In 1986, the first-ever issue of the Santa Barbara Independent was dedicated to showcasing the amazingly selfless people who call Santa Barbara home. We christened those honorees as our “Local Heroes,” and a Thanksgiving week tradition was born.
Today, 32 years and more than 1,600 issues later, this Local Heroes edition remains our proudest and most meaningful annual achievement. It’s our best effort to remind everyone that, despite the steady drumbeat of bad news, we are surrounded by neighbors who care and who put those cares into concrete action every day.
This year, in the wake of the Thomas Fire and the devastating 1/9 Debris Flow, we were presented with more stories of heroism than we’ve ever seen. So we honored as many of those first and second responders as we could on page 20, knowing that we’d never be able to capture each and every lifesaving and community-recovering tale.
