A little-known chapter of America’s wartime aviation history has been revisited by a Healdsburg writer, whose debut novel recounts the story of the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs.

There was an enormous pool of frustrated women pilots who rushed to join the WASP program when it was created, Jeane Sloan recounts, because the attack on Pearl Harbor had left them no other opportunities to fly.

The WASP pilots were not recognized as part of the armed forces, but were instead considered civil service employees, notes Sloan. That meant that the women were not eligible for military funeral benefits.

On July 1, 2009, President Obama signed SB 614, awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to all the WASP pilots, in most cases posthumously. Jeane Sloan says she was excited to think that her friend and mentor, Florence Wheeler, would be getting one of the medals. Wheeler, however, was not so impressed.

Healdsburg author Jeanie Sloan will bring together nine surviving WASPs from the greater Bay Area  in Santa Rosa this Saturday afternoon for a special free public event sponsored by the Sonoma County Arts Council. It's at the Santa Rosa Veteran's building from 1-4 pm.

Another voice in support of public healthcare reform is coming from family practice residents in Santa Rosa.

America's current health care system is deeply flawed in its capacity to deliver care to the patients who need it, says Dr. Rachel Friedman (left), which is the fundamental reason she is advocating for systemic reforms.

Those inequities in care, which are driven by disparities in health insurance coverage, tend to give doctors a narrower range of patients to work with, observes Dr. Veronica Jordan (right), while her ideal would be to see a more fully representative  spectrum of people in her daily practrice.
The activism that Drs. Friedman and Jordan are engaged in is not unusual, Friedman adds. Most of their residency classmates have joined in, and they have many counterparts across the country.

The Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation has a new home—one that’s almost 150 years old.

Ken Churchill, who oversaw the restoration project, says they had to adhere to historical accuracy for the exterior, but inside was a different story.

This portrait of the aged farmhouse at the historic  Stone Farm overlooking Occidental Road is by Calistoga painter Jocelyn Audette. The original now hangs inside the building itself.

The North Bay Report previously covered the early stages of the restoration of the civil war-era farmhouse as the project was getting started, back on August 9, 2007.

Since the Laguna Foundation was established, back in the early 1990s, Executive Director David Bannister says they have worked with considerable success to elevate public awareness of Sonoma County’s central ecological resource.

Below is a map of the full watershed that drains into the Laguna de Santa Rosa, outlined in orange. The Laguna itself flows into the Russian River at the upper left of this map, near Forestville.

The start of this new school year at Sonoma State University was marked by grim financial news and warnings that things will almost certainly get worse next year.

The faculty and staff at Sonoma State are resigned to the cutbacks that the current economic climate has necessitated, said SSU Faculty chair Susan Moulton (left)  as she opened yesterday’s University Convocation. But there is also lingering unhappiness over the perception that the pain has not been equally shared by the school’s administration.

While much attention has been focused on the faculty’s furloughs, Associated Students President Heather Hanson pointed out that they have been feeling the financial hardships across the past decade, and the most recent moves present a double impact on students, as they must pay more even as fewer classes are being offered.

In addition to the furloughs and other budget cuts, University President Armanana noted that his school has been forced to close enrollment for the spring semester next year, and cut back on admissions for the 2010-11 school year but 450 students, effectively denying access to a university education for hundreds of eligible young people.

A new plan to bring baseball back to the North Bay envisions a short summer league with a dozen teams of mostly local players, and a rolling set-up to dress up existing ball fields in area parks.

The proposed Wine Country Old Fashioned Baseball League is the idea of Dry Creek Valley winery owner Howard Leonhardt (left), who says he developed it after he was unable to purchase an existing minor league team and relocate it to Sonoma County.