Occidental makes a big bet on Bakersfield and BakersfieldLife to spotlight our high achieving kids

* ... GOOD NEWS: If there  is a winner in this terrible oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, it may be Occidental Petroleum. At least that's the view of Bloomberg news service, which said Oxy is "leading a rush to find crude on land" as the disaster spurs tougher offshore drilling rules. Oxy recently doubled its estimate for a discovery near Bakersfield, to the equivalent of as much as $34 billion at current prices. Bloomberg said Oxy "bucked the oil industry migration to deep-sea drilling during the past decade and focused on onshore fields from California to Texas to Abu Dhabi." The story went on to say that Oxy is keeping the precise location of its Kern County discovery a secret to prevent competitors from trying to buy adjacent tracks of land.

 * ... COLLEGE BOUND: The city magazine BakersfieldLife comes out Saturday with its annual spotlight on some of our community's high achieving, college-bound kids. This is my favorite issue as it focuses on some of our local success stories, all of them inspirational. Among those being profiled are Joanne Bae, Liberty, headed to UC San Diego; Wesley Elrich, BHS, headed to UCLA; Kristyn Pendley, Ridgeview, headed to UC Davis; Tyler Davisson, West High, going to Cal Poly; Alexandra Tamplin, South High, bound for Stanford; Brandon West, Garces Memorial, Pepperdine; Katherine Scott, East High, headed for Smith College; Andrew Morales, Highland High, UC Irvine; Jake and Lauren Howry, Centential, going to University of Chicago and Washington and Lee, respectively; Melissa Hamilton, Stockdale, bound for Stanford; Michael Moore, Golden Valley, Morehouse College; Nathaly Navarrette, North High, UC Merced; Alex Kim, Stockdale, West Point; Jasmin Barrena, Foothill High, UC Berkeley, Brice Ezell, Bakersfield Christian, George Fox University; and Alexandria Trakimas, Frontier High, University of Pennsylvania.

* ... GARCES POOL: Nice to hear that Garces Memorial High School is getting ready to break ground on a new state-of-the-art competition swimming pool .  It will have 12 practice lanes and 10 competition lanes and a diving area with a depth of 14 feet. It will also have two one-meter diving boards and one three-meter board. It is supposed to be completed in December.


 * .,.. DRILLER NATION: Sue and Roger Allred wrote to tell me about their ninth child who will be graduating from Bakersfield High School on June 3. Their oldest graduated from BHS in 1993, the 100th graduating class of the school. "Our children have five bachelors degrees, one masters in education, one is a lawyer, one is going for a masters in physics, four are stay at home moms, and three are still working on degrees. We have had a wonderful time at BHS and thank those who have enriched our children's lives." And apparently all nine kids will be home for the graduation, coming from places like New York City, Brooklet, Ga., Salt Lake City, Ut., Tucson, Az., San Diego and of course Bakersfield.


 * ... AMGEN TOUR: A reader asked me to list the three committee chairmen who worked so hard to make last week's Amgen Tour of California a success, so here they are: Sam Ames of Action Sports was responsible for the VIP area, Janey Clary was in charge of the hundreds of volunteers and Doug Gosling, an attorney with Klein, DeNatale, was chairman of the festival committee, where all the food and vendors were set up. 


* ... EAST BAKERSFIELD: You know you're an East Bakersfield old timer if  "you remember what the original price of a hamburger at Ken-Ken's was. 10 cents."