Q&A

As the nation prepares to vote next month, more than 30 states have enacted or are in the process of enacting voter-ID laws. Most require voters to produce photo identification, which could affect millions of prospective voters who lack such government-issued IDs.

Bob Crongeyer is a great teacher, as confirmed by his recent selection as Sacramento County Teacher of the Year.

Jeff Knorr, a professor of English literature at Sacramento City College, was recently selected by the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission to be the city's poet laureate for the next two years.

Michael Lairmore, who last month became dean of the University of California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine, said he felt compelled from a young age to enter the profession.

Amanda Brown supervises Yolo County's Layoff Aversion and Rapid Response programs at the county's employment and social services department.

Bobbie Singh-Allen was sworn in as the Elk Grove Unified School District's newest board member Aug. 16. She was appointed by the board to fill the Area 4 trustee seat vacated by Pollyanna Cooper-LeVangie.

Rachel Teagle has been selected by the University of California, Davis, to direct the new $30 million Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art.

Penny Schwinn potentially tipped the scales for charter schools when she won a seat on the Sacramento County Office of Education board in June.

Victor Batarseh is the mayor of Bethlehem in the West Bank, Sacramento's sister city. He was in California in July to visit his children, who live in Sacramento and San Francisco.

One constant at the State Fair for the past two decades, besides pitchmen, carnival rides and the Footsie Wootsie foot-massage machines, has been Brian May, the fair's deputy general manager.

Born in China and raised in Sacramento, Steven Gee will be the oldest player at the World Series of Poker final table. The 56-year-old will compete against nine others beginning Oct. 28 in Las Vegas for a prize of $8.5 million. Gee will start in fifth place, with 16.9 million in chips, about 27 million chips behind the leader.

Salmon fishing season on Central Valley rivers opens today for recreational anglers. This year is considered to be the first normal season since an unprecedented crash in the fall-run chinook salmon population began in 2007. The fishing season was closed in 2008 and 2009.

Sacramento native Stephen Robinson, an astronaut since 1994, has hung up his spacesuit to become a mechanical and aerospace engineering professor at UC Davis.

For 50 years, Mel Ah-Yun has been a presence at Swiss Buda, a south Sacramento bar with Hawaiian hospitality.

The U.S. Supreme Court has struck down most of a controversial Arizona law that would have prevented undocumented immigrants from being in Arizona for any reason, including school and work.

As Rhyena Halpern ends her 6 1/2-year tenure as executive director of the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission on July 20, she leaves behind an organization that has evolved considerably since 2006. Halpern's new job is Palo Alto's assistant director of community services.

Chris Evans hasn't officially been superintendent of the Natomas Unified School District for a month, but already he's helped to hire a slate of new administrators and presided over a contentious school board meeting.

Today, David Boesch takes the helm as Placer County's new county executive.

If last week's primary election seemed low-key, get ready for more excitement in November.

Dr. Thomas A. Balsbaugh's specialty at UC Davis Health System is family and community medicine. His teaching centers on the notion that collaboration with patients and their families is the key to good health. He also teaches that the key to communication is warmth, humor and the belief that physicians must be good listeners.

Shara Perkins Murphy, a straight black woman, is the new director of the Sacramento Gay & Lesbian Center.

Dr. Ernie Bodai's pace is unrelenting. At 61, the Hungarian-born surgeon is actively promoting his global breast cancer stamp, campaigning for a tobacco tax on the June ballot and still treating patients as director of Kaiser Permanente's breast surgical services.

Since he took office early last year, state Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones has made health care reform his top priority.

Roseville Police Chief Daniel Hahn participated in a live chat with Bee readers last week, answering questions about issues from traffic enforcement to safety at the Galleria mall.

Mark Meeks, longtime minister of St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church in Sacramento, recently had a vision. God told him, he said, to create a "mosaic" church that welcomes people of all religious and social backgrounds and focuses on helping those in need in the community.

Brig. Gen. Paul H. McGillicuddy will end his two-year command of the 9th Reconnaissance Wing at Beale Air Force Base on Thursday.

Glynn Thompson was animated as he spoke about the new job Thursday. He punctuated his sentences with laughter and said, "I like to have fun."

The U.S. Forest Service on March 23 approved a new process to govern long-term planning in national forests. The new plans will set management priorities within each forest, ranging from logging to habitat protection, recreation and fire prevention.

Hundreds of school administrators and finance officers will crowd into conference rooms around the state in May to hear School Services of California staff explain what the state budget revisions mean to their school districts.

Only 34 years old, Jeff Leatherman has been assigned a big responsibility: Running Sacramento County's Department of Regional Parks, which maintains 15,000 acres.