LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

On B2 and B3 today, this last day of the old year, we take a final look at the events that shaped Ventura County’s news landscape during 1991.

Times staff writer Gary Gorman’s review of the year also looks ahead to 1992, with a preview of events to come.

News, of course, cannot be predicted with any certainty.

Nobody, for instance, could have predicted that a lost teen-ager named Eric Schimmel would so deeply touch Ventura County during 1991. I received more Letters to the Editor about Schimmel--the mentally retarded youth who was lost for days as he looked for his Fillmore family--than any other single news event during the year.

It wasn’t a story as tumultuous as the war in the Middle East, nor as far-reaching as the upheaval in the Soviet Union. But it was a story that touched a very human chord. In my book--and in that of so many Times readers--that made it an important story.

The editors, reporters, photographers and support staff of the Times Ventura County Edition look forward to bringing you all the news of 1992. And we hope that it is a year of good news for you and your family.

Julia C. Wilson, Ventura County Edition Editor