Summer

Burbank youth came out in force to spend part of their summer at ShowCamp. This past Friday night the kids showed off their talents with the play "Wonka!"

Summer is a 1-year-old spayed female brown smooth-coated Chihuahua. At first she may seem a little shy, but give her time and it will be worth your wait. Her size makes her a great candidate for apartment living. Summer does enjoy the outdoors and taking leisurely walks, but she needs to be an inside dog. Prior to adoption, the family and other pets should have a meet-and-greet to ensure that Summer is the perfect fit. For more information on Summer, contact the Burbank Animal Shelter and inquire about ID#A037831.

The prediction of this being the hottest summer on record has fallen short as of the second week of August. “Sometimes Mother Nature leads you to the precipice but doesn’t push you over,” said Bill Patzert, climatologist and oceanographer at Jet Propulsion Laboratory. According to weather specialist Stuart Seto, National Weather Service, June was close to normal in temperature, July was slightly above normal and the first week of August appears to be slightly below normal.

GLENDALE ? From Southern California to Canada, then back to Southern California, before earning a trip Greece and finally, back home. It was a whirlwind summer for Glendale High graduate Kevin Witt and the rest of his teammates on the Team USA Men's National Water Polo team. It concluded in Athens, as Team USA came up short in its bid to qualify for the championship in the FINA World League Super Final after consecutive losses to Serbia and Montenegro and Spain. Witt and Co. had advanced through the preliminaries in Canada and the semifinals in Los Alamitos with an undefeated mark prior and qualified for the finals after failing to the previous year.

WOODLAND HILLS — The plan was simple during the summer for the members of the St. Francis High baseball team — look ahead to next spring. In order for the Golden Knights to possibly return to the playoffs next season after not qualifying this past campaign, they searched for potential lineup and defensive combinations. "I think we were able to answer some questions, like who might play third base and who some of our starting pitchers might be," said St. Francis Coach Brian Esquival, whose team saw its summer conclude with a 4-2 road loss to City Section Division I champion El Camino Real on Thursday afternoon in a Valley Invitational Baseball League first-round playoff contest.

BURBANK — Despite a 14-point first-quarter lead, the Crescenta Valley High boys’ basketball team fell to Huntington Park, 52-46, Thursday at Burbank High. However, in spite of surrendering its summer league finale, Coach Shawn Zargarian felt his team made “above-average” progress following a second-place finish in the Pacific League last season. “Summertime, we’re not really looking at wins and losses,” he said. “Our goal this summer has been to work on our defense.

to an End AROUND THE NEWSROOM By Jennifer Berry City Editor It's nearing the end of summer, and it seems to the Valley Sun newsroom that everyone but us has taken a vacation. I'm sure that is not actually the case, but I think many families are taking the last few weeks of summer to escape the heat and take a break. One of our school principals just got back from a trip to Europe. She talked of how nice it was that everyone took Sunday off overseas, spending time relaxing before getting back to the old grind on Monday.

A dvertisers declare that the start of summer is Memorial Day, but parents and children know that it doesn't really begin until the day after school is dismissed for summer break. Some of the parents I've talked to have lots of things planned to keep their kids busy this summer. Some will go to day camp, some will fly off to see their relatives for an extended visit, and a few will take family vacations across the U.S. or to other countries. Our kids are ready for some time off from school work and a regular schedule.

Grady McNeil, a young socialite, is left to her own devices in her parents' Fifth Avenue New York penthouse apartment for the summer just after World War II. Her sister, who is married and presumably the favorite of the two sisters, lives at her own home in East Hampton with her husband and children. It is at the end of the summer and at the end of the novel that Grady finds herself there and has to make a decision that will last a lifetime. But why? For weeks before the summer began, Grady had been spending time with Clyde Manzer, a man not of her social class.

LA CRESCENTA ? Construction work among district schools is in full swing for the summer, with several schools in the midst of projects that are expected to be in progress until classes start up again in September. The work is part of the district's summer maintenance project, which is funded each year through the deferred maintenance fund. Several schools will see improvements over the summer, including Valley View Elementary School in La Crescenta, which will have a newly repaved playground when students come back to class Sept.

Cruise Night - the annual event in which hotrods and custom and classic cars take over downtown Glendale - will be scaled back this summer after officials this week decided to more than halve the event's budget. The $103,000 required to stage the massively popular regional event has in past been paid for with redevelopment funds. But with Glendale's redevelopment agency dissolved by a state mandate, the city will now have to dip into its tight General Fund to cover a smaller $42,840 show.

Children entering kindergarten through sixth grade can sign up for the Summer Enrichment Program at Glendale Community College, which again teams with Glendale Unified School District to offer the program. The classes are held at John C. Fremont Elementary School June 25 through July 20. Tuition is $395. Residence in the district or attendance at a GUSD school is not required. After-school child care services are available until 6 p.m. at an additional cost. This summer, the classes are Reading and Creative Writing, Adventures with Math, Weird and Wacky Science, Get Creative with PowerPoint, Mini-Masterpieces Art Workshop, Reading & Writing with Pop-Up Books, Sculpting with Clay, Cooking for Kids, Spanish, Game-A-Rama and Improv Acting.

Maybe you'll want to start salting away money for 2012 fuel costs now. Get ready to see $4-a-gallon gasoline in various parts of the U.S. sometime this spring, according to one prediction. Another prediction says that some of the nation's biggest cities -- such as Chicago, Los Angeles and New York -- will see record Memorial Day averages of $4.55 to $4.95 for a gallon of regular gasoline. The predictions come from two sources. One is the Oil Price Information Service in New Jersey, which provides the daily averages for the AAA Fuel Gauge Report, using retail receipts from more than 100,000 retail outlets across the U.S. The other is the annual price outlook from GasBuddy.com, where 300,000 to 400,000 member motorists a day report and post online and through phone apps the highest and lowest local prices they see. There are more than 250 price-posting GasBuddy websites devoted to various towns and cities across the U.S. and Canada.

Glendale Community College is poised to reduce its 2012 summer session by an additional 80 classes and cut faculty pay 3.95% if state revenues fail to meet expectations, according to the terms of a new contract announced Tuesday. “No one is happy with it, but it was the best we could do, so we are just going to have to accept it,” Faculty Guild President Isabelle Saber said. The agreement between the college and its faculty union hinges on the severity of mid-year state budget cuts to public education that are expected to be announced mid-December, representatives for both parties said.

Fall may be just a few days away -- the season officially begins Friday -- but don't expect warm temperatures to go away, according to the National Weather Service. Temperatures will stay in the low 70s to mid-80s in the coastal plain through the week and hover in the mid-80s in downtown Los Angeles. In the San Fernando Valley, temperatures will range from the mid-80s to the high 90s. Skies throughout Southern California are expected to remain sunny and clear. Temperatures are about five to 10 degrees above normal across the region, said Bill Forwood, a National Weather Service Meteorologist.

It isn't often that summer passing leagues and tournaments do much more than whet the appetite for the high school football season. But in the case of Glendale High junior receiver Mike Davis, it was in the dog days of summer that the 6-foot-2 speedster began turning heads. "In the summer, he was great," says Nitros third-year Coach Alan Eberhart. "He changed the game. Good teams could not cover him. Alemany couldn't cover him. " Alemany is a reigning CIF Southern Section Pac-5 Division semifinalist and was one of myriad high-profile, big-time teams that Glendale squared up against during the summer.

E. Manchester Boddy, owner and publisher of the Los Angeles Daily News, was a legend not only for his sharp editorials and shrewd business skills, but for the fantastic parties he threw in his backyard. Of course, it wasn't just any backyard. In 1937, Boddy purchased 125 acres of land in La Cañada and commissioned famed “architect to the stars” James Dolena to build a home for his family, which included his wife Berenice and the couple's two sons, Bob and Calvin. Dolena constructed a 12,000-square-foot, 22-room home on hillside with sweeping views of the valley.

As August draws to a close, so does another season of the Summer Beach Bus service that transports foothill residents to Santa Monica Beach, and then back home, for just $3. The drive, traffic congestion and the high price of gasoline can keep a day at Santa Monica from being, well, a day at the beach. But with a round-trip ticket on the Summer Beach Bus costing $3 - just $1.50 for riders age 60 and up and the disabled - residents have been taking advantage of the service since 1994.

LA CRESCENTA - Whether they were experienced or novice runners, it didn't make a difference moments before gathering at the starting line in the final day of the inaugural Crescenta Valley Park Summer Cross-Country Series. On Wednesday night in a comfortable setting at Crescenta Valley Park, runners, ages 5-65, competed in separate races to test their endurance and running skills without worrying where they finished. The event, spearheaded by Crescenta Valley High cross-country and track and field Coach Mark Evans, attracted local runners, as well as runners from the San Gabriel and Santa Clarita valleys, for $5 apiece.