Featured

SANTA CRUZ—The top spellers in the annual Santa Cruz County Spelling Bee were announced Monday following the one-day event at UC Santa Cruz Saturday. Bayview Elementary student Liesl Hildebrand claimed first place in the Elementary Division and Gateway School student Sky Zeltser placed first in...

WATSONVILLE—With police vehicles leading the way—their emergency lights flashing bright in the late-morning sun—a squad of Boy Scouts, U.S. Naval Sea Cadets and military veterans marched down East Lake Avenue Friday to kick off Watsonville’s annual Veterans Day ceremony. The parade ended at the Henry...

WRAP UP Santa Cruz County Supervisor Felipe Hernandez is part of a large crowd that showed up Saturday to celebrate the completion of the massive Watsonville Brillante mosaic mural project on the parking structure on Rodriguez and West Beach streets. Music, dancing, food trucks,...

Tom Broz was named the 2023 Farmer of Year by the Santa Cruz County Farm Bureau June 22 at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds. In its 106th annual meeting, the Farm Bureau welcomed dozens of farmers, agricultural workers and others to the open-air event. Broz and...

Musicians, dancers and the public take part in a Mexican holiday tradition called La Rama Friday night in Watsonville Plaza. The first-ever such event in Watsonville was hosted by students in the dance class, Estrellas de Esperanza, taught by Ruby Vasquez. The purpose of...

A man was killed Friday night when he was struck by a car as he attempted to cross Main Street in Watsonville. Michelle Pulido, spokeswoman for Watsonville Police, said the man, who was in his 50s, was struck just after 7:30pm.  Police on the scene said...

Sandra Day O’Connor, the retired Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, died Friday morning in Phoenix, Ariz. of complications related to advanced dementia and a respiratory illness. She was 93.  O’Connor, who was a close friend of the late Diane Porter...

​​Former Pajaronian editor to sign books In 1971, three men pulled off a daring robbery of an armored car in the Central Valley and escaped with more than $200,000. They were never caught, and the money was never traced. Three decades later, a retired insurance investigator,...

Classes from Gavilan and Cabrillo colleges have joined forces to present a ceramics exhibit at the Gilroy Center for the Arts. The exhibit runs through May at 7341 Monterey St. in downtown Gilroy, with a reception on May 19 from 5-8pm. Students from the two colleges,...

A nine-hour standoff with a barricaded gunman in Salinas ended Wednesday with the gunman being fatally shot after he reportedly shot a Monterey County Sheriff’s deputy.  Monterey County District Attorney Jeannine M. Pacioni announced Thursday that Sheriff’s Deputy Jesse Grant went to 29 Sun St.,...