June 21, 2004

Fresh off the trail and back in town for a few days to re-stock their supplies, Gary Chambers, Barbara Egbert and daughter, Mary are eager to return to their 6 month long journey on the Pacific Crest Trail. They began their hike near the Mexican border town of Campo and have traveled north 700 miles thus far. They plan on returning to the trail near Kennedy Meadows at the south end of the Sequoia National Forest. The entire trail is 2,650 miles long beginning in Mexico and ending in Canada. Hopefully they will complete the entire length of the trail and return home in October. So far the only surprises along the trail was the amount of spring snow they discovered at about 9,000 ft. in the Southern California mountains and they have also encountered lots and lots of rattlesnakes.

Barbara says, "We have high hopes that we can complete it. It's quite an accomplishment because most people don't. Mary is determined the we are going to finish." And if I know anything about Mary, they will finish their hike and return to us with lots of great stories and memories to share.

The family has prepared for this trip by section hiking the John Muir Trail and Mary is no beginner at hiking, she hiked to the top of Mt. Shasta when she was just 7 years old and has hiked the Tahoe Rim Trail not once but twice! And while most of Sunol Glen's student were enjoying their summer last year, Mary was hard at work doing independent study to complete assignments she was going to miss by leaving the school year early to take this trip with her parents. When she returns to school in the fall, Mary will be up to date on all her schoolwork as a sixth grader.

Barbara would like to thank all of their neighbors for keeping a safe watch over their house while they are gone and for taking care of the family's cats and watering their plants.

More Sunol Grads, last week I mentioned Sunol Glen's eighth grade graduates and now here are our high school graduates. Graduating from Foothill High are: Amanda Foster, Hernan Baron, Whitney Beemiller, Nathan Harvey, Ryan Hazelton, Amanda Hoxie, Dane Nomellini and Courtney Franco; graduating from Livermore High is Carissa Koopman and graduating from Valley High is Christian Perez.

Proud papa Landy White has informed me that daughter Heather White graduated magna cum laude from UC Santa Barbara on June 13. This lucky young women was fortunate to be able to study abroad at the University of Lyon in France for 1 year before earning her major in political science and global studies at UCSB. Heather won the "Reg Robinson Award for Political Science". The Reg Robinson Award is given to the student with the highest grade point average in international relations and comparative politics courses. Heather is considering a career in the Foreign Service or with State Department. Congratulations to all of Sunol's graduates!

Last Wednesdays "Peace and Social Justice Meeting" at the Little Brown Church was attended by an enthusiastic group of people eager to make a difference. Chris Huelfer said, "I've learned so much just sitting here tonight. I always want to keep my mind open to another point of view". The group will meet again on July 13 at the church at 7:00 p.m.