archives

I’m not much of a gardener, but I do have a “green” thumb when it comes to high school football stadiums.

I have worked at three papers in my career as a journalist and each coverage area now has – or soon will have – an artificial field and all-weather track.

While working at the Union Democrat in Tuolumne County, Sonora High School spruced up their stadium with the help of a now-cancelled TV show called Three Wishes. The show granted wishes to a family in need of a new home, a man who wanted to adopt his stepson and a school in need of a new football field.

I may have cursed a cable guy or two under my breath for making me wait around on installation day, but I’ll think twice before doing it again.

After all, how could you be mad at the people who are helping clean up your community?

This Saturday, local Comcast employees and their families will join students and parents to spend the day repainting walls, cleaning up the grounds and planting at Atwater Castle Head Start Preschool.

I started covering the Chinook salmon decline last year after it was mentioned to me in passing.

And although I knew it was bad when biologists called the situation a "crisis," it's now risen to "disaster" level -- which appears to be much worse.

Lower numbers of these fish have not just been discovered in the Merced River, but in bodies of water in or near California, Oregon and Washington. While Coho salmon stocks off Washington and northern Oregon have been reported in better shape, they are still far below normal.

Every once in a while, there's a news story that's spectacular enough that it draws stations from across the state. It's only happened a few times since I've been at the Sun-Star.

Monday's courthouse shooting drew stations as far as Sacramento that went live with the breaking news. I was surprised how many TV reporters that I'd never seen suddenly appeared on Monday and stuck around for the past few days.

Recently I wrote a story on how the city is drafting a new policy to deal with homeless encampments.

Merced has a few of these encampments along Bear Creek.

I get a lot of phone calls from readers complaining about them.

My goal was to let readers know that the city is drafting this new policy. I also wanted to check in with the homeless for their take on it. In my reporting, I spoke to city officials, then visited one of the encampments that will be affected by the new policy. I met Chrystal and Heath, two homeless people who told me they thought the city should build a tent city for the homeless.