Listen up, sports fans. The Bay Area’s football and baseball seasons are in their winter slumbers now — and our NHL and NBA teams only seem to be sleeping at times — but sports are still big business around here. And will be for a while, with the Super Bowl and World Cup games coming to Levi’s Stadium next year.
It’s no surprise then that the San Jose Chamber of Commerce will be getting out its foam fingers and jerseys for “Leaders and Legacy” — its annual member gathering on Jan. 30.
“Professional sports teams are vital economic engines for the South Bay,” said Robert Lindo, the new chair of the Chamber’s board of directors and vice president at Casino M8trix in San Jose. “Of course, games bring direct revenue, but these teams create a ripple effect throughout our business community — attracting businesses, boosting visitation, and benefiting every sector of our local economy.”
The evening’s big show will be a panel discussion among the valley’s top sports execs — San Jose Sharks President Jonathan Becher, Earthquakes President Jared Shawlee, Bay FC CEO Brady Stewart and Stephanie Dittmer Rogers, the executive vice president of marketing for the 49ers. (Only one of those teams made the playoffs in their most recent seasons, by the way, and I tip my hat to all of you who knew it was Bay FC).
The conversation will be moderated by San Jose State President Cynthia Teniente-Matson, who is also the leader of a pretty big Bay Area sports operation in the Spartans. Tickets are available at www.sjchamber.com.
OPEN SPACE CHAMPION: Garnetta Annable closed the book on nearly three decades of service to the Santa Clara County Open Space Authority last month at her final board meeting.
One of the agency’s founding board members, Annable served on its board for a cumulative 20 years, starting back in 1994, and also spent nine years on its Citizens’ Advisory Committee. Several of her fellow founders showed up to give her some well-deserved applause at her “graduation” meeting Dec. 12 including Eric Carruthers, Don Weden, Rod Diridon Sr., Virginia Holtz and Larry Ames.
Garnetta Annable, center, stands with Marc Landgraf, assistant general manager of the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority, left, and General Manager Andrea Mackenzie. She’s holding a framed photograph she received as a gift upon her retirement from the agency’s board on Dec. 12, 2024. (Photo courtesy of the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority)
“In so many ways, I think Garnetta is the mother of open space here in Santa Clara Valley,” Open Space Authority General Manager Andrea Mackenzie said. I don’t think anyone’s going to put up a fight over that.
Kathy Sutherland, who had served on the Citizens’ Advisory Committee since 2013, was sworn in at the same meeting to take Annable’s place on the board. Coincidentally, it was Annable who recruited Sutherland to apply for a position on the citizens’ group more than a decade ago.
READING LIST: There’s hope for the future of reading, and that’s certainly true if you like “Dog Man” books. I was browsing the San Jose Public Library’s list of the top borrowed books for 2024, and was tickled to see that author Dav Pilkey’s 2023 book, “Twenty Thousand Fleas Under the Sea” was not only the top children’s book checked out, it was the most borrowed title period.
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What were grown-ups reading? Britney Spears’ memoir “The Woman in Me” topped the adult reading list, with Nita Prose’s novel “The Mystery Guest” coming in second. Teens were taken by “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” Suzanne Collins’ 2020 follow-up to her “Hunger Games” series that was certainly boosted by the release of the movie in November 2023. As I mentioned, Pilkey’s “Dog Man” book topped the kid lit chart, but here’s a weird stat: He was one of just two authors, along with “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” creator Jeff Kinney, on the children’s top 10 list.
ON POINTE: San Jose Dance Theatre is bringing a new pair of feet into the mix with the addition of Nicole Haskins as the company’s new artistic director. She’s been dancing around the West Coast during a two-decade career with stops at the Sacramento Ballet, Washington Ballet and Smuin Contemporary Ballet.
Haskins, who is also an accomplished choreographer, says she is honored to join a company with such a rich legacy and looks forward to creating transformative experiences for the dancers and the audiences. She’ll be working with Executive Director Elizabeth Sweeney and will oversee all of San Jose Dance Theatre’s artistic endeavors, from its annual production of “The Nutcracker,” its participation in the Ballet Alliance Festival and its premiere of a “Wizard of Oz” ballet in March.
BEST-SELLER: It turns out being Bill Gates still means a lot in Silicon Valley. A Feb. 11 appearance at Mountain View’s Computer History Museum by the Microsoft co-founder turned polio fighter and philanthropic gajillionaire quickly sold out of in-person tickets. And that’s even with it starting at 1 p.m. on a Tuesday.
But if you are still really interested in hearing Gates talk about his new memoir, “Source Code,” with Stripe CEO Patrick Collison, you can join a waitlist www.computerhistory.org or watch it on the museum’s YouTube channel. By the way, if this has given you a hankering to visit the museum’s new Chatbots Explained AI exhibit or any of its other offerings, you’ll have to hold that thought for a couple of more weeks. It’s closed for facilities upgrades until Jan. 28.
