Smith: Piner High School graduate Mathew McGahan hoping chairs will turn on 'The Voice'

THE MUSICAL FAMILY of Piner High grad Mathew McGahan, 21, isn't sure how he came to sing country music.

But they believe he's star quality and hope the judges on the new season of NBC's “The Voice” will think so, too.

"The Voice," now in its 10th season, airs Monday and Tuesday at 8 p.m.

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KAREN VALENTINE? Some folks hereabout recall when the daughter of Sebastopol chicken ranchers performed on “The Ed Sullivan Show” at age 16 in 1964 and a year later was crowned Miss Sonoma County.

Perhaps best known for her Emmy-winning role as student teacher Alice Johnson on ABC-TV's “Room 222,” Valentine is coming home for Saturday's 70th Miss Sonoma County Scholarship Pageant.

Now living in Connecticut, she's one of about 35 ex-Miss Sonoma Counties who'll appear at the platinum anniversary of the competition. The Miss Sonoma County/Outstanding Teen pageant is open to all and opens at 7 p.m. at Rohnert Park's Spreckels Center.

Prior to becoming Miss Sonoma County 51 years ago, Karen Valentine won the titles of both Apple Blossom Princess in Sebastopol and Miss Teenage Santa Rosa. The story goes that when she performed on TV in the 1963 Miss Teenage America contest, Ed Sullivan was watching and announced, “I want that girl on my show.”

Also winging her way home for Saturday's pageant is the remarkable current Miss Sonoma County, Athena Brattin-Cain. The Santa Rosan has turned 18 and is serving in what capacity?

You remembered. Athena, a graduate of Elsie Allen High, is now a United States Marine.

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AT MONTGOMERY HIGH on the night before the Miss Sonoma County pageant, 11 fabulously appealing and diverse senior-class boys will compete for the title of Mr. Viking.

Among the contestants: a French exchange student, a scholar from the International Baccalaureate diploma program, several artists, several athletes, a teen with cerebral palsy and a student in the AVID, or Advancement Via Individual Determination program.

The one who receives the crown at the 7 p.m. show Friday at Montgomery is the one whom spectators shower with the most dollars, all of which will go to the contestants' nonprofit of choice.

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WITH THE NAME FIORI above the door, you know the food will be good and there'll be plenty of it.

On Thursday, George Fiori, gregarious scion of one of Sonoma County's pioneer restaurant families, will open the door to his new place at Montgomery Village.

At the very top of the menu board at Fiori's Grill is the minestrone soup that George's grandmother, Clara “Mama” Fiori, served at the Italian eatery she and Tony “Papa” Fiori opened in Occidental in 1935.

The best known of the restaurants subsequently run by the Fioris' sons, George Sr. and Ray, and by grandson George Jr., was the former Fiori-Grace and Co. on north Mendocino Avenue.

Some ex-patrons weep at the mention of that place. When it closed in ‘90, George Jr. vowed, “The Fiori name isn't out of the restaurant business. In the future, we'll all be back in business, one way or another.”

He'll continue to run Big Boys Buns & Burgers in Larkfield while welcoming new friends and old into the newest expression of Fiori hospitality just across from Copperfield's Books.

Chris Smith is at 521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.