Everybody’s business

All our ex-anchors live in Texas
Been missing Matt Gebhard, former news anchor on KNVN and KHSL? He’s alive and well in Waco, Texas.

The move takes him from market No. 130 to market No. 94—KCEN, the NBC affiliate where Gebhard will work as a weekend anchor.

“The food here is unbelievable and the people are very nice. Everyone here tries to make us feel right at home,” he says. Even so, “I was very sad to leave,” says Gebhard, who started at the Chico stations five years ago as an intern. “One of the things Texas had to offer was affordable real estate, and a chance to start a family in a home rather than in an apartment.”

Also, last week Gary Gunter said goodbye to viewers of KRCR, this area’s ABC affiliate. After more than a decade with the station, he’s moving on to become news director at the KDBC, the CBS affiliate in El Paso, Texas.

Later skaters
Recently closed is Board in Chico, the skate shop that opened at 126 West Second St. in downtown Chico back in November 2004.

There was even a ramp in there—rad.

’Round the corner fudge is made
At the extreme other end of the shopping spectrum, the Calico Goose gift shop has moved out of the Pheasant Run Shopping Center on Forest Avenue. The “fudgery” will still sell “the creamiest fudge around” at the Thursday Night Market, via delivery or online soon at www.calicogoose.net.

That’s Moxie
We at the CN&R really wish we could scrape together $100,000 so we could buy Moxie’s Café and Gallery. The downtown shop has great coffees, tasty lunches and cool art.

Jan Bielfelt, who saved the café from closure in February 2003, has listed it for sale “just seeing what’s out there.” The selling price includes all the equipment, fixtures and even the Internet-access stations.

“It’s doing well,” she says, but, “I want to go do other stuff. [Moxie’s could use] new energy and some small changes.”

Coulda been a star
This week, Aquarian Associates held a “casting call” at Holiday Inn in Chico, interviewing potential child stars and offering “screen tests” and “evaluations.”

My 11-month-old is much cuter than the average kid. (See objective evidence photo.) Surely he can make us wealthier than half of the Olsen twins. But, skeptic that I am, I do my research up front.

The Pittsburg-based company “invites” kids with “favorable evaluations” to attend the convention-style Great American Model and Talent Search. For a fee. (You saw that coming, right?) The Internet is riddled with tales of parents who were enthusiastically told that their child had “it,” then asked for up to $500 at a “call-back” interview. A few scouts attend the convention, and the company’s Web site has a handful of “success stories” of children they’ve found who have gotten bit parts in movies, or commercial gigs.

We ended up letting Alec take his nap. Those child stars always end up on drugs anyway.