Community

Ken Ludewig is hooked on trains. The jack-of-all trades who spent years felling trees in the Santa Cruz Mountains and later ran the famous San Martin Christmas Tree Farm has started a new chapter of his life with an old friend, a gas-powered train that he built from scratch.

For months there has been controversy swirling around the potential advent of High Speed Rail in our community. Many people wish it would not come at all. Others have been hoping for more details about how it will effect Gilroy, which have been lacking until recently.

The Gilroy Foundation gave out $621,250 in scholarships this year to Gilroy students

Area special needs kids and adults were treated to a rip-roaring time at the rodeo last Saturday during the Day Out at the Ranch at Thorson’s Arena in San Martin. From a petting area put on by the Coyote Crest 4-H, horseback rides and lessons on how to ride and rope accompanied by bluegrass music and barbecue, the day offered opportunities to soak in the fun of the outdoors and offered a taste of country living. CHP Officer Chris Miceli is in his third year of organizing the rodeo.

An art fundraiser and new farmers market downtown usher in a summer of fun for Gilroy residents and visitors alike on Friday, June 2. Then Fifth Street Live, the popular live concert series with gourmet food trucks from Moveable Feast, returns June 16.

Earlier this year on a Sunday afternoon in January, Morgan Hill Sgt. Troy Hoefling was serving as day shift watch commander when he went to patrol the city’s new downtown parking garage. There had been prior complaints of delinquent behavior on the upper levels. When the 27-year-veteran drove to the fourth floor he noticed a teenage girl sitting on the ledge and a dog tethered nearby. He called out, but she replied with a blank stare. Once near her, he noticed cuts on her wrist that were still bleeding. Still not communicating with him, Hoefling acted quickly and grabbed onto the girl and pulled her from the ledge, saving a potential teen suicide.

President Trump’s damaging budget proposal would slash government programs critical to families, students, and businesses on the central coast of California.

Purists in both camps might well argue that winemaking and soccer aren’t in the same league, that the goals of one cannot possibly be the goals of the other and, for that matter, wonder who’d even suggest such things.