Cover Story

Quick: What image comes to mind when you read the word “farmer”? Perhaps you envision a sturdy and stoic gentleman, clad in work boots, overalls, and a straw hat, holding a pitchfork or driving a tractor. Ingrained as it is in the Western consciousness, the classic stereotype of the farmer is quickly shifting across the […]

The ocean looked remarkably clear the week of a recent hot spell. Waves reached out and pulled back against the sand in rhythmic succession. Avid beachcombers suggest that in two to five years, those waves will stretch onto West Coast beaches and leave behind broken and waterlogged wreckage from the recent tsunami in Japan. That’s […]

Happy Cinco de Mayo, Sun readers! To celebrate this widely misunderstood and typically tequila-doused holiday, Sun staffers Jeremy Thomas, Shelly Cone, Amy Asman, and Steve E. Miller decided to make a trip down to Dos Carlitos Restaurant and Tequila Bar in Santa Ynez for a tequila tasting with owner Carlos Lopez-Hollis. Over a few snifters—yes, […]

Joyce Dudley is a busy woman. As Santa Barbara County’s top prosecutor and law enforcement official, she spends each day defending the public from crime.   “If I’m not rigorously trying to prevent crime, I’m not doing my job,” Dudley says during an interview with the Sun.   The public usually has a good grasp […]

It started with a simple question: “Where are they now?” But it turns out finding the whereabouts of 11 reported Mexican nationals arrested in a February sweep by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Santa Maria is no small task. This reporter was soon lost in the bureaucratic black hole of the immigration […]

Some people pursue diplomas to help them succeed. Others pursue them so their children can succeed. With that goal in mind—success—a class of parents committed nine weeks to learning how to navigate the educational system. They aimed to learn how to help their children graduate and pursue college educations of their own. After completing their […]

The ice plant was crushed. Just crushed. Yellow and purple flowers stood up here and there amid the pulpy sea of green, trampled by three or four dozen veterans and their friends sweating under one of the first sunny days to heat the coast after a series of early spring storms. What had started life […]

It’s been quite some time since Andy Stenson, an assistant superintendent at Lucia Mar Unified School District, stood in front of students in his own classroom. But on this brisk day in mid-March, the district’s head of curriculum and instruction is back in his teaching element. The lesson: merit-based pay for teachers. Stenson draws two […]

It’s the dream of almost every varsity athlete who’s ever laced up a pair of cleats, picked up a bat, or thrown on a set of shoulder pads: a college scholarship. Out of the thousands of high school students who participate in sports area-wide, each year only a chosen few have the distinction of making […]

Anyone can publish a book these days. Some writers simply sell their books to family and friends and never get beyond that. Others gain local exposure. A few find their way to a national audience. And they do it all themselves. Because the self-publishing trend is growing so quickly, there’s little in the way of […]

When former SLO County Supervisor Katcho Achadjian stepped away from his long-held position with the board after being elected to the State Assembly, he not only left a vacancy with the county, he also resigned from his regional post on the California Coastal Commission, the powerful state regulatory agency tasked with preserving the aesthetically exquisite […]

Buellton-based organic farmer John Kiddie affably admits he’s new to the whole social media thing. “I want to make my Twitter name or whatever you call it ‘outstandinginhisfield.’ I had ‘seedsamuri,’ but I spelled samurai wrong,” Kiddie said with a sly smile, while standing in a field of leafy greens. Technology has become a valuable […]