History
Lorraine Petersen of Fresno was original Sun-Maid model
Question: What is the history of Lorraine Collett Petersen, who posed for the Sun-Maid Raisin box? – Lucille Van Orman, Fresno Answer: Lorraine Collett Petersen was picked to pose for the original Sun-Maid girl logo after a Sun-Maid executive saw her wearing her mother’s red bonnet and drying her long dark curls in the sun [...]
Word on the Street: Oakhurst museum pays homage to teddy bears
A trio of teddy-bear aficionados in Oakhurst are combining their formidable collections to create a new Teddy Bear Museum of the Sierra in their hometown. The museum, which shares space with the King Vintage Museum on Highway 41, opened Friday with more than 250 antique teddy bears on display from museum co-creators Toni Lagunoff, Carol [...]
Ask Me: Unitarians migrated northward from downtown Fresno
Question: What is the history of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Fresno? – Harold Hill, Fresno Answer: Fresno’s first Unitarian church began in the late 1800s, according to David Firth, historian for the Unitarian Universalist Church. Fresno pioneer and Fresno Morning Republican newspaper publisher Dr. Chester Rowell donated land at Tuolumne and O streets for [...]
Fresno native, judge honored on eve of Martin Luther King Jr. Day
The Fresno chapter of the nation’s oldest black fraternity on Sunday celebrated the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic speech by honoring a Fresno native who is living her own dream of justice. Shelyna Brown, a 1988 graduate of Edison High School, is starting her second year as one of four black judges [...]
All-Bee girls tennis Player of the Year: Megan Lee
Elite-level high school tennis players often spend their offseasons hitting the courts on the club circuit. Megan Lee, however, spends her winters in the gym and springs and summers on the diamond. The Buchanan High senior rarely picks up a racket until a couple of weeks before school starts in the fall, not that it’s [...]
$8.5b mortgage settlement may help Valley homeowners
Valley homeowners who were improperly foreclosed on may get another chance at some financial relief, this time from an $8.5 billion national mortgage settlement reached Monday, the Federal Reserve said. Local housing experts hope the deal — the second major mortgage settlement in two years — will speed up the housing recovery and help those [...]
