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Shag Beauty Bar in downtown Gilroy went from hair salon to Project Runway last Sunday as 27 sewing students modeled their handmade outfits to a packed house.

The life and legacy of Cesar Chavez was celebrated with mariachis, an Aztec ceremonial dance and a moving speech by the late labor leader’s son, Paul, on April 2 at the first annual Cesar Chavez Day Breakfast in Gilroy.Hosted by local nonprofit Community Agency for Resources, Advocacy, and Services (CARAS), the breakfast and fundraiser was one of a multitude of events held across the country in recognition of what would have been the civil rights leader’s 89th birthday.Paul Chavez, one of Cesar and Helen Chavez’s eight children and president of the Cesar Chavez Foundation, told the gathering at Old City Hall restaurant that his father, even as he forged a social movement that resounded with people across the nation, was a normal person and would have been uncomfortable with all the attention.“Actually, he would be uncomfortable today; he would want us to be out organizing,” he said.Paul said it was his father’s personal experiences—working as a migrant farmworker and suffering from systemic racism while serving in the U.S. Navy—that informed his beliefs and compelled him to fight for social and economic justice, rather than any particular political ideology.There was no political ideology, he said, it was personal.Paul told of how his father, who grew up in a small town outside Yuma, Arizona, had to leave school to labor as a farmworker to help support his family, whose fortunes fell during the Great Depression.The experience affected him so deeply that 40 years later, Cesar Chavez could point out to his son the orchards he had worked in or a particular bridge he had slept under while toiling in the fields.“It’s this kind of upbringing that made him realize they needed more than a union, but a movement,” he said.Cesar Chavez would go on to found the United Farm Workers Union with Dolores Huerta, who in her 80s continues to support labor causes, and lead a successful grape boycott that would bring farmworker issues to the awareness of mainstream America.But, Paul said, for his father, the movement was never just about grapes and lettuce, it was about people.Cesar Chavez went on to establish the first credit union for farmworkers and a cooperative gas station with a mechanic. He also created a burial fund.Paul said his father wanted to address the needs and hopes of the community.Twenty-three years after Cesar Chavez’s death, 11 states now honor his birthday as a holiday. The UFW call to action, “Si Se Puede,” is part of today’s political lexicon.“I’m very proud and honored to see the memory of Cesar Chavez kept alive,” said Ernesto Olivares, a guest at the breakfast and officer of the Latino Family Fund, a project of the Gilroy Foundation. “We need to keep up the fight for social justice and farmworker rights as there are issues that still need to be addressed.”

For most of us, winter is about eating warm comfort foods, wearing cozy sweaters and bundling up by the fire. Short days and cool weather keep us inside with windows shuttered, secured against the outside elements.

A gun shop and an outdoor plaza might bring some big changes downtown. The firearms shop is considering moving to the Pinnacle building on Monterey Road, the first storefront for firearms since Walmart stopped carrying them. Right now there are eight dealers with permits to sell weapons out of their homes and one of them has appeared before city staff to see what would be needed to rent the downtown space.“If it’s done right, fine,” said Mayor Perry Woodward. “It’s just another retail use. We’re still a rural community in many ways and fishing and hunting are popular here. If you come back and tell me it’s all assault rifles, I might have a different point of view. If it’s done responsibly and within in the law, it serves a need.”Woodward got to talk about his real dream for downtown Monday for the first time, because he sold a property he owned there that kept him from voting on downtown issues. He wants to knock down the former billiards hall and put a public plaza there with trees, a stage and benches. It would be a place for the community to come together for activities, after which they would shop in businesses catering to them.“I want to see the day when people in Morgan Hill say they wish they had a downtown like Gilroy’s,” he said. It would require the city to buy the building and the one behind it and knock them down. The billiards hall is now slated to house the Community Media Access Partnership television station now housed at Christopher High  and a computer center for people to study and use desktops.John Russell, of Rally Round Downtown Gilroy, said he would be happy with a gun shop or any retail, "as long as it's not another salon or piñata shop."

Dallas Wilson was a homer shy of the cycle, Ben Reeder drove in three and scored a trio of runs and Max Pierce capped everything off with a booming home run as Gilroy blew past Pajaro Valley, 11-1.

If the one-lane traffic limit last summer on Hecker Pass was frustrating, expect it to be doubled this summer. While the Highway 152 construction continues, Highway 129 will also see slowdowns for the next nine months.

Four out of every five people you see in Gilroy work somewhere else. Even the majority of the City Council—including the mayor and vice mayor—commute to San Jose or further for work.

Waving blue pom-poms and screaming like their favorite team just scored the winning point, students at South Valley Middle School on Tuesday celebrated the school’s placement at the top of the leaderboard in a Bay Area math competition.Called LearnStorm, the initiative from Mountain View-based Khan Academy, is a nine-week math challenge open to all students in grades 3-12 that uses gaming concepts and a point reward system to encourage students as they gain greater math proficiency.At a special assembly on Tuesday, representatives from the academy along with Gilroy Unified School District superintendent, Deborah Flores; GUSD Board of Education member James Pace and school principal Anisha Munshi celebrated the school’s achievement in the math competition rankings, receiving a trophy for placing No. 1 on the Mastery Total Points leaderboard.“It is an amazing program,” said Valerie Kelly, South Valley Middle School math teacher and math department chair. During the assembly, Kelly presented top-scoring students with a certificates for their hard work.“The competition keeps them on task,” said Kelly, highlighting the point structure and the competition’s use of videos and diagrams to keep students engaged.All of the school’s math classes—more than 800 students—participated in the 9-week competition, which will culminate at a grand ceremony at Levis Stadium on April 5, where select schools in the Bay Area will be recognized.Flores said the competition, which started on January 29, and is made available to schools for free, rewards perseverance and reinforces skills taught in the classroom.“I love the way the program is set up,” she said, adding that her own son participated in a trial run of the competition last year at Gilroy High School. “It helps kids work through their math problems to figure out the answer.”Flores also appreciated the timeliness of the competition as a statewide math test is coming up in mid-April and the extra math preparation may help improve student scores.“I am hopeful that it will benefit individual performance in those assessments,” she said.Started as a pilot program at select schools in the region last year, the Khan Academy’s LearnStorm challenge is now available in counties throughout the greater Bay Area, from Napa to Santa Cruz.In the Bay Area, 1,000 schools participated in the competition this year, according to the Khan Academy.In addition to South Valley Middle School, Gilroy schools that participated include Gilroy High School, which placed second in Mastery below South Valley Middle School, Christopher High, El Roble Elementary, Glen View Elementary and GECA (Dr. TJ Owens Gilroy Early College Academy).To keep up with the latest school rankings, go to: learnstorm2016.org.

With the longer days of spring people begin looking forward to spending more time outdoors. While the cool nighttime temps mean it’s still too soon for many to consider camping, it’s not too early to start planning your seasonal camping trips.

It might have been the rare illness that wiped out part of his childhood, put him through surgery after surgery and years in bed and left him with a bad limp that continued into adulthood.