Cover Story
Making a comeback: Sober softball provides an opportunity for people recovering from addiction
Editor’s note: The people in this story have had their last names omitted due to the sensitive nature of the information they disclosed. Defeat seemed inevitable. The Pathway’s sober softball team is made up of local men who are in recovery from alcohol and drug addictions. It’s named after the sober-living home they stay in,…
Cars hitting light poles are a Santa Maria epidemic
A brand new SUV hit a McCoy Lane light pole on Sept. 24 at 7:19 a.m., trashing the vehicle and destroying the city of Santa Maria’s property. Richard Dupuis of the Santa Maria Department of Public Works said what they call a “knockdown” occurs about once a week in the city. “It’s an epidemic,” he…
What do you do to get through rough times in life?
Eli Garcia Barber College student “Do something that distracts me: Music will change my mood.” Bob Kirker retired teacher “I exercise. I run. I’ve been jogging for 40 years. It’s my meditation.” Michelle Kelly merchandiser “I smile, get up, and keep walking.” Kimberlee Lipan cashier “My kids wake up every day with a smile and…
Local magazine wants help to fund a 24-hour Internet music channel
Music television has definitely seen some radical transformation since reality TV took over. Channels like MTV and VH1 began humbly enough, showcasing music videos and programs that highlighted artists, but each began spawning offshoot channels as television programming changed. One local music writer, the editor and owner of the online Xombiewoof Magazine, Joseph Timmons, is…
Lompoc Valley Art Association to hold regular meeting with art demonstration
The Lompoc Valley Art Association is holding its regular monthly meeting on Oct. 7, which includes a live art demonstration. The meeting, which begins with a social hour at 6:30 p.m., will include a regular meeting at 7 p.m. followed by a demonstration by Carol Kemp. Kemp is a painter, jeweler, and art teacher who…
Flying Goat Cellars hosts new art installation
Flying Goat Cellars is currently hosting a multimedia installation by Santa Barbara artist Angela Valente and poet Bonnie Brecraft. The Sea at 5 a.m. includes mixed media visual art by Valente that accompanies the poetry of Brecraft. A reception event will be held on Oct. 12 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and will include…
Elverhoj Museum holds ‘Sideways’ exhibit
The Elverhoj Museum of History and Art offers an exhibit titled Looking Back Sideways: Film Stills by Merie Weismiller Wallace, SMPSP. The exhibit marks the 10-year anniversary of the film, which was shot in the Santa Ynez Valley before debuting in 2004, and includes still images taken during the film shoot. The exhibition opens with…
Wildling Museum calls for volunteers
The Wildling Museum is currently recruiting new volunteers for the wilderness showcasing art gallery. Volunteers will help with the front desk, gift store, special events, art classes, leading tours, and more. A volunteer meeting and training event is Oct. 7 at 3 p.m. at the Wildling Museum, 1511-B Mission Drive Solvang. The meeting will include…
Santa Maria announces landscape beautification contest
The city of Santa Maria Utilities Department has announced its first annual Landscape Beautification Contest to recognize and promote attractive and water-saving landscapes in the community. The contest began Sept. 22 and continues through Oct. 31 for single-family residences served by the Santa Maria Utilities Department. Winners will enjoy a recognition award and have their…
Lompoc quilt guild holds a weekend showcase and raffle
The age-old practice of quilting is one that prizes carefully handcrafted patches assembled to create a larger expression of the pattern. Though the art form has adapted to changes in technology, the practice remains essentially the same, with lone quilters creating unique patterns from collected fabrics. The Lompoc and Buellton area has enjoyed quite the…
The Grapes and Grains Festival celebrates the arts
A little more than three decades ago, the Santa Maria Arts Council—then headed by Nat Fast—began an annual community arts event, the Autumn Arts Festival, at Veterans Memorial Park. The festival became a yearly celebration of the various art forms and artists that find a home in Santa Maria and on the Central Coast. The…
That first kiss
What’s the deal about a first kiss anyway? It’s rarely what you expect it to be, yet somehow pop culture has built it into a sweet sentimental thing. Songs are written about it, and movies attempt to capture that special time. They make you remember all the excitement of the unknowns: Eyes closed or open?…
Celebrate harvest: Santa Barbara County has new wine tasting rooms, new wine events, and a new vintage
The latest winery to open a tasting room in Los Alamos is no stranger to local wine enthusiasts. Municipal Winemakers, led by Dave Potter, has been producing compelling wine for years, selling it at the winery’s tasting room in downtown Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone. Potter handcrafts the wines and sources most of the fruit in…
Discovery Corner: It’s Falloween at the Discovery Museum
Hey there, Discovery Corner readers! I’m going to let you in on a little secret: Fall is my favorite season, and it’s not just because my birthday is in October (but that certainly helps). I love fall for numerous reasons, including the color-changing leaves, pumpkin pie, apple cider, football season, and the best holiday ever,…
Students get computers at upcoming luncheon
The Santa Maria Valley Industry Education Council and the Santa Maria Valley Chamber of Commerce and Visitor and Convention Bureau are hosting their annual Business Appreciation luncheon on Oct. 8 at the Elks Lodge from noon to 1:30 p.m. This year’s theme, Partnerships Are Sweet!, is an opportunity for the organizations to thank local companies,…
Santa Maria high school district reaches out to parents
The Santa Maria Joint Union High School District started this school year with renewed efforts to bring parents into the education process. Through programs such as AERIES, which gives weekly student updates via email or smart phone in Spanish or English; increasing the number of certified school guidance counselors who deal with graduation and helping…
Mentoring: Righetti High School football promotes physical fitness
Ernest Righetti High School football players took a trip to Ralph Dunlap Elementary School on Sept. 25 around lunchtime to promote participation in recess activities, physical fitness, study habits, self-discipline, and responsibility.
Spotlight on: First Friday Artisan Market
It would not be a surprise to see a ragged tumbleweed guided by a bored breeze cross the empty Allan Hancock College parking lots on a Friday afternoon. But starting Oct. 3, the tumbleweed is going to have some obstacles—booths and lots of them. This semester Hancock’s entrepreneurial and business students are going to be…
Political Watch 10/2/14
• The California Energy Commission reported—via its blog on Sept. 23—that the state’s solar energy production increased by 350 percent in 2013. The latest Tracking Progress report for renewable energy shows solar thermal and photovoltaic (PV) systems installed so far in 2014 have the capability of producing 825 megawatts a year of electricity, and an…
Community Notebook 10/2/14-10/9/14
MONDAY, OCT. 6 • The Solvang Planning Commission has its regular meeting at 7 p.m. in City Council Chambers, 1644 Oak Street, Solvang. TUESDAY, OCT. 7 • The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors has its regular meeting at 9 a.m. in the Board of Supervisors Hearing Room, 105 E. Anapamu St., Santa Barbara. Agendas…
Corrections
• The Sun misidentified the PCPA lighting designer in the Sept. 25 review of the play 36 Views (“The eye of the beholder”). The lighting designer is Michael Klaers, and Robert Newell was the costume designer for the show. Also, the review failed to mention projection designer Adam Flemming, whose work shaped the play greatly.…
Hobnobbing with Helen
This was one busy weekend. Santa Maria kicked off autumn with a swell of activity. On Friday morning, Sept. 26, I joined the Mega 97.1 gang in front of the Chamber of Commerce and adjoining Santa Maria Historical Society for their weekly Java Jam. It was 7 a.m., I might add, when I got there.…
Community Corner: Feeding America awards grants to the Food Bank
The national nonprofit Feeding America recently awarded three grants to the Food Bank of Santa Barbara County, representing funding from three national organizations: Costco, Dunkin’ Donuts, and Procter and Gamble. The food bank is part of Feeding America’s nationwide network of 200 food banks that lead the fight against hunger in the United States. Costco…
Santa Maria school board candidates faced off at voters forum
Although a debate it wasn’t, attendees of a recent Santa Maria school board candidates forum were still treated to some unexpected, you-just-pet-the-cat-the-wrong-way kind of statements. At about 6:30 p.m. on Sept. 24, audience members and candidates sauntered into the Betteravia Government Center gallery for a mixed question-and-answer forum for both Santa Maria-Bonita School Board and…
Santa Barbara county starts to look at long-term water supplies
To see the future clearly, one must first look to the past for guidance—at least that’s how Geary resident Tom Gibbons sees it. In order to figure out how Santa Barbara County can maintain a sustainable water supply in the future, Gibbons said the county needs to study how area residents came together in the…
Lompoc gang defendant convicted on retrial
A jury convicted Raymond Daniel Macias of kidnapping a man for extortion with the special allegations of causing substantial injury, using a gun, and committing the crime for gang purposes. The Sept. 22 conviction came at the end of a retrial of Macias’ case, according to a press release from the Santa Barbara County District…
Vandenberg protester gets a rehearing
The gears of the judicial system keep turning in the case of John Dennis Apel, a local man who’s seen legal proceedings against him slowly make their way up to the U.S. Supreme Court—and now, as of Sept. 22, back down. Apel’s long legal ride most visibly began in 2003 when he threw some of…
Field worker sexual harassment bill becomes law
On Sept. 28, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed SB 1087 into law. The bill seeks to curb what some people say is an epidemic of sexual harassment and violence among the state’s field workers. SB 1087 was penned by state Sen. Bill Monning (D-Concord), whose district runs from Santa Clara County to the San Luis…
Chumash push forward with casino expansion plans
The Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians is moving forward with expansion plans for the Chumash Casino Resort with construction scheduled to start in October, despite concerns the project has raised within the county. “The tribe has jurisdiction on the reservation,” said Vincent Armenta, the tribe’s chairman. “We go through the same exact process that…
Readin’, writin’, and really?
Pop quiz time. I know, I know. I didn’t give you any advance warning. But this is a pop quiz! They can happen at any time. You just have to be ready. A pop quiz is, of course, a favored tactic that’s been employed by teachers ever since teachers were first invented, which means it’s…
Worry about oil and cancer
Oil drilling has been linked to cancer, as well as many other health problems, for people forced to breathe the toxic, chemical-laden air in neighborhoods near wells. And when these wells leak—and there are always some leaks—there’s the hazard of these same chemicals entering the water supply, and they have. Need proof? A recent peer-reviewed…
Measure P is racist
If passed, Measure P will throw several thousand oil workers, mostly (more than 70 percent) Latino, under the bus. The handful of well-off, white liberals who launched this move do not care about Latinos. They are out to “save the planet” (HA!) by shutting down oil production in Santa Barbara County. So if they wreck…
Proposition 46 will save lives
Proposition 46, the patient safety initiative on the November ballot, will save lives. For proof, take a look at what’s gone on in recent years just down Highway 101 in Santa Barbara. That’s where a doctor named Julio Diaz was known as “The Candyman” for his willingness to overprescribe potentially addictive narcotics. Many of his…
What’s On Deck 10/2/14-10/9/14
Thursday, Oct. 2 Girls’ Volleyball St. Joseph vs. RHS @ SJHS, 6 p.m. Santa Ynez vs. SMHS @ SMHS, 3:30 p.m. Nipomo vs. Templeton @ NHS, 5:30 p.m. Pioneer Valley vs. Arroyo Grande @ PVHS, 6 p.m. Girls’ Tennis RHS vs. Paso Robles @ Passo Robles, 3:30 p.m. Santa…
Solvang opens its doors as a Special Olympics host town
The mayor of Solvang, Jim Richardson, handed a key to the city to officials from the Special Olympics World Games Los Angeles 2015 on Wednesday, Sept. 24, at Solvang Park. Solvang will join 100 other communities from San Diego to San Luis Obispo in playing host to athletes from around the globe for the 2015…
Last chance to sign up for YMCA Youth Arena Soccer
Oct. 3 is the final date to sign up for the 2014 fall season of the YMCA Youth Arena Soccer. The registration fee is $60 for members and includes an eight-week season and team jersey. All games are on Saturdays and the season runs from Oct. 18 to Dec. 6. Practices will be held once…
The clock is winding down on youth basketball sign-ups
The Santa Maria Youth Basketball League continues to sign up participants for its 2014 season. There are three remaining dates to sign up: boys and girls, grades first through eighth. Sign-ups will be held Saturday, Oct. 4, at the Santa Maria High School football field snack bar from 9 a.m. to noon; on Tuesday, Oct.…
Jose Morales
The Allan Hancock College (AHC) football team got its first taste of victory this season against Chaffey Community College on Saturday, Sept. 20. The Bulldogs finished their first win against the Panthers by a close margin, 26-24, with help from kicker Jose Morales. “He saved the day,” Hancock Head Coach Kris Dutra said. “He was…
Shield battle: Warriors face Knights in Orcutt’s annual high school football game
The Ernest Righetti High School Warriors came out on top in this year’s Battle of the Shield game against the St. Joseph High School Knights with a tight defensive line and an offense that could carry. Righetti defeated St. Joe’s 37-14 on Sept. 26 at Warriors Stadium in Orcutt. It’s the Warriors fourth win in…
