Local CBS affiliate KPIX ran a story on June 18 about Piedmont’s work with renowned landscape designer Walter Hood to build a memorial honoring Sidney and Irene Dearing in the city. The city shared the conceptual design for the project, “The Dearing Portal”, on June 17.

“We are committed to being a different community today, and being a different community means facing difficult topics,” said Bayon-Moore. “It means confronting difficult chapters in our history. It means having a difficult conversation to be able to move forward.

The city chose Hood to lead the conversation. His work can be viewed around the world, around the country and in the Bay Area, including the gardens at the De Young Museum, the Bow along the Embarcadero, and Panorama Park on Yerba Buena Island.

Hood said he wanted to work on the Dearing family project because it was personal.

“I’m a Black man, it is just that simple,” said Hood. “I think if we don’t tell our stories, someone else will.”

100 years after 1st Black family in Piedmont, California was driven out, memorial moves forward; by Ryan Yamamoto for CBS news, June 18, 2025

The 96th annual TCGA Amateur Championship began Friday at Ely Park Golf Course.

The open division features 44 competitors this season.

Leaderboard – After Round One

1. Justin Fiato (-1) – 70

t2. Luke Barney (E) – 71

t2. Nick Barney (E) – 71

t4. Matt Maoine (+1) – 72

t4. Luciano Giammarino (+1) – 72

6. Keith Chesk (+2) – 73

t7. RJ Juodaitis (+3) – 74

t7. Matt Congdon (+3) – 74

t9. Anthony Espino (+5) – 76

t9. Nick Chernega (+5) – 76 

To see full results from round one, click here.

Round two of the three-round event is set to start Saturday morning at Endwell Greens Golf Course. 

• Eight Fort Collins-area high school athletes are into quarterfinals for the Blue FCU Girls Athlete of the Year.
• Voting for the quarterfinal round runs through June 23. concluding on June 30.

Who was the top high school girls athlete in the Fort Collins area this school year?

You tell us.

We’re into the quarterfinal round for the Blue Federal Credit Union 2024-25 top Fort Collins-area girls athlete bracket after a competitive first round of voting.

Here are the first-round voting results:

• Lily Eisbrener, Timnath soccer (89.1%) vs. Erin Herrmann, Fossil Ridge volleyball (10.9%)
• Kate Wind, PSD lacrosse (91.3%) vs. Kiana Cumings, Windsor track (8.7%)
• Lily Wale, Fossil soccer/track/basketball/XC (71.2%) vs. Mariah Gonzalez, PSD wrestling (28.8%)
• Meela Delap, Rocky basketball/track (80.4%) vs. Reyleigh Hess, Windsor basketball/track (19.6%)
• CheyAnne Schrick, Timnath golf (50.4%) vs. Mikaela Kendall, Heritage Christian track/XC (49.6%)
• Teagan Myers, Fossil soccer (61.2%) vs. Addyson Smith (Fossil track) (38.8%)
• Ellayna Potter, PSD nordic skiing (51.5%) vs. Cody Monajjem, Wellington swimming (48.5%)
• Molli Magaña, Windsor softball (53.4%) vs. Sydney Ovesen, Fossil diving (46.6%)

This quarterfinal round of voting will run through June 23 (ending at 11:59 p.m.), and the top vote-getters in each matchup will move on to the semifinals starting June 24.The bracket will continue through the end of the month, with the winner announced June 30 at coloradoan.com/sports.Fans, you can find the ballots below to vote for your favorite players.Blue FCU Girls Athlete of the Year quarterfinal matchupsKate Wind (PSD lacrosse) vs. Lily Eisbrener (Timnath soccer/track/basketball)The resumes:Wind: Second-team 5A all-state player, scoring 61 goals with 9 assists. Also caused 39 turnovers and won over 62% of draws for the playoff-bound Stars.Eisbrener: Three-sport standout was key to Cubs’ high-level success. Led Timnath to 3A soccer runner-up finish with 17 goals, 13 assists to make first team all-state. Key contributor for Cubs’ Final 4 basketball team. Track honorable mention after 2nd place league finishes in 100 dash and 100 hurdles.Lily Wale (Fossil Ridge soccer/track/basketball/cross-country) vs. Meela Delap (Rocky Mountain basketball/track)The resumes:Wale: Four-sport standout, helped Fossil win first soccer, track state titles in a week this spring as 5A first team (soccer) and second team (track). Led SaberCats in goals and ran on two top-3 relay teams.Delap: Two-sport standout led Lobos to first playoff basketball win since 2018, averaging 12.8 points and 9 rebounds per game. Also finished top 10 at 5A state track in shot put (5th) and discus (9th) while winning Northern Conference discus title.Teagan Myers (Fossil Ridge soccer) vs. CheyAnne Schrick (Timnath golf)The resumes:Myers: Colorado’s 5A Player of the Year as elite defender/midfielder for Fossil defense that allowed just 13 goals in championship run. Scored game-winning goal in state title game on late header.Schrick: Cubs sophomore announced her arrival this season, winning the 3A girls state championship as CHSAA’s 3A Player of the Year. Schrick shot rounds of 76 and 74 (plus-6) to win the title, part of a season-long scoring average around 5-over-par per round.Ellayna Potter (PSD skiing) vs. Molli Magaña (Windsor softball)The resumes:Potter: Stars senior had program’s best-ever girls finish at state meet with runner-up spot in 5-kilometer classic race. Potter made all-state first team after an ultra-consistent season, posting nine top-5 finishes.Magaña: Helped Wizards get within a run of 4A softball title, leading Windsor with .507 average, 57 RBIs and 13 homers on offense that averaged over 9 runs/game. Named to 4A all-state first team.

Chris Abshire covers high school and community sports for the Coloradoan.

With his work “gay play (NO HOMO),” a Broomfield playwright uses a satirical lens to explore the barriers to LGBTQ health care and acceptance in society.

Drake Susuras grew up in Broomfield and said his start there helped shape him into the playwright he is today.

“It was at Broomfield High School that I really was allowed to flourish,” he said. “I was given opportunities there to flourish and thrive but also was given the space to fail and try new things, which helped me be able to throw myself into anything and adapt and learn.”

Susuras performed his play “gay play (NO HOMO)” at Denver Fringe Festival this year, the annual event that focuses on a wide variety of unusual, bold and fringe performing art. With its unique premise and unflinching critique of modern queer politics, Susuras’ work fits right in.

“It follows this main character trying to get an STD test at a free clinic, and meeting all of these comical barriers to highlight what it’s like in America right now,” Susuras said. “It gets into the logistics of donating blood at a clinic and comprehensive sex education for LGBTQ individuals and flips everything on its head.”

Susuras said the character navigates those barriers as best he can but becomes the projected perception of what a gay man is supposed to be. It points a finger at the audience, asking, Susuras said, “Are you entertained now? Am I enough yet?”

Susuras said the play looks at the current political moment, using his experience to highlight the issues of marginalized groups far beyond his own identities.

“Now more than ever, queerness is inherently political,” he said. “Not just myself as a white gay man, but looking further into what a Black trans woman would experience, or the immigrants being raided by (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) or the people suffering in Palestine.”

Cole Franklin is Susuras’ partner and did the costume design for the play, and said the show was a unique look into a journey that’s very personal for every member of the LGBTQ community.

“Everybody has their own coming out story, and everybody has their own grappling they have to do with being gay in society, and everybody’s experience is different,” Franklin said. “I pretty much grew up gay — I was a really gay kid and came out very early, but (Susuras) did not.”

Franklin said his partner’s experience with coming out later in life gives them two different perspectives, and with Susuras doing so much of the play himself, the work served as a reflection of his experiences.

“Theater is such a collaborative art form — there’s lots of people attached to it, unlike a painter whose work is pretty much just themselves,” Franklin said. “It’s always interesting and refreshing to see a work of theater that’s coming from one vision and one mind, and it’s a testament to his talent and education that he was able to do this by himself.”

The play was a small production, with Susuras writing, directing, producing and starring in the play. The only other actor in the show, Devon Lainie, played the nurse at the testing clinic.

“It feels like there’s a new wave of playwriting, especially with younger playwrights, of very personal works,” Lainie said. “I had a great experience with it — I thought it was really funny but it also looked hard at our society and took a deeper look at the world we’re living in today.”

Susuras said the juxtaposition of those two ideas were central to the play.

“We don’t necessarily have to stop finding the fun or humor in things, but we also have to clock in and take things seriously … marrying the serious with the comedic is something that shows up in a lot of my work,” he said. “Ultimately, if we’re not loud, if we’re not expressive, then we’ll disappear, and I don’t think we’re too far from that moment.”

Originally Published: June 20, 2025 at 12:16 PM MDT

Going into this just-completed high school sports year, the 35th consecutive year of covering Orange County high school sports, the thinking was that I had seen everything.

Nope.

The Dana Hills baseball team committed eight errors but still won the game. The unranked Dolphins beat Aliso Niguel — ranked 13th in Orange County — 9-8 in a South Coast League game on April 25. Sophomore Ryan See’s line drive down the left-field line in the bottom of the seventh inning sent home Tommy Moro with the winning run.

That was one highlight from another entertaining high school sports year that ended this month. There was too much good stuff to include it all here. And some not-so-good stuff.

Let’s take a look back and a look ahead to the 2025-26 high school sports year. …

Mater Dei, Edison and Portola won CIF Southern Section football championships. Raul Lara’s first season as Mater Dei head coach also yielded a CIF State championship. …

The upcoming football season brings some new coaches, like Carson Palmer at Santa Margarita. Palmer was a star quarterback for the Eagles before going on to greatness at USC and in the NFL. …

Among many other football coaching changes, Mitch Olson, Kennedy’s football coach for many years, is the head coach now at Fountain Valley; former Irvine coach Erik Terry is at Northwood; and Jason Jellerson replaces the retired Doug Case at Foothill. …

Servite still is figuring out where to play some of its football home games. Some will be at Orange Coast College, some at Santa Ana Stadium – and there is talk of a game or two on campus. …

Richard Shearer retired after six years as CIF-SS assistant commissioner in charge of football, baseball and other sports. It’s a big job. …

Releaguing completed for the 2026-27 and 2027-28 school years for non-football sports moved Laguna Beach to a north county conference and expanded the Trinity League to a Trinity Conference that brings in Crean Lutheran, Pacifica Christian, Sage Hill and St. Margaret’s and returns Rosary to the Trinity group. …

Mater Dei won a second straight CIF-SS Division 1 girls volleyball championship. …

Katy Daly resigned as girls volleyball coach at Santa Margarita after a successful run there. …

The fastest-growling sport is girls flag football. The CIF Southern Section had its first CIF-SS championships. Orange County’s Northwood, Orange Lutheran and Troy won CIF-SS titles. …

In boys water polo, Newport Harbor beat JSerra 11-10 in the CIF-SS Open Division final. JSerra beat Newport Harbor in the CIF Southern California Regional Division I final 11-9 for Newport Harbor’s only loss. …

Mega-successful girls basketball coach Kevin Kiernan is returning to Troy to coach there in 2025-26 after 17 seasons at Mater Dei. His 900 career wins is the most in California girls basketball history. …

Trabuco Hills senior Holly Barker won the CIF-SS Division 1 girls cross country championship. Dana Hills senior Evan Noonan won a third consecutive CIF State boys cross country championship. Noonan is one of the all-time greats in O.C. cross country. …

Fairmont Prep, Los Alamitos and Santiago won CIF-SS boys basketball championships. …

Canyon senior Brandon Benjamin was Orange County boys basketball player of the year. He was county player of the year as a sophomore at Canyon, spent his junior season at Mater Dei and returned to Canyon. …

Mater Dei junior Luke Barnett scored 55 points in a game to break the school boys basketball single-game record of 53 points set by Tom Lewis in 1983. …

Nate Klitzing left Crean Lutheran after the 2024-25 season to become boys basketball coach at Orange Lutheran, his alma mater. Austin Loeb was promoted from assistant coach to head coach at Crean. …

Ringo Bossenmeyer resigned as Tustin boys basketball coach after 25 years at that post. He was known for getting the most out of his roster. Jonathan Antolin, an assistant at Foothill, replaces him. …

Matt Kanne replaced Tony Davis as basketball coach at Servite. …

Richard Smith retired as athletic director at Los Alamitos. Long ago Smith was a county basketball coach of the year at Servite. Nathan Berger, this past season’s county boy basketball coach of the year, assumes the A.D. duties and remains Griffins’ basketball coach. …

Jon Hamro retired as athletic director at San Clemente. He is replaced by former Tesoro football head coach Matt Poston, who also will be a Tritons football assistant coach. …

Trinity League boys basketball teams will play each other one time in league play next season and finish the regular season with a league tournament, like they’ve done in the Pacific Coast League. …

Esperanza freshman Sammy Sanchez won everything that could be won in wrestling, including CIF section and state championships. Marina freshman Aubree Gutierrez and Esperanza junior Olivia Davis won CIF State girls wrestling championships. …

Alan Clinton resigned as Servite wrestling coach, but he will continue to be involved as a consultant/assistant coach. …

JSerra boys soccer won CIF-SS and CIF SoCal Regional titles, and was named national champion. …

Beckman won a national cheer championship. …

Anaheim, El Dorado and Laguna Beach were CIF-SS girls water polo champs. …

The Newport Elks baseball tournament is no more. It was a great season-opening tournament. …

Estancia was Orange County’s only CIF-SS baseball champion, winning the Division 6 title. Sometimes it’s difficult to know how good a middle- or lower-division player is until that player is in an all-star game. Estancia catcher Sawyer Atkinson, the CIF-SS Division 6 player of the year, proved in the county all-star game that he was a Division 1-type of player. …

The Santa Ana Unified School District removed David Casper as Segerstrom principal and Erasmo Ramirez as the school’s varsity baseball coach after the CIF Southern Section found that the school’s baseball program violated CIF rules. …

Servite’s group of freshmen and sophomore sprinters set Orange County records in the 4×100, 4×200 and 4×400 relays. No California team has gone under 40 seconds in the 4×100 – until next year. …

Santa Margarita senior swimmer Teagan O’Dell was the county girls athlete of the year for the second time in three years. Future Olympian. …

The very-early Orange County football preseason Top 10: 1. Mater Dei; 2. Santa Margarita; 3. Mission Viejo; 4. Orange Lutheran; 5. Servite; 6. San Juan Hills; 7. JSerra; 8. Edison; 9. Crean Lutheran; 10. Tustin. …

The even-earlier Orange County boys basketball preseason Top 10: 1. Mater Dei; 2. Santa Margarita; 3. JSerra; 4. Fairmont Prep; 5. Orange Lutheran; 6. Crean Lutheran; 7. Pacifica Christian; 8. Los Alamitos; 9. La Habra; 10. Corona del Mar.

Getting older means the list of departed friends annually gets too many new additions. Difficult good byes to John Dahlem, CIF historian and former president of the CIF-SS Council and the greatest adventurer one could know; Jerry DeBusk, such a great basketball coach at Newport Harbor and Santa Margarita; Fran Ursini, football ref and supporter of high school athletics in every way possible; Villa Park boys basketball coach Kevin Reynolds, smart coach and a kind, funny man; and Ed Arnold, TV sportscaster who did so much for Special Olympians of high school age and other age groups. …

I need and accept all the help I can get. Thank you to my Register teammates: Dan Albano, David Delgado, Martin Henderson, Michael Huntley, Dan Nilsen, Brian Patterson and Lou Ponsi. Thanks also to a bunch of people who give me great information and ideas including the people at CalHiSports, Thom Simmons at the CIF Southern Section office, Ed Duffy, Rich Gonzalez at PrepCalTrack and Dick Sands. …

Special thanks to all of the athletic directors, coaches and the sensational athletes. All of you people are the greatest.

Originally Published: June 20, 2025 at 10:58 AM PDT