From the Super Bowl to abject grief: More of 2022's biggest stories in Ventura County
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2022 brought an overwhelming COVID-19 surge, tragic suicides of two young athletes and a Super Bowl championship for the hometown Rams.
It was a year when soaring gas prices and high rents destroyed household budgets and ignited political debate. And in Ventura, a Navy sailor was laid to rest eight decades after he was killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Here are recaps of some of the Ventura County Star’s biggest general news stories of the year.
Omicron floods into hospitals, schools
The coronavirus roared into the year in a surge fueled by an omicron variant that spread like a wildfire compared to earlier strains. Infection rates leaped to record levels in January, igniting a scramble to find home test kits with county officials ending a test giveaway early after it caused a traffic jam in Camarillo.
Though omicron produced less severe illness than earlier strains, the rising spread packed hospitals with floods of patients, some of them waiting for hours for beds to open. Faced with a growing shortage of nurses, state officials enacted a new policy providing hospitals with severe staffing needs the option of keeping COVID-positive workers on the job if they had no symptoms.
School absences escalated for students and teachers across the county with the Ojai Unified School District reporting about 1 of 5 staff members calling in sick in mid-January. Administrators in some districts struggled to find substitute teachers, resorting to merging multiple classes in cafeterias and auditoriums.
The surge receded nearly as quickly as it emerged. Case rates and hospitalizations fell. COVID restrictions loosened. Debates grew over the impact of school mask mandates on communication, learning and mental health. In March, state officials allowed school districts to remove the mandate, giving teachers and students a choice on whether to cover up or not.
Rams bring Super Bowl excitement to county
Super Bowl excitement gripped Ventura County as the Los Angeles Rams, who have trained at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks since their return from St. Louis in 2016, went on an epic to run win Super Bowl LVI February in Los Angeles.
Ventura County played a part in the Rams’ 23-20 win over Cincinnati at SoFi Stadium. Head coach Sean McVay decided to keep the team at their facility in Thousand Oaks before the big game, rather than using the facilities at El Camino College the NFL had scheduled for the NFC Champion.
The Rams hosted their Super Bowl Media Day at Cal Lutheran’s Rolland Stadium and held a nationally-televised rally before the big game at Oaks Christian School in Westlake Village.
After the big win, local fans reveled in the "pure joy" of the long-awaited championship. The Rams even brought the Lombardi Trophy to the Civic Arts Plaza in Thousand Oaks as part of its Super Bowl “Trophy Tour.”
During the offseason, Rams superstar Aaron Donald, whose defensive plays clinched the victories in both the NFC Championship and Super Bowl, visited Simi Valley High to speak to the football team about the value of hard work.
Residents struggle to keep up with rent, gas prices
Ventura County consistently posted some of the highest monthly rental prices in the region this year, forcing renters into bidding wars and leaving some on the brink of eviction.
The median two-bedroom apartment rented for $2,653, according to a December report from Southern California Association of Governments. The rent hikes came on top of 2021 increases that included a 10.9% jump in prices, an analysis by Dyer Sheehan Group Inc. showed. Officials cited reasons from the county’s lack of inventory to landlords reacting to the lifting of pandemic restrictions and new rent control laws.
Those forced into longer commutes saw no relief at the pump as gas prices broke records. The county's average price of regular unleaded gas soared above $6 per gallon, hitting a record high of more than $6.40 in June.
Deaths bring outpouring of grief
The suicides of two of Ventura County’s brightest student-athletes sounded the alarm over mental health on college campuses.
Katie Meyer and Sarah Shulze were both 21-year-old athletes at two of the top collegiate programs in the country.
Meyer, a Newbury Park High graduate, rose to national prominence as the heroine of Stanford’s NCAA women’s soccer national championship team in 2019. The goalkeeper saved two penalty kicks in the decisive shootout against the University of North Carolina.
Shulze, the Star’s All-County Runner of the Year in 2018 when she was at Oak Park High School, was a cross-country and track runner at the University of Wisconsin.
Meyer was found dead in her on-campus dorm room in Palo Alto on March 1. The County of Santa Clara announced two days later the death was "self-inflicted.”
Six weeks later, Shulze's family announced Shulze "took her own life." Mourners gathered at Calvary Community Church to remember her in May.
“We just need to be together,” said her father, Scott Shulze. “Not only to celebrate our beautiful daughter Sarah and her amazing 21 years, but we’re going to mourn. This is just a tragic loss.”
Meyer’s friends and family gathered at Newbury Park High to remember the soccer standout. Several of Meyer’s former teammates returned home for the service in the school’s stadium.
Meyer's family sued Stanford for wrongful death in November, claiming the university “negligently” and “recklessly” sent Meyer a formal disciplinary notice the day before her death, causing her “to suffer an acute stress reaction that impulsively led to her suicide.” She was being disciplined for allegedly spilling coffee on a Stanford football player in August while she was riding a bike.
Pearl Harbor sailor remains ID'd
The first Ventura resident killed in WWII was laid to rest at Ivy Lawn Cemetery this month, 81 years after the U.S. Navy sailor was killed in the attack in Pearl Harbor.
Claude Ralph Garcia was a shipfitter 2nd class aboard USS West Virginia when the battleship was destroyed during the 1941 attack. The 25-year-old’s unidentified remains had been buried at "Punchbowl" National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii for nearly eight decades when they were exhumed in 2017, tested for DNA and compared against samples from the families of missing service members. Garcia’s remains were identified in May.
Garcia was buried Dec. 11 with full military honors as his family and dozens of veterans from across Southern California looked on. The Ventura native was laid to rest next to his mother.
Before workers placed the gravestone, Garcia’s only surviving relative old enough to remember him, his niece Evelyn Pittsenbarger, tossed a rose on top of his urn, as did his nephew, 74-year-old Ric Ruffinelli. Ruffinelli said Garcia’s mother would be “overjoyed” to know her son was laid to rest next to her.
“You’re home, Claude,” Rufinelli said before workers placed the gravestone.
This week
Sunday: Photos of 2022
Monday: Top headlines of 2022
Tuesday: Breaking news of 2022
Wednesday: Biggest business stories of 2022
Today: General news of 2022
Friday: Government, political news of 2022
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This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Super Bowl win, tragic suicides among Ventura County's biggest stories
