Guy C. Earl often told his four children—Alice, Martha, Guy Jr. and Eleanor—bedtime stories about his own childhood in “The Enchanted Valley” of the Owens River. ”I had the great good fortune,” he believed, “of spending my boyhood in the midst of majestic surroundings and wondrous beauty —where I walked in Paradise.” “To listen to Father,” remembered son Guy Jr., “one would think that he had spent the major portion of his life in the EnchantedValley.” In fact, his tenure there lasted only half a dozen years.

After the deaths of two men who had ingested what they thought was Xanax, the Sheriff’s Office discovered that a counterfeit version of the prescription drug, alprazolam, was being sold on the streets in Santa CruzCounty. The counterfeit drug was also known to be linked to three similar overdose deaths in San Francisco.

The California Grand Jurors’ Association has granted the Robert Geiss Excellence in Reporting Award for 2015 to the 2013-14 Santa Cruz County Grand Jury for its report, “Desalination and Alternatives: Water for a Thirsty County.”

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