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The Voice and Verdugo Hills High School in partnership to help students succeed!

�e Serving the Communityof Sunland-Tujunga

and Beyond

May 2015Volume 6, Issue 5

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City Councilmember Paul Krekorianhas announced the winners of the Ar-menian Genocide Centennial Art Con-test, sponsored by the City of LosAngeles. Both professional and amateurartists were invited to produce and pres-ent paintings, drawings, photos and dig-ital art inspired by the 100thanniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

Submissions poured in from SouthernCalifornia and across the globe.

A group of seven esteemed judgesrepresenting civic, artistic, entertain-ment and community organizations se-lected the winners. The judging panelincluded: Liebe Geft: Director, Mu-

Each year, more than 4 million peo-ple in more than 20 countries raisemuch-needed funds and awareness tosave lives from cancer through theRelay For Life movement. Locally,

community members and regular par-ticipants of Relay For Life are urged tojoin the Sunland Tujunga relay portion,which will be held at Verdugo HillsHigh School May 30-31. The eventstarts at 9 a.m. and runs for 24 hours.Teams collect pledges from family,friends, supportive businesses, and

other community organizations. Participants have the opportunity to

celebrate loved ones who have wontheir battle against cancer, rememberthose who are no longer with us, and

fight back againstthis disease thattakes so muchfrom so many.

Relay For Lifeteams camp outand take turnswalking or run-ning around thehigh school track,around the clock.These areovernight events,and because can-cer never sleepseach team is asked

to have at least one participant on thetrack at all times.

Verdugo Hills High School is locatedat 10625 Plainview Ave., Tujunga. Formore information check out the websiteat: www.relayforlife.org/sunlandtujun-gaca. Local Fundraising lead is ClaudiaDe Leon, 818-434-6902.

And the winners are ...

Foothill Music Academy students receive awards and certificates following a well-received performance at the much anticipated 2015 Spring Recital.

FM Academy students play to packed house

Photo courtesy of Paul Krerkorian’s officeGrand Prize winner: “Pride in the Eyes of a Survivor” by Nairi Bagdasarian.

Armenian Genocide Centennial Art Contest

See GENOCIDE, Page 2

Foothill Music Academy’s annual SpringRecital, held April 19 at Open Bible Church inTujunga, was its most successful event to date.Thirty-four student performers from the Sunland-Tujunga area, as well as from neighboring LaCrescenta, attended the much-anticipated concert

along with their friends and family. Ranging inage from 3 to 35, the school’s talented performersplayed to a packed house and received raving ap-plause. A great mix of musical instruments in-cluding piano, violin, guitar, drums and flute,along with several vocal performances, made for

a memorable production. While all the performances were great, some

notable performers to mention are: Edward Vu,who has been taking piano lessons for three years

See MUSIC, Page 2

Relay for Life at VHHS May 30-31

Voice of the Village May 2015

seum of Tolerance; Danielle Brazell:General Manager, Los Angeles Dept. ofCultural Affairs; Araksya Karapetyan:Anchor, Good Day LA, Fox 11 Morn-ing News; Judith Baca: Founder andArtistic Director, Social and Public ArtResource Center (SPARC); Liz Vogel:Los Angeles Director, Facing Historyand Ourselves; Carla Garapedian: Film-maker and Project Leader of the Ar-menian Genocide TestimoniesCollection, Armenian Film Foundation;Janice Kamenir-Reznik: FoundingPresident, Jewish World Watch.

Two Grand Prize winners will havetheir artwork displayed on Los AngelesDept. of Transportation DASH buses.The First Runners-Up each received a$100 gift certificate donated by CarterSexton Artist’s Materials in North Hol-

lywood. All Centennial Art Contestwinners and judges were honored bythe City Council on April 22.

The Armenian Genocide took placebetween 1915 and 1923 in a region thatis now Turkey. During that time, a totalof 1.5 to 2 million Armenian men,women and children died as a result offorced deportations and mass killings.April 2015 marked the 100th anniver-sary of the genocide. Los AngelesCounty currently has the world’s largestpopulation of Armenians outside of Ar-menia.

Los Angeles City CouncilmemberPaul Krekorian represents Council Dis-trict 2, which includes North Holly-wood, Studio City, Valley Village andother communities in the east San Fer-nando Valley. In 2009, he became thefirst Armenian-American to be electedto the City Council.

GENOCIDE, from Page 1

and didn’t hesitate to show the audiencehow far he has come as a young pianist.He performed very well and with suchconfidence. Young Chase Gaither didnot hold back, either, while performingon piano and singing at the same timeto the Simon & Garfunkel classic,“Bridge Over Troubled Water,” whichthe crowd loved.

Natalie Dominguez, on piano, played“Imperial March” from the Star Warssoundtrack –– all the while donning ablack Darth Vader cape, which was anice touch.

James Street, on drums, performed“Let It Be.” Sebastian Bedrossian, whoperformed “Crazy Train,” by Ozzy Os-borne, was also on drums. Both weregreat rock performances that the crowdreally got into.

A few notable vocal performances tomention came from Ashley Thatcher,who showed great improvement as avocalist by singing Adele’s “Skyfall.”Twins Dominique and Isabella Rochasang Taylor Swift’s “Wildest Dreams”and the Bruno Mars’ hit “Grenade,” andboth impressed the audience with theirwonderful vocal tones.

The show was closed by JenniferThompson who is a regular performerat the school’s recitals and for good rea-son. Jennifer is one of those rare talentswho has an amazing tone to her voice

and is just always on pitch with herpowerful voice. She performed LauraShigihara’s “Everything is Alright” to adead silent audience who was simplyspeechless and moved by her voice.

In addition to the wonderful perform-ances, the school handed out trophies,gift cards, cash and special certificatesto the top students at the school whoweek in and week out are dedicated andconsistently practice in order to im-prove their musical ability.

First place was won by Elijah Zu-niga. In a close second was AminaWright. Third place was tied betweenNatalie Dominguez and Edward Vu.

The recital was a huge success be-cause our young kids are learning greatlife skills and are increasing their con-fidence and knowledge. FoothillsMusic Academy gives them an oppor-tunity and a venue to be acknowledgedfor their hard work, which is great forour community.

Foothills Music Academy offersmusic lessons to anyone in our commu-nity, no matter their age, in just aboutany popular instrument. The school canbe contacted at 818-248-4848.

Free introductory lessons are offeredto anyone interested in taking musiclessons. Visit the school’s website atfoothillsmusicacademy.net for more in-formation.

There are schools located in Sunlandand La Crescenta.

MUSIC, from Page 1

Music performance

Genocide art contest

‘I Stop for Drops’ and ‘The Weightof Air,’ oil paintings by Tujunga artistKatherine Kean, have been selected forinclusion in the National Weather Cen-ter Biennale, an international juried ex-hibition sponsored by the University ofOklahoma and the Fred Jones Jr. Mu-seum of Art, in collaboration with theNorman Arts Council.

The exhibition will present “Art’sWindow on the Impact of Weather onthe Human Experience.”

Kean’s paintings are among 88

works selected for the prestigiousshow.

Mel Chin, internationally estab-lished fine artist, serves as guest jurorfor the competition, the only interna-tional exhibition showcasing artworkwith weather as its central theme.

In conjunction with Earth Day 2015,the exhibition opened on April 19 andwill close Sunday, June 14.

“Weather phenomena, such as thestrange twilight caused by a storm sud-denly and dramatically changing the

angle of the sun’s rays and for a mo-ment relighting the scene, have a hugeeffect on our view of the landscape,”said Kean. “Science has shown that artand beauty have a healing effect as theexperience of awe boosts our bodies’immune system. I hope my paintingsstir wonder, curiosity, and excitementfor the transformative impacts ofweather, while revealing the serenecenter that can arise in the midst of Na-ture’s turbulence.”

Katherine Kean has exhibited in mu-

seums and galleries across the UnitedStates, including The LACMA ArtRental and Sales Gallery and the BrandLibrary Art Gallery in Los Angeles.Her work was selected for inclusion inthe 2009 Schiffer publication 100Artists of the West Coast II.

In addition, Bloomingdales selectedone of her cloudscape paintings to bepart of the collection for their new storein Santa Monica.

To view Kean’s work, visit kather-inekean.com.

Local artist’s ‘atmospheric paintings’ selected for national show

For the record ...you heard it here FIRST

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Star students!Foothills Music Academy studentswowed the crowd at the 2015 SpringRecital held April 19 at the Open BibleChurch in Tujunga. Students rangingin age from 3 to 35 performed on a va-riety of popular musical instruments.Several students also gave notablevocal performances.

May 2015 Voice of the Village

Growing Up In Sunland

By Tom Gilfoy

It was raining and I was sitting onthe wet sidewalk folding my newspa-pers. A big bundle of papers had justbeen dropped off for me at the cornerof Foothill and Mt Gleason. Now itwas my responsibility to fold them, putthem in the bag on my bike’s back rackand make my deliveries. My dad hadalways told me if it rained hard enoughhe would drive me around on mypaper route, but I knew the drizzlegoing on now would never qualify. Infact, according to him, it never did rainthat hard.

Oh well, at least the rain settled thedust on the dirt roads The year was1944, and at that time most of theroads in Sunland north of Hillrosewere still dirt. That made this area thetoughest part of my route. The onlygood thing was that by the time Ireached the worst of these streets myload was lighter as most of my papershad been thrown. But even so, therewas so much deep sand along Went-worth and the lower part of Oro Vistathat there was no way I could getthrough without getting off my bikeand pushing.

As I descended from Mt Gleason,my route took me back and forth on

nearly all the streetsin Sunland until Ireached SunlandPark. Even thoughit’s been more than70 years since I threwmy last paper, I’ll betI could still pick outmany of my cus-tomers’ houses.Some, of course, youremember more thanothers, particularlythose who gave you abad time when youwent around ringingdoorbells makingyour monthly collec-tions.

Trying to makethose collections wasthe worst part of thejob. The paper I de-livered was the now defunct Los An-geles Daily News, which had a policyof paying its newspaper boys out ofthe last money they collected. Some-times this meant you had to keep goingback to the same deadbeat customerthree or four or times before you fi-nally collected all the money the paperowed you. This, of course, provided avery strong incentive to keep going

back, but I always thought it was un-fair to take advantage of 12-year-oldkids this way. Still do. And that’s prob-ably why I still carry a grudge againstthe Daily News’ publisher, ManchesterBoddy. After all, policy comes downfrom the top, doesn’t it? I came closeto forgiving Mr. Boddy when I learnedlater in life he was the original devel-oper of one of my favorite places in

the world: Descanso Gardens. Buteven that doesn’t earn him completeredemption.

Boddy’s Daily News was an after-noon paper, which, in its heyday, wasa real competitor to the morning LATimes. This competition continueduntil The Times started its own after-noon paper, The Mirror, which becameso popular that Boddy saw the hand-writing on the wall and sold his paperbefore he was put out of business.Soon thereafter he sold Descanso Gar-dens to Los Angeles County andmoved to San Diego County where hespent his remaining years living mod-estly in relative obscurity. Many peo-ple felt sorry for him because of theway he was forced out of business, butI was not among them –– the unfairadvantage his newspaper took of itsnewspaper boys having been burned inmy memory forever.

EPILOGUE: After reading thisstory, Tom's brother Dick wrote him,"I don't know what you're gripingabout, whenever I helped you withyour paper route you made me collectmy pay from those you couldn't collectfrom, the worst of the worst."

Reach Tom Gilfoy at:[email protected]

Delivering newspapers by bicycle: 70 years later newspaper boy still griping

By Joe Sinclair

The proposed development of 242 acres inBig Tujunga Canyon is of personal interest tome because the land in question was at one timethe turkey/grape ranch of my Sicilian grandpar-ents, Joseph and Frances Beniche. My sisterJoan, my cousins Phil and Patty, and I spentmuch of our childhood there in the 1940s as itwas a family gathering place almost every Sun-day.

Our grandparents were born and raised intwo small towns south of Palermo, places Ihave had the extreme pleasure of visiting withmy wife, children, and grandchildren. They ar-rived here at the turn of the century and soonmarried, eventually raising three daughters bythe names of Rose (my mother), Mary, andJosephine.

They raised their children in a house on WestAvenue 23 (now no longer in existence, itsplace taken by the Los Angeles River and Gar-dens and the Santa Monica Conservancy), justnorth of what is now Dodger Stadium. Mygrandmother worked for years as a seamstressat the Oviatt haberdashery in downtown LA be-fore moving permanently to the ranch in thecanyon.

One of my earliest memories is going withmy grandmother to visit fellow Sicilian émigrésin the area. One that I look back on now withgreat interest was the widow of Joseph Ardiz-zone, reputed to be the “boss” of the Los An-geles crime family in the 1920s. He was bornone year after my grandfather in the town ofPiana degli Albanesi, formerly known as Pianadei Greci (now Piana del Albanese), and arrivedin the United States by way of New Orleans be-fore heading west to Los Angeles. He had a

ranch along Mt. Gleason Avenue, which is nowthe site of Mt. Gleason Middle School. He“disappeared” while on his way by car to Eti-wanda in 1931.

Another frequent visit was to the family ofJoseph Criscione, who owned a ranch of 120acres along Verdugo Boulevard that is now thesite of Verdugo Hills Hospital. It was there thatI was first made aware of the “newspaper man”next door who turned out to be E. ManchesterBoddy, owner of Rancho del Descanso –– nowknown famously as Descanso Gardens. I haveworked there part time as a tour guide for thepast 36 years.

My sister and I lived with our grandparentsfor a short time in the early 1940s and attendedSunland Elementary before moving perma-nently to Mt. Washington, just west of the Ar-royo Seco Parkway. Thereafter we were tospend many weekends with our grandparents.Our grandmother would always cook the thingswe liked and there were many pleasant Satur-day afternoons watching Westerns at the oldTujunga Theater on Foothill Boulevard.

Thanksgiving and Christmas were alwaysbusy times at the ranch because people in thearea came to purchase their fresh turkeys. Twothings remain very vivid in my mind. One wasthe long line of cars coming up the long drive-way from Big Tujunga Canyon Road, and theother was my grandmother “preparing”theturkeys for their fate by slitting their throats.Blood everywhere!!!

Probably the most unforgettable character ofmy childhood was a neighbor who lived in ashack just upcanyon from my grandparents’house. He was eden ahbez (much like the great

Tujunga Memoir: Thoughts on Big Tujunga Canyon

Photo courtesy the Sinclair familyAn long-ago, family portrait: Joe Sinclair with his grandpar-ents, sister and cousins at the turkey/grape ranch owned byhis Sicilian grandparents. It is on the site of what is now prop-erty embroiled in the much-disputed proposal for the 242homes in Big Tujunga Canyon –– zoned for just five homes.See MEMOIR, Page 5

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Staff Acknowledgements: Voice of the Village is published on the first day of each month by the Sunland-Tujunga-

Shadow Hills Community Fund, a non-profit 501c3 organization established to provide finan-cial support to student organizations at Verdugo Hills High School through matching grantsfor community service performed by the students. VHHS Journalism students are encouragedto write for Voice of the Village. Content may also be submitted by people in our community,who may send in articles, letters, photos, and announcements for publication –– the content ofwhich expresses the views of senders and is not necessarily that of the Voice of the Village.The Voice promotes submission of articles on subjects of interest in our community and re-serves the right to edit articles and/or to not publish them. Deadline for advertising, articlesand announcements is the 15th of each month.

Manager/Publisher: Brenda FortuneEditor-in-Chief: Kresse Armour • [email protected] Editor/Photographer: John EmigStaff Reporter: Eric OwensAdvertising/Account Manager: Ruth Logan • [email protected] • 818-397-3835Distribution: John Clausen • [email protected]

Voice of the Village: P.O. Box 4323, Sunland, CA 91041 E-mail: [email protected]: voiceofthevillage.org

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May 2015 MessageOn behalf of the Sunland-Tujunga

Chamber of Commerce, thank you toeveryone who participated in theSpring Carnival in Sunland Park. Itwas well attended, and we saw manyheart-warming moments as concertgoers listened to local bands under thestars, little ones hopped along with theEaster Bunny, families hunted eggs,painted a truck (!!) and enjoyed themany rides and other activities. Theweather could not have been moreperfect!

While this is not an exhaustive list,as there are many not listed whohelped out behind the scenes, we aregrateful to the following for their sup-port in this community event: Fire-Point Church; Felipe Fuentes CD7;Sunland-Tujunga NeighborhoodCouncil, Back Door Bakery, Paul But-ler; YMCA of the Foothills; Century21; SIG Property Management;Mark’s Lock & Key; C&M Printing;Free My Spine; Richard StewartPainting; LA Parks & Recreation;Mission Sanitation; Voice of the Vil-lage; Bonners Equipment Rentals;Fire Permit - Inspector Clemons;Franks Disposal; Phillip Powell; Ver-dugo Hills High School ROTC; CV

Weekly ; Dianalee Bartera; BrendaFortune; Don & Peggie Cates; Mar-garet Yakhaman; Our Bunny - ArtMoore and his family; Carnival Ridesby Guadagno; Committee Chair andTeam: Mark Seigel, Paul Johnson;Michale Schaar ; Richard and SusanStewart; Mike Perry; Ron Chech ;CERT Team - arranged by NinaRoyal; Galpin Motors; CharlieBradley; Wesly Hernandez; AlesciaPenn; Nichole Royer and JohnKnight; our AMAZING vendors andmany more of you who committedyour time, energy and support to thisevent. We also thank our local musi-cians who brought us entertainment,music and joy: Michael Morris andLemming Heaven; Thundertap; FrisBand; Calvary Chapel Band; MikePerry Music Mix; Tim Corbo BluesReview; Evans and Rogers; Teenagersin Disguise; Craig and Debbie andmore. These community members,among others – and you! - help bringour neighborhoods together and weare grateful to you all.

We have many excellent eventscoming up, so please visit our websiteat STChamber.com or call 818-352-4433 for details.

With sincere gratitude,Erin FarrellPresident

Erin Farrell, S-T Chamber President, and Tyler Wright, YMCA CEO

S-T Chamber President’s Message


was no air conditioning.My grandfather died in 1953, and

my grandmother, not wishing to livealone, moved into town with one ofher daughters. The property was soldin 1955, and the house was destroyedin the 1971 Sylmar earthquake. Allthat remained years later were thefoundations of the house and the out-door oven where my grandmother

once baked her bread.I realize progress can’t be stopped,

but the thought of 242 homescrammed into what locals are calling“Sardine City” is abhorrent to me andmy family. We have very warm mem-ories of family Sundays with 40 to 50relatives enjoying a great meal to-gether and catching up on each other’slives.

American poet e e cummings, he pre-ferred to spell his name lower case),the composer of Nat King Cole’sgreatest hit, “Nature Boy.” He trulywas a nature boy, a beatnik beforethere were beatniks, but a very niceman who was always kind to me.

With one exception, all the neigh-bors living between the bluff overlook-ing the Little League fields and whatis now the juvenile probation campwere of Sicilian descent. The excep-tion was the daughter of CorneliusJohnson, best known for killing thelast grizzly bear south of the

Tehachapis in 1916. There is a famouspicture of him with one foot on thegrizzly that had been raiding his farm.

In the ‘40s and early ‘50s there werethree areas where I could swim. Theclosest was just across the road wheremy Sicilian relatives would stack upboulders in the creek, creating a kindof swimming hole. There was a sandybeach next to the water where somesunbathing could be done. The othertwo were Pop’s Willow Lake, in whatis now Lakeview Terrace, and thepond across the road from the oldWildwood Lodge in the upper canyon.Both were especially welcome duringthe hot summer months when there

Big Tujunga CanyonMEMOIR, from Page 3


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Letters to the Editor

Support for Kelejianand irreplaceablewildness

Dear Editor,I want to thank Voice of the Village

and Susan Kelejian for her excellentand persuasive opinion piece (“AnEquestrian’s Viewpoint,” April, 2015).Kelejian beautifully articulated the con-cerns of horse-lovers everywhere, as

Building a ‘shield’over our canyon

Dear Editor,When I think in horror about the pos-

sibility that Sardine City (50 to 242homes proposed for open space nearour National Forest) could become a re-ality, at age 52 I still sometimes employfantasy as a way to alleviate painfulthoughts and think of ways to make itgo away. Just like a little boy.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we coulderect an invisible force field aroundBig-T Canyon, impervious to develop-ers, rail authorities, criminals and eco-hogs — but nothing else? A shield morepowerful than that of the USS Enter-prise.

Is this fantasy something we coulddo today? It’s doubtful, consideringhow tough locating dilithium crystalsand a main deflector dish would be. Butmaybe there’s something ELSE as ef-fective we could do right now.

What if our impenetrable force fieldwas created entirely of photographicimages and video footage, showing en-dangered species inhabiting Big TWash? Images establishing presence atsome point in time on EVERY parcelrecorded in city/county documents.

Wouldn’t using a blanket of photo-graphs and videos to establish presenceof species on the verge of extinction bemore powerful than the strongest armora nation could buy? Or the biggestshields the

Federation of Planets could install ona starship?

What a legacy to leave our grandchil-dren –– the long-term preservation ofBig Tujunga Wash and it’s beautifulopen space.

After all, we owe it to the NativeAmerican people who for a thousandyears kept guard and aptly preserved it.

Now it’s our turn.

That’s why I want to thank Shane &Les, the first two volunteer photogra-phers who will start constructing thisgigantic Canyon Shield as part of alocal effort to stop inappropriate devel-opment led by the group “Save OurCanyon” and other local organization.

Starting this month, they will begoing into the canyon, immersing them-selves quietly in nature, and acting asthe eyes of future generations. Theywill serve most immediately asguardians defending fragile wildlifefrom Salisbury’s “Sardine City” pro-posal along scenic corridor land(12100-12400 Big T Canyon Rd.).

Shane and Les’ tools to build thisshield will involve nothing more buttheir cameras and zoom lens, alongwith the presence of wildlife that soonmay never walk on Earth again.

They need our help since the SardineCity proposal is supported by our CityCouncilmember Felipe Fuentes, a goodfriend of (and recipient of substantial fi-nancial contributions from) the prop-erty developer Ben Salisbury.

Isn’t it fun to dream of the possibilitythat, with enough effort, even the littlestcommunity can join together and blockthe biggest forms of greed, wealth, andpolitical back-door help?

Mark LegassieSunland-Tujunga

they and other animal lovers stare downthe encroaching “development” thatcould once and for all destroy human-ity’s natural –– and necessary –– wild-ness.

She fully described what threatensthat delicate balance between often op-posing forces, and while my husbandand I don’t share her special and near-obsessive equestrian sensibility, we livein a nearby area with many residentswho do. After our many years here, Itoo, mourn the impending loss of theselast vestiges of Western freedoms –– or,“our sacredness as human beings,” asthe author termed it –– and their irre-placeable joy in nature and animals, allat the hands of greedy and irresponsiblepushers of so-called “progress.”

In my opinion, Governor Brown’sfoolish High Speed Rail project tops thelist of boondoggles that need the loud-est and most effective objections fromCalifornia citizens, and not just for thesurvival of equine life. Anyone lookingfor a reasoned argument against it thatstarts with horses, but transcends them,reaching issues fundamental to preserv-ing America’s whole lifestyle and envi-ronment, would do well to readKelejian’s piece.

Vicki EckerKagel Canyon

Save California: StopHSR in its tracks

Dear Editor: This letter was originally aimed at

pointing out the catastrophic effectupon California’s quality of life –– es-pecially the younger generation –– ifmassive pro-growth projects like theHigh Speed Rail are allowed to proceedwith impunity. It also applies to ALLmassive development proposals, suchas the assault on Big Tujunga Canyonby the Canyon Park Homes project, notjust in California, but in the entire U.S.It’s time for concerned citizens to takea stand against NATIONWIDE FLA-GRANT DESTRUCTION of our beau-tiful country by reckless developers andtheir political allies. If you care about

the future for your children and theiroffspring, please take the time to readthis.

As a concerned California resident,I’m writing this as an open letter toeveryone who will be adversely im-pacted by the proposed high-speed railproject – this means all 38 million Cal-ifornia residents.

Although I strongly supportS.A.F.E.’s (Save Angeles Forest forEveryone) position on the HSR’s de-structive effect on several San FernandoFoothill communities, the views whichare expressed herein go beyond the Val-ley and are my own, not those ofS.A.F.E.

With its magnificent mountains,rivers, lakes, deserts, and coastline, Cal-ifornia at one time could rightfullyclaim its place among the world’s mostbeautiful and desirable places to live.Over the years, I have painfully seenmassive population growth and battleafter battle between concerned resi-dents, who value California’s desirabil-ity as the place of choice to live, andreckless, irresponsible developers whohave destroyed much of the state’s nat-ural wonders by what I call ”creepinggrowth.”

In my opinion, the HSR proposal isa terrible idea that will only accelerateCalifornia’s race to the bottom of thequality of life barrel from a “creepinggrowth” pace to “bullet train” speeds.

The HSR concept has been sold tothe public as a necessary futuristictransportation system to connect SanFrancisco to Los Angeles and beyondin a convenient and environmentally-friendly manner.

The truth of the matter is that, farfrom being necessary and environmen-tally-friendly, it is really about buildingout new cities in the Central Valley toaccommodate the projected huge in-crease in California’s population in thenear and far future. Many large areas ofundeveloped land where people cannow still go to enjoy open space havealready been purchased by real estatedevelopers, many from out of state.How are these developers going to deal

See STOP HSR, Page 9

By Krystee Clark

The Sunland-Tujunga community istaking the month of May to celebrate“FILMING IN THE FOOTHILLS.”With the new California State tax in-centives kicking-off, we would love toencourage filmmakers to give Sunland-Tujunga a chance to be their prime lo-cation. With an exhaustive resume ofHollywood films using our communityas a backdrop, we strive to host anotherTV series like ‘Sons of Anarchy,’ whichused our unique neighborhood for it’srugged environment and classic feel.

As the Chair of the Sunland-TujungaNeighborhood Council, Arts, Cultureand Recreation Committee, and thevery first Entertainment Industry Rep-resentative elected to a Los AngelesNeighborhood Council, I have been de-lighted with the work and presence ofFilm LA in our community. Please joinFILM LA for a presentation to our com-munity at the May 13 Sunland-TujungaNeighborhood Council Meeting, whichstarts at 6:30 p.m. at North Valley CityHall. The meeting will be profession-ally captured for future viewing andsharing if you are unable to join us.

To add to our community filmfriendly theme, the Little Landers His-torical Society will open an exhibit onMay 1 titled “OUR HILLS AND HOL-LYWOOD” at historic Bolton Hall. Theshow will display information and arti-facts related to the history of filming inour unique community.

The May 9 program will be titled“OUR HILLS AND HOLLYWOOD”and look at feature film productionsfrom the 1920s to recent times that haveused our community as their film ‘sets.’The program presenter will be Tujungaresident Craig Durst, who currentlyworks in the TV industry. Craig’s skillsas a master photographer have also

helped preserve our history by produc-ing a “then and now” series of photo-graphs using historical location photosand duplicating the photos in moderntimes.

Local filmmaker Mike Timm willdebut a trailer for his feature film titled“A Karma Thing,” shot entirely in Tu-junga.

Both the exhibit and program will befree of charge and are open to the public

Later that evening will be the JohnyCarpenter Film Festival at VerdugoHills High School. Reception begins at5:30 p.m. with screenings of studentfilms and Johny Carpenter classics be-ginning at 7 p.m.

Krystee Clark is a Sunland-TujungaNeighborhood Council Boardmember,

Entertainment IndustryRepresentative;

Chair of the Arts, Culture & Recre-ation Committee, Media Team, and

Animal Issues

Join our Great Streets Team!https://www.facebook.com/SunlandTu-

jungaGreatStreetsShare your voice and get in-

volved! http://www.stnc.orgStay informed with videos from theSTNC! https://vimeo.com/stnc


Arts & Entertainment

The 2nd Annual “Johny Carpenter”Film Festival is going to be bigger andbetter than ever! Our new host is Ver-dugo Hills High School, and the venuetheir historic auditorium.

The event will be held Saturday May9. There will be a pre showing recep-

tion 5:30-6:30 p.m. Movies begin at 7p.m.

Last year’s festival was hosted byBolton Hall in June. We will also havea pre show reception. There will be ano-host movie snack bar, serving yourfavorite movie treats.

Back by popular demand will be“Son of the Renegade” starring JohnyCarpenter, which will be in color. Wewill also show the original Heaven onEarth Ranch documentary in its en-tirety. The other half of the evening willbe devoted to showcasing films fromthe talented student of VHHS.

The film festival is sponsored byNew Heaven on Earth Ranch to benefitNHOER including the “Randy Horton”Riding Program. The festival was cre-ated to continue keeping the legacy ofJohny Carpenter alive and for all thosewhom he met and how he changed theirlives.

We are also fortunate to be partner-ing with Verdugo Hills High School

Drama Club and the school’s boosters.Proceeds will be shared betweenNHOER and VHHS, supporting stu-dent projects and the boosters pro-grams.

You can make your reservation bycalling 818 470-5235, [email protected] or go to our Face-book events page, 2015 Johny Carpen-ter Film Festival.

Tickets are $20.00 in advance foradults, $25.00 on event day. Ask aboutour student discount. Sponsorshipsbegin at $100.00. We also have thePayPal option for advance payments.Please go to our website atwww.NHOER.org.

New “Heaven on Earth” Ranch is aCA based 501 c (3) public charity, lo-cated in Lake View Terrace, Ca. ID#27-2613489. Call 818-470-5235. Oryou may e-mail: [email protected] the website: www.NHOER.org.Please ‘like’ us on Facebook: go to“New Heaven on Earth Ranch.”

McGroarty presents‘Night Visions’

McGroarty Art Center is pleased toannounce a new Gallery Show in ourMain Hall that will be on display duringour Spring Session. “Night Visions” isa collection of images from the Mc-Groarty Night Photography Class stu-dents and instructor.

The Gallery is open and viewable tothe public during regular businesshours. You are also invited to meet theArtists on Friday, May 29, 7-10 p.m. atour closing reception.

Night Visions is an exploration of themagic and mystery of the night throughthe eyes of McGroarty Arts Center in-structor, Nicholas Fedak II, and his stu-dents, Krystee Clark and Daniel Irvin.Each class meets at different locationsincluding Chinatown, Beverly Hills,Pasadena, and Griffith Observatory.

Once there, students look for specialnuances that include shadows, reflec-tions, and/or the absence of light.

S-T Library presentsPoet Laureate LuisRodriguez

The Sunland-Tujunga Public Librarywill present a Poetry Reading with LuisJ. Rodriguez (Poet Laureate of Los An-geles) & Elsa Frausto (Sunland-Tu-junga Poet Laureate) on Saturday, May23, 3-5 p.m. There will be an open read-ing and refreshments provided by theFriends of the S-T library. Come to par-ticipate, listen, enjoy!

Sunland-Tujunga celebrates ‘Filming in the Foothills’

The Sunland-Tujunga area has long been one of Hollywood’s best back lots. Here, Clark Gable and Claudette Colbertstar in Frank Capra’s acclaimed romantic comedy, ‘It Happened One Night.” The famous hitchhiking scene was filmed inSunland in 1934.

Johny Carpenter Film Fest kicks it up a notch


Club News

Mimi Mossman of Sherman Oaks is the Sunland-Tujunga Rotary Club’sBig Basket winner! Mimi won the Rotary Club Easter Basket at theSpring Carnival, held at Sunland Park last April, by guessing how manyeggs were in the basket!

Rotary Basket Winner!

Sunland WomansClub

The Sunland Womans club held itsApril meeting on Wednesday the 8th atthe Center for Spiritual living in LaCrescenta. Decorations on the tables re-minded us that spring was here. Color-ful little flower arrangements oflavender and pink graced the tables.

President Laney Clevenger-White welcomed all and introduced twoguests who were present. Inspirationwas given by Sarah Thostesen.

Treasurer read the report for Apriland fund-raisers were discussed. ‘4thWednesday’ craft day was discussedand paper circulated for members tosign if they are going to attend. We will

have potluck on the day we have thecrafts. Treasurer read the amount ofmoney that has been donated to the PatGeorge Memorial Fund to benefit ourscholarships given each year to Ver-dugo Hills and Mt. Lukens students.

Lunch was served of salad, quiche,and ice cream with chocolate bits.

Program for the afternoon wasa member of the Sheriffs Departmentfrom L.A. County, Eric Matejka. Theofficer talked with us about what wecan do to protect ourselves and ourhomes from robbery and burglary.

A silent auction was held and mem-bers bid on items that were brought bymembers. Money made from the auc-tion was designated for the generalfund. Many interesting and wonderfultreasurers were available.

Republican Club tohost Robert Kaufman

The Republican Club of the Foothillswill host a program, “The Perils ofObama’s Foreign Policy, the case stud-ies of Iran & Israel, ” featuring politicalscientist Dr. Robert Kaufman, on Tues-day, May 5, at the La Canada Thursday

Club, 4440 Woodleigh Lane, LaCanada. Doors open at 6 p.m., with din-ner and program beginning at 6:45 p.m.The cost is $25 for members; $30 fornon-members; $5 for students. Dinnerwill be catered Cinco de Mayo fare.RSVP to [email protected]; MaryOwen at 818-249-5936; or Jill Williamsat 818-952-5508. Visit the website at:http:/www.rcotf.info.

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Note to SanFernando: the 39thDistrict has newassemblywoman

Dear Editor:Here is a letter I wrote to Ms. Ballin

and Mr. Fajardo:I am just surprised that the City Of

San Fernando would have allowed anEaster flyer listing Raul Bocanegra asthe assembly member for the 39th Dis-trict. It is now April, and he has notbeen the assembly member since De-cember!

I know the City of San Fernando “en-dorsed” Mr. Bocanegra’s re-electioncampaign, and while you may not sup-port the current member do you reallyneed to insult the assemblywoman withthis flyer?

h t t p : / / w w w. s f r c s . c o m / w p -content/uploads/2012/06/2015-Egg-Flyer-Color-8x11.2FINAL.jpg

Edwin RamirezSan Fernando

Editor’s note: when this letter wasreceived in April, the website refer-enced above did display the flyer towhich Mr. Ramirez refers. It has sincebeen removed from the website.

with the fact that California’s CentralValley is trying to cope with long-termsevere water shortages? This severedrought is not predicted to “go away”by any competent scientist. How canthere be new city development ration-ally planned by anyone when the basicneed for water cannot be fulfilled?

What has happened to the quality oflife in California?

Depending upon whose numbers youbelieve, the state already has dropped toa rank of mediocre, at best, in educationquality. With a few fortunate excep-tions, most of the state’s 38 million orso residents crammed into the desirableliving areas are already plagued bywall-to-wall shopping centers, wall-to-wall housing developments, gridlockedfreeways, ubiquitous traffic jams, graf-fiti, demonstrations, drug-use, gang vi-olence, fewer and fewer jobs, more andmore homelessness, aggravating waitsat the DMV, massive and flagrant ille-gal immigration, the emergence of an-tibiotic-resistant bacteria, etc.High-speed freeway chases and hit-and-runs seem to have become the lat-est pastimes of choice. Clearly, to anycompetent authority, these are effects ofovercrowding and need to be addressednow –– and not kicked down the roaduntil the current crop of politicians is

STOP HSR, from Page 6

Letters to the Editor – Continuedsafely out of office. Unchecked popu-lation growth is the most importantissue of our lifetimes. Unless drasticchanges are made to deal with these is-sues, quality of life is certain to deteri-orate rapidly.

The U.S. population is forecasted tonearly double from the current approx-imately 319 million to 600 million inonly 30 years — and then to almost 1billion (!) by the year 2100. California’spopulation can be assumed to grow pro-portionately. Almost everyone bornafter the Baby Boomers era (plus theiroffspring) could still be living in 2100and will need to compete with manymore people than they do today for jobsand basic living necessities. Can any oftoday’s parents be comfortable with theknowledge that their children’s strug-gles will be even more difficult thantheirs?

Does anyone remember “The Popu-lation Bomb” of 40 years ago? Sooth-ing clichés such as: “Growth is good,”“You can’t stop progress,” “We’ll getthrough these temporary problems,”“Things will only get better in the fu-ture,” etc. by political “leaders” mayhave worked 40 years ago, but this timearound, with a much larger U.S. popu-lation –– not just California –– policymakers had better become rational andresponsible before the population bombexplodes in their faces. Make no mis-take, everyone will be negatively af-fected –– except, of course, thoseindividuals whose lack of forethoughtcaused it to happen; they will have pro-tected themselves beforehand.

The intent of this letter is not to de-bate whether growth is good or bad. Ionly want to describe what I’ve seenhappen in my lifetime.

When I was a kid fresh out of collegemany years ago and the U.S. populationwas approximately 160,000,000, a per-son would apply for a job at a companyor with government, got a timely inter-view and, most of the time, a job offer.Multiple job offers with companiescompeting in both salary and perkswere the norm, not the exception. Insharp contrast, last year Goldman Sachshad 267,000 applicants for 8,300 jobs.There are many other examples where10,000 to 50,000 applicants apply for a

handful of even temporary jobs. Onecan’t even begin to imagine the devas-tation and frustration that must be feltby job seekers when they can’t get a jobafter sending out hundreds or eventhousands of resumes.

A recent report titled “The MillennialGeneration Research Review” from theU.S. Chamber of Commerce Founda-tion concludes that:

• “Nearly half of Millennials feelthey may be worse off than their parents[the first generation to feel so.]”

• “Health trends indicate that Millen-nials could be the first generation inover a century to see their lifespan leveloff and even decline, with obesity be-coming epidemic.”

• “Further, sixty-six percent of Mil-lennials say they have lowered their ex-pectations [of being promoted.]”

Despite these negative observations,The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foun-dation website steadfastly declares thatit “is dedicated to promoting initiativesthat grow our nation’s economy.”

Not surprisingly, the U.S. Chamberof Commerce Foundation enthusiasti-cally promotes, through nationwidetours, their self-serving one-sided viewssuch as “The Growth Imperative: HowSlow Growth Threatens Our Future andthe American Dream.”

According to the Chamber’s view,economic growth should bring with itunparalleled positive effects on qualityof life with promises of unlimited ca-reer opportunities, limitless choice ofjobs for everyone, happiness for all andeverything else the PR people candream up. Instead, from the U.S. Cham-ber’s own findings, what young peopleactually got was:

• “Once Millennials understand andexperience firsthand the severely re-stricted job market, they are forced tocompromise their anticipation of land-ing that perfect job.”

• “34% have boomeranged back toliving with their parents and perhapshave taken an unpaid job to gain workexperience.”

This is a far cry from the “multiplejob offers and companies that competedsalary-and perks-wise with each other”

See DREAM, Page 14


Team vonGunten

‘wowed’ thecrowd with

its tasty potof chili. It’s chili!

Hottimesat theRotaryChiliCook-off

Spice andshowmanshiphelped to turnup the heat at

the RotaryClub’s chili

cook-off heldat the Elks

Lodge in April. Photos by Kresse ArmourAbove, winners in the business category gather to accept their cook-off awards. From left, ‘Uncle Bob and Auntie Gail,’Carla Bebout, Tom Smoker and Vickie Strandquist. Awards were presented by Rotary President Wendell Bowers, right.

Above left, 2nd place winners in the ‘Vegan Chili’ category, Roger and Markus Klemm; and Deanna Bowers accepting the 1st placetrophy for daughter Jennifer’s winning ‘soylicious’ chili recipe awarded by Wendell Bowers. At right, Karen and Jon von Gunten,cooks dishing up ‘VG Chili,’ accept the 1st place trophy for best chili with beans from Rotary President Wendell Bowers.


Easter Carnivalcelebration atSunland Park

Photos by Kresse ArmourKids of all ages came out for aweekend of fun that included rides,face painting, bubbles, and livelyentertainment. The Easter Carnivalwas sponsored by the Sunland-Tu-junga Chamber of Commerce.


All proceeds to benefit the Sunland-Tujunga Shadow Hills Community Fund

a 501(c)3 non-profit organization

One - 4' x 8' banner with sponsor nameSocial Media - Website - Stage AnnouncementsAdvertising on Street and Window SignageThank You Ad in the VoiceEntrance for 10

PATRIOT Sponsors - $2,500

One - 4' x 8' banner with sponsor nameStage AnnouncementAdvertising on Street and Window SignagThank You Ad in the VoiceEntrance for 8

BEN FRANKLIN Sponsors - $1,000

Stage AnnouncementAdvertising on Street and Window SignageProgram Listing in VoiceEntrance for 6

ANTHEM Sponsors - $500

Advertising on Street and Window SignageThank You Ad in the VoiceEntrance for 4

MINUTEMAN Sponsors - $250

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Sunland-Tujunga Shadow Hills Rotary Club

sunlandtujungafireworks.com

2015 4th of July

Family Fireworks Festival

Verdugo Hi l ls High SchoolFootball Field

Live Music • Entertainment

Food • Fireworks • Fun

Saturday, July 4thGates Open at 5 P.M.Kids under 30" FREE

Kids Games

Present

Sunland-Tujunga Neighborhood Council

Sunland-Tujunga Shadow Hills Community Fund in coordination with

andOur community’s history with the

film industry is a long one. Locationsin Sunland-Tujunga, Shadow Hills,Sun Valley, Lake View Terrace andsurrounding communities have beenused for hundreds of feature lengthfilms, TV movies, TV series and com-mercials since the early 1900s. Ourunique small town look, historicalbuildings, open spaces, rural scenes,the Tujunga Wash and our mountainsall provide scenic backdrops for manyfilm shoots.

This month, Little Landers Histori-cal Society celebrates this history withthe opening of a new temporary ex-hibit at Bolton Hall. The exhibit, “OurHills and Hollywood,” will featuresome familiar and not so familiarmovies and shows that have scenesfilmed here. Look closely and you’lleven find Bolton Hall and CommerceAvenue in the city of “Charming” inepisodes of a very popular recent TVseries.

Little Landers Historical Societyalso conducts special programs of his-torical interest on the second Saturdayof each month. In conjunction with theopening of the new exhibit, our May9th program is also titled “Our Hillsand Hollywood.” It will be look at fea-ture film productions from the 1920sto recent times that have used ourcommunity and hills as film sets

Program presenter, Craig Durst hasgathered film clips from many moviesfilmed here and has gone back to theselocations to show us where they areand what they look like now. Craig isa Sunland-Tujunga resident who has apassion for hunting down remnants ofLos Angeles history. He moved to LosAngeles in 1984 to attend the Instituteof Audio Visual Engineering. Follow-ing graduation, he managed Music LabRecording Studios in Hollywood priorto starting his own TV productioncompany, Creative Avenue, in 1987.Craig is also a founding member ofJLTV, a national TV network. Craig’sskills as a master photographer havealso helped preserve our local historyby producing a “then and now” seriesof photographs using historical loca-tion photos and duplicating the photosin modern times.

We’re delighted that the timing ofthis exhibit and program coincide withsignificant Los Angeles citywide ef-forts to encourage more filming andcontinued use of our Southern Califor-nia natural settings and spectacularweather.

Bolton Hall is located at 10110Commerce Avenue, Tujunga, and isopen to the public on Tuesday andSunday afternoons from 1-4 p.m. Boththe exhibit and program are free ofcharge and are open to the public.

Historical society presents ‘Our Hillsand Hollywood,’ a temporary exhibit


Dan MurnanConstruction

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New ToastmastersClub forming inFoothills areaBy Richard Stewart

Two award winning ToastmastersClubs, Renaissance Speakers Toastmas-ters Club and Burbank’s Open HouseToastmasters Club, are co-sponsoring a

new club in ourown FoothillsNeighborhood.All are welcometo find out more atthe “Charter/Demonstration”meeting of the

NEW “Foothills Community Toastmas-ters Club,” to be held Monday, May 11,7-9 p.m., at 11112 Oro Vista Ave., Sun-land.

Toastmasters, which is celebrating its90th year, is an international publicspeaking organization with 14,650clubs in 126 countries, with member-ship exceeding 313,000.

All clubs are designed to help mem-bers improve their public speakingskills. They are geared for beginners(those who sweat bullets or wouldrather choose death than speak in pub-lic) to advanced speakers, who enjoywriting and delivering speeches. Thespeakers are given immediate feedbackdesigned to encourage them and helpthem to become even better speakers.

The tagline or motto is “Toastmas-ters: Where Leaders Are Made.” Theleadership educational programs areequally effective. Every meeting isgeared toward practicing how to speak,keeping meetings well organized andon time, and enthusiastically welcom-ing new members and providing con-structive feedback. And the best part isthat all is done in the spirit of play for afun experience. For more information,contact Serena McCullough at 626-644-9827 or Alithea Coleman at 818-749-4751.

Models in the Mountains 2015 has alittle something for every model horseenthusiast. Three days of indoor andoutdoor photography opportunities.Camping. A halter show on Saturday,and a performance show on Sunday.Prizes. Shopping. A diorama-makingcontest. A silent auction item donatedby Breyer (Reeves International), oneof the best-known tack makers in thehobby. Jenifer Bray Buxton will hold aperformance clinic and judge bothshows. Stay for a day, or stay for theweekend.

Model horse hobbyists of all skilland experience levels are welcome. Afirst time event, MIM 2015 is a retreatfor both serious and novice model horsecollectors and showers. And if you havea herd of equines but didn’t know therewas such a thing as showing modelhorses...be sure to come. You’ll be infor a real treat.

Jennifer will be judging the haltershow on Saturday, May 16 at ChilaoSchool, nestled in the heart of the An-geles National Forest. On Sunday, Jen-nifer will lend her expertise to aperformance show and clinic, givingfeedback and suggestions to partici-pants and judging their entries for cor-rectness, accuracy and appeal. Modelhorses in a show environment are ex-pected to faithfully represent theirlarger, living counterparts.

Tent and motorhome camping isavailable, both at Meadow Camp-ground and at Chilao School, just aquarter mile apart from each other.Guests are encouraged “to bring everymodel horse-related thing you cancarry: props, horses, companion ani-mals, cameras, lights, tack, riders,fences and other elements for the manyphoto opportunities the weekend willprovide. Weather permitting, there willbe between four and six outdoor pho-tography stations boasting fabulousviews. Why? Because photo showing isanother way that model horse collectorscompete with each other. Driving andhoning the creative spirit, photo show-ing continues to evolve into a more and

Equine ‘Models in the Mountains 2015’ May 15-17

more refined art form, andthere will be plenty of oppor-tunities to master the craft atMIM.

Prior showing experienceis not required. All modelhorse enthusiasts are wel-come. Registration informa-tion, directions, the class listfor Saturday and Sunday andmore information can befound on the official MIMwebsite:

http://modelsinthemoun-tains.weebly.com

Models in the Mountains also has a Facebook page, and an event page on Face-book: https://www.facebook.com/ modelsinthemountains2015. Or check out:

https://www.facebook.com/events/840902085921516/


Community News

Highly sought “RattlesnakeAversion Training” classes arebeing offered locally!

High On Kennels, Rancho Tu-junga, Teranga Ranch and theSunland-Tujunga NeighborhoodCouncil are happy to present rat-tlesnake aversion training foryour dog.

Join us on Saturday May 30, 8a.m. to 6 p.m. The cost is $75 perdog. APPOINTMENTS ARENECESSARY. Email to scheduleyour time frame: [email protected]

The classes will be held at Ran-cho Tujunga, 11900 Big TujungaCanyon Rd. Tujunga.

Rattlesnakeaversion trainingclasses planned

Community CleanUp, BeautificationDay set for May 2

Members of the community areinvited to come out for the latestCommunity Clean Up & Beautifi-cation Day set for Saturday, May2, 8:30 – 11:30 a.m.

This will be the last clean upproject for a while.

Volunteers should meet at Val-mont Street and Foothill Boule-vard. Park by the Auto Zone. Wewill be picking up trash and cut-ting weeds. Also we will bespreading out into Sunland by theKmart property!

Tools and trash bags will beprovided by Councilman Fuentes’office. Bring a hat and your fa-vorite gardening tools for trim-ming, if you like. Communityservice hours provided for stu-dents.

For more information call theSunland-Tujunga District Officeat 818-352-3287.

By Pat Kramer

On March 27, top management ofLADWP met with STNC Region 1Rep. Pat Kramer and STNC Animal Is-sues Chair Dana Stangel to discuss arequest (unanimously approved by theSTNC board) that a protocol be estab-lished for animal rescues off powerequipment in the City of Los Angeles.Joining them for this meeting were:DWP Director, Power Transmission &Distribution Division AndrewKendall; DWP Director, Intergovern-mental Affairs & Community Rela-tions Winifred Yancy; Fire Captain

Hamel of S-T’s Fire Station, andBoard of Neighborhood Commission-ers’ Lydia Grant.

The meeting was set up as an effortto alleviate problem animal rescues offpower poles like the one that tookplace in Sunland last November. Theletter requested that DWP allow theDepartment of Animal Services’ Spe-cialized Mobile Animal Rescue Team(SMART) to assist whenever an ani-mal was trapped on their equipment.The SMART team has special trainingto handle wild and frightened animalsand has been working with AnimalServices since 2008.

At the March 27 meeting betweenDWP and the STNC reps, a productivediscussion took place resulting in anassurance from the DWP reps that theSMART team would be called for fu-ture rescues. By working together, thiswill ensure a safer outcome for boththe city workers and the animals.

By initiating this meeting withDWP’s top management, your SunlandTujunga Neighborhood Council wasable to initiate what may very well be-come a citywide policy to improve thehealth and safety of local wildlife anddomestic animals — and the humanswho often risk their lives to perform

these rescues.The STNC meets for its next

monthly board meeting on May 13, at6:30 p.m. at North Valley City Hall,7747 Foothill Boulevard, Tujunga.Food and refreshments are providedfor stakeholders.

The next STNC Animal IssuesCommittee meeting will be held onMay 26 at 7 p.m. at North Valley CityHall. Come for an interesting presen-tation by one of our animal rescue ex-perts.

Pat can be reached at: [email protected].

Orthopaedic Guild raising funds for Charity Care ProgramLa Cañada Flintridge Orthopaedic Guild members are working to raise funds for the Charity Care Program at Or-thopaedic Institute for Children (OIC). OIC provides a vital safety net for underserved children with potentially cripplingdisorders who have nowhere else to turn. From left, President Joan Cleven, Chair Marie Baker, Ginney Pruitt,Linda Labrie, Jeanne Long, Easy Delaney and Mary Lou Morrison

LADWP and STNC Animal Issues Committee working together

that I enjoyed in my youth! And how about this quote from the

Chamber report: “All agree it’s muchharder to be a young adult today than itwas even just a generation ago.”

Why should it be much harder to bea young adult today than it was onlyone generation ago? Then and now ourbusiness and elected “leaders” withtheir hordes of ”expert” economists andmedia allies have always assured usthat prosperity is linked to incessantgrowth as measured by the number ofhouses built, number of cars manufac-tured, miles of freeways built, numberof televisions sold, how much holidayretail sales increased over the last sea-son, etc.

Isn’t the whole concept of the

“American Dream” so relentlessly pro-moted by pro-growth interests based onthe promise that successive generationswould always have it better than theirparents? It is no wonder that Millenni-als feel as negatively as they do aboutthe prospects for a positive future,given that the promises made as theywere growing up have not been deliv-ered.

The point I am trying to make is thatrelentless growth policies have NOTled to an increased quality of life, butinstead, have had the exact opposite ef-fect.

Is this the legacy that we as a societywant to leave for the younger genera-tion? Well, that is what your childrenand their children can expect if the HSRbecomes a reality. And….keep in mind,the earlier brief mention of the seriouswater shortage does not discuss the ex-

plosion of the problem when the popu-lation increases. And….. there are someparts of California, where developmentwas previously approved, that nowhave no water because of the extendeddrought that many were sure wouldnever happen.

It is time to think rationally abouteverything as a whole, not to think ofevery issue as a standalone. It is time tothink about the future consequences ofbad decisions made today. Whether onethinks of the enjoyable open spaces ofits diverse natural landscape, its Stateand National Parks, the predictability ofthe drought issues, and those issuesmentioned here and not mentionedhere, the HSR project is the worst po-litical decision imaginable for the futureof California.

David R. SafranyLake View Terrace, CA

DREAM, from Page 9

Letter - Continued


By Cindy CleghornMember, Land Use CommitteeSTNC Secretary

The STNC’s Land Use Committeehas been in existence since before thecertification of the Sunland-TujungaNeighborhood Council (STNC) andwas previously known as the DesignAdvisory Committee. Through theyears the committee has worked tire-lessly to bring improvement over timeto Foothill Boulevard as well as to thesurrounding areas in residential andcommercial.

A special thank you to Dean Shererfor his many years of service as a com-mittee member and recent chairman ofthe Land Use Committee. Dean hasstepped down due to his work schedule.We look forward to working with himas he is able to in the future and wishhim all the best.

At the last meeting the committeesaw a presentation by Communities inAction along with Deputy City Attor-ney and Neighborhood Prosecutor,Susan Chung, about working togetheron community response regarding ABClicense applications and renewals that

will include a “merchant committed”recognition opportunity. Being a part ofthis effort will include training, net-working, notice, code of conduct andstore makeover. The program is fundedby the LA County Department of PublicHealth. The Land Use Committee willbe scheduling future meetings and op-portunities to work with businesses inthe near future.

The California High Speed Rail Au-thority has released new maps showinga new E3 route west of RiverwoodRanch. We urge you to take interest inthe proposed routes that the CAHSR

consultants have made public. You cansee the latest updates and links on theSTNC website.

LUC meetings in May will includeeducation on plans, ordinances andguidelines that we follow when review-ing applications as well as speakersfrom the City Planning Department andBuilding and Safety. Meetings will beheld Monday May 4 and Monday May11 due to construction work at NorthValley City Hall. Meetings start at 7p.m. unless otherwise indicated.

See website for more details and up-dates at: stnc.org/committees.

Sunland-Tujunga Neighborhood Council

Eric Owens VHHS RoundupBy Eric Owens

On March 20, Verdugo Hills hostedits annual talent show. The show fea-tured Jon Owens, Beth Blackwell, Jef-frey Escobar, Minuet Azani, NatalieHenriquez, magician Skylar Presley,Angelica Mardoyan, Jeremy Elliot,Jade Lane and Samantha Ajab, but thetrio of Luz Rodriguez, Kassidee Recon-sal and Alyssa Panganiban repeated aschampions. While Gwendalyn Sullivengot 2nd place, and dancer Ann Tatulianfinished in 3rd.

Seniors Blackwell, Makayla Nicholsand Diana Chilian from the reigningCity Section Champion soccer teamwere named to the All-City Div. III firstteam as well as freshman Brisa Flores.

Blackwell also placed 1st at the Bur-roughs HS Show choir event on April10. Senior 2x All-City center AdrianGutierrez became the first ever Don tobe named All-City Div. 1 first team andformer Mount Gleason Jr High’sClarence Williams, who won his 2ndhoops title, was also named All CityDiv. 1.

Senior Jasmin Kim, a former studentat Mountain View Elementary, helpedGranada Hills Charter High School wina national championship for their Aca-demic Decathlon team this past month.

Lastly, Verdugo Hills has many great

events to look forward to in the Relayfor Life (May 30 – June 1) as well asthe graduation ceremony on Wednes-day, June 3. The ceremony begins at6pm.

BASEBALL After Starting 0-6, the Dons baseball

team has won 12 of their last 19 games- including a 1-0 win at San Fernandoon April 18 behind a 63-pitch completegame from senior Mauricio Mena.

Matty ‘Ice’ Zavala’s RBI doublescored Jesus Torres in the second in-ning. This was only the 3rd 1-0 victoryand 30th overall shutout under sevenyear head coach Angel Espindola, whoare now 12-13.

On the junior varsity level, ClaySuggs pitched yet another competegame in a 58-pitch, 6-0 win over theNorth Hollywood Huskies on April 15,Your JV Dons come into May at 12-7-1 overall.

On the 21st, Crescenta Valley’s EricMa crushed the Tornadoes of Hoover11-1 in five innings. UCLA-bound aceBrian Gadsby, who got the best of Vil-lage Christian junior and LMU signeeDavid Barta 1-0 on March 17, started inleft field and batted 6th. Gadsby hit alaser shot past the short stop in his firstAt Bat for a hit.

Sunland Park football Champions:Weston Walker went 2 for 3 with 4 RBIand brother Chase scored a run. We-ston’s bases-loaded walk scored JaimeBlank in the win over Village Christianin March.

As for Village Christian, CoastalCarolina signee Chris Davidson re-ceived his 20th career win against hostWhittier Christian on April 21. David-son (20-5 1.31 ERA) went 6 innings,striking out 9.

SOFTBALL On April 15, the Lady Dons softball

team hosted the Huskies of North Hol-lywood in the battle of the bottom halfof the East Valley League Standings, inwhich your Dons pulled out a 4-1 vic-tory.

Junior CIF Champion first basemenClara DiMino went 2 for 4 with thegame-winning RBI scoring AshleyWright, who was walked three times;while senior right fielder Valerie Haa-paniemi had three hits and scored onetime. Tujunga All-Stars Kacee Howserand Bree Harmon did well pitching forthe Dons (5-9).

Howser pitched the first four inningsstriking out four allowing two hits toget the win and went 2 for 3 at the plate;while junior reliever Harmon came IN

to pickup a 3 inning save for the Dons.Howser got former Dons volleyball andTujunga All Star Ryelle Cox to groundout to her in the circle and also got herout at third behind Harmon. TiffanyCorrales, a Tujunga Thrasher fall ballinfielder, reached on an error byThrasher and North Hollywood Huskiethird baseman Amanda Garza.

Thrashers’ DiMino, Howser, Har-mon, Cox, Corrales, Garza, TyTyCooper and Samantha Contreras com-bined to go seven for twenty with 17putouts (6 strikeouts), seven assists andone double play to help their respectiveteams of Verdugo Hills and North Hol-lywood.

As for the JV Dons, Tujunga LittleLeague All-Stars in freshman Liz Mezaand Emma Johnson got the Vikings ofMonroe HS to be no-hit on at home andon the road.

Lauren Coronado, another freshman,picked up her first career win over thedefending East Valley League Cham-pion Arleta Mustangs at home in a 8-7win. JV comes into the April 23rd dead-line with an overall record of 8-4-1 and5-2 in league. JV is currently in 2nd.

Coronado went 3-for-3 in the Arletavictory; while freshman Rhiannon Jerz(another Thrasher softball player) con-tributed with a RBI double in her thirdtime at the plate.

Riding lessons are now available atthe New Heaven On Earth Ranch. Expe-rience the joy of riding ponies. Safetyorientation is provided. Classes areavailable for children and young adults,and are free of charge to those in need.

• PATH INTL. Certified. Fully in-sured.

• Professional horse trainer on site.• Small groups of five students at a

time.• Helmets and riding shoes provided.• Learn all about horses, their upkeep

& use.• Everyone gets to ride around one

mile trail. • Always on a pony line. • Inquire about more advanced les-

sons for individuals.

• Also clinics for local schools.• Up to 5 per class.

Those interested in classes needto book in advance. Classes are held Sat-urdays 1-4 p.m. For earlier appoint-ments, please contact NHOER.Parents/guardians must read and com-plete release forms.

To book a class, email:[email protected]. Or, call 818-470-5235.

Location: 9845 Foothill Place, LakeView Terrace.

Sponsored and hosted by the New“Heaven on Earth” Ranch, a California-based 501 c (3) Public Charity. ID# 27-2613489. Visit our website:www.NHOER.org. Like us on Facebookunder New Heaven on Earth Ranch.

NHOER riding program offeringclasses for kids and young adults OLL Family Fun Days set May 15-17

Our Lady of Lourdes will host Family Fun Days, a celebration for theentire family, May 14-17. Admission to the event is free.

The festivitieswill include a luauparty to kick offFriday night, allnew rides, manyprizes, a beer gar-den with margaritasand mai tais, andlive entertainment.

Hours of thethree days of funand festivities willbe 6-10 p.m. on Fri-day, 4-10 p.m. onSaturday and 11 a.m.-8 p.m. on Sunday.

For discounts on tickets and sponsorship opportunities, visit the event’swebsite at OLLFAMILYFUNDAYS.COM.

The event will be held at 7324 Apperson Street, Tujunga.


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The Village Poets of Sunland-Tujungaare delighted to announce that BrendaPetrakos and Marlene Hitt will be thefeatured poets at their upcoming MonthlyReading Series on Sunday, May 24, 4:30– 6:30 p.m., at Bolton Hall Museum,10110 Commerce Ave., Tujunga. Poetsare welcome to sign-up for the openreading upon arrival. Light refreshmentswill be served – a $3 donation is appre-ciated! Check out the Village Poets ofSunland-Tujunga at: http://www.village-poets.blogspot.com.

Brenda Petrakos is a storyteller, per-formance artist, award-winning play-wright and Pushcart–nominatedwriter. Her dynamic, tell-it-all approachhas won over audiences in California,Chicago, New York, London, and Edin-burgh, Berlin and Sweden.

Petrakos is a widely published poetwhose work can be found in literarymagazines and anthologies including Po-etic Diversity, Falling Star, Voices OfNew Women Writers (Duke UniversityPress), Magna Poets, Houston LiteraryReview, Red Fez, Three Rooms Press,Oakland Review, and many more. Shehas three books published by Sybaritic

Press: The Book of This, Country Fixins,and Stories from the Inside Edge, whichhas been adapted for both stage andscreen. Stories from the Edge, an eveningof Petrakos’ stories directed by E. Amato,featured performances by Los Angelespoets and actors and the short film“Cop.” In 2007, Petrakos took Storiesfrom the Edge to the Festival Fringe Ed-inburgh, performing with John Burton,Jr. “Cop” also screened at Cinema Slamin Park City, Utah.

Several stories from the collection areunder option, including “Too TallDiane,” “Violet’s Bed,” “Indiscretions,”and “The Curtain.”

“STANLEY,” a feature screenplay sheco-wrote with Joel Sachs, is currently indevelopment. From 2007-2012, Petrakoswas a host of the venerable Los Angelesreading, The Rapp Saloon. With a back-ground in stand-up and writing sketchcomedy for Showtime, CBS and Fox, shevolunteers her experience and time lead-ing comedy improv workshops for at-risk youth. She is a founding member ofInternational Word Bank Productionsand CFO of Baxter Daniels Ink Press.

Marlene Hitt is a Los Angeles poet,

writer and retired educator with local his-tory as an avocation. She has served formany years as archivist, historian and do-cent at the Bolton Hall Museum in Tu-junga. She is a native Californian and agraduate of Occidental College in LosAngeles. She studied casually at CSUN,UCLA, USC, Glendale College and

Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. As a member of the Chupa Rosa Writ-

ers of Sunland for nearly 30 years, shehas worked with this small group ofpoets from which has sprung readings atthe local library, the Poet Laureate Pro-gram of Sunland-Tujunga, and the cur-rently popular Village Poets.

Her poetry received several first prizesin annual competitions of the Woman’sClub of San Fernando Valley, and manyawards from the John Steven McGroartyChapter of the California Federations ofChaparral Poets. Her work appeared inPsychopoetica (U.K.), Chupa Rosa Di-aries of the Chupa Rosa Writers, (2001-2003), Glendale CollegeEclipse anthologies, two Moonrise Pressanthologies Chopin with Cherries(2010) Meditations on Divine Names(2012). Also, “Sometimes in the Open,”is a collection of verse by CaliforniaPoets Laureate.

She published “Sad With Cinnamon,”“Mint Leaves,” and “Bent Grass” (all in2001), as well as “Riddle in the Rain”with Dorothy Skiles, and a stack of chap-

Village Poets to present Hitt and Petrakos on May 24

See POETS, Page 17

Marlene Hitt


Upcoming Events

By Pat KramerSTNC Region 1 Rep

Summerfest is a free event! Theopening ceremony will be held on Sat-urday, June 27, at 1 p.m., with appear-ances by local, city and statedignitaries.

Summerfest, brought to you byTeranga Ranch, is an annual festival atSunland Park that raises money to builda Nature Center for our area. Withsponsorships by many local organiza-tions, this animal and family–friendlyfestival features clowns, carnival rides,live music, animal adoptions, arts andcrafts activities for kids, wildlife edu-cation, and the sale of food, drinks,handmade crafts, jewelry and otheritems.

Teranga Ranch, a local nonprofit that

has beena r o u n ds i n c e2006, isdedicatedto wildlifeeducationand rep-tile res-cue. Itwas founded by local biology teacherand returned Peace Corps volunteerDana Stangel (Animal Issues chairper-son for the Sunland Tujunga Neighbor-hood Council) to increase people’sawareness about the wildlife aroundthem and to enable people to coexistwith our local wildlife without fear andwithout harm to the wildlife that con-tribute to our local ecosystem.

“We are trying to save our local apex

predators, those at the top of the foodchain, as well as other local wildlife,”said Stangel. “Right now, we providepresentations to schools and at differentevents around Los Angeles, but weneed support to be more effective in ourmission.”

Describing a dream that she has longhad to build and operate a local NatureCenter in our Foothills area Stangeladded, “It will house local wildlife and

will be a baby animal rehab center forwildlife; it will also serve as a center forwildlife professionals to give wildlifeeducation workshops to other wildlifeprofessionals and also the public. Wewill be a training facility for Fish andWildlife and also the National ForestService. We will also be a center for the

Armed Forces DayTribute Car ShowMay 16

On Saturday, May 16, at CrescentaValley Park in La Crescenta, the Amer-ican Legion Post 288 and the Veteransof Foreign Wars Post 1614 will host andsponsor an automobile show from 10a.m. until 3p.m. with the net proceedsgoing to military and children’s chari-ties.

The show will feature classic auto-mobiles, hot rods and military vehicles.

Admission to the event by the gen-eral public is FREE. Auto Show partic-ipants may pre-register their auto

Glendale ArtAssociation to holdMay 14 meeting

The Glendale Art Association willhold its May association meeting at theCitiBank community serviceroom, 2350 Honolulu Ave., Montrose,on Thursday, May 14 –– 6:45 p.m. forparty/snacks; 7 p.m. for the meeting.

Joseph Stoddard, watercolorist,teacher, designer, and author willdemonstrate a watercolor painting. Alocal man with a love of the Pasadenaarea, and indeed of Southern California,Stoddard’s desire is that people have anemotional response to his paintings anddrawings.

Fee for meeting: members $5,guests $7. For more information con-tact

Honor Haase at: 818-248-7373.

Land Use Committeemeetings May 4 & 18

The Sunland-Tujunga NeighborhoodCouncil LUC meetings for May:

May 4: 7-10 p; May 18: 7-10 p. m.The meetings will be held at North Val-ley City hall, 7747 Foothill Bl. Room#103.

Neighborhood Watchmeeting set May 19

The Sunland-Tujunga NeighborhoodCouncil Neighborhood Watch Meetingwill be held 6:30-9 p.m. on Tuesday,May 19, at North Valley City Hall,7747 Foothill Bl. Room #103.

Ladies Afternoon TeaMay 9

Shadow Hills Presbyterian Church ishosting “A Ladies Afternoon Tea” onSaturday, May 9, from 2-4 p.m. Dona-tion is $20. Daughters under 15 are$10.

Good tea and good food is such apleasure and good friends are to savorand treasure

Combine them both in an afternoontea and you have joy beyond measure

STNC meet May 13The Sunland-Tujunga Neighborhood

Council will hold its next monthlyboard meeting on Wednesday, May 13,at North Valley City Hall, 7747 FoothillBl. Room #103 at 6:30 p.m.

TTT presents ‘MillionDollar Arm’ May 5

On Tuesday, May 5, at BethelChurch, 10725 Penrose St., Sun Valley,818-767-4488, Tuesday Table Talk willoffer a showing of the film “MillionDollar Arm” (rated PG). Looking tosave his failing business, a sports agentlaunches a reality show to find India’sbest cricketers, with the goal of turningthem into professional baseball playersand signing them to Major League con-tracts. The video will be preceded by apotluck supper. The potluck starts at6:30 PM, the video presentation startsat 7:15 PM, followed by desert and dis-cussion at about 9:15 PM. Free.

VHAA - Artist PaintDemo by JimmyWisnowski

Join the Verdugo Hills Art Associa-tion for our next artist demo. We arepleased to have Jimmy Wisnowski asour next demonstrator on Friday, May1. He is a superb painter and teacher.Jimmy focuses on the outdoor land-scape in both oils and watercolor medi-ums, traveling across Europe and theUSA. Painting plein air gives him animmediate and intimate encounter withhis subject, which allows him to trans-late the experience onto canvas. Comejoin us for an evening of good snacks,artists and mingling along with a greatDEMO! Demo is at The CommunityCenter of La Canada Flintridge, 4469Chevy Chase Drive, La Canada. 7 p.m.

Summerfest planned at Sunland Park June 26-28Friday, June 26, 5 p.m. – 10 p.m. (featuring punk rock entertainment)Saturday, June 27, noon to 11 p.m. (featuring rock music)

Sunday, June 28, noon to 9 p.m. (featuring the Blues)

entries for $25 or register their cars onthe day of the show for $30. Trophiesand dash plaques will be awarded toparticipants.

In addition to the automobile and ve-hicle displays, there will be Fire, Police,and Search & Rescue personnel and ve-hicles. There will be a DJ with “OldTime Rock ‘N Roll” as well as foodtrucks and vendors. A Kid’s Clinic willbe held by HOME DEPOT with“hands-on” tool demonstrations byRIGID, MILWAUKEE, RYOBI andother manufacturers.

A SILENT AUCTION will be heldduring the event with food and gift cer-tificates from local restaurants and re-tailers. There will be FREE coffee anddonuts for all Veterans. A HOME-TOWN HERO’S GARDEN will saluteour local veterans who gave the ulti-mate sacrifice. There will be a specialdisplay by the LEGION RIDERS andBIKERS AGAINST DRUG ABUSE.

The Special Guest Speaker will beCaptain Gerald L. Peterson, US Navy,Retired. In addition to the American Le-gion and VFW, other sponsors of theevent are HOME DEPOT, OutlawGarage, De Bell Golf Course, EarlyRoders Car Club and the United MuscleCar Association.

See SUMMERFEST, Page 19

For more information, please call thechurch office at 818-353-2500, T-W-TH between 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. Or, [email protected] to make areservation and arrange for ticket pick-up. Tickets must be purchased in ad-vance.

The Shadow Hills PresbyterianChurch is located at 10158 JohannaAve, Sunland,

The Shadow Hills PresbyterianChurch is located at the corner of Sun-land Boulevard and Johanna.

books for friends and family. Ms. Hitt,elected Woman of Achievement for year2001, served as Poet Laureate of Sun-land-Tujunga 1999-2001, at the turn ofthe century. She has published books onlocal history, including “Sunland-Tu-junga from Village to City” (Arcadia,2000,2005) based on columns written forThe Foothill Leader, Glendale newsPress, North Valley Reporter, Sentinel,and Voice of the Village newspaperssince 1998.

Over the years she has taught in ele-mentary school, preschool, worked in apharmacy, chaired committees, tap-danced, and played English Handbells inthe Pasadena Rose Parade. She is cur-rently in a ukulele class and has beenelected to the Sunland-Tujunga Neigh-borhood Council. Any success she hashad she dedicates to her support group:husband Lloyd, children and grandchil-dren, her biggest fans.

POETS, from Page 16

Village Poets to meet


Verdugo Hills High School News

By Edward Tatulian

Baseball is definitely becoming oneof the most interesting sports at Ver-dugo Hills High School. As of April12th, the Verdugo varsity baseballDons have a win-loss ratio of 10-11overall. It’s not the best score to have,but the Verdugo Varsity baseball teamhas had a perfect season in the EastValley Baseball League, winning allfour of their games all by landslide vic-tories and one in a shutout. Also, 9 ofthe 11 games that were lost were lost in

tournaments. Four of the games werelost in the Poly Classic, one was lost inthe Southern California InvitationalTournament, one was lost in the SanFernando Tiger Classic, and four werelost in the Durango Classic.

By next year, our Verdugo varsitybaseball team is facing drastic changesin roster. Of the 20 people on the var-sity team, 12 of the players are seniorsdue to graduate. The Verdugo JV teamhowever has about 20 players, six ofwhich are returning and five are jun-iors. The Verdugo baseball team may

very well be facing a rebuilding seasonnext year.

Verdugo JV has a promising seasonthis year. Verdugo JV baseball had thegame nipped by our rivals, FrancisPolytechnic Senior High, 2-1 on March18th. However, Verdugo JV came backwith a vengeance, beating Chavez in ashutout victory with a score of 16-0 onMarch 27th. Verdugo then went on toincrease their lead in league by demol-ishing the Grant Lancers on April 8thwith a score of 24-2. Verdugo went ontake its third slide victory from Monroe

on April 10th, acquiring their third winin league that season by a score of 12-1. As of April 14, JV Verdugo baseballhas an overall win-loss-tie ratio ofabout 9-5-1. In league, Verdugo has awin-loss ratio of 3-1.

You can see the Verdugo varsityDons take on the North HollywoodHuskies on May 6th and May 8th. JVVerdugo Dons will play against Mon-roe on May 6th and North Hollywoodon May 8th. It’s never too late to getinto the season, and there’s never goingto be a team as remarkable as this one.

By Cristian Morales

Cole Oost is a twelfth grader who ison the swim team. Cole has been on theprogram since he was a freshman andstuck to it for all four years. Addition-ally, he was also on the boys’ water poloteam and has stayed there for all fouryears. In the beginning, he was a noviceat the sport. Naturally, throughout theyears, Cole has gotten very accustomedto and better at swimming.

Now Cole is a very experiencedplayer and is putting forth maximum ef-fort to make his last year on the Ver-dugo Hills swim team count. When Iasked Cole why he enjoyed the sport,he said, “I like that swim is kind of re-

laxing, at least for me it is… I like thesense of competition and camaraderiethat we have because you’re competingagainst everyone else in the pool to tryand be faster than them, but you’re justcompeting against yourself, and I thinkthat’s nice that you can still be friendswith all these people.”

His advantage in the sport is his ded-ication and experience. He has been onthe program for so long and seldommisses practice. He also enjoys givingplayers advice on how to improvethemselves in the sport, regardless ofwhether the player is new or experi-enced. “I’m not the fastest person outthere, but I have experience so I’m ableto help other people by boosting them

up and by teaching them things thatI’ve learned over my four years.” He isstill learning new techniques to furtherimprove himself.

Over the summer of last year, Coleswam at Hubert Humphrey AquaticsCenter. Cole recently started to doswim-related activities outside ofschool last summer, and he looks for-ward to pursuing the sport or anythingaquatics-related in the future. He says,“I’m going to want to swim for the restof my life, even if it’s not super com-petitive, because it’s been such a bigpart of my life.” With this year beinghis last, let’s cheer on Cole and the restof the swim team to make this seasonthe greatest.

By Edward Tatulian

Verdugo Hills Dons’ new trackcoach, Luis Viana, has the team firedup and ready to go for this season.When asked about how the new coachis, the captain of boys track and field,Lucas McLeland, remarked, “I like himso far. He brings a new mentality that Ihaven’t had here since I’ve been run-ning track. I think it will look good forthe future.” Another runner, ChrisOjoh, says, “I think the coach is a re-ally good coach and is a big step-up for

us. He pushes us to our limit. [I remem-ber] when he pushed me to the pointwhere I felt like I was going to die. Thecoach has pushed me so far in every-thing that I will never give up on ourcoach.”

Even with a new coach, the team re-mains tight-knit. Chris Ojoh said, “Theteam, we are like a family. We fightsometimes, but in the end we alwaysmake up.” Lucas McLeland shares,“During the meets, you find yourselfcompeting, watching your friends com-pete, and getting to cheer them on.”

And just like family, Verdugo’s trackand field runners train hard and runhard. Chris Ojoh said, “I train withblood and sweat. I train hard. Whenpeople are sleeping, that’s when Itrain.” When asked about the strongestaspect of our track team, he replied,“Effort. Heart. I plan to go all the way.Look, no one likes to lose. No one likesto even do something if they knowthey’re going to fail. So if I’m runningin this heat, I’m doing this for a pur-pose: to go all the way to the top. I dowhatever it takes to win. My favorite

part of track is how everyone com-petes. It’s how you find out if youworked harder than the other guy.”

McLeland shares, “We don’t giveup. Even if we’re down or didn’t havea good week of practice, I always seethat during the meets, everyone is giv-ing 100%.”

As for how the team is doing so far,Lucas McLeland says, “Right now(March 27th) boys varsity is 2-0, boysfreshmen-sophomore is 2-0, and thenthe girls teams are both 1-1. The teamis doing well.”

Baseball

Track and Field

Photo by Andrew AngelastroCOLE OOST

Cole Oost, Swim Team and Water Polo

This year, Verdugo Hills High School’s the-ater department will be performing ‘Seussicalthe Musical.’ The show is taken directly fromDr. Seuss classics such as ‘Oh the Things YouCan Think,’ ‘The Cat in the Hat,’ and ‘Hortonthe Elephant Sits on an Egg.’

There are many aspects to putting together aplay: we have our lead choreographer, TessaFowler, creating the choreography with the aidof our assistant choreographers, Michaela Ma-honey and Chelsee Seccombe.

Joseph Gulasarian and Maya Hallowitz con-

trol the sound for the play, and Chelsee Sec-combe and Zach Foster control the lightingboard.

William Brumfield and Tony Oliver are thestage crew.

Kai Taruc and Maria Valencia control thecostume aspect of the play, and Charissa Nic-hole and Zali Hall Beck are in charge of themakeup.

Calista Yakhaman is the business manager,and

Jillynn Robertson is the assistant director.

Ms. Fitzpatrick is the director and Mr. Lopez isthe music director.

On Feb. 26, our class performed a stage num-ber for the kindergarten students from Plain-view Elementary, in honor of Dr. Seuss Day.

This is a fun-filled show, and we hope thatyou are able to make it to at least one if notseveral of the shows that will be running on thefollowing days: May 14, 15, and 16 at 6:30p.m., and May 16 and 17 at 2 p.m.

Exclusive VHHS ‘Seussical the Musical’ T-shirts will be sold at the shows.

VHHS Sports News

VHHS will perform ‘Seussical the Musical’


School News

Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts to work ontheir badges.

“There will be daily field trips in, andmobile units out to the schools. Therewill be various levels of hiking eventsoffered every weekend as well as sur-vival classes. We also plan to have asmall area for local lost and found ani-mals.

“Wherever we do locate, we willhave only local native plant life, whichwe will label with interpretive signageso people can understand all of the usesof the plants. There will also be a Nat-uralist Club for kids that will meetmonthly or more often.

“We want to be the “Animal Hub”for this community. We looking for 30local acres to house our nature center,and funding to bring it to life.”

This is the second year of Summer-fest. At last year’s event, which washeld in August, 22 animal’s lives weresaved through adoption. This year, thegoal is to save 50 more animals. AtSummerfest, there will be cats, dogsand reptiles available for adoption byBest Friends and L.A. Animal Services,as well as demonstrations by the De-partment of Animal Services’ SMART(Specialized Mobile Animal Rescue)

Team. Plan to attend Summerfest this June

with your family and friends and sup-port your community. Sponsors ofSummerfest include many differentlocal organizations. (At the time of pub-lication, these included: STNC, Back-door Bakery, Tomi Realty, Tee’s on theGreen, and Tomcat Pet store). All mu-sicians will be donating their perform-ances for this event to provide a greatatmosphere for the festival, but theycould use your support too.

To help raise money for the NatureCenter, raffle tickets will be sold whichwill be drawn at regular intervals duringthe event for valuable prizes donated bylocal businesses.

So kick off your summer with Sum-merfest and help us bring this dream tolife. It’s free and it’s for the good of thecommunity!

For more information visit:www.sunlandsummerfest.com.

Pat Kramer operates “Writer ForHire®,” a ghostwriting, editorial, andPR agency in Sunland that helps busi-ness professionals, artists, and compa-nies build their brand and get tractionon the web. For more information,please visit: www.writerpatkramer.com.

Pat can also be reached at:[email protected].

SUMMERFEST, from Page 17

Summerfest is set June 26-28

New mural atPlainview AcademicCharter AcademyBy Dan Hatcher

Our K-5th grade school is paintedbrown and tan, not the most appealingcolors to look at every day, also not rep-resentative of the true caliber of ourschool. Except for a mural in the kinderplay area, the school blurs from one tanbuilding to the next. Mr. Johnson, theprincipal, believing that a colorful cleanenvironment fosters a healthy learningatmosphere, proposed a contest for anew mural in the school quad area.

Students were presented with thetask of creating a drawing based on theschool logo, and it was 10-year-old 5thgrader Luis Carrillo who won the con-test with his expanded view of the logofrom wagon train to a space shuttle.

When I asked Luis what inspired himto come up with his idea, he said it washis teacher, Mr. Houston, who inspiredhim during a history lesson. Luis saidhe never really liked art and thought hewould submit his idea because he didn’tsee that many students entering and hemight have a chance to win.

Now that Luis has won the contest,he now knows to never underestimatehimself. His shear will enabled him tofind the courage to put his work out

From left, Rosaura Martinez and her daughter, Andrea; Luis Carrillo and his mother, Susana Carrillo; Principal KennethJohnson and Parent Center Director Karla Silvas.

there for everyone to see. I’m sure thisgifted student has a bright future, andthis takes us to the next step in ourmural story.

Well known in the school’s parentcenter is a sweet and modest artist,Rosaura Martinez. She has been a vol-unteer in the parent’s center for sevenyears. Rosaura studied graphic and in-terior design at college in Mexico.Rosaura has never painted a mural ofthis size but she started out like a pro,making a rendering of Luis’s drawing

and then sketching out the mural on thewall. After the first two weeks I thoughtit was all done, but was I wrong. It tookanother week to fill in all of the detail,and the result is beautiful. Rosaura is al-ready working on a second mural at theschool, and it should be very cute, butI’m not going to leak any info.

At the school’s annual Spring Flingon March 27, the mural was dedicatedto the entire school. Everyone loved it,and it really does convey a sense ofsomething special at the school when

you see it. Luis received a certificate forhis contribution, and Mr. Johnson gaveRosaura the rendering she drew in aframe so she will always have a re-minder of what she did for PlainviewAcademic Charter Academy.

And I would like to thank some localrestaurants for their fundraising pro-grams that helped the PTA get themoney for our support of the school’saccelerated reading program: Andy Tor-res, Manger of IHOP, Tujunga; and Joseat Joselito’s, Tujunga.

Be of service, be a volunteer!

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