Palermo News

A small, single-story ranch house built in the 1930s on Old Olive Highway near Kelly Ridge burned Wednesday -- again and again.

A billboard is reportedly to blame for the devastating Ophir Fire, with the official cause of the June 2008 blaze released Thursday by Cal Fire-Butte County officials.

If colored lights, trees and visits by Santa aren't enough indication, the holiday season is definitely evidenced by preparations underway at Oroville, Thermalito and Palermo schools, where a round of special programs, concerts and a winter festival are scheduled for today and next week.

Police arrested two people who allegedly stole a van last week at Bidwell Marina, with one man trying to outrun police and crashing the van into a tree in a field off Ophir Road, near Lincoln Boulevard.

The lights say it all, Holly Jolly Christmas, at Oroville's Annual Parade of Lights.

Results are in on physical fitness testing mandated by the state, and though results for Oroville area students show more kids passed six of six tests in 2008-09 than previously, the percentage of those who did is still low.

Before I moved to Oroville, in fact years before I moved to Oroville or even thought about moving to Oroville, I met an extraordinary woman who lived in Palermo on an olive ranch.

Way to show up, Oroville!!!! Y'all knock my boots off. As a friend of mine shouted over the noise of laughter, chatter, clanking dishes and order calls at Mike's Grande Burger Thursday night, "God bless small towns." "And God bless the people who live in them," I shouted back as more people squeezed their way into the already crowded dining room.

Some people in Palermo think the neighborhood is going to the dogs, and they intend to do something about it.

When a Palermo woman went out to feed her sheep early Saturday morning, she found them lying in the pasture in pools of blood, and she saw five dogs running away.

Wet, slippery roads probably caused a half-ton pickup to rollover on Lincoln Boulevard Friday morning.

Contrary to rumors of swine flu, or H1N1, prevalent in Oroville area schools, districts officials in Oroville, Palermo and Thermalito said that is not the case.

Noise intrusion from loud outdoor generators and light "trespass" from unshielded or poorly aimed exterior lights will both be outlawed as a result of actions taken by the Butte County Board of Supervisors.

Testing is now under way at the site of the proposed Oroville sewer treatment plant on the rock piles south of Oroville Dam Boulevard.

Four Sacramento Valley school districts - including one each in Butte and Glenn counties - can look forward to extra help in improving teaching and students' learning over the next few years.

Maybe we're all nostalgic for the way we were, with Hollywood stars frolicking through our valley all the way to the Salton Sea.

Looking Back: 50 years ago That it will probably be a week before the Western Pacific can be cleared for through traffic, is the report brought to this city from the Feather River Canyon.

Unemployment rates in Oroville for the month of August were down slightly, according to state officials Friday.

Oroville Churches: First Congregational Church, Bird and Oak streets, Interim Minister, W.H.L. Marshall; The Richvale Church, Ben C. Ericson, minister, superintendent, Campbell, Richvale, California; Church of Christ, 625 Bird St., B.U. Baldwin, minister; Community Advent Christian church Palermo F.B. Eastman Minister, Mrs.

Features Electric Circus, 6:30-8 p.m., Aug. 27, at Riverbend Park, Oroville. Free. Palermo community festival seeking vendors Submissions due by Aug.