PRIVATE LINE: Ventura County phone customers will...

PRIVATE LINE: Ventura County phone customers will soon receive something extra in the mail--a pamphlet about Caller ID, which beginning June 1 will display your phone number to people you call who have the service. . . . GTE California spokeswoman Carrie Hyun in Thousand Oaks says more than 20,000 people statewide have inquired about the service or about how to prevent numbers from being revealed. To permanently block telephone numbers, residents need to call GTE for instructions: (800) 884-8739 in English and (800) 884-8789 in Spanish.

MORE HISTORY: Black History Month officially ends Thursday, but that won’t stop Oxnard College’s library from continuing an exhibit about African Americans in Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. . . . Delois Flowers, the library dean, says the 139-photograph exhibit was too big for the library foyer, so half the photos from the 1930s through ‘60s will be displayed in March. Public response has been “very positive,” she says. Library hours are 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Fridays.

SELL HIGH: Want a hot stock tip? Look no farther than 11-year-old Travis Mauck. He and three other Camarillo Heights Elementary School fifth-graders produced a better than 18% return in a stock market contest (D7C). . . . His market advice is simplicity itself: “Do research and look at what stocks are supposed to be going up. The stocks that are going down, don’t pick those.”

AFTER-CARE: Troubled that foster-care children have few options once they’re emancipated from state care, Ojai resident David Allen set out to help them enter the mainstream. . . . Together with the county and nonprofit agencies, Allen plans to build an apartment home in downtown Ventura to provide shelter, job counseling and other services for foster-care grads, 17 and older. . . . “We’re going to teach them everything from how to floss their teeth to how to fill out a tax return,” Allen said.