DIANE BELL
on his website.
His program became the longest running radio show in San Diego.
By Rice’s count, he has hosted more than 2,300 broadcasts over the years, culminating on Sept. 13.
In his taped acceptance speech for the international association’s lifelong achievement recognition,
Rice good-naturedly thanked all the program directors for not listening to radio consultants “who probably told them that playing bluegrass on a country radio station was probably not a good idea.”
Fans have urged Rice over the years to syndicate, but he resisted, insisting he produces a San Diego show.
“I partnered with the San Diego Bluegrass Society to feature a lot of our local talent,” Rice told me. “I was the first DJ in the country to play a record by Nickel Creek before they became stars. They were just high school kids (from Vista).”
Noting that the West Coast is far from bluegrass country, Rice formatted his show to not simply entertain but to educate listeners about the music genre. With that in mind, in 1988 he launched a free website, BluegrassBios.com, with facts and profiles of wellknown musicians and bands.
Rice’s love of bluegrass music prompted him to take up the banjo in 1966. In the ’70s, he played in the San Diego band Brush Arbor, which included his two brothers, Jim and Joe Rice, and was voted “Touring Band of the Year” by the Academy of Country Music in 1973.
Rice, 75, says he’ll continue updating his website, working with the San Diego Bluegrass Society and helping oversee an International Bluegrass Music Association emergency fund that serves musicians in need. He may explore a new outlet for his show, including Internet radio.
Dirty laundry: It’s not an achievement the local Chamber of Commerce will highlight in its brochures, but San Diego County has found its place in dog dirt heaven — at least in the eyes of yard care professionals.
In a rating of the crappiest lawns in America (yes, as in dog crap), the cities of San Diego, Chula Vista and
Carlsbad jointly share sixth place.
This was not your usual survey, but one compiled by LawnStarter, a nationwide company that operates an Uber-type service linking residents with available lawn care professionals nearby.
Its geographic rankings are based on a study of the number of pet waste incidents (complaints, reviews from pros and customer support tickets) logged for properties by its affiliated lawn care pros.
The metro regions in which pedestrians are most advised to watch their step are led by Washington state’s Seattle/Tacoma/Bellevue area, followed by Colorado Springs, Colo.; Toledo, Ohio; Arizona’s Phoenix/Scottsdale/Mesa region, and El Paso, Texas.
The study doesn’t pretend to be all-encompassing. It focuses on 67 regions across the country in which LawnStarter has 100 or more affiliated lawn care pros, explains Jeff Herman, who oversaw the LawnStarter study.
This is not just a bunch of crap, Herman insists. After all, dog doo can harm human health as well as our nation’s ecosystem. No surprise there.
To underscore its point, the study includes “Doos and Don’ts,” along with unsavory data, such as: A single gram of dog poop contains as many as 23 million bacteria; A pile of dog waste can take a year or more to fully break down (depending largely on climate and dog diet), and the estimated 89.7 million dogs in the United States produce 24.6 billion pounds of waste a year.
Oh, and an interesting tidbit: Dogs tend to align with the Earth’s magnetic force, facing north or south, when doing their business.
That’s the news scoop for the day.