For nearly three decades, Jim West transformed San Juan Bautista. After his shocking gun suicide, a local behavioral health agency dove in to help a community in mourning
Any other night, the small California town of San Juan Bautista is shrouded in darkness, lit only by scattered streetlights and the dim glow of a few saloons. But on the first Saturday of December, a parade lights it up. Dozens of cars wrapped in Christmas lights roll through streets that look as if they were pulled from an old western. Since its inception in the 2000s, the parade has become a tradition in this village in the foothills of the Gabilan range, just 100 miles (160km) south of San Francisco.
Anthony Botelho, a county supervisor, had never missed one. In 2018, exhausted from a trip from Arizona, he meant to stay home, until his longtime friend Jim West, the town’s mayor, convinced him otherwise.