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DAILYREPUBLIC.COM | Well said. Well read.
NATIONAL HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH
Cousins relate stories of their Solano-founding family at Peña Adobe event Todd R. Hansen
site, no one was allowed into the house. The children would sleep in teepees or similar era-styled accommodations, and when they awakened each morning, the doll, with its creepy bluish-gray tinted face – would be staring at them from a different window. “And because no one was allowed into the Adobe, the only way it could move was on her own,” Peña said. “So I have met so many traumatized kids.” The story certainly grabs the attention of visitors, and allows Peña and her cousin, Darlene Stewart, also a fifth-generation Peña from the same family line as her cousin, to tell the more important legacy narrative of their family. Sharon Kersten, a sixth-generation member of the family down from the line of the oldest son, Jesus, came over
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DeJon Hughes, father of slain student and football player Daniel Hughes, stands on the field during a football practice at Vanden High School in Fairfield, Thursday. A
committee has been established to consider a request to alter the name of the Vanden High School football stadium to honor Daniel Hughes.
SLAIN TEEN’S FATHER:
Travis district creates committee to review stadium name request Family seeks to add son’s name to Gammon Field moniker Glen Faison GFAISON@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET
FAIRFIELD — A committee has been established to consider a request to alter the name of the Vanden High School stadium to honor slain student and football player Daniel Hughes, the father of the teen reports. The committee’s first meeting is scheduled at 4:30 p.m. Monday at the Travis Education Center, 2775 De Ronde Drive, Dejon Daniel Hughes said. District officials since midweek have failed to respond to a request from the Daily Republic to confirm
the specifics of the meeting. Daniel Dejon Hughes, 17, was a junior at Vanden High when he was shot on Easter Sunday in 2021 and died 14 days later on April 18, 2021. The criminal case against the suspected shooter is making its way through the courts. Dejon Hughes has been trying for months to get some sort of recognition for his son. He has petitioned the Travis School District governing board for support and has sought help from the Fairfield City Council. Members of the community came to a Travis school board meeting in March to urge the
board to alter the name of the Vanden High stadium to include reference to Daniel Hughes. Mark Null, a Vanden football coach, spoke at that school board meeting about Daniel Hughes’ ability to be a great mentor to other students. “When he was on the field, it was electric,” Null said. Null talked about how Hughes was a friend and a huge part of the school community. Isaiah Carter, a Vanden High School alumnus, had at that point received 1,700 signatures for a
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FAIRFIELD — Solano County supervisors this week disagreed with the need for a single fire department for the unincorporated area and said distributing Proposition 172 public safety funds to fire agencies was not going to happen. Those responses were within the three issued to the 2021-22 civil grand jury report calling for
more cooperation and better communications among the cities and county during disasters. There was no disagreement on the broader communication issues. “ ‘Chaos!’ is how some firefighters described the first hours of the LNU fire (August 2020) as it jumped county lines and began its trek into Solano County. The Solano County civil grand jury learned that
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the ‘chaos’ came from various failings as firefighters rushed to stop the inferno’s progress. The problems went from
difficulty communicating between the multiple firefighters trying See Jury, Page A12
SALE AL GRAND
EIGHTH
ANNIVERSARY
&
See Cousins, Page A12
See Father, Page A12
Board tells Solano grand jury single county fire agency not happening Todd R. Hansen
VACAVILLE — A Victorian-era doll, gifted to the Peña family, stands on a chair in one of the rooms at the historic Peña Adobe. The home was built in 1842, about five years into Queen Victoria’s 64-year reign over the British kingdom. But this family’s story goes back to what is now New Mexico, a northeastern part of Mexico that had its own culture and heritage, which Juan Felipe and Ysbel Peña brought with them to the Lagoon Valley area. The doll is believed to be a funerary doll, or Victorian mourning doll, which would be laid on the grave of a child who had died. Cecelia Peña, the great-grandaughter of Juan Peña, who was the Peña’s fourth of five sons, said when the first youth camp was held at the Peña Adobe
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Cecilia Peña, center, and Darlene Stewart, right, speak with Sharon Kerston in the main room of the historic Peña Adobe house, Saturday. Peña and Stewart are fifth-generation members of the Peña family who settled in the Lagoon Valley area of Solano County in the early 1840s. Kerston is sixth-generation. The women were there for the National Hispanic Heritage Month event held at the park.
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