Riverside has many of the ingredients necessary to compete in a smarter, more advanced and connected 21st century economy: tech-savvy elementary and high school students, research-based centers of higher learning, forward-thinking business leaders and engaged city leadership. Now those elements are coming together to improve Riverside’s national — and even global — standing.

As Riverside moves deeper into its post-Renaissance era, the city remains a dynamic place. Cranes and bulldozers, which worked the construction and redevelopment projects that remade major parts of Riverside, didn’t all go away when the five-year initiative wrapped up last year. Many moved on to build gleaming new structures — the Citrus Tower office building and Hyatt Place hotel among them.

Art has always been a part of Anna Vanover’s life.
As a little girl, she loved to paint. Today, the self-taught artist enjoys tackling diverse artistic challenges that go well beyond putting a brush to canvas.
"Anything is a potential starting point for art," said Vanover, who has painted on everything from furniture to plates to living room walls.

Things go bump in the night for ghost walk.
Two decades ago during the Halloween season, Kathy Allavie was in Charleston, S.C., when she encountered groups of people walking the streets with tour guides.
“They were telling ghost stories and occasionally they would look up and there would be a ghost in the window,” she recalled.

This is graduation season. It’s a special time for students. The city of Riverside is celebrating a graduation of its own. The Renaissance initiative, which got shovels and bulldozers moving on three decades' worth of infrastructure and other improvement projects, is coming to a close after five years.

Summers. I thought they were supposed to be laid-back — you know, afternoons at the park, Saturdays at the beach, and a week-long vacation get-away sometime between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Not this summer.
Sure, work and/or summer school always have been big parts of the schedule. After all, this isn’t one of those European countries with a reputation for shutting down for an entire month.

This is graduation season. It’s a special time for students. The city of Riverside is celebrating a graduation of its own. The Renaissance initiative, which got shovels and bulldozers moving on three decades' worth of infrastructure and other improvement projects, is coming to a close after five years.

This is graduation season. It’s a special time for students. The city of Riverside is celebrating a graduation of its own. The Renaissance initiative, which got shovels and bulldozers moving on three decades' worth of infrastructure and other improvement projects, is coming to a close after five years.

A woman’s place is in the home — and everywhere else she can make a difference: the boardroom and the classroom, in a studio and on a construction site, in a shelter and in City Hall, plus countless other places. We recently talked with six women who are making a difference in the community every day. We were inspired by their stories, and think you will be too.

At age 20, Melisa K already had racked up an impressive list of accomplishments – starring in a range of theater productions, performing in music videos and doing concerts at venues as diverse as the Southern California Fair in Perris and the Los Angeles nightspot Whisky A Go Go.

California Riverside Ballet’s annual production of “The Nutcracker” is moving to a new home, with the promise of lots of fresh faces and plenty of surprises. Performances are scheduled for Dec. 11 and 12 at the Fox Performing Arts Center, and the venue is not only creating excitement among cast and crew, but it also has paved the way for bringing a new level of creativity and community participation in the annual show’s 40-year run.

Despite a lifetime of challenges and setbacks, Riverside cyclist Anthony Zahn lets nothing get in the way of his dreams.
He was diagnosed in high school with CMT, a condition that causes the muscles in the periphery of the body to slowly degenerate.
As devastating as that news was, Zahn turned it into something positive by pursuing a career as a cyclist.

Guided by the philosophy that art is not a luxury but a necessity, Tomasz Golka surely seems destined for success.
As the newly appointed music director of the Riverside County Philharmonic, the native of Warsaw, Poland, has a diverse season planned that he hopes not only affirms his beliefs but also brings the community together in exciting and unexpected ways.

Life is getting "tweeter" by the minute for Riverside natives Matt and Amanda MacNaughton. Their new Santa Monica-based start-up company Culture Jam has taken off like a rocket and may ultimately change the face of music distribution.

The Food Network has stirred tyhe pot – along with interest – for reality shows that pit competitors against one another in a battle to win fame and fortune. But those who move in culinary circles know that a lot of hard work and dedication goes into crafting a chef's signature style and that rising to the top takes willpower and guts.

Two years ago, Erin Phillips gathered together her friends and colleagues to try to answer some pressing questions. Where were all of the young professionals in Riverside? And why weren’t they more involved in leadership roles in the city? Her inquiries resulted in the founding of The Pick Group, an organization devoted to building a network of young professionals who devote time to volunteering in the community.

Riverside’s Fox Theater has enjoyed a rich and varied history.
Built in the elegantly simple Mission Revival style, it opened in 1929 as Hollywood’s Golden Age was about to start. The movie palace screened the earliest Academy Award winners.
Vaudeville acts sang and danced on its stage.

Mary Parks, the Inland Empire bureau chief for KNBC/Channel 4, is an Emmy Award winning journalist who has been covering the two-county region since the early 1990s.
During her career — which includes stints in Florida, Indiana and her home state of Michigan — she has reported on space shuttle launches at Cape Canaveral, East Coast hurricanes, as well as Southern California earthquakes, wildfires and riots.

Greg Laurie wanted to be a cartoonist, but life had other plans.
The pastor at Harvest Christian Fellowship in riverside will soon be leading his 20th Harvest Crusade — a Christian evangelical event that may attract more than 120,000 people to angel Stadium in anaheim during its three-day run, aug. 14-16. and that brings up another dream of Laurie's.

At Sevilla, tasty tapas are only part of the journey.
Tapas. By definition, it comes from a Spanish word meaning cover or top.
Back in the days when gentlemen sat in taverns enjoying their sherry, they would use a piece of bread, cheese or ham to cover the glass to keep pesky flies out of the sweet drink.

Reggie Miller wasn’t supposed to play basketball.
He was born with a hip deformity and wore leg braces until he was 5. When he did star t playing sports, baseball was his game. It wasn’t until Miller attended Riverside Poly High School that he took up basketball — and a career was born.

When he was a teenager, C.G. Ryche remembers telling his family and friends what he wanted to do for a living: “I’m going to be a rock star, so deal with it!” Few took him seriously.