Events will compete for attention during busy June weekend

For years the second weekend in June has been a busy one in Western Nevada, with the Carson City Rendezvous competing with Carson Valley Days for attention.

This year more events have been crowded into the June 9-11 weekend, including two that will affect parking near the Mills Park site of the Rendezvous.

Commencement for Carson High School's Class of 2000 will be Saturday morning, drawing a crowd whose vehicles usually overflow the school's parking lots to the park's east lot and neighboring streets. The brief ceremony starts at 10 a.m.

And Carson-Tahoe Hospital reserved the Pony Express Pavilion in Mills Park for a four-hour health fair that Saturday afternoon.

All the additional demand for the park that day comes on the heels of a successful campaign to permanently create more public parking next to the park along Highway 50.

Carson City successfully negotiated with the Nevada Department of Transportation and received permission to move the bicycle path from along Highway 50 to inside the park's fence.

Moving the path created 57 parking spaces along the fence. The project, completed earlier this month, was funded by a $16,000 donation from the Carson City Convention & Visitors Bureau, organizer of the Rendezvous.

"The commencement will only affect us for an hour or so," executive director Candy Duncan said Friday. And high school principal Glen Adair said he will make sure the graduates' families know that there's a parking lot open by the ballfields on the east side of the school, so that will take some of the pressure off.

"We've got our parking waiver for along Highway 50," Duncan said. "And, like last year, Carson City Transportation will be shuttling people to the high school lot."

The Health Smart Wellness Fair, which the hospital cosponsors, will run noon to 4 p.m. in the pavilion.

Immediately following will be a Rendezvous event, a free concert in the pavilion by country singer Lacy J. Dalton.