Rocks

Andrew Edwards The rocks don't speak, so someone has to tell their story. At Crystal Cove State Park, that someone is John Wilkerson, a retired high school science teacher and park docent. On Sunday, he led a beachside tour to explain the park's unique rocks and fossils. On a stroll across the sands near the park's Los Trancos area, Wilkerson and the tour group stopped to observe a jagged boulder that looked out of place among the rocks rounded by the sea. The rough, boulder-like objects are concretions, Wilkerson explained.

C ould there be a more appropriate acronym than ROCKS, which stands for Recreation on Campus for Kids after School? We'll answer our own rhetorical question with a resounding "no." The city of Costa Mesa's program is solid and safe, a worry-free environment for working families who need someone to supervise their youngsters between the time the school bell rings and Mom and Dad get home from work. ROCKS, which is on the city's chopping block alongside youth sports and recreation programs, should not be rolled away.

One person was treated for minor injuries and seven were displaced after a fire at a Costa Mesa triplex early Saturday. About 12:23 a.m., the Costa Mesa Fire Department received a call of a lower level apartment on fire at 392 Woodland Place, between 20th and 21st streets, according to authorities. FOR THE RECORD: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the number of respondents Three fire engines, a truck company, an urban search and rescue unit and a battalion chief - totaling 19 people - were part of the first response.

COSTA MESA — The Los Angeles Times and Daily Pilot recently donated a share of the proceeds from the annual Pilot Cup youth soccer tournament to the city's after-school program. The newspapers donated $750 to Recreation on Campus for Kids after School, or ROCKS, which was threatened by a recent round of city budget cuts. Because the Pilot Cup is sponsored by the newspapers, the city and the school district, The Times and Daily Pilot donate a portion of the proceeds to a public cause after the tournament concludes.

CORONA DEL MAR - The days of collecting shells, rocks and other sandy souvenirs at Big Corona State Beach are coming to an end. Little Corona State Beach has long been a protected marine area, but starting Jan. 1, 2012, Big Corona State Beach will be included when changes to the state Fish and Games Marine Life Protection Act take effect. Currently, Little Corona and its tidepools are part of the Robert E. Badham State Marine Conservation Area, which limits collecting rocks and shells along with tidepool creatures and wildlife.

Jose Chamu thought his backpack felt heavy all of a sudden. The Davis Elementary School fourth-grader was camping with his family over winter break when he left his bag open on a hillside for a few hours. When he slung it back over his shoulders, he could tell that something wasn't right. Inside the backpack were several rocks, which Jose guessed had rolled down the mountainside and landed in his pouch. He promptly shook them out, but then he came to one that made him pause: pink and orange, oval-shaped, full of tiny holes and splashes of color.

"We looked through the sand to find as many rocks as we could. We found rocks that were all different colors, and small ones and big ones." ILENE UMANSKY, 9, Costa Mesa "We looked for rocks all over the place. I found all types of rocks and put them in a bag. One looked like sandstone and another looked like limestone." ANDRE HERNANDEZ, 10, Costa Mesa "I looked in the sand and found sedimentary and metamorphic rocks. I found one more, but I forgot the name."

Amid all the back and forth sniping between City Council members lately, city leaders and the community found common ground this week when Costa Mesa agreed to continue partial funding for one of its after-school programs. The City Council on Tuesday agreed to fund 40% of the Recreation on Campus for Kids Afterschool Program, or R.O.C.K.S. The program costs nearly $230,000 annually to run, most of that going to staffing, which requires one adult per 20 children. R.O.C.K.S.

A 57-foot powerboat ran aground on the rocks at Crystal Cove State Park early Monday after the owner fell asleep while the craft was on autopilot, officials said. By 4 p.m. Monday, a salvage company had removed the boat from the rocks and towed it into Newport Harbor, said Sgt. David Ginther of the Orange County Sheriff's Harbor Patrol. The owner, Mark Anton of Laguna Beach, and a woman were aboard the boat, which left Catalina Island around midnight, bound for Newport Beach, Ginther said.

"Hercules, because he's really strong, and he performed a bunch of labors and killed a bunch of beasts." ANDREW MACHOSKIE, 12 Newport Beach "Hercules, because he's brave. I kind of look up to him." MIGUEL DELGADO, 12 Newport Beach "Zeus, because he's like the master god. He has more power in one finger than all the mortals combined." JONATHAN JAFFEE, 13 Newport Beach "Odysseus, because he fought in the Trojan War and lived, then survived all these other hardships."

A GPS device from the doomed racing boat Aegean struck a jagged island, an online tracking system shows. The sailing community was buzzing with the news Tuesday, as racers emailed a link to Spot, a personal satellite tracking company, and speculated anew about the original theory of the accident. Up to now, many thought that the 37-foot Aegean was struck by a larger commercial vessel, such as a tanker or freighter. The accident claimed four sailors' lives Saturday during the annual Newport-to-Ensenada race.

"God save rock and roll!" a female fan in the crowd shouted. And, some would argue, that's just what Hell or Highwater did Wednesday night at the Detroit Bar in Costa Mesa. The intimate venue filled with the roars of rock fans as the Orange County band played its set, consisting of songs from its debut album, "Begin Again," released in August 2011. As the band members approached the stage, they activated fog machines. While this is usually a successful stage effect, the fog became distracting and was ultimately unnecessary because of the venue's size.

It started like any other flag deck at Killybrooke Elementary School on Friday, but after a performance by the school band and the pledge of allegiance, the Costa Mesa school's sixth-grade students received an exciting surprise. "All of us are going to camp," Principal Lorie Hoggard announced. "With Rock Harbor's donation we have met our goal. We're all going now. " Thanks to a $4,200 donation from Costa Mesa's Rock Harbor Church, Killybrooke can cover the remaining costs to send its students to sixth-grade science camp this March at Arrowhead Ranch Each student also received a blue camp sweatshirt that they quickly donned.

If you've turned on a television in the last year, you've probably glimpsed Young the Giant. The Irvine natives have played on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!," "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno"and "Later with Jools Holland" in the U.K. Rock music enthusiasts might also recognize the band from a slightly more prominent gig this past summer at the MTV Video Music Awards, when Jared Leto and Zoe Saldana introduced them to the stage. For many who grew up in the 1980s, '90s and '00s, the VMAs are a summer standard.

At 8 years old, Newport Beach native Samantha Smith learned the first song she sang in public in an American biker bar in France, but it was in her hometown that she got her start. The 19-year-old aspiring songwriter — who sings, plays guitar and describes her current style as folksy rock — is home from college in upstate New York for two weeks and wasted no time arranging to play at Newport's Blue Beet twice this week. "It's really fun to come back to Newport and play shows, because a lot of the people that come to my shows are my friends, so I get to see everybody again," she said.

CORONA DEL MAR - Heavy construction in Lower Buck Gully is nearly complete, with structures in place that will prevent further erosion on the hillsides along Hazel Drive and Evening Canyon Road. Crews have placed five rock weirs designed to change the flow of water streaming toward the ocean, along with three drop structures that include a total of 15 steps that slow the flow of water. "As water flows and drops down each step, it flows off at a slower velocity," said Robert Stein, a Newport Beach assistant city engineer.

CORONA DEL MAR - The days of collecting shells, rocks and other sandy souvenirs at Big Corona State Beach are coming to an end. Little Corona State Beach has long been a protected marine area, but starting Jan. 1, 2012, Big Corona State Beach will be included when changes to the state Fish and Games Marine Life Protection Act take effect. Currently, Little Corona and its tidepools are part of the Robert E. Badham State Marine Conservation Area, which limits collecting rocks and shells along with tidepool creatures and wildlife.

One person was treated for minor injuries and seven were displaced after a fire at a Costa Mesa triplex early Saturday. About 12:23 a.m., the Costa Mesa Fire Department received a call of a lower level apartment on fire at 392 Woodland Place, between 20th and 21st streets, according to authorities. FOR THE RECORD: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the number of respondents Three fire engines, a truck company, an urban search and rescue unit and a battalion chief - totaling 19 people - were part of the first response.

Having finally "discovered" the rock musical "Godspell" in 2008, Vanguard University has rediscovered it, this time as a production of the college's summer professional arm, the American Coast Theater Co. Vanda Eggington, who directed the earlier version, returns to helm this one. She again uses a theater warehouse with props from past shows as a backdrop and brings the dialogue into the 21st century with the 1970s-flavored songs of creators Stephen...

Irvine police released the name of a woman killed in a car crash in Turtle Rock on Wednesday. Manal Darwiche, 21 of Irvine, the driver of a 1997 Nissan Sentra, died when her car crashed into a tree near Shady Canyon and Sunnyhill about 1:10 a.m., according to an Irvine Police Department news release. Police were investigating the cause, the release said. An 18-year-old Garden Grove resident, who was a passenger in Darwiche's car, was injured and taken to a hospital, the release said.