Briefly

Chico man found dead after fall from Lookout Point
A 25-year-old Chico man was found dead after an apparent fall from Lookout Point last weekend.

Sheriff’s deputies, using a helicopter, found the body of Aaron Shirley at the bottom of the 200-foot cliff early Saturday morning. The department reported that Shirley had been reported missing the day before he was found, and his car was located parked at the top of the cliff.

Sheriff’s deputies don’t know if Shirley accidentally fell from the cliff (which is a sheer drop and has no guardrails), or if he went over intentionally.

Lookout Point, though, is a dangerous place to be, judging from the past few years. A half-dozen people have been killed or seriously injured there in the past four years, after driving their cars off of the cliff in suicide attempts.

Who let the memories out? Who, who, who?
With the Saturday-morning sun peering through century-old trees, a circle of Chico State alumni, students and staff gathered on the lawn of Kendall Hall, eagerly awaiting the opening of time capsules from the graduating classes of 1931, 1941 and 1951.

Perched on tiptoes, everyone crowded for a closer look. Three concrete squares were smashed and the buried capsules removed. When the 1-foot-square copper box for 1931 was pried open, nothing, not even ashes, came out. “Good one. Who’s playing the joke?” University President Manuel Esteban asked with a nervous smile, as he looked around the crowd waiting for the prankster to reveal himself.

People looked at each other in confusion. Then the copper box from 1941 was pried open. Inside was a perfect piece of paper with signatures from each class graduate and copies of three periodicals of the time. The copper box for 1951 then was opened—revealing ashes and a half-rotted yearbook, which fell to the ground anticlimactically.

Grey-haired graduates who had hoped to see remnants from their college days sighed and walked away disappointed, but not without stopping briefly to appreciate the remains of the graduating class of 1941, the only ones to survive the test of time.

The event brought to a close the campus’ Homecoming week and marked the 60th, 50th and 40th anniversaries of the graduating classes.

Meet the new bosses, different from the old bosses
Chico City Council members and department heads took their seats Oct. 8 looking ready to change the world with all the idealism of youth. That’s because the city officials du jour were high school and college students taking part in a “shadow” City Council that will run throughout the semester, dealing with the same issues taken on by the “real” council.

Several of the students expressed the same goals: “[Gaining] a better understanding of how government works and what people’s roles are,” was the plan of Brad Parks, a junior at Pleasant Valley High School, who someday hopes to be involved in government at the state level.

Each of the 19 students will be paired with a City Council member or department head, whom he or she will follow around and learn from. Project director Dolly Brown beamed proudly: "They’re dynamite. This is going to be fun."