Chris Smith: Montgomery and Santa Rosa alumni are out for blood

Blood will flow in this most recent embodiment of the rivalry between Santa Rosa and Montgomery High schools.

How much blood? Well, you could have a hand in deciding that. More accurately, an arm.

From Sept. 15 through 22, grads and current students and fans of the two schools will face off in the Blood Feud.

The winning side will be the one that donates the most blood at Blood Centers of the Pacific in Santa Rosa. The winner will lay claim, for one year, to the Bucket of Blood trophy.

By reviving a contest that between 2009 and ’12 produced 358 pints of blood, organizers Mike Grace of Santa Rosa and Mike Francis of Montgomery hope to save and preserve life - and perhaps encourage others in friendly, spirited rivalries to face off at the blood bank.

Panthers and Vikings can make appointments at the Industrial Drive blood center or just walk in.

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HONORING BIG MAN: At the memorial Saturday for Black Panther Party pioneer and Sonoma County jazz radio host Elbert “Big Man” Howard, ex party member Kathleen Cleaver was at the microphone when someone shouted, “He was a soldier.”

A story in the East Bay Times recounts how Cleaver, a law professor long ago married to the late Eldridge Cleaver, didn’t go along with the assertion.

“He wasn’t a soldier,” she told the celebration of Howard’s life in Oakland.

“He was a writer, a dreamer ... he was a credit to the human race.”

Black Panther Party co-founder Bob Seale was one of the guests who heard Howard’s wife, Carole Hyams, say her husband, who died in Santa Rosa on July 24 at 80, “would have loved all this, he loved being the center of attention.”

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THIS SORT OF ACT reminds us why Sonoma County, with all its challenges, is such an exceptional place to live.

On Sunday, Elizabeth and Kevin Koebsell read about the couple who last week found on the scraped-clean site of their burned Parker Hill Road home a keepsake horseshoe that had hung in the garage. Carol Ellen and Robin Voet shared their plans to frame the horseshoe and display it inside their new home once it is built.

Well, the Koebsells operate Framing Arts, a custom framing shop in Healdsburg. Elizabeth Koebsell emailed me to offer to frame Ellen’s and Voet’s recovered and now cherished horseshoe at no cost.

“They would simply need to visit our shop with their horseshoe in order to design the frame packaging of their choice and we would take it from there,” Elizabeth wrote.

So very kind.

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FIND THESE KEYS? The caller didn’t leave his name, but he left a why-didn’t-I-think-of-that idea.

Having read about Larry Carlin losing his home to the Tubbs fire and then visiting the area of the Goodwill store on Santa Rosa’s Fourth Street and somehow becoming separated from his key ring, the caller suggested this:

Go to your favorite pet store and purchase a customized dog tag. Have it inscribed with your phone number and/or email address. And slip it onto your key ring.

The fellow shared in a voicemail that he lost his keys a while back and, thanks to the dog tag bearing his contact information, got them back.

You can reach columnist Chris Smith at 707-521-5211 or chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.