The Sun’s Year in Review
January
By Dennis Kaiser and Charles M. Kelly
The story of Seal Beach from year to year is like a cake filled with ingredients that run the gamut from bitter to sweet. The latter fills our hopes for a brighter future, despite the bitter lessons learned over the past 12 months.
Still, we remain attracted like fireflies to the pageant that passes by our window on the world. Now another year of documenting our local history has come and gone.
Welcome to the Sun Newspapers’ 2012 Year In Review: a look back as we head into the mystery of 2013 and all it shall bring.
The year 2012 began for us with the Sun publishing the sad news of local Seal Beach surfing icon Sean Collins’ death at the age of 59 years old. Collins had been a pioneer of surfing news, photography, and of lifting the sport to heights hardly imagined a few decades ago. The Sun Newspaper had helped Collins launch his career in his early days by publishing his Surf Report column. It helped lead to Collins’ highly successful Surfline web site.
In January we also heard the news that Grace Community Church of Seal Beach’s Pastor Don Shoemaker was retiring. He preached his final sermon on Jan. 8 of this year. Seal Beach residents of all faiths can cherish the contributions Shoemaker has made and continues to make for the community.
The hard news was a bit shocking as a Seal Beach jailer was charged in January of taking bribes. Meanwhile, the city began to put the tragic events of Oct. 12, 2011 behind it when it closed out the fund created to raise money for the families of the shooting victims. The funds, which amounted $405,556, were distributed to the families later in the month.
