Moving&shaking

See the forest

The downtown rumor mill has it that Redwood Forest Restaurant on West Third Street is in danger of closing due to rising rents. Not true, insist the eatery’s frustrated owners.

Les and Tracy Hord, who own Redwood Forest, battled the same type of talk six years ago when the Sherwood Forest toy store closed. They suspect the recent confusion may be related to The Rainforest gift shop closing a few blocks away—the whole “forest” connection. It doesn’t help that rents downtown really are going up for many businesses.

“We’re doing well. We’re staying for a long time,” Tracy Hord said, laying the rumor to rest.

Nose for news

Chico State’s newspaper, The Orion, is at it again, taking home the Newspaper of the Year award for the third straight year.

The Associated Collegiate Press bestows the award on the best four-year college weekly paper in the nation, and The Orion has earned that honor five times in six years.

The award was presented March 9 at a convention in Seattle, and was based on a single issue: The Orion’s Feb. 26, 2003 edition featuring full-color on each section’s front page and several hard news stories written on tight deadlines.

Cey, Cey, Cey

One of the perks of being a reporter—or, in my husband’s case, a newspaper photographer—is being sent to cover things in which we happen to have a personal interest. Tom Angel, with our editor’s blessing, actually assigned himself to cover a Spring Fever fund-raiser and auction being held on the behalf of 41-year-old Chico American Legion Baseball organization.

Ron Cey, the Los Angeles Dodgers great, was the keynote speaker at the March 15 event. Tom, a lifelong Dodgers fan, took his picture (below), got his autograph and then came home and told me we’d better say something about the cause, because it’s a good one and everyone was really nice.

Krystal Migliore, a volunteer with Chico American Legion Baseball, said the event was a big success and they’re still tallying the funds raised. The money will go to support the teams and also contribute to field improvement projects around town, from city-owned fields to the high school ones.

The league, comprised of teenaged players, is made up of four teams: the Chico Nuts, the Chico Suns (there are two Suns teams) and the Chico Rice.

Migliore added, noting the Chico Heat’s demise, “we’re hoping that when people get an itch to go to a baseball game this summer they’ll remember we’re out there.”