This is another “Only in St. Helena” tale. Stories like this are why we live here.

Friday night I was set to announce the Saints last football game. Things haven’t been going well this year as injuries have taken a toll. At this level when you lose five of your top players, it makes it rough on everyone else. We just don’t have the bodies larger schools have.

What I wanted to do was prepare. I like to know the referees’ names, the cheerleaders’, the correct pronunciation of the opposing players, the sponsors—you know, all the words which are going to be broadcast into the still night which turn a simple football game into a community event.

But the “boss” told me to report to the new “gym” for a dedication ceremony. As the woman who turns me over when I snore, also serves on the School Board, she is constantly “on call.” She enjoys it. She rightly takes great pride in their accomplishments. Dedicating a new football field, a new track, a new performing Arts Center, a new Ag Building, a new “gym” are, indeed, things to be proud of. And this current board (yes I’m not unbiased) has done more in the last five years than any one board since I was a kid back here in the 60’s. There have been lots of dedicated school boards, but not one has overseen $22,000,000 in new construction—all from private donors and government grants.

These new facilities are not coming from thee and me. These are private donations from locals who love what is happening at the schools and have decided now is the time to step up and give back.

Not only that, this board made possible a Boys and Girls Club at the elementary school, for which some neighbors are pushing the recall. (Dorothy Parker had it right. No good deed goes unpunished).

Well, the driving force behind this new facility was one man. He’s humble. Doesn’t want his name out there.

That’s why the gym is dedicated to “Gobes,” (his grandfather. By all accounts Gobes was quite a guy. He owned the largest ranch in Monticello. Don’t know where that is? It’s just east of Napa—only now it’s called Lake Berryessa.

For years Gobes farmed that ranch, growing walnuts, apples, hay and especially cattle. Uncle Sam condemned the land in order to build a dam that might flood Monticello Valley (including the town of Monticello) so that Solano County could have more water. Yes. Beryressa is entirely in Napa County, but the water goes to Solano. Go figure.

Though compensated some, he lost the land he had loved and farmed.
Gobes spent nine years of his life fighting that condemnation—all the way to the Supreme Court. He died young. Some say it’s what killed him.

His two boys are still farming in the Napa Valley. One is running cattle the other grows grapes in Oakville. (I spent one hot August whitewashing, scraping and painting their barn).

Grandson Jim, is raising a different crop—local children.

A legendary Saints basketball player himself, he realized that you can’t have true student athletes, if boys and girls have to triple up in the lone gymnasium to practice basketball and Volleyball.

We know. We had three kids who played both. There were practices at 6am and others that didn’t get out until 10pm. Tough to study when a sport makes those demands.
Actually it’s a “multi-purpose facility” (the high school has a joint use agreement with the Boys and Girls Club), sports a snack bar, and rest rooms (which actually work) for football and track fans.

Architecturally stunning, John Lail designed it to look like a barn—capitalizing on the Valley’s agricultural heritage. It is now possible for Men’s and Women’s basketball and volleyball teams to have a second indoor facility. The Boys and Girls club will use it as well.

Believe me. I had no desire to attend another “ceremony.” Yet this one brought tears to my eyes as Jim spoke of Gobe and how he was such a gentleman. He was so the 40’s he wore a suit and tie as he worked on the ranch with the rest of the cowboys.

Clearly, Gobe raised more than cattle and walnuts. He raised an incredible family. “The Barn.” “The Field House,” “Jim’s Gym.” --call it what you will—it is proof that in certain families, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.