Columnist Susan Snyder: Sisters have positive state of mind

Friday, July 19, 2002 | 9:13 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Fridays Sundays and Tuesdays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4082.

Lilina and Analise Lucchese have culled something sweet from the lemon that is Yucca Mountain.

The Henderson sisters were featured in this space back in April after they operated a lemonade stand to raise money for the Nevada Protection Fund. The account was created to fight placement of a national nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles from us -- you know, the fight we lost.

Anyway, Lilina, 11, and Analise, 10, are home-schooled and read about Yucca during their daily newspaper perusals. They raised $52 in sales, pitched in their combined allowances of $40 and scraped together enough for an initial $100 donation.

Their mother Lisa wrote me an e-mail while vacationing in Oregon last week that says her girls have now raised $467.

"They received a little notoriety from the media attention and have had the privilege of having a day in the state of Nevada proclaimed in their honor (May 1). If that wasn't thrilling enough, Mrs. (first lady Dema) Guinn herself came to the house to present the girls with their own copies of the proclamations," Lucchese wrote.

She says the girls also sold lemonade at the kickoff for Rep. Shelley Berkley's campaign.

"Political or not, the opportunities they had interacting with all of the veterans there was great," Lucchese wrote. "Now when they stand in honor of the veterans who pass by in the Nevada Day Parade in Carson City, they will have a better understanding of the individuals we are showing respect of."

Sweet.

Steer clear of Death Valley on Tuesday. It will be crawling with crazy people.

Actually, the people will be running -- at least to start. Crawling may come later for the 16 women and 65 men competing in the 25th Anniversary Sun Precautions Badwater Ultramarathon.

After 25 years, you'd think they'd come up with a better name -- at least for the T-shirt.

The three-day event consists of a 135-mile run through Death Valley to Mount Whitney at the edge of California's Sequoia National Park.

Let's review.

People are going to run ... on their little feets ... across Death Valley ... in July.

No one is chasing them with loaded weapons.

The release from AdventureCORPS, the production firm that conducts the event, says the 81 runners representing eight countries and 19 U.S. states are "die-hard unltrarunners of every speed and ability" who are "known for their exploits as adventure racers, mountaineers, triathletes or some other 'out there' pursuit."

Cashew, pecan, Death Valley runner.

They're all nuts.

Finally, the U.S. government is paying for a useful study -- how to make a low-fat ice cream that tastes as good as the fat-laden stuff. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) has awarded the $108,000 research grant to the University of Missouri-Columbia.

July is National Ice Cream Month, so we all should study this frozen concoction. According to the USDA and the International Dairy Foods Association, Americans spent $20 billion and sucked up 23 quarts of ice cream per person in 2000.

Eeesh. Anybody up for a run across Death Valley?