Cover Story
Legend has it …
Northern Santa Barbara County is known more for its barbecue and wine than for its haunted houses or eerie cemeteries, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some ghoulish ghost stories worth telling. To get in the trick-or-treat spirit, the Sun writers each researched and wrote a local urban legend. Read below, if you dare, and…
What gives you the heebie-jeebies?
James Lind student “Spiders. They’re freaky looking.” Miguel Hernandez retail “When I have to pick up my dad at the hospital.” Andrew Cruz retired “Finances. Money is always an issue.” Rovi Butcher senior center director “Strangers talking to me.”
Land of the free?
A web of agricultural communities, the Santa Maria Valley is surrounded on all sides by thousands of acres of pristine, open land. Unfortunately for hikers, bikers, and runners, almost none of it is permitted for recreational use. Now, a grassroots movement comprised of local outdoor-minded residents, calling themselves the Santa Maria Valley Open Space Partnership,…
Billierose Kleinbauer
Billierose Kleinbauer is part actor, part artist, part musician, part dancer. She’s one of those athletes who makes her sport look so easy it’s hard to see it as a sport. “Dance is probably one of the most challenging things that I have ever done. To dance with good technique, you are thinking of 40…
What’s on Deck?
Thursday, Oct. 27 Boys’ Water Polo San Luis Obispo @ St. Joseph 4:30 p.m. Girls’ Golf CIF Regionals TBA Girls’ Tennis San Luis Obispo @ Righetti 3 p.m. Pioneer Valley @ Atascadero 3 p.m. St. Joseph @ Paso Robles 3 p.m. Santa Ynez @ Morro Bay 3:30 p.m. …
On the roster
• Youth Roller Derby: The Rocketeer Rollerz, a new roller derby team based in Santa Maria, is looking for girls aged 11 to 17 to participate in their new junior roller derby league, the Model Rockets. The team will be holding a late registration at Me-N-Ed’s Pizza place at 560 E. Betteravia on Nov. 1…
Hancock salutes military at home game
For the ninth straight year, Allan Hancock College will be showing its appreciation for the military during a patriotic salute to the U.S. Armed Forces at the Bulldogs’ next home football game on Oct. 29. The first 200 military members, veterans, and their families to pick up advance tickets for the game against the Ventura…
Buellton seeks management for Zaca Creek links
The city of Buellton will begin negotiating with a Nipomo golf course management company to run the former Zaca Creek Golf Course, located near the city’s Avenue of the Flags. City Council members on Oct. 13 approved City Manager John Kunkel to negotiate with Sierra Turf Inc., one of two companies to submit proposals to…
See a Wildling art competition on display
The Wildling Art Museum in Los Olivos has selected 23 winning entries from its first-ever fall fine art competition. The Wildling Art Museum asked artists to submit their work around the theme “Where Humans and Nature Intersect.” The 23 winning entries will be on display through Nov. 13 in the Goodall Education Center. The top…
Solvang gets In Reality
In Reality, two new one-act plays by Gerald DiPego, will debut at the newly re-opened Terrace Theater in Solvang. DiPego is the screenwriter of such films as Phenomenon, Message in a Bottle, The Forgotten, Instinct, Sharky’s Machine, and many others. In Reality marks the sixth time his work has been presented in the Santa Ynez…
Los Padres Artist Guild Christmas Show changes dates
Usually held over Thanksgiving weekend, the 34th annual Los Padres Artist Guild Christmas Show will happen earlier this year and at a new location, taking place from 6:30 to 9 p.m. on Nov. 4 and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Nov. 5 at Lakeview Junior High School, 3700 Orcutt Road. The show will…
Giving the guitar gift
A great music teacher is hard to come by. Balancing technique, application, and fun is paramount to keeping a student interested, and the number of skilled musicians a teacher sends out into the world is the legacy of his or her ability. Jerry Coelho has been teaching and performing guitar on the Central Coast under…
Life on the inside
A group of former inmates recently voluntarily went behind bars again, joining together to spend the night at Alcatraz as part of the Poetic Justice Project. “It was, for me, being an ex-con and having been locked up before, an awesome thing to be on the island and be with there with the other guys…
Perspective on the dunes
I’m not sure who was in a worse mood, the sky or me. My hot-air balloon ride in Tehachapi had been canceled, which brought my plans for the perfect daytrip tumbling down. On top of that, my house was being fumigated, I hadn’t slept well, I hadn’t showered, and I still needed to write my…
Will bike for freedom
When I was a kid, freedom was a four-letter word: bike. I rode my bicycle everywhere and anywhere. The only rule at my house was “be home before dark.” Other than that, I was on my own to explore neighborhoods, buy Slurpees, or get run over by trucks. I learned a lot about life riding…
Wine and spirits
One of the world’s oldest holidays—dating back 2,000 years—Halloween still delights children and adults alike. Whether you go all out decorating your home with cobwebs, tombstones, and flying witches, or just take the annual trip to the pumpkin patch and dole out Butterfingers to trick-or-treaters, Halloween is America’s second-most popular holiday, after Christmas. Here on…
Shame’s last name is Obama
Make no mistake, and do not be deceived by the Pravda-like salivating of the mass media; “Occupy Wall Street” is no grassroots silent majority middle America movement. “Occupy” is a finely groomed movement in search of a message. Whereas two years ago, much to the chagrin of the administration’s hip-pocketed talking heads, the Tea Party…
Former supe Harrell Fletcher deserves an honor
It was my honor and privilege to serve as Santa Barbara county supervisor for eight years. I am writing to propose the Santa Barbara County Government Center at Betteravia and Miller be named after the late Harrell Fletcher. Although we had some philosophical differences, he was always a gentleman and did not allow our differences…
Those ‘alien’ lights save taxpayer dollars
We should thank the city of Santa Maria and the county of Santa Barbara for the “alien microwave orange” street lights (“Turn. Out. Those. Lights.” Sept. 29). They are both using the most energy-efficient type of lamps there are. Luminous efficacy gives a relative efficiency for all kinds of lamps. The orange sodium discharge lamps…
U.S. leaders need to check their duties
Justin Ruhge of Lompoc states we need a leader, not a debater who can manage (“We need a president who’s a leader, not a debater,” Oct. 13). It is not at all dark as to who Mr. Ruhge is referring to be the choice of the Republican Party. In all the hoopla of listing the…
What about us?
It was such good news that the Sun referenced an Oct. 13 article on its cover with “Illegal immigrants may breathe easier with this bill.” Do you think the law-abiding legal citizens of this town are now breathing easier? Do we matter anymore?
Flee the temples of consumerism
There is a big new box store, across the street from the other giant box stores: more than half a million square feet of box-store mania, collectively. I opened boxes at the new box store, almost all of which were marked “made in China”—boxes for every department, from cosmetics to candy, house wares to infants,…
A pirate’s life for me
Join us for the Discovery Museum’s sixth annual Batty Ball! This year’s theme, “A Pirate’s Life For Me,” will be lots of fun. The museum will offer crafts and games with a pirate theme. So be prepared to sing a good “Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me!” during the Oct. 27 event…
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, by Alvin Schwartz
Halloween is cool because you can wear a costume and be anybody you want. People decorate their houses to look spooky, trick-or-treating is really fun, and we have a costume party at school. Even my teachers wear costumes, and some are really funny. One of my favorite things to do is to read, and there…
Santa Barbara County is getting more safe routes to school
Little Jorge and Susie are going to be safer while making their way to school, thanks to a $66 million grant from Caltrans. The Safe Routes to School projects improve safety for students in grades K-8 who walk or bicycle to and from school. “By improving safety, more children are encouraged to walk and bicycle…
Study up on 40 colleges at once
Anyone interested in attending a four-year university in California or the rest of the nation is invited to attend Allan Hancock College’s University Transfer Day on Nov. 1 at the college’s Santa Maria campus. Attendees will get to meet and speak with representatives from more than 40 colleges and universities to get information about academic…
There will be robots!
Steel and wheels—or at least LEGO pieces—will face off on Oct. 29 at a robotics tournament at Olga Reed School in Los Alamos. With Orcutt Academy High School as host, the competition will run from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and focus on the theme “Food Factor.” The games at the competition will require students…
Spotlight on: Absolute Mobile Detailing
A hectic work week or days filled with classes and tests can make scheduling some of the finer details of life difficult. Thanks to Manuel Diaz, owner of Absolute Mobile Detailing, people who are strapped for time don’t have to let the details go. Diaz got into the detailing gig right out of high school.…
There’s a new club in town
For many people it’s still a bit early to be thinking about Christmas, but the ladies and gents of Altrusa International of Golden Valley (AIGV), have been thinking about it and planning for months already. Community enrichment is what Altrusa International is all about and this new club continues that tradition. Those who wanted to…
A new leaf?
Registration for Nipomo’s New Tech High School opened a little more than two weeks ago, and the Lucia Mar Unified School District already has applications from enough students to fill its freshman class. The school, which boasts a curriculum built on technology and project-based learning, is poised to become a beacon of innovation on the…
There’s something happening here
With one hand holding an American flag, the other holding a sign scrawled in red ink reading “We Are the 99%,” 84-year-old Doris Stephens joined a smattering of protesters at Central Plaza Park in downtown Santa Maria. While passing cars—many honking horns in support—rolled down Broadway, the Orcutt resident decried years of government overspending. “I’m…
Local winemaker inducted into California Vintners Hall of Fame
Buellton winemaker Richard Sanford is the first Central Coast resident ever named to the California Vintners Hall of Fame. The Culinary Institute of America has announced it will induct six top wine industry leaders at the sixth annual hall of fame ceremony in February 2012. Sanford founded Sanford Winery and Alma Rosa Winery and planted…
Santa Maria man charged with additional home invasion robbery
Silas Kanady, the Army veteran featured in the Sun’s Oct. 20 cover story, has been accused of committing a home invasion robbery in rural Arroyo Grande this August. According to the San Luis Obispo Sheriff’s Department, Kanady is charged with pistol whipping a victim and leaving two victims bound inside a residence. Cumulative charges include…
Hate charges stand in cross burning trial
A San Luis Obispo Superior Court judge let stand hate crime charges against four defendants who are accused of burning a cross outside of a black woman’s Arroyo Grande home. Defense lawyers argued the hate crime allegations should be dropped because, in this case, the cross burning was symbolic speech. The cross was burned on…
Authorities cap marijuana eradication season
Law enforcement agencies have wrapped up their annual marijuana eradication efforts in local rural regions, ultimately destroying nearly 60,000 plants—a new low for such local efforts in the past decade. The task force, spearheaded by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department with support from the Department of Justice’s Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP), the U.S.…
Hancock’s president gets a pay increase and a new contract
On Oct. 18, Allan Hancock College’s Board of Trustees unanimously agreed to give President Jose Ortiz a raise and a three-year extension to his contract, retaining him as the college’s top administrator until 2014. The 2.1 percent “longevity increase” is retroactive to July 1, and increases Ortiz’s base salary to $210,133. It resulted from a…
Task force concludes there’s no oil on the Montebello
After 11 days of testing, the multi-agency task force assembled to assess the threat posed by the sunken S.S. Montebello has concluded there are no visible signs of oil in the ship’s hull. “Our No. 1 objective for this mission was to determine what threat, if any, the Montebello poses to the waters and shorelines…
