Bud Benites has trouble getting to school. The 16-year-old student at Soquel High School suffers from scoliosis and is confined to a wheelchair, so the only way for him to get to classes is a specially modified van.
News
Federal Grant Aims at Curbing Teenage Drinking
Santa Cruz County’s Office of Education was awarded a $1.3 million grant to curb the incidence of teenage alcoholism.
Quake Led to Setting of Santa Cruz ‘Sun’
It was hard not to take the earthquake personally. That October Tuesday, my newspaper, The Sun, which I had started three years earlier in a surge of journalistic urgency and entrepreneurial folly, was on deadline, preparing to go to press the following morning.
The Show Goes On
“Perseverance, dear my lord, keeps honor bright,” wrote William Shakespeare in Troilus and Cressida, and it is a lesson that’s been taken to heart. Despite the perfect storm of financial difficulties faced by Shakespeare Santa Cruz and UCSC, the company’s artistic director, Marco Barricelli, and UC Santa Cruz Dean of the Arts David Yager have decided that the company will carry out its 29th season.
Local Parks Closed Because of Storm
Fearing strong currents, mudslides, flooding, and falling branches, authorities closed 14 state parks in Central California yesterday, seven of them in Santa Cruz County. The parks are: Big Basin Redwoods State Park, Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, Lighthouse Field State Beach, Natural Bridges State Beach, New Brighton State Beach, Seacliff State Beach and Sunset State Beach. The parks are expected to reopen today, pending local conditions.
Santa Cruz Walloped by Storm
It was the worst storm in decades. In just 24 hours, Santa Cruz received 3.16 inches of rain, shattering the 1957 record of 2.49 inches, while parts of the county saw as much as 10 inches of rain.
The Zombie Zeitgeist
Pondering the zombie phenomenon, author David Sirota speculates that it has something to do with our powerlessness to stop financial disaster, even after an election that some believed would fix everything. “Here we are, with virtually nothing changed,” he writes, “watching the same zombie crises indomitably stumble forward.”
Santa Cruz Parties Like It’s 1989
Post-quake Santa Cruz wasted no time coming up with irreverent slogans about the disaster it had endured—bumper stickers like “Shift Happens” and “It’s All Our Fault” popped up all over town in the months after Loma Prieta. In the same spirit, the town commemorates the 20th anniversary of the 7.1 monster this weekend by both thumbing our noses at the San Andreas Fault and engaging in some healthy introspection about what exactly happened at 5:04pm on Oct. 17, 1989 and how far we’ve come since.
Shakespeare Santa Cruz Ponders Future
“To be or not to be, that is the question” facing Shakespeare Santa Cruz today, as the theater company decides whether to continue its 28-year run.
Another Woman Groped in Downtown Santa Cruz
For the third time in a month, a woman has been groped while walking along the street in downtown Santa Cruz.
