South County jumps into the holidays
I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving holiday. There was heavy
traffic all weekend long due to the holiday.
Jeff and Jean Schmidt had a houseful of guests for the holiday
as all of their children and grandchildren were home for the
holiday. Jeff, Shari and Melissa Popnoe were in town from Truckee
for the weekend and Steve Schmidt was home from the bay area for
the weekend. Sue and her family came over from the other valley for
Thanksgiving Day. Shari is still recovering from her recent knee
replacement surgery.
South County jumps into the holidays

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving holiday. There was heavy traffic all weekend long due to the holiday.

Jeff and Jean Schmidt had a houseful of guests for the holiday as all of their children and grandchildren were home for the holiday. Jeff, Shari and Melissa Popnoe were in town from Truckee for the weekend and Steve Schmidt was home from the bay area for the weekend. Sue and her family came over from the other valley for Thanksgiving Day. Shari is still recovering from her recent knee replacement surgery.

Laurence and Donna Hansen also had a houseful of guests as their son Sam came for Thanksgiving Dinner, then, their son Larry and his wife Diane and their son Russel arrived a day later. They were all in town from Lakeview, Ore.

Cynnie O’Connor and her family hosted two dinners, one on Thanksgiving Day for the O’Connor side of the family, then, another on Saturday for the Flores side of the family. Cynnie was busy cooking and cleaning all weekend long!

Vern and Jo Ann Scattini hosted a big Thanksgiving get together at their “Bitterwater Country Club” on Thanksgiving Day.

Congratulations go out to Stan and Jeanette Sharp on the recent celebration of their 60th wedding anniversary. Their anniversary was on November 17th and they celebrated with some of their family on Thanksgiving Day. Sixty years is quite an accomplishment and something to be proud of, maybe they’ll share some of their secrets of success with all of us!

Congratulations also go out to Johnny and Jeanette Chaves and to Nancy Sheldahl. They were the lucky recipients of the Christmas tree drawing at Jefferson School. Bitterwater School will be holding their tree raffle this Friday, if you haven’t gotten your tickets yet, it’s not too late!

Kasey Hurley and I will be hosting hot lunch this Friday at Bitterwater Tully School so if your in the area, be sure to stop by and enjoy lunch with the kids. You can purchase your Christmas tree raffle tickets while you’re there and may even be lucky enough to be drawn! Lunch begins at 11:30 a.m. and everyone is invited to stop by.

There was standing room only at the Celebration of Life in honor of Dorothy Harlan last Saturday at Bolado Park. Many friends and family were on hand to remember Dorothy who passed away in October at 98 years of age.

South County has some budding photographers out here. Stacie Schmidt and Cynnie O’Connor recently submitted two photos to the Western Cowman Magazine for their annual contest and each of the girls won many honors in each of their categories. Stacie even won enough honors to earn her the Overall Winner award and she won a brand new digital camera. Congratulations ladies!

Christmas demands rain

Bah humbug. Me, of all people, is having a terrible time getting into the Christmas Spirit this year. It’s so hard to be cheerful when it looks like we’re living in a desert. I quit looking at the weather forecast because they just keep calling off the rain. Hopefully one of these days I’ll wake up and it will have rained buckets all night long. I told the kids we weren’t putting up our tree until it rains. Unfortunately, if I hold to that, we may not have a tree before Christmas! Guess we’ll have to head over to our favorite place, Bourdet’s Christmas Tree Farm in Hollister this weekend. Maybe that will make it rain!

Basketball season is in full swing in South County. (The following paragraph was written by Brody Sans while I checked on dinner; I just couldn’t take it out!) “The Bitterwater Boys took on the Bitterwater Lady Badgers last week in a scrimmage at practice. The boys won that scrimmage. My two boys (Brody and Todd Sans) were surprised. The players on the boys’ team are Todd Jr, Edwin Mendoza, Thomas Veysey, Tel Jones, Michael Krehbiel, Wacey Barrington and Brody Sans. Their coach is Tamra Barrington.”

The King City High Lady Mustangs and Broncos played in two games last week. Both the JV and the Varsity girls won their games against Templeton High School last Wednesday in King City. On Saturday, the girls took on two very tough Hollister Haybaler teams. The JV team may have played one of their most exciting games all year long as they pulled off a win in the last 10 seconds of the game by only one free throw! It looked like the Haybalers were going to run away with the game in the first quarter but our girls hung in there and fought their way back to a tie in the third quarter. The rest of the game was back and forth but the Broncos pulled off the win in the final seconds. Congratulations Lady Broncos, it was exciting! Unfortunately the varsity team didn’t fare as well. The Haybalers proved to be a little stronger than we were that day but the girls played tough till the end. Bitterwater alumni on both teams include Sierra Jo Sans on JV while freshman Natalie Madson and junior Mattie Barrington are both on the varsity team. Both teams will be playing in tournaments this weekend in Salinas.

Kasey Hurley and I hosted hot lunch at Bitterwater Tully School last Friday. Some of those stopping by to share a meal with the kids included: Alberta Rist, Jim Smith, Lynn Dodge and Jeff and Jean Schmidt. During lunch, the lucky Christmas Tree Raffle winners were drawn.

Congratulations go out to Marge Saria of King City and to first grader Tabitha Castro of King City. Both winners were awarded certificates for fresh-cut Christmas trees from Bourdet’s Christmas Tree Farm in Hollister. Bourdet’s is such a fun place to look for the perfect tree, not only are there tons of trees to choose from, but there are hay rides, elves and a petting zoo to keep the kids busy as well. Thanks again to John and Tina Bourdet for donating the certificates to us each year for a fund-raiser. It is always a popular and prosperous one.

J.W. Brewen, Casey Sabin and Hec Hurley headed over to Bakersfield last Saturday for a ranch rodeo in memory of-16-year old Midnight Pewitt. Midnight was killed in a four-wheeler accident a while back so the rodeo was held in memory of him. The guys all placed well in their events and had a good time as well.

We headed up to Gilroy last Saturday evening to watch my Mom participate in her church’s Christmas play. Mom played the perfect part for herself, a Christmas shopper in the mall! The play was nice and featured a lot of Christmas carols. Mom thought that would put us in the Christmas mood for sure, but, since it wasn’t raining when we got out of the play, we’re still in the bah humbug mood. We did get to have dinner with my Dad and my sister and her family before the play.

Tamra and Mattie Barrington headed up to Oakland last Sunday to watch the Raiders beat my Broncos. It amazes me how sports can absolutely infuriate a person. It is just a sport, and, it is supposed to be entertainment, so how is it that a person can get so worked up and furious while watching “a game?” Thank you to all my friends who are unfortunate enough to be Raider fans, for having the decency NOT to call me and rub it in when we lost to the dreaded Raiders. They are my least favorite team ever and I hate to lose to them. But, losing once to them every three years is at least better then only winning once every three years! Ugh, the Raiders and no rain, it sure can’t get any worse!

Hope you’ve got a jump on your Christmas shopping, there’s less then 3 weeks left! Have a great week and be sure to give me a call or e-mail me at

we********@ao*.com











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