewcc.org.

A California congressman confirmed Friday that he wants to convert Santa Rosa Island in Channel Islands National Park into a Department of Defense installation for military recreation and special forces training -- a move critics say would severely limit public access. The proposal by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, is being circulated as an amendment to a defense authorization bill that both houses of Congress began hashing out this week.

John Jefferson Woolley II, a petroleum geologist, died suddenly of a heart attack at his home in Ventura on Saturday. He was 46. Woolley was born in Torrance on Oct. 2, 1952, and grew up on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, where he attended school. He graduated from USC with a bachelor's degree in geology in 1975. He then attended San Diego State, where he received a master's degree in geology in 1978. After a five-year courtship, he married Margaret Hilliard in 1987. The couple has two children.

The kindergartners in Mildred Vail's class crafted memories of their teacher Monday in bright crayon drawings and spare phrases. "Mrs. Vail was in an airplane and she died and she crashed and she turned into an angel," one child wrote.

As one who had a rare opportunity to work on Santa Rosa Island in 1991, I can testify that Andrew Rice got "The Last Roundup" (Oct. 11) exactly right. I'll never forget the magnificent herds of cattle, deer and elk or the cowboys leaving for their day's work in the predawn mist. The Vail brothers were true custodians of a living history of California's ranching past that is gone forever. Unfortunately, the U.S. government acquired the land for a fraction of its value, then broke its agreement with the Vail brothers, just as surely as it went back on its treaties with Native Americans 100 years earlier.

A proposal that would allow continued big-game hunting in Channel Islands National Park appears doomed, to the delight of park supporters and the dismay of its chief backer. The controversial plan by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Alpine) was scuttled by a measure tucked into the half-trillion-dollar spending bill approved this week by the House of Representatives. The massive bill has yet to clear the Senate, but its approval there is expected.

Environmentalists and National Park Service officials are holding last-minute negotiations to avoid a showdown in court over cattle ranching on Santa Rosa Island. A Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group has threatened to sue the park service, alleging that the Channel Islands National Park, a chain of five islands off the Ventura County coastline, is failing to protect its natural resources. The National Parks and Conservation Assn.

Taking steps to protect rare island plants and clean up polluted streams, the National Park Service on Monday recommended removing hundreds of deer now hunted for sport on Santa Rosa Island and restricting cattle grazing in some of the island's most fragile areas.

Preparing to clean up polluted streams and protect rare plants, the National Park Service proposes closing one-fifth of Santa Rosa Island to cattle grazing next spring and is devising long-term environmental plans that could drive a historic cattle ranch off the island.