John’s and Josh’s Favorite Eatery-

Wool Growers in Los Banos Enjoyed by NFL Greats Madden and Allen

Los Banos Basque restaurant, the Wool Growers, was one of many favorite eating establishments of the late NFL coach and analyst John Madden.  It is also a favorite of Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen.  

Lost in the many tributes and obituary pieces on the late John Madden was a connection he had to Merced County.

The former coach and retired television personality who died in December 2021, loved eating at the Wool Growers Restaurant in Los Banos.

Known for his hundreds of thousands of miles logged on the road in his custom-made bus (he hated airplanes), Madden had a lust for life both as a Super Bowl-winning coach and an Emmy-winning sports analyst.

He also had an appreciation for food and had favorite restaurants all around the United States.  Traveling from city to city to cover football games gave him exposure to where some of the best places to eat were in practically every region of the nation.

But his home base was the Bay Area, and one of his favorite places to eat was right here in Merced County.

“I hear people talking about him eating here,” says Wool Growers co-owner Ruth Reynosa who along with her daughter Talisa Vander Poel took over running the place a few years ago.  “He was a customer before we started here.”

Wool Growers Restaurant at 609 H Street in Los Banos is a family style French Basque establishment.   Photo:  Wool Growers Restaurant Facebook page.

As my writing colleague Tom Frazier stated in his Merced County Times column earlier this year, Basque country straddles the border of Spain and France. 

Many of the Basque people raised sheep and have been coming to California for over a century.  

The Wool Growers Restaurant began in late 1800s.  Specialties include roast lamb, pork chops, and baked chicken.  It is also known for a lamb stew that customers have enjoyed for years.

I ate lunch there once in the mid-2000s and immediately called my wife to let her know I would not be eating dinner.  That midday meal at the Wool Growers was filling.

“Running a restaurant is not easy,” Ruth says.  “Running it together with my daughter is much better this way as you need to trust your business partner.”

Daughter Talisa agrees.  “This place is set up family-style, our customers are like family, so it makes sense that a family runs it.” 

The interior of Wool Growers is set up for family style dining.  Photo:  Wool Growers Restaurant Facebook page.

While there are apparently no pictures of John Madden dining at the restaurant, Ruth shared one photo that was on Reddit.com showing what appears to be the back of his head wearing a Wool Growers hat. 

There’s also a reference to his affection for the place in a Sports Illustrated profile.  

Ruth says many people observed him at the restaurant on several occasions

.  “One customer who remembers him eating here told us he enjoyed the ambiance of the place,” Ruth says.  

Buffalo Bills quarterback and Firebaugh native Josh Allen dines at Wool Growers when he visits family in the off-season.  He’s flanked here by owners Ruth Reynosa and Talisa Vander Poel.  Photo:  Wool Growers Restaurant Facebook page.

That appreciation of the family atmosphere of Wool Growers seems to have been passed on to a new generation of NFL greats.  

Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen, a native of nearby Firebaugh, enjoys eating there when he’s in the area visiting family.

“He usually comes by in the weeks after the Super Bowl,” Ruth says.  “He likes our lamb stew and the last time he was here a few months ago he had a New York strip steak.”

Ruth and Talisa are happy their restaurant touched John Madden enough for him to keep coming back year after year. 

Now with Josh Allen making Wool Growers a regular stop when he visits during the off-season, both owners hope to see more of him in the coming years.

They hope all their customers feel the same way.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced. 

His book A Bundle of Memories combines two memoirs along with thirty pages of new material. 

The book is available at Lulu.com.  It is also available via author search on bookshop.org where each purchase helps independent book store owners.

Vintage Cars Ready for a Permanent Home-

Graffiti USA Museum takes another step toward 2023 Opening

This convertible is one of many vintage cars that will be on display when the Graffiti USA Classic Car Museum opens in 2023. Photo: Steve Newvine

As a young adult in Modesto in the 1950s and early sixties, John Sanders loved working on cars.

He and his buddies liked showing off their hot rods on 10th and 11th Streets in this city about forty miles north of Merced.

“I fixed up a 1960 Aston Martin DB4,” Don laughs. “And my wife and I took it on our honeymoon.”

That love of fixing up and showing off classic cars is what has propelled Don and some of his fellow business owners to help start a museum that will open in 2023 along Ninth Street in the city.

The Graffiti USA Classic Car Museum will celebrate the heritage of classic cars as depicted in the iconic movie American Graffiti directed by Modesto native George Lucas.

The Graffiti USA Classic Car Museum will showcase vintage automobiles. Some of the cars are owned by the Museum, while others will be loaned for a defined period of time. Photo: Steve Newvine

A non-profit corporation was formed a few years ago to take the idea of a showcase for cars and the Modesto way of life during the American Graffiti era and turn it into a museum.

Over a million dollars in monetary and non-monetary donations have been received.

The museum will get a local government grant for another million dollars over the next two years while more fundraising continues.

The corporation has purchased two former seed and grain warehouses and has been working to get the museum showroom ready for a 2023 opening.

The buildings have over forty-thousand square feet for museum displays, a banquet hall, and office space.

“The banquet area is already being used by local non-profits as well as our organization,” Don says.

Another feature of the Graffiti USA Classic Car Museum will be a tribute to the Modesto way of life as it was in the 1950s and 1960s. Photo: Steve Newvine

When the first phase of the museum opens, visitors will see an impressive collection of vintage automobiles. The main display area starts with a large mural showing the Modesto arch with a classic 1960s era convertible.

Beyond the classic car collection, phase two is planned as a recreation of the downtown area as it was back in the heyday of the cruising era of the fifties and sixties.

The Modesto Radio Museum hopes to occupy a spot in that section to salute local radio stations such as KBEE, better known at that time as the Bee.

The Bee played the rock-and-roll hits that might have been blaring on the AM radios in the cars cruising down 10th and 11th Streets.

The Radio Museum currently lives online (ModestoRadioMuseum.org)

“The Graffiti USA Classic Car Museum will celebrate cars, but it will also celebrate Modesto as it was back in the era of American Graffiti,” John says.

An artist rendering of the proposed front of the Graffiti USA Classic Car Museum along with a look at how the museum looks in the spring of 2022.

Architectural sketches for the museum pay homage to the drive-in burger joint style popularized in the movie as well as television programs like Happy Days.

The museum site along Ninth Street connects to another big part of regional history.

Ninth Street was part of the old highway 99 that remains following the construction of the highway 99 most of us know now.

That historic link to Highway 99 is part of an effort to locate a California Rest Area at the site of the museum.

There’s a lot more work that needs to be done before that idea can come to fruition, but the museum leadership is encouraged by the progress made to date.

While the Graffiti USA Classic Car Museum is not open officially, the gift shop serves customers two days a week (Friday and Saturday). Photo: Steve Newvine

In fact, there’s a lot to be proud of as the museum looks back on the effort to acquire the two buildings, oversee the preparation of the display space for the first phase, and look ahead to a grand opening in the near future.

The vision to celebrate Modesto’s car cruising history clouded over for a while when the pandemic hit in 2020.

“COVID just slowed things down,” John says. “But we are looking ahead to a 2023 opening.”

Fundraising will continue to be the primary focus as the museum moves forward.

A recent crab feed sold out with over 450 people in attendance. The museum gift shop is already open two days a week. Sales of tee-shirts, postcards, and even bottles of a specially labeled wine continue to bring in revenue.

The Graffiti USA Classic Car Museum now has a business license to sell cars, making for a unique connection between selling cars to raise money to celebrate cars. Photo: Steve Newvine

The museum recently obtained a California business license to allow for selling cars as a way to raise funds for the effort.

They will sell cars and accept qualified vehicles for donation to the museum.

While it may sound a little unusual for a car museum to be in the car business, this group is actually borrowing the idea from another organization doing the same thing.

The group has reached out to native son George Lucas as well as to former Tonight Show host Jay Leno for support and encouragement.

In the meantime, car guys like John Sanders will continue to pour more time and sweat equity into the project.

Not all his time though.

He’s currently working on restoring another car.

To paraphrase an often used saying, you can take the man out of his car, but you cannot take the car out of the man.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

His book California Back Roads includes two stories of people who kept their vintage automobiles in near-perfect condition for fun and necessity.

The book is available at Lulu.com.

Four of his books are now available via author search on bookshop.org where each purchase helps independent book store owners.

For more information on the Graffiti USA Museum, visit: graffitiusamuseum.com

Stepping Up for a Friend-

The passing of a good man offers an opportunity for reflection

Dennis Gillen had lived in Merced since 2004.  He passed away in February 2022.  

When a friend passes, we remember the good times, the pearls of wisdom, and even the challenging moments.

Thinking back on the life of my friend Dennis, there were plenty of items in each category.  He passed at age eighty-three.

We played golf dozens of times during the years after I moved to Merced.  We had weekly coffee breaks for about ten years straight.  You get to know someone real well when you have coffee with him every week.

Golf connected me with Dennis and we would enjoy a round from time to time including this time as we played one of the final rounds at the former Stevinson Ranch course in Merced County.  Photo:  Newvine Personal Collection.

When I think of the good times, there were the golf outings.  We met on a golf course in 2006.  We played one of the final rounds ever at Stevinson Ranch before it closed in 2015. 

Taking a vacation day from work, we said farewell to Merced County’s finest golf course before the owners closed up shop and converted the property to agricultural land.  

It was at Stevinson where Dennis offered a suggestion to help with a chronic slice in my drives.  The advice amounted to simple foot placement.  It worked.

With regard to wisdom, Dennis offered life experiences.  He lost his mom tragically when he was just five years old.  His marriage that produced three children ended in divorce. 

He had more than his share of financial setbacks.  As I brought up issues I was dealing with at work, he would share lessons learned from customers during his forty-plus years in his working career.

All of this and more shared between friends whether on the golf course or at our weekly coffee breaks at a local cafe.

Dennis gave me this 2018 photo he had another golfer snap for him at an area golf course.  

The challenges in this friend-to-friend relationship came in the final years of his life.

As his health declined I became aware of just what friendship is all about.  

At this stage of our decade-and-a-half friendship, I realized I would be carrying more of the investment in time and energy to help my friend. 

When he couldn’t drive, I (and other friends) would help him get to church, to a store, or to his credit union. 

Our weekly coffee breaks continued at his home as I brought in the beverages and visited him for a couple of hours each week.  

Every time I talked to him, he’d end the conversation with the words “God bless.”  

 I’m grateful that in what became the final months of his life, Dennis never let me forget how much he appreciated our bond. 

Rarely did one of those weekly coffee breaks end without Dennis telling me how thankful he was that I was his best friend.

I needed to hear that. 

So when a friend passes, we do recall the good times.  We extract tidbits of conversation that stick with us forever.  And we make sense out of the challenging moments realizing that it is in these darker times when real friends are called upon to step up.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced. 

Two stories featuring his friend Dennis are included in his book Course Corrections, and one of those stories is reprinted at the Can-Do Californians Facebook page ((3) Can-Do Californians- Book by Steve Newvine | Facebook) .  

Sleeping Bags and Merit Badges-

Reliving Good Moments from Scouting Adventures

I am among the Scouts attending a week of comradery at the former Camp Portaferry in Lewis County, NY back in the early 1970s.  I’m in the middle row in the center just above the scout at the top of the Boy Scouts sign.   The camp property was sold in recent years and divided into building lots.  Photo:  Port Leyden Historical Club.

A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, friendly, and courteous.

These are some of the attributes outlined in the official Scout Law.

I was a Boy Scout for a few years.  I earned some merit badges, packed a sleeping bag for a lot of campouts, and picked up some lifelong lessons.

I left scouting upon moving up to high school but the memories are still there.

Every summer, our Troop 41 would head up for a week to a Scout Camp in Lewis County in northern New York.  At Camp Portaferry, we’d earn some merit badges (I recall at least one for flag signaling), horse around at the dining hall following meals, and go on a hike or two.  We would enjoy nightly campfires with all the troops attending.  Most of those campfires featured telling ghost stories, performing in talent show competitions among the troops, and singing such classics as “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” and “Be Kind to Our Web Footed Friends”.

In case you are not familiar with the lyrics to that second title, here’s a sampling written to be sung with the refrain of Stars and Stripes Forever:

Be kind to our web-footed friends,

For a duck may be somebody’s mother.

Who lives in the deep of the swamp,

Where the weather is cold and damp (pronounced so as to rhyme with swamp)

Here’s what a properly attired scout would wear prior to heading out for either a weekend campout or a weeklong stay at scout camp.  Photo:  Newvine Family Collection

I left scouting long before even considering going after an Eagle Scout designation.  My friend Phil stayed with the program and became an Eagle Scout.  

I never fully appreciated the work and dedication that went into becoming an Eagle Scout until years later when, as a community leader, I was invited to a ceremony where the designation was awarded to a few local scouts. 

There was a part of the ceremony when the master of ceremonies asked all Eagle Scouts to stand.  Looking around the room, I saw several men stand, connecting with this new group of those receiving one of scouting’s highest honors.

There seems to be a special connection among the Eagle Scout community.  It doesn’t always happen, but when it does, it is really something to see.

Local scout leader Onis Lentz passed away in early 2022.  He served in practically every volunteer role of the Boy Scouts, including a stint on the Executive Council of the Yosemite Council.  Photo: Judith Alvardo, Rio de Oro District. 

I may not have stayed with Scouting as long as I would have liked, but I have been honored to know some outstanding people who were scouts.

Of special note is my friend Onis who recently passed.  Onis was a scout, scout leader, and steady advocate of the value of scouting to society. 

He earned his Eagle Scout designation and was also honored with such awards as the Silver Antelope, Silver Beaver, District Award of Merit, and the Order of the Arrow.

He was a member of the executive board for the Greater Yosemite Council of the Boy Scouts of America. 

He was among the first to welcome me to the community when my wife and I moved here in 2006.  He lived the Scout Law, particularly the part about a scout being loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, and kind.

“My grandfather was a very special person,” Tara Zampa said about Onis.  “He was loved by many.”

From the Camp Portaferry Trading Post, I purchased this mug during my time at Scout Camp.  Photo:  Newvine Personal Collection

There is no doubt that the Boy Scouts have had their share of negative press in recent years.  I do not excuse any of that, and hope that resolution comes to those harmed by the actions of some bad actors.

All I know is that for me, being a Scout made a better life for me.  A lot of the solid citizens I’ve known through service clubs and other community initiatives just happened to have scouting as part of their background.  

And that has made a positive difference in the lives of many.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced. 

His book Can Do Californians is now available in hard cover at Lulu.com.  

He is indebted to Judith Alvardo and the Rio de Oro District for providing information on the scouting career and honors bestowed upon Onis Lentz.  A celebration of life for Onis will be held March 5 at Camp Warren-McConnell, 11760 Livingston Cressey Road, in Livingston, CA

Easier Access-

Improvements to Merced Library branch help patrons

Workers recently replaced the railing in front of the Merced County Library Main Branch.  Photo:  Steve Nervine

If you have been to the Merced Library recently, you probably noticed a new railing leading up the walkway to the main entrance.

The railing is one of the more visible signs of physical plant improvements going on at the Merced branch as well as other branches throughout the County Library system.

“The handrail project has been in the works for a while and supports our strategic plan goal one,” says County Librarian Amy Taylor.

The work is being paid for from the Library general fund and with American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dollars.  ARPA was the one-nine trillion dollar stimulus package that provided relief to area governments to address COVID impacts on public health and local economies.

The results of the 2021 strategic planning process done by the Merced County Library is available on-line at Strategic Plan (countyofmerced.com)

The objective to improve access at all library branches was called out as a top priority in the Library Strategic Plan.  The Plan was completed through a public process that began in the spring of 2021.  A planning team (called the Strategic Team) was formed in March.  

A survey was conducted in May and June with over three-hundred on-line and printed questionnaires returned.  The results helped feed the Strategic Team’s work to develop a study of the Library’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats; the so-called SWOT analysis.

The Strategic Team assembled to create the survey, analyze results, and implement the four goals worked on the project in 2021. Photo: Steve Nervine

The Strategic Team compiled four goals from their work: 1. Welcoming and accessible library spaces. 2. Programs that meet the needs of our diverse community.  3. The Library is visible, well supported, and a strong community partner. 4. Well-informed staff that embody the County’s mission, vision, and values.

The four goals are followed with three strategic outcomes.  The outcomes form the basis of the improvements seen in front of the Merced Library.  

With a goal of welcoming and accessible library spaces for each branch, there are projects slated throughout the system for the next two years.  Photo:  Steve Newvine

“The library will be working on several projects over the next two years,” Amy Taylor says. 

Improved public service counters are planned for the Atwater, Gustine, Livingston, and Los Banos branches. 

Roof projects are planned for the LeGrand, Santa Nella, and Snelling branches.

A heating and air conditioning upgrade, as well as a teen center, are in the works for the Merced branch.

Some patrons have raised the issue of improving the design of the entrance so that users might find it to be less intimidating. 

As it stands now, anyone entering the building has to walk up a long ramp to the “bridge” that crosses over an open-air patio on the lower level of the building.

That particular access issue was not identified as a top priority.  It may take more time and money to resolve.  

But the new railing is the first step.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced. 

His latest book is called A Bundle of Memories and it combines two of his memoirs along with about thirty pages of new material about his experiences growing up in a small town in the 1970s.  It is available exclusively at lulu.com

Farming is Center Stage at World Ag Expo-

Exposition returns to in-person format this year

Major farm equipment manufacturers, such as John Deere, have massive displays of their tractors and other implements at the World Ag Expo in Tulare.  Photo: Steve Newvine

Where is the largest John Deere tractor dealer in the nation this week? 

Try the exposition grounds at the World Ag Expo in Tulare County.

So is Massey Fergueson, Kubota, and just about every other name in agriculture equipment. 

They are all in Tulare.

For over fifty years, agricultural producers from all over the United States have been coming to the Expo in the heart of the state’s Central Valley.

The Expo is a showcase of the latest in farm equipment, the newest technology to help growers, and a social event bringing farmers together in a positive environment.

Ag producers in the tens of thousands come to the World Ag Expo to see the latest farm equipment and technology.  Photo:  Steve Newvine

The 2022 version of the event is special because it is the first time since COVID that the Expo is back as an in-person activity. 

The Expo was an online event in 2021. 

The pandemic forced organizers to rethink the presentation to protect attendees.  But this year, protocols are in place and the Expo is open for business.  

 “2020 was our last live show,” said International Agri Center Marketing Manager Jennifer Fawkes.  “We’re following outdoor show requirements this year.” 

Those COVID protocols require masks indoors.  No vaccine or test status will be checked.  

Public utility companies such as Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Gas, and Southern California Edison (not pictured) come to the World Ag Expo to meet their customers and help them save money.  Photos by Steve Newvine

The World Ag Expo is produced by the International Agri-Center , a non-profit organization dedicated to farm education and agriculture promotion.  What started in 1968 as a farm show on seventy acres has expanded over the years.  

The International Agri-Center has grown to over seven-hundred acres.  The Agri-Center, Expo site, and parking lots use up about forty-percent of the total acreage.  The rest is farmland where some of the Valley’s signature crops such as almonds, cotton, and hay are raised.

Over one-hundred thousand people attended the last Expo held in-person on-site in 2020.  Organizers expect this year will experience an even higher attendance.  There are nearly fifteen-hundred exhibitors showing off the latest in farm equipment, agriculture products, and business technology available to this segment of the economy.

An estimated thirty-plus area non-profit organizations use the event as a fund-raising opportunity by selling food to hungry Expo visitors.

“Tulare is a close-knit community,” one of the volunteers said.  “We have a legacy of giving back and this Expo has a tradition of giving back by letting groups raise money for their causes.”

These volunteers staffed a media center at the World Ag Expo. Over twelve-hundred volunteers are recruited to help with all kinds of duties such as directing parking, troubleshooting technical issues with vendors, and assisting attendees. Photo: Steve Newvine.

The International Agri-Center is led by an all-volunteer board of directors, a full-time staff, and more than twelve hundred volunteers who offer their time to work the Expo.

Without the volunteers, most of what happens during these early February days at the Expo would simply not be possible.

Seminars ranging from cooking to workforce challenges are offered over the course of the four-day World Ag Expo.  Photo:  Steve Newvine

The regional economy benefits from the deluge of visitors to the World Ag Expo.  Local hotels fill up, area dining establishments are busy, and other retail cash registers are ringing.

But more important to the economy is the activity among the vendors who connect with area agricultural producers to provide information on the latest equipment, software technology, and new ideas.

“We did an economic impact study on the event in 2020,” Jennifer Fawkes said.  “World Ag Expo had a fifty-two million dollar impact on California two years ago.”

That economic impact study measured hotel room nights, restaurant attendance, and miscellaneous retail among the attendees and vendors connected with the Expo.  Ag sales between vendors and farmers were not measured. 

But the vendors attest to the value of meeting their customers face to face to explain the latest in equipment, technology, and products.

“What’s important to us is making that face-to-face connection with the customer,” says Sheldon Litwiller of  Litwiller Fabrication, an ag building solutions company.  “A sale may come later, but for us the purpose of the show is to let the customer know how we can help them.”

Most of the vendors here agree there’s nothing quite like an in-person trade show to connect sellers to buyers.  

COVID forced many of these industry showcases to either postpone their events over the past year and a half or move them to an online format.

But everyone knew it just wasn’t the same.  

Trade shows get customers out of their businesses and into an environment with similar business operators. 

Vendors can establish a rapport with a customer from a brief greeting as they pass by a display booth. 

Questions may get answered. 

Trust begins to build. 

“Our customers are important,” says Matt Daley of Waikato Milking Systems, an automation solutions company for dairies.  “But equally important is our company’s support of the distributors and retailers who work with the customers.  This is our way to say thanks to them as well.”

So whether it’s the big equipment manufacturers who want the large exposition space, the non-profit organizations that earn a big portion of their annual budgets, or the farmer and his family coming out to meet other farmers, there’s a lot of support for the return of an in-person World Ag Expo.

The tradition continues in Tulare County.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced

His latest book A Bundle of Memories is available exclusively at Lulu.com at a special price.  

Branding Memories-

Ownership Change at Iconic Restaurant Stirs Reflections

The iconic neon sign for the Branding Iron Restaurant on 16th Street in Merced.  Photo:  Steve Newvine

“Let’s meet somewhere in-between,” the voice on the other end of the phone suggested.  “How about the Branding Iron in Merced?”

That voice from sixteen years ago was from the head of development for a national charity’s regional office.  He was setting up an appointment to meet me and to talk about a position the organization was looking to fill.

The year was 2006.  It was the first time I would drive from my home in Fresno to the City of Merced.  It would not be the last time. 

 I had never heard of the Branding Iron.  But upon entering the restaurant, it was clear to me this place was “the meeting place”  for Merced.

The job I drove fifty miles north to discuss was never offered.  But it was nice to see the inside of an authentic California steakhouse.  

The Branding Iron recently changed hands.  The Parle family sold the place to Raj and Jeena Kahlon. 

The Branding Iron was recently sold to Raj and Jeena Kahlon.  Photo: Steve Newvine

Now a new generation will assume stewardship over this beloved local dining landmark.

From the dark wood grain walls, to the cattle branding motif throughout the restaurant, the Branding Iron was a perfect meeting place for business settings, service club meetings, or a special night out.

There is a recent story about the history of the Branding Iron in the January 6 edition of the Merced County Times newspaper.  

Three months after my first visit to the 16th Street establishment back in 2006, I got another call from another organization. 

After discussing the job, I was asked to come up to Merced again.  “We’ll have lunch at the Branding Iron,” this new voice declared.

This time around, the outcome of the business discussed proved positive for me.  The lunch led to another meeting, and eventually to an offer to work in Merced.

The rest is history as my wife and I settled in, bought a house, got involved, and made this community our new hometown.   

Unique features of the Branding Iron are the branding symbols seen throughout the restaurant.  Photo:  Steve Newvine

Through it all, the Branding Iron was part of my Merced experience.  My first office was next door at the old railroad station.  Owner Greg Parle would frequently stop in to use the copy machine.  The Chamber held some special meetings there.

The Chamber would occasionally hold luncheon events in one of the banquet rooms at the restaurant.  The Parle family was always supportive of Chamber fundraising events.

In 2007, then Assembly Member Cathleen Galgiani spoke at one of the Merced Chamber’s issues luncheons held at the Branding Iron.  L-R:  Suzie Bubenchik (board chair), Cathleen Galgiani, and me.  Photo:  Steve Newvine

I recall one afternoon after then-Governor Schwarzenegger spoke at a luncheon held at the County Fairgrounds I got a call from one of the field assistants of an elected member of the legislature. 

That person asked whether I could join other field assistants for a late afternoon happy hour at the Branding Iron.  I joined the group briefly after work and I enjoyed connecting with this circle of professionals.  

It was one of the highlights of my time with the Chamber.

Most of my business lunches were held there not only for the convenient walk to and from the office but also for the statement the restaurant made about Merced.

That statement in my mind is this:  we’re a friendly place, most of the people here are honest to the core, you’ll be treated well, and you will want to stay here for the rest of your life.

  A smaller neon sign welcomes visitors to the Branding Iron entrance.  Photo:  Steve Newvine

It is a time to celebrate the continuation of a Merced tradition: the Branding Iron.  With all the community has been through during the COVID crisis, this could have been a farewell to the local institution.  Instead, it is a celebration. 

A tradition lives on. 

A new owner is ready to serve the local community as well of outsiders looking for a place that’s somewhere in between.

Who knows, maybe even another outsider like I was some sixteen years ago will stop in and discover his first view of Merced.

The Branding Iron made an impression on me then.  It is now time to make a lasting impression on a new generation of customers.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced. 

He came to Merced in 2007 first to head the Greater Merced Chamber of Commerce, and then to serve as the Senior Program Manager for Government Partnerships for a public utility.  

His new book, A Bundle of Memories, combines his first two memoirs (Growing Up, Upstate and Grown Up, Going Home) along with thirty pages of new stories.  It is available exclusively at Lulu.com 

Midway between Oregon and Mexico-

Highway 99 Group Seeks Support for Statewide Sign Effort

Proposed design of historical marker type sign for Highway 99.  Photo:  Highway 99 Association

Think of the Central Valley as having two highway 99s.

One is the highway many drivers love to hate.  While it may be the fastest way to get from Merced to Modesto or Fresno by car, construction and traffic snarls can ruin the best of plans.

Over the past twelve years, we’ve seen millions of dollars poured into more lanes, better access points, and a variety of other improvements. 

Then there is the other 99: what remains following the major overhaul of the route back in the 1960s.  Before the current stretch of concrete, rest stops, and traffic, Highway 99 wound north and south directly through many cities in the Central Valley.  

Some of those roads remain in use.

In the City of Merced for example, the original 99 is what we now know as 16th Street. Highway expansion that created the four-lane roadway most of us are familiar with took place decades ago.  

the palm and the pine south of the City of Madera on Highway 99.  Photo: KCRA Sacramento

The Historic Highway 99 Association of California has sought historic recognition for the highway that was known for a time before Interstate 5 as the transportation backbone of the state.

The Association is looking at local governments that have a portion of the old highway running through their jurisdictions to support efforts to add historic markers along the roadside.

“As we are a new organization and still getting established, what we qualify as a big accomplishment can seem a lot smaller,” says Michael Ballard who is president of the Historic Highway 99 Association.  

There is a lot of work for this 501(c)3 California Non-Profit Public Benefit Corporation.  But the rewards are worth it according to Michael.   

Historic 99 signs have been placed in seven locations along Gateway Drive in Madera.  Photo: Madera Tribune.

The mission of the Association is to make more people aware of the historical significance of the highway.   The group points to the iconic palm and pine trees in Madera.

“We are currently working on getting signs posted at the Pine and Palm location along Highway 99,” Michael says.   “Right now, we are in the early stages of exploring our options as to what we can accomplish.”

 The palm and the pine represent the geographic center of California.  The palm is to the south representing southern California.  The pine is to the north representing the northern section of the state.

As reported in the column over the past several years, the exact geographic center is in North Fork in eastern Madera County.  

We now have a sign design, one for each direction,” Michael says.  “We are currently working on getting more support for the sign and estimates for its fabrication as well as installation.”

You are midway through the state when you see the palm and pine in the median south of the City of Madera.  Photo:  Steve Newvine

Drawing attention to the historical significance of the original highway 99 laid the foundation for the establishment of the Historic 99 Association.  The group received tax-exempt status from the IRS, and can now raise charitable contributions to help achieve goals.

 The group was successful in 2021 in completing a project to get Historic US 99 signed through the city of Madera.  

Seven signs were posted along Gateway Drive marking the pre-1958 alignment of US 99 through the city of Madera.

They are building on that effort with the palm and the pine site.   The effort requires working with Caltrans, Madera County, and the City of Madera.

In the long term, the organization wants to see signs posted on both sides of 99 marking the location of the palm and the pine. The trees are in the median with no safe public access.

The Association hopes it can help secure a State Historic Landmark designation for the site.

“There is a near-perfect location for a marker off-site,” Michael says.

But the palm and the pine are not the only items on the agenda for 2022.  “We intend to get new signs posted north of Yreka through Shasta River Canyon along State 263,” Michael says.  “Which may well be the northernmost Historic Route signs in California.” 

The Historic Highway 99 Association of California is a Non-Profit Public Benefit Corporation that raises awareness as well as resources to purchase signs and clear government hurdles.  The group’s mission is to Protect and Promote Historic US 99 in California. 

The challenge now is getting the word out about our efforts and the goals of the organization. With more awareness, and hopefully more membership donations, the group knows it can achieve those goals. 

So it’s the former roadway once known as Highway 99 that the Association wants to support and protect.  The group sees the old highway as a perfect venue for car shows, swap meets, and historical tours. 

There may be if you pardon my play on words, a long road ahead for this group.  But with some early wins such as the sign project in Madera, the future looks promising.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced. 

He has written about the palm and the pine in this column for a number of years.  He spoke to the significance of the trees in the center median of 99 sound of Madera to KCRA-TV in 2020.

His new book A Bundle of Memories combines two early memoirs along with thirty pages of new memories from his years growing up in upstate New York in the sixties and seventies.

Celebrating Christmas in My Hometown-

A preview of my latest writing project

My Grandmother Vera with some of her grandsons.  My brother Terry is at the far right.  Photo: Newvine Personal Collection

My latest writing project is just that, a project.  I’ve combined two family memoirs plus about thirty pages of new stories from growing up in a small upstate New York village into one book.

Over the years, I’ve enjoyed sharing the stories of a close-knit family, relatives we could just drop in on at any time, friends who would do just about anything for another friend, and the store owners who somehow made a living from serving and selling the things all of us needed to survive back in a more innocent era.

For a preview, here’s a look at a typical Christmas celebration in one of the greatest hometowns in America: Port Leyden.

The Santa years were particularly productive with many gifts under the Newvine Christmas tree.  In early December, Mom and Dad would take us to nearby Boonville where Santa kept up a small workshop in the village square.  

I was really impressed with Santa; he kept a notebook and would actually write down what we asked him for Christmas.  He’d make it clear that he was only good for up to three items and that after the limit was reached, we better turn to our parents and relatives for anything else.  He really had his act together.

An early Christmas morning with me and my older brother Terry.  Photo: Newvine Personal Collection

Holiday baking was a big deal at our house too.  Grandma Snyder would usually package up a box of her homemade Christmas goodies as a family gift to us. 

Mom would jump into the game about a week before the holiday and create some treats of her own. As Grandma Snyder stopped baking in her later years, more of the holiday kitchen duties fell to Mom.  She took that responsibility seriously.

Christmas rituals included Mass either on Christmas Day or as we got older: Midnight Mass.  A typical Christmas Eve included holiday TV specials, eggnog, cookies, and the ceremonial opening of one gift. 

It wasn’t much of a ceremonial gift opening; usually, Mom would handpick the gift she wanted each of us to open on Christmas Eve.  Usually, the gift was an item of clothing that would “look just perfect” if worn that night to Midnight Mass.   

For us, Midnight Mass began around a quarter to twelve with the singing of Christmas carols along with the church choir. 

The Mass itself took about an hour.  The church was filled with holiday floral arrangements purchased by parishioners in memory of a loved one.  At least one year, I recall a picture-perfect Port Leyden snowfall as we all left the church. 

We’d go home after Mass and have a light snack of some holiday bread before turning in.

With Midnight Mass out of the way, we were free to sleep in on Christmas morning.  As a little boy, I would be among the first to get up.  As I grew older, I didn’t mind if we “got up when we got up.”

My brother Terry and sister Becky in a holiday photo from the late 1960s.  Photo: Newvine Personal Collection

Gift opening would be followed by breakfast with Dad doing the dishes for what’s believed to be the “only day of the year.”  I’m sure he would have done dishes other days of the year, but Mom never made an issue over whether he should help her out in the kitchen. 

She probably surmised he worked hard all year so that we could have this happy day among the other things we enjoyed in our household.  Still, it was amusingly strange to see my tough father with an apron on wiping dishes at the sink.

The ending ritual on Christmas day came around six pm. 

That was when Dad, sitting on the couch, would utter his annual “Christmas philosophy”.  It would go something like this: 

“Well, there you have it.  Another Christmas come and gone.  You work all year long.  You spend weeks shopping and wrapping gifts.  All for just a few minutes in the morning when everything is unwrapped.  Then it’s over for another year.”

It wasn’t Charles Dickens, but it was Dad. 

He wasn’t trying to rain on the parade, he was just observing the passing of the holiday.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced. 

His latest project A Bundle of Memories combines two memoirs (Growing Up, Upstate and Grown Up, Going Home) with about thirty pages of new stories about his youth in a small northern New York State village. 

It is available exclusively with special pricing at Lulu.com

Happy Cows, Delighted Chickens, and Optimistic Almonds-

Crop Values on the Rise in the County’s Ag Report

Merced County’s farm products dominate this mural above the checkouts at the Raley’s store in Merced.  

Many shoppers at local supermarkets like Raley’s in Merced are well aware of the contributions by local growers to agriculture.

Farming is a big component to the local economy.  It stabilizes other sectors during difficult times.  A former City Manager once described the agriculture sector in Merced as being a reliable delivery channel for economic activity.

Every year, the County Board of Supervisors gets the message loud and clear in the form of the annual Agriculture Report.

Farmers in Merced County might see some good news within the pages of the 2020 Merced County Report of Agriculture. 

The report is done in compliance with state Food and Ag Code.  It summarizes gross value of the County’s agricultural commodities, along with updates to the amount of acreage and production in the farming sector.

In 2020, agriculture commodities grossed $3,401,610,000 representing an increase of $240.632,000 or 7% from the 2019 total value . 

County Agriculture Commissioner David A. Robinson reports these figures represent only gross returns to the producer.  It does not take into account costs of production, marketing, or transportation.

As a result, net income or loss to the producer is not reflected in this report. 

It is a report that brought no surprise to Commissioner Robinson.

“Nothing notable in the crop report that is surprising,” was the department’s response to my questions.  “A trend we are seeing is field crop acreage is decreasing due to drought.”

The 2020 Merced County Report of Agriculture is available on the County’s website (https://www.co.merced.ca.us/DocumentCenter/View/28218/2020-MERCED-COUNTY-ANNUAL-CROP-REPORT?bidId=) 

Once again, dairy is the biggest sector of agriculture in Merced County with the overall gross value of $1,050,940,000 representing a third of all commodities produced here. 

Behind those numbers is an increase in the amount a dairy farmer is paid for milk. While production increased in 2020, the price per hundredweight (one hundred pounds of milk) paid to farmers increased by $2.30 to $18.70 from 2019.

Almonds did well as a cash crop for area farmers according to the 2020 Agriculture Report.  Photo:  Steve Newvine

Almonds remain the second leading commodity in Merced County.  The gross production value of $470,603,000 for the commodity represents a 12% increase from 2019. 

Almond acreage increased, but prices fell 26% from 2019. 

Chickens rose to the number three position with a gross production value of $318,522,000 for 2020. There were ten million more chickens raised in the County in 2020 than in the prior year.

The report shows the values of cattle and calves moving down with a gross production value of $262,187,000. That is a decrease of 13% from 2019.  Herd sizes increased, but values decreased.

A breakdown of each category, along with graphs, and explanations, is available on the County website (https://www.co.merced.ca.us/DocumentCenter/View/28218/2020-MERCED-COUNTY-ANNUAL-CROP-REPORT?bidId=)  

The report also contains summaries on Agriculture Commission programs such as pest detection, industrial help, and nursery inspection.

There’s also a summary of all the countries that buy farm products from Merced County.  It may be no surprise, but here are the top five countries that have been issued phytosanitary certificates. 

These certificates relate to the health of plants with respect to international trade requirements. 

1.India 

2.Spain 

3.Italy  

4.Japan  

5.Mexico 

While the 2020 report makes clear the crop values do not take into account grower costs, there will likely be some changes in the numbers in the 2021 report.  Those changes may the impact of reflect higher costs for transportation and all the necessities needed to grow and market crops.  

The department would not say what impact higher fuel prices might have in 2021 as they do not gather this kind of information.

There was no information on the impact of COVID 19 on the past year’s production.  But the department did acknowledge 2020 was a challenging year for agricultural producers.

“All farmers had challenges due to COVID and continue to have challenges due to one thing or another,” a department response stated.

This time next year, we should expect the report to reflect the impact inflation may have on grower production and profitability.  The long-term impact of the pandemic may also show up in the numbers for the future.

But it is clear from the report that agriculture continues to be a big cog in the wheel of the local economy and this is unlikely to change for quite some time.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced. 

His book Can Do Californians is available at Lulu.com, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble.com 

History in Person, or On Line-

Settlement of Merced County Exhibit Brings the Museum to the Device

Some of the storyboards in the Merced Courthouse Museum exhibit Settlement of Merced County: From Homestead to Colonization.  Photo: Steve Newvine

Did you ever think about how the area we now know as Merced County got started? 

Have you ever given any thought to how certain communities seem to have a link to specific nationalities?

There’s an exhibit at the Merced County Courthouse Museum that offers some insights, shows many interesting photographs, and provides the tools needed to learn more about these communities.

Settlement of Merced County: From Homestead to Colonization is an exhibit that opened in October. 

Storyboard with old photographs and a synopsis of how Merced’s Chinatown community started.  Photo:  Steve Newvine

What started with homesteaders led to many making a commitment to live right here in Merced County. 

Their reasons were varied. 

In some cases, it was the availability of fertile land. 

Certainly, climate and water availability were factors. 

Throughout the County, these homesteaders were the foundation for colonies where ethnicity, national origin, geography, and religion created clusters of families settling into specific regions.

The exhibit looks at how these clusters led to the creation of Merced’s settlements which in turn became colonies within the greater community. 

With about fifteen maps and nearly three-dozen story panels, this exhibit represents the first comprehensive look at the early development of Merced County.

The Settlement of Merced County: From Homestead to Colonization exhibit includes an on-line feature so the visitor can drill down to get more information on each colony.  Photo: Steve Newvine

On the night the exhibit opened, Kristi Kelechenyi of the County Geographic Information System (GIS) Department showed attendees how to trace the settlements with a mobile device. 

The story behind these communities awaits amidst the rooms off the main hallway of the Museum:

• Merced Falls' Indian Reservation

• Snelling's Southern influence

• Robla's Irish settlement, Badger Flat's Italian farmers

• Buhach Colony’s Portuguese roots

• South Dos Palos’ Black community

• Delhi State Land Settlement

• Hilmar’s Swedish Colony

• Merced’s Jewish community

• Calpak’s Mexican migrant camps

The colonization of Crocker-Huffman land:

• British Colony (English)

• Merced Colony #2 (Mennonite)

• Rotterdam Colony (Dutch)

• Amsterdam Colony (Dutch)

• Yamato Colony (Japanese)

• Deane Colony (Easterner)

The black and white photographs bring the story alive. 

The visitor gets the opportunity to think back to what it must have been like when these Merced neighborhoods were formed. 

Those neighborhoods include: 

• Chinatown

• Little Snelling

• Spanish Town

• Spaghetti Acres

• Bradley Addition

• Ragsdale Addition

• South Merced

The Mennonite colony in Winton is one of several neighborhoods featured in the exhibit Settlement of Merced County: From Homestead to Colonization at the Merced Courthouse Museum.  Photo:  Steve Newvine

Thanks to the web enhancement, this exhibit is effectively available online. 

A visitor can see the exhibit without going to the museum by following this link: https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/0455ea6a5c87451c8d880329670e4908/

 One might spend a great deal of time clicking on the images, recognizing features on the many maps, and appreciating the hard work of the forebearers who built the community. 

But nothing can beat going to the Museum, strolling through the exhibits, and experiencing the presentation in person.

On top of the specific exhibit, there are plenty of other rooms with more things to see and more history to appreciate.

This exhibit represents an investment of the visitor.  It is not an investment of money, but rather an investment of time.  Every minute spent looking at the storyboards, maps, and photographs helps to bring about a better understanding of what it took to build the community we know as Merced County.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced. 

His book Can-Do Californians is now available in hardcover as well as softcover from Lulu.com.  The softcover version is available as well at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.com

Leaving Home to Find Work-

When my dad, grandfather, and uncle worked far away from home. 

My dad, grandfather, and uncle were carpenters.  In the early 1970s, they were sent by their union to work on New York State’s remaking of the State Capitol.  Photo: Newvine Family Collection

If you’ve ever been in a situation where you or someone in your family had to work a great distance from home, you know it can be difficult.

There’s the loss of daily connection with family, missing out on school events, and a general worry as to when it all may end.

At least that was the case when my dad, grandfather, and uncle worked on Empire State Plaza, a massive public works project in the state capitol of Albany some fifty years ago.

Former NY Governor Nelson Rockefeller who conceived the Empire State Plaza project in the 1960s.  The project was completed in the mid-1970s. Photo: empirestateplaza.ny.gov  

Then-Governor Nelson Rockefeller set out to remake the offices for state government with a plan to build four buildings, an underground parking and retail center, and a reflecting pool much like the one in Washington, DC.  

As with many construction projects, actual costs were under forecast and construction forecasts were grossly underestimated.  

An accelerated construction schedule led area trade unions to seek members well beyond the Albany boundaries.  One hundred miles north of Albany in Rome, New York, the Carpenters local number 277 offered jobs to their union members on the state office complex project.  

The Newvine carpenters were members of that union, and they got the call.

With local construction projects at a near standstill, the only prospect for some union members was to take the offer to work on Empire State Plaza.  

The three Newvine men, plus one non-family carpenter, would leave for Albany on a Monday morning, and return home on Friday every week.  They put in a solid week on the job during the day while living the bachelor life at night in a small mobile home in a trailer park just outside the city.  

That so-called bachelor life included making their own nightly dinner, keeping the mobile home clean, and venturing out to a telephone booth (these were, after all, pre-cell phone days) once a week to call home to see how their families were doing.

As a kid growing up in the sixties and seventies, I remember the Albany months whimsically.  Mom would make Dad’s lunch in is aluminum lunch pail for Monday, but for the rest of the week, he was on his own.

I would begin missing my dad on about Tuesday or Wednesday of each week.  I remember how excited my brother, sister, and I were on Fridays when he came bouncing in from that exhausting week away from his family.  

A post card image of a completed Empire State Plaza.

We never made more out of it than what it was to us in that moment of our lives. 

Dad had to work out of town because that’s where the job was. 

He was blessed to have his father and his brother fall into the same situation.  All three men did what they had to do to support their families.

That’s the way it was in 1970 and to some extent, that’s the way it has been ever since. 

Whether it was my brother retraining for a new job after the closing of his long time employer’s factory, my sister going all-in on a plan to support her kids in their career choices, or my own willingness to pack up and move a few times during my working career, the Newvines, like so many other families, were willing to do what it takes to make life better for our families.   

We got that spirit from our parents, our parents got that same dedication from their parents.  

Hopefully, our generation is passing on that same commitment to our children and grandchildren.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced. 

He will soon publish a fictionalized version of this story that will include an account of former Governor Rockefeller’s leadership style in the 1950s and 60s. 

His current book Can Do Californians, is available at BarnesAndNoble.com and at Lulu.com

Golf’s Ultimate Prize: A Hole In One-

 Enjoying the moments right after my first hole-in-one.  Photo: Newvine Personal Collection

Finally making the shot of a lifetime

After 35 years playing golf, I finally landed my first hole-in-one.

It happened on the number nine hole at St. Stanislaus Golf Course in Modesto in early October.

Using my nine iron, the swing was smooth, the ball sailed high and landed softly about six feet in front of the cup. At that point, the ball rolled to destiny.

It was an eight-seven yard finish to a thirty-five year journey. After calling my wife, I headed into the clubhouse. Golf tradition dictates that the golfer who makes a hole-in-one buys drinks for everyone at the clubhouse.

In my case, it was nine o’clock in the morning, and only Charlie, the manager on duty was there.

After telling him what happened, Charlie congratulated me and offered a free cup of coffee.

We talked for several minutes and he shared with me stories about the two times he got a hole-in-one.

One of those times was right there on the St. Stanislaus course. I thanked him, and headed home.

A flag-down view of the hole-in-one ball in the cup. Photo: Newvine Personal Collection

Later in the day, my wife and I celebrated with dessert at a local coffee house. She’s been sort of a golf widow in the months since my retirement when my golf outings intensified.

I’ve been sharing my accomplishment with friends on social media, at the coffee shop, and with golfers in casual conversations.

They have offered their congratulations. Some have been telling me of their attempts at golf’s greatest accomplishment.

My former golf buddie Mike, living in the east coast, told me that in his fifty-two years of playing the game, he has yet to land that special shot.

A non-golfer relative took a stab at our advancing years with the comment “With age comes perfection!” She added six exclamation points.

A friend from high school suggested I should buy a lottery ticket in hopes my lucky streak continues.

I did not buy a ticket.

Another friend challenged me with a gentle hope that I might get a few more before retiring from the sport.

It took thirty-five years to get this first one; I doubt there will be a second.

My wife’s cousin shared that her deceased dad would be proud. I saw her dad swing a golf club, and I knew he was a gifted golfer. She’s right.

Bob would be proud.

Another cousin of my wife said he got a hole-in-one while stationed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in the military a few decades ago.

He said it was a complete fluke as he had only played that one time in his whole life.

One last look at the hole where it happened. The mark on the green where the ball landed before rolling into the cup was repaired by me shortly after this shot was taken. Photo: Newvine Personal Collection

In a golf league one summer, I was a witness to that special golf moment.

It was nearly twenty years ago when our friend Les made a hole-in-one. It was an amazing thing to witness. It was like going through a ritual. Seeing what appeared to be the ball falling in from about one-hundred yards away, driving our golf cart up to the green, walking up to the cup, and seeing the ball sitting at the bottom.

I reached out to Les in the days following my lucky shot. We’re still lost in voicemail and old email addresses, but sometime soon I hope we can share that common bond that ties golfers together.

The hole-in-one club has accepted me, and now I’m a lifetime member.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

In 2019, he wrote Course Corrections.

The book includes stories of his adventures playing the game, some fiction related to golf, and reflections on how a great day at the course feels.

It’s available at Amazon and at BarnesAndNoble.com

Sorting, Scanning, and Learning-

Photo Archive Acquisition Project Underway at the Merced Courthouse Museum

Piles of photographs acquired by the Merced County Courthouse Museum from the Merced Sun Star newspaper. Photo: Steve Newvine

Tom Gaffrey is on a mission to preserve history.

Tom, who retired from the Merced County Public Works department several years ago, spends a good part of his free time as a docent at the County Historical Society.

His current project is sorting through thousands of photographs acquired from the Merced Sun Star.

Merced County Courthouse Museum docent Tom Gaffrey works on the multi-year project to categorize, digitize, and electronically store more than ten thousand pictures acquired from the Merced Sun-Star. Photo: Steve Newvine

When the paper sold their former G street building and moved to a much smaller office location, a lot of things had to go.

There was simply no space to store boxes and boxes of hard copy photographs.

“We’ve acquired items from the Sun Star in the past,” says Museum Executive Director Sarah Lim. “This was another opportunity for the Museum to preserve local history.”

The photographs arrived with very little information about the subjects depicted.

“We’d get a batch with the year written on the box or envelope.” Tom said.

Bound volumes of Merced Sun Star newspapers, are stored at the Merced County Courthouse Museum.  The books are being used now to provide more information about the photographs acquired by the Museum.  Photo:  Steve Newvine

According to Sarah Lim, museum volunteers went to the Sun-Star office and picked up an estimated ten-thousand photographs.

“They were in envelopes, folders, and boxes,” Sarah said.

The process is extensive with historical archiving protocols to preserve and protect the photographs.

“The first two steps (cleaning and organizing) were completed last year,” Sarah said. “Now, we are in the next major step of researching and accessioning hundreds and thousands of photos and negatives.”

Accessioning refers to the recording of the addition of a new item to the museum collection.

The photos cover a span from the late 1960s to the 1990s.

One of over ten-thousand photographs acquired by the Merced County Courthouse Museum. This photo is from December 1976.

As a volunteer, Tom adheres to a process set up to handle the photographs.

“We take a batch, sort them out by month, and then examine each photo. In most cases, we examine the actual hard copy of the Sun Star from that month and match up the photo to the story in the paper.”

From there, Tom notes the actual date, captures the printed news story associated with the photo, and then sends it on to the Museum Registrar who records the item into the Museum data base.

Museum Registrar Donna Lee Hartman records each photo from the Sun Star acquisition along with related information into the Museum’s computer. The process is referred to as accessioning. Photo: Steve Newvine

“Sometimes, it feels like the old game show Concentration,”Tom says.

“Matching up a small bit of information from the photo to the actual published information about the story from that time.”

On Concentration, contestants would match pieces of a puzzle and then try to solve the rebus behind the pieces.

In this museum project, Tom is matching photographs from as far back as the 1960s to find the news story that relates to the image.

Tom has been working on the project along with other docents and museum staff for about three years.

He expects it will take a couple more years before the entire acquisition of photos is archived.

Merced Sun Star front page. Museum Docent Tom Gaffrey refers to old issues of the Merced Sun Star for background information as he matches up photos from the acquisition. This particular issue is from December 1970. Richard Nixon was President, and Ronald Reagan was governor.

Museum Executive Director Sarah Lim says this will be a long term project.

“We accessioned eight-hundred photos into the archive for the year 1976.”

There’s another twenty years of images to work on, so she expects this mostly volunteer effort to take a while.

She adds, “It is an ongoing project.”

When completed, historians and other interested people will be able to come into the Museum and access the photographs.

For Tom, he plans on sticking around to see this project all the way to the end.

“Being a third generation Merced County resident,” he says. “I have a real attachment to the area.”

For Tom, it is a mission to preserve local history.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

The next exhibit at the Merced County Courthouse Museum is the colonies in Merced County and opens in early October.

Steve is writing a novel about the construction of the nation’s largest state government office complex and how it impacted a family of carpenters who had to travel a great distance to work on the project.

It will be available in late November.

His latest book Can Do Californians is available at Lulu.com and at BarnesAndNoble.com

Recall, Surveys, and Larry

Updates on 3 On-going Stories

California voters defeated the Recall vote that would have ousted Governor Newsom. The leading Republican among the candidates was Larry Elder. Photo: People.com

With homage paid to retired Modesto Bee columnist Ron Agonstini who came up with the concept of telling readers how long his sports feature would be, the total reading time for this piece is about four minutes.

Family and friends of mine not living in California seemed fascinated with the recent recall effort.

With voters soundly defeating the recall by about a three-to-one margin, it seems the issue is closed. There was a brief period of time when the polls showed a much tighter race.

I’m reminded of the first race for President in which I was eligible to vote. President Gerald Ford was defeated by Jimmy Carter in 1976. The polls showed President Ford closing in on Carter in the days leading up to the election.

Had the election been held a few days later, pundits believed Ford would have been successful.

In the case of the California recall, it appears if the race had been held about a month earlier, there might have been a different result. We’ll never know.

The American Recovery Plan Act survey document mailed to residents in the City of Merced.

The survey sent to homes recently on how to spend federal COVID relief dollars is a fast and easy way to let our City of Merced leaders know what we think.

The survey document includes the CityofMerced.org web address allowing for on-line entry of responses.

The survey features a ranking for priorities in order of preference, a question about the biggest challenge faced during the crisis, and a request for the top three priorities the City should address.

There is room to write in thoughts and points either not covered in the survey, or to expand on particular questions.

Former Merced County District Attorney Larry Morse passed away on September 14. Photo courtesy Roger J. Wyan Photography, used with permission from the photographer for this specific purpose of this column only.

The community is remembering former Merced County District Attorney Larry Morse who died on September 15.

While I did not know him well, we would often cross paths during the early years of his service as District Attorney and my year as CEO of the Greater Merced Chamber.

After I left that job for my work at a utility company, we’d catch one another at community fund raising dinners. He was often tapped as a Master of Ceremonies for these events; I was usually filling a seat from a table purchased from my former employer.

I recall one time watching him carrying a book and walking briskly up the steps to the Main Branch of the Merced County Library.

He looked at me and said the book was overdue. I asked “where was the investigative reporter when we needed it?”

He gave a quote to the Merced Sun Star at the time his office successfully prosecuted a murder case.

That quote provided the perfect introduction to my murder mystery novel Ten Minutes to Air.

I used that quote at the beginning of my book:

“Murders are almost always about the amount of time someone has to evaluate their actions to stop themselves.”

Larry Morse, Merced County District Attorney.

Larry’s quote was the essence of my fictional story. If a would-be killer could take a few minutes to think about what he or she was about to do, maybe he or she might change their mind. That can apply to a lot of things.

There’s going to be more about the life and career of Larry Morse in social media and our local news outlets.

I will be grateful to him for letting me quote him for the introduction to my third book.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

His novel Ten Minutes to Air is available at Lulu.com .

The Night Kenny Rogers Held Them in the Central Valley

Singer’s 2014 Merced Performance Brings Back Memories

Kenny Rogers belts out one of his classic hits at the Merced Theatre concert from October 2014. Photo: Merced Theatre Foundation

When Kenny Rogers sang the lyrics to his hit song The Gambler, “You’ve got to know when to hold them”, in a Central Valley show back in October of 2014, it was just another packed house for the entertainer. But it was a big deal for the Merced Theatre to host the singer.

It had been about two-and-a-half years since the Theatre completed renovations. A number of lesser known musical acts had taken to the stage during that time. But landing this Grammy and Country Music Association award winning artist was risky.

Would the crowds show up? Would the show be a success? As it would turn out, those fears about whether audiences would respond were erased.

“The Theatre re-opened after renovations in April 2012,” said managing director Heather Holt. “Kenny was our first sold out show.”

The marquee at the Merced Theatre points out that over one-thousand tickets were sold for the October 2014 concert by Kenny Rogers. Photo: Merced Theatre Foundation

Necola Adams remembers the night she met Kenny Rogers following that performance in Merced.

“We shook hands,” she said. “He had the softest hands I’ve ever touched.” Necola, who owns Mrs. Adams Gormet Cookies, had taken six dozen of her cookies to Kenny’s road manager.

The manager asked her to wait until the show was over so that he could introduce her to his boss.

“I heard the whole show from inside Kenny’s tour bus,” she said.

Necola Adams with Kenny Rogers. Photo: Necola Adams

After the show, Nicola was the first person Kenny met as security escorted him from the stage to his bus.

Following an introduction by the road manager, Kenny suggested a photo opportunity.

“I was the only person to get a picture taken with him,” she said.

Kenny Rogers had a career in music that dated back to the late 1950s. In the 1960s, he was the lead singer for the rock group First Edition (later to be called Kenny Rogers and the First Edition).

The group disbanded in the seventies and Kenny pursued a solo career in country music.

Kenny Roger’s October 2014 show at the Merced Theatre was a sell-out. Photo: Merced Theatre Foundation

He had a number of hit records in that decade including the iconic story song The Gambler.

That record sold three-million copies, led to a TV-movie career, and made him an arena-packing performer.

In 1983, he teamed with Dolly Parton for the song Islands in the Stream.

That hit record cemented his place in Country and Pop music. In the nineties and into the 2000s, he continued performing and releasing new music sporadically.

Then in the early twenty-teens he accepted the opportunity to play The Art Kamangar Center at The Merced Theatre

The Merced audience responded enthusiastically to Kenny Roger’s October 2014 show at the Merced Theatre.. Photo: Merced Theatre Foundation

By the time the Merced Theater show, he was just a few months away from announcing the start of a farewell tour.

“He was the first really big name to come to the Theatre since the renovation,” Heather Holt said.

That farewell tour started in 2015 and ended in 2018 with an announcement he would end performing on stage based on advice from his doctors.

A bladder cancer diagnosis led to his decision to end his touring.

He died in hospice care on March 20, 2020.

Nicola was saddened when she learned of Kenny’s passing, but she hangs on to pleasant memories of how nice he treated her right after his Merced show. “You can meet some really nice people if you don’t act crazy around them,” she said. “He was a genuinely nice guy.”

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

His book Can Do Californians is available at Lulu.com and at BarnesAndNoble.com.

He had planned this column at the time of Kenny’s passing, but COVID closures kept him away from the Merced Theatre.

He thanks Tom Frazier and Susan Walsh for the information that helped this column.

A Friendship and a Stage for Bob Hope-

Comedian’s Legacy Honored in Stockton

The official logo of the Bob Hope Theatre in Stockton, CA. Image: BobHopeTheatre.com

While younger people may have never heard of him, to millions of Americans the name Bob Hope conjures up laughs and lightheartedness.

Earlier generations recall the television specials and the comedian entertaining military troops at Christmastime from years ago.

The Central Valley holds the distinction of being home to a performing arts venue named in honor of the beloved entertainer. Thanks to the generosity of the late Stockton developer Alex Spanos, the Hope name lives on in that city of over a quarter-million people about seventy-five miles north of Merced.

The Bob Hope Theatre opened in the early 2000s in a refurbished Fox Theatre in downtown Stockton.

The building was almost lost to the wrecking ball when Spanos stepped forward with an idea to honor his friend, and a checkbook.

Alex Spanos was good friends with Bob Hope. Here, the pair performed a soft-shoe dance routine for a charity function. Photo: AGSpanos.com

As I first wrote about the Bob Hope Theater.in my book 9 From 99, Experiences in California’s Central Valley, Spanos was primarily known as the owner of the National Football League's San Diego Chargers.

The Chargers are now based in Los Angeles, In the City of Stockton, Alex Spanos was a property developer and community philanthropist.

He passed away in 2018.

The Spanos name graces high school football fields, a college performing arts center, hospital wings, and other places throughout the City of Stockton. In addition, there are scholarship endowments, charity golf tournaments, and art exhibits that have been underwritten by the Spanos family.

The company website has a special section on the Spanos lifetime commitment to charitable giving not only in the Central Valley, but up and down the state of California and into the state of Nevada.

Around the turn of the new century, Alex Spanos was able to mesh his desire to give more to the City of Stockton with a symbol of his then thirty-year friendship with comedian Bob Hope.

Bob Hope was a frequent visitor to the owner’s box at San Diego Chargers games.

He gave a half-million dollar gift to the organization handling the rehabilitation of a former vaudeville theater and asked that the building be named after his friend.

That’s how the Bob Hope Theatre in downtown Stockton got its’ name. Bob Hope and Alex Spanos became friends following a charity golf function in 1969.

"Bob and I teamed up against Bing Crosby and his partner and we beat them,” Spanos said in an interview with television station KCRA in Sacramento well over a decade ago, “From that day onward, Bob and I played golf practically every week.”

The friendship grew over the years with Hope participating in charity events alongside Spanos.

The comedian was an occasional visitor to the owner’s box at Charger games in San Diego. Bob Hope died in 2003 at the age of 100.

A plaque inside the Bob Hope Theatre lists the elected leaders and key players in the reconstruction project. Photo: 9 From 99- Experiences from California’s Central Valley by Steve Newvine.

The theater site started as the T & D Photoplay in 1916, hosting vaudeville and other entertainment acts.

It was renamed the California five years later. The building was torn down at the start of the Great Depression.

The Fox California opened on the site in 1930. During the 1930’s, big stars such as Al Jolson and the Marx Brothers performed there. As vaudeville was replaced by radio as America’s primary source of entertainment, the Fox California relied on moviegoers as a primary source of revenue.

In 1973, the theater closed. The building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in the late 1970’s. The City and its’ Redevelopment Agency included the theater in a revitalization plan in the early 1990’s.

By the early 2000’s, a combination of the Spanos donation and government funds saved the project and resulted in the renovation that residents and others enjoy today.

While writing 9 From 99, I found a tribute to both Bob Hope’s gift of entertaining audiences and Alex Spanos legacy of charitable giving. On the company website at that time, there was special section on the site where a video of a soft-shoe dance routine with Spanos and Hope was featured.

It is not too often you see a world reknown entertainer alongside one of California’s most generous philantropists take to a stage to wow an audience.

You can find a brief section of the video on YouTube. It is no longer available on the AGSpanos.com site. Alex Spanos carried himself pretty well as a soft-shoe dancer, while Bob Hope showed that he still had the goods in his late eighties at the time of the video (circa 1980).

The comedian likely knew his friend was responsible for the renaming of the theater. Bob Hope passed away a year before the official grand opening. According to the theatre website, the comedian never performed there during his years as a vaudeville entertainer.

The chandelier inside the Bob Hope Theatre in Stockton, California. Photo from 9 From 99, Experiences in California’s Central Valley.

The Bob Hope Theatre was among the first California entertainment venues to reopen after the worst of the COVID pandemic. Audiences that assemble beneath the ornate chandelier inside the historic building may not know that much about the comedian’s legacy.

But thanks to the half-million dollar gift from his friend AG Spanos, and the vision of community members who would not let the wrecking ball take down the building, the Hope name remains part of the history of the Central Valley.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

He first wrote about the Bob Hope Theatre in his book 9 From 99, Experiences in California’s Central Valley.

Olympic Memories-

Lapel pins and a beer can offer tributes to the games

My collection representing over forty years as a working professional include these Olympic themed pins.  Photo:  Newvine Personal Collection

The Olympics have been dominating our television sets and the social media outlets this summer.  

It happens every other year since the summer and winter games moved to an alternating schedule in 1994.  For a few months before the games, and during the sixteen days of competition, it seems everyone is talking about the athletes, the new records, the brewing controversies, and the uniforms.

I need not look any further than to my collection of lapel pins collected over four decades of work.  Each of the near two hundred pins was worn on my suit lapel at least one time.

Part of the news team I worked with thirty years ago. I’m the guy in the white shirt, tie, and dark hair.   Inset: a special pin made in anticipation of the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France.  Photo: Newvine Personal Collection

One pin stands out from 1992. 

I was working for the CBS affiliate at a television station in Rochester, New York. 

The station was carrying the winter games.  That was the year of Kristi Yamaguchi and the US Women’s Figure Skating team.

My job then was as an executive producer in the station’s news department.

Our general manager determined that if we worked really hard we might be able to maximize the lead-in from those winter games on CBS to move our third place late newscast to second place. 

The manager gave us pins that displayed the Olympic rings, the CBS logo and our station call letters. The pins helped keep my focus on the big prize.

We succeeded, and at least for that particular local rating period, our late news made the jump in the ratings.

The years I worked in Rochester were linked to the Olympic games because of three major companies in the area. Kodak, Xerox, and Bausch & Lomb were all official sponsors of the games.  

They were really big companies back in the nineties. But success does not last forever.  Tech giants such as Apple and Microsoft dominate the Dow Jones Average today. 

While most people will remember the US Hockey team’s win over the Soviet team when thinking about the 1980 Winter Olympics, I have a much different memory from the year the games were held in Lake Placid, New York.  

1979 was the first year I was working as a television news reporter. 

The games would start in early 1980 so Olympic fever was high throughout upstate New York.

I was earning a decent paycheck so I wanted to give extra special Christmas presents for my family.  I forget what I got for other relatives, but I do remember getting my sister an Olympic ski cap with images from Lake Placid on it.  

The Winter Olympic Snow can, sold as a novelty during the 1980 Lake Placid games. Photo: Newvine Personal Collection.

Also acquired that year was a special beer can. 

There was no beer in it, but rather a unique souvenir of the Lake Placid games.  Printed on the back of the can of “Lake Placid Snow” was a message from the manufacturer saying that sealed inside the can, there was a small packet of moisture guaranteed to be 1979 Lake Placid snow. 

I took their word for it and never opened the can.

The can has been sitting on a shelf in my den or stashed away in a keepsake box wherever I lived for over forty years.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced. 

He wrote about his experiences as a television reporter in 1979 and 1980 in his book Stand By Camera One.  The book is available at BarnesandNoble.com, Amazon, and at Lulu.com

New Heights, a World Record, and a Milestone-

Updates and an anniversary

Southern California climber Brennen Thompson at Mount Kilimanjaro. Photo: ValleyTough.com

Every now and then, stories require updates

Remember the young man who along with his friend, climbed ten mountains in California to raise money for two hometown charities?

Brennen Thompson did just that with the successful climb up Half Dome at Yosemite in June.

But that’s not all

In early July, Brennan and two others took their climbing gear and community spirit to Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.

The ten California climbs were more than just build-ups to the big climb in Africa.

Each step embraced an effort to make an impact on Brennan’s hometown as well as his adopted new home in southern California.

“By the grace of God himself, we did it,” Brennan said in a video recorded after the Kilimanjaro climb. “I’m forever indebted for the place that makes us who we are.”

Brennen Thompson kept a video diary of each of his climbs, including one at the top of Half Dome in June. Photo: ValleyTough.com

We did two columns on Brennan: one in 2020 at the start of the effort, and one in June when he came to Yosemite.

What’s next for this young man?

Not even he knows.

But if this effort is any indication, we can be assured whatever he attempts will have impact, and make a difference.

You can see Brennan’s video from that Kilimanjaro climb on the website ValleyTough.com

A two-seater all-electric airplane that is part of a four plane fleet being used to demonstrate the feasibility of all-electric aircraft propulsion. The planes are based at Fresno Chandler Executive Airport. Photo: NewVisionAviation.org

We received a lot of attention from the column on the all-electric airplanes now at the Fresno Chandler Executive Airport.

The planes are part of a demonstration project to help develop policy on using all-electric aircraft regularly.

The non-profit New Vision Aviation imagines a future with all-electric planes traveling throughout California.

Smaller municipal airports, such as the one in the City of Merced, might someday be equipped with charging stations.

New Aviation President Joseph Oldham did a test flight in mid-July with the all-electric plane.

He flew round trip from Fresno to Sacramento, with recharging stops in Madera, Merced, Modesto, and Lodi.

As the portable chargers used to regenerate the plane’s power cells were energized by the sun, the flight actually set a record for the longest solar-powered flight in history.

That’s a record that New Vision hopes will be short-lived as more aviators get into the all-electric aircraft space.

The first column I wrote for MercedCountyEvents.com in 2011

That takes us to this brief column from ten years ago about the benefits of volunteerism.

It may not seem like much, and it probably did not make much of an impact when it was first posted in this space in February 2011.

But that column, and the more than two-hundred that have followed since 2011 represent my small contribution to MercedCountyEvents.com.
Webmaster Brad Haven has stayed on top of this effort to provide a forum for non-profits to list their events, for churches to post their hours, for service clubs to share their successes, and for local businesses to get the word out about their offerings.

It’s a tenth anniversary, plus another six months, for the Our Community Story column.

I look forward to many more.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

His book Can-Do Californians is available at BarnesAndNoble.com and at Lulu.com

Wings Up on All-Electric Planes-

Local Airports are on board creating capacity for the future

The four Pipistrel Alpha Trainers on display at Fresno Chandler Executive Airport. Photo: New Vision Aviation

Imagine a time when most airplanes will run off power cells that recharge in the same way electric cars do today. 

All-electric aircraft are already in use here in the Central Valley of California as part of a demonstration project.  

The non-profit group New Vision Aviation facilitated the creation of an eight-county coalition of local governments to apply for a federal grant that has effectively jump-started the concept.

The original idea came to Joseph Oldham, the former Sustainability Manager for the City of Fresno and former Executive Director of a transportation planning non-profit.  His accomplishments include nurturing relationships between businesses and the government to get zero-emission buses into public transit fleets.  

He reached out to the manager of the Fresno Chandler Executive Airport to brainstorm a plan to buy four experimental electric airplanes from a Slovenia company.  The planes are manufactured in Italy.

Joseph did a lot of leg work in preparing the application for a grant to demonstrate advanced transportation technology. 

He believes the planes, along with charging stations at airports within range, will do just that.

After presenting the idea to local governments, writing a grant proposal, and pushing the initiative forward, New Vision Aviation was successful.

The idea boils down to creating a network of chargers at local municipal airports such as Merced Municipal Airport and Castle Airport in Atwater.

The experimental aircraft has a two-hour flying range, so the need for a charging network is critical to the success of the program.

“When we asked local governments in the valley with municipal airports to support our grant application, Merced was among the first to sign on,” Joseph said.

The initial grant application was approved.

One of the four Pipistrel Alpha Trainers at the Fresno Chandler Airport getting recharged.  Photo:  New Vision Aviation.

Four two-seater planes, known as the Pipistrel Alpha Trainer, were purchased and are in use right now.

Joseph has been a pilot for over forty years and has been a passionate advocate for sustainable transportation throughout those years.  He says this concept could create the next era of aviation.

 “With chargers at these municipal airports, the San Joaquin Valley could support the operation of small all-electric aircraft,” he says.

Alongside the track of creating a network of planes and charging stations to support all-electric aircraft, New Vision Aviation is developing a second track: getting high school and college-aged men and women excited about careers in aviation.

Reduced maintenance and lower electric (as opposed to fossil fuel) costs create an opportunity to bring more diversity into aviation.

The New Vision website envisions a mentorship program where pilots become mentors for young people interested in aviation.

Joseph Oldham is the President of New Vision Aviation.  Photo:  New Vision Aviation

“We’ve worked with Boeing on identifying the need to increase interest among younger people in flying,” he says.  “Especially in lower-income areas and among communities of color.” 

All-electric aircraft offers the opportunity to lower the cost of flying when compared to conventional small airplanes. 

Some in the industry estimate an hour of flying time now runs a student about $200.  This is due primarily to the higher cost of fuel.  With an all-electric aircraft, some observers believe that cost could be cut by half or more.

Joseph mentors a young student interested in aviation right now.  That student is learning to operate small aircraft.  

The student, his flight trainer, and Joseph were featured in a recent episode of the PBS series NOVA.  The segment was titled “The All-Electric Airplane Race”.

Joseph Oldham pilots the Pipistrel Alpha Trainer with NOVA correspondent Miles O’Brien in a segment from the “All Electric Airplane Race” broadcast aired earlier this year on PBS.  Photo from the NOVA segment.

Joseph intends to fly one of the Pipistrel Alpha Trainers to Sacramento later this summer. 

He plans stops along the way from Fresno to the Capitol using existing technology to charge the plane’s fuel cells.  That demonstration flight will include a charging stop in Merced County.

“We want to raise awareness of the potential of an all-electric fleet and charging stations throughout California and eventually throughout the nation.”

 New Vision is awaiting F.A.A. approval to start a flight school with the planes. 

Achieving that goal may be out on the time horizon, but the initiative to bring more young people into the world of aviation will continue to move forward.

It may not be too far into the future when a young Merced County teen can connect with a pilot mentor to help learn more about the discipline and rewards from flying as a career.

The relatively brief history of aviation has two revolutions so far. 

The first was powered flight.

The second revolution was jets.  

As Joseph told the PBS documentary reporter, “Electric propulsion is the third revolution.”

This entire effort is about making the most of the third revolution and making it more than just an alternative way to fly.

---

The NOVA documentary featuring New Vision Aviation’s electric airplanes is no longer available for viewing on YouTube, but a program transcript is available at:  https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/great-electric-airplane-race/

For more information on New Vision Aviation, go to NewVisionAviation.org 

Steve Newvine lives in Merced. 

His book Can-Do Californians is available at BarnesandNoble.com and at Lulu.com