Last spring, we published our inaugural People Issue, profiles of individuals who make Orange County amazing accompanied by fabulous portraits of our subjects. We thought it would be a one-off, just another experiment that would come and go. Instead, it quickly became our second-most popular issue of the year, after Best Of, and the requests by readers for more and by folks to get profiled for the next year convinced us that People should become an institution as beloved as Scariest and Summer Guide.
So behold, another year of the mensches among us: imams and restaurateurs, mortuary professors and dog-rescue queens, jiu jitsu champions and the guy who starred in Sublime's legendary “Date Rape” video, community activists and local-boy-gone-slugger Mark Trumbo, whom we had to profile even though he's now with the Arizona Diamondbacks. (We never got a chance to write a cover story on him while he was with the Anaheim Angels of Anaheim because the team never responded to our requests.) Enjoy these stories, and feel free to suggest more for next year—'cause we're going to do the People Issue until journalism turns into a microchip implanted into your retina.
VIEW THIS YEAR'S PEOPLE ISSUE HERE!
See below for a full list of profiles: