Soquel High football players are thrilled to have former NFL player Dwight Lowery coaching them. How could they not be?

It’s a trend we’d like to see at all levels of education – people who have been successful in their fields coming back to share their knowledge with the community.

We see it at both local colleges, where teachers who have been successful in their industries are mentoring students with what they learned in the worlds of business, science, film making and computer tech, to name a few.

We see it in the art students are pro- ducing in schools around the county, something we will feature more of in the printed paper and online.

We see it in the high school theater presentations we’ve attended where performances were not that far from what people are seeing from profes- sional theater companies.

One of the goals of Growing Up in Santa Cruz is to highlight the best of what Santa Cruz students are learning from pre-school through college. Send in your nominations for best teachers and classes and we will write about them in future issues.

You should also check out information in this issue on dangerous websites being frequented by teens, how to best pay for college, with the state’s help and how to properly put on a car seat.

Big Box Extinction

Despite living in a community that once fought against big box stores, we are saddened by the loss of three big ones the past weeks. Sears and Orchard Supply are leaving and Toys R Us is gone.