Cover Story

The Santa Maria River bed holds a clear record of who’s been through recently. The tracks of deer, blue belly lizards, and mice wind through the gravely sand alongside footprints from walkers or joggers, sometimes with dogs. Underneath the bridge, sneaker prints reveal fewer athletic treads, and the towering concrete pillars that hold up the […]

Something wasn’t right: She couldn’t eat much. The little she did eat made her feel very full. Her stomach was constantly cramping. She felt sick too often. And she didn’t have any energy. The short, sassy, big-brown-eyed Valentina Martins was never tired, and she befriended almost everyone she met. She was usually overflowing with vitality; […]

It starts with a wave.     The Sammy Keyes book series opens with a girl assuring the reader she wasn’t trying to get in trouble. This about-to-be-junior-higher is merely bored on account of being trapped in the seniors-only apartment where she’s illegally living with her grandma while her mother tries to succeed in Hollywood. Due […]

The Pacific Conservatory for the Performing Arts—known to everyone as PCPA—started with a gentle humility that mimicked its small-town origins. The theater arts company, designed to teach young performers and technicians under the guidance of professional resident teachers, went through several transformations before coming close to the conservatory locals know today. But the mission of […]

For most Santa Barbara County residents, it’s easy to pick a side on Measure P: Either oil is bad or oil is good. In essence though, the measure is about more than oil; it’s about defining the future of the county. It’s about figuring out what’s most important to county residents—allowing the wave of oil […]

When Paul Giamatti arrived in the Santa Ynez Valley 11 years ago to portray a pretentious wine aficionado in the dark comedy film Sideways, he relied on his considerably gifted acting chops, because he had little interest in wine. “I just drank beer at that point,” Giamatti admitted. “I still wouldn’t know that much about […]

On March 16, 2011, the full picture was beginning to come into focus of just how bad things were in Fukushima, Japan. A massive earthquake and corresponding tsunami knocked out power and backup systems at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, and at the time Japanese officials were asking residents within 12 miles of the […]

For five days at the Santa Maria Valley Discovery Museum, Staff Writer Kristina Sewell, former Assistant Art Director Heather Walter, and I taught 10 children between the ages of 8 and 13 how to be reporters as part of a special summer camp partnership between the Sun and the museum. The kids learned how to […]

The sweet smell of hay mixes with the pungent, nose-wrinkling odor of manure and just a hint of old popcorn. If someone decided to bottle this scent as a perfume, it’d be called Eau de Fair. It’s just after 8 a.m. on Saturday, July 12, at the Santa Maria Fairpark. The Santa Barbara County Fair […]

Every day in California and the rest of the country, throughout state and federal prisons, thousands of individuals are being held in solitary confinement. An inmate can be removed from the general population for a variety of reasons, and can end up spending months, years, and even decades alone in the tiny cells. “Solitary confinement […]

A cacophony only six children can make bounces around the Rojases’ family room. It’s movie time, and Sherena Rojas is calmly directing the organized chaos of movement into a semi-seated row on the checkered carpet below the television. After the children plop down, she doles out a mid-afternoon snack: little bags of cookies. The opening […]