Moved Musically by the Monkees
This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the musical group The Monkees.
Two of my Monkees albums. Photo: Newvine Personal Collection
The guitar lick at the beginning of the Monkees’ Last Train to Clarksville ranks right up there with the opening chord to the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night or the electric guitar opening to Glen Campbell’s Southern Nights.
Five picks of the guitar repeated once and then repeated again with a few more notes added. Just a few instrumental notes that immediately take me back to a specific time and place.
For me, those musical notes take me back to my parents’ living room in March of 1967. I was celebrating my tenth birthday at an after school party with some of my classmates from Port Leyden Central School.
I was nine years old when the television series starring Davy, Mickey, Peter, and Mike debuted in September 1966. I never before experienced the feeling of being a fan of anyone, let alone these four American twenty-somethings who were about to take the rock-and-roll era by storm.
The Monkees were the American answer to the Beatles. The series was a creative solution to the Beatles movie A Hard Day’s Night.
The album Good Times was released this summer in recognition of the group’s fiftieth anniversary.
The Monkees were manufactured by a television studio with the intent to create a ratings success, sell millions of records, and make a lot of money.
The group did just that by earning a lot of money for the studio, the record company, and maybe themselves.
But something happened after the series ended just two years later in 1968. The group never really broke up.
Peter left the band first in the months following the end of the show. Mike departed shortly after.
Mickey and Davy put together a few releases, but with sales falling each went their separate ways.
In the early 1980s, a reunion tour was set up and all four took part in recreating the magic from the sixties. Over the succeeding years, members would come together for a reunion concert and even a few new songs.
A new album was released and a tour was launched this summer in recognition of the band’s fiftieth year. Gone from the group is heartthrob Davy Jones who passed away a few years ago.
Your author is sitting with the girls at his ten-year-old birthday party. From the Newvine Personal Collection
The tour featured Mickey Dolenz and Peter Tork with an occasional appearance by Mike Nesmith.
To the photo albums my mother put together during my childhood for inspiration. Here’s a photo from my tenth birthday party.
I’m right there, the third from the left in the photo of a group of children. Two things made this party stand out for me. It was the first time boys and girls were invited to my birthday party.
It was also the day I received my first record album as a present.
The album was Meet the Monkees, the groups second album. I opened the groups’ first album titled The Monkees later that evening. On my tenth birthday, I got these first two Monkee albums as gifts from relatives.
I’d eventually acquire each album (with the notable exception of the movie soundtrack Head- I heard two of the songs on a single and thought it wasn’t worth buying the album).
What an impact the Monkees made on me. After the Monkees, I gravitated toward Elvis Presley as he staged his comeback that began in December 1968 with a television special and would extend through his death in 1977 and beyond. I would acquire a deeper appreciation of the Beatles after purchasing my first Beatle’s album, Abbey Road during my first week of college in 1975. I’d play rock-and-roll on the radio as a part time disc jockey throughout the late 1970s.
As the years passed, I’d discover the artistry of Tony Bennett, the interpretation masterfulness of Frank Sinatra, and more fully appreciate the country artists who defined the music my parents enjoyed in my house growing up in the 1960s and 1970s.
I think I owe that appreciation of many types of music to those four young men who were chosen from a cattle call audition in Hollywood fifty years ago. These four were told “you’re a band now” and they not only performed as actors playing members of a musical group, but also bonded as musicians and entertainers.
I had the good fortune of meeting Davy Jones in the early 1990s when he was touring with a stage version of the Brady Bunch television show that recreated his guest appearance on that series from the early 1970s.
What impressed me most on the day I met Davy was his sense of pride over the success of the Monkees and his role as a teen idol during those impressionable years.
We were scheduled to do a two-minute interview on our local television newscast, but as executive producer for the station, I cut back on other stories so that our anchor team could spend more time talking to this rock-and-roll icon.
When Peter and Mickey were set to play the Gallo Center this past September, I put in a request to interview either or both for this column.
I was turned down due primarily to timing. I was told my request came in too late. As my mother would say, “oh well, better luck next time.”
I challenge anyone who grew up in that era to listen to the first notes from Last Train to Clarksville and not be able to associate it with a memory from that very special time.
Thank you to the Monkees for fifty years of entertainment that always left me with a smile.
Steve Newvine lives in Merced.
His book Growing Up, Upstate chronicles memories from his youth in upstate New York.
Central Valley Native Dylan Floro Made it to the Major Leagues
Dylan Floro’s high school baseball coach knew he had someone special when Dylan Floro made the varsity team as a high school freshman.
Dylan Floro, Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Photo: Major League Baseball
After outstanding careers in high school, and then on to Cal State Fullerton, Dylan signed on with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays farm system. In July, he was platooned to the Devil Rays where he has pitched throughout most of the second half of the 2016 season.
The team website now reports he was recently reassigned back into the Rays farm system. Everyone is hoping he’ll return to the big team in 2017.
Making it in the major leagues was a dream-come-true for this Merced County native. He was born in Merced, and grew up in Atwater where he remains a deep source of pride to his family and his coach at Buhach High School.
At Buhach, he was such an outstanding player that he was moved to the varsity team in his freshman year.
Coach Scott Wise was in the dugout for Dylan’s high school baseball career. “Exceptional,” he summed it up to me in an interview about Dylan’s remarkable arc from outstanding school and college player to the major leagues.
“Moving up to varsity as a freshman really showed his level of ability.”
According to the official website of Major League Baseball, Dylan led all of minor league baseball in 2014 when he played for Tampa’s double-A affiliate Montgomery.
That year, he pitched 178 and two-thirds innings. He was named the Rays' Minor League Pitcher of the Year for 2013 after leading the organization with a 1.77 ERA.
He was selected by the Devil Rays in the thirteenth round of the 2012 first-year player draft out of Cal State-Fullerton.
Coach Wise says Dylan’s family is all about baseball. An older brother Brock played at Buhach and then on to Cal State Fullerton leading the way for Dylan’s selection by the school for his college ball.
A younger brother plays in organized baseball in Atwater. Dylan’s dad is a youth baseball coach.
“Dylan’s mom and dad were always there for him,” Scott said. “It’s a solid family all the way around.”
Dylan is a product of what some describe as Atwater’s special connection to baseball. Observers have pointed to strong baseball teams from the area going back as far as the 1920s and 1930s right on up to the present day.
The community had a semi-pro team, the Atwater Packers, that was incorporated in 1949 and played in the forties and fifties.
In recent years, the Atwater Aviators played in the Golden State Collegiate Baseball League. Baseball is part of the community fabric of Atwater.
A community doesn’t magically receive outstanding baseball talent. As in any special accomplishment, there are a lot of factors. In the case of Dylan Floro, coaching was certainly a factor.
Involvement by the family is also important. His parents Dee and Kent nurtured this passion for the game and provided the love and support necessary for Dylan and his siblings to succeed.
Also important, according to Coach Wise, has been work ethic.
“I remember Dylan taking care of his pitching mound after practice without being asked,” the coach recalls. “You knew he was going to achieve what he has achieved. He’s not afraid to put in the work; he will do everything that was needed both on and off the field.”
Baseball card expert John Kucho says the baseball card companies probably won’t release a Dylan Floro card until next year at the earliest. This photo is from the Devil Rays website. Photo: TampaBay.rays.mlb.com
While the Devil Rays entered the final month of the 2016 season in
In the meantime, Dylan’s coaches hope to see him again during the off-season as he had done in the past.
“I usually see him in the
The combination of upbringing, community support, and good coaching has helped Dylan make it to the major leagues. And while the future is definitely wide open for this Central Valley pitcher, there will always be a connection to where it all began.
Steve Newvine lives in Merced
For more on Dylan’s latest statistics, go to MLB.com or tampabay.rays.mlb.com
Merced Radio Station KYOS to Mark 80th Anniversary in October
If you listen to local AM radio station KYOS (1480 on the dial, 1480kyos.com on the internet), you have probably heard an announcer proudly announce at the top of each hour that the station has been serving Merced since 1936.
K97.5 Program Manager Dave Luna’s voice is heard on station promotional announcements for KYOS. Photo by Steve Newvine
On October 13, the station will reach a historic milestone: eighty years on the air.
The station began serving the city of Merced from a studio in the Hotel Tioga. It was a daytime station at that time. It would sign-on (a term that comes from a broadcasting regulatory requirement that a radio operator sign a program and engineering log) every morning and then sign-off at sunset.
It began with a relatively low-powered signal that could cover the city. In later years, the station’s signal was boosted so it could cover Merced County. The broadcast day eventually would be lengthened to 24-hours.
Throughout Merced’s history in the twentieth century and so far into these early years of the new century, the community has seen a multitude of change. One constant has been the AM radio station that has continuously been the voice of the community for eighty years.
Another constant for close to half of those eighty years has been radio announcer Dave Luna. He’s the Program Manager and morning personality for K97.5, the FM sister station owned by Radio Merced’s parent company Mappleton Communications.
Dave listened to KYOS as a teen growing up in Newman in Stanislaus County. He went to work for the station part time beginning in 1979 and has worked for the various owners of the broadcast group that includes KYOS full time since leaving college.
A bumper sticker from the heyday of station KYOS. Photo from KYOS.
“KYOS was the big top forty rock-and-roll station in Merced,” Dave told me from his K97.5 studio on Main Street in Merced. “It’s what all of us listened to in those days.”
Dave says he moved to the FM side of the house as more and more listeners gravitated away from AM stations. His time with KYOS follows a pattern that is close to a history of AM radio in the United States.
“AM radio is tough,” he says. “Some AMs have just shut down, some are hoping news and talk will save them. “
KYOS runs satellite driven programming of news and talk radio Monday through Friday. Weekend programming includes some public service programs and an oldies format with music from the fifties, sixties, and seventies.
An early broadcast home to KYOS. Picture from KYOS
One can only imagine what those early years for KYOS were like. Radio was still a relatively new communication medium. While there were network shows like The Jack Benny Program or Fibber McGee and Molly, Merced audiences likely were drawn to local programs.
As music became the primary program source for radio in the years following the start of television, stations like KYOS found their new niche and were big players in local communities.
“I remember driving by the KYOS studio at the corner of 18th and Main when I was a teen,” Dave Luna recalls. “You could see the thunderbird logo on the building and the announcer through the large glass window. My buddies and I would wave and the announcer might wave back.”
Those were glorious times that have faded somewhat for local radio in the advent of large corporate ownership, changing listener tastes, and automation.
The iconic thunderbird logo on the KYOS studio at G and 18th Streets in Merced. Photo from KYOS
But KYOS has survived. It may not be the powerhouse it was in the fifties, sixties, and seventies, but it has carved out an audience that prefers news and talk.
For many loyal audience members, it is a station they are familiar with and a place they feel comfortable listening to on a regular basis.
There are no special plans to commemorate the milestone KYOS will soon mark. While the station’s eightieth anniversary may be just around the corner, the focus in radio is always on the future.
And what will the station look like in twenty years when a one-hundredth anniversary may be in order?
“Radio now is still connecting with listeners who don’t want to pay for satellite services - Stations like K97.5 connect with our audience not only on the airwaves but also through social media.”
Local radio competes in a marketplace filled with many outlets for people to inform and entertain themselves.
Successful staff people, like Dave Luna with his over thirty-five-year tenure with the station, have found success by being resourceful and by being adaptable to changes in the work environment.
“I learned some valuable lessons from my dad about work ethic,” he says. “I have adapted and will continue to adapt as radio evolves.”
Dave Luna keeps rock and roll photos and vintage album covers on the studio wall at the Radio Merced offices on Main Street in Merced. Photo by Steve Newvine
Dave has seen a lot of change in his years with KYOS and K97.5. For him, the most drastic shift came when the Castle Air Force Base closed in the mid-1990s.
He said it was common when the Base was in operation to see many military people walking down Main Street in Merced on a weekday.
Those days are gone, but new days are on the horizon. A radio station that broadcast the news of the United States entering World War II, the election of a dozen presidents, the moon landing, and so many other iconic events, continues to inform and entertain listeners in and around Merced County.
Happy eightieth anniversary to KYOS!
Steve Newvine lives in Merced.
He’s written Sign On at Sunrise, a novel about a young man who works at an AM radio station in the 1970s.
Steve worked part time at radio station WBRV in Boonville, New York in the 1970s. That station recently marked its sixty-first anniversary.
The State of Working: Merced County at Labor Day
Over the past several years, Labor Day afforded the opportunity to provide updates on the local labor market here in this space and in some years on the op/ed pages of the Merced Sun Star.
A 2011 picture of the Merced Workforce Investment Board.
My assessments were based on what I’ve seen in the community over the years. I serve on the Merced County Workforce Investment Board (Merced WIB).
At the height of the recession, I noted a bumper sticker seen locally that read “I wish I had a job to shove.” Last year, I urged people to take a minute to thank the person who hired them.
As we come to another Labor Day weekend, I have nothing new to add about the state of labor in Merced County, California, or in the United States for that matter. So instead, I will celebrate an anniversary.
It was ten years ago when I was asked to accept a term on the Merced WIB. Workforce Investment Boards receive state and federal dollars to offer programs and services for people either looking for work or looking to improve their skills.
By law, these boards must have a private sector majority. My entry on the board helped maintain that majority. The most visible aspect of Merced WIB is the operation of the Worknet office on Wardrobe Avenue in the City of Merced and another site in the City of Los Banos.
As a director, I learned how the board worked, what the staff of Merced WIB did, and generally how our tax dollars were being spent. I soon joined a work group that helped maintain state certification of the two Worknet offices.
That group evolved into a quality committee that routinely evaluated opportunities available to the local offices. That group is now known as the Business Services Committee.
Steve Newvine served as chair of the Merced WIB from 2011-2013. Photo from Merced WIB.
Workforce boards not only help people get and keep jobs, they also serve as a resource to businesses that are looking for workers.
This business focus helps explain why Congress, who authorized the Workforce Investment Act that funds these boards, wanted a private sector majority. To put people to work, an economy needs a strong business community.
Over my ten years with Merced WIB, we worked hard to be sure the business voice was heard not only in the board meeting room but in the Worknet career centers.
Employers frequently remind us that most new hires either have or can be trained on the specific hard skills needed to do a job. Employers repeatedly say what is really lacking in many workforces is a focus on the soft skills.
Soft skills speak to such things at attitude, customer service, showing up on time, and many other personality traits that help a worker succeed on the job.
We took that challenge to focus on soft skills when I became vice-chair of the Merced WIB in 2009. With the help of my employer, we were able to bring resources to train older youth (defined by Merced WIB as between the ages of 18 and 22) for an energy efficiency heating and air conditioning (HVAC) program.
My company provided equipment and a trainer for the energy efficiency segments of the program. Merced WIB focused on the soft skill training, job placement, and program management.
The result was the successful completion by the entire class and the placement of several participants in an on-the-job training program with local HVAC companies. These accomplishments were recently recognized by my company.
In the years leading up to my election as chairman of the Merced WIB as well as throughout my term as chair, I participated in statewide meetings of workforce boards held, appropriately, in the days following Labor Day.
For four years, I participated in a national conference of workforce boards in Washington, DC.
Participants in a youth employment energy efficiency program receive completion certificates. Photo from Merced WIB
But none of these meetings compared to the invitation I received several years ago on the Friday morning before the Labor Day holiday weekend from a staff person at Merced WIB. He invited me to a graduation ceremony held later that day at the Worknet office. The ceremony honored participants in that energy efficiency training program mentioned earlier.
While most of my colleagues were wrapping up their work in preparation for the long holiday weekend, I headed down to the Worknet office. We proudly watched as several young people received their certificates of completion.
It was a great way to honor Labor Day with the celebration of skills learned to succeed in jobs created locally.
September is Workforce Investment Board Appreciation Month. As Merced WIB looks ahead to celebrating the accomplishments of workforce boards, staffs, and customers, let us encourage those looking for work to enroll in the free programs offered by Worknet.
Employers should consider using the services available to improve their company's productivity.
What better way to honor Labor Day than by investing time and energy in the services available to help improve the workforce in Merced County?
Steve Newvine lives in Merced. In 2009, he wrote Soft Skills for Hard Times. The book is used as a training document in the Love Plus Life Skills Training program.
Food Bank Mural-When a Building Becomes a Billboard
While a picture may be worth a thousand words, the Merced County Food Bank hopes a mural along the west side of their warehouse is worth a few moments of our time to think about the issue of hunger.
The new mural on the west side of the Merced County Food Bank warehouse. Photo by Steve Newvine
The mural is being seen by hundreds of drivers passing by daily along highway 59 at Olive Avenue in Merced. The mural’s message is summed up by the three words to the far right end of the warehouse wall: help fight hunger.
Over the past few weeks a local artist has been painting the mural. The artist is Ramon Valencia who works for a design firm called The Mariposa Art Company. The Company does a variety of original artwork on buildings, along with other graphic design services for businesses including business cards, t-shirts, and banners.
The idea for painting a mural on the side of the building came after Food Bank board members saw a wall mural at the local United Way office in Merced. Some inquiries were made. The Food Bank board was pleasantly surprised with the opportunity presented by the Mariposa Art Company.
Food Bank Executive Director Bill Gibbs says the Mariposa Art Company is donating a lot of its time and resources to the project. In addition to Ramon’s and an assistant’s time, more than three-thousand dollars in paint has been donated by the company.
The use of an industrial lift being used on the project was donated by United Rentals. The Food Bank will spend approximately $1,500 as its share of the total cost.
It is estimated a mural of this size would cost between ten and fifteen-thousand dollars if the labor and materials were not donated.
“The cost to the Food Bank is worth it to raise awareness about hunger,” Bill Gibbs says. “I can’t tell you how many times people or donors have told us they didn’t know there was a food bank in Merced County.”
The work of artist Ramon Valencia is now part of the Merced County Food Bank warehouse. Photo by Steve Newvine
The mural depicts the valley’s deep agricultural heritage
The bottom half is solid brown representing the soil (and hopefully a hedge to a quick paint-over in the event of a graffiti attack). It shows a wagon or trailer filled with crates of fruits and vegetables. Farm fields, a bright blue sky, and the mighty sun fill out the rest of the mural.
The project has taken the better part of July to complete. The biggest challenge so far has been the heat. “Ramon told me our extreme temperatures are even hotter against the side of the building,” Bill says. “Some days, the paint dries as soon as it’s applied making the blending of colors a challenge.”
Ramon manages that challenge by doing some of his work in the early morning or early evening hours.
Over 17,000 people served
The Food Bank acquires, stores, and distributes food for one-hundred non-profit groups in Mariposa and Merced Counties.
More than five-and-a-half million pounds of food passes through the Olive Avenue warehouse in a year. Every month, seventeen thousand people are served by this organization and associated non-profit groups that are part of the Food Bank network.
Volunteers help sort and move much of the food that comes into the warehouse. The volunteers augment the regular staff making sure the food is readily available to meet the need in the two counties.
The mural’s message: help fight hunger. Photo by Steve Newvine
So the message is now clearer than ever at the far right of the mural on the west side of the Food Bank warehouse.
Three simple words make the case for raising awareness and supporting initiatives that help those in need of food: help fight hunger.
The new Food Bank website address is MMCFB.org
The Central Valley’s Part in Tony Bennett’s Legacy
Tony Bennett turns ninety this summer. While fans around the world will remember him for the song about San Francisco, the Central Valley played a small, yet significant role the singer’s career.
Tony Bennett’s enduring music catalog. Photo by Steve Newvine
Elvis liked his style. Sinatra called him his favorite singer. It has been a remarkable career for the singer whose first records were made in the early 1950s.
Through the years, music formats changed. But Tony never really changed. Sticking to popular tunes better known as the Great American Songbook, he kept plugging along. Through good times and bad, he was around, “picking up the pieces” as he sings from an early hit, making music.
He was the first musical guest on the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson on October 1, 1962. He performed his newest single on that program. The tune, I Left My Heart in San Francisco, would become his signature song.
To me, the song is more than just a tribute to that “City by the Bay” as the song lyrics go. The song connects with the desire many of us have to go home. No matter where we end up in life, we’d like to think that home is always welcoming us back.
Tony once told an interviewer that U.S. soldiers in the Vietnam War would see the Golden Gate Bridge upon their return from the service. Invariably, someone would break out in song singing I Left My Heart in San Francisco.
As my uncle served in Vietnam, I’d like to think he and his fellow returning soldiers did the same thing upon their return to the states.
My journey as a Tony Bennett fan began in the mid-1970s when he was a frequent guest on the Tonight Show.
Johnny Carson preferred to have pop music artists of the Tony Bennett/Steve Lawrence genre. I was a teenager preferring rock-and-roll, but I liked Carson.
So I figured if Johnny favored these artists, they must be good. I was a Tony Bennett fan long before it was fashionable.
I realize now that the 1970s was possibly the most trying years of his career. At times during that decade he was addicted to drugs, his long time record label Columbia dropped him, and he toiled away in less popular venues before smaller crowds.
I remember seeing a picture of him taken from that time at a Rochester, New York area restaurant. The owner saw me admiring the photograph in the early 1990s. He pointed to himself standing alongside Tony in that picture.
He told me the photo was taken after a performance in western New York. The man shared with me how he saw the singer again twenty-years later and asked Tony whether he remembered that particular performance.
Tony told him “I don’t remember much of what happened in the seventies."
Life is Beautiful album by Tony Bennett
The first Tony Bennett record I bought was a long-playing 33 RPM called Life is Beautiful on the obscure Improv label. The album was made in the seventies; I found it brand new in a clearance bin at a big box store. The songs were well done. The title song was written by Fred Astaire.
In the 1980s, Tony kept plugging along and my only connection to him was through his frequent appearances on the Carson show. Toward the end of the decade, he would turn to his son Danny to manage his career. That’s when the new Tony Bennett emerged.
Danny was able to restore his dad’s recording contract with Columbia. He booked his father with some younger acts such as the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
He also got his dad featured in an hour-long MTV episode of the Unplugged series. That appearance featured duets with K.D. Lang and Elvis Costello. The live concert CD release captured the excitement of that evening and is credited with moving Tony to a new fan base.
In May 1992, Tony appeared on the last week of the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Tony sang two songs. One was Johnny’s favorite, I’ll be Seeing You. The other was I Left My Heart in San Francisco.
Mementos from Tony Bennett’s concert at the William Sayoran Theater in Fresno in 2004. Photo from the Newvine Personal Collection
And now to how the Central Valley played a small role in the legacy of Tony Bennett.
I saw Tony perform in Fresno in 2004. I recognized every song but one. That particular composition, All for You, he explained to the audience at the William Sayoran Theater, was a new song in which he tried his hand at writing lyrics. He performed it for the very first time on stage that night in Fresno. In his second autobiography Life is a Gift, he wrote of singing the song on stage that night in Fresno. “I was bowled over by their (the audience) reaction” he wrote. “They went crazy for it.”
The words for All for You were the only song lyrics he ever wrote.
I’d like to think I led the enthusiastic applause when he performed that song on that night. I know I was the most enthusiastic fan in the theater as he performed I Left My Heart in San Francisco.
I’ve already begun celebrating Tony’s ninetieth by playing his music daily. The music has endured, his interpretations continue to layer over the many songs in his catalog.
He is a class act. Happy Birthday Tony!
Steve Newvine lives in Merced
Shaping the Lesson Plan
Did you ever want the chance to help shape what our children are learning in the classroom?
Thanks to the staff at Merced Union High School District and a company that helps schools improve educational programs, I got that opportunity during the summer school break.
The Energy and Power Technology Technical Working Review Panel. Photo: Steve Newvine
Like many people, I used to watch our educational system from the sidelines. But for the past twenty-plus years, I have taken advantage of opportunities to weigh in on what’s going on in our schools.
In the 1990s in upstate New York, I was involved in a business and education collaboration that brought together school administrators and people running companies.
Our mission was to help identify the skills employers needed in their company’s workforce and work with schools to incorporate those job skills in class.
At first, both sides were skeptical yet optimistic. A common perception the business people had was that the teachers were not presenting anything relevant to what was going on in the real world.
Educators had a perception that the business community was only concerned about lowering taxes and reducing the amount of money government was spending on education.
But the goal was pretty clear: the people creating jobs felt many local graduates were unprepared for work. By talking to one another, we could better understand the problem and work on solutions.
We got through those early years by building trust, working collaboratively, and becoming a little more open-minded.
In the last decade, a group known as the Business Education Alliance of Merced (BEAM) was formed by the Merced County Office of Education to do the same thing: bring the worlds of business and education together to improve the quality of education.
That group had a strong start, but interest fell in later years and the group no longer meets. The need for business input in education is still there, but now it is being addressed by the schools working directly with businesses in their communities.
That takes me to the call to participate in a project of the Merced Union High School District.
I was asked to take part in an evaluation of one of the career and technical education (CTE) courses offered by the District. I was joined by another working professional, the educator who teaches the class at Yosemite High School, and a facilitator from the consulting company hired by the District
(Educational Programming Improvement Center based in Oregon. www.EPIConline.org).
Our task was to evaluate the local Energy and Power Technology program on how well it covers California education standards.
The high school class is taught at the Merced Adult School facility on the Yosemite High School campus. Teacher Kahri Boykin says that without the Merced Adult School, the entire Energy and Power Technology program would not be available to students.
The Adult School offers a similar program preparing older workers for jobs in many fields including energy.
Teacher Kahri Boykin talks about his Energy classes he teaches at Yosemite High School and the Merced Adult School. Photo: Steve Newvine
We met at the El Capitan High School Cafeteria and spent several hours reviewing the curriculum for the Energy and Power Technology program.
We were referred to as the Technical Working Review Panel. We were given documents to read ahead of the day-long work session. Knowing how important it is to have people who are working in the field engaged in how these programs are put together, I accepted the request to participate.
Fortunately, I work for a company that encourages community service such as this.
We reviewed each of the California Education Department’s standards for the curriculum. Kahri told us whether or not that standard was being addressed in the program. As he explained what he was doing in the classroom, the two business representatives would offer feedback.
The consultant kept us on track as we went through each standard. With about seventy individual standards including associated subsets tied to the program, it was clear not all of them could be integrated in the Energy and Power Technology curriculum.
But my business colleague and I were impressed that many of the standards are already part of the program.
The standards themselves were reasonable and read as though sound business principles were taken into consideration as they were written.
For the Energy and Power curriculum, some of the standards include: understanding basic communications, being aware of current technology, knowing the roles and responsibilities of team members, and having the technical knowledge to do the jobs that the program is preparing the student to fill upon graduation.
Other skills covered by the standards and highly valued by the business partners included: safety, entrepreneurship, and personal ethics.
Our work concluded with lunch, a thank you gift from Merced Union High School District, and a feeling that in a small way we made a difference in bringing business insight to a career-oriented program.
We met some new people, exchanged contact information, and returned to our regular jobs. In thanking my private sector colleague and me, Kahri told us he was going to apply some of our input directly to the classroom beginning this fall when the students return from summer vacation.
It was not an ordinary workday, but it was a productive means to the end of preparing our young people for the jobs that will need to be filled in the future.
We had our chance to tell a teacher what our companies are looking for in their new hires. That made the whole effort worthwhile. We left knowing the school district appreciated our effort to help them prepare our young people for possible careers in the energy industry.
The economic development professionals I have known over the years have told me that one of the first questions a company will ask when considering investment to a community is how skilled is the local workforce?
A second question is usually about what initiatives are in place to train workers for the jobs the company will create?
So to these future solar installers, home energy auditors, and related careers covered by the Energy and Power Technology curriculum, I wish you the best of luck.
As former State Assembly Member Juan Arambula, once told me, “The world of work is as easy as A-B-C. A: get a job. B: get a better job. C: get a career.”
His book, Soft Skills in Hard Times covers fifteen specific strategies to help people succeed on the job and in life. It is available at Lulu.com
On the Job- 50 Years
Can you envision doing the job you’re doing right now for fifty years? Imagine outlasting every supervisor except the one you’re working for right now, and you know there’s a good chance you’ll outlast that one. Can you see yourself watching scores of coworkers come and go? It’s likely you endured some low points, and certainly had many high points.
Steve Newvine and Don Alhart who marks 50 years on the air at WHAM-TV in Rochester, NY. Photo: Newvine Personal Collection
What would it be like to find just the right career and staying with your company for fifty years?
I know someone who reaches that milestone in June of this year.
My friend Don Alhart is the six and eleven o’clock news anchor for WHAM-TV in Rochester, New York. He arrived at the station on June 6, 1966.
First as a reporter, and then soon as an anchorman, Don has enjoyed the work and the station’s newscasts have remained popular in the ratings. Seeing no reason to hang it up at a time when many might retire, Don continues to deliver the nightly newscasts on Channel 13.
My memories of working with him center on a globe that at one time occupied a corner of the newsroom at Channel 13. More on that later.
For eight years of Don’s fifty-year tenure, I was part of the station’s news department. I produced the six o’clock news, helped Don create the station’s noon newscast, and produced special projects including election night coverage and documentaries during my time with the station.
My memories of working with Don include the five years he was paired with the late Dick Burt on the six o’clock news. I enjoyed working with both of these broadcasters. There’s no question in my mind that I learned an awful lot from them.
If as the title of the popular book by Robert Fulghum is true, All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, then I can say with some authority that all I ever needed to know about television news I learned from Don Alhart and Dick Burt.
More to the point, I learned how to write more like how people talked. I learned why striving for accuracy was paramount in a business where trust is highly valued. And I learned Don’s constant refrain that we earned audience loyalty one viewer at a time.
Throughout those eight years I worked alongside Don (1983-1991), another constant in our professional lives was our friend, the late Bill Peterson. As the station’s meteorologist, Bill would offer nightly forecasts and an easy target for Don to express his sense of humor.
At times it seemed that Don, with very little effort, could make Bill laugh on the air. The station’s blooper reel is filled with footage of Bill breaking up after Don planted an image of something funny during his introductions to the weather segments.
The two kept that friendship intact as Bill retired to focus on his declining health. Don delivered the eulogy at Bill’s funeral in 2006.
I was no longer living in the area when Bill lost his final battle with cancer, but Don made sure that a DVD of the services and of the WHAM-TV coverage of Bill’s life was sent to my home in California shortly after.
The years working with Don can be summed up with an image of either of us laughing at what the other had to say. I had a habit of getting a cup of coffee from the newsroom drip coffee maker while it was brewing; I’d remove the pot and let the first drops of liquid flow into my mug.
In later weeks, he’d come by my work area and say, “The coffee is ‘Newvine’ ready,” meaning it had not finishing brewing, but it was coming out just the way I liked it.
And then, there’s the globe. There was an old desktop globe on a corner counter of our newsroom.
I would occasionally place the globe on my shoulder and lament to Don with a smile, “Somedays, I feel as though I have the weight of the world on my shoulders.” My tired bit always brought a smile, sometimes a chuckle.
Two years after leaving the station for a better job at a competing station, someone dropped off a box at my desk saying, “Don has this gift for you.” I opened the box and there was that globe.
My time at Channel 13 was good for my family and me. I sorted out what I really wanted to do with my life.
And as nice as it was working alongside Don for those eight years, considering myself one of his friends in the years since I stopped working with him has brought me a real sense of satisfaction and pride.
I remember the day both Don and Bill showed up to see me sworn in as a member of the Avon (NY) Rotary Club. I remember a sympathy card and note at the time of my mother’s passing.
I can count on annual Christmas photographs, too infrequent telephone calls, and funny emails that arrive whenever either of us find something we think the other might enjoy.
The viewers of Rochester, New York television station WHAM-TV have had a wonderful blessing over the past five decades as Don anchored the news. But I’m sure Don sees it as a blessing to him that viewers have remained so loyal all these years.
He often said you build an audience one viewer at a time, and he should know. It took several years after he joined the station for the news to reach the top of the ratings. Holding on to the top spot is always a challenge.
The competition is tough, and I am certain neither Don nor the news teams at all of Rochester’s television stations, would not have it any other way.
I salute my friend Don on his fiftieth anniversary with WHAM-TV.
Steve Newvine lives in Merced
Innovation at UC Merced
It may not have been the television show Shark Tank, but for UC Merced students wrapping up the spring semester, the pressure was likely just as intense.
UC Merced students make their presentations during Innovate to Grow at UC Merced. Photo by Steve Newvine
The students were engineering majors who spent most of this past semester working on ideas that might improve things in such areas as manufacturing or public safety.
The students’ final presentations were made during the fifth annual Innovate to Grow conference held on the campus on the Friday before graduation.
Organizers say the purpose of Innovate to Grow is to celebrate student innovation. Throughout the daylong event, demonstrations of some of the engineering solutions created by student teams were presented to the public.
A panel of judges which included faculty and business representatives questioned the teams at the end of each presentation.
Audience members view a student presentation at Innovate to Grow. Photo by Steve Newvine
Prototypes of the projects were on view in a gymnasium set up as an “Engineering Design Expo” earlier in the day. The presentations began after a lunch break.
Ideas included a new way to load chickens into the correct processing holding areas. In the chicken processing industry, a lot of labor is used to make sure this is done properly.
The students working on the chicken loading prototype believe their device could drastically reduce the amount of labor needed to do this task.
Their job on this particular Friday afternoon at the end of the semester was to convince the panel looking at their presentation to see some potential in the project.
Another idea centered on helping restaurants lower their energy use to save money on their utility bills. Restaurants generally consume a lot of electricity and natural gas. The students working on this engineering project proposed a solar energy generation solution that would help reduce what a local restaurant pays for energy.
Their solution also included energy efficiency. They talked about how the recent installation of LED (light emitting diode) lamps in fixtures throughout the restaurant helped lower energy usage immediately.
The installation of aerators on all faucets in the facility helped reduce water waste. Aerators disperse the flow, creating more pressure while using less water. Water saved not only helps in the dry Central Valley, it also reduces energy use to heat it for hot water needs in a restaurant.
Innovate to Grow was held the day before commencement at UC Merced. Photo by Steve Newvine
Other ideas explained before the judging panels at the conference included a system that handles tomatoes with kid gloves by touching the tomatoes in a gentler way, a new way to remove byproducts of the logging industry to eliminate fire hazards, and a process to remove the hardness of water in food processing.
In each case, the student team worked with either a private company or a public agency to determine needs for their proposed solutions.
For the panel, the students presented power point slides that, in some instances, included animation and video. Each presentation began with a mission statement for the student “company” that was offering a solution to an industry issue.
The audience included proud parents (this was graduation weekend), interested students, and others who registered for the Innovate to Grow event.
The panel asked good questions. And while their personal fortunes were not on the line as the sharks on Shark Tank lead us to believe week after week, the opportunity for students to respond to questions about their projects was in itself a valuable learning experience.
Steve Newvine lives in Merced
Hmong Story 40 Exhibit brings History and Heroics to Merced
In recognition of the forty year connection between the Hmong and California, a new exhibit celebrates the living history of an important American ally.
A wall full of individual Hmong community members seen near the beginning of the Hmongstory 40 exhibit at the Merced County Fairgrounds. Photo by Steve Newvine
In recent years, many have sought out their family history in an effort to learn more about past generations. Whether it’s a genealogy search, connecting through social media, or coming across an old letter a family member kept stored away for decades, the search for meaning behind who we are seems universal.
That may explain the hundreds upon hundreds of people with a connection to the Hmong communities in California are seeing the exhibit Hmong Story 40.
The interactive exhibit has been touring select cities in the Central Valley including Merced where it will continue to inform and inspire the community through May 15. The exhibit is being held at the Merced County Fairgrounds daily.
There is no cost to attend.
The title reflects the forty-year history of the Hmong, who were allies of American troops in the Vietnam era. Forced away from their homeland in Laos, many families became refugees and settled in the U.S.; many in California.
Paintings by Hmong artists depicting life in California. Photo by Steve Newvine
When Hmong families began settling in California, Merced welcomed some of these early citizens. The first three Hmong families to settle in California resided in Merced.
Event Director Wa Chong Yang says the exhibition is intended to preserve the relatively short history of the Hmong in the Central Valley. “It’s human nature to question one’s identity,” he said. “We hope this exhibit encourages more people to look to their past.”
A display of clothing worn by the Hmong. Photo by Steve Newvine
The exhibit breaks down the history of the Hmong/U.S. connection into four stages: life in Laos, the Secret War, refugee camps, and life in California.
On the day I attended, a school class from Sacramento participated in a presentation on Hmong life, followed by a guided tour of the exhibit areas.
“We knew this exhibit would be well received in the Hmong community,” Project Director Lar Yang told me. “But it also connects with other communities as the search for identity is universal.”
The Life in Laos portion of the exhibit explains the genesis of the bond between the U.S. military and the Hmong. In the Vietnam War era, Laos was considered by the Geneva Accord to be a neutral country. This meant that by international agreement, the sending of troops was not allowed.
Although the U.S. was supposed to have no official involvement in the affairs of Laos, the CIA served as consultants or advisers for the Hmong soldiers. The U.S. promised it would help the Hmong get to America or to refugee camps if they lost the war. The Hmong lost, but the U.S. was able to get about 5,000 people out.
The Life in California portion of the Hmong Story 40 exhibit. Judge Paul Lo of Merced is pictured in the lower right hand corner. Photo by Steve Newvine
The Life in California portion of the exhibit includes artwork depicting experiences for the first Hmong refugees. There’s also a section on Hmong citizens who have been elected to political office or appointed to judicial posts. In this section, there is a photograph of Judge Paul Lo of Merced, California’s first Judge of Hmong descent.
Perhaps the most touching tribute in the exhibit is an area near the end of the displays honoring Peter Chou Vang of Merced County. Mr. Vang passed away in early May. He was a highly regarded military and community leader. A card introducing the tribute calls Mr. Vang one of several fallen heroes who put their lives on the line for freedom.
Portion of the Hmong Story 40 exhibit honoring the life of Peter Chou Vang of Merced. Photo by Steve Newvine
The Hmong Story 40 exhibit started in Fresno and will head to Sacramento after the Merced stop. Approximately 45,000 people attended in Fresno, and organizers expect attendance in Merced to reach 5,000 to 10,000.
Organizers hope that the exhibit will extend interest in the Hmong story. A website Hmongstory40.org allows a visitor to read about the specific elements of the exhibit, view videos on different aspects of Hmong life, and even upload photographs and videos.
As universal as the desire to learn more about past generations may be, it still requires work to turn that desire into action. Hmong Story 40 hopes to make it a lot easier for anyone interested in making that connection.
Steve Newvine lives in Merced
On the 99. The Modesto Manifesto
The year was 1948. The preacher was Billy Graham. Already stirring up enthusiasm for his prayer meetings, this evangelist was on the verge of becoming an internationally known religious figure. Something happened that year in Modesto, California that would set the foundation for his ministry
Site of where the Billy Graham Crusade in Modesto, California was held in 1948. Photo from The Newvine Personal Collection
Billy Graham had a connection to the Central Valley. His right-hand man, Cliff Barrows was from Ceres, Stanislaus County. With the Graham organization staging Crusades in several US cities, it made sense that a similar event take place Central California. Thanks to the community ties of Cliff Barrows, a decision was made to run a Crusade event in Modesto.
I wrote about that 1948 Modesto Crusade in my book 9 from 99-Experiences in California’s Central Valley.
For that book, I spoke with Cliff Barrows by phone from the Graham ministry offices in North Carolina. He told me Modesto was more than just a tune-up for the upcoming Los Angeles Crusade. It was a time when Billy Graham and his closest aides met to write what would become the guiding principles for the organization.
“The book Elmer Gantry was popular at the time, so there was a lot of skepticism over traveling preachers,” Cliff Barrows told me in 2010. “Billy asked the three of us to think about the pitfalls that other evangelists had encountered.”
Over several days at the Rock Motel on Highway 99 north of McHenry Avenue in Modesto, the four discussed barriers to the success of any ministry. Their goal was to create a set of guidelines for the ministry to adopt in an effort to help them overcome the barriers.
While the Modesto Crusade was underway nightly, Graham and Barrows, along with associates George Beverly Shea and Grady Wilson met during the day to work out the ministry’s new rules of conduct.
They produced a document that featured four points, and how the new organization would conduct itself in these four areas. Billy Graham credits Cliff Barrows with naming the document the Modesto Manifesto.
The Manifesto’s four pillars are as follows:
- Integrity. Honesty to one another and to the people served.
- Accountability. To each other, to themselves, to the organization, and to its’ finances.
- Purity. In life and in heart. In relationships with members of the opposite sex. This led to the promise that no member of the Graham organization would be in a room alone with a person of the opposite sex other than their spouse.
- Humility. A promise to honor each other, to engage the local faith community as the crusades moved throughout the nation and throughout the world. This tenant also includes the promise that the organization would not seek excess publicity for what they were doing.
After the Modesto Crusade in 1948, the Graham team focused on Los Angeles where in 1949 where they would take the evangelist’s message to a bigger audience.
The Los Angeles Crusade is considered to be the turning point for the Billy Graham ministry as it became a nationwide, soon-to-be worldwide evangelical organization.
An estimated 26,000 people attended the Modesto Crusade over ten nights in 1948.
The work by Billy and his three close associates helped create the guiding principles of Graham ministry. You won’t find a historical sign in Modesto marking either the creation of the Manifesto or the location of the 1948 Central Valley Crusade.
The Rock Motel where the Manifesto was drafted no longer exists. You can drive to the intersection of Burney Avenue and La Loma Avenue and find the approximate location of the 1948 Modesto Crusade.
But you can take some comfort in knowing that the Modesto Gospel Mission, started with a portion of the donations raised at the 1948 Crusade, continues to serve hundreds of families and others through a variety of programs that have developed over the years.
The mission serves 150,000 meals every year, provides 4,600 overnight accommodations annually, and now operates with a yearly budget of over two-million dollars. An investment of five-thousand dollars made nearly sixty years ago has paid dividends to thousands of people in need.
That’s a pretty respectable legacy from the Billy Graham Crusade of 1948. And the Modesto Manifesto continues to guide the organization well into the new century. Billy will turn 98 in November 2016.
In 2018, the faith communities of Modesto will mark the seventieth anniversary of the Central Valley Billy Graham Crusade, and the seventieth anniversary of the Modesto Manifesto.
Steve Newvine lives in Merced. He wrote about Modesto and several other Central Valley communities in the book 9 from 99-Experiences in California’s Central Valley
Energy and Enthusiasm, in the Early Years of Work
Learning about the untimely passing of a colleague from three decades ago brought back memories from working in local television news with some very special people.
Covering the news in Huntsville, Alabama. Photo from the Newvine Personal Collection
An email arrived recently informing me that a former colleague from my television reporting days had passed away.
After experiencing the shock from learning of Helen's death and having thoughts for her two grown children, I spent a few moments to grieve over the passing of my former co-worker. All three emotions: shock, concern, and grief were experienced in the course of an afternoon.
The first fifteen years of my professional life were spent as a television journalist working in a total of five local stations in different parts of the country. I cherish the memories from those years, and consider myself fortunate that I have stayed in contact with at least a handful of colleagues.
But there is a special place in my heart for the two years I worked in Huntsville, Alabama.
This column is not about how those good old days were so much better than it must be for electronic journalists working in the media today. It was a different time. Electronic news gathering in the 1980s was the only true high tech medium for the time. Journalists now have the internet, vest cameras, surveillance footage, cell phones, and webcams in their electronic toolboxes.
The rules were much different three decades ago with editors reviewing news copy, ethics guiding most decisions about appropriateness, and gut instincts playing an important role over decisions about fairness.
This is not about the differences from my time in the media to now. This is about the similarities; or at least what many of us hope endures over time: good memories.
Those years created many smiles.
While live on-the-scene reports were common on local television stations in the early 1980s, moving the entire news anchor team on location was a relatively new trend. Pictured are WAAY weather man Bob Baron, anchor Jim Marsh and the late Helen Howard in a newscast dedicated to summer recreation. Photo from the Newvine Personal Collection.
In those formative early years in northern Alabama, my coworkers and I learned a lot about the exciting world of local television news. The station had a remote van that allowed us to report from just about any place in northern Alabama and southern Tennessee.
I did my first live report from the local Republican Party celebration on election night when Ronald Reagan was elected President.
Our station experimented with lots of ideas that were new for the early eighties but seemingly normal in local news today. Some nights, we would take the whole anchor team including the weather and sports casters, on location and do the entire broadcast from the field.
From time to time, we would interrupt network programming to broadcast bulletins to our audience. This practice usually generated calls from viewers who missed something in the sitcom we were interrupting. My news director would dismiss the complaints with explanations to the staff along the lines of “they may hate us for interrupting, but they’ll remember us.”
I remember getting home one afternoon after pulling an early morning shift when the phone rang. The news department’s assignment editor dispatched me to the airport where a big fire had broken out. I had already worked about ten hours and was looking forward to a relaxing evening. But the story needed to be reported, and I got my instructions to meet the live truck at the airport. I arrived on the scene moments before the six o’clock newscast began, reported what few details I knew at the beginning of the newscast, promised the viewers more later, and returned with another live report before the newscast ended.
I’ll never forget the night before Thanksgiving in 1981 when I was sent to a remote part of the viewing area where a distraught man was holding his wife and young child hostage. My photographer and I, along with our competitors from other news media, stayed with the story until it ended in the early hours of Thanksgiving morning. Upon returning to the station, I worked on my script, recorded my narration, headed home, and took my wife out for Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant. It was the most sleep-deprived holiday I ever endured.
And there were little things about working with a group of good humored folks.
I remember calling the general manager's secretary by her name "Mrs. Higgins" using my impression of Tim Conway's old man Tudball's character from the Carol Brunett Show. I can only hope the real Mrs. Higgins appreciated the reference.
Even Helen, the person whose passing is now bringing up so many memories, got the best of me one night when I asked her to pick up a sandwich for me on the way back from a reporting assignment. I asked for a Whopper with no onions.
She had the sandwich made with triple onions. I was so hungry that I didn't notice the extra onions until about the third bite.
A very young Steve Newvine (bottom left) with co-workers in Huntsville, Alabama. Photo from the Newvine Personal Collection
The men in this photograph were the young Turks of the WAAY-TV newsroom in Huntsville, Alabama in the early 1980s. Shown here at a colleague’s farewell party, we were full of energy, enthusiasm, and optimism.
We would repeat a farewell party every few months as someone in the newsroom accepted a new job in another city. My colleagues were dispersed over the years to such places as Atlanta, New Orleans, Tampa, and in my case Rockford, Illinois where I became one of the youngest television news directors in the country in 1982.
None of us seemed interested in making Huntsville, Alabama our permanent home. The so-called Southern hospitality was wonderful. It was a beautiful city, but many of us were climbing up the career ladder.
My wife and I came to Huntsville as newlyweds. If we were looking for an adventure to start our married life, we found it there. We left about two years later shortly after the birth of our first child. There were high and low points for me professionally during that time, but as with anything meaningful in life, the good times outweighed the bad.
We were ambitious and excited about the work we performed daily at WAAY-TV. Most of us moved on, with only occasional phone calls and a Christmas card to keep us connected for a few years. Eventually, new work brought about new acquaintances. With time, only the memories survived.
So I remember the passing of our colleague Helen. I smile as I recall the time when our hopeful dreams carried each day, and we had no idea how life would end up for all of us.
They were the good old days.
Steve Newvine lives in Merced. He shared some memories of his work covering the US Space program while working in Huntsville in his book Microphones, Moon Rocks, and Memories.
Springtime is Stampede Time in Chowchilla
The opening lyrics to the theme song from the television western series Rawhide say all that needs to be said: “Rollin, rollin, rollin.
59th Annual Chowchilla Western Stampede cattle drive. Picture by Steve Newvine
The herd was rolling. It was rolling down Robertson Boulevard in Chowchilla, California.
The herd of cattle was the highlight for day one of the annual Chowchilla Western Stampede. About one-hundred young steer were led down the city’s main thoroughfare in the heavy rain on the traditional second Friday in March.
The cattle drive is the kick-off to a weekend of rodeo-related roping activities and a tip of the western hat to the cattle raising heritage of this northern Madera County city of about nineteen thousand people.
The Stampede cattle drive brings out the area’s most dedicated cattle people. Picture by Steve Newvine
Rodeos and related roping events are nothing new to the Central Valley, and certainly not new to Chowchilla. 2016 marked the fifty-ninth annual event.
The cattle drive kicks off the weekend as the animals are led from the Chowchilla Fairgrounds, turning east on Robertson Drive, moving down the street until turning right at the intersection just before Highway 99, and then completing their drive right back to the Fairgrounds.
Led by area horsemen and women, alongside cattlemen and young people on horses, with local law enforcement providing the parade security, the drive passes by in a matter of minutes.
It is tradition that keeps the cattle drive going year after year. After all, there is no practical reason why the cattle need to be moved in what amounts to a giant circle in the town’s original business section. It’s done for the community and those who want to get some idea of what a western cattle drive looks like up close.
It’s one of the few opportunities many people will get to see an actual herd of cattle moving down a paved roadway.
Chowchilla Western Stampede. Photo by Steve Newvine
The Chowchilla Western Stampede gets an early start in January with an annual fundraising dinner. Money raised from that dinner is used to award scholarships for agriculture-based education at Chowchilla High, Mariposa High and Yosemite High schools.
The highlight of the dinner is the naming of the Stampede Grand Marshall. This year, local cattleman, former rodeo star, and area business owner Bob Ragsdale was named Grand Marshall.
I tried unsuccessfully to reach Bob to talk about his Grand Marshall honor as well as his rodeo career. But outgoing chairman of the Stampede, Tom Martin told the Merced Sun Star that Bob was the ideal candidate to be Grand Marshall, “He’s a superstar of the rodeo arena, but more importantly, he’s a superstar of a man.”
More than six-hundred people attended the fundraising dinner when Bob was named Grand Marshall.
Bob Ragsdale was born in Montana and began taking part in rodeos while in high school. He qualified for the National Finals Rodeo every year from 1961 to 1975 for calf roping, steer wrestling and team roping.
He was inducted into the St. Paul Rodeo Hall of Fame in Oregon, named to the Rodeo Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, and was recently honored by the Montana Pro Rodeo Hall.
Steer from this year’s cattle drive make the turn to head back from where they started at the Chowchilla Fairgrounds. Photo by Steve Newvine
The three-day Stampede event is usually held on the second weekend in March.
It features such events as team roping barrel racing. Top finishers are awarded cash and western oriented prizes.
The cattle drive has been one of those things I’ve been meaning to do over the past few years. Living in nearby Merced, it seemed like there was no reason to put it off any longer.
So I made my way south to Chowchilla to take it all in. I’m glad I did.
So rodeo season is off and galloping in the Central Valley.
While the Chowchilla Western Stampede may not be the biggest event among the many communities who stage activities to celebrate their cattle raising heritage, it has a lot of heart with fifty-nine years of success.
In 2017 when the event reaches its’ sixtieth anniversary, we’ll once again hear the hooves clacking down Robertson Boulevard.
Rollin, rollin, rollin.
Steve Newvine lives in Merced
To read and hear the Merced Sun Star’s report on the Stampede dinner, http://www.mercedsunstar.com/news/local/community/article54038230.html#storylink=cpy
Golden Valley Alumnus Serves State Future Farmers of America
There were two things that stood out for Danielle Diele in her senior year at Golden Valley High School in 2013-14: her busy schedule and the joy she got from her involvement with the Future Farmers of America (FFA).
Danielle Diele, California FFA Leadership State Board-Reporter moments after her name was called for the election results at the 87th State FFA Leadership Conference, Selland Arena, Fresno. Picture courtesy of Danielle Diele
In high school, Danielle enjoyed swimming and water polo, her AP (advanced placement) classes, and a competitive atmosphere.
“I always felt challenged by a rather busy schedule,” she said. “And that kept me striving for more.”
In spite of a hectic calendar, there was always time for FFA in high school. She served as an officer in her chapter for three years.
In her senior year, she served as Miss Merced County. She and some school friends started Cinderella’s Closet providing over two-hundred prom dresses for other young ladies in the community. The Closet was handed down to younger classmates and is now in a third year of operation.
Upon graduation from Golden Valley in 2014, Danielle headed to college at California Polytechnic Institute in San Luis Obispo. She joined the local FFA chapter there.
Over 81,000 Californians are members of FFA, making it the largest concentration of future farmers anywhere in the United States. We know them by those distinctive dark blue jackets they wear. FFA is a big part of County fairs all over the state including the Merced County Fair. Having raised a market hog for three years at the Fair, Danielle knows this well.
In April 2015, she was elected to the post of State Reporter for the California Association, FFA. The post involves more than three-hundred days of travel annually. She has taken one year off from her studies at Cal Poly to devote herself fully to the FFA post.
California FFA Leadership Team members- Picture courtesy: Danielle Diele
“We finish our spring semesters, and then move into the FFA Center in June,” she said. “From there, we go on countless industry tours and meet with industry leaders, represent FFA and Career Technical Education as we meet with many legislators, as well as the California Secretary of Agriculture, Karen Ross, and the United States Department of Agriculture Deputy Secretary, Krysta Hardin.”
Another big part of Danielle’s official duties center around Chapter visits throughout the state. “We meet with an FFA Chapter and stay one night with a Chapter Member,” she says. “The next morning, we go to school with the member, and teach three leadership workshops.” Chapter visits generally run from September through January, averaging about four schools per week.
Danielle at MCOE, Caption: Future Farmers of America State Reporter Danielle Diele speaks before three-hundred guests at the Merced County Office of Education Annual Education Report luncheon in Merced. Photo by Steve Newvine
Danielle’s official role as State Reporter brought her back to Merced where she spoke before the annual Merced County Office of Education Report Luncheon held February 25th(a second luncheon for western Merced County was held a day later in Los Banos). In Merced, Danielle spoke before a group of three hundred educators, legislative staff, elected officials, and business leaders. Her message before the group attending at Yosemite Church in Merced focused on Career Technical Education (CTE).
“Career Technical Education values critical thinking, problem-solving, and a Learn-By-Doing approach,” she told the group. "Higher level high school courses are the knowledge, and Career Technical Education is the application of that knowledge."
She told the Merced group about the diversity of farming she’s seen from the vantage point of her statewide role within FFA. She has toured large agriculture enterprises such as Foster Farms in Livingston, met farmers from around the world at the World Ag Expo in Tulare County, and has met many farm families all over the state. She shared a story with her Merced audience about staying with a small farm family. The mother of this family offered her the only bedroom in the house with a mattress.
“My perspective has changed immensely this last year,” she said to me via email response to my questions. “I have seen the struggles that people of all kinds have, and I am grateful that each home welcomed me with open arms, no matter the situation.”
Danielle Diele, California FFA Leadership Board-State Reporter.Picture: www.calaged.org)
Danielle returns to her full-time student status after her term as State Reporter ends later in the spring. She plans to attend graduate school after finishing the undergraduate degree.
She wants to become an Agricultural Communicator. Her passion and desire is to advocate for the agricultural industry.
She has had an incredible opportunity representing FFA throughout California. She says she has grown as a person.
“There is no such thing as a 'typical' day serving as a State FFA Officer,” she said.
On the 99- Turlock’s Big Bulldozer
That big bulldozer building in Stanislaus County along California’s Highway 99 marks a fortieth anniversary in 2016.
The office for United Equipment in Turlock. Photo: Steve Newvine)
Highway 99 offers a lot of interesting things to see, but the sight of that big bulldozer in Turlock is one place that few people can forget. It is a two-story office building for United Equipment Company in Turlock. It’s been a functioning office for the company since opening in 1976.
The idea for building a structure that would serve the growing company and attract lots of attention came from company founder Harold Logsdon back in the mid-1970s. At the time, Highway 99 was going through an expansion to accommodate an ever increasing traffic flow.
The building was designed to replicate a Cat D5 bulldozer. The building was constructed with steel, aluminum, plywood and redwood. It is twenty-one feet high, twenty-eight feet wide, and sixty-six feet long. It provides two stories of office space.
“Dad wanted something that would stand out,” Harold’s daughter Brenda told me in 2008 when I interviewed her for my book 9 From 99, Experiences in California’s Central Valley. A lot of companies were moving to locations close to the expanded highway. United Equipment joined in with the influx and created an office that would also serve as a three-dimensional billboard.
“Dad asked an architect to come up with a design for a bulldozer to sit on top of a building,” Brenda Schmidt said. The architect gave the idea some thought and suggested that the building itself could look like that familiar piece of earth-moving equipment.
“My father approved the plans, and the building project was launched,” Brenda said.
That was in 1976 and people have been viewing the bulldozer building ever since. United Equipment still operates from that office, even though the company has expanded considerably in the past forty years. Mitch and Dustin Logsdon remain in place as company President and Sales Manager respectively.
“The building has been excellent for our company,” Mitch told me recently. “It gives the company a little notoriety and that’s good for business.”
Painted bulldozer yellow, the building combines functionality for a business office with authenticity and attention to detail. The dozer blade is a room housing the facility’s water sprinkler system. The dozer appears to be pushing dirt, and on careful inspection, one can tell that even the dirt and rock appear to have been placed with care and attention to detail.
Inside, the offices help the staff carry out the day-to-day business operations for United Equipment. The entryway includes a small display of news articles that have appeared in newspapers all over the world about this amazing building in Turlock, California.
In 2008, Brenda Schmidt shared a story about a phone call the company got from an equipment manufacturer in Saudi Arabia. She recalled the foreign firm had read about the big bulldozer, and wanted to know shipping dimensions for what was thought to be the real thing. The Saudi Arabian company thought the two-story bulldozer was an actual working piece of equipment.
“They were kind of disappointed when we told them it wasn’t real,” Brenda said.
The building has a worldwide reputation. Mitch Logsdon has traveled extensively for his work as President of the company. “I’ve seen pictures of the building on the desks of equipment executives in Tokyo,” he said.
The building still attracts a lot of curious folks from all over the state. Mitch says people have walked in to ask whether the building is a real office, or to see for themselves that is it not a real piece of construction equipment.
“We’ve heard stories of kids who were sleeping in their parents’ cars, awakened by Mom or Dad to see that giant bulldozer out their window,” Mitch said. “We still hear stories of parents pulling that prank on their kids.”
The City of Turlock in Stanislaus County has a lot to offer the rest of the world. Medic Alert, the company that is known for those ID bracelets that point out a medical condition to emergency personnel, is headquartered in Turlock. The City also is home to California State University at Stanislaus or Stan State as many people refer to the four year college.
Chances are hundreds of thousands of people passing through this stretch of Highway 99 in southern Stanislaus County have no idea of what other things Turlock has to offer. But one thing is for certain: they will likely never forget that big bulldozer.
Almost Famous- Meeting Authors, Politicians, and Actors
In a working career now approaching four decades, I am surprised at the number of celebrities I have met.
Saturday Night Live announcer Don Pardo and Steve Newvine. Photo: Newvine Personal Collection
My first career in television news afforded me many opportunities to meet famous people. Whether they were politicians seeking election, actors promoting a project, or heroes who accomplished something truly special, I have taken many memories from each encounter.
The first real celebrity I met was taxpayer advocate Howard Jarvis of California. Fresh from his victory in getting Proposition Thirteen approved in California and thus changing the way real property has been taxed in the state, he was in Binghamton, New York to support a campaign to make it easier for voters to put propositions on the ballot. I interviewed him for the television station where I was a general assignment reporter.
I also recall the movie Airplane had just come out and Jarvis’ cameo in that picture, where he sits in the back of a taxi cab throughout the movie, was clearly in the back of my mind. Unfortunately, I did not ask him about that appearance. I’m sure he would have given me a much more memorable response than he did on the subject of voter referendum.
I also met then candidate George H.W. Bush (or Bush 41) while at that first reporting job in Binghamton. He didn’t need the H. W. middle initials back in 1980 when he was trying to wrestle the Republican Presidential nomination from front-runner Ronald Reagan. Those initials were added once his son George W. became active in national politics.
I met Bush 41 again after leaving the field of journalism. About fifteen years later, the now former President spoke at the State University of New York College at Geneseo.
My wife and I met him at a reception following the speech. She asked him about raising children and his answer politely deflected anything specific.
A few years after that encounter, then U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton visited Livingston County, New York as part of an effort to visit every one of the state’s sixty-five counties. I remember asking her whether she had any dealings with wisdom teeth as my daughter was having dental surgery that week.
She looked straight at me and said Chelsea had her wisdom teeth removed, and that my wife and I should make sure my daughter had plenty of videos and lots of love to take her mind off the pain. There’s a picture of Mrs. Clinton standing next to me at the Yard of Ale restaurant in Piffard, New York.
Cover of Microphones, Moon Rocks, and Memories taken as two Space Shuttle astronauts arrive in Huntsville, Alabama. Photo: Newvine Personal Collection
While working in Huntsville, Alabama as a television reporter, I was assigned the space beat. Huntsville was the home of the Marshall Space Flight Center where several components to the space shuttle were developed and managed.
NASA had a tradition of sending astronaut teams to the local Space Centers following a mission so that the workers could be thanked appropriately.
The cover photo from my book Microphones, Moon Rocks, and Memories shows a very young me doing a live report as two astronauts arrive by plane in the background. Those two astronauts were Joe Engle and Richard Truly who flew in the very first space shuttle mission.
I also met Astronaut Walter Schirra as he visited the Alabama Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville where several actual spacecraft from the early days of the space program were on display. He was taken to a Gemini spacecraft that he flew in the 1960s.
I recall his remarks to the crowd as he wondered how he ever got into the tiny spacecraft in the first place.
Huntsville also gave me the opportunity to meet three stars of television: Pat Buttram (who played Mr. Haney on Green Acres), Efren Zimbalist, Jr. (from The F.B.I.) and Kay Lenz. Butrram and Zimbalist were campaigning for Ronald Reagan; Lenz was promoting a movie. Her career never really took off but she continues to do television roles. I saw her in an episode of NCIS a few years ago.
In the early 1980s, I found myself working in the newsroom of WOKR-TV (Now WHAM-TV) in Rochester, New York. It was there where I met television news icon David Brinkley. He visited our station’s new news center on his way to a speaking engagement at the Eastman Theater. I was too busy producing that afternoon’s six o’clock newscast to pay much attention to him, but I was able to attend a reception in his honor following his appearance at the Theater. As luck would have it, I had a chance to have a short conversation with him about local news (which he thought was pretty good back in 1983). I wrote an appreciation essay on his contributions to television news in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle following his death in 2003.
A few years later, I would meet the original On the Road CBS reporter Charles Kuralt when he visited CBS affiliate WROC-TV in Rochester where I worked as Executive Producer. He was brought into Rochester to speak at an evening event and our Station Manager imposed on him to stop by the television station to visit the news department.
I was helping a reporter write a particularly challenging sentence when the Manager brought Kuralt into the newsroom. We were in awe of this man who practically defined television feature reporting.
I recall he smiled a lot, did not say much, and had a pack of Pall Mall unfiltered cigarettes in his shirt pocket.
I met and spoke with authors David Halberstam and Doris Kearns Goodwin at the same speakers’ series (in different years) at the State University of New York College in Geneseo where I met President Bush. Halberstam had written The Fifties, and I recall our conversation centering on Elvis Presley. Kearns Goodwin spoke about the biography of Abraham Lincoln she was working on (she would title it Team of Rivals and publish it in 2005). Our brief discussion following the speech was about her book Wait Until Next Year. The book was about growing up on Long Island in the 1950s, coping with life after the passing of her mother, and being a fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers. We got on the subject of mothers: mine had passed away recently and Kearns Goodwin wrote extensively about losing her mom at a young age in that particular book.
I sat in the front row of a news conference where Jerry Lewis was promoting his performances in the traveling production of the musical Damn Yankees. I wasn’t in the news reporting business anymore (a friend in the business got me into the news conference), but I asked Lewis about a reference he made to a book he was writing on his comedy partnership with Dean Martin. He gave a very long and interesting response to my question. The book Dean and Me came out two years later.
Actress Teresa Ganzel and Steve Newvine. Photo: Newvine Personal Collection
Probably my favorite time meeting celebrities came in 2007 and 2009 when I attended the Game Show Congress in Hollywood. The Congress was formed to honor the significant contributors to television game shows. I met dozens of game show hosts, announcers, producers, and celebrity guest game players at these two events. These stars were accommodating to the attendees. They posed for pictures and I could tell they enjoyed the attention. I appreciated being around the people who entertained me so much on school sick days and summer vacation when I could watch daytime television in the sixties and seventies. I met Betty White, Don Pardo, Wink Martindale, Florence Henderson, and Teresa Ganzel among many others. Teresa played the Tea Time Movie Lady in the Art Fern sketches during the final years of the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. As we were posing for the picture, I told her how I enjoyed her work with Carson who had passed away in 2005. She told me, “We all enjoyed Johnny. He was wonderful to work with.”
From the world of music I met Davy Jones from the Monkees and music personality Mitch Miller during my years in Rochester, New York. Davy was in a production of The Real Live Brady Bunch, a camp stage show where actors played the roles of the Brady television family. Mitch, then in his seventies, lived in Rochester part of the year and was at the station to promote a Fourth of July concert (his birthday) where he would conduct the local symphony. Both were gracious and comfortable with their celebrity status. I think it was easier being a celebrity back then than it is today.
I’m glad it was a little bit easier back then because it allowed me to approach some of these celebrities, shake their hands, and talk about a variety of topics. These famous people, along with at least a dozen others whose stories I could not share for lack of time, were accessible. They appreciated the attention as much as we appreciated their sharing of themselves for a quick comment or observation.
It was a special time with some extraordinary people.
Steve Newvine lives in Merced
California, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado by Rail
It’s been an item on my wife Vaune’s bucket list for several years: ride the California Zephyr across the country.
The California Zephyr. Photo by Steve Newvine.
We did not go the entire length of Amtrak’s iconic railroad route from San Francisco to Chicago, but thanks to our new grandson we accomplished a substantial portion of that journey.
To visit our grandson and his parents, we booked a sleeper car from Sacramento to Denver. We boarded Amtrak from the Merced station and then traveled to Stockton where we transferred to a bus that would take us to the Sacramento train station.
From there, we boarded the Zephyr for the thirty-plus hour voyage through four states. It was a bumpy ride at times, but such is life on a train.
The California Zephyr follows part of the trail blazed by the Donner party. This is Donner Lake. Photo by Steve Newvine
Heading into the Sierra Mountains, we saw our first winter snow in nearly ten years. From our compartment window, the vistas were spectacular as we viewed much of what California has to offer for those willing to move up in elevation.
Soon, we were in Nevada
Reno’s train line leaves little for the rail passenger to see. That’s the Sands Hotel above. Photo by Steve Newvine.
Early on in the mountainous region of the state, we enjoyed great scenery. However, a stop in Reno was less than spectacular because the train station that was designed to welcome Amtrak passengers had cement walls going about two stories below ground that only allowed us to see the top of the Sands and one other hotel.
The tourism promotion side of me scratched my head over the thought process that led to that design decision. Reno is a great small city, but you really would not know that from what you see at the train stop.
More mountains, pristine waterways, and wildlife followed as we headed through the western edge of Nevada. Before long, we were in the state of Utah where a stark landscape would eventually offer some of the most spectacular color we experienced on the trip.
Utah’s Ruby Canyon is a geological wonder and an amazing cacophony of color at sunset. Photo by Steve Newvine
Through the range of glacier-carved stone, our train window served as a high-definition viewing screen to admire a true world wonder. Cloud cover removed a good deal of the color on our eastbound trip through Ruby Canyon.
But on the return westbound trek, the sun offered ideal highlighting of the natural color that is a signature of this place. Later on, our conductor called attention to two bald eagles perched in a tree. We saw two more on the return trip as well.
At over 8,000 feet elevation, it was a very cold but strikingly beautiful stop along our trip in Fraser, Colorado. Photo by Steve Newvine
With about six hours to go before ending our journey, we crossed into Colorado and stopped at one of the highest points. On our journey going east and west, we stopped at Grand Junction and the community of Fraser.
Snow and cold is big business in this community that offers its residents and visitors many months of winter sporting activities. The sign at the Fraser train depot read that we were at 8,565 feet above sea level.
The final destination of our trip was Union Station in Denver. Photo by Steve Newvine
That’s a long way from Merced both in distance and in elevation. Most Central Valley communities are at sea levels of one or two digits. Our conductor noted that the Zephyr reaches the highest altitude of all the Amtrak train routes in the United States.
We arrived in Denver shortly after six PM mountain-time or approximately thirty-hours after boarding the Zephyr in California. As sleeper car passengers, our meals were included.
At every trip to the dining car, we were seated with two other passengers to fill out a four-seat booth. As a result, we met travelers from as far away as New Zealand, as well as passengers from such places as Canada, New Orleans, Michigan, Ohio, and even the Bay Area of California.
The conversations were great as we learned more about why people would spend a day or two, or for some many more, on a train when we all know there are faster ways to travel.
The answers reveal how sometimes it’s just good for the soul to kick back and take your time.
There’s an often-told saying that goes something like this: sometimes the journey is just as important if not more so than the destination. That certainly rang true for these travelers. Some told us that they were tired of crowded airports and TSA screenings; others wanted the stress relief that comes from not being behind a steering wheel.
A young woman, a recent college graduate, told us she’s glad there was no Wi-Fi available so that she and others could enjoy the ambiance that is unique to train travel.
Amtrak made sure that no one would use a gadget to disturb the other passengers. Earphones or earbuds were required and there were overnight quiet hours.
An Amish man we met shared his story about accompanying his wife on a health-related journey that would eventually take them to Mexico.
He characterized the experience aboard the train with just a few words: “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” I think most of his fellow travelers would agree.
Steve Newvine lives in Merced.
Saint Nicholas
A few years back, one of my holiday traditions then was the role I played in a Christmastime church function.
St. Nicholas prepares for his visit at St. Agnes Church in Avon, NY. Photo: Newvine Family Collection.
The picture shows a Santa like depiction of Saint Nicholas that I had the privilege of assuming for a few years during the late 1990’s and the early 2000’s.
In case you don’t know much about Saint Nicholas, here’s a refresher. The real Saint Nicholas was a bishop in the fourth century in what is now known as Turkey.
He came from a wealthy family, and sought to use his blessings to help others. There are many stories of miracles attributed to him. In one story he asked for a portion of a wheat cargo from a transport ship, promising the sailors they would not come up short when they reached their final destination.
The sailors reluctantly agreed to give a two-year supply of wheat to the residents of a village. As the story goes, the sailors discovered when they reached their final destination that the total weight of their cargo had not changed.
Another story attributed to Saint Nicholas was about establishing dowries for three women in one family who were not well off. A dowry was customarily given to the groom by a bride’s family when she married.
Many times, women who could not provide a dowry would not marry. If they had no family to live with, they faced an uncertain future for themselves in a male-dominated society.
The Saint Nicholas story ends with the discovery of coins tossed through a window as the family slept. The coins became the dowry.
This story fed a legend that if children left their shoes near an open window at Christmas, they would awaken the next morning to find the shoes filled with gifts and treats from Saint Nicholas.
The telling of Saint Nicholas’ story was a tradition at the church in the community where my wife and I raised our two daughters.
The saint’s official feast day is December 6th, but our church, Saint Agnes in Avon, New York, had to schedule our celebration as close to that date as possible because it did not always land on a weekend.
Our two very young daughters participated in the event in the mid-1980’s when Father Charles Bennett was the first to put on the costume to tell “his” story, and give the children treats.
He passed away a year later, so the tradition nearly ended before it was really established. Fortunately, two other parishioners took over for the next several years to portray the saint.
It eventually evolved into the children leaving their shoes at the back of church before Mass, having Saint Nicholas visit after the homily (sermon), and finding a gift (usually candy) in their shoes as they left Mass.
In the late 1990s, the Saint Nicholas visit was again in danger of being stopped at our church. My wife asked me if I’d consider doing it just one time. I did it that time, and for a few more years I became the holiday time visitor for the congregation.
There was something special about putting on the costume
It started with a white cassock (a floor-length robe) and then was layered with a red surplice (a sleeveless robe that looks like a poncho). Then a special bishop’s type hat and a long white beard were added to complete the costume.
It was hot underneath those garments, especially the beard. But it helped transform me into the man who lived a long time ago and who would share his story with children so they could once more enjoy his visit.
I was also fortunate enough to portray Saint Nicholas at the religious education classes for two parishes. The younger kids probably confused Saint Nicholas with Santa. The older ones probably just went along because it was taking place at a church.
While being Saint Nicholas for children was gratifying to me, two special times when I put on the costume stand out because the audience was not young folks.
Our parish Deacon asked me to bring Saint Nicholas to a juvenile detention facility
A small holiday party was planned for a group of teenage boys who were incarcerated. The message was tailored to this specific audience. Ina thank you note following the appearance, the Deacon told me that most of these young men had very little to look forward to during the holiday season, and that my appearance showed that someone out there cared about them.
The last time I put on the costume was Christmas night in 2003. Our family spent the Christmas evening together by producing Saint Nicholas’ final visit. I had already accepted the job that would bring me to California and would be heading west in another month.
My two daughters asked if Saint Nicholas would come to the nursing home where they worked and visit with the residents. My wife and I arrived shortly after the residents had dinner, and we stayed for quite a while visiting with these seniors.
It was one of the last things we did as a family before we were separated by thousands of miles.
I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and hope that you have some cherished memories to recall at this time of year too.
Steve is grateful to his wife Vaune who helped recall some of the Saint Nicholas memories and who helped edit this column.
UC Merced at 10
Our community’s educational centerpiece reaches an important early milestone.
Photograph from the first graduation ceremony at UC Merced in 2006. Picture taken at the UC Merced exhibit at the Merced County Museum
One can extract a lot of joy while looking at this photograph
It shows smiling students in cap and gown at the time of their commencement ceremony escorted by the Chancellor of the institution. This photograph has special meaning to me. It’s from the very first commencement at the University of California at Merced in 2006.
I was in attendance that May morning when the handful of students received their diplomas from the University. The campus had opened the year before, and these students had transferred from other institutions to complete the early steps along their higher education journey.
As the recently installed CEO of the Greater Merced Chamber of Commerce, I accepted the invitation to attend the ceremony. It was clear to me that this would be a very special day.
UC Merced is celebrating its first decade this year. Students started attending in the fall of 2005. A recent exhibit at the Merced County Museum featured three rooms of photographs, newspaper front pages, and icons from the University.
For a relative newcomer to the area, the exhibit offered a peek into the many steps it took to locate the campus in our community.
Icons from the construction of the first buildings at the UC Merced campus. Photo by Steve Newvine
The shovel pictured above was from the celebration commemorating the start of construction. The ceremonial ground-breaking capped off a multi-year effort to convince the University of California to build a Central Valley campus in Merced.
Locations in Fresno and Madera, among other places, were under consideration. The local effort started with a group made up of local education, business, government, and community people.
There were so many steps that needed to be taken along the way including: acquiring the land, green-lighting the development plans, and convincing political leadership beyond the borders of Merced County that this effort was good for all of California.
The local group never looked back as they kept the enthusiasm going through state budget cycles, supported the UC as it fought challenges in court, and helped bring back into focus the prize of a four-year state university amidoccasional perceptions that the community had lost momentum.
The story of how UC Merced became reality has been well documented by the University and local historians.
I cite a few for your information at the end of this column.
The first decade of UC Merced has been critically important to the Central Valley. Enrollment grows at a pace controlled by the University so as to not put any of the delicate development plans at risk.
The UC Board of Regents recently approved the so-called 2020 Project plan that will monitor growth as the student population rises to the full enrollment target of nearly ten-thousand. The campus continues to add new classroom and dormitory buildings.
The UC appears to be a constant state of construction.
To date, three Chancellors have led the institution: the late Carol Tomlinson Keasey, Steven Kang, and the current Chancellor Dorothy Leland.
Current full-time student enrollment is sixty-six-thousand with faculty and staff numbering now at fifteen-hundred full and part time.
A Merced Sun Star front page with the latest news about construction of the newest UC campus. Photo by Steve Newvine
As a community, we came together when a student attacked two students, one staff member, and one construction worker with a knife during classes in November 2015. University Police shot and killed the attacker.
The UC and the community of Merced County were united like a family as a result of the outpouring of compassion on campus.
And that takes us back to that first photograph
Students are the most important aspect of any educational institution. Over the years, we saw how students melded into the City of Merced along with their counterparts from Merced College. UC students wrote messages and campaigned hard to bring the First Lady in as commencement speaker in 2009.
The following year, students again worked diligently to bring NBC News Anchor Lester Holt to UC Merced as commencement speaker.
Athletic programs began as club programs in the early years of UC Merced. Now the Wildcats have organized teams in a number of sports. Photo: Steve Newvine
The first ten years have brought many highs, a tragic incident of campus violence, and a lot of pride to our community.
There’s no crystal ball to help us predict exactly what our UC, or our county, will look like in ten years. We wouldn’t want one anyway. We want to grow along with our college anchor, meet the future face-to-face, and live each day to the fullest.
But it will be fascinating to review these words in another decade when the campus marks another milestone. I hope to be among those telling the story of the community that could, and the University that made us all proud.
The UC history of the Merced campus can be found here: http://www.ucmercedplanning.net/pdfs/flrdp/2history.pdf
Merced County Historian Sarah Lim’s column on the UC Merced development in the community can be found here: http://www.mercedsunstar.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/article38302386.html
Steve Newvine’s tribute to UC Merced’s first Chancellor Carol Tomlinson-Keasey, written at the time of her death, can be found here: http://greatvalley.blogspot.com/2009/10/steve-newvine-legacy-that-endures.html
Steve Newvine lives in Merced
His newest book is a second edition of Finding Bill- A Search for Meaning. It’s available at Lulu.com
Letters from a Vietnam Veteran
My Uncle Billy’s descriptions of life as a soldier in the jungles of Southeast Asia tell a story of loneliness, bravery, and love of family
Letters from the pen of Specialist 4 William Newvine. From the Newvine Family Collection.
“So how is everything going on at home? Been out riding the Ski Doo very much? Or isn’t there enough snow yet”. Letter dated January 25 1965.
He was away from home, a long way from home. His family made sure he got frequent letters. My dad, aunt, and uncle sent them regularly. Some of my cousins and I sent occasional letters too.
His mother wrote to him every day.
He was my uncle Billy Newvine, known by his Army buddies as Bill. Bill served in the US Army in Vietnam. Surviving the jungles of Southeast Asia in some ways was the less-troubled part of his life journey.
He was killed in a car accident driving a brand new Chevrolet convertible he bought upon his return to the States.
The crash happened about six months after his military service ended.
I’ve detailed my journey to learn more about my Uncle through columns here on this website and in a short book called Finding Bill.
I was eleven years old when he was killed.
Bill Newvine in Vietnam, 1967. From the Newvine Family Collection
On a recent visit to my hometown, I visited my Aunt Betty, Billy’s only sister. I already knew he received a lot of letters from home, and that he responded when possible.
I asked Betty whether she had kept any of his letters. After searching around the family farmhouse where she has lived most of her life (and where Billy lived until he was seven years old), she found about forty letters Billy wrote to her while in the Army.
“After twenty days on the USN Walker, we got here. We got here on the ninth, but were not allowed in the harbor to the tenth. Then not allowed to unload till yesterday the fourteenth.” Letter written September 15, 1966, postmarked October 16, 1966.
He sent letters from many places. Some were from where he started his military life in Fort Dix, New Jersey. Other letters were from his pre- deployment time at Fort Lewis in Washington State. Many letters covered the entire time he was in Vietnam which spanned from September 1966 to September 1967.
I spent some time sorting through the letters Aunt Betty loaned me. I arranged them in chronological order, took several pages of notes, and made a few copies at the local drug store. What emerges is a story of a young man (just twenty-one years old) who misses his family, who has made new friends, and who is showing the courage to endure what he’s going through in the jungles of Vietnam.
Letters arrived to my Aunt Betty at a rate of about two a month during the time Bill was in Vietnam. From the Newvine Family Collection.
“…got almost two months in. Our time started September 2. So we are supposed to be back in the states September 2. We will fly back. The old man told us that…” Letter dated and postmarked October 27, 1966
I was taken aback by the passage above because of Bill’s sense of looking toward the end of his hitch. By the postmark, I can tell he had only been in Vietnam a little over a month. Yet, he is already explaining the details of how he will get back home in another eleven months.
Bill’s letters make it clear he was a dedicated soldier
Some of the unvarnished scenes he describes on the battlefield disgusted him, but he knew there was a job to do as well a story to tell his loved ones about what he was experiencing.
Bill Newvine (far right) celebrates Christmas 1966 in Vietnam. From the Newvine Family Collection.
“I pulled up and aimed and did not fire. But he fired and then you feel different and fired. My hand froze on the trigger I shot the whole twenty rounds.” Letter written December 16, 1966 and postmarked December 17, 1966.
There are also images of what he missed from home: family, friends, a snowmobile, and his sister’s farm. The letters are what I would describe as newsy. In a letter before leaving the United States, he tells his sister about mistaking members of the rock group The Animals for women in the Chicago airport. He frequently references winter in upstate New York and his favorite winter pastime of riding his snowmobile.
“Well how is the sledding around there? I guess Dad is having fun with his. I took more time over here to get out in November.” From the same December 17, 1966 letter.
His letters reflect research I did for the book Grown Up, Going Home where I include interviews with his Army buddies.
One friend told me how Bill would frequently mention his snowmobile and how amused Bill was with some of this buddies who just couldn’t believe that you could drive a snowmobile over a frozen lake in the middle of winter.
In another letter, Bill described what I call an altercation in a bar when a South Vietnamese soldier insulted two women. (“I gave him a love tap on the jaw… His buddy carried him out of the bar. The bartender bought us drinks.”) Bill writes that he was in that bar with his friend Paul, who is likely Paul Metzler, a man I spoke to for my book project.
Paul had a lot of nice things to say about Bill, but I recall the most touching story he shared was the one about a letter he received from my grandmother (Bill’s mother) a few months after Bill died in the car accident.
Paul told me how touched he was to receive the letter from the woman who had just lost her son. “It was a beautiful letter,” he said to me. “It broke my heart.”
Paul and Bill mustered out of the Army together and flew from San Francisco back east upon their departure from the service.
In another letter, Bill makes a reference to two soldiers from his unit who were killed while taking the camp garbage to a dump.
“Then yesterday we are here in base camp. Two guys made the trash run and there was fifteen VC inside the perimeter and killed them at the dump. That sure makes you feel funny.” Letter dated March 15, 1967 and postmarked March 19, 1967.
Those two men were Tom Nickerson and Clint Smith. I learned their story from the man who helped me research and find some of the soldiers who knew my uncle.
I found their names along with other soldiers my Uncle knew on the wall of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC in 2012.
Bill closed all his letters to my aunt Betty in the same way: So long for this time, Bill. From the Newvine Family Collection.
The story of Bill Newvine: son, brother, uncle, friend, and Vietnam War veteran continues to be told. These letters my Aunt Betty saved for nearly fifty years offer another side to this forever young man. Betty’s forethought to keep the letters is a special gift.
Bill Newvine, a typically quiet person, learned to survive during his time in Vietnam. Whether it was defending the honor of a woman in a barroom, or taking out an enemy Vietcong soldier bent on doing the same thing to him, he fought and endured.
From the letters this seemingly shy young man wrote, it is apparent that Bill perhaps expressed himself best with the written word. His letters are part of his legacy.
Steve Newvine lives in Merced.
He is including a new chapter about the letters his uncle wrote in the second printing of the book Finding Bill.
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