HAPPY NEW YEAR: For those who celebrate...
HAPPY NEW YEAR: For those who celebrate the Chinese New Year, the Year of the Rat begins today. Ancient Chinese used the rat, along with 11 other animals, as a way to mark the years, says Sara Hser, a teacher at the Thousand Oaks Chinese School. . . . Although the rat represents ambition, honesty, popularity and artistic ability, the dragon is considered the grandest of the 12 animals, Hser said. . . . Hser says there aren’t any major New Year’s celebrations in the county today: “Everybody is thinking about Presidents Day.”
MAKING HISTORY: It was Presidents Day to the max in November 1991, when one current and four former chief executives showed up for the opening of the Ronald Reagan library near Simi Valley. Joining Reagan were President George Bush and former Presidents Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter. . . . Dennis Daellenbach, acting director of the library, called it “a very emotional gathering, an amotional ceremony.” . . . The library is offering free admission today from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
FIELD TRIP: Kristine Becker, a Buena High School grad who’s now a junior at Mount St. Mary’s College, spent last week in Maryland as a guest of the National Institutes of Health. Becker, who hopes to go into pediatric oncology after college, was one of 60 students nationwide invited to a seminar on biomedical research. . . . The 20-year-old, who already has run up some credentials in the medical field as a patient coordinator, says she didn’t do much the four days in Bethesda besides listen and learn. “You were doing something each second.”
SPRINGBOARD: Even though defense attorneys question the productivity of the District Attorney’s Workers Compensation Unit (B1), the department’s last two chiefs have fared well. John Geb was named a federal administrative law judge, and Rebecca S. Riley was appointed to the Ventura County Municipal Court bench. . . . “Who knows,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert D. Meyers, the current supervisor. “Three is a lucky number, isn’t it?”
