During her first week on the job, Superintendent Penny Weaver found Scotts Valley to be a welcoming place, and she’s bursting at the seams over her new position.

It’s been close to a year and a half since the drive-thru coffee shop just off Mount Hermon Road changed ownership, and the improvements are more and more noticeable.

Though best known for their actions during the holiday seasons, the volunteers of Valley Churches United Missions know that the work of helping people in need in the San Lorenzo Valley is a year-round job.

It was an exceptionally warm July afternoon in the San Lorenzo Valley. I was just on my way back to the Press-Banner’s fortress of journalism from an assignment in Ben Lomond when I discovered that, in my absence, my black car with the dark grey interior had attained a heat level normally reserved for the inside of a volcano.

Rock ’n’ roll, puppet people and Lady Gaga are rolled into one in this summer’s production by Little People’s Repertory Theater in Ben Lomond.

**Editor’s Note: On July 7, the Assemblies of God Northern California/Nevada district finalized the closure of Bethany University. The 92-year-old private Christian college is working on the potential sale of the campus to another Christian university and also determining where its records will be kept.