OAKHURST – Wanted! Team Captains, committee members, sponsors and survivors for Relay For Life 2014, scheduled for May 17-18. This year’s event will be held at Yosemite High School. The first Team Captain meeting of the new year will be Monday, Jan. 13, at 5:30 p.m. at Oakhurst Medical Group. Immediately following that meeting, at 6:30 p.m., there will be ...

AHWAHNEE – Another afternoon of first class music is scheduled for Sunday, Jan. 19, at 4 p.m. as the Coolwater Ranch presents Paul Asbell in their first concert in the 2014 series. From his early years, playing blues on Chicago’s South Side, to his present multi-faceted career based out of northern Vermont, Paul has earned an underground reputation as a ...

OAKHURST – Three years ago Kristen Boysen, now the Sierra Foothill Conservancy’s conservation project manager in Mariposa, was in a far different place from the Sierra foothills. She was studying penguins in Antarctica. A 2010 graduate of Pomona College in Southern California, where as a senior she did field research on murrelets on offshore islands, Boysen traveled in October 2010 ...

MARIPOSA – Put on your dancing shoes and get ready for a good time, as two ballroom events – one in Oakhurst and one in Mariposa – are coming to the mountain area in January. On Friday, Jan. 10, the Elks Lodge Oakhurst will host their monthly dinner and dance, open to anyone who likes to “cut a rug.” Dinner ...

OAKHURST – It’s the craziest book signing ever – MUDORAMA Style! Come splash through the goo, roll in the mud, and swing over puddles Monday, Dec. 23 from 1:30 – 3:30 p.m. Wear your camo, bring your foam weapons and shields, and get ready to go home wet, muddy and happy.

Submitted by Oakhurst artist Monique Wales YOSEMITE – Binoculars, field guides and cameras in hand, Virginia Lazar and I stepped into the Citizen Science arena via Yosemite’s Christmas Bird Count. New to the birding world, and filled with enthusiasm, we joined the 114th Annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count (CBC) taking place all over the Americas from Dec. 14 to Jan. ...

OAKHURST – This is the fifth year of the Oakhurst Outpouring, a free community Christmas feast open to everyone. The dinner celebration is planned for Monday, Dec. 23 from 3 – 7 p.m. at the Oakhurst Community Center, and all are invited to attend or participate by providing food, decorations or both. Coordinating the grand event this year is Rebecca ...

MARIPOSA – The Festive Holiday Concert of the Mariposa Symphony Orchestra (MSO) on Saturday, Dec. 21, will honor the memory of Dr. Phillip Smith, founding MSO Principal Tuba player and longtime arranger, composer and dedicated member of the orchestra. The concert will open with Smith’s own composition Elegy and Prayer, which was originally composed to commemorate the anniversary of the ...

OAKHURST – Families take note: Santa Claus will be at the Sierra Tel Business Office on Tuesday, Dec. 17, from noon to 4 p.m. Organizers at Sierra Tel invite parents to bring a camera and take pictures while kids talk to Santa about what’s on their Christmas list.

NORTH FORK — The Artisan Herd of North Fork will embrace this year’s parade theme, “Deer” Santa, by masquerading with decadent majestic splendor as a herd of artistically costumed deer celebrating the holiday. The herd consists of seven bucks, eight does, one fawn and one “horn man.” North Fork resident Marij Bouwmans was the catalyst in rounding up the artisan ...