Smith: Notable Sonoma County folks who are gone

On Dec. 31, you might have seen, we had a Page 1 story recalling some of the notable local people who died in 2016.

Notable is, of course, a subjective term. We decided we had room to honor about a dozen people, and then we had to choose them.

The published list did not include G&C Auto Body founder Gene Crozat, Andy's Produce matriarch Kathrin Skikos, Lou Bertolini of Western Farm Center, Wright Construction's Paul Wright, Holocaust survivor Betty Kale, deep-rooted dairyman Donald Moreda, musician Dan Hicks, furniture salesman Don Wehr, 100-year-old former Arrigoni's Market stalwart Paul Pasero, construction leader Marv Soiland and many others.

I'm thinking that at year's end we should print the names of every local person known to have passed away that year.

In the meantime, I admit regretting that this year I didn't include in the year-end story the remarkable Dyan Foster.

She'd lifted up the lives and expectations of so many of Sonoma County's struggling children through efforts that included Teen Court, Routes for Youth, Teens Teaching Through Theater and the Arts & Ethics Academy.

A void has endured since Dyan died Aug. 14 at just 56.

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THE DRIVE-THROUGH was open at the Starbucks on Santa Rosa's Farmers Lane but on New Year's Day, for no particular reason, John Samples walked inside to order.

Had he stayed in his car, Samples would have missed seeing a uniformed Santa Rosa police officer in the queue. He watched as “a charming boy, approximately 4-5 years old, went up to the police officer, reached up and shook his hand and very definitively said, ‘Thank you for what you do, and Happy New Year,'” Samples wrote in an email.

“Then his younger sister did the same thing. The police officer bent down for the handshakes and briefly talked to them.”

Samples, a speech-language pathologist, left with a chai latte in his hand, tears in his eyes and a heart that felt unmistakably lighter than when he'd walked in.

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URBAN LEGEND? It sounds a bit like one, but Kenn Cunningham is a man beyond reproach and he says this is precisely what happened days ago at a checkstand at the CVS on Mendocino Avenue in north Santa Rosa.

A most genial guy and an Exchange Bank exec, Kenn asked the drugstore cashier if she was having a good day. The checker replied, “Actually, it's been a pretty eventful day.”

According to Kenn, she explained that about an hour earlier there were four or five people in line when a young woman placed a large box of prophylactics on the counter and proudly told her she has a new boyfriend.

As CVS checkers reliably do, this one asked the shopper if she has a CVS card or the phone number connected to a card. The young woman rattled off a phone number.

With that, relates Kenn, the woman next in line exclaimed, “That's my husband's cellphone number!”

What are the chances? Kenn said the cashier told him the two women exited together and were trading pitched unpleasantries when someone threatened to call 911, then both left.

One lesson of the above: It's possible to punch one's phone number discreetly onto the checkstand card reader.

Chris Smith is at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.