Meet your new neighbors

Like many from Bakersfield, Sarah and Steven Settlemire longed to raise their family in the natural setting of the mountains. They had friends in the area so Tehachapi seemed a great place to settle. At the beginning of this year Steven, Sarah and one-year-old Levi found a home nestled in Bear Valley.

Both of the Settlemires were born and raised in Bakersfield. Sarah has an older brother in Taft and a younger sister in high school and at home with her parents. Until she married, Sarah worked in catering for Jake’s Tex-Mex in Bakersfield. She has also been active on a bowling league in Bakersfield. As of now, she has her hands full as a stay-at-home-mom looking after Levi and their Staffordshire terrier, Rocky.

Steven is an oil field safety consultant with Aera Energy in Taft. He has worked in the field for 10 years. He told me that throughout high school he worked and was on independent study. He finally got his GED at the age of 20. He completed his college degree in Health and Safety online at Columbia Southern University and has been fully credentialed by the state of California ever since. One of his hobbies is car racing. He is the proud owner of a 1974 Monte Carlo known at the Bakersfield speedway as “The Unicorn” because, “it is often talked about but rarely seen”, says Steven with a sly smile. He has curtailed his racing schedule since Levi was born and the move to the mountains. This year he entered five out of sixteen races.

Sarah and Steven both love to fish and also love fish. One wall of their living room is taken up by a 180 gallon fish tank of beautiful Severum fresh water fish.

Welcome to Tehachapi, Settlemire family.

Another young Bakersfield couple with a desire to raise their family in the beauty and natural surroundings of the mountains is Cody and Echo Davis. ”We wanted to come here for Mazy,” says Echo referring to their three- year-old daughter. Cody’s mother Gina has come with them.

Cody is originally from Rosamond but moved to Bakersfield. After spending three years as a welder, he has worked in oil field construction for the last eight years. He still likes to weld as a hobby and recently designed and made a clothes line for Echo. He enjoys being outdoors, working in the garden and barbequing, fishing and hunting when he can. There is a large boar head on the living room wall and Echo told me that Cody had killed it while hunting on Tejon Ranch.

Echo was born in Lincoln, Montana, but was mostly raised in Bakersfield. She is currently a human resources assistant and does testing for an oil field company. She and Cody met at church. Echo has three brothers and two sisters living in Montana, Texas, Wyoming and Bakersfield. She loves to cook and said that she would someday like to have a food truck.

Gina helps to take care of Mazy while her parents are at work in Bakersfield. She said that she loves to paint. She paints both walls and pictures with equal skill. Part Native American, Gina has a sister, Teneah, who now lives in Oklahoma. She and Mazy don’t get lonely. They have the company of the family dog, Hot Rod, to keep them company.

To the entire Davis family. “Welcome.”

Also, I would like to wish all our readers a very happy 4th of July. Please make it a safe and sane one and be sure to come by and visit The Loop and Welcome Service at our booth during the 4th of July festivities in Central Park .

If you have moved to the Greater Tehachapi Area within the last six months and would like to know more about your new community, call 661-822-8188. We will be happy to make an appointment for a hostess to come by and give you lots of helpful information, some valuable coupons, gifts and much more. Many families and individuals who come to the area are pleasantly surprised with the amount of knowledge they gather about their new home. Publishing your welcome article is completely voluntary and is not a requirement of being welcomed.