Since starting construction on required improvements at the entrance to the Pismo Preserve, including a 54-space parking lot and new sidewalk along a portion of Mattie Road leading to the 900-acre open space area, the Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo County has had...

"It's amazing what we can get done in three days," says Sandy Blair, a Santa Maria-based real estate agent during business hours and an Orcutt-based nonprofit executive the rest of her time. Picking up the phone to answer some last minute questions on her way to a...

The Nutcracker Ballet is a Christmas tradition for many each year and this year they will be able to see the 22nd performance of the Nutcracker Ballet put on by the North County Dance and Performing Arts Foundation. The foundation has been producing the ballet every...

Being a teacher, even a retired teacher, has many rewards. Some of them are delayed, like hearing from a former student who has gone on to create a rich adult life. Such was the case when I recently received a Facebook message from Gold Concept co-owner and City...

Arriving on a sunny afternoon, I parked along Huston Street and walked up to the National Healing Center. Several people were entering the store at the same time. Two security guards were at the front asking the customers if they were new or returning customers. New...

Celebrating 20 years since hanging his shingle: "Garcia Architecture+Design," George Garcia shakes his head. “I still can’t believe I did it,” he said of leaving a civil engineering firm where he had worked for 14 years to head out on his own in 1998. “With two small...

Born into a family with a four-generation legacy of teachers, Jill Stearns grew up with a distinct desire to do anything but teach. But when a last-minute unexpected vacancy left her local high school without a math teacher, Stearns was asked to fill the post—just for...

Longtime family friends of mind, Rich and Glenda Powell, have been involved with the local Honor Flight organization for years. They wanted to share this moving experience with our Journal Plus readers, and they offered to pay my way so I could do a story. If you know...

They were dark days. The necessity of organization, of intimate relationship, of mutual knowledge and confidence with associates, for self-protection and the good of the public, were apparent to all.” Written in 1883, years after the devastating upheavals of the Civil...