Need to find a historical document or maybe a news clipping from a bygone era? See Lauren.

Maybe you want to locate an old mine and all that anyone knows about it. See Lauren.

Ghost hunts. Historical hikes. Doing those odd jobs at the SCV Historical Society. You’ll see Lauren.

Ever wonder who does something when one minute there is nothing, and the next minute the work is complete? Lauren was there, I’ll bet.

Keep watching. Lauren Parker is looking for ways to restore the Ruiz Cemetery where many St. Francis Dam victims are buried. The place is in rotten condition, and she feels the community should help get it back into shape. I’m sure it will happen now.

She works full time and has children, too. She’s one of the community-minded people who always seem to be doing something but never seem to want or get any recognition.

She goes on ghost hunting trips to find those who have not quite left this world. She says there are a lot of places that contain vestiges of past occupants. Plus, she said, it adds to the history, just thinking what the people must have been like in life. As an added benefit, it’s a lot of fun, too.

Did I mention she often finds those news articles about our local history in places far afield of the SCV – such as Denver and New York and the like? Currently she is looking for some of my elusive family members from the 1920s. She’ll find them, I’m sure.

A group of us recently looked into some mines in Soledad Canyon, a ways up-canyon from Lang Station. Lauren was there, climbing on rocks and finding the mines when most of us couldn’t see them at all. I’m a native of the SCV, but I didn’t know anything about those mines.

On a recent tour I gave in Pico Canyon (Mentryville), I found out she is one of the folks who proved me wrong about how nobody died in Pico. If pressed a little, she could name each one, I’m sure.

It isn’t only the history of our valley that is so important to her, but that she is so important to us. So many people her age could care less about the history here. Heck, we even have folks who are just learning that the California high-speed rail was never going to stop here but just run through (or over) us. I didn’t learn that from newspapers or television. It was Lauren who passed along the information to me.

Lauren Parker is the next generation to carry the torch of our history forward. I was worried there wasn’t anyone to do that. I know of another. But Lauren is the leader to come, and she is here now. We can rest assured that when the time comes, she will step to the forefront and carry that torch.

Thank you, Lauren Parker. Our valley is better because of you. You are extraordinary.

Darryl Manzer grew up in the Pico Canyon oil town of Mentryville in the 1960s and attended Hart High School. After a career in the U.S. Navy he returned to live in the Santa Clarita Valley. He can be reached at dmanzer@scvhistory.com and his commentaries are archived at DManzer.com. Watch his walking tour of Mentryville [here].