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Pets and gardening were two of Caryl Simpson's favorite pastimes at her art-filled home in Aromas, where she opened and ran the popular Cafe Aromas after closing her Garlic Festival Store and Gallery in downtown Gilroy. She was the force behind the iconic history of Gilroy garlic mural at the corner of Fifth and Monterey streets, on the exterior south wall of what was at the time her store. She called the colorful work, Gilroy's postcard to the world.

GILROY—Caryl Simpson, the dynamo Gilroy businesswoman who designed t-shirts while living in a log cabin, accidentally created a gourmet food company that went global and was the guts and gumption behind the city’s iconic downtown garlic mural, died May 29 after a four-month battle with cancer. She was 67.“Everything has kind of dimmed. She brought amazing color to the world for a lot of people,” said her daughter, Heather Simpson-Bluhm of Hollister.“We’ve lost a person who gave the world an amazing gift of food and an appreciation for good food and art and gardening.”Simpson also is survived by a son, Ted, of San Jose, and his wife, Janda, and Heather’s husband, Greg, and their daughter, Hannah Caryl.Born in Columbus, Georgia on June 21, 1947, Caryl Lee Simpson was what her daughter described as an Army brat who moved about with her family in the United States and abroad, including Germany and Asia.The family settled long enough in Monterey County near Ft. Ord for Simpson to attend junior and senior high schools in there before going off to college in San Jose and San Francisco.In the 1970s, Simpson, a single mother of two, bought a piece of property off Hecker Pass Highway in Gilroy and built a log cabin with a garage studio for a fledgling t-shirt screening business that supplied garments to high school sports programs, banks and others.Soon, she was in such demand as a graphic artist and designer that she moved her business into the city as a full-fledged advertising agency with graphic design and screen-printing services, according to her daughter.Married and divorced twice, Simpson devoted herself to her children and her businesses, which ultimately included the popular Garlic Festival Store and Gallery, where she sold gourmet foods and cooking equipment and insisted on filling an entire wall with art for sale, much of it by local artists.“She was a single mom for much of our lives,” said her daughter. “She worked hard to raise us and make sure we did all our school work and also were exposed to things outside Gilroy, to travel and the big city.“’Can’t’ wasn’t an option for her, it didn’t matter that she was a woman, it didn’t matter than she was a single mom; it was like, ‘I can do whatever I want to do’, and that is what she always taught us.”When Gilroy decided to launch its homage to garlic, Simpson signed on and her booth became a popular mainstay of the Gilroy Garlic festival.Known for her quick wit and keenly honed sense of what is right, she even locked horns with festival organizers early on when she was sued for using the name “Garlic Festival.” Simpson prevailed.Her enthusiasm for promoting Gilroy through garlic became so infectious that downtown merchants and others rallied behind her idea to create a huge mural to celebrate the history of garlic in Gilroy. After a local artist designed the mural, Simpson imported muralists from Italy to render the work on a wall at the corner of Fifth Street and Monterey Road. Last year, twenty years after the original work was painted, she brought the same muralist back to give it a fresh coat.“She called it ‘Gilroy’s postcard to the world,’” her daughter said, “she was always all about promoting Gilroy for the festival and the garlic.”A artist, creative cook and Renaissance women who was always eager to explore, Simpson also founded Garlic Festival Foods, a 30-year-old firm that sells gourmet cooking items all over the world, including a cookbook she authored and published when she could not find a publisher. It has sold in the thousands.The gourmet food line was an accident, her daughter said.It started when Simpson concocted a huge batch of seasoning for a friend to take to a Bay Area zucchini festival in the 1980s. It was a big hit.That recipe became her signature gourmet condiment, Garli Garni, and when Simpson put it on the market it took off, leading to a line of foods and seasonings sold worldwide.Billed as ‘The flavors that made Gilroy famous,” the line includes seasonings, sauces, mustards, garlic, salsas, olives and more.Simpson also was among California’s first certified olive oil tasters and served for years on the state’s olive oil board.Along with way, she established and ran Café Aromas just south of Gilroy, where she also ultimately moved into a spacious home filled with a collection of eclectic, curious and always joyful art, and a beautiful garden where she enjoyed hosting parties for friends.Simpson loved beauty and friendship and, when she died, her family asked that, in lieu of flowers, people honor and remember her by planting a tree, smiling at a stranger or performing a random act of kindness. A memorial “party” will be held in July to celebrate Simpson’s life.Simpson was diagnosed in January and by April, after chemo treatments failed to halt the disease, she was told she was terminal.“We were shocked,” her daughter said. “We were kind of lead to believe she was going to beat it, that was our attitude all along.”

SAN JOSE—The San Jose Sharks released their 2015-16 regular season schedule Thursday, and they will kick things off with a California clash.

GILROY—Under Construction outlasted Old City Hall 25-15 Friday to leave both clubs at 5-3 in the Men’s EE League standings at Las Animas Veterans Park.

I am perplexed at how dangerous the access to Christmas Hill Park is for anyone coming in from the levee. Especially for families with children! In my opinion, any family should have a stress-free stroll to the park and back from their home in a nearby neighborhood. There are two areas of concern, which have been enough to deter my family from visiting the park for years while our kids were toddlers. The first is the intersection at Miller and Tenth. It’s a four way stop, but a very busy intersection. I would love to see a crosswalk with flashing lights, like downtown has. That gets a family safely to the levee, yay! But now, the anxiety sets in; how are we all going to get to the park safely? If you have a stroller, a dog, a couple kids on bicycles, it is really sketchy there going down and back up Miller Avenue over the Uvas Crossing and trying to keep everyone in the so-called bike lane, out of harms way, with cars on your left and 5-foot drop on your right. Wouldn't it be amazing if the City of Gilroy installed a pedestrian bridge over Uvas Creek from the levee into Christmas Hill Park? Maybe it could exist about 100 yards east of Miller and go from the eucalyptus grove to the grassy landing near the BBQ area by the first baseball field. So, I want a crosswalk and a bridge! What are the odds?

For the second straight year, Tiffany Verbica won the Henry W. Coe 10K Fun Run and was the No. 1 overall female runner. Verbica is the wife of the great grandson of Henry W. Coe, Peter Coe Verbica, who said his wife’s victory was “especially meaningful for the family”. The course, which begins at the Hunting Hollow trail head, is an out-and-back near the Gilroy Hot Springs. The win is the latest in a long list of victories for Tiffany. She finished as the No. 1 women in her age group of 30 to 39 and No. 2 overall for the women at the 2015 Nisene Marks Half Marathon in Soquel on June 6 in a time of 1:46:30.

The Class of 2015 have wrapped up their high school careers. Gilroy High School held its ceremony on June 11, while Christopher High School graduated its students on June 12. 

GILROY—A “bustling” life was cut short on May 9, when the car Natalia Salcido, a Christopher High School sophomore, was riding in struck a tree. She was killed on impact, exactly one week before she was to celebrate her 16th birthday.

Lauren Castro and Matt Penyacsek graduated from Gilroy High on June 11, but their names are forever enshrined in the school’s history.

SAN JOSE—The San Jose Sharks announced their preseason schedule Thursday.