Cover Story
Center stagers: Local home stagers take the spotlight in our annual Indoor/Outdoor issue
On a serene drive to Lompoc, Patty Ouellet is chipper and eager to get to her next project. A vacant house awaits her special skill. She will arrive and take note of things like natural lighting, landscaping, and more details that casual observers might miss. By the time she’s done, her work will help someone…
Why do you like going to Waller Park?
Mike Johnson driver for Uber “It’s locally here, the biggest green area.” Irene Lossing retired “It’s a good place to walk, pretty good size. It’s kind of peaceful.” Kristin Badenell cashier “Mainly for my kids to play. We’re more nature people, we like to come here for picnics.” Jesse Moreno works at Costco “It’s close…
La Rocco’s brings Chicago-style hot dogs to Santa Maria
In 1993, when I was living in the great city of Chicago, I got off my stop on the L red line at Fullerton and realized there was nothing to eat in my tiny studio apartment (as was the case with many of my days in college). I had been in Chicago for only a…
Drought-tolerant plants still a wise choice for local gardens
The Central Coast doesn’t always get a lot of rain during the winter, but it consistently sees warm, dry weather come summertime. For those who have a garden to tend to, this can be problematic. Not enough water, and the plant dies. Too much time in the sun, and the plant dies. So what should…
Courtney Tuskan
Female rock climbers from around the globe, including Lompoc resident Courtney Tuskan, gathered at Owen’s River Gorge in Bishop, Calif., for the 2017 Flash Foxy Women’s Climbing Festival. “During those three days, I met and camped out with some amazing women from all over the world,” Tuskan told the Sun. “The climbing community are generally…
On the big island
Ah, summer! The time for frolic and fun in the sun. Best of all—no school! And if you’re a kid, that’s the best part of summer. Then there is the family vacation. You either love them or hate them. I have a certain nostalgia for family vacations. These meant spending time together, often in close…
Wildling Museum hosts tree-themed photography competition
Some of the images are hard to pinpoint at first. A speck of red stands out in a cluster of black matter. A broken branch stretches out into a stark sky. In another, a cluster of twisted and fragile paper-like eucalyptus stand out against a tranquil blue sky. For such a straightforward organism, trees can…
St. Louis de Montfort hosts concert by French Boys’ Choir
The Catholic Church looms large in the history of Western art music, and why shouldn’t it? The church is responsible for written music notation, some of the earliest codified harmony, and of course polyphony and counterpoint. It all goes back to Gregorian chant, and the monks who sang low on one melody line during worship…
Guadalupe hosts annual Obon Festival
Guadalupe Buddhist Church welcomes the public to the annual Japanese Obon Festival. Members of the church hold the event to express gratitude and honor to their ancestors who first initiated the observance and pay respects to those who passed during the year. Attendees will have a chance to taste authentic Japanese cuisine, listen to taiko…
Animal Services, community help find temporary homes for evacuated pets and livestock
When Jen Ellis told her children they wouldn’t be going home, they cried. After a long Saturday spent preparing for 4-H competitions at the Santa Barbara County Fair in Santa Maria, Ellis and her children made their way home to the Cachuma Village near Santa Ynez. But as the family pulled through town, Ellis said…
PCPA receives NEA grant
The Pacific Conservatory Theatre (PCPA) received a $10,000 Arts Works grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. PCPA was one of 133 organizations to receive funding from the NEA this year. In the spring of 2017, Art Works granted almost $4 million in theater and musical theater grants. The NEA grant will go toward…
Worldwide whine
Things sure have changed since I began fluttering around newsrooms, chasing down leads, and covering local news. For one, I don’t actually have to go to a bunch of local meetings—they stream online now! I’ve got to admit, it’s nice listening to county Supervisors Steve Lavagnino and Das Williams, or Peter Adam and Janet Wolf,…
Tiny houses, big dreams: CET plans to donate houses to those without
Steve Del Real said he watched his students at the Center for Employment Training (CET) build miniature, almost fully working homes for years as a part of the hands-on learning experience provided in Del Real’s curriculum for the Green Building Construction Skills class. The students would build the homes up, only to have the projects…
The Benchwarmer shares her adventure at Zion National Park, Utah
By definition, the word “zion” means paradise. If there is a paradise on this Earth, I think it exists in Zion National Park. Tucked into the southwest corner of Utah, the park regally stands as one of the oldest national parks in America. It’s a place I have visited with my family since I was…
God of fire is pleased
Having written nearly 2,000 opinion columns during my career, there is one particular subject that I have repeated over and over. It has to do with the dangers and implications of wildland fires. I characterize these observations by way of the subject line “fires, floods, and fools.” Fire, of course, leads to the watershed being…
Thanks for stopping SB 562
Even a Democrat thinks it is dumb. Democrats are noted for raising taxes and spending wildly on social issues. But here even the speaker of the California Assembly, Democrat Anthony Rendon, had to apply good sense and shelve SB 562 to stop his buddies from bankrupting the state of California with a $400 billion per…
Filthy-five fiction
My family and I were totally disgusted by Mr. Foote’s 55 Fiction article peppered with F-bombs (“Graciapapi,” July 6). It’s bad enough that people are forced to hear those obscenities at the movies, but to see it in black and white in what we thought was a family friendly newspaper was unnecessary and ugly. The…
Remember the Alamo!
On behalf of the residents living near the north side of the Alamo Fire, I wish to give my heartfelt thanks to all the firefighters on the ground and in the air who came from near and far to help protect our lives, property, and livestock. Being one who stayed after the evacuation order, I…
Embrace the community
In a recent interview with KSBY, Mr. Rick Haydon, city manager of Santa Maria, when speaking about the Mayor’s Task Force, stated that the people on the Mayor’s Task Force on Youth Safety “have a history dealing with at-risk youth.” To be clear, this begs the following questions: After so many years of dealing with…
Four Marian Regional Medical Center volunteers awarded ‘Volunteen’ scholarship
The Volunteen Scholarship Award recently gave $7,000 in scholarships to four local college-bound teens who volunteer at Marian Regional Medical Center. The four locals served many hours at Marian Regional Medical Center with the Volunteen program. Scholarship winner Alyssa Scannelli accumulated a total of 759 hours in the program—the most hours of any “volunteen” in…
Two Cuyama High School graduates land energy internships
Cuyama graduates Jazmin Ojedas and Karen Mancilla were selected to participate in this year’s summer internship program provided by energy producers. Ojedas will be interning with E&B Natural Resources while Mancilla will spend her internship with Macpherson Oil Company. E&B Natural Resources, California Resources Corporation, and Macpherson Oil Company collaborated with the California Independent Petroleum…
Partners in Education welcomes new board members
Partners in Education welcomed Santa Barbara City College President Anthony E. Beebe as its new board president, County Superintendent of Schools Susan Salcido as board secretary, and Terrain Consulting Principal Brian Robinson as the Computers for Families Committee chair. Formed in 1977 by local businesses and education leaders, Partners in Education helps meet the needs…
Hancock offers Saturday classes at Vandenberg AFB
Allan Hancock College will offer two six-week business classes taught at the Vandenberg Air Force Base Education Center for fall semester. The two classes, one for business organization and management and the other on customer service, will meet on Saturdays in the fall and count for college credit. The classes take place on base, but…
Hobnobbing with Helen: Santa Maria Fairpark hosts Agricultural Recognition Awards
On my way to an agricultural awards event on the eve of the Santa Barbara County Fair, on Santa Maria Fairpark grounds, I passed by the Great American Petting Zoo. I had to stop and hobnob (from afar—the gate was locked) with a pen full of captivating small animals (goats, pigs, sheep, donkeys, and two…
Spotlight on: Helping Hand Document Services
It’s never too late to start over. This was Corina Yee’s mantra after losing her job at Vandenberg Air Force Base. Yee worked for the United Launch Alliance (ULA) for almost a decade and expected to retire there. But when she was laid off during her ninth year, her future was unclear. “The ULA had…
Guadalupe man killed in rollover crash
Edgar Contreras-Argote of Guadalupe died early July 17 in a single-car rollover on Brown Road just outside Santa Maria. The 22-year-old was pronounced dead at 6:26 a.m. when county fire, American Medical Response, California Highway Patrol, and the Santa Maria Fire Department responded to the incident, according to county Fire Capt. Dave Zaniboni. Contreras-Argote was…
5th District county supervisor Steve Lavagnino announces bid for re-election
Steve Lavagnino was set to announce his bid for re-election as 5th District county supervisor on July 19, aiming for a third term representing much of Santa Maria and unincorporated parts of North County in the 2018 election. As of press time, no one else had announced they were running in that race. Lavagnino told…
Santa Barbara County changes water well permitting process for certain areas
Drilling a non-agricultural water well in an area of Santa Barbara County that’s already served by a water district is about to become more burdensome thanks to what 1st District Supervisor Das Williams see as a significant issue in Montecito. “It’s generally a bad idea to be permitting wells that feed off an existing system,”…
Santa Barbara County firefighters progress with wildfire containment
Santa Barbara County Fire Chief Eric Peterson had some good news to share with the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors at its July 18 meeting—the Alamo Fire near Santa Maria was 100 percent contained, and significant progress had been made against the Whittier Fire. At 62 percent containment, that blaze continued to burn in…
Political Watch 7/20/17
• Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) issued a statement on July 13 following the release of the updated Senate Republican health care bill, meant to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act. “Senate Republicans spent the past two weeks putting lipstick on a pig. In all the ways that matter, the health care bill unveiled today…
