Turlock’s Texas Ranger talks with students about priorities

Local baseball player Tom Mendonca has a lesson to teach about priorities. This Turlock High School graduate went on to win the College World Series with the Fresno State Bulldogs. He was also named the College World Series Most Outstanding Player and he won the Joe Kearney Award in 2009, which recognized him as the top male athlete in the Western Athletic Conference. After all of his success, however, he says that baseball is not his top priority.

Conflict of interest forces new TUSD trustee to resign

Turlock Unified School District Trustee Lori Crivelli resigned her seat on with only one meeting under her belt on Wednesday due to a potential conflict of interest.

Turlock students come up short in Mock Trials

Turlock and Pitman high students spent the last three months learning how the court system works with the hope that their understanding could be turned into winning prosecution and defense teams. While their arguments were compelling, in the end, they were left with no appeal to move on in the Stanislaus County Mock Trials event.

TUSD starts off the new year with fresh perspectives

Three new trustees were sworn into office at the Turlock Unified School District Board meeting on Tuesday, ushering in a new era in district leadership.

CSUS students and faculty stage multiple rallies against recent cuts

California State University, Stanislaus students staged a massive walkout Wednesday morning to protest the loss of Winter Term, cuts to classes and professors, and what many termed as the "poor leadership" of President Hamid Shirvani.

Anti-Debely coalition voice legal concerns

Despite the threat of potential litigation at Tuesday's Turlock Unified School District Board of Trustees meeting, the board moved forward with the master plan of the Joe Debely Stadium renovations with some additional add-ons for a cost of about $3.6 million.

Bullies beware: TUSD is out to stop you

Spring is the time of year for flowers to bloom and Mother Nature to come out of hibernation, but it is also the time when bullying incidents spring up the most.

Universities strive to end graduation gap for low-income and minority students

Minority and low-income students have historically had a harder path to and through college, but a new nationwide initiative looks to close that achievement gap.

UC Merced application deadline now Dec. 15

The University of California, Merced, pushed back the deadline for Fall 2010 applications for the second time in as many days.

Earl students take a step toward physical fitness

Every Tuesday and Thursday morning, passersby can see Dennis Earl Elementary students working on their fitness by walking about a mile before class starts. Their inspiration: Colored feet charms to add to their stylish necklaces.

Local students hone their NFL skills

The lawn outside Walnut Elementary Education Center was transformed into a mini National Football League training camp this past September for 120 students who were looking to put their best punt, pass and kick forward.

Walnut Elementary earns top four in state H1N1 video contest

Sneeze into a tissue, cough into your sleeve, wash your hands, sanitize. These health-minded words along, with the catchy tune that accompany them, have been stuck in the heads of Walnut Elementary School students since they started making their H1N1 public service announcement for the California Department of Public Health.

California steps up competition for education grant

Education cuts are coming at state governments left and right leaving local school districts with little to nothing to teach the students of the future. No one has much money and the students of America are suffering.

Academic Senate censures CSU Stanislaus interim provost

The California State University, Stanislaus Academic Senate voted Tuesday to formally censure Interim Provost Herman Lujan for "intemperate remarks" made in a Nov. 4 letter to the editor, published in the Turlock Journal.

Faculty has ‘no confidence’ in CSU Stanislaus president

The votes have been tallied and the results are in: the General Faculty of California State University, Stanislaus voted overwhelmingly Friday to express no confidence in the performance and leadership of CSU Stanislaus President Hamid Shirvani.

Hilmar FFA teams represent California at national competition

The Hilmar FFA Dairy Cattle and Dairy Foods judging teams represented California at the National FFA contests this October in Indianapolis, Ind. The national contests were held in conjunction with the annual National FFA Convention. The Dairy Cattle Judging team placed fourth overall in the nation with 42 states competing and 166 contestants. The four members and their individual placings were: Randy Edwards – 10th, Brian Lopes – 12th, Clinton Lundell – 30th ...

CSU Stanislaus awards Rogers Scholars

California State University, Stanislaus this week awarded 25 students as Mary Stuart Rogers Scholars. The annual scholarship recognizes students who have overcome challenges to excel academically. Since the program's 1991 founding, more than $2.5 million in scholarships have been awarded to more than 400 CSU Stanislaus students. Each of the 15 undergraduate recipients was awarded $3,000, while each of the 10 teaching credential program recipients was awarded $3,500. This year's undergraduate ...

UC Merced professor designs HIV inhibitor

University of California, Merced professor Patricia LiWang has designed what may be the most effective chemical inhibitor against human immunodeficiency virus infection, the university announced this week. LiWang's discovery combines two existing drugs to work between several times and several hundred times more effectively than existing inhibitors, depending on the strain of HIV. The new inhibitor blocks HIV from entering a cell at two different steps of viral entry, an approach among ...

Love and Logic alive in Hilmar

As every parent knows, there is no instruction booklet for parenting. The Hilmar Unified School District, however, has been helping local residents be better parents through its Love and Logic program. Love and Logic is a philosophy founded by Jim Fay and Foster W. Cline, who had over 75 years of working with and raising children. The philosophy has been taught for over a decade in Hilmar by Bruce Reisdorph, a licensed marriage, ...

Pumpkins pop up at Cunningham

The Kiwanis Club of Greater Turlock delivered 650 Halloween pumpkins to Cunningham Elementary School in Turlock on Friday. For the past 22 years the Kiwanis Club of Greater Turlock has been delivering the pumpkins. This year's batch was donated by Kiwanis members Ron and Karen Macedo, owners of Ram Farms.

Drug-free life

It was Red Ribbon Week last week in Turlock as schools all over town celebrated living a drug-free life.

Pitman High band kicks of Washington D.C. fundraising with free concert

The Pitman High School Band, known as the "Marching Pride" was recently invited to the 2012 National Independence Day Parade in Washington D.C. following a recommendation from Governor Jerry Brown. The Marching Pride hopes to raise $100,000 in order to make the trip to the nation's capital. Tonight the band will celebrate its nomination and kick off its massive fundraising effort with a free concert. The event will be held at 5:30 p.m. ...

THS Symphonic Band places 4th at Foothill Review

The Turlock High School Symphonic Band finished fourth overall out of 17 bands during the Foothill Band Review held Saturday at Amador Valley High in Pleasanton. The THS Symphonic band consists of 38 students who play an ensemble of percussion, wood and brass instruments. Only 38 students of the 100-member THS band participate in the symphonic section. At the review THS placed second in the concert class of schools. Band Director Daniel ...

Spooky fun at Chatom

It was a spooktacular engagement at Chatom Elementary School on Saturday afternoon. The country campus was filled with hundreds of ghostly sights and scary sounds.

Local schools to compete in Spelling Championship

Top local elementary and junior high spellers are scheduled to compete in the Stanislaus County Spelling Championships in the coming weeks. The top spellers in grades four through six from Chatom, Denair, Keyes, Sacred Heart and Turlock Unified School District elementary schools will compete with schools from throughout the county on Nov. 2 at Gregori High School at 5 p.m. Mountain View, Denair Middle, Sacred Heart and Turlock Junior High will compete ...

Migrant preschool program earns top honors

The Central California Migrant Head Start Program, operated by the Stanislaus County Office of Education, was recently named a "Center of Excellence" by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Administration for Children and Families. Locally, the Migrant Head Start Program operates the Turlock Child Development Center, which serves 150 children from low-income, agricultural-income based homes. Since 1965, the program serves 8,000 children in a seven county area and it was ...

Stanislaus AD resigns, joins staff at Simon Fraser in Canada

Strong Character at Crowell

Crowell Elementary in Turlock capped off its Character Counts Week celebration with a presentation of students who scored a perfect 600 on their California Standardized Testing on Friday. Throughout the week the school held assemblies to promote strong character amongst students and even held a professional dress and career day for sixth graders.

Farhadian named Love of Learning scholar

Isaac William Farhadian, of Turlock, a graduate student in History at CSU Stanislaus, was chosen as the Love of Learning award recipient by the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi. Farhadian completed his undergraduate at CSU Stanislaus in 2010. He graduated Summa Cum Laude with a double-major in History and Political Science and received the J. Burton Vasché Award. He has also received the Miriam V. and John L. Keymer Student Leadership Award, ...

UC Merced names first Alumni Association Board

Now with more than 1,200 alumni to its name, University of California, Merced on Thursday announced it has established the first-ever board of directors for its Alumni Association. Christopher Abrescy ('09), Uday Bali ('08), Josh Bolin ('07), Jason Castillo ('09), Efferman Ezell ('09), Sam Fong ('09), Jose Godinez ('11), James Kirby ('10), Jacqueline Miramontes ('10), Elizabeth Perkins ('11) and Yaasha Sabba ('09) will serve as the board's founding members. The board will ...