1999 The year in review

June 16-29

June 16

LANCASTER - Lancaster High School seniors will shed their school uniforms forever today.

But when the class of 1999 collects their diplomas tonight at Lou Bozigian Field, they will leave behind not only their uniforms, but also a legacy of traditions that they built from the ground up as the high school's first attending class.

LANCASTER - As the B-2 stealth bomber completed a highly successful first mission in Kosovo, a government report calls into question the future of 36th B-2 program in Palmdale.

According to the General Accounting Office report released this week, the Air Force plans to move all B-2 depot maintenance work to Air Force-run depots by 2003. That would mean B-2 work would leave the Northrop Grumman plant in Palmdale, taking with it 1,200 to 1,400 jobs.

SACRAMENTO - The Senate on Tuesday passed an $81.7 billion state budget package - which includes $4.7 million for Antelope Valley projects - sending it to the Assembly for Approval.

June 17

LOS ANGELES - Efforts to bring a bullet train through the Antelope Valley were effectively sidetracked and nearly derailed on Wednesday.

Nearly a decade of work by Valley officials to convince a state authority a planned high-speed rail system would be best served by having a stop in Palmdale were overshadowed by an influential opponent of a high desert route.

PALMDALE - After 25 years in hiding, a local graduate and alleged member of a terrorist group, the Symbionese Liberation Army, was arrested Wednesday in St. Paul, Minn., where she had created a new life under the name Olson.

Kathleen Ann Soliah, who is a 1965 Palmdale High School graduate, was the football coach's daughter and active in campus clubs.

June 18

PALMDALE - Sheriff's deputies found a man shot in the chest in Courson Park on Thursday night after a sheriff's employee heard the gunshots from the parking lot of the Palmdale Sheriff's Station.

When sheriff's deputies arrived at the park, at 10th Street East and Avenue Q-12, around 9 p.m., they discovered Carl Boyd, 44, of Palmdale, laying in the park, unconscious, with three gunshot wounds to the chest, said Sgt. Wes Sutton.

PALMDALE - Prosecutors did not release what evidence they had in the 25-year-old case against Palmdale High School graduate Kathleen Ann Soliah Thursday.

Soliah, an alleged member of the Symbionese Liberation Army, was arrested Wednesday for her suspected role in terrorist bombings. Soliah, 52, was found Wednesday morning, leaving her home in St. Paul, Minn., where she had lived in hiding for 25 years.

June 20

LANCASTER - Services for George Runner Sr., father and namesake of the high desert's assemblyman, filled the sanctuary of First Baptist Church in Lancaster Saturday as readily as any Sunday morning sermon might have.

Runner Sr. died in his home Monday surrounded by his family after battling colon cancer for most of the year. He was 73.
June 23

LANCASTER - Development of the "lifeboat" for the international space station has slipped at least six months behind schedule because of electrical and parachute problems.

The next drop test of the subscale lifeboat model, called the X-38, from the wing of a B-52 bomber has been delayed two weeks to fix the craft's flight controllers. The drop test, conducted out of NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, is scheduled for July 9 at Edwards Air Force Base.

PALMDALE - A large swarm of bees invaded an east Palmdale apartment complex Tuesday afternoon, forcing the evacuation of dozens of residents.

It is impossible to determine by just looking whether the bees are the aggressive Africanized honeybees that are also sometimes known as killer bees. To be safe, firefighters evacuated nearby apartments and called in a crew from the Los Angeles County Department of Mosquito and Vector Control to remove the insects.

LANCASTER - It took a jury just four hours to find William Travis Hoffman guilty of the 1997 ambush murder of Ricky Cowles, who was killed with a hammer and a gun by an intruder who sneaked into the victim's bedroom.

It was a murder that ties two families together, and also divides them.

June 24

LOS ANGELES - A refusal by District Attorney Gil Garcetti to take action in response to allegations of mismanagement at the Family Support Center in Palmdale has triggered an angry response from 5th District Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich.

The discovery on Tuesday during a closed-door executive session of the Board of Supervisors that the D.A.'s office will not discipline management at the Palmdale center prompted Antonovich first to question Garcetti's management and ethics, then endorse Garcetti's opponent, Assistant D.A. Steve Cooley, for the March 2000 election.

LANCASTER - Mojavebased Rotary Rocket has secured satellite launch contracts that may be worth nearly $1 billion over 10 years, an announcement the company hopes will spur investor confidence.

But most of that money won't be available until the firm begins launches.

June 25

LANCASTER - Trustees for the Antelope Valley Union High School District unanimously agreed on Wednesday to seek a bond measure on the November ballot.

The measure will ask Valley voters to approve funds to build new schools and modernize existing facilities.

June 26

LANCASTER - Edwards Air Force Base continues to take a back seat to New Mexico as the site for X-34 rocketplane testing.

NASA is looking into ways to keep the testing in New Mexico and is not looking at an Edwards option at this time, said NASA spokesman Jim Cast said.

June 28

LANCASTER - It may seem as if they were babies only yesterday, but Antelope Valley's first quadruplets are already 3 years old and roughly 3 feet tall.

Hannah, Sophie, Lorraine and Robert celebrated their third birthday with their parents, Diane and Rob Rowe, in their Quartz Hill home Sunday. There was plenty of cake and ice cream, tricks by Jolly Wally the clown, and lots of smiles.

June 29

LOS ANGELES - You'd think at least one of the psychics that county worker Cheryl Burnham allegedly called while at work would have told her when her number was up.

You can imagine the question - like, "Am I really going to get in big trouble for this?"

Uploaded December 21, 1999