User Posts : The Southwest Voice

Take The Voice on Vacation!

Taking The Voice on Vacation to Las Vegas! Or, otherwise known as... Pulling a Liane Whitson with The Voice!

Pet/Shelter Donation and Adoption Awareness Drive

Greetings, Southwest friends!

As you may be aware, there is a dog & cat over-population crisis in Kern County.

To help, The Northwest Voice is partnering with NOR, KGFM 101.5 radio, SPCA, San Joaquin Veterinary Hospital, Kern County Animal Shelter, ALPHA Canine Shelter (and many others!) to raise funds and awareness in our first ever Pet/Shelter— Donation and Adoption Awareness Drive:

Please join us on August 16 (in the morning, before it's too hot!), and bring anything from this list:

Blankets, sheets, towels (for the shelters)
Dog/cat toys, leashes, pet beds, kennels
Dry dog and cat food
Paper towels
Aluminum cans (for recycling!)
Money!

(see the flier for the location)

There will be representatives from San Joaquin Veterinary Hospital on hand to answer questions, members of the SPCA and Kern County Animal Shelters, members of local dog clubs demonstrating their dog training and "Olympic" style activities, homemade dog treats, and a live remote from KGFM 101.5 radio! Please bring your coffee and take your dog for a walk -- for a good cause!

There will also be drawings for FREE spay and neuter vouchers!

*Click on the flier above for more info.!

In the fall, we will hold a similar event at the Kroll Way off-leash dog park!

(If you'd like to help, please send me an email! Everyone is welcome!)

Find a man who'll carry your purse

We love baseball, so sometimes my husband and I find ourselves at games where our son isn't playing, as was the case recently at Stockdale High School.

Always wearing my editor's cap, I left our spot along the right field fence in the 7th inning to get photos of the winning Mustangs. My son, Jarret, followed me, and we stood close enough to get the victorious Mustangs celebrating after the last out.

I got busy talking and taking photos, so I never made it back to our little campsite. Before long, my husband made his way through the throng of happy spectators and found us. He was carrying three chairs, a blanket, an empty Starbucks cup... and my purse.

My purse shouldn't be considered a woman's handbag. Its size and contents easily classify it as more of a piece of luggage—one too heavy for a carry-on. It's a regular bag of tricks: At a photo shoot at work, the photographer needed a prop and asked anyone if they had a deck of cards. Yeah, right! Who would have a deck of cards at work? Look no further; I had a deck of cards in my purse.

It's like that.

My husband is no small man. At 6'3 and over 200 lbs., he sticks out in most crowds. On this day, though, he was a spectacle for another reason: Over his muscular shoulder hung a huge knock-off version of a Dooney & Bourke black, white, and red giraffe print bag. You've seen them—they are very recognizable and stick out like a sunburn.

I noticed immediately, and my heart softened. I was right in the middle of introducing Jarret to a NorCal scout, but in the back of my mind my husband's carefree nonchalance was making me thank God again that I had such foresight in marrying him, because it wasn't just that he was holding my purse—he was wearing it!

A man secure enough in his masculinity to wear a woman's handbag is a gem of the rarest sort. If a man will do that for his wife, what else will he do—for life?

I had to savor the moment, so I didn't ask for my purse until after we had said hello to a few more families and were in Stockdale's parking lot. Luckily, our son was watching the purse exchange and witnessed my gratitude.

"See what a real man does?" I said to Jarret.

And to this 'real man' I am eternally grateful for all the purses he's held, the diapers he's changed, the dinners he's made, and the pink headbands he placed on our daughters during infancy because he knew how important it was to me.

Happy Father's Day.

What's this new "In-box" feature when I sign-in?

Greetings, SWVoice.com users!

It's here! The new in-box feature!! You will notice a change to the site when you log-in using your user name. In the spirit of innovation and incredible technological advancements (grin), you are now the proud owner of a personal in-box. I would go into detail about it, but most of you are pretty computer savvy and will have it figured out in no time at all. For those of you familiar with MySpace or Facebook, this will seem familiar.

Feel free to click around and become familiar with it. I have had an advanced look at it, and it's very user friendly. It should not affect anything about your submissions or friends, just makes things a lot more neat & tidy and easier to find.

Enjoy!

Dana

Weaving wonders!

Something exceptional is going on at Loudon Elementary School, and it has nothing to do with awards, sports or scholastic endeavors.

There’s knitting going on, and the students are inspired.

Loudon Elementary is an idyllic little campus in Southwest Bakersfield dotted lushly by landscaped quads and immaculate concrete corridors, not at all showing its age of 19 years. It is a Title I school — meaning many students are at risk for not achieving state-defined academic proficiency — that faces a variety of challenges, including keeping kids in the classroom. In other words, Loudon is not the typical Panama-Buena Vista Union School District school.

There’s one thing, though, that sets them apart from their higher-achieving district counterparts: They knit.

It started sometime before Christmas, when Title I Clerk Lynne Eid felt a tugging on her heart to do something for a student who was having trouble staying in school.

“I got a crazy idea,” said Eid. “I asked Chantel if she’d like to learn how to knit.”
Fifth-grader Chantel Johnson wasn’t coming to school regularly and was having trouble socializing, but she said yes to Eid’s offer. Eid, who is 51 and has been knitting since the age of 16, started meeting with Chantel at recess and taught her how to knit a scarf.

Soon, other students wanted to learn, too. Before Eid knew it, she had a handful of knitters spending 35-40 minutes with her each day at lunch.

In January, the knitters learned about Sam Philips, a 5-year-old suffering from neuroblastoma, cancer of the nerve tissue, who was undergoing chemotherapy at the Portsmouth Naval Hospital in Virginia. Sam is the grandson of Loudon kindergarten teacher Vicki Philips, who now divides her time between Bakersfield and Portsmouth.

Inspired by Project Linus, a non-profit organization that creates handmade blankets for fragile children, the Loudon Knitters decided to make a blanket for Sam.
Knitting for Sam was a big draw. Soon, the club had 30 members, all spending their lunch hour with Eid and knitting with yarn mostly from Eid’s personal supply. “Do it for Sam” became their mantra.

“It became clear very early that something special was going on here that I had no control of,” said Eid.

Original members of the club, like Chantel and El’teanna English, taught newcomers how to knit. Soon, knitting became as addictive to the Loudon Knitters as video games are to other kids their age.

“Everywhere we go, we carry (our knitting),” said El’teanna. “If we have a basketball
game, we carry it. If we have a volleyball game, we carry it.”

“We knit while we walk home,” added Chantel, who also said that knitting is fun and helps with her stress problems.

Girls aren’t the only knitters. Daniel Estrada actually liked the knitting so much that his mom had to enforce some rules: He must eat, rest and do his homework before he is allowed to knit after school.

After Sam received his blanket, the knitters weren’t finished.

“I’ve got 60 knitters on my list, and their projects are getting more complicated. We have completed and delivered three blankets and are working on a fourth,” said Eid.

“It’s an incredible miracle,” said Vicki Philips, who flew to Virginia and delivered the blanket to grandson Sam herself. “When I can remove myself from the emotions over Sam, it is amazing to just look at how people have been moved to reach out and do things for other people.”

Indeed, like Eid, who was moved to teach one child how to knit, then watched her efforts multiply and blossom into a group she considers “a blessing.”

To the Loudon Knit Club, though, the blessing is Eid, who offered the inspiration — and the creative know-how — to make a difference, one stitch at a time.

Jazz Festival

Special shout to my girls in The Southwest! Thanks for stopping by the MAS/Voice/Bakotopia tent Saturday night at the Bakersfield Jazz Festival! It was fun! And a special THANK YOU to Tami Popek and her company, Belle Vie Designs, for decorating us and making ours the BEST tent on the campus!

It was so nice meeting everyone who stopped by the tent! See you next year!

Prom photo contest!

Kolby Halley and Micaela Carrasco going to BHS Prom 2008

A larger world

It wasn’t too long ago that the unspoken rules for prom were universally understood: juniors and seniors only, and students chose their dates from among classmates or fellow teammates. Attire for the prom was more casual but still had elements of formality.

My, how things have changed.

In just one generation, the rules of engagement for high school dances have gone the way of discos and “Saturday Night Fever.” Where at one time students partnered with longtime sweethearts and were confined to the school gym to dance in their socks, they now arrive with friends at hotel ballrooms and affluent clubs in flashy, thigh-high dresses, well-matched ties and the untroubled outlook that is the product of a jobless, multi-activity young lifestyle.

It is this carefree lifestyle that permits students to break tradition in finding a prom date, as well. Twenty-first century prepsters have time to enjoy a variety of extra-curricular activities that were not available to their parents, activities that widen their sphere of core friendships.

Cheerleading, club sports teams, theater groups, church, gymnastics and dance clubs act as a melting pot for local high schoolers, creating a means to step outside the cocoon of familiarity at their own school and create friendships with students whom they may typically face only as crosstown rivals.

Rivalry? What rivalry? When looking for a prom date, crosstown turns into cross-attendance. Suddenly there is no such thing as school loyalty.

Becky Porter, Centennial High School’s activities director, has watched the phenomenon develop and believes the way school boundaries are designed also has a lot to do with the new tradition of kids cross-attending proms and formals.

“Part of it, if you think back, is that junior high schools used to feed into one high school. Now, Norris students (for example) are split into three high schools. They are friends all the way up, and then we split them into high schools,” said Porter.

It’s true. Some Bakersfield High School students live inside boundaries that shuffled them to Fruitvale Junior High School in the Northwest, allowing them a much wider circle of friends.

“Their world is larger than ours was,” said Porter.

While Porter contends that Centennial’s biggest crossover school is Liberty, Stockdale High School’s world is even larger.

“We approve guest passes equally from every school in town,” said Stella Kidd, Stockdale High’s Dean of Student Services. “East, West, Highland, Foothill . . . even from Ventura and Santa Barbara,” she said, attributing club athletics to the long distance prom dates. And it doesn’t matter what school they attend, noted Kidd, because all students must have a guest pass approved.

Stockdale High School has possibly the most stringent guest pass approval policy in the district. Each prospective guest must have their bid approved by the dean at their own school, as well as Stockdale’s dean. “They must also provide a copy of their photo ID,” said Kidd.

So far, most schools haven’t had trouble with guests. Porter said that since Centennial opened, no guest has caused a problem great enough for her to recall with any ease. And guests, she said, make up a surprising percentage of attendees.

“About 30 percent are guests,” said Porter.

For Stockdale High School, the number is closer to 50 percent.

No more bobby socks — Short dresses, bright colors, crazy ties, and a larger pool of potential dates will be the hallmark of this generation of prom goers. And who knows, maybe someday local high schools will throw in the towel and just hold their proms together.

In some ways, they already have.

Free tickets giveaway! Hurry, must enter today!

SOUTHWEST VOICE
is giving away FREE TIX to the Dryer's and Junior Achievement's "Ice Cream Sunday," Sunday, April 27th, 2008 from 1 pm at Stramler Park in Bakersfield!

You can click the sundae above to enter!

HOW CAN YOU WIN????
1) You must have a SouthwestVoice.com profile to enter. If you haven't got one, sign-up! It's EASY!
2) Sign In to SouthwestVoice.com with your username. Don't forget to fill-in your profile!
3) Post a public comment below this post about what you love about The Southwest Voice, and suggest a story idea for the magazine! Your entry will be posted on SouthwestVoice.com!
4) Make sure your username is public, so we know who you are.

Not sure what this is? Here's the "scoop"

Dryer's Ice Cream and Junior Achievement's ICE CREAM SOCIAL!
$7.50 per person, or $25.00 family pack
Each ticket comes with 10 coupons redeemable for food, ice cream, games, and activities
Activities include: bounce houses, obstacle courses and carnival games!

** Winners will be drawn at random and contacted via e-mail by 5:00 pm TODAY, April 24th, 2007. CHECK YOUR E-MAIL AT THIS TIME, please!

**Must be 21 or older to enter & win. Kern County Residents Only! No employees or family of The Bakersfield Californian and it's affililiates may participate.

Girls giving back fundraising fun!

Join Bakersfield’s most exclusive boutiques for a chance to give back to our own community with donations to Relay for Life. Friday, April 25, from 6 to 9 p.m. at Denise Haddock Unique Interior Designs, 3011 F St. You’ll have the chance to sip wine while shopping and learning about new trends in fashion, fine jewelry, design and even learn some life coaching tips. Bring girlfriends and make it a girls night out with a purpose! Goodie bags will be available for a cash donation of $15. For more information, visit: www.inky-dinky-do.com or call 588-1984.

Help a few soldiers - campaign in the Northwest!

Greetings, friends and neighbors!

I want to draw your attention to a blog with a great cause!

Recently, a teacher at Olive Drive Elementary was inspired to deliver goods to our troops overseas. YOU CAN HELP!

CLICK HERE to read the details, and I urge each one of you to donate at least one item from the list (or make your own list of items, share it here, and receive my eternal gratitude).

I'm sure Olive Drive wouldn't mind your donations (in fact, they would LOVE your donations!), but I urge a Southwest school to become involved in this great cause! I challenge other schools to meet or BEAT Olive Drive Elementary's donations. There are no losers in this endeavor, only winners.

I realize that we all get busy with our lives and that it's easy to temporarily forget that our soldiers are still out doing what they do. Let's not forget them!

Is there a prize for who donates the MOST to our soldiers? Nothing tangible other than a reminder to our troops of their value, our gratitude, and our constant and unflagging support.

Imagine what you would be doing to help our many men and women in the miliatary who don't have even the basic toiletries from home. You could be your own sort of hero.

Thank you,

Dana

High school PROM photo contest!!

It's prom season!

Click HERE to see more photos!

Colors and styles galore, just when you think you've seen it all, IT'S PROM SEASON AGAIN! Time to take out your cameras, capture the fun, then SHARE it with your Southwest Voice community in our "High school PROM photo contest!"

Short dresses, colorful shoes, spring flowers, and plenty of attitude! This year's high school prom is sure to be full of suprises.

Stockdale, Ridgeview, Golden Valley, BHS -- let us see your stuff!

Share your prom photos with The Southwest Voice, and you could win dinner for two on us!

Log on to www.swvoice.com, create a user name (if you don't already have one), and click "post something!"

It's easy! Students attending the Liberty prom were kind enough to get things started.

At your service

The Marines are tough, everyone knows that. No job seems too big for our nation’s burly jarheads. The title of Marine conjures up certain images: big, tough and often loud servers of the flag, protectors of freedom and defenders of the Constitution.

You don’t want to mess with a Marine.

One local Young Marine, though, doesn’t fit any of those descriptions. Try petite, sweeping dark lashes around wide doe eyes, long hair and pink lips.

Stockdale High School freshman Elizabeth Schull isn’t your typical Marine, but she isn’t your typical teenager, either.

Elizabeth is in the Bakersfield Young Marines unit. The Young Marines is a youth education and service program for boys and girls, ages 8 through completion of high school, similar to JROTC, or even the DARE program conducted by the Bakersfield Police Department. The Young Marines promotes the mental, moral and physical development of its members, focusing on leadership and a healthy, drug-free lifestyle.

Elizabeth isn’t special merely because she’s been in the program since she was 8 or because she’s an honor student. This Southwest resident is a standout because at 14 years old, she achieved an award that can take people years, if not a lifetime, to accomplish.

On March 27, Elizabeth (now 15) was awarded the Presidential Volunteer Service Award, meaning that she has donated at least (and in her case over) 4,000 hours of community service work.

In his 2002 State of the Union address, President George W. Bush issued a challenge to all Americans to make time to help their neighbors, communities and nation through service. He called on each person to dedicate at least 4,000 hours — or two years — to service over the course of their lives.

Elizabeth took President Bush’s challenge to heart.

At just 8 years old, Elizabeth joined the Young Marines program, but not by choice.

“I came into this program because I had an attitude problem,” she explained politely, her warm smile and keen eye contact unwittingly contradictory to the image of an 8-year-old troublemaker.

“My parents told me that if I still wanted to quit after boot camp, I could,” she said, but added that when the 13 months had passed, she wanted to stay.

So, Elizabeth delved wholeheartedly into the Young Marines. She worked hard — hard enough to earn the more than 48 ribbons she wears on her uniform like an advertisement for overachievement, each ribbon representing a task or an award.

Elizabeth accumulated her volunteer hours by feeding the needy, cleaning up trash, helping the librarian at school and fixing houses, just to scratch the surface of her community service over six years.

Before the age of 15, Elizabeth had accumulated enough volunteer service hours to merit the award. Not only the bronze, silver and even the gold award — which are earned through 50 to 100-plus hours of volunteer service within a 12-month period — but an award that is bigger and more difficult to achieve.

Elizabeth was awarded the President’s Call to Service Award, which requires the 4,000 hours of volunteer work.

Just how rare is it for a teenager to earn the President’s Call to Service Award? Very, according to Pam Schull, Elizabeth’s mother, who believes her daughter’s achievement may be the first of its kind, at least for her young age.

“Elizabeth is the youngest recipient to have received this award,” she said, adding that her daughter’s achievement is confirmed with Points of Light Foundation, a non-profit group that verifies volunteers’ service hours.

According to John Gonzales, Elizabeth’s commanding officer, she is the only Young Marine among the organization’s 360 units and over 11,000 youths across 46 states, regardless of age, to receive this lifetime achievement award.

Good things keep happening for this teen. At 15, Elizabeth also just received the highest promotion available to a Young Marine: Sergeant Major.

Gonzales explained that it is not a meritorious rank. She earned it.

“When I asked my adult staff if the rank was good for her, without hesitation, they all said ‘Yes,’” said Gonzales, adding that the final decision was not his to make.

Brianne Pindil of Apple Valley, Calif. is the unit’s 2nd Battalion Commander, who had to approve Elizabeth’s promotion.

“She’s a smart girl, very well-rounded. She’s a great student, shows leadership and maintains a good image. Only 10 percent of all Young Marines make it to (Sergeant Major),” said Pindil. “We don’t give promotions away. She punched all her ticket holes for this level.”

Elizabeth’s goal is to graduate from Stockdale High and join the Marines. After serving her country, she plans to return and serve her city as a K-9 police officer.

It is clear that Elizabeth has a heart for service. Based on her record, it will not be surprising to see her punch ticket holes for success in life, as well.

Pink lipstick aside, this is one tough Young Marine.

Want to answer the call to volunteer?
For more information on the President’s Volunteer Service Award program, go to: www.presidentialserviceawards.gov
For more information on the Points of Light Foundation, go to: www.pointsoflight.org
To participate in the Young Marines program, call John Gonzales at 319-9839.

We need your stories and photos for the next edition of The Southwest Voice!

Attention citizen journalists:

Would you like to see YOUR story or photo in the NEXT edition of The Southwest Voice?

Maybe YOU could have your article featured on the cover.

Our next deadline for stories is coming up on Tuesday, March 11.

Remember, we are a citizen journalism newspaper, so we rely on your contributions to keep our paper great!

Hannah Montana Mania!
Don't forget to submit your Hannah Montana Mania photos for the contest!!! We want to see those smiling faces again! Log on to The Southwest Voice web site TODAY and click on "post something!" Remember, the prize is $25 in Hannah merchandise!

Other story ideas:

School News
• Teachers, what is going on in your classrooms? Are your students planning something fun? Participating in History Day? Submit pictures!
• Parents, have you nominated your child's teacher for our Educator of the Month?
• Students, what activities are you doing in school? Where are the photos from your school dance? Sports events?

Celebrations
Birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, remembrances and other celebrations can be submitted for FREE! Just submit your photos and announcements online!

Having Faith
We need your faith stories. Whether it is that church retreat or an experience you had we want to hear about it. Feel free to contribute photos too!

Events
If you know about an event that the community should know about, submit it! Or perhaps you have been to one of the great events that you saw on our calendar? Tell us about it. Was it a play or a concert? Use your reporting skills and find out what others thought about the show. Include photos and reviews.

Pets
Do you have a funny story about your pet? Or maybe one about your pet's heroism in a scary situation? Did you recently reunite with your pet after they had been lost for a period of time? We are always looking for great stories about our pets!

Sports & Youth Activities
Is your team's victory missing from our pages? Is there a local athlete we should know about? Send in profiles of teams or individuals involved in local sports and activities, and be SURE to nominate someone for our Athlete of the Month for a chance to win a $50 gift card to Sports Authority!

Restaurant Reviews
There are a bunch of new restaurants popping up. We are looking for restaurant reviews to publish. Do you have a must try menu item? Is there a tucked away jewel your neighbors should know about? Where is the best place to take a family? Or for a romantic dinner?

Remember this is your magazine, Southwest Voice of Bakersfield! We can't print it unless you submit it.

To submit your stories and photos, visit: www.swvoice.com. They can also be mailed to: The Southwest Voice, P.O. Box 2344 Bakersfield, CA 93303.

It's Hannah time!

During the weekend of Feb. 1, the walkway circling Edwards Theater in Southwest Bakersfield looked more like the cordoned lines of Disneyland rides. Pink-cheeked children squirmed excitedly, some having left school early for an event that, to them, equaled the second coming of The Beatles.

There were blankets, lawn chairs — and the wherewithal to withstand winter conditions so cold they made Green Bay, Wis. seem beachy.

If you were at The Marketplace that weekend and worried you were missing something, that all depends on your perspective. The excitement was for the world premiere of Disney’s Digital 3-D presentation of “Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert.”

In case you’ve been living on the other side of the moon, Miley Cyrus, 15, is the star of Disney’s hit TV show, “Hannah Montana, ” which debuted in March 2006. Cryus plays a tween star who lives a secret life as a pop musician. Cyrus’ real life dad — country singer Billy Ray Cyrus — also portrays her TV dad and manager.

Management at Edwards Theater reported that lines for the movie started forming just after dawn that Friday morning for the first showing at 5:30 p.m. Bakersfield was ready (early) for Hannah Montana!

They weren’t the only ones. Box office tallies indicate that exactly half of all moviegoers across the nation that weekend were donning 3-D glasses to see the teen sensation in her first major motion picture.

Hannah Montana’s appeal stretches beyond the playground. A week later, lines were still forming on Saturday night, but not everyone had children in tow.

The Fryer family: Brian, Casey and Nathan, and their friend, Aubrey Vlach, all in their early 20s, were seeing the movie for the second time.

“We’re Hannah’s oldest fans,” they said.

Southwest resident and schoolteacher Vicki Greene braved the elements to attend the premiere with daughters, Katie, 14, and Shannon, 11.

“It was really good,” said Greene, whose daughters own the Hannah Montana music and video games.

The stage, the lights and the early celebrity of the young actress and singer might be reminiscent of other bubble gum starlets who Disney also made popular at a young age. Britney Spears was a Mousketeer and Lindsey Lohan starred in the hit remake of “Parent Trap.”

Greene worries that Cyrus has some challenges ahead of her.

“My biggest fear is that other girls in the limelight have flopped. Right now, (Cyrus) is a good role model. I just pray she stays that way.”

Greene is a kindergarten teacher and says that her young students are fans of Hannah Montana.

“When (Cyrus) is 18, my daughters will be grown and it won’t matter,” said Greene, remembering the trouble other young actresses faced at adulthood. “But it will matter to the girls in my class.”

At 15, so far, so good, and it appears that the teen sensation is on a sling shot to super stardom. To date, her first movie grossed $62 million worldwide.

With her hit TV show, superstardom and a dedicated father guiding her every move, moviegoers aren’t the only ones enjoying the best of both worlds.

Note: At publication time, the “Hannah Montana” movie is still showing at Edwards. Please consult local listings.

Click HERE for details about the Hannah Montana Mania photo contest!