By DOUGLAS W. MOTLEY
Senior Writer
As we get ready to usher in 2025, the staff of the Alpine Mountaineer has carefully considered and then selected a handful of articles from the past year that we feel have had a significant impact on the lives and lifestyles of our readers. Here then are brief renderings of those articles, beginning with January 4, 2024.
January 4 – In their annual organization, the trustees of the Rim of the World Unified School District elected Jordan Zarate as president and Jordana Ridland as clerk. After thanking Mellinger for his service as president the past year, Ridland said, for the sake of having a different perspective, she thought Zarate would do a great job.
January 11 – Mountain Meals on Wheels is a local nonprofit organization that delivers meals to persons who are unable to prepare or shop for their meals or have a medical need. The volunteers of Meals on Wheels deliver hot meals cooked in the kitchen of Mountains Community Hospital to their recipients five days a week. These nutritionally balanced meals are designed by a dietician for each recipient’s special dietary needs and medical requirements.
January 18 – Favorable weather during the last months of 2023 and full crews for getting the work done mean the Goodwin’s Market rebuild is on track to finish before the start of summer. “We were really blessed to have good weather in November and December,” said Goodwin’s Vice President and General Manager Mike Johnstone.
Good weather meant the rebuilding of Goodwin’s Market was on track for an opening before the start of summer.
January 25 – Members of the Rim of the World Educational Foundation were surprised to receive two unexpected donations in December 2023. Third District Supervisor Dawn Rowe, who is a big supporter of the mountain’s nonprofit organizations, donated $5,000 to the foundation. She also recently donated funds to the Crestline-Lake Gregory Rotary Club in support of the community Thanksgiving dinner.
February 1 – For the second time this month, the San Bernardino Valley and the mountain communities and much of Southern California were rattled by a magnitude 4.2 earthquake that struck a mile and a half from downtown San Bernardino at 7:43 p.m. on Wednesday, January 24. According to Cal Tech seismologist Lucy Jones, the shaking occurred along the nearby San Jacinto Fault Zone.
February 8 – “The weather the past couple of weeks has been a bit anxiety inducing. It’s not that we mountain folks aren’t expecting cold weather in February, far from it. But as one of the many jumpers in this year’s PolaRotary Bear Plunge on the shore of the Lake Arrowhead Resort, a sudden drop in temperature isn’t exactly welcome in his book,” said Sean Eshelman, who jumped for the Rim Ed Foundation.
The group jumping for the Rim Ed Foundation donned graduation robes and caps for their plunge into Lake Arrowhead.
February 15 – The previous week’s series of rain and snowstorms, powered by an atmospheric river that originated in the Hawaiian Islands and swirled northeastward toward Northern California, wreaked havoc on the San Francisco area, then dropped 10 feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada range before heading for Southern California, where it brought severe flooding and mudslides.
February 22 – Following in the footsteps of other California counties, the San Bernardino County Recorder’s. office is seeking and redacting restrictive covenants that prevent real estate agents, developers or homeowners from buying or selling their property to persons of color, Asians or persons of Jewish descent, which was a common practice in the early 1900s until 1947 when the Supreme Court ruled that it was a violation of the 14th Amendment.
February 29 – There is a new superintendent at the helm of the Rim of the World Unified School District. Dr. Paul Sevillano was appointed to the position of superintendent at the February 22 meeting of the board of trustees. “We want to provide the best possible education we can,” noted Dr. Sevillano, adding he is looking forward to visiting all of the schools.
March 7 – A lawsuit triggered by a bylaws amendment passed by the Arrowhead Lake Association’s board of directors in 2020 precludes access to ALA property by short-term renters. Superior Court Judge Gilbert Ochoa ruled that the 1964 agreement provided access to the lake and reserve strip by Arrowhead Woods homeowners, their lessees and guests with the right to access and use, for recreational purposes, the lake and reserve strip.
March 14 – Mountain Skies Astrological Society founder and president Dr. Lorann Parker opened the doors to the society’s Astronomy Village and gave the public a free tour of its education building, gift shop and observatory, and a chance to peer at Jupiter and the Orion constellation through the lens of its 11-foot-long Schmidt Cassegrain research grade telescope.
Dr. Lorann Parker invited guests to an open house at the Mountain Skies Astronomy Village where she demonstrated the telescope.
March 21 – Sixteen-year-old Crestline resident Ezra Murray has written a birding guide for the local mountain area. Inside the book are designated hikes with where to park, the trails and creeks in the area and what types of birds to look for. Ezra says he intends on becoming an ornithologist when he graduates from college in a few years.
March 28 – The Running Springs Farmers Market and Artisan Faire will open for the season on Saturday, April 6 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The market will operate as usual with the variety of fruit and vegetables that shoppers have come to expect. All seven farmers are returning with more jams, jellies, baked goods and more flowers in the farmer section.
April 4 – The fifth-grade EarlyAct Club at Valley of Enchantment Elementary School chose making blankets for pets as their community service project this year. They donated the blankets to several organizations.
Students in the fifth-grade EarlyAct Club created blankets for pets as their community service project.
April 11 – Marine Corps Veteran Michael Brewer, in a front-page article entitled, “Vietnam is a country, not a war,” wrote, “When the ‘love letter’ (aka draft notice) came in the mail, I followed the path of thousands of other uninitiated young males and joined the United States Marine Corps. Why? Knowing that most 18- and 19-year-old boys were being shipped out to Vietnam in 1967, the belief was that we would receive superior training in the machinations of war by joining the Marines and therefore increase our survival chances…. From the senior prom in May to enlistment in December of 1967, the whole world changed from the Summer of Love to the summer of death.”
April 18 –Rebuilding Together Mountain Communities has spent the last 30 years helping the mountain communities’ most vulnerable neighbors stay warm, safe and dry in their own homes by doing the home repairs that are beyond their financial reach. This type of organization wouldn’t be possible without a dedicated community, mountain contractors and a dedicated volunteer board of directors.
April 25 – The Running Springs Farmers Market and Artisan Faire opened on Tuesday, April 20, with a bang. Postponed from April 6 due to bad weather, the event began with a ribbon-cutting and held an Earth Day scavenger hunt and an egg hunt for the younger patrons.
May 2 – The San Bernardino County Department of Public Works is currently working on a long-planned road improvement project that has been in the works for nearly a year on Lake Drive from Highway 138 in Top Town Crestline to the stop sign at lake Gregory and Lake Gregory Drive and from that point up Lake Gregory Drive to the signal at Highway 18.
May 9 – Fourteen months after snowstorms collapsed the roof of Goodwin and Son’s Market, Goodwin’s reopens this week, welcoming customers to a new store and a new design. “We put a lot of thought into this, and our market is designed for the next generation,” Mike Johnstone, vice president and general manager, told the Alpine Mountaineer. “This is a new store designed for the next 50 years.”
May 16 – Valley of Enchantment Elementary School’s Science Night on Thursday, April 25 turned out to be a cornucopia of hands-on fun, games and catered food enjoyed by over 100 students, teachers and family members. Students, ranging from kindergartners to fifth graders, excitedly gathered around tables where their teachers had set up displays featuring hands-on science-related experiments involving plants, insects, animals, pollinators, magnets paper helicopters, aluminum foil, canoes and boats, sensory items and non-Newtonian fluids.
May 23 – From honoring a great-uncle who fought and died in Vietnam to Miss America – a U.S. Air Force pilot – four students at Rim of the Word High School created art to express their patriotism. That art was entered in the Veterans of Foreign Wars Auxiliary patriotic art contest for young Americans. The four seniors were awarded their prizes by Auxiliary President Paul Hartman at a ceremony in the rotunda at the high school on May 14.
May 30 – Seventy-four members of the Rim of the World High School Class of 2024 received scholarships at the annual awards night, held in the Performing Arts Center on May 20. “This is my favorite event,” Principal Brian Willemse told the graduates. He reminded them that he himself had sat right where they were when he was a senior at Rim High.
Principal Brian Willemse reminded the Rim High scholarship recipients he had once sat where they are.
June 6 – Should phones be allowed in schools? That is the question on the minds of not only school administrators and trustees but on the minds of school officials nationwide. At the April 18 meting of the Rim of the World Unified School District board of trustees, teacher Debbie Bennett raised the question. “We have a serious threat to our students’ success and it’s right in front of us,” she said, adding, “Cell phones distract and have a negative impact on learning, writing skills and overall academic achievement.”
June 13 – Last weekend’s annual Antique and Classic Boat and Woodie Car Show, sponsored by the Rim of the World Historical Society, lured hundreds of car and boat enthusiasts to Lake Arrowhead Village on Saturday, June 8 to witness an impressive collection of historic vehicles and to mingle with like-minded individuals in a well laid out and scenic setting, overlooking Lake Arrowhead.
June 20 – The terrace at SkyPark at Santa’s Village was buzzing with conversations as donors to the Mountains Community Hospital Foundation gathered for a dinner honoring them and their contributions. “Our hospital is what it is because of people like you,” Foundation Board President Peter Venturini told the gathering at the Summit Circle donor diner. Several staff members addressed the more than 170 guests. Kim McGuire, executive director of the MCH Foundation and director of community development, recalled two incidents where her daughter was injured. “I had peace of mind as soon as I knew she was in the MCH emergency bay.”
June 27 – Thirty-five members of the extended Henck family gathered in Skyforest, remembering their Uncle Ted; and visiting the Heaps Peak Arboretum, created by Mary Putnam Henck. They walked the Sequoia Trail at the arboretum and reflected on the part their family has played in mountain history.
Members of the extended Henck family walked the Sequoia Trail at Heaps Peak Arboretum, created by their ancestor, Mary Putnam Henck.
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