Cover Story
Back to school
Several fourth- and fifth-grade teachers sit at a long, faux-wood table in Room 14 at Nipomo Elementary School. It’s a quarter past 2 on a Friday afternoon, and the adults are chatting excitedly and fidgeting, much like the 10-year-olds they’re used to instructing. Soon Master Teacher Shanna Rowland takes the floor, and her colleagues settle…
If you could turn back time and be any age, how old would you want to be?
John Walker dean of students “I loved being in high school. I would like to be 16 again and just getting my driver’s license.” Barbara Crossland sales “Thirty-nine again! And still loving life.” Ardy Fenrich retired “I wouldn’t change my age. I am really enjoying retirement.” Sharon Wall grandmother “Right now is my favorite age,…
A community concert band
The general din of 80 musicians all tuning and fiddling with their various instruments dies down as director Greg Stoll calls attention and says which piece of music he’d like to rehearse first. And then, with the swish of his baton, music erupts, filling the room with the rich timbres and cascading harmonies of the…
Living life to the fullest
The month of March is said to come in like a lion and go out like a lamb, referring, of course, to weather conditions. March is also Women’s History Month, which is fitting since we have come in with a roar since the beginning of the Women’s Movement. My personal history involves one woman who…
Love and marriage
Mohammad Mohabbat has been many things: a foreign-exchange student, a war prisoner, a musician, an author, a proponent for women’s rights, a preacher at the Islamic Center, and a photographer. Recently, however, he’s become what many of his clients call a modern-day Cupid: an old-fashioned matchmaker. Mohabbat first came to the United States as a…
Fairpark needs strawberry art
The Santa Maria Fairpark Strawberry Art Contest is under way and seeking entrants. Participants are asked to create a picture that gives life to a strawberry. Children in 1st through 8th grades in Northern Santa Barbara County are eligible to enter. Entries will be judged on originality, artistic composition, and relevant content. Artists can use…
Paint a chair to help the library
Sponsors are sought for the inaugural Drop Everything and Read (D.E.A.R.) Painted Chair event to benefit the Friends of the Santa Maria Library. The fundraising event is a partnership between the Friends of the Library; Altrusa International Inc., of Santa Maria; and the People for Leisure and Youth. The “Secret Garden Chair” can be seen…
Cypress Gallery celebrates La Purisima
The Lompoc Valley Art Association will hold a reception at Cypress Gallery, 119 East Cypress Ave, in Lompoc on Sunday, March 11, from 2 to 4 p.m. The gallery is featuring members’ artwork celebrating La Purisima Mission with 39 pieces specifically related to the mission. The mission-themed artwork includes several types of media, including paintings,…
Making moosic
Some people can look at a guitar and see a finely crafted instrument. Leigh Rubins looked at a guitar and saw a cow. [image-2] Of course, the creator of the long-running Rubes comic strip may have a propensity to see cows in things, being as much of his subject matter involves anthropomorphic bovines. Nevertheless, when…
Vanessa Gudino
Santa Maria High’s Vanessa Gudino is one of the Saints’ top wrestlers and an aspiring artist. She uses chalk, paint, pencil, and pastels to express her creative side. But her favorite thing to put down on a canvas? Her opponents’ faces, of course. With only two years of wrestling experience, Gudino completed the regular season…
On the roster
• West Coast Xtreme Basketball: Central Coast basketball teams from fourth grade through high school varsity are encouraged to sign up for the West Coast Xtreme’s 2012 Spring League, which starts March 18. Games will be held at Cuesta College each Sunday until June 3. Costs per team are $550 before March 18 and $585…
Local recreation organizations awarded grants
The Santa Maria Valley Chamber of Commerce and Visitor & Convention Bureau (VCB) announced its grant recipients for the first of two grant cycles in 2012, including several nonprofit organizations supporting local athletics and recreation. The VCB awarded a total of $11,000 in grant money to groups, including the Santa Maria Swim Club, to support…
Pro wrestling hits Santa Maria
Vendetta Pro Wrestling is returning to Lakeview Junior High School for “Shamrock Slam 2012” on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17. In the evening’s main event, Sunami will defend his VPW Heavyweight Championship against former ECW, WWE, and TNA superstar Gangrel “The Vampire Warrior.” In other matches, WWE Tough Enough contestant “Tumbleweed” A.J. Kirsch will take…
Trailblazers
Trail running? You mean people actually run on trails?” I thought when I first started working on this article. Like most normal human beings, I was surprised to learn some people like to run on trails—for fun. I consider myself an avid runner, but I had no idea this kind of running was such a…
Support nonprofits, support transparency
It is a terrible shame what is happening with—and allegedly by—the Lompoc Housing and Community Development Corporation. Those of us who work in the nonprofit sector, providing services not readily provided by our government or by the for-profit sector, hate to see any services lost or cut. We know how difficult, and how important, it…
More than aebleskivers
If you haven’t experienced Taste of Solvang in the two decades the event has attracted thousands of hungry (and thirsty) visitors, then you don’t know what you’re missing, so let me tell you. It’s more than aebleskivers (the traditional, sphere-shaped Danish pancakes), which are great, but Taste of Solvang has evolved into farm-fresh delicacies made…
Miller Elementary School students learn the ‘ABCs of Etiquette’
Sixth-grade students at Miller Elementary School are learning how to mind their manners in a new program called “The ABCs of Etiquette,” which is intended to reinforce what many students have already been taught at home. The first lesson covered restaurant ordering and dining. School principal Karen Porter talked with students in Trinity Hamilton’s 6th…
CHC’s Mobile Dental Clinic visits Dana Elementary School
Students at Dana Elementary School in Nipomo lined up outside a large, brightly decorated mobile dental clinic on Feb. 23, waiting their turn to see the dentist and to show off their skills at brushing, as part of the Community Health Centers (CHC) “Brush! Brush! Brush!” program. U.S. Rep. Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara) was also…
The Boy at the End of the World, by Greg van Eekhout
Fisher, “born” the day his Ark dies, is one of many creatures preserved in a Life Ark by long-ago scientists. Awakened by his robot minder when the Ark and all else within it are destroyed, Fisher and the robot he names Click are alone in the world. Or so it seems. Following clues that reveal…
Hobnobbing With Helen
An explosion of joie de vivre. That’s the best way to describe OCAF’s unusually festive 10th birthday celebration on Friday, Feb. 24, at the Radisson Hotel. More than 160 people gathered to support OCAF, the Orcutt Children’s Arts Foundation. The subtitle of the event could have been “Happy Talk”—there was tons of it. In fact,…
Get dirty and play with clay!
As part of the Discovery Museum’s Music and Art month, we’re excited to give kids the chance to get their hands dirty “throwing” clay on a potter’s wheel during the March 8 “Twilight Thursday.” Join us at 5:30 when Bob Nichols from the Allan Hancock College art department brings his wheel and demonstrates to kids…
Fire, food, and help where it’s needed
A group of Central Coast firefighters recently took a breather from battling blazes to face down another foe: food, and lots of it. On March 3, seven men packed their stomachs with pepperoni, sausage, ham, cheese, and more on behalf of Central Coast Firefighters Charity, a group that helps Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo…
510 Event Center
There’s a new kid on the block in downtown Santa Maria: The 510 Event Center. Though it’s a new business, it occupies a building, built in 1945, with a colorful past. After extensive restoration and redecoration, the 510 Event Center’s transformation into a warm, welcoming venue with mahogany tables and chairs, pale green walls, and…
Whose woods are these?
The Los Padres National Forest could undergo significant changes under a proposal by U.S. Rep. Elton Gallegly, who aims to designate thousands of acres as federally protected land and dedicate large expanses of the forest to off-highway vehicles. Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) on Feb. 29 introduced the Los Padres Conservation and Recreation Act, a bill seeking…
Cold Spring Canyon Bridge is open again, with some changes
Caltrans officials announced on March 1 that the project to install a suicide barrier on the Cold Spring Canyon Bridge along Highway 154 has been completed. A grid-mesh barrier has been installed on both sides of the bridge, which has been the location of 55 suicides since it opened in 1964. “I am pleased this…
Lompoc High School principal submits a letter of resignation
The investigation into Lompoc High School’s principal, Alfonso Garagarza, has been mysterious and kept tightly under wraps. While the reason for the investigation remains unclear, a recent development has taken place in the case. Two months after Garagarza was put on paid administrative leave pending an investigation, the Lompoc Unified School District education board announced…
District Attorney’s office rules police’s use of force in Ceballos shooting was ‘justified’
The Santa Maria Police Department’s use of deadly force against documented gang member Samyr Ceballos, which resulted in Ceballos’ death in December 2011, was justified, the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office announced on March 2. Ceballos, 24, was shot and killed Dec. 8 in front of his Santa Maria home as police officers attempted…
Stoker says he’s running for State Senate
Former Santa Barbara County Supervisor Mike Stoker scheduled a press conference at the Betteravia Government Center in Santa Maria for March 7 to announce he’s running for the California State Senate in 2012. Stoker, a Carpinteria attorney specializing in land use, government, and business law issues, is so far the only Republican to declare his…
