PALMDALE - Space shuttle orbiters due for scheduled maintenance or major modification work should be permitted to land at Air Force Plant 42, Palmdale officials say.
Sept. 1
PALMDALE - Space shuttle orbiters due for scheduled maintenance or major modification work should be permitted to land at Air Force Plant 42, Palmdale officials say.
The idea is part of a move to package incentives, reduce costs and win the battle with Florida for space shuttle work here and preserve the 275 jobs directly tied to it.
LANCASTER - Excitement and spectacle of the Rural Olympics at the Antelope Valley Fair and Alfalfa Festival are overshadowed during the Farmers' Handicap when a horse stumbles and breaks a leg during a race against a Model T. Rider Tania Burton is unhurt, but her horse has to be destroyed.
CASTAIC - Firefighters work for a sixth day to contain the Marple Canyon blaze that blackens as many as 22,000 acres.
Sept. 3
Some 950 firefighters work through Labor Day to douse the 22,000-acre fire in Castaic, as crews totaling 850 battle a Wrightwood blaze where 700 acres burn.
Sept. 4
A report tracking incidents of censorship and curriculum restriction in the nation's public schools targets four Antelope Valley school districts for attempted book-banning and limits on AIDS education.
The annual report by People For the American Way, based in Washington, D.C., cites two incidents in which parents unsuccessfully tried to have books removed from classes.
After burning 21,500 acres in eight days southwest of the Antelope Valley, officials announce that the Marple Canyon fire in Castaic is 100% contained.
Sept. 5
PALMDALE - The second incarnation of the stealthy DarkStar unmanned spy drone could take flight next summer.
LANCASTER - Antelope Valley Hospital plans as one of its long-range goals to increase services for older patients.
Westside and Lancaster school districts move to take advantage of state money offered to reduce class sizes in primary grades.
Sept. 6
LANCASTER - Alternative sources of entertainment and an economy yet to bounce back to the golden days of the booming 1980s result in a 10.3% drop in paid attendance at this year's Antelope Valley Fair and Alfalfa Festival, officials say.
LOS ANGELES - A 22-year-old skinhead associated with a white supremacy group in Lancaster called the Nazi Low Riders is indicted on federal civil rights violations stemming from attacks on two Antelope Valley black men.
LANCASTER - City officials and state legislators take action to protect the X-33 space shuttle program from residential development and county noise regulations.
Sept. 7
CALIFORNIA CITY - Municipal officials are ordered to keep their hands off money in a special fund for street and water improvements. Officials used at least $9 million of the street and water line money to buy land and build a sewage treatment plant.
EDWARDS - Hundreds of school children and adult chaperones wait in line to try their hand at landing X-31 and F-15 jet fighters in NASA's stable of simulators during an open house celebrating Dryden Flight Research Center's 50th anniversary.
Sept. 8
GREEN VALLEY - Flames decimate more than 600 acres of forest about three miles west of here off San Francisquito Canyon Road.
PALMDALE - Sending space shuttle maintenance and modification work to either California or Florida isn't likely and shouldn't happen, a NASA administrator says.
During his second term representing most of the Antelope Valley in the Assembly, William J. "Pete" Knight has sent 47 bills through the Legislature - 15 of which made it to the governor's desk.
Sept. 10
PALMDALE - Palmdale Assemblyman William J. "Pete" Knight, who wrote a controversial bill that would bar California from recognizing same-sex marriages performed in other states, issues a statement that he has a gay son.
U.S. Forest Service officials say they are seeking federal money to increase the number of acres they burn in controlled fires each year.
Sept. 11
LOS ANGELES - A 22-year-old skinhead wanted by federal authorities for his alleged involvement in attacks on two black Lancaster residents surrenders at a detention center in Los Angeles.
PALMDALE - Sandy Corrales, who went home from a city council meeting after action to reappoint her to the planning commission, learns the next day that the council took action to replace her after she left the meeting.
PALMDALE - Two private companies, a garment manufacturer and an insurance carrier, are offering the population-rich but job-poor city the prospect of 2,200 new jobs over the next few years.
In the biggest development, the number of jobs expected from garment manufacturer California Coordinators mushrooms from 500 to more than 2,000, city officials are told.
Sept. 12
LANCASTER - The city's new baseball team ends its first season with 71 wins and 69 losses - not good enough to be one of six teams in this year's California League playoffs, but good enough to draw 316,611 fans to the city's $14.3 million stadium at 25th Street West and Avenue I.
That figure for 70 home games is enough to put the Lancaster JetHawks above seven other teams for attendance, and it gives father-and-son owners Michael and Matt Ellis their first money-making season.
Sept. 13
EDWARDS AFB - The base welcomes back Air Force Staff Sgt. Alfredo Guerrero, who became a hero during a terrorist bomb attack against an eight-story American dorm in Saudi Arabia.
Sept. 14
Local officials say they hope the creation of a new air-quality district for the Antelope Valley will keep existing business here and attract new ones to the area. The new district - to be called the Antelope Valley Air Pollution Control District - is scheduled to be in place on July 1, 1997.
Sept. 15
Hundreds of new elementary school teachers are expected to arrive in the Antelope Valley during the next few months to help shrink class sizes in kindergarten through third grade.
When the California Legislature and Gov. Pete Wilson approved the state budget in July, they offered to pay schools to reduce class sizes. This year, schools can receive $650 for each primary-grade student enrolled in a class of 20 or fewer students. The legislation also allows $25,000 for each portable classroom needed to accommodate new classes.
Hundreds attend the second annual International Heritage Day Celebration and Picnic where people share their ideas, religions and cultures.
Sept. 17
"Mr. Palmdale," Domenic Massari, who was the city's second mayor, dies at his home at the age of 102.
It was just under a year ago, on Sept. 23, 1995, that the $3.9-million city park at 55th Street East and Avenue R was dedicated as Domenic Massari Park. In 1929, Massari arrived in Palmdale, which had a population of about 500 at that time - most of them farmers.
LANCASTER - Tom Shelton, the councilwoman's husband accused of stealing $1,500 from a visiting Thai student, makes a mandatory $2,000 charitable donation in exchange for an embezzlement charge being dropped.
Sept. 18
SACRAMENTO - Gov. Pete Wilson signs a bill to create a new air-quality district for the Antelope Valley.
Sept. 19
CALIFORNIA CITY - City Council members and municipal officials top off victory with pizza after a 4-1 council approval of a new tax for the city's fire department.
PALMDALE - NASA officials are leaning toward landing space shuttles in Palmdale when the orbiters need major maintenance, a congressman's spokesman confirms.
Sept. 20
PALMDALE - More than 600 people attend the Mass of Christian Burial for Domenic Massari, Palmdale's longtime civic leader and former mayor, who died at age 102 on Sunday, Sept. 15.
PALMDALE - Promoters of "rave," or pay-to-enter parties, may find loud partying a costly proposition if the Palmdale City Council approves a new ordinance allowing the city attorney to prosecute property owners or party hosts.
Sept. 21
LANCASTER - A man is shot to death after three men enter his unlocked home about 12:55 a.m. and confront the unidentified 28-year-old and a female companion. The woman is not hurt. Sheriff's deputies have not determined a motive for the killing.
LANCASTER - Antelope Valley Hospital's five directors vote unanimously to approve a $1.18 million expansion of the emergency room.
With the March closure of Desert Palms Hospital in Palmdale, AVH's ER is faced with treating 65,000 to 70,000 people annually.
Class-size reduction efforts could force Antelope Valley schools to hire substitute teachers without teaching credentials, as well as some who haven't even taken the state's basic education-skills test.
Sept. 22
LANCASTER - Larwin Company puts large parcels in the Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys on the market to raise money to buy property in other Southern California areas, according to Larwin's chairman and CEO, Michael Keston.
LANCASTER - Three living and two deceased test pilots who flew into the history books at Edwards AFB are inducted into the Aerospace Walk of Honor.
Sept. 23
More than 10,000 people come together over two weekend nights at Lancaster Municipal Stadium for the second annual Hope Crusade. It is the largest gathering ever of evangelical Christians in the Antelope Valley.
"This is an Antelope Valley miracle," says Dr. Bob Moorehead, senior pastor at Overlake Christian Church in Kirkland, Wash., the crusade's featured speaker.
Sept. 25
LANCASTER - Two Antelope Valley College students get a head start toward becoming professional anthropologists when they present papers at an annual conference of Mojave Desert archaeologists.
AVC instructor Roger Robinson, who has taught anthropology and archaeology at the college for 25 years, says no previous student had made the effort or taken the risk of forming a theory to present at a formal conference.
Antelope Valley's premier pioneer physician, Dr. W.R. (William Raphael) Senseman, who for 17 years owned Lancaster's only hospital and helped found Lancaster Community Hospital, dies at age 87.
Sept. 26
PALMDALE - Movers load furnishings from Ritter Ranch Co.'s Antelope Valley office, marking the apparent end of more than seven years of negotiations between the city of Palmdale and the developers.
Richard Worthington, Ritter Ranch senior vice president and general manager, says work on the 11,500-acre master-planned community has been suspended indefinitely.
Sept. 27
LANCASTER - Antelope Valley Hospital directors berate inaction by Los Angeles County officials and ask for an end to talk that the hospital might build a free-standing emergency room at the south end of the Valley.
Under current state law, "it is not an option to build a free-standing emergency room anywhere in . . . California, so we have to look at other options," Director Shirley Sayles says.
Sept. 28
LOS ANGELES - During closing arguments at her trial, a federal prosecutor calls Palmdale "lien queen" Mary Elizabeth Broderick a fraud and a wanna-be sovereign. She replies by characterizing the government as a group of "monsters" conducting censorship.
Sept. 29
PALMDALE - A fourth Palmdale man is arrested in what Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies are calling a major burglary ring.
The trio of men at the top of the longevity ladder at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center agree on at least one common theme: Visionary people, with pride and workplace independence, have made the center the world's most influential and dominant site in the field of atmospheric flight research since its roots were planted on the local scene 50 years ago this month.