This year’s Harvest Holidays theme will be ‘Honoring Our Past, Cultivating Our Future’
DELANO — “Honoring Our Past, Cultivating Our Future” has been selected as the theme for Delano’s Harvest Holidays early October celebration. Directors, at their next meeting on March 13, will consider suggestions for the grand marshal.
Delano Kiwanis Club has decided to return to its regular format of an Easter egg hunt the
day before Easter that was last held in 2019 but modified in recent years due to the pandemic.
During the pandemic, goodie bags have been given out in drive-through fashion at Memorial Park.
The club plans to return to the Delano High School stadium if the district allows. A second choice is to move the
“hunt” to Cesar E. Chavez Park.
Delano High School’s Mock Trial team placed 14th in Kern County with a young
team that recorded a 1-3 record.
Delano’s prosecution team lost to Garces and Highland and the defense lost to Wonderful but defeated the Bakersfield High School team.
Honor Court selections for coach Kevin Allred’s team were senior Kaelynn Hernandez and freshman Gabby Mendez Alonso, both members of Delano’s prosecution team.
Also on the prosecution team were attorneys Yoselyn Delgado, Jonathan Aricheta and Julius Villalobos; witnesses Marissa Cortez, Amy Quiroz, Sajul Cleinsmann and Damian Valdivia; and clerk Alexis Guerrero.
Defense team members were attorneys Ilhia Garcia, Kaeleigh Chanel Cezar, Cristian Cerda, Emiliano Lucas Chavez and Edwin Gomez; witnesses Gladys Faith Alejo, Angelina Duran, Jennevy Gutierrez and Ulices Bolanos; and bailiff Angel Trisha Mae Casabar.
Only four of Delano’s students had prior experience in Mock Trial.
Delano Youth Foundation directors will be selling tickets for the March 11 Delano Sports
Dinner only through March 4 in order to provide an exact count for the purchase of food by the Delano Elks Lodge, where the event will take place.
Directors selling the $35 tickets are Brenda Perry-Reed, David Amaya, Louis Pandol, Richard Torrez, Gina Lopez, Joey Velasquez, Roy Bonita, Ginda Adkins, Matthew Cauthron, Jerva Winn, Eddie Espitia and Gary Girard.
David Grace, who has an extensive college basketball coaching career and is now assistant coach for the men’s basketball team at Vanderbilt University, will be the speaker.
The dinner is in its 57th year but was not held the past two years, so the Person(s) of the Year honors will be revealed not only for this year of 2023 but also for 2021 and 2022.
Doors open at 5 p.m. with activities to start at 6 p.m. Following dinner, speaker and awards will be an extensive raffle.
From Lizet Gonzalez of Delano Little League, I have learned that the league’s opening day
will be March 11, starting at 10 a.m.
Board members, coaches and players are selling barbecue tickets at $15 each for a meal of deep pit, chili beans, salad and roll. It may be picked up between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. near the Memorial Park diamonds.
Just when gas prices dropped at my local station to $3.65 per gallon, I had hopes of a
continued drop to the $2.73 mark that was in effect the day of President Joe Biden’s inauguration.
Instead, in recent weeks the cost of gas locally has climbed above $4 per gallon, maybe a reason the president has not mentioned gasoline prices in recent weeks.
March 12 will change sleeping habits for all of us, at least for a time.
Daylight saving time begins that day with clocks to move forward one hour, meaning an hour less sleep.
Just remember the night of March 11 to move your clocks forward one hour.
My thoughts have been that the need for food among locals was over when the pan
demic eased up. Maybe I need to rethink my idea, because each time I see a lineup for the monthly food distribution of the diocese Catholic Charities and a weekly line at the Fellowship Church across from St. Mary’s School, there seems to be no decrease in the number of vehicles lined up to receive food.
Sometime in November I recall seeing in The Californian unemployment figures with Delano listed close to 17 percent. That must be a reason for the lineup for food, but I still see posted at local stores “We are Hiring” and “Help Wanted” signs more than anytime that I ever recall.
Grace Elliott, senior leader of the Delano High FFA chapter, is one of three FFA members
from Kern County to become a state scholarship finalist.
The finalists through the application process have qualified for the interviews to take place in mid-March at the state conference in Ontario. There will be one $2,000 scholarship and two for $1,000 each selected.
The other Kern County finalists are from Independence and Bakersfield Christian high schools.
Delano, Robert F. Kennedy, Arvin and McFarland Early College high schools, all in Kern
County, were among nine in the state to receive the honor as a 2022-23 Exemplary Dual Enrollment School.
To be chosen from the entire state is quite an honor, reported Shondra Walker, principal at Delano High School.
“We have a great partnership with Bakersfield College, CSUB and Cerro Coso, and they truly believe in equipping students with college experiences before they leave high school as much as we do,” Walker said.
The DHS principal said that for the 2022-23 school year the school is offering about 55 sections of dual enrollment. “We are also working with our partner colleges to offer classes to students after school as well as concurrently.”
DHS will have about 30 seniors graduating with A.A. degrees before they receive their high school diplomas June 2.
I want to thank my former Delano High yearbook student, Maria Ahumada Garaygordobil,
and her family, for Delano Now. From the online paper I learned that way back in the fall that Remedios Ubay had passed away at age 95.
She had been an icon in education locally as she taught at Earlimart, St. Mary’s and Delano Union School District schools during her illustrious career.
Delano Now also reported that four locals graduating early this month from the Tulare-Kings County Law Enforcement Training Academy had become Delano officers Silva, Rosales, Palma and Castillo.