This week, we begin our annual review of the year that was, taking a look at the top stories and photos as they appeared in the pages of The Times during 2023. This installment, the first of three, reviews the first quarter of the year, focusing on highlights of January through April.
JANUARY
As a result of problems associated with the prolonged, heavy rainfall – also known as an atmospheric river – in the area, the Directors of Emergency Services for San Joaquin County proclaimed a local State of Emergency on Sunday, Jan. 1. The emergency was proclaimed because San Joaquin County was affected by a “public calamity” when the Board of Supervisors was not in session. “San Joaquin County has declared a Local State of Emergency due to the heavy rain we experienced over the weekend and the forecast of more rain this week,” said Fifth District Supervisor Robert Rickman, who represents Escalon on the county board. “Our Emergency Operations Center is activated and situational updates with allied agencies, and cities are being conducted. For further information and updates, please refer to SJReady.org.”
The state of emergency expires in seven days unless confirmed and ratified by the Board of Supervisors, which can extend the emergency time period.
Meanwhile, at the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors swearing-in and re-organizational meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2023, Fifth District Supervisor Robert Rickman was unanimously elected Chair. The Chair presides over all meetings of the County Board to maintain order and decorum, decide questions of procedure, and conduct the meetings as prescribed by Board rules and the laws of the State of California. The Chair is also tasked with deciding Board committee assignments for the year. Regular sessions of the Board of Supervisors are held on Tuesdays at 9 a.m.
Talented student-musicians will take part in choir, band, and string orchestra performances at the San Joaquin County High School Honors Concert on Saturday, Jan. 14 at San Joaquin Delta College. The concert will be staged at the Delta Center for the Arts, Warren Atherton Auditorium, 5151 Pacific Ave., Stockton on the Delta College campus. This year the San Joaquin County Office of Education’s High School Honors Concert consists of 256 students (76 choir, 97 band, and 83 orchestra) from 22 schools in 10 districts within San Joaquin County. More than 300 students auditioned in the fall. The auditions and concert are organized by SJCOE Visual and Performing Arts, which sponsors the event with the Delta College Music Department and the San Joaquin County Music Educators’ Association. The EHS Honor Choir Students include seniors Megan Fahey, Abigayle Flynn, Avery Terra, Ashley Wells and Kenneth Wolaver; junior Natalie Titsworth; sophomores Daniel Adams and Cortney Ball; and freshmen Brenden Berchtold and Taylor Bruns. Selected for the Honor Band were seniors Isabela Acevedo, Nikolai Lorenzo and Jacob Rauch; juniors Maia Madsen and Hannah Wampler; freshmen Drew Bellinger and Emilia Sousa.
It can officially now be considered a family tradition. The third in his family to be crowned as Homecoming royalty, senior Matthew Baptista was chosen as the 2023 Homecoming King for Escalon High School on Friday night. He was announced as the new king during halftime festivities at the Jan. 13 varsity basketball game. The team did its job for Homecoming as well, taking a win off the court against visiting Livingston. Prior to his win for 2023, Matthew’s older siblings – Kaitlyn and Michael – were crowned as the EHS Homecoming Queen and King in 2021. “It feels good, I mean, I didn’t expect it, honestly; I didn’t even expect to be a candidate,” Matthew said. “Just being appreciated and everything by my peers, and everyone voting for me feels good.”
Scheduled for Wednesday, Jan. 18, Representative Josh Harder (CA-9) will host an in-person town hall focused on flooding, the Delta Tunnel project, and water issues in the Central Valley. The Town Hall will be hosted, beginning at 6 p.m., in French Camp. Rep. Harder is hosting this event while San Joaquin County recovers from historic flooding and in order to hear community concern as it relates to the Delta Tunnel project. The US Army Corps of Engineers has not scheduled any public, in-person meetings on the project, despite repeated calls to do so from Rep. Harder and the community.
A weekend shooting left one person dead and another in custody in Escalon. San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Department Public Information Officer Deputy Nick Goucher confirmed there was one fatal victim in the shooting on Saturday night, Jan. 21. “We are releasing limited information at this point because the investigation is ongoing and open,” Deputy Goucher said on Monday afternoon. “We did have a victim of a gunshot wound who was pronounced deceased at the scene.” The deputy said authorities were alerted to the shooting via a 9-1-1 call and “homicide detectives responded to the scene” late Saturday night. The shooting was reported in the 26000 block of East Lone Tree Road shortly before midnight, said authorities.
A suspect arrested in connection with a series of shootings at vehicles along River Road over a period of several months will spend 15 years in prison. “Throughout late 2020 and early 2021, we received multiple calls for service regarding vehicles being shot at along River Road, south of the city of Escalon,” the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Department noted in a ‘Case Update’ posted on their Facebook page on Tuesday, Jan. 24. “Thankfully, no injuries were reported. With the help of Riverbank Police Services and the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Office, 41-year-old Javier Rivera of Riverbank was identified as the suspect responsible for the shootings and was arrested on February 9, 2021.” Last week, Rivera pleaded guilty to the shootings, and will serve a 15-year prison sentence as part of a plea deal.
FEBRUARY
The wait was worth it, or at least members of the Escalon Lions Club hope so, as renovations are helping to make the playground area at Sanchez Park safer and more fun for youngsters. Working cooperatively with the City of Escalon, the local Lions helped finance some of the needed upgrades to the park, gathering at the site as the renovations neared completion. It was a $32,000 project overall, said past president Mike Powers. Lion Robert Swift said some of the funding originally came from NG Energy, a firm the city has utilized for installing solar panels at multiple locations around town.
The new public transit provider for the City of Escalon has been selected and will take over the bus service, with operations beginning as of Wednesday, Feb. 15. Members of the Escalon City Council authorized contracting with the new firm at their recent council meeting. “The City Council approved the execution of an agreement with MTM Transit LLC to operate and maintain the eTrans Transit System,” explained City Manager Dominique Romo. MTM Transit, LLC currently operates the City of Tracy’s TRACER transit system. With the agreement, MTM will also now operate the City’s eTrans transit system for a one-year period from Feb. 1, 2023 to Jan. 31, 2024 at a monthly fixed cost of $10,144.68; along with a variable hourly rate.
It was basically a ‘Who’s Who’ of Cougar wrestling alumni, honored prior to the Senior Night festivities as part of a special event in the old gym on the Escalon High School campus on Jan. 25. EHS head wrestling coach Derek Scott said the Alumni Night hosted on Wednesday was designed to highlight the contributions of past wrestlers, with each one presented with a special commemorative plaque. Chosen as the first honorees were Ed Alves, Curtis Schurkamp, Dominic Freeseha and Daniel Gonzalez.
High School students from 14 schools in San Joaquin County took part in the 42nd Annual Academic Decathlon, held by the San Joaquin County Office of Education (SJCOE) over the past few weeks, culminating with the final event on Feb. 4. The Academic Decathlon is the only academic team on the Escalon High School campus. Under the leadership of teacher/coach Josh Cohen, the squad competed at the San Joaquin County Academic Decathlon and came home with several honors. “At some schools, it is a class. At our school, it is a club, which means students have to take time out of their schedules to participate,” Cohen pointed out of the academic activity. “Students compete at three different levels. Kenya Sanchez and Gisselle Barrera, two of the top five students in the graduating class, competed against students at the highest level (Honors division), both finishing in the top half of the division.” In the middle division (Scholastic), seniors Joshua Schut and Nikolai Lorenzo, and sophomore Landon Underwood performed “incredibly well,” said Cohen, winning six medals between them, including three medals in science. “Senior Collin Haskin, our lone representative in the Varsity division, also brought home three medals,” Cohen noted. All the decathlon events are tied together with a single theme. This year, the theme was The American Revolution.
A Section title, a NorCal championship and a CIF State title … it was a banner season for the Escalon Cougars football program. Then, the varsity squad earned recognition from Cal-Hi Sports as the Small Schools Team of the Year. Now, the team’s three captains have also received honors through the Cal-Hi Sports awards program. Ryker Peters and Owen Nash were selected for the state’s Small Schools first team while Logan Anderson received second team recognition. Peter had also previously been selected as the Small Schools State Player of the Year. Peters hurt opposing teams with his powerful rushing attack, amassing more than 2000 yards of offense. He also had close to 100 tackles on defense for the state Division 4-AA champion Cougars. Nash, a wide receiver, had over 1,080 receiving yards this season with 15 touchdowns and 61 catches. Anderson, a running back and linebacker, was selected for the second team as a multi-purpose player.
With a total of 1,193 incidents during 2022, the call volume for the Escalon Consolidated Fire Protection District was down slightly from the 2021 level. That year, there were a total of 1,204 incidents recorded. But, said longtime Fire Chief Rick Mello, it was “pretty much a typical year” for the department. “There were a couple of months that were unusually slow, April was slow,” Mello said, noting that if they had had a normal April, they probably would have reached that 1,200 call mark for the year.
Farmers and ranchers who conduct family-sized farming operations throughout San Joaquin County can apply for disaster relief as a result of the major winter storms that brought historic rainfall to the region in late 2022 and early 2023 and caused widespread flooding. Information received at the county level recently indicated that, earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture granted a Secretarial disaster designation for the primary counties of Alameda, Butte, Colusa, Contra Costa, Fresno, Glenn, Humboldt, Los Angeles, Marin, Mendocino, Placer, Santa Clara, Siskiyou, Sonoma, Trinity, and Yolo and the contiguous counties of Del Norte, El Dorado, Inyo, Kern, Kings, Lake, Madera, Merced, Modoc, Mono, Monterey, Napa, Nevada, Orange, Plumas, Sacramento, San Benito, San Bernardino, San Joaquin, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Shasta, Solano, Stanislaus, Sutter, Tehama, Tulare, Ventura, and Yuba due to agricultural losses caused by ‘Severe Winter Storms, Flooding, Landslides and Mudslides’ beginning Dec. 27, 2022.
A longstanding tradition that had to take a brief hiatus when COVID hit is back and didn’t miss a beat. The popular ‘Patriotic Program’ put on by third grade students at Dent Elementary is part history lesson, part song and dance, and all entertainment. “We have 112 third graders this year in five classes,” noted Dent teacher Becky Head, a member of the third grade team and primary coordinator for the patriotic showcase. “Our kids began working on learning songs, including the meaning of the lyrics, in January.”
MARCH
The varsity girls basketball team made it to the semifinals of the Section playoffs. The varsity boys had a home game and their highest seed in the Section tournament in years. Both facts seem to bode well for the future of high school basketball for the Cougars. On the boys side, varsity head coach Nate Bartelink pointed to a second place finish in Trans-Valley League play as one reason for optimism. The boys went 8-4 during the league season and ended with a final mark of 18-11. They earned the number seven seed in the Sac-Joaquin Section Division 4 playoffs and got to host a home playoff game for the first time since the 2004-2005 season, when that team won a Section title. Despite losing that opening round game to Orestimba, Bartelink said the program will have a lot of returning players; in fact, that playoff game starting line up featured one senior, two juniors, a sophomore and a freshman. A strong group of players will also make the move up from the JV squad to join the varsity next year. For the girls, they were third in the TVL, with an 8-4 record and got the number 10 seed for the playoffs, having to go on the road. But they won their first two games – qualifying for the Nor Cals for the first time in school history – before falling to Riverbank in the semifinal round. Head coach Joseph Dalpogetti said the team loses a couple of key players in seniors Kelsey Webster and Analise Silveira, but also returns several with solid varsity experience and will see an influx of JV players to the line up next year that should add some depth.
Kindness Week was recently observed on the Escalon High School campus, adopted by the ASB, Associated Student Body, class. While the tradition was lost somewhat during the COVID era, this year it was back in full force. “It is always tied into the week of Valentine’s Day, and before our February Break,” said ASB Advisor Katie Carbajal. “It’s a week that offers small activities and celebrations on campus to remind us how important kindness is, and how a small act of kindness really can change someone’s day.” This year the ASB offered a ‘Thank You Note Station’ that was set up during lunchtime, where students could write thank you notes to anyone of their choosing.
For students on campuses throughout the Escalon Unified School District, the focus was on reading. It was part of the celebration of Read Across America, observed each year in conjunction with the birthday of Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as “Dr. Seuss.” Most sites had the main observance on Friday, March 3 and it was the first time in the past few years that the special activities were back in full force on local campuses. Van Allen Elementary welcomed several guest readers throughout the day and even had a rap battle for some fifth grade students, doing their best rap interpretation of some Dr. Seuss favorites in teacher Zach Silver’s classroom. Community members, parents, and even some school employees got into the act, sharing their love of reading.
It was the first but, based on the reception and the participation, it won’t be the last. Ten Escalon High School boys entered the competition in hopes of earning the title of “Mr. Cougar” and the pageant was staged in the high school’s Performing Arts Center on Thursday evening, March 9. Hopefuls were, in alphabetical order, Logan Anderson, Hunter Budd, Wesley Keane, Nikolai Lorenzo, Sawyer Mello, Andrew Morales, Luke Oliver, Ryker Peters, Zachary Velazquez and Ayden Wilson. When the dust had settled, it was Nikolai Lorenzo who was presented with the title, sash, bouquet of flowers, plaque and crown as the first ever Mr. Cougar. “It feels pretty good, honestly, I didn’t expect this outcome and I was rooting for the other guys,” admitted Lorenzo. “This was really fun; I was actually thinking of not doing this but I signed up for it and then I thought I didn’t really want to do it but then it was, like, it’ll be a lot of fun.” He lists being in the San Joaquin County Honor Band as among his most memorable events of his senior year.
A major fundraiser for the sports teams at Escalon High School, the annual Sports Boosters Dinner Dance was hosted Saturday night, March 18 at the Escalon Community Center. Several student athletes were on hand to help serve the dinner, representing nearly every sport available on campus. It was a huge crowd that turned out and with cocktails to kick off the evening followed by dinner, there was also a silent auction, raffle drawings and a live auction. Serving as auctioneer – stepping in to the role at the last minute – was Steve Reisenbeck. Although it was his first time, he kept up a steady stream of entertaining patter and had several spotters in the crowd to make sure he kept up on the bidding wars. Over $32,000 was raised on the live auction items alone, including the ‘Golden Cougar Table’ for next year’s event. High bid was $8,100 and that includes personal service at the dinner for next year as well as many extra touches from special appetizers to free drinks. A taco party by Tacos de Nieve went for $3,000 as did a specially designed Engel Field blanket.
Two different programs focused on gardening brought plenty of people to the Escalon Library earlier this month, with one introducing youngsters to the hobby and the other showcasing how gardening can help enhance your memory. It was a part of the Science Saturday for kids, and librarian Amanda Clifford oversaw a project where kids and their adult chaperones had the chance to pot two plants. One, they could put in a container they decorated to take home and the other is to be added to the library garden. It was a lesson in how a garden grows and Clifford said the small library garden is doing well, with the hopes of expanding to a larger area in the future. There were a variety of flower and vegetable options for attendees to plant; they could use the same for home and library planting or choose different ones for each container. After customizing the container with color and stickers, they then got to choose what to put in it, with help from Clifford in adding just the right amount of soil before dropping in the seeds. Elsewhere in the library the same day, Sarah Carson of New Mettle Farms provided an in-depth presentation of how to utilize a garden to enhance your memory.
Crews responding to an early morning call of a structure fire in the 9000 block of Biederman Way in Farmington found a residence fully involved in flames upon arrival. Farmington Fire Department officials said the call came in around 2 a.m. on Wednesday, March 22. The first units arriving on scene discovered the roof on the home had already caved in. The homeowner, authorities added, had been working in another building on the property. Originally believing the smell of smoke in the area was a neighbor possibly burning something outside, the homeowner later discovered it was his own house on fire. Along with Farmington firefighters responding to the scene, mutual aid was called in from Escalon, Collegeville, and Linden, all responding with equipment and manpower.
Popular art projects such as spin art and creating colorful buttons kept youngsters busy throughout the week at the Arts Alive annual student showcase, March 20 through 24. With artwork by students from all Escalon Unified School District campuses displayed, high school art teacher Jewell Kelley said the ocean-themed show went off very well. “Dent was here Monday and Thursday,” she said of the elementary school classes coming in to tour the work and enjoy the hands-on art activities. “Van Allen was here Tuesday, Farmington and Collegeville on Wednesday and El Portal on Friday.” Some high school students also took the opportunity to tour the show on Friday and Kelley said students from her art classes stayed busy rotating throughout the week to help staff the various activities. Wednesday night, March 22 all the student artwork was on display for the public to enjoy during the high school’s Open House.
It was a packed house – inside and out – at the Starbucks in Escalon on a Saturday morning in late March, as firefighters spent some time trying out their barista skills. Trading in big rigs and fire hoses for drive-thru duty and taking drink orders, several members of the Escalon Fire Department met with the community as part of an outreach program through Starbucks. Battalion Chief Joe Pelot said it was similar to what has been done in the past with the Coffee with a Cop gatherings and the local Starbucks reached out to see if the firefighters would be interested in taking a turn. “I think my guys now appreciate much more what these Starbucks people do,” Fire Chief Rick Mello said, after watching the morning coffee rush.
APRIL
With the major fundraiser – the annual tri-tip drive-thru dinner – hosted this past weekend, officials with the Sober Grad committee have officially kicked off their fundraising efforts for the Class of 2023. The goal is to put on a safe and memorable graduation night party for Escalon High School seniors, and the tri-tip dinner provides a solid base from which to work. “We sold 200 dinners, pick up was 4:30 p.m. to 6 pm. here at El Portal,” Sober Grad committee member and BBQ coordinator Renee Snow said on Saturday morning, April 1, as crews came in to prepare the meat and begin the process of putting together the dinners, designed for a family of four. “This is the only fundraiser we do for the Sober Grad night.” Organizers count on donations from the community to help as well, said Snow, with cash, gift cards and other items being sought.
Closure of a portion of roadway in the City of Riverbank will mean motorists traveling between Escalon and Riverbank along Santa Fe will be taking a detour. First Street from Atchison Street to Santa Fe Road will undergo a surface overlay; this will require the bridge over the Stanislaus River to be closed on First Street. The section of road and the bridge will be closed on weekdays only running through Friday, April 14 from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.; work is scheduled to be completed and the bridge fully reopened as of April 15.
A business that started in 1975 on Coley Avenue and moved to its location on McHenry Avenue in 1979 is closing its doors. The Tom Hillier Ford dealership, which was taken over by son David Hillier, was due to complete its final service commitments earlier this month before shutting the business down. David Hillier said the time was right to make the move; he sold the business to Ford and the company made the decision to shut the doors. “I’m going to miss the business,” Hillier said, adding that he “very much enjoyed” his time in the auto sales/service industry locally and will especially miss the customers. “Our customer base as a whole has been wonderful,” he said, noting that they get business not only from Escalon but also a wide array of surrounding communities, from Oakdale to Ripon, Modesto to Stockton, even as far as the foothills and Bay Area. The dealership, started by his late father, was first on Coley Avenue, kitty-corner from the library. The move to 3000 McHenry was made in 1979.
Brightly colored plastic eggs could be seen throughout the Main Street Park in Escalon on Friday morning, April 7. They were placed there for the second annual egg hunt hosted by local business Poppy on Main, and hunters were eager to hear the countdown to rush across the green park grass to grab up as many eggs as they could find. Some light rain on Friday let up in time for the hunt and a huge crowd of egg gatherers showed up for the event. Younger kids had their own area, with eggs hidden around the historic caboose, while the older group set out from the edge of the grass by the stage and into the area stretching nearly to First Street. “This is our second annual ‘Poppy’ Easter,” said Poppy on Main owner Jamie Butler. “I had 3,000 eggs and then we also had toys and more ‘Golden Eggs with gift cards to Poppy.” She said it is a feel-good event that she is happy to put on for the community.
Long-awaited renovation and improvement work at Engel Field on the Escalon High School campus has started … and it will definitely mean some short-term pain for long-term gain. Usually the site for both El Portal and Escalon High graduation ceremonies, those events have been moved to Modesto Junior College for this year. El Portal Middle School’s promotion is set for Thursday, June 1; Escalon High School graduation for the Class of 2023 will be Friday, June 2. Each begins at 7 p.m. and will be hosted on the MJC East Campus on College Avenue in Modesto. School District Superintendent Ricardo Chavez said it’s a relief to see the work started, but it will take a coordinated effort to keep the project flowing as smoothly as possible. He said parents of students affected have already been notified of the switch to MJC for promotion/graduation and site principals have already done a walk-through at the college campus. The work is also likely to mean that the Escalon Cougars will not have any true ‘home’ football games next fall. Funding for the work has come primarily from the ESSER III funding; ESSER is the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief fund, with money provided through the American Rescue Plan Act due to COVID-19.
For the first one of the season, organizers couldn’t be happier. Conditions were nearly picture perfect, with sunshine, mild spring temperatures and a light breeze on Wednesday, April 19. The setting was the city’s Main Street Park, the event was the downtown Farmers Market hosted through the Escalon Chamber of Commerce. Market Manager Megan McNinch enthusiastically eyed the large crowd that turned out, pleased with the event. The market will continue, each third Wednesday of the month, from 5 pm. to 8 p.m., through August. “I’m so excited,” McNinch said Wednesday, just about an hour in to the event, with booths scattered throughout the park and residents perusing the large variety of wares offered. “I hope we can keep it up … I’m so excited to see people out and all the vendors, and I think people are excited to get outside. It’s beautiful and we have some shade coming for the summer months and some pop ups in the food court but if we can not have 102-degree days, we’ll be good.”
It is a tower of a flagpole for a “tower of a man.” That was the thought of Escalon resident Randy Schmidt, as he and several other Schmidt family members gathered with a crowd of community residents to see the dedication of a plaque and flagpole at the former Escalon Lumber and Hardware site. Put up by Larry Grossi, who now owns the property and renovated the building into a four-suite business complex dubbed The Merchant Yard, the flag towers some 50 feet above the ground, with the stone-faced base including a plaque dedicated to the late Marvin Schmidt. He owned and operated the lumber yard for some seven decades prior to retirement. At the Saturday afternoon dedication ceremony on April 22, Escalon Historical Society President Dave Russell welcomed the crowd and provided a bit of history regarding Marvin Schmidt and the lumber yard, where he started on a “trial basis” and ended up eventually buying the business and serving the community for more than 70 years. “His roots went really deep in this town,” Russell said of Schmidt.
Look for Part 2 of the Year in Review, covering the months of May through August, in the Jan. 10 issue of The Times.
