ELDRA AVERY | JULIE TOWERY | TED RICH | LEIGH LIVICK | BILL WINGFIELD
JournalPLUS AUGUST 2015
MAGA ZINE OF THE CENTRAL COAST
POINT SAN LUIS
LIGHTHOUSE CELEBRATING 125 YEARS
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR KRISTI BALZER
805-543-2172
805-904-6616
21 Santa Rosa St. #100, San Luis Obispo
110 E. Branch Street, Arroyo Grande
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Gorgeous ranch style home on the nicest street in Nipomo. Privately situated on one level acre. Perfect home for entertaining indoors & outdoors. Great room with brick fireplace. Bocci ball court, huge built-in barbeque, plenty of room for dining, mingling with friends and hosting a large party. RV parking and so much more. Meticulously cared for. $785,000
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Rendezvous2015 at the San Luis Obispo Country Club
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19TH, 2015 AT 5pm Premier Wines | Gourmet Dining | Live and Silent Auctions | CASA’s Fabulous Cake Auction All proceeds benefit abused and neglected children in San Luis Obispo County $100 per person | Group tables of 8 available
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CONTENTS
Journal PLUS MAGAZINE OF THE CENTRAL COAST
The People, Community, and Business of Our Beautiful Central Coast ADDRESS
654 Osos Street San Luis Obispo California 93401
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ELDRA AVERY
PHONE 805.546.0609 E-MAIL slojournal@fix.net WEBSITE www.slojournal.com
EDITOR & PUBLISHER Steve Owens ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Erin Mott GRAPHIC DESIGNER Dora Mountain COPY EDITOR Susan Stewart PHOTOGRAPHER Tom Meinhold DISTRIBUTION Jan Owens, Kyle Owens, Jim Parsons, Gary Story
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JULIE TOWERY
BILL WINGFIELD
ADVERTISING Steve Owens CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Susan Stewart, Natasha Dalton, Joseph Carotenuti, Dr. James Brescia, Sarah Hedger, Maggie Cox, Will Jones, Deborah Cash, Heather Young, Don Morris, Ruth Starr, Richard Bauman, Charmaine Coinbra, Rebecca Leduc, Gail Pruitt, Dan Carpenter and Robert Simola. Mail subscriptions are available at $20 per year. Back issues are $2 each. Inquires concerning advertising or other information made by writing to Steve Owens, JOURNAL PLUS MAGAZINE, 654 Osos Street, San Luis Obispo, CA 93401. You can call us at 546-0609, our fax line is 546-8827, and our e-mail is slojournal@fix.net. View the entire magazine on our website at www.slojournal.com JOURNAL PLUS MAGAZINE is a free monthly distributed to over 600 locations throughout the Central Coast and is also available online at slojournal.com Editorial submissions are welcome but are published at the discretion of the publisher. Submissions will be returned if accompanied by a stamped self addressed envelope. No material published in the magazine can be reproduced without written permission. Opinions expressed in the byline articles are those of the writers and not necessarily those of the JOURNAL PLUS MAGAZINE. COVER PHOTO BY TOM MEINHOLD
PEOPLE
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LEIGH LIVICK JULIE TOWERY ELDRA AVERY TED RICH BILL WINGFIELD MICHAEL JENSEN
HOME & OUTDOOR 20 BASEBALL’S SONG 22 3 DAY HIKES 24 FOOD / AT THE MARKET
COMMUNITY
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SLO COUNTY ART SCENE VETS—CALL TO THE COLORS POINT SAN LUIS LIGHTHOUSE’S 125TH HISTORY: Myron Angel OUR SCHOOLS—Dr. James Brescia PALM STREET—Councilman Dan Carpenter COMMUNITY BULLETIN BOARD
BUSINESS
37 DOWNTOWN SLO What’s Happening 41 CENTRAL COAST’S GREATEST ATHLETES 46 EYE ON BUSINESS
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COMING UP AT THE
PERFORMING ARTS CENTER AN EVENING WITH JAKE SHIMABUKURO AUGUST 15 | 8:00 p.m. CHRISTOPHER COHAN CENTER
Presented by Cal Poly Arts and Otter Productions, Inc.
In his young career, ukulele wizard Jake Shimabukuro has redefined the instrument, been declared a musical “hero” by Rolling Stone Magazine, won accolades from the wide-ranging likes of Eddie Vedder, Perez Hilton and Dr. Sanjay Gupta, wowed audiences on TV (“Jimmy Kimmel Live” and “Conan”), earned comparisons to Jimi Hendrix and Miles Davis, and even played in front of the Queen of England.
DANCIN' 2015 AUGUST 16 | 2:00 p.m. CHRISTOPHER COHAN CENTER
Presented by Academy of Dance
The Academy of Dance presents, Dancin’ 2015! Featuring the talented students and staff of The Academy of Dance. This performance will showcase what these dancers have been working on all year.
WWW.PACSLO.ORG | 805-756-4TIX (4849)
We all smile in the same language.
From the publisher
I
had a great opportunity to visit the Point San Luis Lighthouse again last month. Lighthouse Keepers Executive Director, Kristi Balzer gave us a special tour while we were taking photos for our cover story. There aren’t many more beautiful places on this earth. The lighthouse is celebrating its 125th anniversary by hosting a spectacular gala. Your can read all about it inside.
We have six more profiles this month on people who make a difference on the Central Coast. One of my favorites features SLO High School English Teacher, Eldra Avery. She begins her 30th year this fall. There are several other great stories inside including: Baseball’s song, three special day hikes, the latest news from the Vet’s Museum and two more greatest athletes on the Central Coast. Enjoy the magazine.
Come see us at our new office! 11545 LOS OSOS VALLEY ROAD SUITE A, SAN LUIS OBISPO, CA
CALL US AT 805-541-5800 TO SCHEDULE AN APPOINTMENT.
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Steve Owens
375 Los Cerros Drive, San Luis Obispo
$1,450,000
Private retreat nestled at the base of Bishop’s Peak. Located on a quiet cul-de-sac in the desirable Ferrini Heights neighborhood, this custom 3 bedroom, 4.5 bath house is situated on a half acre and features stunning panoramic views, a swimming pool, spa, outdoor entertainment area, detached guest suite, separate office, open floor plan, and plenty of built-in storage. Steps from numerous hiking trails, sports fields, basketball courts, and a playground. Whether you are hiking the most sought after summit in San Luis Obispo, walking the kids to Bishop’s Peak Elementary School, or simply lounging by the pool with family and friends, this unique home truly embodies the best of what San Luis Obispo has to offer. View the complete virtual tour at: http://www.tourfactory.com/1363893
1773 Frambuesa Drive, San Luis Obispo
$1,079,000
First time on the market! This custom built home is situated on over 1/4 acre lot at the top of the cul-de-sac on Frambuesa Drive. There’s room for the whole family with over 4,000 square feet of living space. This spacious home features 5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, a formal living room, dining room, family room, 3-car garage, and RV parking. Take in the beautiful views from one of the upper patios or enjoy some peace and quiet in the fully landscaped backyard. See the attached features list for more information and view the virtual tour at: http://www.tourfactory.com/1363891
Erin Mott Broker/Owner BRE# 01448769 ph: 805.234.1946 erin@mpsrealty.com
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Leigh Livick
giving back through volunteering By Heather Young
L
eigh Livick is a woman who keeps herself busy by giving back to the community. In addition to working part-time at K-Jon’s in Atascadero, she’s involved in American Field Service, HANDS in Nepal, Friends of the Atascadero Library, HumanKind, 100 Women Who Care, American Association of University Women and iCare International.
“I’m too busy to clean the house,” Livick said with a laugh. “I’m grateful for so much that I have. There’s so much out there to do, so why wouldn’t you volunteer?” Despite how much she gives, she said she could think of a list of other people who do so much more. “There are many things I wish I had time to do, that I’d like to do,” she said. “It’s difficult to decide what to give your time to.” Right after Livick and her husband, Rob, and her daughter, Clare, who now attends Templeton High School, moved to Atascadero in 1999, she got involved with Friends of the Atascadero Library. “The first thing I did [after moving to Atascadero] was go to a library and find activities to do,” she said. “I got hooked into toddler time with Joan [Bloomfield]. After about six months [or so] Joan asked if I’d be interested in joining Friends of the Library.” Ever since, she’s been involved with the library. She was very involved in the expansion campaign, raising funds to either renovate the former library on Morro Road or relocate it elsewhere in the city. In June 2014, the library opened in its current location at 6555 Capistrano Ave. “The library was always a big part of my life growing up,” Livick said. “I was always an avid reader so I loved going to the library.” Her daughter not only loves to read, but also volunteers at the library, where she’s been going after school for the last two years.
Leigh with a group of school children in Nepal. A U G U S T
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“I’m gratefully for so much that I have. There’s so much out there to do so why wouldn’t you volunteer?” It was through Friends of the Library that Livick got involved in AFS when her daughter was in elementary school. While volunteering for Friends of the Atascadero Library, Livick met AFS hosting coordinator, Nancy Casey. “I [had] always wanted to host an exchange student since high school [when] one of my friends went to Switzerland,” she said. “We wrote back and forth. I thought it was so amazing. I knew I wouldn’t be able to do it because of finances.” When she met Casey, she told her that she’d always wanted to host. Her first foray into AFS was as a liaison for a student from Thailand. When Clare was in the fourth grade and interested in Japanese things and wanted to learn Japanese, the Livicks hosted their first student, Tomoyo from Japan. Later, another volunteer, Linda Tubb, asked Livick to fill in for her as hosting coordinator, which is a position she still holds. She’s currently looking to place 24 students in San Luis Obispo, Santa
Leigh helping an 80-year-old woman in
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Livick spent two weeks in Nepal from December 2013 to January 2014. “It was really life-changing,” Livick said. “The people with the least are the most giving. People are the same everywhere— they want to be loved and [to] raise their families.”
Leigh siting with a Tibetan Ani – Buddhist Nun– in Kathmandu.
Barbara and Ventura counties for the 201516 school year. So far, however, only one student has been placed in the three counties. “We’ve had such wonderful experiences,” Livick said. “We have daughters all over the world.” The Livicks have also hosted Eka from Indonesia, Yoshie from Japan, Sara from Italy, Alina from Tajikistan and Martina from Italy. Not only have they opened their home to students from around the world, but they have also visited their students in their home countries. “[It’s] so different when you visit people and stay with them,” Livick said. “You’re just living like the people who live there.” Her involvement in HANDS in Nepal stemmed from her love of reading when she first read about Nepal in National Geographic when she was a kid. “I wanted to join the Peace Corps and got to Nepal, but [I] never go to,” she said. It was after reading about the local nonprofit and board president Jan Sprague. “She was so passionate, so interesting, I asked her how I could get involved.” So Livick helped Sprague get the word out about the organization whose mission is to build schools in the most rural regions of Nepal. The organization puts an emphasis on bathroom facilities at each school to promote the education of girls, to then advance their literacy and vocational training programs. Since the 7.8 earthquake on April 25, HANDS in Nepal has been asked to send solar lights to Nepal. The organization was founded by Danny Chaffin after he graduated from Atascadero High School.
After graduating from high school in 1977, Livick went to a junior college and then to Cal Poly. Though she really liked the area, she ended up going back to work full time and working at a “very unchallenging” job, which drove her to go back to school at Cal State Northridge. After she earned her bachelor’s degree in environmental occupational health, she got a job for the City of Los Angeles and later with Ventura County Environmental Health. She moved back to the area in 1987 when she got a job with the City of San Luis Obispo at the waste water plant. She then met her husband. They ended up
Leigh siting with AFS student, Eka, and friends.
moving to Washington before returning to SLO County. Her husband is the public works director for Morro Bay. “After seven years I couldn’t take the weather anymore,” Livick said.
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JULIE TOWERY
PEOPLE, PLACES, PETS, PROPERTY STITCHING TOGETHER LIFE’S JOYS AND MAKING A DIFFERENCE By Deborah Cash
S
he’s talented, smart, bold and unflappable. Perhaps, with her low-key style and calm demeanor, she flies a little under the radar but Julie Towery’s a community treasure nonetheless. Julie, whose family ties to SLO reach back two generations to her grandparents John B. “Jack” and Lurene “Mickey” Fisher and who put in more than two decades at the County as a computer programmer, now spends her time quilting, traveling, enjoying the companionship of her husband Mal and their pets and is upfront about her political and environmental sentiments—she’s also considered a valued volunteer for a number of local causes. Julie has fond memories of visiting her grandparents in SLO throughout her life. Her grandpa, Jack, was born in Los Angeles and her grandmother, Mickey, was born in Winnipeg. After they married, they moved to SLO where they started out in the electrical supply business at their shop on Higuera Street and were also part owners of the Motel Inn for a long time. Julie recalls a favorite memory she has of her grandparents: “My grandfather used to get a new Cadillac every year. People waited to buy his old one because it was in pristine condition. He deviated one year and bought a Mercedes, which my grandmother called ‘Hitler,’ and she bought a Thunderbird my grandfather called ‘the tin can.’ One of the things he would do when he got a new car was to have clear plastic seat covers installed. When he died, we came up from LA for the funeral, and when we got back to their house after the service, we walked into the patio and my grandmother growled, ‘I want those seat covers off NOW!’ We laughed the whole time we were removing them.” Julie’s mom, also named Lurene, was born in LA around 1916 as, says Julie, “There wasn’t a hospital here in SLO (for birthing) at the time.” Lurene was raised in SLO and later attended UCLA where she met and married Alfred Milton and they lived in North Hollywood where daughter Julie was later born.
Julie in front of one of her Quilts A U G U S T
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Julie and Mal Towery
The Milton family moved to Laurel Canyon where Julie recalls hiking as a young girl in the hills, home to “a lot of rattlesnakes” that her beloved dog, Jill, would make short work of. “She would throw them up in the air,” Julie recalled and said, “I grew up with Jill, that’s where my love of dogs began. I’ve been a dog lover ever since.” Julie, like her mom, attended UCLA obtaining a degree in mathematics. Her first job was at System Development Corporation in computer programming. She later lived in Marina Del Rey and began working at the Rand Corporation; she also enjoyed sailing and crewing and being part owner of a sailboat. Laid off from her job, Julie hopped on board with “three guys sailing to Europe” and stashed all her worldly goods at her mom’s SLO home. (Her mother, then divorced, had returned to SLO after her father Jack died.) “I was about 26-27 and it sounded like fun,” she said. “By the time we got to the Mediterranean, I figured out that I was basically the galley maid and expected to cook for a bunch of older guys and their ‘lady friends’ ’round the clock.” Curtailing that gig, she said she bought a cardboard suitcase and sent everything she didn’t need home to her mom and headed north to tour Europe on her own. By the time she got to Denmark, her lack of suitable clothing for the climate signaled it was time to end the sojourn and she moved permanently to SLO, a place she had visited many times as a child and that she loved. She decided on a “big change of careers” and attended Cal Poly earning a master’s degree in Counseling and Guidance. While going to school and working at the County, she also volunteered at Hotline for about five years where she said she was taking calls—sometimes at midnight—and basically running the program; at the same time she served as a bookkeeper for ECOSLO. She retired from her county position in 1996. Currently, she donates her energy as a volunteer for the AIDS Support Network, writing thank you letters for donations and occasionally transporting clients to temporary housing and appointments.
PEOPLE When Julie’s mom Lurene died in the mid1980s, Julie and her brother inherited the Higuera Street property that currently houses the retail boutique Contessa S and was the former location of popular t-shirt and card shop known as Penelope’s. Julie said her family was always proud of the historic building and was one of the first property owners to retrofit their unreinforced masonry structure as soon as it was announced such buildings were potentially unsafe. Ultimately, Julie became involved with the SLO Downtown Association’s Design Committee due to her interest in downtown’s aesthetics, upkeep and safety and was a founding member of the Downtown Foresters. “I was motivated to meet and work with other property owners,” she said, “and I love trees. It was a good fit.” Anyone who knows Julie knows she’s half of the team that includes her doting and amazing husband Mal Towery, her perfect “mate” whom she met at the Morro Bay Yacht Club one evening when she was serving her member-required bar duty and he became smitten. Both lovers of the sea, pets, community causes and travelling, Mal and Julie married at the Yacht Club in 1990. “We’ve been all across the country,” Julie
Julie and her mom at her graduation from UCLA.
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currently volunteers for the Long Term Care Ombudsman program. A visit to the Towery home is a perfect snapshot into their lives and their loves: front yard signage displays current political sentiments, mementos and art from their travels adorn the walls and cabinets of their home, pets are definitely part of the family and the overall feeling is one of happiness, worldliness, involvement and contentment.
said, “There are only two states we haven’t visited. We love meeting the people, like the guy in Utah who’s never been more than 50 miles away from home!” Julie and Mal have enjoyed RV trips, cruises and toured the world with Lindblad Expeditions on small ships but also love coming home to their pooches Sasha and Reba and their obligations to their respective community involvements. Julie’s a member of the Neighborhood Wellness and Civility group among her other commitments and Mal, who retired from his position at the Atascadero State Hospital,
Adding to the coziness are displays and brica-brac of Julie’s creative passion, quilting. A member of the SLO Quilter’s Guild for 30 years, Julie is a master at her art. Being a math-oriented person, she noted, the hobby is a natural for her. “I like geometrics,” she explained, adding that technology has brought the craft far from the early days “before fancy cutting tools. It’s all changed so much!” Somehow, with all her avid and diverse interests, Julie has managed to pull it all together into one beautiful “quilt of life” that melds her wanderlust, activism, dedication to her family, community and pets—for the benefit of all whose lives she touches.
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1020 Palm Street, San Luis Obispo, CA 93401 – www.ernstlawgroup.com – (805) 541-0300 A U G U S T
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eldra avery
english teacher— san Luis Obispo high school By Will Jones “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson I first met Eldra Avery when we were students in an adolescent literature class at Cal Poly in 1985. Both of us were in our mid-thirties, re-entry graduate students working on teaching credentials, hoping to eventually teach English in one of the local school districts. At the end of class one day, Eldra approached me and said, “Will, I like you. You know why? Because you’re smart!” I was flattered but also nonplussed by what seemed like a sincere but slightly condescending compliment. It wasn’t until Eldra and I spent twenty-two years working together at San Luis Obispo High School that I came to understand and respect how sacred “smart” is to Eldra. Now she is beginning her thirtieth year as one of the most admired and highly regarded teachers in the San Luis Coastal Unified School District, a woman defined by Emerson’s famous quote from “Self Reliance.” Eldra was born in St. Louis. Her father was a truck driver and her mother a housewife. The Averys moved to Orange County when she was in second grade. “My mother taught me the same lesson over and over again: ‘Eldra, you’re going to go to college and get an education because that’s something no one can take away from you.’ I didn’t completely get it until high school when I started getting straight A’s. I loved school, especially reading, but I didn’t know then that I would become an English teacher.” Dancing in high school led to a scholarship to San Diego State, where she fell in love, married young, and started raising her daughter, Tamara, while her husband was in Vietnam. The marriage did not survive the separation, but Eldra is still friends with John Berteaux, who has a Ph.D. in philosophy and teaches in the Division of Humanities and Communication at CSU Monterey Bay.
Eldra eventually reconnected with an old friend, Donald Avery, whom she had known since fifth grade. They married and moved to San Luis Obispo while Donald attended architecture school at Cal Poly. Their son, Jake, was born in 1972. Jake was in my first English class at SLOHS in 1989 and received my first ever ‘Jack Kerouac Say Yes to Life and Literature’ award. He now lives in Portland with his wife Jackie and their daughter Beatrix. After returning to school in the mid-seventies, earning an English degree from Cal Poly, Eldra taught dance at Cuesta for six years, from 1980 to 1986. “I thought I wanted to be a writer, because I’d had some success with that, but I focused on dance. Injuries finally drove me out of that profession.” A turning point for Eldra came when Tamara, attending Cal Poly in the mid-eighties, struggled with writing essays in her English class even though she had done well in high school. “I decided I wanted to become a high school English teacher, to teach literature and writing. I started taking continuation classes and completed my credential in the spring of 1986,” a class that yielded three SLOHS English teachers: Eldra, Mark Bindner and myself, although I first spent three years at Los Osos Middle School. Anyone who knows Mrs. Avery knows that once she makes a commitment to a goal, nothing stands in her way. She excelled as an 11th grade honors teacher while also making Yearbook one of the smoothest operating production classes on campus, overseeing its transition to the computer design and digital age. At the request of former principal Mary Matakovich, Eldra transformed her honors class into an 11th grade Advanced Placement class, and soon her students were passing the Advanced Placement English
Eldra and one of her quilts A U G U S T
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Eldra and her SLO High School AP Students
Language and Composition examination at an 85% and above rate, far higher than the national average. “I was scared. The course description included rhetorical analysis and I thought ‘I don’t think anyone’s even talked to me about that,’ so I started studying. It’s like anything new. You just start studying and learning.” Early fears about not fitting in were soon replaced by the affirmation of Eldra’s belief that she was “born to teach. Other teachers were kind to me, I always felt respected and supported by administration and appreciated by my students. I love teaching and I particularly love my students and their incredible ideas. Every day one of them says something amazing, even after twenty-nine years. I have been given more by my students than I have ever given them. They have enriched my life.” Because of the overwhelming numbers of students in Advanced Placement, Eldra reluctantly dropped Yearbook and at the same time took the California Teachers of English Learners test to demonstrate proficiency in teaching English Learners. “Studying for and taking the CTEL examination changed my life. I realized that I had unconsciously accepted the bigotry in Advanced Placement classes. I thought that if you offered a good class all students would want to take it because they want to learn. I realized that English Learners weren’t taking my class because they were afraid to be the first to take AP. They feel like they don’t belong. They have no family history of taking advanced placement classes, they’re not white in a predominantly white school, they don’t think of themselves as Americans.” Eldra began walking the halls and the lunch line, inviting English Learners to take her class, as well as working with the counselors who enrolled students in classes, and redesigning her teaching to include strategies helpful to English Learners. Now nearly 40% of her students are English Learners and students enrolled in the Advancement Via Individualized Determination (AVID) program to assist minority students and economically disadvantaged students enroll in four year colleges. “With the help of AVID and the Dream Act, more and more underrepresented students are attending college. Things have really changed.” In addition to her teaching, Eldra and Donald took students on a literary and architecture tour of England every summer until 2003, and after Jake’s cancer diagnosis she started a Team in Training program
with her students and parents to help raise money for leukemia and lymphoma research. That program lasted from 2005 to 2011. “I ran my last half marathon with my granddaughter, Olivia, and I knew I was done with that.” In recent years she has become an avid quilter and sewer, and, most recently, a knitter. Her patterns have been featured in knitting magazines and she has started an on-campus knitting club. Although she has always said that she never wants to retire, severe asthma has tremendously impacted her teaching in recent years “But then I thought, ‘step back, stop being self-conscious and just teach.’ The Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh has a meditation: ‘This body is of a nature to die, this body is of a nature to deteriorate.’ So change is inevitable. I’m going to teach as long as I want to teach. Every day I come home and talk about something amazing that has happened in my classes.” Eldra recently received a message from an African American former student that included the following comment: In my time at Willamette University, I have become involved in social justice, and through the stories and examples you have shown me, I am better able to find my own voice to lead others! You have had a profound impact on me. Fortunately for the students at San Luis Obispo High School, Mrs. Avery has never flinched from her commitment to engage and challenge young minds and be the best teacher she can be. For twentynine years and counting. A profound impact, indeed.
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ted rich
girls softball and surfin’ too By Ruth Starr
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hen Ted Rich was a young boy he appreciated the dads who gave their time to teach him how to become an Eagle Scout. Some of those same dads helped him learn to play baseball. He never forgot it. When his daughter Hailey was eight years old she began playing in a girls softball league. The team was in need of a coach, and Ted happily volunteered. It wasn’t long before Ted became a coach for the girls softball association and soon after got involved on the board of directors. A few years later Ted volunteered to coach girls’ softball for his alma mater San Luis Obispo High School. Ted has often donated equipment to the league. Once, when one of his girls on the high school team had all her equipment stolen out of her car, Ted arranged, with a few others, for her to go on a shopping spree to replace everything. “At the end of the year my heart is filled when I receive cards signed by the girls telling me how much I mean to them,” explains Ted. “It’s the payoff for volunteering.” Ted was born in San Luis Obispo in the original French Hospital on Marsh Street. After graduating SLO High School, Ted attended
Cuesta College and then graduated from Chico State University with a degree in Recreation Administration. His first job was Recreation Director at a Condo Development in Lake Tahoe. Driven by an entrepreneurial spark, Ted dreamed up a side business teaching swimming and rafting down the Truckee River. After a while, Ted decided he needed a “real job.” He moved to Sacramento and worked for Pacific Bell in management for seven years. His job included trainings all over the state as an internal auditor but soon he realized he did not enjoy the work. It was the day he had a conversation with a guy who had worked there for 30 years. He told Ted that if he could just get by for the next 25 or so years he could then retire like him. Ted got depressed at the thought. That conversation was an awakening for Ted. He quit the next day. Moving back to SLO in December of 1985, he decided he wanted to work for himself. By January 1986 he started a Manufacturing Company for windsurfing equipment. Always a sports enthusiast, Ted was a natural as a sales rep for several different windsurfing manufacturers. He became an avid windsurfer. Looking back, Ted sees how naive he was about how to run a business. He teamed up with a professional windsurfer as a business partner who had contacts in the industry. Ted had the money and desire to create a business. Within a year, he and his partner bought a mail order company that sold surfing and skate boarding apparel. The company soon failed—as the business was growing faster than they could financially manage. Ted explains that he got his “MBA” from the school A U G U S T
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of hard knocks with that experience. When the business failed, Ted had been married to local San Luis Obispan Carol (Evans) for less than a year. He proudly remembers how supportive she was during this difficult time. It was a huge financial loss and a big setback for Ted and his young family. He then got a job working for ClearWater Tech in SLO, where he was director of Sales and Marketing for ten years. The company manufacturers Ozone Water Treatment Systems. Soon the entrepreneurial bug bit him again. He wanted his own business, to implement his ideas and his own product. This time he decided
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to draw off of his love of surfing. Ted was a committed surfer who began at thirteen years old. In 1965-66 surfing was all the rage in this area. Crowds of surfers hung out at Avila Beach. He remembered how great it was to live the surfing lifestyle. He remembered all the old logos and styles from back in the day and realized he could bring them back to life. He looked on the internet for classic t-shirts and surf logo tshirts from the ’60s but couldn’t find any. Ted spent a year researching all the old companies and logos. After a lot of hard work, he was able to secure the logos and brands from the original owners and get them licensed. If the company was still in business, he would buy the logo. His new surf wear company was born: Last Wave Originals. Utilizing the internet, Ted is able to reach worldwide with his clothing line. His first order came from as far as Germany. His website includes the stories about each of the logos, their history and how each of the brands got started. June 15th was the 10th anniversary of Last Wave Originals. Ted has become an expert on surfing brands and is a resource for those interested in the history of surfing. Last Wave Originals currently has 12,000 regular customers. One of Ted’s favorite expressions is “pay it forward”—which is how he lives his life. He enjoys giving back to the community what he received when he was a kid playing in Little League, Babe Ruth, American Legion and High School baseball. He continues to keep busy volunteering—going on his 12th year and filling surf wear orders. Whether coaching softball or chatting with a surf enthusiast, Ted is eager to step up to the plate when needed. His internet site is: www.LastWave.com
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bill wingfield Keeping time By Natasha Dalton
“We leave our tracks in the sound.”
—Neil Young
“When listening to music, we, humans, tend to hear the highest and the lowest notes first. The brain fills in everything else that is going on in the middle, and we get the whole picture,” says Adam Levine, the leader of the popular local band Human Nation. “In jazz, the bass might be the most important element of the rhythm section,” Levine adds. “It organizes the harmony, creates the groove, shakes your bones and builds a solid foundation for the melody.” If Bill Wingfield, Human Nation’s bass guitarist, were the kind of a guy who likes to talk about his own importance, he would probably agree with such a flattering description of his instrument. But Wingfield isn’t a bragger. “A bass guitarist is the ultimate team player,” he says. A recent episode illustrates this well. One night there happened to be three bass players at D’Anbino. One of them asked, “How many bass players does it take to change a light bulb?” This simple joke caused a roar of laughter when each bassist, not wanting to step on each other’s toes, kept deferring to the next guy for reply.” Which is not to say, that bass players don’t have opinions, or that they leave all decision making to the others. “Bill can be brutally honest at times, but he can be brutally hilarious too—especially when he impersonates members of the band,” Adam Levine says about Mr. Wingfield. “But his integrity as a human being comes across even in the way he approaches his music.” For Bill, bass became the instrument of choice when he was still a teenager, discovering rock and jazz. His father, Lee Wingfield, is a singer, songwriter and a guitarist, and it’s not surprising that Bill tried guitar first. But in high school, when he started to become serious about music, Bill surprised his dad by asking for a bass. Lee, being quite a jock, offered his son a deal: “Complete a season of high school sports—and you’ll get your lessons.” “So I ran a season
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and a half of track and field, and then dad got me a very inexpensive second-hand bass and amp,” Bill Wingfield recalls. With that, and a great music instructor, Doug Strobel, he began his exploration of various styles of music. It wasn’t long before he began to play for the church choir and the local community college music department. “They had very few bass players that could read music,” he explains modestly. At 16, Bill Wingfield joined The Vallejo Minnesingers—an 18-piece big band with 12 dancers, and a chorus. The band toured extensively, both in California and abroad, and Bill enjoyed being a part of it. He began to think about pursuing a career in music. But when his parents unexpectedly enrolled him into DeVry’s electronics program, Bill didn’t object. “I really didn’t know anything
Trudie Romanelli, Bill Wingfield and Loretta Grossmiller
PEOPLE family has been the most important thing he’s done.
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Playing at D’Anbino photo by PJ Sawyer
In 1998, he, his wife Diane and their two children Alec and Katie moved to Paso Robles. “I’m glad we did it,” Mr. Wingfield says. “The transition wasn’t easy, and I still miss the LA income, but I never missed the LA lifestyle.” Bill and Diane weren’t able to line up the jobs before the move, but that’s what brought Bill back to music.
Human Nation
about electronics other than it sounded interesting,” Bill admits. But he knew that it promised a path to a solid, well-paid job. “I had musician friends who were living out of their cars,” Bill explains. “I didn’t think it was for me. Engineers tend to be more financially stable.” “In hindsight, it was a good choice,” Wingfield says. He was able to earn a degree in Electronic Engineering in three years, was hired on the spot by GE Medical Systems and moved to LA. Four years later, Mr. Wingfield started the CT department for EP Radiological, which took care of the systems at the UCLA Medical Center, Cedar-Sinai Medical Center and St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica. Celebrity sighting was common there, and Mr. Wingfield remembers seeing the likes of Rodney Dangerfield, Mr. T, Sean Connery, George Carlin, Jack Lemmon and many other stars. He was proud to have a position where his work directly helped others, but as the time went by, he began to feel tired of having a job you could never leave. “If a unit in a trauma center goes down in the middle of the night, I had to be there to fix it,” Mr. Wingfield explains. “They deal with emergencies; they’re losing money and risking lives when the machines aren’t working.” To him, it meant no weekends, no vacations—and a lot of after hours work. “Radiology is a good field if you don’t have kids,” Mr. Wingfield says. However, to him family always came first. “Bill takes great pride in his kids and his wife, he talks about them all the time,” his friend Adam Levine says. And Bill feels that raising a
In the last 15 years he’s built himself a name as a reliable session musician, respected music teacher and a versatile composer whose album Shadows won a New Times Award. The album was released in 2009, the same year Mr. Wingfield joined Human Nation. Their debut album, released in 2013, also features some of Mr. Wingfield’s original work. Working at the recording studio and performing in front of large audiences are exciting for every musician. But it’s his work as the choir Director at The Villages retirement home that Mr. Wingfield finds to be the most rewarding.
Still, working with this group has been a truly heartwarming experience. There’re many talented and dedicated people among the members of the choir, including some retired professionals. “They’re sharp. When I suggest new ideas, they come prepared,” Mr. Wingfield says.
“I’ve always liked playing there. Sometimes, when I say this, people think that I’m just being polite. But I mean it,” Mr. Wingfield says. “It’s very satisfying for a musician to have an audience that’s attentive and appreciative, and I find it to be the case at The Villages.”
“Retirees can become isolated and silent because they are focused on their limitations and what they are no longer able to do,” says Faith Carlson, Director of Life Enrichment at The Villages. “Bill’s choir rehearsals allow them to continue to develop and grow.”
Still, when he was offered the position of The Villages’ choir director, Mr. Wingfield hesitated. “There wasn’t any good reason why I couldn’t do it,” he says. “I led many different musical groups before; I knew how to do it.” What he wasn’t sure about was the members’ reaction to having a new director.
“We got more new people. They hear us sing and they want to be with us,” says Loretta Grossmiller, who’s been with the choir for the last two years. “Bill always has a good sense of humor, and that’s nice with a big, diverse group like ours,” she continues. “Besides, it’s wonderful to have a really good musician leading us: he is great on the bass.”
“In a way, seniors are like children,” he was warned by the staff. “They feel shy around new people; they need time to get used to you. And once they become attached to someone, they have a hard time accepting a replacement.” But these worries proved baseless. The Villages’ choir embraced its new director, and its first big concert last year was a huge success. Other performances followed. “Of course, there’re some specific nuances in working with senior citizens,” Mr. Wingfield admits. “There’re times when some people aren’t feeling well and have to miss the rehearsals.” Meal times are sacred at senior residences, and since the choir meets right before lunch, he remembers not to hold his musicians past their lunch hour.
“His timing is wonderful,” agrees Trudie Romanelli, another member of the choir. “He’s a lot of fun. He picks really great songs for people our age to sing.” Choir performances are among the most popular events at The Villages, with dozens of residents and their family members looking forward to every new concert. “Singing is a good thing even when you get old,” says Loretta Grossmiller. “It’s a wonderful thing not to lose music from your life.” Kathryn Wingfield contributed to this story.
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Michael Jensen: “I’m a lucky maN” By Natasha Dalton
D
ifferences between people are often overestimated. Yes, of course, there’re different religious beliefs and cultural practices. But when it comes down to our core human instincts, people all over the world want the same things: love, dignity, independence and respect for their rights. When “glasnost” in the USSR brought into the open the music that was previously traded only on the black market, people began to flock to sold-out concerts of western artists. The tickets were shockingly expensive, and there were police reports that the teenagers were throwing knives and razor blades during the punk bands’ concerts. I was there, but I hadn’t noticed any of that. What I did notice were the crowds singing along with the bands, and the young people excited and grateful to the musicians for bringing their music to the other side of the curtain. Michael Jensen caught the first wave of this enthusiasm and good will in 1987, when he worked with Billy Joel during the singer’s tour of the USSR.
“Vladimir Lenin was the main player in the 1917 Bolshevik revolution. 70 years later, it would be Mikhail Gorbachev… But it was Leo Tolstoy, who in his classic War and Peace debunked the idea that history is forged only by the emperors, tsars and generals. He extols the common man and the collective and random action of each person’s contributions to the course of history. That should include one William Martin Joel, the Angry Young Man…,” Michael Jensen, who oversaw Billy Joel’s public relations at that time, wrote in the liner notes for the Anniversary Box Set, released last year. (It’s worth adding that another local resident, the current CEO of United Way of SLO County Rick London, was one of the tour’s co-producers.) “The Soviet concert authorities who approved Billy Joel’s tour saw him as a nice, safe first attempt at bringing in an American pop star. I’ve always wondered whether those same officials had actually listened to Billy’s music—because he is by nature a rebel, one who stands up to authority,” Mr. Jensen wrote. “After the first or second
Michael Jensen photo by Marvin Joseph
concert, Billy remarked that he overestimated the need to start off the shows with ballads. So, he amped up the Rock vibe, and the crowds, particularly the young people, responded with their own energy and spontaneity.” Mr. Jensen, who received his first Gold and Platinum Records for “The Stranger,” still talks about that Soviet tour as nothing less than historic. During the tour, Jensen sensed something President Gorbachev had missed: that the young people singing along with Billy Joel didn’t have much patience for the slow, measured changes Michael Gorbachev favored. In fact, Jensen believes that Joel’s tour added its own spark into the revolutionary fire that swept through the USSR in the 1990s. It’s rather amusing then that it was this very same Michael Jensen, Billy Joel’s PR manager, who was later asked to work on several of President Gorbachev’s charity projects. By then, Mr. Jensen had an established reputation as a CEO of Jensen Communications, Inc. (JCI)—a public relations management firm, which now celebrates its 33rd year in business. But he began his professional career as a reporter. “I had the good fortune of landing the Rock Music Writer’s gig,” says Mr. Jensen, recalling his days at Star News—a Knight-Rider newspaper in Pasadena, California. “I’d been offered a job at the newspaper in large part due to producing Van Halen’s first ever outdoor concert in honor of Pasadena’s Centennial [celebration]. Working my way through Occidental College, I also moonlighted for the Comedy Club The Ice House, writing press releases and doing various promotions.” Soon, new opportunities came along. One of them was an offer to work for Senator Lloyd Bentsen, Jr. (who in 1988 became the Democratic Party nominee for Vice President). The other was a job at Columbia Records (a Division of CBS). “It was kind of a no-brainer for me,” Mr. Jensen says. “I was 20 years old, and when they said: ‘Here’s your office, here’s your secretarial team, have an American Express card, because we want you to travel with the bands and help make up a new concept of tour publicity,’— well, it was kind of hard to pass up.”
(L-R) Alice Cooper, Michael Jensen and Graham Nash photo by Katherine Turman A U G U S T
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PEOPLE Within a year of taking the job, Jensen rose to the position of National Director of Tours & Special Projects at CBS, Inc. / Columbia Records. While there, he found himself working with rising stars like Billy Joel, Journey, Toto, Santana, and Bruce Springsteen. “The music, the projects, and the people I’ve worked with have been the most valuable assets I have professionally,” Mr. Jensen comments. “It isn’t what you know (well, really it is) but it is who you know (and I know more than my fair share of people).” The flipside of this intense asset-building was the fact that he was now spending a good half of the year on the road. “I look back on that period as going to Disneyland every day of the week,” Mr. Jensen says. Even die-hard fans eventually need a break from so much fun. That’s when Jensen got the idea of starting his own company—and bringing back some order into his own life. “I set up Jensen Communications on Halloween of 1982 as kind of a joke. The joke being that I thought that I’d travel less, but it ended up being the same,” Mr. Jensen recalls, laughing. “The only difference was: I was paying for it now.” Still, it felt better. Besides, he was confident that from now on, he’d be able to promote his clients’ interests without compromising his integrity. “In the corporate world, you are constantly losing sight of the long term goal,” Mr. Jensen says. “In corporate America, you do what the money tells you.” Having his own company allowed Jensen to represent people properly. The list of his long-time clients reads as a “Who’s Who in American Entertainment” book: he has Young Michael with Billy Joe photo by Neal Preston
worked with the fabulous trumpeter and A&M co-founder Herb Alpert, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Jackson Browne, Rod Stewart, Eric Clapton, The Doobie Brothers, John Entwistle of The Who; John Lennon’s Estate, and many, many others. “My longest professional relationship is with the legendary Carlos Santana (if you count my years at Columbia, I’m on year 38),” Mr. Jensen says. “I’m so honored to be spinning in his universe. He is a friend, and for that I’m eternally grateful.” The partnership with Crosby, Stills, Nash (and sometimes Young) also spans over several decades—as does Jensen’s friendship with Graham Nash. “Ironically, when I was in High School, my cousin (and brother from another mother) Kelly Harris had nicknamed me ‘Woodstock’—for a Woodstock event tee-shirt that became rather well-worn,” Mr. Jensen says. “Little did I know that years later I would be representing two of the iconic bands that emerged from that festival. Kind of a self-fulfilled prophecy.”
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Michael Jensen, Carlos Santana and Michael Vrionis
including five years of Reader’s Poll Awards from Performance. He’s received more than fifty platinum & gold record citations from the Recording Industry Association of America and many civic and charitable commendations. Still, he’s not thinking about retirement. When you treat your clients as friends, the job simply becomes your life. It works for Jensen. “In an industry that doesn’t value relationships, I’m a lucky man,” he says.
Besides all aspects of marketing on behalf of the nation’s top musicians, Jensen is involved in promoting arts and new technologies. He’s worked for a number of political campaigns and large international events, including opening ceremonies at the Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and The State of the World Forum in San Francisco. In addition, Mr. Jensen has worked on hundreds of benefits. MyBillofRights.org and Santana’s Milagro Foundation are two good examples illustrating the diversity of Jensen’s interests. Locally, he’s been assisting Central Coast wineries with setting up various entertainment projects and gaining bigger exposure. And as a friend of Nederlander and Moss Jacobs, he’s been helping to spread the word about the programming at Vina Robles Amphitheatre in Paso Robles. As for the global scene, Mr. Jensen has been a long-time board member of Artists for a New South Africa, for whom he handled all media for Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s 75th Birthday Celebration in North America. In the last three decades, Michael Jensen has been honored with over seventy awards, A U G U S T
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Baseball
the man who wrote, “take me out to the ballgame” By Richard Bauman
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hen the home plate umpire cries, “Play Ball,” and the pitcher throws the first pitch of a baseball game, no one can be sure which team will win. One virtual certainty, however, is that during the seventhinning stretch, every stadium’s crowd will be on its feet singing, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” For most of the 20th century, and continuing into the new millennium, that song has been the musical symbol of baseball. It is the most famous song in the world about the sport—or any sport, for that matter. Moreover, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” comes in right behind “Happy Birthday” and “Here Comes the Bride” among the most universally recognized songs in Western culture. It is sung, lustily and from memory, by tens of millions of people every year at major league and minor league baseball games across North America. Indeed, it is part and parcel of the game itself. And, amazingly, its lyrics were written by a young man who had never seen a ballgame. The words to “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” were penned in May 1908 by Jack Norworth. When he composed his “ball song,” as he called it, he was a 30-year-old vaudeville performer in New York City. Norworth, who created much material for his act with music writer Albert Von Tilzer, was trying that spring to come up with a fun little piece, one that the audience could easily learn and sing along with him. One afternoon, in a subway car on his way to the theater, Norworth saw a placard advertisement from the New York Giants with the message: “Come out to the Polo Grounds, and enjoy a ballgame.” He had the inspiration for his lyrics. “An idea flashed across my mind,” he later said of that moment. “I figured there had never been a baseball song, so I pulled an old hunk of paper out of my pocket and started scribbling. The words came together. Thirty minutes later I had it.” Norworth’s scrap of paper, incidentally, is now on display in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. He quickly conferred with Von Tilzer, and the partners married A U G U S T
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lyrics to notes. Norworth debuted the song in his act, and it wasn’t long before people were singing it not only in the theater, but on the street—and at the ballparks, too. Norworth continued to perform in vaudeville theaters, until that form of entertainment faded in the 1920s. But Norworth had been smart enough to copyright his “ball song,” and enjoyed a steady income from royalties long after his performing days were over. His song brought him to the public’s attention in a variety of ways. He appeared in several movies and later on television numerous times. He made five guest appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show during the 1950s.
HOME/OUTDOOR As his song became a national institution, Norworth was constantly asked the obvious question: How could a man who didn’t know a home run from a sacrifice bunt, write the most famous sports song of all time? “Robert Louis Stevenson wrote Treasure Island,” he would retort, “but there was no such place. It was simply a matter of using the imagination.” Thirty-four years after writing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” a friend finally convinced Norworth to actually see a major league game. It was 1942, and the 64-year-old Brooklyn resident went through the turnstiles of Ebbets Field to see the hometown Dodgers take on the New York Giants. Many stars from both teams had already gone off to war, replaced by teenagers and 4-Fs. No matter. He was hooked. “I caught the fever,” he later said of that game. For the rest of his life he was a baseball fanatic. “Now, you can’t get me away from the TV set during a ball-game,” he told an interviewer during the 1950s. When Norworth moved to Laguna Beach, Calif., in 1952, there was no organized
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baseball for the youngsters of that seaside community. In his mid-seventies, he was instrumental in launching Laguna Beach’s first Little League program. Though “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” was unquestionably Jack Norworth’s most famous song, he wrote more than 400 other songs during his lifetime. Probably his second most successful piece, also composed in 1908, was “Shine On, Harvest Moon.” He co-wrote that with his wife, Norah Bayes, and pitched it to impresario Florenz Ziegfeld for the Ziegfeld Follies. “It’s too clean,” objected Ziegfeld, who, after all, made his fortune on the theory that showing a little leg could sell a lot of tickets. Jack and Norah did the song anyway, and as Norworth later pointed out, “The clean song was the most popular.” Jack Norworth died in 1959, at the age of 80. Relatively anonymous in death as in life, he nonetheless left a happy musical legacy that nearly everyone does know.
805 Aerovista #103, San Luis Obispo
Prevent Water Waste SLO DOWN YOUR WATER USAGE For more information as well as water conservation tips and tricks, visit slowater.org
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day hikes
San Simeon Trail—Hearst San Simeon State Park Park in the Washburn Day Use parking lot. The trail begins on a boardwalk and the San Simeon Creek Trail. The San Simeon Trail is a right hand turn just before Washburn Campground Road. The 3.3 loop trail passes through the 13.7 acre Pa-nu Cultural Preserve, a significant prehistoric archeological site. Archaeological finds include mortars, pestles, hammerstones, core tools and six intact rock ovens. You will have to use your imagination of prehistoric people living in this bit of paradise, as there are no signs.
three local day hikes for the imperfect hiker By Charmaine Coimbra
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hrough a prehistoric campground, a historic ranch, and near an alleged tar seep, I have three favorite day hikes from San Simeon to Morro Bay. These three hikes accommodate my imperfect and aging body. I’ll explain. After a series of physical mishaps I decided to walk away from the couch and hike some local trails instead. It’s a near weekly event now. But finding a trail that is kind to my age and physical condition, yet just challenging enough to make me feel like I did something good for myself is my new mission. I also favor trails that don’t make me feel like a salmon swimming upstream. In other words, fewer people to meet and greet.
The scenic trail also wanders through several different environments and lends beautiful vistas. At loop’s end, I recommend having a lunch ready in your vehicle, and take a quick walk to the beach for a picnic. You can also barbecue at the Day Use area.
My three most favorite local day hikes—hikes that average between three to five miles—are the San Simeon Trail that begins at the Washburn Day Use area at Hearst San Simeon State Park, the Santa Rosa Creek Trail in Cambria, and the Black Hill Trail thru Morro Bay State Park.
Quail Chicks on Santa Rosa Creek Trail
Santa Rosa Creek Trail—Cambria
Views from the San Simeon Trail
Just west of Highway 1 and Moonstone Beach Drive on Windsor, is ample parking for this fun trail that you can make as long and as difficult as you choose. Look for the waste water treatment plant. That is the north end of this trail. The first 1.5 miles of this trek is filled with singing birds, flitting butterflies and (when not in drought) a bubbling Santa Rosa Creek. It ends at Highway 1. If you’re feeling spry, dash across Highway 1 and the trail continues through the Fiscalini Ranch Preserve—a historical ranch with Chumash, Spanish and Anglo history. The scenery is pastoral and inspiring. As you near a pumping station, you can bear left, cross a bridge over Santa Rosa Creek, and end up on Cambria’s Main Street. Your lunch options are endless. You have an option of skipping this bend in the trail and follow it to its end at Rodeo Grounds Road which takes you to Burton Drive. Three options await you. 1) Take those steep stairs on your right and get some fabulous views of Cambria; 2) Walk down Burton Drive, make a right hand turn at Center Street, and rest at Greenspace’s historical Creekside Reserve where a Chinese Temple stands; or 3) Take a delightful turnaround walk back to your vehicle.
Black Hill Trail—Morro Bay State Park The Boardwalk on the San Simeon Trail A U G U S T
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Black Hill is a volcanic plug, one of the Nine Sisters, and boasts talks of a north side tar seep. Now this is a bit more challenging than the first two trails. There will be up and downhill climbs.
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Spectacular views from the top of Black Hill
Black Hill view of Morro Rock
But if I can do it, I’d bet you can too. One of the reasons I like less populated trails is I can stop, catch my breath (and sometimes my dignity), and no one speeds pass me like I’m some ancient tree hanging on to life.
golf course is your guide. The trail shadows the south end of the golf course, meanders up a service road, then through eucalyptus, oak, pines, to a water tank, and then straight up to the payoff—the most glorious view of Morro Bay possible.
I want distance, so I park the car at the State Park Marina. I cross into the State Park campground, and begin walking east toward the hill. The trail is marked at the eastern end of the group campground. (Midway through the campground, I had to ask a park employee where the trail began—he was friendly and helpful.) Basically, the
Because I managed the up and down I celebrated with a late lunch at the cafe at the Marina.
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There are many trails that await you and me. These three laid a pathway through my heart.
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SUPPORT YOU NEED | PEOPLE YOU TRUST Next to Target • SLO (Los Osos Valley Road) (805) 781-6227 | macsuperstore.com A U G U S T
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at the market
summer tomato gazpacho with cumin oil, toasted pepitas and avocado By Sarah Hedger
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ummer is a great time on the Central Coast to enjoy all edibles growing in great abundance. I grew up in Los Osos, and, with that comes a lot of memories of foggy Summers. But I do remember the glorious feeling of how, once the fog burned off, there was an opening of blue sky on the horizon, and the sunshine’s warmth was amazing. That said, I was lucky enough to have just returned from a trip to enjoy a month of Summer in the French Alps. It was an opportunity to cook at a chalet for a couple weeks for a mountain bike guide company, thus combining two of my favorite passions in life! What amazed me, travelling around France, and even in the smallest of villages, was how their local markets were graced with outstanding produce. I was trying to keep in mind that it was at the height of their growing
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season, but even in the small village where I was based, where meters of snow line their mountains 6 months of the year, the lushness and abundance grows everywhere. One walk in the mountains behind the chalet and I found everything from fresh thyme, to elderflowers, and wild baby strawberries. While I had to return home after a few weeks, I fantasized about the fruit trees and all the wild berries that would be ripe in a month’s time. Summer is a glorious time of year, no doubt! During this month of Summer on the Central Coast, we are lucky enough to find so much goodness at the local markets, from heirloom tomatoes, to fresh herbs, to the stone fruit family, to summer squash and berries. The options feel truly limitless! This month’s recipe, Summer Tomato Gazpacho with Cumin Oil, Toasted Pepitas and
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Avocado, is a great way to make the most of what’s in season. The tomatoes can be any variety and require little, if any, preparation. The whole recipe can be made without turning on a heat element, which is a very good thing when it’s hot out! Even better, all ingredients can be put into either a food processor, or bowl, and blended, making it a one pot wonder of sorts! I love how the flavors of ingredients really pop when they are not heated. Take garlic for instance, and the different varying strengths of flavor, based upon how and if it’s cooked. If it’s roasted, it’s sweet and buttery, if it’s sauteed, it can become crisp and spicy, and if it’s raw, it is even more pungent and peppery. Nearly all ingredients share this attribute, of how much nutrition and flavor they add, depending on how they are prepared.
summer tomato gazpacho with cumin oil, toasted pepitas, and avocado makes enough for 6 big bowls of souP For the Cumin Oil:
1 tsp cumin seeds 1 tsp coriander seeds ¼ cup olive oil I feel the best chefs, the best dishes, are able to bring out the best in ingredients—and a warm tomato straight off the plant is hard to top! The ingredients in this gazpacho should be easy to find and transform into a beautiful, flavorful, chilled soup, good for being a canape, or starter, or for the main element of lunch or dinner. It works well with either cilantro or basil in it, depending on what kind of mood you’re in. The cumin oil is a simple accompaniment that can be made ahead of time and lightly drizzled on the finished gazpacho. Avocado adds creaminess, as well as some healthy fat, that combines beautifully with the tomatoes. And, last but not least, the toasted pepitas (pumpkin seeds), are just the right amount of crunch to help your tastebuds slow down and enjoy the soup. This recipe can easily be used as a base, thus if you have more tomatillos on hand than tomatoes, you can easily substitute them in. The soup is best made fresh, but it can easily be made the day before and the flavors will still POP! Enjoy!
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For the Soup:
3 lbs freshly picked tomatoes 1 red bell pepper, blackened on the stove top, and skin removed ½ jalapeno (to taste) 1 cucumber, peeled and seeded and roughly chopped into 1 inch cubes 2 garlic cloves, peeled and mashed/minced Small handful of cilantro or basil, roughly chopped 1 tsp smoked paprika ½ cup olive oil 2-3 T sherry vinegar (good quality cider vinegar can be used instead) Pinch of sugar ½ tsp sea salt Fresh ground pepper to taste 1 avocado, peeled and cut into ½ cm cubes 1 cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds), toasted in a pan w/2 T olive oil, ½ tsp cumin, 1 T lime juice 1 cup baby cilantro or ½ cup cilantro leaves Place ingredients for cumin oil in small saucepan. Bring to simmer and remove from heat. Let prepare while you make the soup. Alternatively, you can let this steep overnight and strain it the next day. When ready to serve, strain out seeds. Place tomatoes in large bowl (or in the container of a food processor), with roasted red bell pepper, jalapeno, cucumber, garlic puree, cilantro, and smoked paprika. Puree mixture with immersion blender (or if you are using a regular blender), until universally smooth. Add olive oil, vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper, blending again to incorporate. Taste and adjust seasoning/salt, adding salt or sugar if needed. Chill until ready to serve. When ready, serve in chilled bowls, placing soup in bowls, topping with avocado, pumpkin seeds, and cilantro. Drizzle with cumin oil and enjoy!
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SLO Art Scene
studios on the park Making relief prints By Robert Simola But it isn’t quite that simple. In the western tradition, you carve into a wooden plank with either a knife or a gouge. And while you can carve most any wood, some woods are better for carving than others. My favorite is pear wood. It is sold as Swiss pear even though it usually comes from Germany. Pear is the traditional wood for printmakers in Europe because of its characteristics. It is a very hard, closed grain wood; but more importantly the character of the wood is such that it can be carved in any direction, not just with the grain, and it will still hold a very fine line. With most woods if you try to carve against the grain, the wood will tear or shred.
Relief print
“How do you do that?” a visitor at the printmaking studio at Studios on the Park in Paso Robles asks while I’m carving a block for a relief print. “It’s simple. I answer with a grin. To make a relief print, you just carve away everything you don’t want to print.”
Another wood that works well for carving relief prints is black cherry from the east coast. It is the closest we can come to the mountain cherry of Japan which is the traditional wood for printmakers in Japan. You just have to make sure the cherry you are getting is black cherry from the east coast and not something else since there are over 600 varieties of cherry trees. Both pear and black cherry can be hard to find and hard to carve, but a material that carves surprisingly well is medium density fiberboard (MDF). It is very inexpensive and can be found at any lumber yard. And like pear and black cherry, you can carve it in any direction without worrying about grain direction. Carving is my favorite part of the process of making prints. There is something about working with my hands and working with wood that appeals to me. It is also the trickiest part of making a relief print since whatever is carved is backwards to what is wanted on the finished print. Some people think it’s like rubbing their stomachs and patting their heads while hopping up and down on one foot, but like most things practice makes the problem easier. But nothing can be carved until there is something to carve, and often the hardest part of making a print is coming up with the design for the print. The design is everything. If the design doesn’t work, the print won’t work, and
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Birds of a feather
it may take as long to come up with the design as it will to carve the block. Once the design is finished, it is transferred to the block using either carbon paper or tracing paper and carved using small gouges that fit in the palm of the hand. The block is then inked using a roller and paper is placed on the block. If you have one, the block and paper is placed in a press and pressure is applied to transfer the ink from the block to the paper. If there is no press available, steal a wooden spoon from the kitchen. It will also work. The process of inking the block and pulling a print is then repeated for each print you want to have. It may not be as easy as pushing the print button on your computer, but it is much more satisfying and the result is that each print is an original work of art.
Listen to the Mockingbird
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SLO Art Scene
slo museum of art presents From his sketchbooks—drawings by Ken Christensen By Rebecca Leduc
I
f you’re feeling a bit of wanderlust this summer, you won’t want to miss “From His Sketchbooks,” a collection of travel drawings by Los Osos artist, Ken Christensen, at the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art. The exhibition will be on view through August 16th.
Mr. Christensen, an accomplished landscape oil painter and watercolorist, says his greatest pleasure comes from drawing. “Drawing has always been my first love, even more than painting or other techniques. Drawing is the incubator for ideas but also stands alone as the first and sometimes purest and most revealing impulse. To me, there is nothing as powerful as black ink on white paper.” As a young man, Mr. Christensen led a peripatetic lifestyle. In his late twenties, he left his native Michigan for London, remaining in Europe for the next 9 years as he travelled across the continent. All along the way, he supported himself by sketching. In London, he sketched shops in the street, eventually drawing every one of London’s 26 used bookstores at the time. He ventured south and spent a number of years on the Côte d’Azur and Paris before ending up in Spain. Eventually, as his contacts improved, he held a number of exhibitions of his paintings Another Cafe
in France and Italy. But it was truly his sketchbook, Mr. Christensen says, which was often like a “blank check book,” pulling him through hard times “when a good drawing put something in [his] pocket.” “From His Sketchbooks” will include Mr. Christensen’s sketches from near and far, from San Luis Obispo to Hyères, France and San Sebastián, Spain. “After I draw something it becomes mine. I am no longer an outsider Port of San Sebastián in a strange city but having drawn it, Paris or London or San Francisco becomes mine. I envision my pen like a sword as I cut a swath through the metropolis.” The San Luis Obispo Museum of Art, dedicated to the education, presentation and preservation of the visual arts on the Central Coast, is located at 1010 Broad Street, on the west end of Mission Plaza. Hours are 11am – 5pm daily. Free admission, donations appreciated. For more info visit SLOMA.org. Hyeres, France
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call to the colors
Central Coast Veterans Memorial museum
telling the stories of military veterans so that all generations may more fully understand the costs of peace and the realities of war. By Sandra McGregor
Richard Cowles
WWII B-17 Tail gunner Local Veteran and Friend of the Museum
After flight school they were sent by train to New York, and set sail for Europe. Dick’s crew became part of the 390th Bomb Group based in rural England, about ten miles from the English Channel, at Framlingham, the home of the 8th Air Force. Dick and the crew were part of the 3rd Air Division, composed of four squadrons of twelve planes each. There they lived in Nissen huts (later known as Quonset huts), complete with cold water! They did many hours of flying practice in close formation for better defense.
Richard (Dick) Cowles, then and now.
E
ven after more than seventy years, Richard (Dick) Cowles’s memories of his service in World War II, of the joys, sorrows, and near-misses, are as vivid as if they happened yesterday.
Dick Cowles turned 18 in March, 1943, while attending school in Lennox, MA. Rather than registering for the draft there, he returned to his hometown of Colorado Springs, CO, and entered the Army at Ft. Logan. He was sent to Wichita Falls, TX, for the special rigors of basic training. Although Dick hoped to be assigned to the 10th Mountain Division where many of his friends were, it was full, and when asked, “Do you want to fly?” Dick jumped at the chance.
Pvt. Cowles’ next stop, in November, 1943, was gunnery school at the Las Vegas Army Air Field. There he learned aircraft identification—both friend and foe—survival at high altitudes, maintaining
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a .50 caliber machine gun, and target shooting on the ground and later from an open waist window in a B-17. Dick was next posted at Drew Field in Tampa, FL, for flight training in a B-17. His crew of nine was put together there. The weather there was, of course, very hot and humid. Because they flew night and day in flight suits, the crew would board the plane soaking wet and as soon as they reached cruising altitude, they’d be freezing. Hour after hour and day after day, they practiced working as a crew doing landings and takeoffs, and manually cranking open the bomb bay doors and lowering the landing gear. They also practiced ditching the plane, getting out of the plane, and inflating rafts.
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Their first mission was in August, 1943—a short mission of 3 1/2 to 4 hours—over Venlo, Holland. Before each mission, crews were given a good breakfast with “real eggs” to give them energy. Breakfast would often be at 4:30 am with a briefing at 5:00 and takeoff at 6:00. Takeoffs from Framlingham were “nail-biters” because the planes were fully loaded with 6,000 to 8,000 pounds of bombs, general purpose incendiaries, and 2,500 to 2,800 gallons of gasoline. Sometimes there was also a bomb under each wing. Then the B-17 had to clear a row of tall trees at the end of the runway. Mid-air collisions were an every day event as the planes popped through the “pea soup” fog into the air above. Dick says that sometimes this was worse than their missions. During takeoffs, the gunners were all on the floor of the radio room; this kept weight out of the aircraft’s tail. Dick’s position and that of the ball turret gunner were located in the most confined areas. Dick, a 5’10”, 18-year-old would sit in the tail of the plane on a bicycle seat with his legs on the floor of the aircraft wearing an electrically heated
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tion in the tail until landing in case any enemy planes came around. However, the ball turret gunner, whose post hung from the bottom of the plane, would get out before landing. Battle-damaged aircraft and those with injured crew members landed first. Gunners removed their weapons from the aircraft. A crew chief would then take over to insure repair or maintenance on each of the plane’s systems. The ground crew often worked all night so that the plane would be ready the next day. Dick and his crew mates would be given a “tot” of rye whiskey to calm them down and then go in for debriefing. Each crew member was asked what he saw, whether they saw any parachutes, and where in the formation any lost planes were. Although Dick feels most closely tied to the B-17 the crew named “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” they actually flew in a number of different aircraft while the “Dandy” was being serviced.
(L-R) Jack B. Jones, President of the Museum’s Board of Directors presenting Dick Cowles a brass plaque memorializing his WWII service. The plaque will be mounted on the Museum’s Wall of Honor.
flight suit lined with sheepskin and plugged into a rheostat. He kept his parachute on an ammunition case filled with about 1,000 rounds so he could get to it easily, just in case. Behind him was the big tail wheel. The gunners’ only communication with the rest of the crew was by intercom. As soon as the plane was over the English Channel, they would check their weapons.
Dick left Framlingham in May, 1945, and sailed back to New York on the Aquitania, sister ship to the Lusitania. He well remembers his first view of the Statue of Liberty, of people enjoying themselves on the beach, and thinking, “At last we’re safe!” He was next posted to Amarillo, TX to train B-17 gunners to be mechanics on B-29s—a make-work job, he thought. After his discharge in September, 1945, Dick finally headed back to Colorado Springs, where he lived until 1956 before moving to San Diego. He and his wife Gloria have been long-time Central Coast residents. Dick is definitely a good friend to museums. Besides supporting the Central Coast Veterans Memorial Museum, he is an ardent supporter of the 390th Memorial Museum in Tucson, AZ, which is a tribute to the airmen of the 390th Bombardment Group who served in World War II. That museum is also a private research center for the Air Campaign Over Europe and houses a restored B-17G. It is such an exceptional museum that classes from the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado are required to tour the facility before graduation.
HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY
Dick’s thirty-four missions out of Framlingham included those over Berlin, Stuttgart, Bremen, cities along the Rhine River, and missions over the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. Quite a record. Dick well remembers his crew’s part in the Battle for Bastogne in Belgium. After standing by for takeoff for three days waiting for the bad weather to break, they bombed every enemy target they could find to clear the way for C-47 “Gooney Birds” to drop food, blankets, medical supplies, guns, ammunition—all that was necessary for the American ground forces to survive and stop the advancing German Army. Together with other bombers and fighter planes, they were instrumental in stopping the enemy’s armored assault.
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JUST LIKE HOME
We salute Dick and his service to our country. The Central Coast Veterans Memorial Museum is located at 801 Grand Ave. San Luis Obispo. Hours: Wednesday through Saturday 10am to 3pm. Admission is free. Donations appreciated. For more information go to www.vetmuseum.org
After each mission was completed, Dick would remain in his posi-
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the point san luis light station:
A hidden historic gem celebrates 125 years By Susan Stewart
I
f you look closely, you can see the Chinese characters carefully etched into a sturdy wooden post. “As a bowl captures rain,” says the English translation of the Chinese words, “may this house collect blessings.” The words were probably written during or just after the completion of the foundation for a Victorian home constructed at the Point San Luis Light Station in 1890.
This month, today’s Lighthouse Keepers (a nonprofit organization formed in 1995) will celebrate the 125th birthday of the house, the buildings, and the ethereally beautiful grounds that make up the prettiest piece of geography in the county, some might say the world. And yet, despite the record numbers of people who now visit the Lighthouse every year, it remains comparatively unknown and vastly under-appreciated. County residents and visitors alike can help change all that. On Friday August 14th, a gala “Light the Night” event will be held to honor the station’s 125th birthday, and to celebrate the completion of the restoration process that began more than 20 years ago. Guests will start with appetizers and beer & wine tasting, accompanied by live music from Louie Ortega, followed by a sumptuous dinner, and both live and silent auctions—from 5 to 9 pm at the Lighthouse. On Saturday, August 15th, extra tours are planned for the launch of a “Living History” program featuring docents in period attire portraying the family members who lived at the Lighthouse from 1890 to 1974.
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On a pristine summer day, San Luis Lighthouse Keepers Executive Director, Kristi Balzer, met me at Wild Cherry Canyon in Port San Luis, where the Lighthouse Trolleys stand ready to take visitors out to view the site so lovingly restored for their benefit. Together we drove the 2-mile windy road to Point San Luis, selected by the Federal Lighthouse Bureau in 1889 to protect and guide ships to and from a seaport that would attract more frequent traffic and, along with the railroad, become San Luis Obispo’s gateway to the world. As we rounded the final corner, bringing the red-roofed Victorian into view, the shimmering turquoise sea below it, a flank of emerald cypress trees above it, I was as enchanted as I was the first time I saw it—20 years ago. Back then, the fledgling Lighthouse Keepers had just received nonprofit status, and the dream of restoring the property was just a determined gleam in their eyes. In the short year between the station’s deactivation in 1974—when the last of the official lighthouse keepers, Robert Moorefield and his family, departed the property—transients had moved into the basement, all manner of precious artifacts had been stolen, and a sturdy crop of weeds had grown up on what was once such carefully tended acreage. The year was 1975. Enter Dennis Johansson, then a member of the Port San Luis Harbor Commission. It took 17 years and two trips to Washington, D.C. for him to obtain the site’s release from military control and put it into the
The front room
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The original lighthouse lens
hands of the Port San Luis Harbor District in 1992. Next, Johansson rescued the priceless Fourth Order Fresnel Lens from the Lighthouse Tower and moved it for safekeeping to the County Museum—just three weeks before all five windows of the cupola were shot out by a vandal’s rifle. Today, the lens is back at the Lighthouse, on proud display at ground level for all to see and admire. Johansson was the founder and first president of the new Lighthouse Keepers, embarking on a mission to restore and maintain this unique link to our past, and to open it to the public as a major historical, educational, and recreational site. Overseen with painstaking care and attention to every historical detail, volunteer architects, carpenters, painters, gardeners, students, and laborers stripped old paint, repaired windows, scrubbed floors, and sewed curtains. Others curated furniture and artifacts true to the period for placement in each of the rooms as they were restored, one by one, year by year. In 2010, the first tours were made available to the public for just two days each month. Today, the site offers 3 tours per day, two days each week year round and is available for family reunions, club outings, anniversary and birthday parties, and … wait for it: weddings! With its private, secluded setting, unique historic character, and impossibly romantic beauty, it is the pluperfect place to tie the knot. Special events to entice and delight visitors have included Love at the Lighthouse, a Valentine’s Day celebration; A Mother’s Day High Tea; Christmas at the Lighthouse, and Haunted Lighthouse: Murder Mystery Dinner Theater on Halloween Night. Reservations for tours and special events, including the Light the Night event this month, can be made at www.sanluislighthouse.org or by calling 855.533.7843. As Balzer showed me through the various buildings, including the Horn House (where the original fog whistle, and later the fog horn, were kept in running order), an oil house and coal shed, two outdoor privies, and a concrete catch-water with cistern, I was awed as always by the feeling that I had stepped into a time machine and emerged on the “shoreline” of 1891. Having held her position for five years now, Balzer is deeply knowledgeable about this patch of paradise, and understandably proud of the achievements her mostly volunteer staff has racked up. (Besides Balzer, the Lighthouse Keepers has only one other paid position. All the work, from restoration to fund-raising; from tour guides to docents, are volunteers.) Though I have visited the Lighthouse many times as both a writer and a patron, I learn something new every trip. On this day, Balzer pointed out the old-fashioned board-and-rope swing swaying gently from an ancient eucalyptus tree. “That’s my girls’ favorite feature,” she smiled. Balzer and her husband Dax have two daughters: Aven, 7 and Moxie, 4. They are frequent guests to their mother’s “office” by the sea. With experience in marketing and government affairs, and an advanced degree in Sociology, Balzer is well suited to the top job with
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View from the tower
the Lighthouse Keepers. She is also (incidentally) a fine athlete with several marathons, triathlons, and bike races under her belt. Which explained her affinity for the gaggle of kayakers who disembarked on the shore during our interview, and climbed the slope from the rocky beach to the lighthouse site for a closer look. “The Light Station today is the busiest it’s ever been in its history,” said Balzer, “with more than 7000 visitors last year, and likely more than 8000 this year.” And thanks to a continuing grant from the Harold J. A recent wedding held at the Lighthouse Miossi Foundation, a Fourth Grade Student Program was launched three years ago. “The students partake in activities and readings in the classroom,” Balzer explained, “and then a full day of activities and learning out at the Light Station.” Though the restoration of the main buildings is all but complete, there is still more work to be done. Lime green fencing surrounding the cistern is a glaring and anachronistic reminder of that. Plans are also in the works for the re-creation of the Whaler’s Village, a collection of cottages that occupied a nearby bluff until just before the light station was built. And there are always the maintenance and repairs needed to keep the site in pristine condition for generations to come. I nearly missed the message on the wooden post when I declined to descend the narrow stairs to the basement. But when Balzer explained the significance of the bricks we would find there, I changed my mind. It seems that one of San Luis Obispo’s most important and revered citizens, Ah Louis, provided both bricks and manpower for the building of the house that would be home to lighthouse keepers and their families for more than 80 years. Here, a framed tribute to Louis hangs, and the post itself is viewable through a window. Beginning with the very first lighthouse keeper himself, Stephan Ballou, and ending with the modern Lighthouse Keepers whose vision and tenacity have restored it to full service—it’s clear to anyone who visits that as a bowl captures rain, so has this house collected many blessings. Kristi Balzer wants to express her thanks to the following people who were instrumental in getting both the Lighthouse Keepers and the restoration project off the ground: Gerard Parsons, Carolyn Moffett, Stew Jenkins, Denny and Jane Johansson, Bob Vessely (resident antiquities expert) and Susan Devine, Andrew Merriam, Walt Musso and many others. A U G U S T
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history
myron angel part 2 – trading out the miner’s life for one with a pen By Joe Carotenuti able, and was cut off at the moment that a prospect of an easier and pleasanter life was opening to view.” Together the brothers suffered the loss of their parents, had dreamed of riches, braved the perilous journey west, and experienced the hopes and frustrations of mining. Now, he was gone. At least, Myron had his Fairchild cousins. Over a year later, with the Civil War continuing its bloody legacy across the east coast, Myron decided to leave both mining and journalism by volunteering and receiving an appointment as a Captain of Infantry, Fourth California volunteers from Governor John G. Downey. “He is a gentleman,” wrote a fellow editor, “…in whom recruits can repose implicit confidence.” His second attempt at a military life soon ended as he was required to not only raise the company but finance the purchase of equipment and food with his own funds. He returned to North San Juan for a final, futile adventure at mining.
Myron Angel
H
e was 33 years old, a million emotional miles from his earlier life and a quarter century from impacting the central coast. Myron Angel was still trying to find his fortune literally at the end of a gold rainbow arching its way from Oneonta, New York to the wilds of Nevada. Forced to use his skills as a writer, Angel still thought of himself as a miner; not a newspaper man. Fortunately, he had a keen habit of keeping notes and statistics for various journalistic efforts. He was unaware that this pattern of collecting information was his passport to a personal treasure. The story continues. With his Fairchild cousins’ purchase of the Placerville Semi-Weekly Observer, Myron had a bit of permanence to his life as its editor while brother Eugene sought his fortune now in the new frontier town of Carson City amid the mad rush for white gold—silver made famous by the Comstock Lode. Eugene is credited with others for surveying a place with the colorful name of Dutch Nicks renamed Empire City.
For the Angels, May 12, 1860 would remain a fateful day. In an unfortunate mistake of information, Eugene and cousin, Mahlon Fairchild, joined a make-shift expedition of over 100 men led by Major William Ormsby as the settlement feared an imminent attack by Piute natives. Untrained in combat, the frontiersmen fell into a trap and 76 were killed including Ormsby and Eugene. In a touching letter to his sister, Myron wrote that among his many “sad and sorrowful” letters home, this was the worst as he gently informed the family of the death in what has become known as the First Battle of Pyramid Lake.“Eugene was brave, generous and honorA U G U S T
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This beacon of el dorado did not last long as in 1862, Mahlon, also a partner, paid the final debt. The North San Juan mine was closed and was (almost) Myron’s last mining venture. Again, earning a living meant returning to an editor’s job for the Reese River Reville in Austin, Nevada. The newspaper, “though small is spicy” as described by a contemporary,
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though the prospect m quieter, more settled environment of thanmoving the lowed by one on Placer County the following Even raucous San Francisco. Possibly Charlotte year with his cousin, Mahlon, as co-editor. future, you owe it to yourself to learn h remembered her friends Kate and Jennie living in your own home for man Possibly the decision to trade in the rough carefree Cox were settled in the small county of San life of a miner to the easier one of the pen Luis Obispo. There was an opportunity of was encouraged by his marriage in 1879 to buy the local newspaper and Myron had an Charlotte Paddock Livingston, “an accomagreement with Thompson and West Pubplished lady,” he knew from earlier years. Her lishers for another mug book. Whatever their a fact ofminister life that we get older, Pristine is fully father had been theIt’s Presbyterian in asmotivation, the couple moved south, and the Oneonta during Myron’s youth. some day-to-day tasksCounty become licensed and insu wouldtoo never be the same.
You Don’t Have to Move
Feel Safe and
At 56, firmly established the handle world of on our own. That muchin to All of our worke Contact: jacarotenuti@gmail.com print, the Angels possibly were looking for a doesn’t mean you have to move away are carefully scre
from the comfort of your home. and pass a crimin • Pristine Home Services is aHousekeeping local background chec Personal Care that helps San Luis Obispo and drug test, giv • Yard company • Handyman Maintenance County residents avoid the high cost when someone f Servingof moving All oftoSan Luis Obispo County a retirement facility. in your home. •
Major William Ormsby
and Myron is expertly captured by Oscar Lewis in The Town that Died Laughing. His burgeoning new life as a journalist was more productive than that of mining. His expertise in both writing and mining led to a publication on Nevada’s natural resources for the Paris Exposition (1868) as well as contributing several sections in a report on mineral resources west of the Rocky Mountains for the House of Representatives. The 768 page tome was compiled by J. Ross Browne, most noted in California as the secretary for the Constitutional Convention in 1859. With pen in hand, Angel moved west to pursue his journalism career in Oakland, Sacramento and San Francisco. He once wrote “I mine for a fortune, but I write for a living.” Nonetheless, there was to be one last hurrah. In 1875 as secretary for the Mount Gregory Water and Mining Company headed by John Daggett (who remains as a California city name), a “mammoth mining enterprise” in El Dorado County spent over $100,000 before running out of funds. For Myron, it was the end. If he was going to succeed, he needed to write. Who better to compile a publication about the State of Nevada than a skilled writer who lived through much of the history? The result is the massive History of Nevada published in 1881. Financed by subscription and featuring short biographies of dozens of early settlers, Angel’s work is a primary resource for anyone pursuing the early history of the Silver State. It was his first “mug” book requiring advance subscription by those profiled in the text. The Nevada history was quickly fol-
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All of our services can be provided She should be cl daily, weekly, or on an as-needed basis. very reasonable From housekeeping You to handyman services and plumbing to preparing meals. There is no task too large or pay for only the services you need R. Watso dows!” too small for Pristineand Homewe Services. All of our services can be provided daily, weekly, or on an as-needed provide those services at a price basis. You pay for only the services you need and we provide those services at a price you can“They afford. took the t you can afford. what I wanted. “Pristine takes “Pristine goeswhat I a exactly Convenient One-call Service care of all my above and reasonable. I wo Our personal needs to care live services include beyond to amy friend.” C. in my homeerrands, meal preparaexpectations shopping, daily independently and non-medical so IBefore can live you ma tion, transportation and they do a in the comfort care. Our housekeeping services keep could affect yo fine job.” of my home.” your kitchen and the rest of your home andBaker standard o –Billie Jones –Jay spotless. We even do windows and to read these t laundry. Our yard maintenance crews Before you make any decisions that could affect your future happiness and standard of living, take every s “What know how to take care of your favorite the time to read these two FREE reports: about living in rose bushes and keep the grass neatly “What every senior needs to know about living in a retirement facility.” mowed. Our handyman services are “Four critical “Four critical questions to ask a service provider...before you let anyone work in or near your home.” provided by specialists in plumbing, service provid We invite you to call Pristine rightwork, now so that we can sendrepairs you these two FREE reports by mail. electrical painting, and anyone work safety rail installation. CALL FOR RATES We invite you t now so that we two FREE repo
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We Bring Assisted Living Home You Whatever you need...give us atocall 805-543-4663 www.pristinehomeservices.net 710 FIERO LANE, UNIT 16 SAN LUIS OBISPO, CA 93401
H O U S E K E E P I N G · YA R D M A I N T E N A N C E · H A N D Y M A N S E R V I C E S · P E R S O N A L C A R E A U G U S T
2015
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COMMUNITY
our schools
Preparing to return to school By James J. Brescia, Ed.D. County Superintendent of Schools
Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself. —John Dewey During college days or when school-age children are living in a home, the bulk of the back-to-school shopping occurs in late July or early August. According to research from Experian Marketing Services, there is a trend of waiting to shop until the school year starts, in anticipation of last-minute bargains. Unlike waiting for the last-minute sales and shopping sprees, research indicates that preparing for school is a process that is serious business. In 1992, the National Education Goals Panel made “readiness to learn” the first of five goals to be achieved by the new millennium. This goal reflects not only concerns from the past but those of the present day. There are still persistent gaps among children from different ethnic and socioeconomic groups, despite investments in intervention programs (Goldenberg, Reese, & Gallimore, 1992; Griffin, Case, & Seigler, in press; Stipek & Ryan, 1997). There is also significant research about the relatively poor achievement of American students, compared to students from other industrialized countries (Stigler, Lee, & Stevenson, 1987; Stevenson, Lee, Chen, & Stigler, 1990). So what can be done to prepare our students for success in school? There are several strategies suggested for achieving the goal of school readiness (e.g., good nutrition and access to health care) and the expansion of early childhood education. Renewed interest in early childhood education stems in part from highly publicized research showing both the short-term and long-term benefits (Campbell, F., Conti, G., Heckman, J. J., Moon, S. H., Pinto, R., Pungello, E., & Pan, Y. , 2014). Local programs such as the San Luis Obispo County First 5, Head Start, and our State Preschools have been expanded as school districts are increasing access to preschool education programs (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2015). Even though our legislature and political forces tend to focus mainly on test-related academic achievement, we should consider motivation as a goal (Committee for Economic Development, 1987; Council of Chief State School Officers, 1988), and concerns about motivation are implicit, insofar as motivation affects achievement outcomes (Stipek, 1993, 1996). Families, caregivers, and educators often hold motivational and social goals as important. In a study by Stipek, Milbum, Clements, and Daniels (1992), for example, relatively well-educated parents ranked a positive self-concept as the most important goal of preschool and kindergarten; less welleducated parents ranked this motivational goal as second, after basic skills. There seems to be broad agreement that academic and motivational goals are equally as important for young children. There is less agreement about how to enhance children’s development on both of these dimensions, and about whether programs that emphasize one goal can undermine the other. A U G U S T
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The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) publishes guidelines for early childhood education. The guidelines are based primarily on Piagetian principles of development (Bredekamp, 1989), and promote a child-centered approach to early childhood education. Educators recommend open-ended opportunities for children to explore concrete materials and to interact with each other. As parents and caregivers, we can take children to venues that promote these types of positive interactions. We are all teachers of the children in our care, and as teachers we serve primarily as resources for children’s self-initiated learning regardless of the schooling level. Family and caregiver involvement in schooling can be operationalized in a variety of ways (Hill & Taylor, 2004). For young children entering kindergarten, definitions of involvement include activities such as attending school meetings, volunteering in classrooms, serving on committees, and simply participating. Other studies examine the at-home behaviors of family and caregivers that promote school success, such as helping with homework, academic supervision, and communicating about school. Unfortunately, involvement tends to decline as children age (Rimm-Kaufman & Pianta, 2000). Considerable research has demonstrated a link between family or caregiver involvement and school-related outcomes (Connors & Epstein, 1995; Fan & Chen, 2001; Grolnick & Slowiaczek, 1994; Hill, 2001; Hill & Taylor, 2004). Educators support and encourage positive involvement in the educational process at any age and at any time. Even if involvement has been minimal, increased involvement presents positive results. “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” —William Butler Yeats References Bredekamp, S. (Ed.). (1989). Developmentally appropriate practice in early childhood programs serving children from birth through age 8. Washington, D.C.: National Association for the Education of Young Children. Connors, L. J., & Epstein, J. L. (1995). Parent and school partnerships. In Bornstein M. (Ed.), Handbook of parenting: Vol. 4. Applied and practical parenting (pp. 437−458). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Gallo, L. C., Smith, T.W., & Ruiz, J. M. (2003). Goldenberg, C, Reese, L., & Gallimore, R. (1992). Context effects on the use of early literacy materials in Spanish-speaking children’s homes. American Journal of Education Research, 100.497-536. Hill, N. E., & Taylor, L. C. (2004). Parental school involvement and children’s academic achievement: Pragmatics and issues. Current Directions in Psych logical Science, 13(4), 161−164. Rimm-Kaufman, & Pianta, R. C. (2000). An ecological perspective on the transition to kindergarten: A theoretical framework to guide empirical research. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 21(5),
COMMUNITY
491−511.Stipek, D., Milbum, S., Clements, D., & Daniels, D. (1992). Parents’ beliefs about appropriate education for young children. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 13.293 310.
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AUGUST CROSSWORD SOLUTIONS ON PAGE 43
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STATEPOINT CROSSWORD THEME: 21st Century ACROSS 1. Audition tapes 6. More of the same 9. Sound of astonishment 13. Incompetent 14. Ancient Chinese state and major Chinese river 15. Root of iris 16. Japanese-American 17. ENT’s first concern 18. *Hurricane Jeanne’s Greater Antilles victim, 2004 19. *Sudan’s troubled region 21. Pamper and indulge 23. “____ the President’s Men,” movie 24. *Obama____ 25. *Kendrick Lamar’s genre 28. ____ a Sketch toy 30. Antietam happening 35. “I’m ____ ____!”
37. Caviar and Wade’s opponent 39. *”Mad Men” star Hamm completed it in real life 40. Wine 41. Saints’ lights 43. Japanese restaurant staple 44. Run off together 46. Opposite of knit 47. Facial treatment 48. Eye part 50. It prevents objectivity 52. ____ Angelico 53. A in BA 55. One who follows teachings of Lao-tzu 57. *Subject of Russia/Ukraine dispute 60. *Modern self-portrait 63. Trouser fabric 64. Old French coin 66. Type of island 68. “Mad” fortÈ 69. Habitual twitch 70. High IQ society 71. End of grace
72. Member of a “benevolent and protective order” 73. Picture within a picture, e.g. DOWN 1. Clamor 2. Children’s author Blyton 3. ___ Verde National Park 4. Verdi’s output 5. Smother or suppress 6. Type of pitcher 7. *____ Party 8. Approximately, as in date 9. Obama to Harvard Law School 10. Seed coat 11. www.google.com, e.g. 12. Tire measurement 15. “____, ____!” said Piglet 20. Extremist 22. Scepter’s partner 24. Duo at the Sistine Madonna’s feet 25. *Mars vehicle 26. Feeble old woman 27. Can be noir or grigio
29. *Egyptian ____ d’Ètat 31. Short-term employee 32. *These days, he often steals identities 33. Light acronym 34. *Cause of 2014 global health scare 36. Large African antelope 38. Delhi dress 42. Fill with spirits 45. Bewitch 49. Am is to I as ___ is to we 51. sandwich meat 54. Gustatory sensation 56. More than occasional 57. *”Pawn Stars” employee nickname 58. Frost residue 59. Involved in a secret 60. Draw in, as in air 61. Charged particles 62. Other than what’s implied 63. It’s repeated 2 or 3 times to form dance name
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palm street perspective Slo water By SLO City Councilman, Dan Carpenter
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ven to the casual observer, it’s quite obvious the fabric of landscaped yards in our community has changed drastically as we’re now enduring the fourth year of the drought. Well-manicured green lawns are disappearing daily, being replaced by decorative stone, drought-tolerant vegetation, artificial turf, and in some cases left barren. Most every conversation I have with local residents nowadays turns to water at some point. I’m proud to see most everyone is taking this drought seriously and participating responsibly in their landscape decisions.
On April 1st, Governor Brown ordered mandatory water use reductions for the first time in California’s history indicating the drought has reached near-crisis proportions. Are these severe periods of drought random or is this our new-normal? What options do we have to sustain this valuable resource that is the essence of life as we know it? There are many things we can individually and collectively do to manage this precious resource. Rain harvesting, storm water collection
systems, gray water recovery, recycled tertiary treated water, ground/ surface water management, and of course desalination as a last resort after other options have been exhausted. While desalination has been touted by some as an end-all be-all, we know there are issues with high energy cost to produce, and significant impacts on the environment. The solution is to look responsibly at all the options. There are strong indications that a significant El Nino event is forming, and that could go a long way toward shrinking, if not eliminating the state’s water deficit. It doesn’t guarantee above-normal rainfall, but typically the stronger the El Nino event, the probability of higher amounts of precipitation in California. There’s a glimmer of hope that this could be the year if Mother Nature will cooperate. The city of SLO has enacted voluntary rationing measures to meet the state’s 12% reduction requirement. Thus far, we are on track to meet those numbers and that should preclude mandatory rationing anytime soon. All that could change if we have a hot, dry summer season that extends into the fall. Several community members have inquired about building moratoriums during the drought. We do have protocols in place in our council adopted water shortage contingency plan that includes prioritizing the use of available potable water. First, we will provide minimum allocations for all interior residential needs for health and safety reasons. Second, provide for commercial, industrial and institutional operations (excluding landscape) at a minimum health and safety level to maintain jobs and economic base of the community. Third would be for existing landscape, and lastly new projects without permits. A building moratorium would be enacted when existing supplies are allocated out and are insufficient to provide for existing landscape. At this time, we are not at that level and hope with current conservation efforts that a moratorium will not be required. Staff is closely monitoring our water storage and should the situation become dire, your City Council will responsibly reevaluate these priorities. We are fortunate to live in a community where residents and visitors are responding to this current challenge with tenacity and vigilance. In my everyday walks, I observe most everyone embracing the spirit of working together through this temporary crisis. As the drought continues, each of us will make conscious decisions daily about the use of our limited water supply. I’ve been conflicted lately on what to do about my daily visits to our local coffee shops. Do I use reusable mugs that need to be cleansed with water, or do I use the green choice of a biodegradable non-reusable cup? One choice requires the use of our limited water supply, while the other is a oneway ticket to our landfill. I can’t imagine considering the third choice of eliminating my daily hot chocolate indulgence! If you’d like to share your water experiences or discuss any other issue, please don’t hesitate to contact me; dcarpent@slocity.org, 805431-3174, or simply stop me on one of my many walks through town. In your service……Dan Carpenter, SLO City Councilman
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Downtown
Around
The Magazine of Downtown San Luis Obispo
August 2015
Inside: W hat ’s U p Downtown B usiness Spo tlight Mee t O ur Ne west Team Member
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hile Tony Bennett left his heart in San recall when I first started trail running, the miles Francisco, many other people have found were awkward and oftentimes painful to run but that Downtown San Luis Obispo has claimed the more often I ran, the more comfortable I was theirs. For good reason too! When I look at all that and the more I enjoyed the trails. When guests first this community has going for it, my heart swells start coming to the Downtown SLO Farmers’ Market with pride knowing I am one of the lucky few or Concerts in the Plaza they may find the crowds who gets to call this home. We are smack dab in overwhelming and uncomfortable but after they get the middle of one of the most happening seasons acclimated to the positive energy, something starts for Downtown with Concerts in the Plaza in full to click. Eventually, they start to share their routine swing, Downtown SLO Farmers’ Market full of great Dominic Tartaglia, with friends and bring newcomers with them. The Executive Director produce, the Fresh Picked Concert Series on select endgame for them is being able to share their joy Thursdays and gorgeous Central Coast evenings. What is not with friends after they have practiced the trip down here to love about any of those things? time after time and become skilled Downtown guides.
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n my off time I find that my heart lies with the outdoors and more specifically with mountain biking and trail running in our local open space. The old idiom, “Practice makes perfect.” has always stuck with me and often times I find myself running for hours on end strengthening my heart and legs for some form of race. Similarly, our Downtown has developed into the heart of our community through many years of great shopping and consistently positive experiences when people come down to visit. Generally, the more times people visit Downtown SLO they fall more in love with the way it makes them feel.
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ooking back on 40 years I can comfortably say that the Downtown Association has put a lot of effort into being one of the nation’s top scorers with awards including the Great American Main Street Award, Best Urban Forestry Program and countless titles for top Farmers’ Market. Since there are no Olympic games for downtowns you might ask, “So what is the big game the Downtown Association is practicing for?” To me the answer is simply to win the hearts of people both near and far. If there were ever a gold medal to be had, it would have to be Tony Bennett singing, “I left my heart in San Luis Obispo.” A guy can dream right?
On the Cover: Truth About Seafood's Brad Daane rocking out at last years Concerts in the Plaza. You won't want to miss them this year as they take the stage on August 28th, they're sure to be a crowd pleaser as in years past! Photo by Mukta Naran
2015 presents free live music fridays 5-8 pm downtown SLo’s mission plaza
8/7 Sam sharp band
8/21 resignation
blues rock Sponsor: Peak property management
8/14 cuesta ridge
sponsor:
reggae slo transit
8/28 truth about seafood
americana Sponsor: frog & peach pub
rock sponsor: adamski, moroski, madden, cumberland, & green LLP
PROUDLY POURING
NO OUTSIDE ALCOHOL·NO PETS
www.DowntownSLO.com
FOOD AND DRINK AVAILABLE
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Meet Our Featured Farmer of the Month Eufloria Flowers 885 Mesa Road Nipomo, CA 93444 (805) 929-4683 EufloriaFlowers.com
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stablished in 1984, Eufloria Flowers aspires to cultivate the finest roses through out North America. The Society of American Florists has confirmed their aspirations by awarding the boutique 113 distinguished ribbons from different competitions they have entered. In its recent years, Eufloria roses have been enjoyed by millions of people at several prestigious events such as the Kentucky Derby, The Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade and even a few celebrity special events. The unmatched quality of Eufloria roses has been a tradition for over seven generations. They pride themselves in the fact that they provide these roses to not only world renowned events but everyday special occasions as well. Throughout the week Eufloria participates in 19 different Farmers' Markets all over California, we are lucky to be included on this list every Thursday from 6-9. Stop by this Thursday to pick up a bouquet of the most beautiful roses you have ever seen.
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Meet Our Vendor of the Month NOVO Restaurant & Lounge 726 Higuera Street Downtown San Luis Obispo, CA (805) 543-3986 novorestaurant.com
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OVO is a restaurant that combines cuisine of worldwide flavors with creekside ambiance. NOVO has been awarded New Times "Best San Luis Obispo Restaurant" for eight consecutive years and "Best Restaurant Period" for seven years. NOVO also supports "buying local" by purchasing ingredients from our Downtown SLO Farmers' Market vendors. Visit NOVO's booth to order their delicious spring rolls for a fresh and healthy meal on Thursday night!
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o see where you can find either our Vendor or Featured Farmer of the Month, use our interactive Market Map on our website at www.downtownslo. com/farmers-market/meet-our-vendors/.
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D o w n t o w n
B u s i n e s s
S p o t l i g h t s
& To Hold. Customers can expect to escape Briana Gros, Owner and be pampered 774 Marsh Street, Suite 110 while receiving salon Downtown San Luis Obispo services—from hair design to custom hair (805) 459-8323 colouring to brow tint www.ToHaveAndToHoldBridalSalon.com and waxing. Brides eauty takes on a new form in To Have & To Hold, a and bridal parties Bridal Salon and Boutique! The new business is located will feel catered to at 774 Marsh Street, Suite 110, and is owned and operated in an exclusive, private, hidden gem! To Have & To Hold by Lead Stylist & Makeup Artist, Briana Gros. "We invite markets to all women—desiring salon services; brides-to-be you to experience our unique setting to create the most needing hair, makeup, bridesmaids' gifts, and bridal gowns; memorable looks in hair and airbrush makeup, tailor-made and those who would like to pass their lovely gown on to for you and your bridal party. Our Boutique features luxury another soon-to-be bride while placing on consignment and beauty products, as well as gently-worn bridal gowns, veils, making a profit. The shop accepts the following items for and accessories upon consignment." consignment: gowns, veils, and accessories. riana drew from a childhood dream of owning a riana was born in San Francisco (a city-girl at heart) and clothing store with a salon inside. This combined with was raised in SLO—she holds true to our Downtown her career goals made for herself in her 20s, she set out spirit by generally walking or biking to work. "I am so to become part of the bridal industry here on the Central blessed to call SLO my home and feel honored to have Coast. Finding her niche and with her entrepreneurial spirit, started my first of its kind business here on the beautiful she opened her first location here in the heart of Downtown Central Coast of California." SLO. o Have & To Hold is open Tuesday–Saturday by o Have & To Hold was given its name as Briana appointment only. Call to set up your appointment for was researching wedding vows and came across a salon services, bridal services, a viewing appointment for photograph with that phrase above it and "it just clicked." that gorgeous gown to be placed on consignment or to Briana has been in the beauty industry since 2000 and shop their chic boutique, at (805) 459-8323. Visit www. styling hair and makeup for brides since 2004. Over the tohaveandtoholdbridalsalon.com for details on To Have & years, after listening to the wants and needs of her clientele, To Hold, link to their portfolio, and to book an appointment she decided to open her own place to meet those desires. online. You can also find To Have & To Hold on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and The Knot. ou can expect a serene atmosphere, exceptional customer service, high quality products, and Written by: Vanessa Martinez knowledgeable and creative stylists when you visit To Have
To Have & To Hold Bridal Salon
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lease join us as we welcome Megan Grose to the San Luis Obispo Downtown Association as our new Promotions Coordinator. Grose graduated from Cal Poly with a degree in Recreation, Parks, & Tourism Administration with minor coursework in Communication Studies; during which time she proved herself as a leader in outdoor and community recreation. Grose has an 8-year background with the City
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of Pismo Beach working both in their tourism bureau as well as on the beach as an ocean lifeguard. Her most recent position at MINDBODY provided her extensive knowledge in business management and consulting of various business types.
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s the Downtown Association’s Promotions Coordinator, Megan works behind the scenes organizing our everpopular Concerts in the Plaza series. She will also organize select special events within our Downtown SLO Farmers’ Market and our Holiday Happenings! She is really looking forward to bringing a tourism-based approach to the Downtown Association. Stop by a concert this summer and say a cheerful “Hello.”
For more information on Downtown Association events, programs and activities, or to sign up for our weekly Deliver-E newsletter, visit www.DowntownSLO.com
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the greatest athletes on the central coast By Dr. Don Morris
Editor’s note: The reader response to the question “Who are the Greatest Athletes in the history of the Central Coast?” has been overwhelming. More than 100 nominations have been received from readers from Ventura to Salinas and almost all the High Schools and various sports were represented. (Many of the nominations were about central coast men and women athletes who have gone on to compete professionally in sports like Olympic events, football, baseball, track and field, golf, boxing, ultimate fighting, tennis, kick boxing, basketball, rodeo, race-car drivers, etc).So far the following athletes have been featured: Ed Brown, Stephanie Brown Trafton, Chuck Liddell, Loren Roberts, Steve Patterson, Gene Rambo, Robin Ventura, Jordan Hasay, Chuck Estrada, Mike Larrabee, Ron Capps and Jamie Martin. Please send nominations to Dr. Morris at dmmorris@calpoly.edu.
since his playing career ended he has worked for several Major League Baseball organizations including the Houston Astros, Seattle Mariners, Florida Marlins, Kansas City Royals, Atlanta Braves and the Pittsburgh Pirates. He has worked as an assistant to the general manager, minor league coach, roving instructor and major league base coach. Since 2012, he has served as the first base coach of the Kansas City Royals.
randall cunningham
rusty kuntz
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rofessional Baseball player Russell Jay “Rusty” Kuntz attended Paso Robles High School. While at Paso Robles High School he played baseball, basketball and football. Rusty was nominated by Peter J. Schuler (Water Polo Coach and Instructor at Cuesta College), Pat O’Daniels, Tim Vincent and Jane Maxwell (Jane is the daughter of long time Tribune Sports editor Johnny Nettleship who was a survivor of the 1960 Cal Poly Football team plane crash). “Rusty” Kuntz attended Cuesta College and California State University Stanislaus. At Cuesta College he played center field on the baseball team, quarterbacked the football team and was the center on the basketball team. After hitting a .402 and .442 batting average in two seasons at Cuesta, “Rusty” transferred to CSU Stanislaus where he played on two teams that went to the Division III World Series. (He was later inducted into the University’s Hall of Fame). Rusty played for the White Sox and
ootball player Randall W. Cunningham attended Santa Barbara High School and, as a senior, he led his football team to a League title and the CIF Finals. He then went on to attend the University of Nevada, Las Vegas where he was selected to the College Football All-American team as a punter.
Cunningham was taken in the NFL Draft by the Philadelphia Eagles as a quarterback, and then played for the Minnesota Vikings, the Dallas Cowboys and the Baltimore Ravens. He won the Bert Bell award. (This award is named in honor of Bert Bell, Commissioner of the NFL. Voters are NFL owners, football personnel, head and assistant coaches). Randall is a current football coach, pastor and mentor in Las Vegas, NV. He is the younger brother of former college and professional football player Sam Cunningham. A U G U S T
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THE BULLETIN BOARD
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casa Receives Community foundation grant
CASA of SLO County has received a $10,000 grant from The Community Foundation SLO County (CFSLOC). The grant will be used toward the recruitment, screening, training and supervision of community volunteers as CASA advocates. They will advocate for needed services and appropriate placements for local children ages newborn to 3 years who have been abused and neglected. A growing number of children being referred to CASA by the Juvenile Dependency Court fall within this very young age group. CASA volunteers serving this population receive specialized training to address the unique needs of this very vulnerable group.
please see attached release and contact Tracy Sturgell at tracysturgell@hospiceslo.org or (805) 544-2266 with any questions or to register as a volunteer.
morris wins more gold medals
85-year-old retired Cal Poly Administrator/ Professor and Shell Beach resident Dr. Don Morris recently won three gold medals in basketball shooting at the California State Senior Games Championships held in Pasadena. Morris won in the 85- to 89-year-old age group by making 23 of 25 free throws for a percentage of 92%. He then shot 61% (11 for 18) from behind the three point line and he also won the hot-shot shooting contest.
honoring our elders festival
The South County Historical Society is sponsoring The Honoring Our Elders festival on Saturday, August 15th from 10am to 4pm, at Heritage Park in Arroyo Grande. This is a free community event. All are invited to attend to Honor Our Elders and to continue to support their contributions to our communities. There will be carnival games, music, food booths, recreational activities, creative/educational displays, service/non-profit/business promotions, etc. It’s a funrelated theme for all those who attend. For those who also want to formally participate in the event, booth space is available. For more information on participation, please contact Jim Yancheson (Event Coordinator) at 805-674-0954 or jimwhy1@sbcglobal.net.
volunteers needed for hospice of slo county
Hospice of SLO County is looking for local community members to volunteer to provide in-home respite care to SLO County residents coping with a life-threatening illness. Volunteers would help to provide in-home respite care, emotional support, practical assistance and comfort. Volunteers will need to complete six training sessions prior to beginning volunteer work and will need to commit three to four hours of service per week for six months. Hospice SLO is a volunteer based organization that provides assistance for more than 5,000 SLO County residents annually. For more information
morro bay estuary poetry contest winners
The Morro Bay Estuary Poetry Contest—A National Treasure in Words asks kids and adults to celebrate the Morro Bay National Estuary by writing haikus and free verse poems about it. This year almost 100 entries of the poems captured the spirit of the estuary. The Free Flowing category asked adults and kids to write free verse poems using the estuary as a theme. Marnie L. Parker of San Luis Obispo has won the Adult Free Flowing category, with her poem “Blue Sanctuary.” K. Rowe Morris of Morro Bay has earned the Adult Free Flowing runner-up spot for her poem, “Listen.” The winner of the Youth Free Flowing category is 14-year-old Lauren Tarica, with her poem “Tidal Song.” The runner-up for the Youth Free Flowing category is 12-year-old Eva Moylan with her poem, “The Great Egret.” This year’s Adult Haiku winner is George Asdel with his poem, “The Morro Bay Estuary.” Lila Bhuta of Los Osos has earned the Adult Haiku runner-up spot with her poem, “Estuary Life.” The Youth Haiku winner is 14-year-old Nick Murphy of Los Osos. The Youth Haiku runner-up is 13-year-old Michael Blanchard of Los Osos.
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assistance league receives more grants
Two local foundations recently provided generous grants to help Assistance League of SLO County provide new, school-appropriate clothing to Kindergarten through 12th grade low-income students. For several years, the Robert H. Janssen Foundation has made a significant contribution to Assistance League’s Operation School Bell program including this year’s $5,000 grant. First time donor, Midland Pacific Foundation stepped forward with a matching grant for $5,000. Together these two foundations will enable Assistance League members to help approximately 100 local students select new school outfits at a local retail store. More information is available at: www.alslocounty.org. Pictured from left, Bonnie Long, Assistance League; Lee Hollister and Mel Hahn, Janssen Foundation; Gail Stoneburg, Assistance League; Dennis Moresco, Midland Pacific Foundation; Charlene Ables, Assistance League; and Jim Moresco, Midland Pacific Foundation.
THE BULLETIN BOARD
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rabobank continues support of HTF
Rabobank recently supported the Housing Trust Fund with both a $500,000 investment and a $10,000 contribution. Over the years, Rabobank has invested $2.1 million in the HTF’s revolving loan fund and contributed over $70,000 to support the organization’s efforts. “Rabobank is pleased to be able to support the exceptional work that the Housing Trust Fund does to develop and preserve affordable housing in SLO County,” said Steven Harding, Rabobank’s Chairman of the Community Leadership Groups. “We are grateful that the Housing Trust Fund works so diligently to ensure that there are housing opportunities for all members of our community.” “Rabobank has been one of the top investors in our revolving loan fund as well as one of our most generous contributors,” adds Jerry Rioux, the HTF’s Executive Director. “Rabobank’s generous and ongoing support has been key to our success.”
1300 boxes of cereal
C rossword S O L U T I O N S
Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center and Twin Cities Community Hospital combined to collect nearly 1300 boxes of cereal for the Healthy Over Hungry Cereal Drive earlier this month to help provide children with a healthy breakfast during the summer months when they are unable to have one provided at school. The effort was part of a national initiative by Tenet Healthcare, parent organization to Twin Cities and Sierra Vista. Healthy Over Hungry was started as a local initiative at Detroit Children’s Hospital (another Tenet facility) and this year spread to nearly all of Tenet’s 81 hospitals in 16 states. Sierra Vista employees and community contributed 826 boxes while Twin Cities added 455. All cereal collected nationally is donated to local food banks with cereal collected locally donated to the Food Bank Coalition of SLO County.
NEWCOMER OR NEW HOMEOWNER? Get your free welcome packet! Liz Hiatt Owner centralcoastwelcome@gmail.com
It includes maps, civic info, coupons from cafes, groceries, wineries, auto hardware, garden, medical, dental, etc. Call your greeter or go to centralcoastwelcome.com SLO / Avila / 5 Cities: Jan Rouse 458-2394 or 209-405-1111 Morro Bay / Cayucos / Los Osos / Cambria: Annie Clapp 878-8876 • North County: Sandy Hexberg 235-1529 •
A FREE SERVICE TO NEWCOMERS
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THE BULLETIN BOARD
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big brothers/sisters “teen bigs of the year!”
Big Brothers Big Sisters of SLO County’s School Based Mentoring Program is proud to announce “Teen Bigs of the Year” for the 20142015 school-year. The title “Big of the Year” is reserved for one male and one female volunteer mentor at each school site. Recipients are chosen for their excellence as mentors and for having significant positive impact in the lives of their mentees. The winners of the award are: MORRO BAY: Big Sister Madeleine Rice, a Morro Bay High School student volunteering at Del Mar Elementary. SAN LUIS OBISPO: Big Brother Hillal Jarrar and Big Sister Isabella Stenvall, San Luis Obispo High School students volunteering at Sinsheimer Elementary. NIPOMO: Big Brother Joe Montanaro and Big Sister Kaitlynn Stratton, a Central Coast New Tech High School student and a Nipomo High School student, respectively, volunteering at Nipomo Elementary. Featured from left to right: Kaitlynn Stratton, Joe Montanaro, Program Coordinator Tibisay Escobedo, Madeleine Rice, Isabella Stenvall and Hillal Jarrar.
union bank donates to peoples self-help housing
Union Bank recently presented Peoples’ Self-Help Housing with a $10,000 check in recognition of the award winning nonprofit’s 45th Anniversary in 2015. Founded in San Luis Obispo in 1970, Peoples’ Self-Help Housing has over the years expanded to Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, with more than 1,100 self-help homes completed and nearly 1,600 rental units developed. From left, Peoples’ Self-Help Housing Development & Communications Director Rochelle Rose CFRE and Randy Weiss, Union Bank Corporate Social Responsibility Officer.
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schools saving water
New irrigation technology controlled via the internet is saving the San Luis Coastal Unified School District (SLCUSD) at least 50 percent on water costs to maintain fields and turf areas. SLCUSD set out to reduce water consumption in 2014. Led by Arnie Silacci, operations supervisor for Buildings, Grounds & Transportation, various district departments worked together to install the system. Rather than the typical calendar intervals, the new controls utilize moisture sensors in the ground to activate the irrigation systems. The district has found that many of the fields only need to be watered once every week or less, rather than the typical three days per week. The system is controlled remotely online. “By watering only as the soil needs it, we can achieve optimal moisture to maximize the health of the fields and minimize effort to keep them healthy,” said Anthony Palazzo, director of Buildings, Grounds & Transportation. The technology was paid for by a combination of local use fees, grant money from the Cachuma Resource Conservation District and SLCUSD matching funds. Since the technology has been in use, the district has seen a 50 percent average savings in water use across school sites—this, while average rainfall is down 70 percent.
cuesta students excel in skills conference
Cuesta College Career Technical Education (CTE) student Grace Stokes brought home gold from the 51st Annual SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference (NLSC) held in Louisville, KY, recently placing first in the Prepared Speech competition. The theme of her speech was “Here’s to SkillsUSA—50 Years of Positive Influence.” “For nine years in a row, a Cuesta College student has placed on the SkillsUSA national podium and it absolutely validates the caliber of our programs,” said John Stokes, Cuesta College’s engineering and technology division chair who oversees the college’s SkillsUSA team, and also proud father of Grace. “All 50 states and 5 other US territories were represented at the conference, and we’ve routinely demonstrated that our Career Technical Education (CTE) students and faculty are some of the best in the nation.” Cuesta College sent three other students to NLSC this year, and all three placed in the top 15 in three additional categories: 7th place: Auto Collision Refinishing – Austin Feavel. 12th place: Culinary Arts – Noah Yoshida. 12th place: Auto Collision Repair – Ethan Moskoff. In August of 2015, the WorldSkills International competition will take place in Brazil and involve more than 60 countries. For the second time, Cuesta College will send one of its students to compete; Michael Mullen, who will go for the gold in auto service technology. SkillsUSA is a partnership of students, teachers and industry representatives, working together to ensure America has a skilled workforce.
THE BULLETIN BOARD free senior health care screening
Screening for adults and seniors is available throughout San Luis Obispo County. Free services include: screening for high blood pressure, weight and pulse. Finger prick screening tests for: high cholesterol, anemia and blood sugar. Counseling and referrals as needed. Please call 544-2484 ext. 1 for dates, times and locations.
still stand as living monuments. Discover where they can be found, how they live so long, and how they shocked the archeological world! Followed at 2pm by a free docent led tour of the Garden. $5 Garden members / $10 public. More info at slobg.org/tree. Kids Building Butterfly Books at SLO Botanical Garden Saturday, August 15, 1pm-2:30pm
help our local veterans
Join local children’s book author and artist, Beryl Reichenberg as she shows children how to make a colorful butterfly book that you can hang in your room! Play, explore, craft and learn while enjoying stories from the author about Monarch Butterflies and their life cycle. Activity is $5 donation for nonGarden members. More info and RSVP at slobg.org/book.
VA clinic in San Luis is asking for volunteers to serve our Veterans as shuttle drivers. To help pay tribute and express your appreciation for their service, learn about volunteering at your local VA clinic. For more information contact your local VA volunteer representative Mr. Larry Foster at 805-354-6004 or send an email to Lawrence.Foster@va.gov
Jack’s Helping Hand Partners with biddle ranch wines to help children with special needs
Local non-profit Jack’s Helping Hand (JHH) is partnering with Biddle Ranch Vineyard to create a limited edition wine that will benefit children with cancer and special needs. The 2014 vintage Pinot Grigio has been dedicated to this cause, with Biddle Ranch Vineyard donating a portion of proceeds from all 425 cases of this special wine to JHH. Winemaker Ryan Deovlet created a true expression of this varietal, which will be available to the public for a limited time only. The “Compassionately Crafted” wine will be sold through the end of the year in the Biddle Ranch Vineyard tasting room, online at Biddleranch.com, and in select local restaurants and stores. Consumers can enjoy a bottle knowing that a portion of their purchase will benefit children in SLO County.
August botanical garden events
Ancient Trees: Discover Bristlecone at SLO Botanical Garden Saturday, August 8 from 1pm to 2pm Over 4,000 years ago tiny seeds chiseled their way between rocks in remote and hostile environments. These twisted and ancient trees
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digital photography at paso library
Digital Award-winning photographer Dean Crawford, Jr., will be the guest artist at the Library in August. Crawford retired from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo in 2007 and was a graphic design instructor at Cuesta College. He rides motorcycles in our countryside in search of that great landscape image and teaches Digital Photography for the City of Paso Robles. Come and enjoy his computer-enhanced photographs. The Paso Robles City Library is located at 1000 Spring Street and is open Monday – Friday 10-8, and Saturday 10-5. For more information on library programs and events, please call 237-3870 or visit www.prcity.com/library.
San Luis Obispo’s Best Kept Secret Power Carts Senior Discount (55) • 10 Play C ards • Tournaments Welcome • •
252 Higuera Street San Luis Obispo (805) 541-TIRE
Tee Times on our website: lagunalakegolfcourse.org or call 805-781-7309
11175 Los Osos Valley Road, SLO
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eye on business
LOVR Interchange a boost to business By Maggie Cox, Barnett Cox & Associates
meaning it is officially “self-supporting.” The supporting false work underneath the structure has been removed. At press time, it looked like we’d be driving on the new surface in late August as the crew moves to other areas of the project. Now think about what it takes to get there, and not just the years of design and planning prep or the 18 months of actual construction, but all the nitty gritty details and how they affect our economy. It all grows from a “Buy American” clause in the project contract. Everything being used has been produced in the U.S. The lead contractor is Granite Construction, a familiar name in our community. Granite has no fewer than 20 different firms who are subcontractors or suppliers to them on this project. Some of the firms are local, some are from Santa Barbara/Ventura Counties and one LA firm is providing pile driving services. Jason says that companies in Cayucos, Arroyo Grande and Templeton are among the SLO County representatives, and that most of the construction workers are area residents who live from Paso Robles to Lompoc.
W
ith a home on one side of town and an office on the other, I traverse the under-construction Los Osos Valley Road Interchange every day— sometimes multiple times a day. If I’ve cut my timing close, the traffic backups and delays are an easy source of frustration, but even in my aggravation I’m mindful of how a little pain is going to deliver a lot of gain in just a matter of months. I’m also aware of what an infusion of jobs, spending and other economic benefits the project is for our community. I head to work about the same time every morning as the on site construction crew gathers for its daily safety meeting. I notice people and trucks
and supplies and I’m curious about just what it all adds up to. I went right to the source: project manager Jason Bennecke, and asked him to fill me in. The details tell a great story. First, some background: the $24 million project is on schedule to be completed next summer. When it is finished, the interchange will include two eastbound and two westbound lanes, improved bike lanes and pedestrian access and integration with the Bob Jones Trail. All the on and off ramps will be improved and new landscaping will follow. This is what constitutes a lot of gain. And things are moving along nicely. The LOVR overcrossing was officially completed in July,
All workers on the job have been encouraged to patronize local businesses. And they are. They’re eating at Margie’s Diner and toting around cups from Black Horse Coffee. The out-of-town employees are staying in local motels. Concrete is being supplied by CalPortland in SLO and night lighting and other rented equipment is generally coming from United Rentals in SLO. Then there are hard hats, safety gloves and goggles, steel toed boots, fuel, billboard signs and even sunscreen that are all part of the supply story. A project of this magnitude calls for all kinds of coordination with other organizations. In the case of LOVR, utility line relocation alone has involved AT&T, PG&E, the City of SLO sewer, and the SLO County School Office of Education’s fiber optic line (UMAN). So when all is said and done, just about 12 months from now when the ribbon is cut to officially conclude the project, an awful lot of people will have had a hand in the Los Osos Valley Road Interchange. They will have built not just an important new piece of our community’s infrastructure—they will have been part of an economic boost to local businesses. This is what I call a win-win. Congrats to Jason and his entire crew, and, more important than jobs and money, we extend our appreciation to all of them for the safety that has been a hallmark of the project. And finally, a proven tip: make your way east over the ramp before 7am and things go a lot more smoothly.
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ANNUAL EMERGENCY
ALERT TESTS Saturday · auguSt 22 reverse 911: beginning at 9 am s i r e n t e s t : n o o n & 12 : 3 0 p m
■ On Saturday, August 22, the San Luis Obispo County Early
Warning System sirens and the Reverse 911 system will be activated for an annual test. The Reverse 911 system will be activated for residents and businesses within the Emergency Planning Zone beginning at 9 am. ■ The sirens will sound at noon and again at 12:30 for three minutes. During these tests, no action is required on the part of the public. ■ During the tests, local radio and television stations will broadcast normal programming. If you hear the sirens at any other time tune to a local station for important emergency information and instructions. When at sea, tune to Marine Channel 16. ■ Complete emergency planning information is in the Customer Guide section near the front of your current SLO County YP phone book, and at www.slocounty.ca. gov/oes.
Sponsored by the County of San Luis Obispo Office of Emergency Ser vices and Pacific Gas and Electric Company. Paid for by Pacific Gas and Electric Company.
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