Steve Watts:  

After graduating from Santa Maria High School in '77 I went to Allan Hancock College for a couple of years. Then, as a lot of you already know, came the sudden, unexpected death of my younger brother Tim (SMHS Class of '80) in September of '80, one month before his 18th birthday. Our family and friends were devastated. We decided to start the annual Tim Watts Memorial Car Show in his honor, and did so for at least 13 years. The show started out in the mall for a couple of years, then moved to the fairgrounds for a couple more and finally ended up at Waller Park, which is a beautiful location for a car show. We held it in conjunction with the annual "A Day in the Park" festivities, making for fantastic turnouts. All proceeds from the car shows were put into the Tim Watts Memorial Scholarship Fund. This fund has been used over the last 26+ years to give scholarships to local Graphic Arts students. (Tim was an excellent artist) I was born in San Bernardino, but have lived in Santa Maria since I was one year old. After graduating from high school, I worked for Piper Aircraft for a couple of years building the Aerostar twin-engine planes. Then I got hired in 1981 by Martin Marietta Corporation as a Mechanic on the Space Shuttle Program at Vandenberg Air Force Base. I worked on the Shuttle program for 6 years until about 1987, when they cancelled the West Coast Shuttle Program in the wake of the Challenger disaster. Man, we were so close to being able to launch a Space Shuttle from here! This area would be entirely different had the Space Shuttle program continued here. After the Space Shuttle program ended for us, I moved to the Titan missile program. This included...Expand for more