BACK IN GEAR: So what if the...

BACK IN GEAR: So what if the new countywide VISTA bus service is off to a slow start (B4)? The beach bus is back. . . . Four months after Oxnard officials voted to eliminate bus service to area beaches, VISTA has resurrected the bus route. . . . “There were a lot of people out there who simply could not get around without bus service,” said Mary Travis, spokeswoman for the Ventura County Transportation Commission. “We are getting a lot of positive response.”

LOTTO FEVER: James and Roberta Stevens of Newbury Park marched into a management meeting Tuesday and quit their jobs (A1). Who needs work when you’ve just hit the $33.7-million SuperLotto jackpot? . . . The couple retired early from Litton Industries in Woodland Hills after winning the Lottery bonanza. They will receive $1.2 million a year, after taxes, for the next 20 years. . . . By Tuesday, the couple had bought a new car and were looking into a larger motor home. “We’re going to enjoy life and help our children,” James Stevens said.

SCHOOL DAYS: Speaking of the Lottery, remember the old slogan: “Our schools win too.” Lottery revenue funneled to public education apparently doesn’t go far. . . . Take Tierra Linda School in Camarillo, one of several Ventura County schools that opened for business Tuesday (B1). The new school has posted a wish list for supplies and equipment. . . . “We get some,” Principal Dianne Quinby-Anders said of Lottery revenue, “but at the same time, the state is giving us less money.”

ON THE JOB: It has been 26 years since the Rev. Luther McCurtis founded a small but ambitious no-fee employment service in Ventura. This week, the 62-year-old pastor will be honored for putting the unemployed to work. . . . McCurtis’ Employment Aptitude & Placement Assn. was born out of a simple philosophy: “My thought was that food and clothing was just a Band-Aid,” McCurtis said. “I thought that the permanent cure to poverty was a permanent job and a paycheck.”