A few curious neighbors watched as carpenters pieced together the wooden skeleton of a 2,138-square-foot house on the corner of South Bradley Road in Santa Maria’s Sunrise Hills neighborhood on May 8. The finished product would one day include a spacious kitchen, lower and upper level living rooms, three bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, […]
Kasey Bubnash
Posted inMusic, Arts & Culture
Gabriela Rivas
After four years of varsity wrestling at Pioneer Valley High School, senior Gabriela Rivas plans to continue her career at Waldorf University in Forest City, Iowa, next fall. Rivas, who hopes to study education and English in college, earned several league honors throughout her time at Pioneer Valley, and helped her wrestling team win various […]
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Future Leaders of America call on district officials to align A-G and high school graduation requirements
Shortly after Dioceline Araujo moved from New Cuyama to Santa Maria during her freshman year of high school, a guest speaker visited one of her classes to discuss college. “‘Who here knows about A-G?’” Araujo said the speaker asked. As hands around the classroom shot up, Araujo sat still in confusion. “Like the alphabet?” Araujo […]
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Santa Maria to increase food truck enforcement in June
Santa Maria city officials plan to crack down on food trucks and enforce regulations in June after receiving an influx of food truck-related complaints. Since the beginning of last month, Code Compliance Officer Joy Castaing said city officials have been “bombarded” with various community complaints and concerns regarding truck parking times, locations, and other impositions […]
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School resource deputy position reinstated at San Marcos High School
There’s a new deputy on campus at San Marcos High School. The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office announced on May 11 that Deputy Jaycee Hunter will serve as the school’s new school resource deputy. The decision came just three days after the Santa Barbara Unified School District voted to fund the campus law enforcement position […]
Posted inMusic, Arts & Culture
Darien Langley
St. Joseph High School freshman Darien Langley may be young, but the track and field star has already broken two school sprinting records that were set in 1994. At the recent 2018 PAC-8 Track and Field Championships, 15-year-old Langley won the 200 meter sprint and finished 2nd by .01 of a second in the 100 […]
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UCSB workers join statewide strike
Service and patient care workers at University of California campuses across the state participated in a three-day strike from May 7 to 9, protesting what workers call “widespread” employment inequalities in the university system. The strike, which hit campuses including UC Santa Barbara, was a direct response to a years-long, failed bargaining effort between the […]
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Lompoc Unified School District $79 million bond measure on June 5 ballot
It’s been 16 years since residents passed a bond measure that funded infrastructure improvements to schools in the Lompoc Unified School District. Now a $79 million bond measure is on the June 5 primary election ballot, and if passed, the disct’s Assistant Superintendent for Business Services John Karbula said it would still only fund about […]
Posted inMusic, Arts & Culture
Bailey Killough
Allan Hancock College sophomore Bailey Killough’s most recent softball season earned her a spot on the California Community College Fastpitch Coaches Association All-State Team for the second year in a row. The Arroyo Grande High School graduate ranked sixth in her conference this season with a .430 batting average and second with eight home runs, […]
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Bill to lower textbook costs passes Assembly committee
In a survey of 609 students conducted by Allan Hancock College’s Office of Institutional Effectiveness in 2017, 65 percent of students said they had dropped a class due to the price of a required textbook. Sixty-one percent of students surveyed said they spend at least $200 on textbooks each semester, and 45 percent said they […]
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Thomas Fire, mudslides not to blame for spike in valley fever
A recent investigation into an uptick of reported cases of valley fever in Santa Barbara County concluded that the trend was not caused by the county’s earlier natural disasters. During the study, which was released by the Santa Barbara County Public Health Department on May 8, county officials reviewed 56 cases of valley fever reported […]
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Local March for Moms shines light on maternal health issues
Nearly 80 percent of births in northern Santa Barbara County were to Medi-Cal patients in 2011, according to the most recent data available from the county’s 2015 Community Assessment of Maternal Child and Adolescent Health. That same year, one in 10 children in Santa Barbara County were found to be uninsured, according to the assessment, […]
