January 2, 2006

Happy first Monday of the New Year 2006! I never thought I would use the words "happy" and "Monday" in the same sentence but after all the natural disasters and world crisis of 2005 every day should be happy.

I have a few "new" announcements for the New Year. A big, warm welcome to new Sunolians Yvonne and Mike Brill. The Brill's recently moved to town from San Jose. After Mike's job was transferred to Pleasanton they decided to look around the area for a new home and fell in love with Sunol. When they first visited Sunol they rode on the Niles Canyon Railway, ate at our local café and stopped by the Whistle Stop Antique Shop and they were hooked.

It took about six months of looking at homes before choosing the perfect Kilkare Road location. Yvonne wrote, "Mike and I love the rural environment here. We spend a lot of time hiking and riding our bikes. We have competed in adventure races together, including a 24 hour race that involved kayaking, mountain biking, orienteering and running from midnight to midnight. We are looking forward to running and bicycling around this area and exploring all the great scenery".

The Brills also have three children attending college. Twin daughters, Laura and Katherine are finishing their senior year at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, one is majoring in math and the other in biophysical chemistry; and son, Jeff, is attending Neumont University in Utah earning his BS in Computer Science.

Mike and Yvonne had enjoyed volunteering their time while living in San Jose and look forward to getting to know their fellow Sunolians and doing some volunteer work here. Yvonne says, "We love it here!"

The Sunol Business Guild will be celebrating 13 years of community service this new year and new President, Bud Hall said, " With the election of new officers and some new members coming in, we are going to carry out our mission statement. 'To maintain and improve the town of Sunol and to support local non-profit organizations in the community.' We are excited about this new year and have some great ideas for improvements in town. We intend to have several fundraisers to give us the monies to complete our goals of the mission statement."

Other new officers are Dimitri Kastriotis, Vice President; Don Ball, Secretary; Joan Hall, Treasurer; Joyce Ysit, Member-At-Large and Will Spears, Membership Director. Meetings are open to the general public and are held on the second Monday of each month at the Sunol Train Depot at 7:00 p.m. "We are encouraging any resident of Sunol to join as an associate member", says Bud. For more information please contract Bud at 925-862-2357.

If you had a chance to see the 117th Annual Tournament of Roses Parade on television this morning you witnessed a record 5 times that Foothill High Schools Marching Band has appeared in this prestigious event. And if you did catch the parade you would also have seen three lucky Sunol students proudly marching with this award winning band, Jovan Beard, playing trumpet, Adam Foster, playing saxophone and Galen Willett playing trumpet. .

The students departed early last Friday for a fun filled four days in Southern California. They are not only marching in the Tournament of Roses Parade but are also attending a Band Fest in Pasadena and performing in the Disneyland Parade as well. After an exhausting but exhilarating trip, they will be returning home tomorrow afternoon.