LANCASTER - Following another school district's successful approach to gaining community support for a school bond, Lancaster School District distributed surveys to assess the support of Lancaster residents for a possible school bond the district needs to build more schools.

PALMDALE - President Bill Clinton has a date Monday with a federal grand jury, and for Antelope Valley residents, it should dwarf controversial trails with names like O.J. Simpson, Heidi Fleiss, the Menendez brothers and Tonya Harding attached to them.
Aug. 18

LANCASTER - With film production dipping industrywide, what could explain why the film business in the Antelope Valley is alive and kicking like Jackie Chan?

In fiscal year 1997-98, production was down 1% in the movie industry as a whole, but the AV enjoyed an 18% increase in movies, television shows and other projects shot on location here. That translates to more than 200 productions, compared to 175 the previous year.

PALMDALE - A large Bullmastiff dog broke free from its leash and attacked two girls, injuring them and spurring a deputy to shoot and kill the dog.

A former Antelope Valley resident, who worked at Edwards Air Force Base and Air Force Plant 42, narrowly escaped death at the U.S. Embassy in Kenya when a terrorist bomb exploded. Maj. Neal Kringel was not injured in the Aug. 7 blast. He shared his account of the event in an e-mail message sent to friends at Plant 42.

WASHINGTON - Abandoning months of denial, President Bill Clinton acknowledged to a grand jury and the nation Monday that he had a relationship with Monica Lewinsky that was "not appropriate" but refused to give detailed answers to some questions about the explicit nature of the contacts.
"I misled people, including my wife. I deeply regret that," Clinton told Americans in an evening address in which he criticized the independent counsel investigation for shifting from financial matters to his private life.
Aug. 19

LANCASTER - Selected students at two Valley high schools will now be able to receive the elite International Baccalaureate Diploma, after Highland and Quartz Hill high schools were formally accepted into the prestigious program.
Aug. 20

LANCASTER - The bad news is Antelope Valley Union High School District's graduation rate slipped 3.5%. The good news is the graduation rate is better than statewide or countywide averages.
"You can't win when you have one of the lowest dropout rates in the state," said Ray Monti, district assistant superintendent for educational services. "If it goes up a couple of students, it really goes up (in percentage)."

Aug. 21

LANCASTER - Just about every high school that feeds into Antelope Valley College had about 20% more graduates go on to college last year, according to statistics released by the California Department of Education.

HUNTINGTON PARK - The struggle for Assemblyman George Runner's bill to get tax incentives for California work on the joint strike fighter ended in victory, with Gov. Pete Wilson signing the $100 million tax incentive.

The $750 billion strike fighter project, if it goes ahead, would be the largest defense contract in the nation's history. It is expected to create 20,000 jobs over its lifetime.

PALMDALE - California congressional leaders supported the U.S. military strike against terrorist installations in the wake of two embassy bombings. "I felt when the embassies were bombed, we should have taken action," said U.S. Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, R-Santa Clarita. "I'm glad we did. I support the action."
Aug. 22

PALMDALE - First, students practiced fire drills. Then, depending on where they lived, students trained in earthquake or tornado drills. Now, throughout the country, students must learn "bullet drills." The new drills were prompted by the increasing number of school shootings in recent months.

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Pete Wilson signed a state budget package Friday that includes more than $300,000 for projects in the Antelope Valley, and $3 million for promoting California's aerospace industry. A booming state economy created this year's $4.4 billion budget surplus.

In the week since admitting his affair with a White House intern, President Bill Clinton has been vilified, defended, criticized and analyzed. But in the Antelope Valley, he's also being prayed for. And in churches around the Antelope Valley tomorrow morning, he'll be prayed for some more.

Reaction of the Antelope Valley's religious community to Clinton's mea culpa are as varied and diverse as the community itself.
Aug. 23

LLANO - The 9-month-old son of a Lancaster couple was orphaned late Friday night when his parents were among three people killed in a four-car crash on state Route 138 east of Pearblossom.

Infant Jakob Stein was the sole survivor in his family's 1995 Jeep Wrangler when it was crushed under a 1974 Ford pickup truck near the two-lane highway's intersection with East Avenue W, at about 180th Street East.

PALMDALE - Australian astronomer John Shobbrook, rested now from his 10,000-mile flight and an eight-month odyssey into job and immigration difficulties, delighted 100 fourthgraders when he showed them the universe inside SAGE Planetarium.

Shobbrook, who arrived with his family in Palmdale on Friday, Aug. 14, got his driver's license, Social Security card and bank account on Monday, and spent Tuesday tuningup the planetarium he was hired last year to direct for the Palmdale School District.
Aug. 25

LOS ANGELES - Fredrick Gaio, who bought food served in county jails, and the man who bribed him to gain lucrative food service contracts will be eating from the same state prison menu under sentences handed down by a judge. Gaio, once the numbertwo man inside the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Food Services Division, was sentenced to five years in prison.

LITTLEROCK - Two young boys - one 6 years old and the other who hasn't yet seen his first birthday - lost their parents in the four-car crash that killed a trio of Valley residents on Highway 138. Jakob Stein, 10 months, lost both parents, Keith and Teresa Stein of Lancaster.

PALMDALE - The joint strike fighter competition between The Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin has begun in full force in the Antelope Valley.

Boeing started assembly of the mid-fuselage for the X-32A at Air Force Plant 42 Site 1 on Friday, marking the beginning of strike fighter assembly activity at Boeing Phantom Works Developmental Assembly.

LOS ANGELES - Fallout from the failed Northrop Grumman-Lockheed Martin merger continued when Northrop announced an additional 2,100 employees will be laid off on top of the previously announced 8,400.

Total impact on the Antelope Valley was not immediately known.
Aug. 26

LANCASTER - The Antelope Valley College athletic program violated federal rules requiring equal opportunities for women in college sports, the U.S. Office of Education reported.

PALMDALE - The road from here to eternity may be state Route 138. It's a toll road with a heavy price, costing the lives of 74 people in the past five years.

Known as "The California Deathway" or "Blood Alley" by those who frequently navigate it, the winding, hilly two-lane highway hosts myriad travelers; from the slow to the slower, and from the quick to the about-to-bedead.
Aug. 27

LANCASTER - Less than an hour after 5th District Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich presented a $90,000 check to start an Antelope Valley RECESS after-school program, that program's registration logs were more than half full. The high schools educational foundation designed and sought grant money for RECESS, which stands for Recreational and Educational Communities Ensuring Success in School.

EDWARDS AFB - The second F-22 Raptor arrived here at noon Wednesday, completing a four-and-ahalf hour cross-county flight from Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Georgia. The arrival initiates an aggressive flight test schedule that will see the two Raptors combine to complete a little less than 125 flight test hours by Thanksgiving.

BAKERSFIELD - The 15year-old boy accused of firing the shots which killed a rival Rosamond gang member was ordered by a judge Wednesday to stand trial for murder, just as one of his alleged cohorts was being sentenced across town for her part in the killing.
Aug. 28

LANCASTER - Parents and students opposed to a proposed new dress code that amounts to school uniforms brought their concerns to the Antelope Valley Union High School District board of trustees.

SACRAMENTO - In a show of statewide support for the aerospace industry, the Assembly unanimously approved a resolution urging the head of Lockheed Martin to pick California for development, production and launch of the VentureStar, the next-generation space shuttle being courted by 18 states, including three sites in California.

LANCASTER - The state prison in Lancaster is housing nearly double the number of prisoners it was designed to hold, forcing officials to keep excess inmates in the prison's gym.

California State Prison Los Angeles County, at Avenue J and 60th Street West, was designed in the early 1990s to hold 2,200 prisoners. Five and a half years after it opened, the Lancaster facility is housing more than 4,200 prisoners, approximately 195% of its capacity.

PALMDALE - Palmdale School District trustees have ordered an audit of the district's federally funded Head Start preschool program. The call for an audit came after anonymous allegations of improper use of funds and a surplus of about $700,000.
Aug. 29

Conditions were just right for Friday afternoon's opening ceremony at the 1998 Antelope Valley Fair and Alfalfa Festival - temperatures in the 100-degree range, community queens in their splendor, fair board directors in green vests, the mascot, Alfie, keeping young and old entertained.

Oh, yes, and a ribbon to cut.

SACRAMENTO - Legislation intended to foster economic sharing between Lancaster and Palmdale is now a statewide measure known as Proposition 11.

Assemblyman George Runner's sales tax-sharing bill, formerly known as Assembly Constitutional Amendment 10, will be on the Nov. 3 supplemental ballot with a $9.2 billion school construction bond, called Proposition 1A.

EDWARDS AFB - Air Force officials confirmed that eight firefighters and a laboratory technician suffered eye and throat irritation serious enough to require medical attention after a fluorine gas accident at a rocket test site on June 10.

The Valley Press learned of the accident from an anonymous source and confirmed details from an Edwards Air Force Base spokesman, who said the gas escape amounted to less than 2 pounds, well under the 10pound threshold at which reporting would be required.

LANCASTER - The Antelope Valley Union High School District released a breakdown of results from a recent state-mandated assessment test, conducted in all California Public schools last year, showing limited-English speaking students score far below their native-English speaking counterparts.

The data shows that even students who are called fluent in English but speak some other language in the home scored below students who only spoke English on a test administered only in English.
Aug. 30

LANCASTER - Reaching back into Antelope Valley's agricultural history, some participants in this year's Antelope Valley Fair Parade rode on horseback, in tractor-pulled wagons and antique autos.

Others, including bands and youth groups, marched in traditional formations down Lancaster Boulevard from 10th Street West to Sierra Highway.

PALMDALE - High Desert Democrats welcomed the wife of gubernatorial candidate Gray Davis to the Antelope Valley Saturday afternoon at a Spanishstyle barbecue and fund-raiser. Sharon Davis, campaigning for her husband, spent an hour talking with individuals attending the $15-a-head fund-raiser before speaking to about 50 supporters concerning the November election.
1998 - The year in review
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Uploaded December 28, 1998