8th Circ. Rejects Card Fraud Suit Against US Bank

By Martin Bricketto

Law360, New York (May 18, 2012, 6:43 PM ET) — The Eighth Circuit on Friday backed the toss of a paintball equipment merchant’s putative class action claiming U.S. Bank NA allowed credit card fraud and intentionally interfered with a banking contract, agreeing that the merchant didn’t meet pleading standards.

The case stems from fraudulent online orders with E-Shops Corp. in 2009 that were made with U.S. Bank credit cards. Cardholders disputed the charges, prompting U.S. Bank to initiate chargebacks to the merchant’s bank, HSBC, which in turn sent back the money from E-Shops’ account, according to…

Jason Kreisman Leaves Paintball, KEE Action Sports Now Hiring

It’s a sad day when a family member leaves the paintball collective, but we wish “bon voyage” to Jason Kreisman, Marketing Manager for KEE Action Sports. Jason has worked with many people behind the scenes helping to promote the KEE Action Sports brands. Chances are that if you saw something about Empire, JT, or BT Battle Tested, Jason had a hand in helping it get exposure.

JK, as he was affectionately known within the community, leaves us with the following words, “For close to four years now, I have had the distinct privilege and pleasure of working with you to help grow our exciting sport. On many fronts the sport of paintball has seen an increase in participation globally and you are a significant part of this tremendous spike in play . The amount of time and money being invested in the game and the equipment is growing exponentially, and this bodes well for the future of paintball. It is with great certainty that exciting times are in store for the paintball industry and enthusiasts. As the sport continues to grow there will be other advances, but the most important thing is that we as an industry continue to expose as many people as possible to the sport. From there the possibilities are limitless!

So, at this time I wanted to take a moment to let you know that my last day with KEE Action Sports will be on May 25, 2012. I have been presented with a new and challenging opportunity that will take me out of the sports industry which I have been engrained in for over 20 years. I have enjoyed working for and with KEE and I appreciate having this fantastic opportunity to work with all of you in the media. With many of you, I have shared a unique camaraderie which I hope will continue in the years to come even though I will not be here with the company. I plan to maintain an active role in helping promote our sport when and where I can, as this sport has treated me with great respect and admiration.”

However, his leaving also creates an exciting opportunity for somebody! Will it be you?! See below for the employment opportunity at KEE Action Sports in New Jersey.

Position: Marketing Manager

Empire Paintball is a leading paintball manufacturer and distributor of paintball equipment, apparel and paintballs. We are
currently looking for a Marketing Manager to oversee all aspects of the Marketing including: advertising, direct mail, public
relations, promotions, and consumer websites and cross promotions Empire, Empire Battle Tested, and JT Paintball.

We are currently recruiting for an experienced Marketing Manager located in the Sewell, NJ facility. This is a salary,
exempt position DOE.

Education and/or Experience:
• Bachelor’s degree
• 2-3 years experience in general solicitation category, with emphasis in online, print, media, and advertising
• Advanced in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint
• Proven ability to meet deadlines and manage projects with internal and external customers
• Strong, positive attitude and work ethic desired.
• General understanding of paintball industry preferred.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities: include the following. Other duties may be assigned.
• Create, manage and track annual advertising and marketing operating plan budget
• Create and deliver advertising, marketing collateral, promotions and direct mail copy
• Develop and write creative briefs and provide creative direction for marketing materials and programs including:
advertisements, in-store collateral, tournament and direct mail pieces
• Edit, write and assign editorial content for consumer websites, print media, product information, online media and
catalog listings to ensure consistent tone, voice and message
• Direct and supervise the development and implementation of editorial calendar, media lists, convention and event
calendar
• Work with organization to determine means and methods for new player acquisitions
• Maintain media relationships and oversee public relations efforts to garner additional brand awareness and
product exposure
• Research, initiate and generate incremental revenue opportunities through targeted cross promotions and
marketing programs
• Plan, purchase and coordinate all print, advertising, broadcast and web media

Full benefit package after 90 days of service including PPO Medical, Dental, Vision, Short Term Disability, PTO and 401k.

Human Resources
KEE Action Sports
570 Mantua Blvd, Sewell NJ 08080
Fax: (856)681-6043
Email: jobs@keeactionsports.com
*Qualified candidates will be contacted – no phone calls or Agents please*
*No company paid Relocation*

We are a drug free workplace and an Equal Opportunity Employer M/F/V/D

How to substantially injure and thoroughly embarrass yourself on the Skirmish … – The Express Times

I would’ve rather been golfing.

That’s what I was thinking while on the muddy fields earlier
this month somewhere in rural Carbon County, a place where cellphone
reception still withers and a tone of distress seems to permeate through the
usually stoic automated voices on a standard GPS device.

View full sizeExpress-Times File PhotoI hate to point out the obvious, but just for the benefit of those who prefer reading captions instead of lengthy drivel about being tattooed with paintballs, this guy is NOT me. The gun he’s pointing actually fires tiny plastic pellets instead of paintballs.

What brought us there was the desire of a soon-to-be-married
friend to spend a day shooting miniature balls of paint at complete strangers
while donning camouflage overalls. Everyone in his bachelor party shared this
desire except for me.

But a bachelor party isn’t the appropriate venue to exercise your
own free will. The bachelor’s the dictator and you’re going to do whatever he
wants to do provided it doesn’t rise to the level of a felony offense or
jeopardize your own marriage. 

So it was off to Skirmish USA paintball fields. The place has
a Jim Thorpe mailing address, but I’ve been to Jim Thorpe and it seemed like we
were a long way from there.

The last time I played paintball was in college. It didn’t
end well.

For those who’ve never played, you buy the paintballs
beforehand. You load up your gun, fill up a bunch of jugs on your ammunition
belt and head into battle with enough paint to refurbish every floor of Martin
Tower in Bethlehem.

The goal here is to not run out of ammunition in the middle
of a battle.

My goal at the time was to not run out of money earmarked for
buying beer after the battle.

So I went a little cheap on the paintball purchasing front and found
myself shooting blanks after about five minutes of action during a round of
capture the flag.

Feeling my contributions to the offensive were now very
limited, I summoned my inner-Rambo and sprinted for the opposing flag only to
get tripped up in the middle of the field.

I went down head-first and planted my face into a rock. The
mask I was wearing shattered. The impact cracked my nose and left me lying on
the ground with blood gushing out of my nostrils.

Instead of seeking out medical attention on my behalf,
several members of the opposing team saw it fit to surround me and
spray my back with approximately 30,000 paintballs fired from close range.

The ambush eventually caught the attention of the referee,
who stopped it and got me to a neutral area so I could get some gauze before I
bled out.

Fast forward 14 years to this month’s excursion. It turned
out to be much less harrowing so I was actually afforded the opportunity to
take it all in. Despite my initial pessimism, I did have some fun, particularly
when we executed a coup d’état on the bachelor.

Still, I would’ve rather been golfing.

I guess part of the problem for me is that half the people
out there take it way too seriously. Folks, it’s not 1969 and you’re not in the
bush three clicks from the Ho Chi Minh trail. You’re on a field in the Poconos,
and there’s a concession stand a couple hundred feet away that sells overpriced
hot dogs. That fact isn’t going to change no matter how many paintballs you
unload on a stupid college kid who’s grounded with a broken nose.

But I suppose it’s easy to shoot down someone else’s hobby.

There were probably a few people out there wondering why
someone would prefer to spend a Saturday lugging around a bag of sticks, using
those sticks to strike a little white ball and then cursing at the little white
ball because it didn’t go where it was supposed to go.

Did I mention I would’ve rather been golfing?

***

MARATHON TRAINING UPDATE: There are a
few readers who seem genuinely interested in the training my wife and I are
doing in advance of this November’s Philadelphia Marathon.

Just to update those folks, we’re kind of in a maintenance
stage right now, running about 20 miles a week. I plan to stick with this
regimen until late July when we’re 18 weeks away from the big day. A lot of
experienced runners told me 18 weeks out is a good time to
begin a comprehensive training program for someone who has a handful of half
marathons under his belt.

Five years after death of Jerry Falwell Sr., growth booming at Liberty

Five years have passed since the death of Rev. Jerry Falwell Sr., and the eternal flame erected in his honor burns a steady orange on a hilltop at Liberty University.

There, the university he founded unfolds in all directions, a campus clattering with construction. But the hilltop is serene, and on warm days, students come here to study or pray.

A quarter-mile away, Liberty has broken ground on a $50 million library, and across the border in Campbell County, construction has begun on a medical school.

“It’s almost like he wrote the script,” said Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr., who took over after his father died on May 15, 2007. “If you listen to his 1970s sermons and look at what’s happening now, it’s almost like he was seeing it and describing it.”

In five years, the momentum left by Falwell Sr. has snowballed into rapid growth. The biggest gains come from LU Online, where enrollment has soared from 15,000 students in 2007 to 77,500 this month. Residential enrollment has grown by about 3,000 students to 12,560, about a 30 percent increase.

The curriculum has swelled to more than 260 academic programs, including a film school that opened in January. In 2013, Liberty plans to admit its first class of medical students, perhaps the biggest academic milestone since the law school opened in 2004.

Liberty is pouring more than $220 million into construction projects that promise to transform campus over the next decade. Old buildings are being torn down and replaced with Jeffersonian architecture; makeshift dorms will be replaced with high-rise residence halls.

The driving force behind the growth has been the significant improvement of the university’s financial standing. Wall Street investors have taken notice, and Liberty has received strong credit ratings from Standard Poor’s and Moody’s Investors Service.

“Just over the last five years our net assets have grown from about $100 million to over $850 million,” said Falwell Jr., adding that net assets are expected to exceed $1 billion this year.

“We’ve got the ability now to do what was being dreamed off, to carry out that vision.”

***

During Falwell’s Sr.’s tenure, his roles as chancellor of Liberty, pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church and Moral Majority leader often would blend together.

But when he disbanded the Moral Majority in 1989, his son said, Falwell Sr. “decided that Liberty University was going to be the most important part of his ministry.”

In his 1997 autobiography, Falwell Sr. wrote, “My burning obsession is to cooperate with God in building the greatest Christian university in the world, in history.” In the next 10 years, he worked methodically toward that end.

Meanwhile, Falwell Sr. was grooming his oldest son to succeed him as chancellor, said Ron Godwin, LU’s provost and senior vice president for academic affairs.

After earning a bachelor’s from Liberty and a law degree from the University of Virginia, Falwell Jr. officially joined the ranks at Liberty in 1988, where he served as general counsel and managed the business operations. For years, Liberty’s financial survival was a day-by-day struggle, he said.

“The financing was just a hodge-podge of short-term loans and just wherever we could borrow 3 or 4 million dollars…” Falwell Jr. said. “My job was to negotiate with those folks and to show them what we were doing, that there really was light at the end of the tunnel.”

Though Liberty’s financials were shaky, Falwell Sr. had become a household name through his church and televangelism. He also gained publicity for taking controversial stands in the national media, and some sound bites, like his quote blaming gays, feminists, abortionists and others for the September 11 terrorist attacks, still are cited in the media.

 “There was almost this philosophy of there was no such thing as bad publicity,” Falwell Jr. said. “Whatever it took to get the word out. If it meant getting beat up in the press, at least they were talking about us.”

After Falwell Sr. died, Liberty benefitted from $29 million in proceeds from his life insurance policy. That, combined with a surge in fundraising and enrollment, bolstered the university’s financial standing.

Falwell Jr. wasnamed chancellor and thrust into the public eye. A private person by nature, he said it was challenging to adjust to the constant public speaking and loss of anonymity.

“My first speech I gave at Liberty, I got up there and said the fact that I’m standing up here today is proof that God has a sense of humor because I tried to avoid public speaking my whole life.”

On the national stage, Falwell Jr. keeps a lower profile than his father.

“I think it’s good that my profile’s lower because the less dependent Liberty is on a family or personality or a name, the healthier it is for the school.”

 Liberty’s engagement in local politics, however, has increased. Last year, the administration successfully lobbied for a polling place on campus, and in recent elections, student voters have turned out by the hundreds.

Liberty continues to serve as a magnet for high-profile conservative leaders. At Saturday’s graduation, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney spoke to a crowd of more than 34,000 during his commencement address in Williams Stadium. Romney joined a long list of presidential contenders to speak at Liberty, including Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee.

Still, university leaders insist Liberty’s core mission is education.

“It’s not Liberty University’s mission to do what Moral Majority did,” Falwell Jr. said. “We’re not a church. We’re not a political organization. Our job is to educate young people to go out and make a difference in whatever walk of life they pursue.”

***

In the early years, Liberty’s focus was training the next generation of preachers. The school of religion served as the heart of the school.

The focus shifted when Falwell Sr. decided he could reach more people if he trained students for a broad range of careers. Liberty’s curriculum expanded across the liberal arts and sciences.

Today, the College of Arts and Sciences draws the most students, followed by the business and education schools.

Falwell Jr. — inspired by his father’s propensity for risk-taking — has moved swiftly to expand Liberty’s reach into medicine, cinema and the health sciences.

“The fact that he started a law school back when we had just recovered financially … I thought that was crazy,” Falwell Jr. said. “But he jumped right in and took a risk … That’s affected how I’ve responded since he died.”

In September, Liberty announced plans to build a medical school. In January, the university began training its first class of film majors through the Zaki Gordon Center for Cinematic Arts, which is headed up by a Hollywood veteran.

The administration maintains a Christian culture in the classroom by only hiring faculty members who ascribe to a Doctrinal Statement of Christian beliefs that affirm Biblical authority and reject evolution.

Liberty also employs faculty through short-term contracts and does not offer tenure except in the law school, where it is a requirement for accreditation.

Though it’s rare, Liberty will end a professor’s contract if he writes a book or broadcasts an idea that runs counter to the school’s values, university officials said. It’s part of the strategy Falwell Sr. developed to prevent Liberty from becoming secularized.

“Tenured faculty was not something Dr. Falwell had any respect for,” Godwin said.

***

The “The Liberty Way” — a strict code of conduct that governs campus life — has remained largely the same since Falwell Jr. took over.

The chancellor can name only two rules that have changed. Male students, who were formerly required to keep their haircuts above the ear, are now allowed to sport a slightly shaggier cut. Female students are permitted to wear nose piercings.

“I just haven’t changed much in the last five years because I didn’t want to give the impression we’re moving away from our core principles,” he said.

From the single-sex dorms to nightly curfews, most of Liberty’s rules are entrenched in campus culture. The Liberty Way requires students to attend convocation — a campus-wide worship service — three times per week. Students, on and off campus, are not allowed to drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, watch R-rated movies or engage in other activities deemed unacceptable by the administration.

Still, the Liberty Way has evolved over time. Most visibly, Falwell Sr. loosened the dress code substantially from days of jackets and ties. Now, Liberty students are basically indistinguishable from their counterparts at secular institutions, with their jeans and flip-flops and sometimes daring fashion choices.

“Liberty had a standard of behavior that Dr. Falwell felt better represented the Christian testimony, but he would never confuse that with the fundamentals of the faith. That he would not compromise on,” Godwin said.

By some accounts, Liberty has become a more fun campus in recent years. Johnnie Moore, who was a student in the early 2000s and now serves as vice president for executive projects, points to the explosion of extracurricular activities, which range from figure skating to paintball.

Liberty drew national attention for the opening of Snowflex, an artificial ski slope on Candler’s Mountain. Students have also benefitted from a host of smaller projects, including an 18-hole disc golf course, an equestrian center and paintball fields.

***

Perhaps the most visible sign of change is the ongoing transformation of campus as Liberty invests more than $220 million into buildings, dorms and athletic facilities.

In five years, the landscape has been reshaped by a steady stream of bulldozers, cranes and construction workers.

One of its marquee projects was the $22 million expansion of Williams Stadium, home to Flames football. Most recently, Liberty completed the Hancock Welcome Center, a stately building with a red brick façade, white columns and a grand rotunda — a symbol of the university’s emerging emphasis on campus sophistication.

Liberty did not have this luxury in its early days. A tight budget forced Falwell Sr. to take a utilitarian approach to campus. The administration built low-cost dorms and converted industrial buildings, like the former Ericsson plant, into classrooms and offices.

“Now, for the first time, we’ve been able to start putting an emphasis on permanence … and building better-quality buildings,” said Falwell Jr.

In January, Liberty sold $100 million in taxable bonds on Wall Street to fund capital projects. In 2010, Liberty made its first public bond offering when it sold $120 million in tax-exempt bonds.

Coming down the pipeline is the $50 million Jerry Falwell Library, which broke ground in March.

The library is the heart of a plan to beautify campus and prepare Liberty for another wave of enrollment growth, Falwell Jr. said.

Long-range plans include building high-rise dormitories behind the Vines Center, and replacing parking lots with green spaces and sidewalks.

Four academic buildings near DeMoss Hall will be demolished to make room for an academic quad featuring expansive lawns rivaling in size those at the University of Virginia, Falwell Jr. said.

Campus leaders say Liberty will be virtually unrecognizable by the end of the decade.

 “We’ve done a lot in the last five years, but we’ll do as much or more in the next five years as we’ve done in the last 40,” said Neal Askew, executive vice president and a longtime board of trustees member.

“I think Neal’s right,” Falwell Jr. said. “I think the changes over the next five years are going to be mind-boggling.”

Brown County zip lines: the Super Bowl attraction on steroids

NASHVILLE, Ind. — The first zip line I rode towered above the spectacle that was Super Bowl Village. During that unseasonably warm week in February, fans flooded the blocked-off streets and cheered as we soared above Capitol Avenue.

The zip line was the “it” attraction in a city buzzing with big-game fever, as evidenced by the 10,429 souls brave enough to give it a try. Al Roker rode it. Jimmy Fallon rode it. Gary Brackett, then still an Indianapolis Colt, rode it, too.

During the madness, as thousands waited for a shot to buy a ticket, Rick Resener walked around and handed out 500 fliers introducing an alternative — a longer zip line and a much shorter wait — 60 miles to the south. Give ours a shot, he told them, and you can ride the zip line and be back in Indianapolis before you’ll ever get a chance to buy a ticket here.

“Most of them thought I had (Super Bowl Village) zip-line tickets for sale,” Resener remembers. “It was like a piranha attack.”

Two months later, I took Resener, known by all as Ranger Rick, up on his offer. After arriving at the eXplore Brown County home base (posted speed limit: 5 mph), I met Resener, sporting the kind of graying mustache that I pictured he would have. He was eager to introduce me to “The Screamer,” which he proudly noted is the state’s longest and fastest zip line.

The eXplore Brown County zip lines were erected last year, and Resener said the Brown County operation has been “busy, busy, busy.”

The site offers 500-plus acres of adventure, which includes 60 acres of paintball fields and 30 miles of mountain-biking trails. But the reason many of us were there on that April afternoon was to try one of the nine zip lines, with more than a mile of cable suspended in the air. The shortest is 80 feet. The Screamer spans 1,220 feet, with speeds up to 45 mph.

Boarding the towering platform to ride the signature attraction wasn’t particularly fun. (If you rode the zip line at the Super Bowl, climbing those stairs offers a suitable comparison.)

Strapped in and finally about to embark, I asked the 12-year-old in front of me for any words of advice. “Don’t look down,” Ali Henderson said. And then, suddenly, I was weightless, soaring across the treetops at nearly 40 mph, the wind zipping by as I rocketed down the cable, a quarter of a mile, from one tower to the next. The rush of the ride quickly spread a smile across my face. This, I figured, is about as close as I’ll ever come to flying.

A minute later, I was back on the platform, back under gravity’s command. My heart was racing. I wanted to go again.

“When you’re out here, we like to think you’re on vacation,” said Chase Buffington, the zip-line manager. “You can forget about the stresses of life.”

Buffington, originally from Washington state, has been running zip lines for eight years. He came to Indiana last summer to help construct the first in Brown County.

“I love every single part about this job,” he said, after helping the last riders off the final platform. “But the best part is that this is an experience people will talk about for a long time.”

On a sunny Friday in April, a pair of families joined us from Taylorsville, Ky., just outside of Louisville. When we were finished, I asked Shane Henderson, Ali’s younger brother, about his inaugural zip-line experience.

“Were you ever scared up there?”

“Nope.”

I decided to call his bluff. “Not at all?”

“Well, OK, maybe a little.” Still, he said, he can’t wait to come back and do it all over again. That makes two of us.

Zipping through Indiana

» Eagle Creek Park, 7840 W. 56th St.: Maryland-based Go Ape! Treetop Adventure Co. is constructing five zip lines as part of a 39-piece obstacle course in the trees of Eagle Creek Park.

Sign up for the adventure course — which will take you about two or three hours — and you’ll experience it all: the five zip lines, two Tarzan swings, a series of rope ladders, bridges, swings and trapezes all amid the wooded treetops.

Go Ape! hopes to be open to the public by “late spring,” according to owner Dan D’Agostino. Information: goape.com/sites/eagle-creek-park.

» Holler Hoppin’ Zip Lines, 1292 Ind. 135 S., Nashville: Offers five lines totaling 1,100 feet in length. The night-hops tour offers an after-dark trek lasting about an hour. Information: www.teameffectinc.com/holler-hoppin-zip-lines.html or (812) 988-0085.

» Dagaz Acres, 12444 Antioch Road, Rising Sun: About 95 miles southeast of Indianapolis, this attraction boasts seven dual zip lines covering 23 acres, three canopy zips and two bridges. Information: (812) 594-2727 or www.dagazacres.com.

» SpringHill Camp, 2221 W. Ind. 258, Seymour: This six-line zip line is 800 feet long and is erected 40 feet off the ground. Information: (812) 497-0008 or www.springhillcamps.com/in.

Brown County attraction offers 9 zip lines

NASHVILLE, Ind. — The first zip line I rode towered above the spectacle that was Super Bowl Village. During that unseasonably warm week in February, fans flooded the blocked-off streets and cheered as we soared above Capitol Avenue.

The zip line was the “it” attraction in a city buzzing with big-game fever, as evidenced by the 10,429 souls brave enough to give it a try. Al Roker rode it. Jimmy Fallon rode it. Gary Brackett, then still an Indianapolis Colt, rode it, too.

During the madness, as thousands waited for a shot to buy a ticket, Rick Resener walked around and handed out 500 fliers introducing an alternative — a longer zip line and a much shorter wait — 60 miles to the south. Give ours a shot, he told them, and you can ride the zip line and be back in Indianapolis before you’ll ever get a chance to buy a ticket here.

• PHOTO GALLERY: Zip across Brown County.

“Most of them thought I had (Super Bowl Village) zip-line tickets for sale,” Resener remembers. “It was like a piranha attack.”

Two months later, I took Resener, known by all as Ranger Rick, up on his offer. After arriving at the eXplore Brown County home base (posted speed limit: 5 mph), I met Resener, sporting the kind of graying mustache that I pictured he would have. He was eager to introduce me to “The Screamer,” which he proudly noted is the state’s longest and fastest zip line.

The eXplore Brown County zip lines were erected last year, and Resener said the Brown County operation has been “busy, busy, busy.”

The site offers 500-plus acres of adventure, which includes 60 acres of paintball fields and 30 miles of mountain-biking trails. But the reason many of us were there on that April afternoon was to try one of the nine zip lines, with more than a mile of cable suspended in the air. The shortest is 80 feet. The Screamer spans 1,220 feet, with speeds up to 45 mph.

Boarding the towering platform to ride the signature attraction wasn’t particularly fun. (If you rode the zip line at the Super Bowl, climbing those stairs offers a suitable comparison.)

Strapped in and finally about to embark, I asked the 12-year-old in front of me for any words of advice. “Don’t look down,” Ali Henderson said. And then, suddenly, I was weightless, soaring across the treetops at nearly 40 mph, the wind zipping by as I rocketed down the cable, a quarter of a mile, from one tower to the next. The rush of the ride quickly spread a smile across my face. This, I figured, is about as close as I’ll ever come to flying.

A minute later, I was back on the platform, back under gravity’s command. My heart was racing. I wanted to go again.

“When you’re out here, we like to think you’re on vacation,” said Chase Buffington, the zip-line manager. “You can forget about the stresses of life.”

Buffington, originally from Washington state, has been running zip lines for eight years. He came to Indiana last summer to help construct the first in Brown County.

“I love every single part about this job,” he said, after helping the last riders off the final platform. “But the best part is that this is an experience people will talk about for a long time.”

On a sunny Friday in April, a pair of families joined us from Taylorsville, Ky., just outside of Louisville. When we were finished, I asked Shane Henderson, Ali’s younger brother, about his inaugural zip-line experience.

“Were you ever scared up there?”

“Nope.”

I decided to call his bluff. “Not at all?”

“Well, OK, maybe a little.” Still, he said, he can’t wait to come back and do it all over again. That makes two of us.

Busy time ahead for Team Tash

QUEEN Quest entrant Tash Jessen has rallied her troops to help with a number of events over the next few weeks.

First up is the Mother’s Day Breakfast at the Overlander Hotel this Sunday.

“It’s a great chance for people to bring along their wives, mothers or someone special in their life to have a wonderful leisurely breakfast,” Ms Jessen said.

“Even if they haven’t got anyone to bring, they can just come along and enjoy the event with everyone else.”

Tickets for the full buffet breakfast are on sale at the Overlander.

Next up is Ms Jessen’s Nightlife Tour of Mount Isa on Saturday, May 26.

Guests board a bus that takes them to the nightspots of the city, with games, drink specials and prizes.

Paintball is the game of the day on Saturday, June 2 at the paintball fields in Duchess Road.

Ms Jessen has then organised a Napoleon Make Up course at Pharmacy First on Saturday, June 16 at 5pm.

“There is a limit of 20 for this, so you need to get in quickly,” Ms Jessen said.

For tickets to any of these events, contact Ms Jessen on 0409715751.

Ms Jessen’s chosen charity is Mount Isa Bush Kids.

Paintball firm hits bull’s eye with go signal from Zoning

After hearing arguments from both sides, the Zoning board approved last Thursday the conditional use permit request of Top Shot Playstation, which plans to run a paintball business in Sadog Tasi.

The applicant will be allowed under certain conditions to start the outdoor amusement facility on track number 22616 REM. Only a third of the 48,000 square-meter-property will be used for the business, which can be accessed from the Sadog Tasi Mobil gas station on Isa Drive or the Puerto Rico Shell gas station on Chalan Pale Arnold Road. The affected area is zoned as rural.

The board also limited Top Shot Playstation’s hours of operation from 8am to 5pm every day.

The company is also required to employ landscaping “where necessary” to screen from public view their parking lot and storage facilities, comply with storm water management requirements of the Division of Environmental Quality, provide netting surrounding the company property, and to employ “all reasonable measures” to ensure the safety of its players and the public.

Thursday’s board meeting was attended by at least 23 community members. Owners John and Carolyn Hosono, along with their staff and family members, represented Top Shot Playstation while residents of nearby properties that oppose the application were led by John and Lupe Borja-Robinson.

The Hosonos said they decided to put up the paintball business as an additional tourist attraction on island and to support their family. The paintball facility also aims to encourage the public to become active and stay outdoors instead of idling in front of a television or computer.

Those opposed to the project argued that the business would disrupt the peace and quiet in their neighborhood due to the sound made by paintball guns and the traffic it would create in their small area. They also raised concerns about the impact of a paintball facility on the environment and the safety of residents.

Samples of paintball equipment and gear were brought by the applicant to the hearing. The applicant also demonstrated the use of a paintball gun to prove that it won’t create noise pollution and that the paintballs are safe and environment-friendly.

Although the board voted unanimously on the application, they emphasized that the permit has conditions and they encouraged residents to monitor Top Shot Playstation to ensure that they follow the requirements or face the consequences.

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Paintball field rebounds with local support

Shield head coach resigns, moves on

Students enter ‘BongoBall Mania’

Holly Richer | Daily Press
Bay Middle College students from left, Alexa Rasmussen, Andrew Frievalt, and Matt Furr wait with weapons in hand for their next round of BongoBall Mania at Bay College Monday. BongoBall, a game developed by Cutting Edge Productions Inc. of Grand Rapids, involves two teams facing-off with paintball gear and shooting Nerf footballs at one another while moving through an obstacle course.