Gabriela Lena Frank is about to become a household name. She was named Musical America’s Composer of the Year. Her opera about Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera is being performed at the Met, making her the first woman of color ever to have an opera staged there. And earlier this month she won the Pulitzer Prize for Music. To make it even more special, she is one of our own! She is from Berkeley originally and currently lives in Mendocino County, while also acting as Artist in Residence for the lucky students right here at UOP. 

In this feature we discuss all of the above and enjoy examples of many iterations of her composing. 

Violinist Bill Barbini has had a decorated and full career. After Julliard he became one of the youngest violinists to join the New York Philharmonic, and had the singular experience of performing under the baton of Leonard Bernstein! Since then he has made Sacramento his home and worked as concertmaster to many an ensemble here- including the Sacramento Philharmonic, Monterey Symphony, S.F. Chamber Orchestra, and Pacific Symphony. You might now know him best for his work with the Chamber Music Society of Sacramento, an ensemble he founded upon moving here in 1987. 

In this feature we enjoy discussing memories of his life and career, and listening to some performances with the Chamber Music Society. 

Guitarist Peppino D'Agostino was born in Sicily and has since performed in over 30 countries. And now- lucky us -he makes his home right here in the Bay Area. 

In this feature we explore his stunning and flavorful originals, and also enjoy some Baroque music in which Peppino is joined by another guitar legend, David Tanenbaum. 

Just south of the city of Sacramento, a new generation of potential champions is growing up.

The athletes buzz with restless energy, waiting to be unleashed. They have trained much of their young lives to become the fastest, most agile versions of themselves ahead of race day.

But this is no traditional sport. These competitors sport wings, beaks, and an innate sense of direction. They’re racing pigeons, flying for the Fort Sutter Racing Pigeon Club in Sacramento.

And their caretakers are just as unique — the students of Elk Grove Unified School District.

Raising greatness

On a sunny Friday morning seventh-graders Emily Dvorak and Lily Wiechert, and eighth-grader Kathryn Deem, stepped into a small red barn just down the street from Katherine L. Albiani Middle School, accompanied by teacher Jim Looper.

The surprisingly quiet building featured stacks of cages along two walls, many of which were filled with pigeons — some cooing, others flapping their wings. A nearby table was stacked with nesting material, seeds and grains, and various equipment. 

Dvorak said she wanted to take the elective agriculture class after spending time on a farm with her grandma. “We used to feed pigeons there, so I just pursued that and I wanted to get hands-on with animals,” she explained.

Wiechert said she has dozens of birds at home — turkeys, chickens and ducks, but no pigeons yet. “My older sister also went to ag and she said how amazing it was, how they took care of birds, so I wanted to do this too,” she said.

Deem’s sister also got her into the program. “She would come home from school and just talk about how amazing ag is, so eventually I decided to sign up for it, and it ended up being really good!” she said.

Looper said the pigeons were first introduced to Elk Grove Unified last year as part of the ag class, providing students with more opportunities to learn about caring for animals. 

The birds arrive at the start of breeding season in January, and leave several months later. Looper said his class’s reaction is usually one of mild shock.

“What do you mean we’re raising pigeons?” he recalled. “Most people aren’t familiar with a racing pigeon, let alone a domestic pigeon.”

Throughout the class, Looper taught the middle-schoolers how to care for pigeons. They discussed different foods — peas for protein, oyster shells for calcium, grit for digestion — to keep the birds healthy, checked their nests, and practiced giving them vaccines.

The lessons also touch on more racing-centric topics. The students learned about the ID bands that track each pigeon, and carry their number and birth year. They also studied pedigrees and genetics, and how birds pass down certain traits to their chicks.

“With pigeons, we want narrow tail feathers because that makes them more aerodynamic; it reduces the drag,” Dvorak noted. “And then the wings, we want more feathers… more thrust.”

For the love of the bird

In addition to being an agriculture teacher, Looper is also the president of the Fort Sutter Racing Pigeon Club. The pigeons at the school are his, and many will find themselves competing in a race later this year.

Looper grew up on a farm and said he has been around pigeons for as long as he’s been alive, describing it as “kind of second nature.”

“My father had pigeons before I was born, he was very active in the pigeon world,” Looper explained. “As a very young kid I would go to pigeon shows with him, handle the birds and help him with the birds.”

Looper got out of the pigeon game for a while, but reunited with his hobby back in 2017 and has been acquiring more lofts — and birds — ever since. Looper said the pigeons are “tip-top athletes” with “phenomenal genetics, incredible healthcare [and] second-to-none nutrition.”

“Some of these birds are going to be valued at four figures, and most people don’t recognize that they have any value,” he said. 

Looper’s birds — along with the rest of the Fort Sutter Club’s members — compete in the Camellia City Combine, racing a course across the eastern Sierra. The competitions are divided into old bird season (starting in April) and young bird season (beginning in August.)

Looper explained how the pigeons are loaded into specialized trailers, noting that “there’s some noise associated with it, but it’s a beautiful sound,” and taken to the release point, beginning in Sparks, Nevada and extending further east by about 50 miles each week.

“Primarily they’re flying west, so we take them east.” Looper said.  “It would theoretically be flying a one-point line, and they always return home.”

For the competition itself, Looper said the critical factor is how fast — not far — the pigeon flies. “Winds and physical objects [like] mountain ranges will sometimes come into play,” he noted. “A bird that has a longer flight might have an advantage over the bird that flew against the headwind most of the time.”

Ultimately, races are prioritized around what’s best for the competitors. “If there’s smoke, if there’s heat, if there’s rain [on] a particular weekend, it would be postponed until the conditions are optimal for the bird,” Looper said.

Looper said pigeon racing is popular in Europe, Asia, Mexico and elsewhere in the United States. But when asked why he and others compete, Looper noted “everyone’s going to have a little different answer.” 

Part of his interest stems from the camaraderie of the competition, like any hobby. “Talking smack with your friends, your family members,” Looper said. “It’s no different than people that like to golf, or race horses or cars.”

But his fascination goes deeper — to the love and story of the bird. ”What is their offspring going to look like, how are they going to perform?” Looper said. “ [It’s] their passion, their ability to come home oftentimes against odds… their love to get back to their baby.”

Release the pigeons

Pigeon racing itself was a new concept to the students before taking the agriculture class. Dvorak said her initial thoughts on the sport were of the medieval era. 

“I thought it was like the notes they used to send on the birds,” she said. “I think it’s really cool how they knew the way back home, and they wouldn’t fly away.” 

Before long, it was time to give the older pigeons some practice. Two metal boxes sat in the back of a pickup truck outside the barn. Each was packed with about a dozen banded birds, separated by males and females.

“I have created what’s called a training race; the birds will fly from here to my house,”  Looper explained, adding that he lives just a few miles away in rural Elk Grove. “We will know exactly when they get there, and what time they get there.”

He also laid out how the birds would take off. “We just want to give them space to catch air, get up, then they will traditionally circle around and orient themselves, figure out where the heck they are,” Looper said.

The students popped open the door to each box. After a second or two of silence pigeons burst out, wings flapping furiously as they took flight. 

After spending a few moments circling the barn the birds disappeared into the bright blue sky, leaving behind only the sound of the wind.

But this pause did not last. A few minutes later Looper’s phone began to chime. “We’re being interrupted by the race results coming in right now,” he said as the birds crossed an electronic gate in their home loft, just minutes after takeoff.

He also dropped some insight to his students. “I don’t know if these guys know it; some of these birds were raised here last year, so it kind of goes full circle,” Looper told them, a thought that resonated with some of the students. 

“Maybe next year one of those birds will come back in this barn, and I’ll get to raise its chicks!” Wiechert said.

The pigeons’ young caretakers are excited about what the future holds for the birds they raised during class. “It’s just pure astonishment,” Deem said. “It’s amazing to think someday, those birds in the barn are going to be the ones flying to Mr. Looper’s house.”

“If the birds continue racing that means they’re good birds,” Dvorak added. “Mr. Looper gets to win, and his pigeons get to do their jobs.”

Dr. Ralph Hughes has been a longtime figure in the local choral scene.

For 40 years he has served as the Artistic Director and Conductor of the Sacramento Master Singers, a group of 50 performers dedicated to advancing choral music within the community.

Hughes has been credited with bringing his passion for “art with a purpose” to stages across the region, including this Thursday at 7 p.m. with the performance of “A Season of Gratitude” at Stage One of the Harris Center in Folsom.

But this performance also comes at a time of transition, as Hughes prepares to bring his journey with the Master Singers to an end this year.   

He joined CapRadio’s Andrew Garcia on Insight to reflect on four decades at the helm.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Interview highlights

You’ve been conducting the group since 1986. What brought you to the Sacramento Master Singers in the first place?

Well, I’ve actually been with them longer than that. I sang with them for a couple of years. Then, about the third or fourth year, the previous director Ken Winter says “Ralph, I need to talk to you at the break.” So that’s a rather odd way to start as conductor of a group, but he did in fact have his interests go in different directions, and I took over mid-season that many years ago.

Did taking over like that ever crossed your mind?

No. I was told by an advisor at Sac State “you need greater experiences as a choral musician.” That’s why I was singing with them, and so suddenly to be the conductor was not the plan. But it really was fortuitous for me because it’s become my life’s passion, and it’s my West Coast family.

What was the choir's mission at that point, and how have things changed over the decades?

It was a very small group at that time; usually in those first concerts it was 14-17 singers. Ken was a very passionate choral conductor and many people wanted to study with him because of that. So when I took over, it led through a number of years where we had to tighten up the standards and we were interested in being a larger choir. So we went up to 50 singers, and it's a much more polished group now. Certainly, I call it a semi-professional group. I think we reach professional standards, but they simply don't get paid.

You’re the conductor as well as the artistic director for the Master Singers. How has your role changed over the past four decades?

Initially, it was “wear every hat as conductor,” and a few other people wearing multiple hats. Now we have a superb board, we have additional staff members who are paid such as our accompanist Heidi Van Regenmorter [who] has been with me for 30-something years, but more than a dozen years as the accompanist for Master Singers. We have an assistant conductor, Emily Carbrey… a lot of things that used to fall in my lap are now spread across an amazing team of people.

I think the singer soon realized, "alright, he's coming to the concert downbeat with a lot of stress. We need to see what we can do to remove that from him. Let him concentrate on the artistic side of things."  I think the new artistic director is walking into a completely different world than what was at my outset.

What have been some of the highlights over your 40 years with the Master Singers?

Do you have half an hour? Touring with this group has been amazing; we've done tours in the United States, Venezuela, Europe, the British Isles, those were amazing things. We have participated in a world festival in Caracas, Venezuela called America Cantat — we were one of three North American choirs at that festival. We appeared with the Boston Pops; 20 years ago they were touring the West Coast every December, and we were chosen as the choir for the Sacramento performance. That was exhilarating to perform for I think around 12,000 people at the Kings arena at that time.

Have there been any collaborators or members that have been with you through your entire tenure? 

Yes, one singer — David Temme — he was the tenor section leader for decades, he has sung all 40 years. We have people like Carol Horner who's retiring this year after 23 years. I've already mentioned Heidi has been with us more than a dozen years because even when she was not the primary accompanist, she was often a guest accompanist. We have five or six singers who have been with me [for] more than 30 years. 

Most people tend to come and sing for a number of years. Sometimes growing families tug them in a different direction, or a career move doesn't allow them to give the amount of time. They invest an amazing amount of time towards the group's music learning, and helping run the organization. 

Thursday’s performance will include a piece from composer Ken Medema in the program titled “I Will Sing Hallelujah.” Can you tell us more about your relationship with Ken, and this song?

Ken was a musical hero for me when I was a teenager. He's about 10 years older than I am and he had a songbook out, a contemporary Christian songbook. I really wasn't steeped in classical music, so I played that songbook hours per week. Then years later, he called our business manager and said, “I’ve heard your performance of ‘I Will Sing Hallelujah,’ and I need to meet the director.”

That was just a wild experience that someone who I revered as a teenager was calling wanting to meet me. In the meantime, he has come and been a guest soloist; he's written pieces for us. He [even] appeared here on Insight a few years ago.

We're ending the concert with that piece and what will make it even more exciting is that there's going to be 23 string players added to that mix, an electric bass player and the soloist will be Thomas Voigt. I'm sure you're going to find that to be a rocking way to end the concert. 

Are there any other pieces that you're excited about in the upcoming program?

The whole second half is featuring those string players. We begin with a piece by Robert Cohen. [He] was commissioned by the Sacramento Master Singers board to write a piece honoring me. The poet is Ron Cadmus and they’ve written this amazing piece called “The Gift of Hands.” It just simply is trying to give tribute to all conductors out there, and the influence they have with their hands. 

This performance is titled “A Season of Gratitude.” As you look back on your 40 years with the group, is “gratitude” the word for how you feel? 

Yes… you'll get me choked up here. The whole season has been one where I've been grateful for the singers, for what they have added to my life, and I am grateful for what they add to the Sacramento community.

22 year old pianist Parker Van Ostrand started winning piano competitions at the age of five. Since then he's taken first prize at the SF International Piano Competition, and Third Prize/Best Sonata at the International Chopin Competition. He's also got some great performance accolades his belt, with numerous international appearances, collaborations with the likes of Yuja Wong, and concertos with the SF Symphony. Most recently he joined the Auburn Symphony Orchestra for Rachmaninoff's second piano concerto at the Mondavi Center.

In this feature we enjoy live performances of several different composers, and discuss how things like the gym and ziplining keep him sane. 

Performers:

Guitarist George England

Cellist Mike Dahlberg, accompanied by Jennifer Reason

Pianist Arend Aldama

Tenor Robert Vann, accompanied by Jennifer Reason 

Italian Soprano Vanessa Martucci, accompanied by Jennifer Reason

Violinist Bill Barbini and Flutist Mathew Krejci, accompanied by Jennifer Reason 

CapRadio’s Mike Nelson on French horn, accompanied by Jennifer Reason

Jazz Combo with Avery Jeffry on standup bass, Andrew Maloney on sax, Andrew Mills on jazz guitar, and drummer Jeremy Paz

For longtime public radio listeners the name Paula Poundstone will no doubt be familiar.

The standup comedian has been gracing CapRadio’s airwaves for over 20 years as perhaps the most well-known panelist on Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!

And that is just the tip of the iceberg of a comedic career that spans late night TV from Carson to Colbert and a podcast called “Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone.”

Insight Senior Producer Andrew Garcia sat down with Paula, ahead of her performance tonight at the Crest Theater, to talk about her time on ‘Wait Wait’. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Interview highlights

What has it been like doing your podcast for close to ten years now?

The other day we were actually cited on Forbes.com, they had an article about podcasting. It was sort of talking about, you know, mistakes that podcasts make. But as it turns out, they were citing us as a successful podcast.

Our producer saw it and she sent it around to all of us and we were very excited. “Oh oh look our podcast was mentioned!” But if you read the article a little bit deeper. It went on to say, “by success he didn't mean that you made money or had a lot of listeners.” [Both laugh]

Anyways we don't make money and we don't have, you know, millions of listeners. Certainly I started out because I really thought, "Oh, this is a great way that I don't have to travel and I can have an income." And you couldn't survive for a day on what you make from podcasting. 

Having said that, I think we had been on for a year and something before COVID. And it really was this kind of lifeline both between me and my partners on the podcast itself, but also between us and listeners. So many listeners would say to us, "Oh my gosh, you're getting us through this difficult time." And boy, I am a sucker for those words. Somebody says that to me, it doesn't matter how little money I make and how hard I [have to] work by god, I'll do it!

You're very well known for your ability to improvise. It serves you well on the podcast, your stand-up routines, Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! Do you think being able to have the skills and the mindset of improv can help people in their day-to-day lives? 

Well, I don't know that I am a good improviser. I mean there's that word sort of means more than one thing. I did a few years ago now or maybe it was several years ago now.

I just decided that I would like to take improv classes. And so I took some classes with the Groundlings. I made some really wonderful friends as a result. But I suck at improv that way. You know, the thing where you have a partner and you build on a story together and you sort of pull stuff from thin air. I'm not good at that at all!

What I can do is be on stage and not have an act. I can have a conversation with an audience member that is unique to that night and won't be repeated and is funny. But that's just conversational skill.

And also I have 47 years of material rattling around somewhere in my head. And sometimes I'll pull something that seems germane to the conversation and throw that in.

This is an obligatory Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! question since this is a public radio program. You debuted on ‘Wait, Wait’ shortly after it started, what space does this show hold in the greater pantheon of your career? 

It's been so much fun. I think I've been on for something like 25 years. Broadcast productions have long done this thing where they pretend to be spontaneous. Whether it's say something like Hollywood Squares for example. I'm talking about the original with Paul Lynde in the center square and he was so damn funny. Well, come to find out those were written! Now, somebody had to think it up at one time.

But television has long loved to have this illusion that it's all just off the top of your head. When someone goes on a late night talk show, they have spent, you know, lord knows how much time talking with a producer to come up with what stories they might talk about that are entertaining. And so the truth is there's very little spontaneity. 

So I get a chance to do Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, which by the way I had never heard of at the time. We were all in whatever studio was closest to our house. I was in the LA NPR studio in a you know sitting in sort of a lonely room with a headset on. They explained to me how to do it and then they start up the show and this voice keeps coming on in my headset saying “jump in anytime, say anything you want.”

I can't tell you how foreign that is to anything that's televised or ‘radioized’ or whatever it is. And I couldn't get over how much they wanted me to just jump in. So for me—I'm a compulsive talker to begin with and I rarely edit—it was such a wonderful environment to be in. Normally saying a joke that comes into my head, you know, it's what I got thrown out of class [for].

It's a miracle that I know phonics because elementary school was such a difficult fit for me. I was forever being told I had to go sit in the hall because I couldn't stop talking. And now here I was on this show where they solicited that. 

There is a great line in the movie Dumbo because the mouse, Timothy, becomes his manager. When Dumbo and Timothy drank water from a barrel that the clowns had spiked. And they end up in a tree and you remember the blackbirds are making fun of them and astounded that they're in this tree. Well when they finally realize that Dumbo can fly and Dumbo was ostracized because he has these huge ears.

And Timothy says to him, “Dumbo, the very thing that brought you down is going to bring you up, up, up." And I had a little mini-story like that with Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! All those years being told, “don't say that. No, it has to be scripted.” And now the very thing that brought me down was going to, I mean, I can't say it brought me “up, up, up” but it brought me up!

Local Artist Feature April 17th, 2026

People will pleasantly surprise you if you let them. Most of us watching the news would never guess that ABC10 evening news anchor Lora Painter is harboring a lifelong talent for piano and singing! In this feature we get to know her musical side, and enjoy live recordings from her tour of Seoul, fronting a big band, and also playing a little casual Debussy on vacation. 

Local Artist Feature April 10th, 2026

You may have heard him in his role as executive and artistic director of Viridian Strings. Or perhaps you caught him in a performance with the Santa Rosa Symphony or the Bay Philharmonic. Wherever you've listened, you discovered Kyle Stachnik's lush and warm cello playing and adept musicality- skills that he now brings to the students at Sac State's School of Music in his new role as cello professor. In this feature we enjoy several performances recorded live in San Francisco, and hear about his journey to arriving in Sacramento. 

Local Artist Feature April 3, 2026

It turns out the tuba isn't just in parades and marching bands. Professional tubist Portia Njoku is keen to educate the world on the many different (and expressive) roles the tuba can have in music. In this feature we enjoy her own compositions for tuba quartet- both moving tributes to Dr. Martin Luther King, and we also sample the tuba in Vaudeville Blues and Oktoberfest stylings. 

Local Artist Feature March 27, 2026

Violinist Anna Presler may have studied at Yale, but she's spent the last two decades teaching and working right here in our area. Her efforts and accolades could fill a book - they include long time membership in both the Grammy nominated New Century Chamber Orchestra and the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, as well as holding a professorship at Sac State's School of Music since the 1990's. In this feature we discuss the joys of chamber music and enjoy performances by Left Coast. 

Dancers pulled from the crowd take a bow after their performance at CLARA’s 10th birthday party on Saturday, April 4th 2026.Ruth Finch/CapRadio

Local Artist Feature March 13, 2026

Kerstin Allvin has been in music her whole life, having gravitated to the harp as a child. She's gone on to play for the Detroit Symphony for 40 years, found her own record label-High Heel Records, and also start a school for harp right here in Sacramento where she now resides. In this feature we discuss how she's turned the harp into a multi-genre performance avenue for herself and also enjoy her performances ranging from classical to jazz. 

The SMUD Museum of Science and Curiosity, or MOSAC, is offering free admission to students and discounted prices for parents impacted by recent teacher strikes in Sacramento. 

Teachers at the Twin Rivers and Natomas unified school districts recently walked out of their jobs seeking pay increases, smaller class sizes and full health care benefits.

Schools in the districts are still open during the teacher strikes, with substitutes and administrators in charge of classes. But some parents have decided to leave their kids at home. 

Located on 400 Jiboom Street, MOSAC has over 100 exhibits and features a planetarium with daily shows.

MOSAC’s free admission is valid, with proof of Zip code, on schooldays from 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. throughout the week except on Tuesdays. Parents and caregivers of affected students can receive discounted admission of $15 per person. 

Marketing manager Meara Hain told CapRadio the museum offers hands-on learning experience in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields.

“It's really designed to have an experiential learning experience, and so we think that it's a great opportunity for a multi generational experience of learning…” Hain said. “We also have planetarium shows that people really are attracted to.”

One parent using the free admission and discounted prices is Troy Sutton. He has three kids affected by the teachers strikes in Natomas.

Sutton brought two of his three kids to MOSAC because the classroom situation with substitute teachers “isn’t very good,” so he figured the science museum would give his kids better education and time to explore.

He said his oldest daughter wanted to go to school to be with her friends, but they’re not getting anything out of being there.

“She's in a room with all of the fifth graders … and they give her a worksheet in the morning,” Sutton said. “They like to have it done by the end of the day, and she brought one of those worksheets home with me, and I looked at it the other day, and she’s like, ‘yeah, dad, I know it's stuff I did two years ago.’”

With the strikes happening in his district, Sutton is fortunate to be able to take his kids to the science museum because many families he knows do not have that luxury.

“There’s a lot of kids at home,” Sutton said. “[Parents] still have to send their kids to school because they have to work.”

He hopes the district and teachers can come together, negotiate and find common ground.

“I do believe that the teachers are way underpaid for the area that we're in now,” he said.

Sutton said his wife told him to take the kids to MOSAC and he will be coming back the following day with all of his kids. 

He also mentioned organizing at-home activities and rotations among neighbors to support children’s learning.

“This is a great idea. When I leave here, I'm gonna do a Google review and broadcast my praise for this place, because it's a good place,” he said. “Better alternative than to have my kids sit in a room with 60 other kids and know that maybe the adult kid ratios, 35 to one, probably 40 to one, that ain’t safe.”

For the best experience, MOSAC recommends visiting after 1:30 p.m. after field trips have concluded and when the planetarium is available.

This story was featured in our SacramenKnow newsletter. Sign up to get updates about what’s happening in the region in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday.

A hack, skip and hammer into the house.

Those terms might be familiar for fans (or practitioners) of curling.

The sport, defined by its strategic thinking, finesse and camaraderie, has been around for centuries. And its popularity in the United States has been on the rise in recent years, especially following the 2018 Winter Olympics when the U.S. Men’s Team grabbed the gold medal. 

The chance to throw the 42-pound granite stone on the ice (the “sheet”), and perhaps live out some Olympic dreams, drew several first-time curlers to Roseville on a recent weekend for a class put on by the Wine Country Curling Club.

“I love curling. I started watching curling in college, in the Olympics,” said Kaine Gish.

“This is our fourth Olympics together and we’ve been slowly watching more and more… we’ve actually been talking about doing a curling class like this for years,” his wife Rachel Gish added.

Kelli Giles brought her friend to try curling, saying that she’s “in the mode of my life of ‘try everything,’” while Ben Skyrme was out on the ice with his wife for his birthday. 

“I knew about curling from the Olympics pretty much exclusively,” he said. “She got served an ad for this and was like, ‘that’d be so fun for your birthday.’”

Welcome to the club

Founded in 2007 in Vacaville, the Wine Country Curling Club now calls the rinks of the Skatetown Ice Arena home. The club offers lessons, adaptive programs for wheelchair users and seniors, and competes in multiple curling leagues.

Club President Katie Feldman has been curling for more than a decade. She told Insight Host Vicki Gonzalez she learned about the club around the time of the 2014 Winter Olympics and signed up. “It took us about six weeks to be able to get into a class,” she recalled.  “We were just hooked from that day.”

The Wine Country Curling Club currently has about 140 members, about 95 of whom actually curl, according to Feldman. For new curlers, she explained how they get an off-ice briefing about curling’s history, rules and equipment, and then it’s out on the ice.

“They’re throwing stones just like the Olympians. We teach them how to yell at their teammates, we teach them how to sweep. We teach them a little bit of the strategy involved,” she explained. 

“The instructor is in hog heaven because they get to just talk about their favorite hobby over and over again.”

Getting out on the ice

At first glance, curling seems relatively straightforward. 

One team member throws the stone down the 150-foot sheet toward the three-ring target (the “house”), trying to get it in the center (on the “button.”)

A “skip” directs the thrower where to aim, and two “sweepers” use their brooms to scrub the ice in front of the stone as it slides to get it on target. Teams alternate throws, with each player throwing two stones each and rotating between positions.

The last throw, known as the “hammer,” is widely seen as the most important as it can move the other team’s stones out of play. Sixteen stones in total are thrown per round (or “end”), and points are based on the closest-colored stones to the button. Only one team can score per end.

All of that initially went on the back burner as the new curlers entered the rink, strapping on grippy rubber soles and carrying their brooms.

They got into position in the starting block (the “hack”), learned how to push off... and promptly fell over.

“There’s so much to think about. They make it look so easy on TV but you have to move both feet in a different place, and both arms in a different place,” Rachel Gish explained, to which Kaine Gish added, “that was way harder than I anticipated!”

Learning to sweep was also no joke for the first-timers. “I’m getting my workout points for today,” Giles joked.

But over the course of the two-hour class, the students’ performance markedly improved. Stones slid farther and more accurately. Throwers became more confident and smooth in their launches. Each shot was accompanied by teammates urging each other on, cheers for stones landing in the house and groans for those that just missed.

“It’s mostly just finesse,” Jeremy Yeaton said. “Most sports are like, ‘go fast, go hard, do it the most.’ This is not trying to push too hard.”

Yeaton said learning how to apply the right pressure on the stone was most challenging for him. “There’s a really small difference in the amount of effort between too far and not far enough.” 

But when asked whether he would do it all over again, his answer was clear: “Absolutely.”

‘We’re all each others’ cheerleaders’

For instructor Steve Sampson, the social aspect of curling is what has drawn him back to the ice for 12 years.

“It gets me out of the house, and I can’t think of anything when I’m here,” he said. “You’re in the game; you have to be.” 

Sampson said he appreciates how curling is multifaceted, from changes in sweeping techniques to the amount of rotation on a stone. These are lessons he hopes to pass on to beginners at the Wine Country Curling Club. “There’s always something you can work on, you’re never perfect.”

Nancy Augustine, an instructor herself, knows those lessons well — Sampson was her teacher when she began curling three years ago. 

She said she loves sharing her enthusiasm for the sport with others. “I love seeing people’s excitement when they throw that rock, they make that first shot… they get that rock in the house, make that hit,” Augustine said. “You remember that feeling, and it reignites your own passion for it.”

She emphasized the importance of communication within a curling team, saying “every shot is a team shot.” While only one person might be throwing, all four teammates are making decisions “so they can adapt in real time to get the best results they can.”

But at the end of the day, Augustine said, it's about the community — especially with the winning team traditionally buying the first round of drinks after a game.

“Your friend, even if they’re playing against you… we’re going to say ‘hey, that was a great shot,’” she said. “We’re all each others’ cheerleaders… that’s one of the great things about it.”

A veteran’s perspective

Billy Wicks is a curling veteran, and served as a mentor for the beginners. Dressed in a yellow Winnipeg Falcons sweater with a number of curling medals dangling around his neck, Wicks moved between the teams dishing out advice on how to skip, sweep and throw. 

Wicks grew up in Winnipeg, “where all the great curlers come from,” and has been on the ice for decades. 

“First time I threw a stone was 1972, I think… I was curling in high school,” he explained.

Wicks is also no stranger to competition, having participated in leagues and curling tournaments (known as “bonspiels”) put on by the Wine Country Curling Club — The Barrel and The Crush.

He said it is great to see interest in the sport grow around the Olympics, though Wicks also acknowledged curling has gotten more specialized and technical over the years, so it is not as popular as it used to be. 

“Anybody can go curling with their Levi's on, it doesn’t really matter,” he said.

Wicks said he loves to see new people explore their interest in curling, and hopes they will stick around to become the next generation. 

“I would rather not play in the league and have someone new take my spot… I'd give up that spot for the betterment of curling,” he said.

Looking out at the rink, Wicks said the curlers ranged in age from teenagers to athletes well into their 70s, and that the appeal of throwing the stone knows no limits. 

“We try to customize it for everybody… I curl with a stick now. I’ve curled against a blind guy, hearing-impaired people, we had a Paralympian,” he said.

“The ice is flat for everybody, it’s all on the same playing field.”

Vicki Gonzalez contributed to this story.

Driving down N street in Midtown Sacramento, you might see a seven foot statue of a dog - or fox, depending who you ask - mid-stride in a bright-yellow suit.

The statue is called “Homie, Walking the Dogs” and was built by Gilbert Luján in 2000. While it originally sat at the Safe Convention Center before it was remodeled in 2018. After being stored for a couple years, he strutted over to the CLARA Center in 2020.

The people down at the CLARA Center love looking out from their offices and admiring the swanky giant that stands outside their building. According to Megan Wygant, the CLARA’s executive director, she sees people hanging out with him all the time.

“You’ll see people come up, you see kids playing on him a little, you see people walking around him. You see a lot of selfies with him,” Wygant said. “And usually, it’s people who aren’t aware they’re being watched. Its kind of a very intimate, personal experience to just get to watch on a daily basis.”

According to Diana Argueta, the operations manager there, Homie’s what most people first notice about the building.

“He’s definitely a really good marker for the building,” Argueta said. “So if I’m telling people like, ‘oh, you know, we have like a very bright yellow fox man out in the front.’ People are always like, ‘oh yeah, the fox.’”

The statue's almost devilish grin and bright orange color have led many people in Sacramento to think he’s a fox. However, according to an interview that Luján gave to the Smithsonian’s Archive of American Art in 1997, Luján built a system of symbols for his artwork. One recurring theme was these anthropomorphized dog characters.

“I started making these little dogs, and it became these pyramid dogs,” Luján said. “Which was just an invention on my part, was to be the metaphor for indigenous Mexican-Indian heritage.”

He started forming this system in the sixties when the Chicano rights movement, or El Moviemento, first started to take the hold. 

“Chicanos understood in the sixties—at least, I’m one of many—who understood that we were Indian people,” Luján said. “The European invasion that came over here in the fourteen hundreds… it was an invasion. It wasn’t anything else.”

In the early seventies, Luján started working with three other artists: Frank Romero, Carlos Almaraz and Beto de la Rocha. They called themselves Los Four, and made sculptures and murals together. They helped shape the burgeoning Chicano art movement, and held their first widely-recognized exhibition at UC Irvine in 1973. That show was curated by Hal Glicksman, Irvine’s gallery director at that time. Glicksman said that they elevated graffiti to the station of fine art.

“They sprayed graffiti and then they would paint over each other’s work day after day until the painting was thick with paint. It looked like a Jackson Pollock, you know, splash and drip painting. But it was graffiti,” Glicksman said.

Luján said that with his work, he wanted to craft a vision of a whole new world based on the indigenous myth of Atzlán, a paradise lying to the north of modern day Mexico. He called his version “Magulandia” after his nickname from high school. According to Glicksman, his classmates compared him to Mr. Magoo, an extremely nearsighted cartoon character. 

“He went with a high school class to the county museum, and he stood in front of each painting up close, looking at the brushwork,” Glicksman said.

This world is where he said he implemented his system of themes and symbols, to show what this paradise might look like to him.

“[I’m] trying to produce a world, a Magulandia, that represents another world - you know, the Wizard of Oz, the Emerald City,” Luján said. “That’s what I’m doing. I have buildings, I have dogs, people, carritos, kids on skateboards. I have a world that I’ve developed all over these years.”

Gilbert “Magu” Luján passed away in 2011. His work is on display at The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture at the Riverside Art Museum.