Thumbs up, down from the Yuma Sun

• Thumbs up to Somerton’s Petpalooza festival, which was held last weekend. We love our pets, and it’s so fun to have a community event to celebrate them!

• Thumbs up to the City of San Luis for providing a live broadcast of border wait times online. That’s useful information, and we’re glad to see it so easily accessible!

• Thumbs up to PPEP TEC High School in San Luis, Ariz., which recently opened its new school campus! It’s great to see such an investment in the community!

• Thumbs up to the Yuma County Chamber of Commerce’s award winners: Business of the Year 1st Bank Yuma, Small Business Person of the Year Chris Wheeler, Athena International Award recipient Reetika Dhawan, Chamber Champion Crystal Mendoza, and Member of the Year the Yuma County Airport Authority! And congrats as well to Ambassador of the Year Clarissa Anderson and Instagrammy winner Veronica Shorr! It’s wonderful to see these people and businesses recognized for their efforts!

• Thumbs up to the students at Gary A. Knox Elementary School, for their successful Knox Farms Farmers Market. It’s very cool to see students learning about agriculture, from the soil to the sales!

• Thumbs up to the businesses that sell umbrellas and raincoats in Yuma. It’s been unusual to need them so often here, but here we are – and we’re glad to be able to find rain gear in the desert!

• Thumbs down to the atmospheric rivers nailing California over the last week, which then blow into Yuma County. We need the water, but we’d prefer to get it in much smaller doses. The amount of rain in California has been deadly, and in Yuma, we’re ready for sunny skies again!

• Thumbs down to the number of serious car accidents in Yuma County lately. Please, drive safely out there!

• Thumbs down to these bizarre conspiracy theories involving Taylor Swift, the NFL and the November election. Seriously? It’s all so very strange! Don’t people have better things to do than to craft such elaborate fairy tales?

Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down are compiled by the Yuma Sun editorial board, based on recent events, happenings and activities around Yuma County and the nation, and will appear on Fridays in the Yuma Sun.