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Live music on Fifth Street

More than 300 children and adults gathered on Gilroy Prep School’s playground June 11, forming a large circle around a very special guest of honor. At the center of the circle sat Booker, a 4-year-old golden haired comfort retriever patiently eying his smiling audience as the crowd burst forth in song wishing their favorite canine a happy birthday.

Water, water everywhere … if you’re flying over the ocean. But if you’re a water bird migrating over or a resident of central and southern California, where do you get a drop to drink? Our ponds, lakes and reservoirs are drying up, with a resulting loss of food and habitat for wildlife. Common terns, for example, forage mostly by gliding over water, hovering and plunging to catch small fish along rivers, lakes and oceans and foraging for mollusks and crustaceans along shores. California’s extreme drought has not only caused a dearth of their prey but has forced them and other wild critters to travel greater distances in quest of food and water.

On a recent Saturday, the Mount Hoffman Challengers met at Monte Bello Open Space Preserve above Palo Alto for the final prep hike prior to our ascent in Yosemite next month. I should describe what a grueling ordeal our six “training” hikes have been, but that would be shameless puffery. The simple truth is we have had a fun winter and spring tromping the local hills. Monte Bello OSP was no exception.

The culture is slowly changing at Gilroy High and standards have been set high for the Mustangs' football program.

I am a small business owner in Gilroy and I also live here. I have noticed that the maintenance for our roads is a patch and re-patch system. Potholes are filled and refilled repeatedly. My business is located, for five years, out in South Gilroy in one of our "industrial" areas and the road is in horrible condition. Probably the worst in the city, I believe. East Luchessa/Rossi road is falling apart, starting at Monterey going out to South Side, including Mayock and Obata. We don't even get the patch system in this area. It seems we have been forgotten by the city out here. I was hoping to find out if the City of Gilroy has this part of town scheduled for a road upgrade? It can get very busy out here and we are all driving while trying to dodge the worst parts of the road.

GILROY—Classes that teach high schoolers the agricultural arts and sciences just received a big boost in Gilroy, where farming and ranching dominated life for more than a century before subdivisions and industrial development moved in.Spurred by a resurrected parent booster club, Gilroy Unified School District trustees have approved renovation of a sprawling but decaying greenhouse at Gilroy High School where in better times members of the school’s Future Farmers of America chapter grew a sea of red poinsettias as their annual holiday fundraiser.“I’m very happy to see it grow, said Hannah Komin, 16, of the greenhouse plans and renewed emphasis on programs that cater to the many students who dream of careers in ag-related industries.She is one of about 170 members of Gilroy High’s booming Future Farmers of America chapter and also one of its officers. FFA is a nationwide organization.“I wish I would be around to see it,” said FFA member Dallas Lafond, 17, a Texas transplant who was graduated from GHS yesterday, June 11.The resurrection of a greenhouse that has been a dilapidated target of vandals, graffiti artists, ground squirrels and the elements for more than four years is the story of parents with a cause, a supportive school board, help from local ag companies and the Gilroy Rotary.“They were a huge help,” said FFA member and graduating senior, Ashley Bonesio, 17.Kurt Ashley, president of Gilroy High’s FFA Booster Club, said that by the time his daughter entered GHS four years ago the ag program “was dying for lack of support” and the boosters club had vanished.Regular fair goers with their family at the annual Santa Clara County Fair, Ashley and his wife noticed other high schools had better ag programs and larger and better equipped FFAs.They sought out other parents and together in 2013 kick-started the boosters club that, with a donation of $500 from Mayor Gage, applied for and secured nonprofit status and set its sights on supporting a program the school district no longer can afford to fund as it has in the past.“We’re not just doing the greenhouse,” Ashley said. “That’s just one piece of the project. Our goal is to support the entire FFA program, including the school farm out on Kern Avenue.”FFA member and chapter officer Kimberly Potman, 16, gives all the credit for the rebirth of interest in farm and ranching subjects for the benefit of students to the involvement of parents.“It was the boosters, they pretty much fueled everything,” she said.Financial help also has come from Christopher Ranch and Uesugi Farms, among others, Ashley said, enough so that the boosters’ club will contribute $10,000 of the nearly $50,000 cost of renovating the greenhouse with new heating, cooling and electrical systems, new roof and siding materials and other upgrades to be ready for classes in August as long as the new ag teaching staff is in place by then.In addition to horticulture and floral design, new course options for students interested in agricultural sciences in 2015-16 will include Ag Chemistry, Ag Communication and Leadership, Soil Chemistry and Biotechnology.For more information on the FFA club and boosters, go to facebook.com/gilroyffaboosters.

GILROY—A pair of young high school men just graduated in Gilroy is headed to West Point and Annapolis and another has his heart set on following soon.

After a one-day scorcher to start the week in South County with triple digits hitting Gilroy and Morgan Hill, cooler but still warm temperatures will prevail over the weekend and into next week, according to Forecaster Bob Benjamin of the National Weather Service.