With only two TurnKey-constructed projects certified in the last two years and 11 more to go, the Santa Maria Bonita School District has a high wall to climb before it can be done dealing with structural issues in some of its schools. The California Department of Education released a decision on May 30 that district […]
Camillia Lanham
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Reaching across the divide
Immigrants from the La Mixteca region of Mexico face more than just the U.S./Mexico border as a barrier to entry
Phone calls to most public agencies and social service providers in Santa Maria will yield messages in Spanish and English. Local callers won’t, however, hear a language spoken by an estimated 15,000 to 25,000 people in the valley: Mixteco. Trilingual translators are rare, and that lack creates difficult situations for people who’ve immigrated to Santa […]
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Law enforcement to lead teen paintball trip
Santa Maria Recreation and Parks is teaming up with local law enforcement officers to provide a free trip to The Shack paintball field in Santa Maria on June 15. Teenagers in 7th through 12 grades will meet at the Abel Maldonado Community Youth Center—600 S. McClelland St. in Santa Maria—at 9:30 a.m. to head out […]
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Hancock foundation hands out big money to students
A crowd of more than 800 people witnessed the Allan Hancock College Foundation award more than $300,000 in scholarships to 235 students during its 44th annual awards banquet on May 23. Scholarships of up to $10,000 each were awarded to both returning and transferring students by 134 donors from the community through the foundation’s scholarship […]
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High school meets preschool
Early childhood education met psychology during the month of May in a hands-on childcare class developed by Ernest Righetti High School. As part of the Family and Consumer Sciences curriculum, 35 students gain knowledge about careers with children by operating a preschool on campus. Students provide 20 3 1/2- to 5-year-olds with child care through […]
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Nipomo authorizes funds to fix broken well
Amid struggles to get a recently approved pipeline financing plan up and running, the Nipomo Community Services District on May 22 authorized spending almost $80,000 to perform emergency repairs on one of the district’s largest production wells. According to a press release sent out by the district, Director of Engineering and Operations Peter Sevcik told […]
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Memorial Day fire spreads in Los Padres
Six Santa Maria-based fire tankers resumed work the morning of May 28 to battle a blaze that broke out on Memorial Day off of Paradise Road in the Santa Ynez Valley, spread east into the backcountry, and grew to almost 2,000 acres in less than 24 hours. The tankers were grounded the afternoon of May […]
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Hancock finalizes its presidential appointment
After a couple of weeks of loose-end tying, the Allan Hancock College Board of Trustees named lead finalist Kevin G. Walthers as the college’s fifth superintendent/president on the evening of May 21. A May 13 site visit to Las Positas College in Livermore, where Walthers is currently president, cemented the trustees’ decision. Rebecca Alarcio, a […]
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Get on the bus!
Many of the 195,000 children with parents in the California State Prison System can’t afford to visit, write, or call their parent. With the help of students from St. Joseph High School and the Center for Restorative Justice Works, children with parents incarcerated at the California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo County will get […]
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Changing of the guard
With around 600 teachers, 15,000 students, and an ever-increasing enrollment, the Santa Maria-Bonita School District is one of the only districts left in the valley able to open up new teaching positions. That’s according to district spokesperson Maggie White, who said Santa Maria-Bonita created 16 new teaching positions this year in addition to a normal […]
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Lompoc wind farmgets two more years
The Bedford family lost yet another battle against the Lompoc Wind Farm project on May 15, when the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission upheld a decision to extend the project’s conditional use permit for a second two-year time extension due to economic hardship. George and Cheryl Bedford live on a property close to the 3,000-acre […]
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Righetti High welders bring home the metal
For the second time in five years, Ernest Righetti High School’s FFA welding team members secured themselves as champions of California student welders. They recently battled 18 teams and 68 competitors at Cuesta College to tamp down first place. Team members Tanner Tuttle, Devin Miller, Justin Rich, and Patrick Stemlock also slammed down the most […]
