Signs of the COVID Times

The marquee sign at Merced Mall reminds people that Big Lots and Target are open. Photo: Steve Newvine

How Merced is coping in the corona virus era

The marquee sign in front of Merced Mall has become a barometer of our community’s response to COVID.

Immediately after Governor Newsom imposed quarantine at home restrictions on March 19, the sign informed passersby that the Mall was closed.

It is a sign of the changing times in Merced.

A clerk at a neighboring store told me how he felt when he drove past the Mall with all the empty parking spaces.

“It’s eerie,” he said without breaking his smile. “I never thought I’d see a time like this.”

In the days since the restrictions were announced, the sign was changed to reflect that the nearby Target and Big Lot stores were open.

In the foreground heading East on Olive, the sign promoting the Mall expansion project remains.

Barriers have been placed at the parking lot entrances at St. Patrick’s Church in Merced. Photo: Steve Newvine

We’re now in the COVID era where church parking lots are empty, and lines form a half hour before some grocery stores open.

The churchgoers turn to televised services on line or on their televisions.

The shoppers are hoping to find TP, paper towels, hand sanitizer, and a myriad of food products that seem to disappear overnight.

Some call it the COVID era. Others call it the hoarding era.

A grocery store clerk lamented, “In the store I asked a man I know who is single why he needed two large packages of toilet paper. He just looked at me and said ‘Why should you care?”

Empty paper product shelves symbolize the state of flux in area retailing. Photo: Steve Newvine

On a lighter note, I recognized an acquaintance waiting in line at a store that opened early one weekday morning just for seniors.

He told me, “I feel as though I’m at my fiftieth high school reunion with all these familiar faces.”

We know this crisis will change the face of commerce in many ways. Restaurants are converting to take-out and delivery transactions as dining rooms are shut down.

The iconic Branding Iron sign waits for the day the popular steak house reopens. Photo: Steve Newvine

On Sixteenth Street, a familiar neon sign has gone dark. Merced’s Branding Iron sent a message on Facebook in late March saying they were shutting down until further notice.

The management thanked customers for their support in the post adding, “Alright, so we kept going as long as we could but the time has come now when we HAVE to shut down completely until further notice.”

While the primary shopping area is closed to shoppers, construction crews continue their work on the Merced Mall expansion. Photo: Steve Newvine

The signs we see, whether in front of the Mall, or taped to an empty store shelf, each share a part of the COVID story’s impact on our city. Some may offer a ray of hope for the future.

Construction continues on the Mall’s expansion project. The project remains on schedule.

We’ll know things are getting better when the marquee changes one more time at the Mall, and when the neon is blazing again at the Branding Iron.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

He has written Course Corrections, My Golf Truth, Fiction, and Philosophy. The book is available at Lulu.com

Merced’s Japan Internment Memorial now 10 Years Old

Site marks the place where 4,669 were held during WW II

The Japan Internment Memorial at the Merced County Fairgrounds. Photo- Steve Newvine

Marlene Tanioka remembers turning five years old behind the fences at the Merced Assembly Center during World War II.

Her family was among the 4,669 Americans of Japanese ancestry from Merced and surrounding areas who were incarcerated at the Center as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order that established the internment.

“I had forgotten what home looked like,” Marlene said as she visited the Memorial again recently at the Merced County Fairgrounds.

Today’s home of the Merced County Fairgrounds is the site where the Assembly Center was built in 1942.

Marlene Tanioka and Patti Kishi view with bronze depiction of a Japanese American family and their belongings as the family is about to be incarcerated at the Merced Internment Memorial. Photo: Steve Newvine

According to the Merced Assembly Center’s website ( http://mercedassemblycenter.org/), construction of the buildings at the site began in March of 1942.

More than two-hundred, fifty buildings were constructed. Most of the buildings were barracks that held five families each.

The rest were mess halls, laundries, shower, and toilet facilities.

All of it was fenced in with barbed wire.

The Merced Assembly Center Memorial includes a wall with the names of individuals incarcerated at the Center during World War II. Photo- Steve Newvine

Within that barbed wire, the site functioned like a fully functional community. Temporary schools were opened for the one-thousand children within the group.

Religious services were held on the site. Emergency departments such as police and fire were set up.

The Center closed later that year in September. Most of the internees were moved farther inland to Colorado until the war was over.

Patti Kishi views the Memorial Garden at the Merced Assembly Center Memorial. Photo- Steve Newvine

The memorial was dedicated on February 20, 2010 at the County Fairgrounds site on Martin Luther King Drive in Merced.

Building the Memorial a little over a decade ago was easier than an earlier effort back in 1980s to have a historical marker placed at the site.

“The Fair Board at that time back in the eighties was not as enthusiastic about even a historical marker,” said Patti Kishi whose father was incarcerated at the Center during World War II.

“They eventually came around.”

A marker was placed outside the Fairgrounds footprint.

After learning about a federal grant available to build a memorial, members of two local Japanese American groups took up the challenge.

This time, when the 2008 Fair Board was approached about putting up this Memorial within the Fairgrounds, it was very receptive to the idea. They granted the six-hundred square feet of space to place the Memorial at a prominent spot inside the Fairgrounds.

The grant helped spark fund raising. By 2010, the Memorial opened to the public.

One of the information panels at the Memorial has photographs of area Japanese American soldiers who served in the US Armed Services during World War II. Photo: Steve Newvine

The Memorial features written accounts of life in the internment centers. There’s a wall listing the names of all the internees. Behind that wall is a reflection garden.

There’s also a panel honoring Japanese Americans who served in the US Armed Services during World War II.

Patti Kishi says there is really only one thing she hopes visitors take away from their time at the memorial.

“History,” she says. “It’s our history, our County’s history. It’s important to understand what happened here so that it never happens again.”

The barbed wire image is included in the plaque descriptions at the Merced Assembly Center Memorial. Photo: Steve Newvine

For Marlene Tanioka, memories from that period of time are still burned into her memory.

As a five-year old, she feared forgetting what her real home looked like. But her older sister took that worry away.

The sister drew a picture of the family farm so that Marlene could be reminded of what her home looked like.

“She drew a row of walnut trees, two barns, and a farmhouse,” Marlene said. “And when we were finally able to go home, it looked just like the picture she drew: a row of walnut trees, two barns, and a farmhouse.”

She knew then, she was home.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

His book California Back Roads - includes a section on the Japanese American Internment icons on display at the Livingston Historical Society Museum.

Paying Respects to Porterville

Departments statewide, including Merced, sent firefighters to help out

The city block in Porterville where the Public Library once stood. Photo by Steve Newvine

The Porterville Library fire is a story that impacts many of us on several levels.

There’s the tragedy of two firefighters losing their lives battling the blaze, the arrest of two teens who now face charges of arson and manslaughter, as well as the loss of a community resource that served hundreds of families in the City along with many others from around this City of sixty-thousand residents.

Words come up short in trying to describe the feelings of citizens who lost two of their own.

At the heart of the story is the outpouring of help and the paying of respects to a community dealing with their loss.

This sign in front of the Porterville Elks Club announces the postponement of activities out of respect for the first responders. Photo by Steve Newvine

Upon entering the section of the downtown area where the library once stood, I spotted a sign in front of the local Elks club announcing the postponement of some events “with respect to our first responders”.

Respect seems to be the best word to describe what I saw upon my visit just a few days after the tragedy.

The fire broke out around five o’clock Tuesday evening, February 18.

Porterville Fire responded within minutes. A second alarm, signifying that more firefighting resources would be needed, was pulled within minutes of the first crew responding.

Captain Ray Figueroa and Firefighter Patrick Jones died fighting that fire.

There are beautiful descriptions of these two heroes on the Porterville Fire Department’s Facebook page.

The community of Porterville, and others, paying respect with this display in front of the Fire Department. Captain Ray Figueroa (left) and Firefighter Patrick Jones lost their lives fighting that fire. Photos from the Porterville Fire Department Facebook page. Photo illustration by Steve Newvine.

Departments from all over the area helped out to put the fire down, and in the days following there were departments sending in resources as far away as Los Angeles.

In Merced, Deputy Fire Chief Casey Wilson told me the department sent two firefighters to Porterville the next day to help relieve others.

Public safety barriers encircled the block where the remains of the Porterville Public Library once stood. Photo by Steve Newvine

As I entered the scene, there was a public safety yellow tape serving as a barrier. I asked a police officer nearby if I could go beyond the barrier to pay my respects. He told me they were not letting anyone other than employees who worked in that area beyond the barrier so that crews could work on removing the debris.

I thanked the officer, and told him I understood that decision. This tragedy has been hard on the police department as well.

It’s been hard on all first responders.

Flags fly at half-staff out of respect for the two firefighters killed battling the February 18th fire. These flags are in front of the Porterville Police Department and the Elks Club. Photo by Steve Newvine

Porterville is about one-hundred, thirty miles south of Merced. That seems like a long way, but this tragedy is shared across California.

On the streets of Porterville, I spoke with a firefighter from outside the region as he was heading to his department vehicle.

He told me he wasn’t familiar with the area, but he was here to assist where needed.

He, like many others, were showing respect to firefighters Figueroa and Jones by doing whatever he could to help out.

That’s what good neighbors do.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced

At Home with Elvis

My Three Visits to Graceland

Graceland Mansion in 1983. Photo: Newvine Personal Collection

There have been a few big moments in my working career.

Three of them came when I visited Elvis Presley’s home, Graceland, in Memphis.

My wife and I went to Graceland on a day off from work when we lived in the southeast United States.

We were tourists and didn’t mind waiting in line to get a chance to view the graves of Elvis and two of his family members.

We spent about an hour on the grounds and another hour or so at some souvenir shops across the street.

Now let me take you back to 1981 when I working as a television news reporter for station WAAY in Huntsville, Alabama.

My boss was asking the staff for ideas on multi-part stories we could produce for the upcoming ratings period.

Back in 1981, local television stations would try to increase their ratings during February, May, and November when the national viewing surveys would take place.

The thinking was if we attracted more viewers to the newscast, the station might get higher ratings and hopefully greater revenue from ad sales.

I had done multi-part or mini-doc reports early in my tenure with the station. But this time, I had a big idea.

Why not go to Memphis, about a four-hour drive from Huntsville, and do a series of reports on Graceland and Elvis?

The fourth anniversary of Elvis’ death was coming up in August.

So we sold the news director on doing a three-part series for the November ratings period.

While we were there, we agreed to do a segment on the anniversary celebration for the next night’s newscast.

Fans visit the graves of Elvis Presley, his father, and his grandmother on the grounds of Graceland Mansion in Memphis in the early 1980s. Photo: Newvine Personal Collection

My videographer Bill and I left the station early on a Sunday and headed to Memphis along highway forty across northern Mississippi.

We arrived in Memphis around lunchtime. I don’t remember where we ate. But I do remember what it was like to see Graceland for the first time. Back then, the interior of the mansion was not open to the public.

But we had plenty of things to shoot on the grounds.

I did a couple of stand-ups where the reporter talks on camera from the scene of a story. One stand-up was for the fourth anniversary story.

The other one would be used in the three-part series to air later in the fall. Someone told us there was an Elvis symposium at the local college.

I remember being amused by the words symposium and Elvis being used in the same sentence. It was at that conference that I met authors Neal and Janice Gregory who wrote When Elvis Died.

The book was about how the national media covered the news of the internationally known superstar’s death.

Mr. Gregory spent a few minutes answering my questions. We used his interview in the series that would air later in the fall.

The book When Elvis Died, by Neal and Janice Gregory.

We finished up shooting around three PM. Realizing that we had already been up well over ten hours, we decided to head back to Huntsville.

Bill, who knew his way around Memphis, had another idea. He drove us to the area in the City where the Lorraine Motel was located.

The Loraine was where Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior was assassinated in 1968. “They’re going to turn this into a museum someday,” Bill told me as we slowed down. There is was.

All I could do was remember that spring of 1968. Martin Luther King was killed in April, my uncle Bill lost his life in a car accident in May, and Bobby Kennedy was shot in June of that year.

We stopped the car and we looked at the motel façade. We knew we had a long ride ahead of us, so we got back in the car and headed home.

The Lorraine Motel eventually became part of the National Civil Rights Museum.

The grave marker of Elvis Presley. Photo- Newvine Personal Collection

Our story on the forth anniversary of Elvis’ death aired the next night on the six o’clock news.

A three-part special report called, “The Elvis Influence” aired over three nights in November. I don’t recall if we got rave reviews or higher ratings.

I do remember people asking me about Graceland for a long time after the series ran. In the spring of 1982, I read how the Presley estate was going to open Graceland Mansion to the public.

At the time, the estate was losing money. The decision by the family to open the mansion for paid visits was welcomed by fans, and is credited with saving the estate from potential bankruptcy.

This was another reason to go back to Graceland.

This time, we were permitted to shoot inside in the so-called Jungle Room. The room was like a recreation room Elvis and his Memphis Mafia used. Workers were assembling items for display when the home would formally open to the public.

I was able to strum one of Elvis’ guitars, sat behind the wheel in one of his cars, and interviewed someone who was helping stage the permanent exhibit inside the mansion.

In late May, the interior of Graceland Mansion was opened to the public.

It was a memory that I’ve recalled over and over in the past four decades. It truly was something I will never forget.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

He has written Course Corrections. He congratulates the ten winners of a recent contest sponsored on MercedCountyEvents.com. Each winner will get a copy of the book.

Niner Stories

For San Francisco fans, the Super Bowl is about remembering a special time.

The San Francisco 49ers resurgence brings back a lot of memories for Bay Area fans. Photo: Target.com

Going to the Super Bowl is all about hard work, tenacity, and making opportunities out of the other team’s mistakes.

The San Francisco 49ers know all about hard work. It took them more than a quarter-century to make it to the 2020 Super Bowl.

I spent the days leading up to the championship contest asking friends and co-workers “Who are you rooting for?”

Not surprisingly, everyone in my circle of California friends is rooting for San Francisco.

For some, cheering for the 49ers brings back memories from the team’s heyday in the 1980s.

“I’d go to the games with my dad,” one friend shared with me. “Those were some of my most memorable times, going to Candlestick to watch the Niners.”

It seems everyone is a football fan around Super Bowl time. Photo: Facebook

Another associate remembers coming to California to work in the eighties.

His career seemed directly tied to the success of the franchise. “That’s all anyone would talk about this time of year,” he told me over tea and coffee at one of our favorite coffee shops. “There was a real culture of winning in the Bay Area.”

There’s a lot of truth to that observation.

Between 1982 and 2003, Bay Area NFL teams appeared in seven Super Bowls.

The Raiders won one and lost one during that time. The Niners won five times.

While the 49ers last Super Bowl appearance was in 2012 , it’s been fifty years between appearances in the big game for the Kansas City Chiefs. Photo: Home Depot

The situation is about the same for Kansas City. Their last Super Bowl appearance before 2020 was in 1970.

I was living in western New York in the eighties and nineties. My team was the Buffalo Bills. But California has been my home for the past sixteen years.

I’ve watched our teams start strong.

I’ve endured the frustration as a season falls apart by the midpoint. And I’ve welcomed the resurgence of both Bay Area franchises as they have embarked on rebuilding campaigns.

Another associate told me a couple of years ago that it was hard to give up season tickets for Forty-Niner games when the team moved to Levi's Stadium. “The ticket prices jumped quite a bit,” he told me. “We had season tickets in the family for decades, but with the team not doing well then and the hike in prices, we felt as if we had no other choice.”

It’s been good for the Bay Area and Central California to watch some quality local NFL action this season.

Putting a winning season together is hard enough. Making it to the postseason is the reward for the teams that can pass muster week after week.

Making it to the Super Bowl is for the elites. For the fans, it’s something to cheer about.

It’s also something that connects to what truly was a special time in the past.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

He has written Course Corrections available at Lulu.com

On February 9, Steve will be the featured speaker at the Merced County Historical Society’s annual meeting. That meeting will be held on the third floor of the Merced County Government Center, 2222 M Street, Merced.

Highway to Hassle-free Access- Segment 2 of Merced’s Campus Parkway will Open Soon

A construction crew working on Segment 2 of Campus Parkway in Merced. Photo: Steve Newvine

Every day, construction crews reach another milestone in the road project known as Campus Parkway.

Construction of Segment 2 of the project is on track to be completed in early 2020.

The project includes the construction of a four-lane expressway from Highway 99, connecting to Highway 140, and will eventually extend to Yosemite Avenue near the Lake Road intersection.

The first segment went from Highway 99 to Childs Avenue. Segment 2 will extend the expressway to Highway 140.

Segment 3 will extend the parkway to Yosemite Avenue.

Campus Parkway will eventually take travelers from Highway 99 to Yosemite Avenue, where it will be easy to connect to Lake Road north to the UC Merced campus. Photo: Steve Newvine

There was one-hundred million dollars provided from the state in the Senate Bill 1 Transportation Package.

That money will fund the current project as well as Segment 3.

According to information from the Merced County Association of Governments website, Campus Parkway will complete the south-eastern portion of the so-called “Merced Loop System.”

That system will one day circle the City of Merced and connect surrounding communities including the City of Atwater.

This map from the Merced County Association of Governments website shows the three Segments of the Campus Parkway project. Photo: MCAG

These projects have been in the works for years.

Delays along the way included efforts to successfully pass a transportation sales tax that made Merced a “self-help” county.

Many leaders point to self-help counties as being in a better position to request state and federal highway monies because these jurisdictions have local “skin-in-the-game” through revenue streams such as dedicated local sales taxes.

Merced County voters passed Measure V, a countywide half-cent sales tax for transportation in 2016.

The sales tax, went into effect in April of 2017, and was projected to generate an estimated $15 million annually for transportation.

Another setback along the way was the recession from the late 2000s through the early 2010s.

Political leaders had to fight to keep local road projects from falling off the funding radar.

The first public meeting on the proposed project was in 1999, so the completion of this second segment seems as though it has been a long time coming.

Looking back on the past two decades, our community has undergone a tremendous change.

UC Merced is now part of the landscape.

Campus Parkway will help take traffic to and from the university. It will also serve to help better connect traffic to Yosemite National Park. It’s hoped it will open the City of Merced’s south side to more economic development. One thing is certain. The new limited access expressway will offer less stressful access for many drivers.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

He has written Course Corrections available at Lulu.com

On February 9, he will be the featured speaker at the Merced County Historical Society’s annual meeting. That meeting will be held on the third floor of the Merced County Government Center, 2222 M Street, Merced.

Seeing clearly in 2020- Looking ahead to a decade of change

A new year and a new decade.

We have started a new year and a new decade. It’s time to put it in perspective.

Unlike the start of previous decades, this one comes at a time when change is the operative word.

Forty years ago, I rang in the New Year by watching the movie Citizen Kane at a friend’s house. In the era right before video machines became prominent in homes, seeing a true Hollywood classic film was more of a special event.

In 1980, we knew the New Year would start a decade of life changes.

Later that year, I married my wife Vaune, and then moved twelve-hundred miles away from where my first job was in the northeast United States to take a new position in the south.

Most of the 1980s found me tending to my duties as a father to these two young ladies. Photo: Newvine Personal Collection

As the decade progressed, two children would bless our family and two more job changes took place.

We bought our first house, paying less than what some full size new cars cost.

It was the decade of beginnings.

The shift to the 1990s found me entrenched in the task of parenting. My family would celebrate New Year’s Eve about four hours earlier so that our children could make noise and be in bed close to their regular bedtime.

Later in the decade as our daughters became teens, we started a tradition of going out to dinner at a favorite Italian restaurant, and then come home to watch the movie Apollo 13 on our VHS tape machine.

The 1990s would eventually take me to a new career as a chamber of commerce executive where I would work with business and political leaders. L-R: Former New York State Lieutenant Governor Mary Ann Krupsak, Alan Fusco, me, and Lynn Herzig. Photo: Lynn Herzig

That decade would see me leaving the television journalism field for new adventures running a local chamber of commerce.

By mid-decade, I would add on a part time job as an adjunct teacher at an area college.

Both jobs made an indelible impact on the person I hoped to become. Community service would become an important part of life.

It was a decade of change.

We marked the start of the new millennium in 2000 with a house full of noise from a teenager sleepover and the television on with Peter Jennings anchoring ABC News coverage of the event.

As the whole world was celebrating the year 2000, the broadcast networks were all in for reports from practically every time zone in the world as each part of the planet welcomed in the New Year.
Over the next few years, I would mourn the loss of my mother to cancer, move to the west coast, and effectively push the restart button on my life.

It was the decade of transformation.

My wife and I started the past decade with the purchase of a home in our adopted home town of Merced. Photo: Newvine Personal Collection

Ten years ago, my wife and I were getting serious about moving out of an apartment and settling in again in a house.

By 2010 we had been in Merced three years and spent all that time sitting out the fall of the local housing market.

We weren’t sure even in 2010 that the worst of the recession was over. But we took a chance, met a fine local real estate agent, and found the right place for us.

A grandson arrived during the past decade. His birth has brought new meaning to the words transformative, change, and beginnings.

We opened our home to my wife’s parents when the time came for them to move from their home of more than fifty years.

I’ll never forget my father-in-law calling me shortly after he heard that I was okay with the idea of in-laws moving in with us.

He said, “They tell me you are fine with this, but I need to hear that for myself.” I told him I was fine with it, adding that I saw it as a gift to my wife: I was giving my wife her parents.

The past decade, the tens, was a decade of reframing.

And that brings us to the start of another new ten-year span. We know there will be changes starting with my decision to retire from my full time job later in this year.

What else is heading our way is not known, but if the past four decades have been any indication, it will be an adventure.

I don’t have a bucket list. The closest I came to one was in a column I wrote in 2019 about flying a kite with my grandson.

Some of the other items on my Grandpa’s Bucket list include:

• Watch him perform in a school play
• Enjoy an adventure that ends with the two of us at a real diner (my grandfather did this with me and I never forgot it)
• Attend his high school graduation and his college graduation
• Play some Sinatra and Elvis and explain to him why these artists are so important to me

So with any luck, I’ll knock off everything on that Grandpa’s Bucket list.

I might even start a new list.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

He’s published Course Corrections that can be found on Lulu.com

He will be the featured speaker at the annual meeting of the Merced County Historical Society on February 9 at the Merced Government Center.

Engineering Enthusiasm- UC Merced Students Present their Projects to the Community

Innovate 2 Grow is the semester-end presentation of engineering student projects at UC Merced. Photo- Steve Newvine

They may have the engineering correct, but how are they at presenting before a group of business people?

They are engineering students at UC Merced, and this is the twice-annual Innovate to Grow project presentation held at the end of the spring and fall semesters.

For the past four months, teams of students have been working with their business and non-profit clients.

The clients come to the table with real business process problems. The students use engineering principles studied in the classroom to research and apply solutions.

Week after week, they have updated their instructors on their progress, learned new approaches to solving problems, and stayed in contact with their clients.

By the semester’s end, they must present their solutions to a group of community representatives.

This team of UC Merced engineering students presented their solution to removing small pieces of plastic from recycling systems. Photo- Steve Newvine

I have attended this event over the past few years as an observer. But this time around, I signed up to be a judge.

I took time off from work and headed to the campus to help evaluate the projects.

The day started with a showcase of all projects in the college gymnasium. Set up like a trade show, the event was designed to give students a chance to answer questions in an impromptu environment.

The event also gave outsiders like me a chance to see other projects in addition to the three I would be judging. Following lunch and networking with other judges, we were led to classrooms.

The presentations were held in two buildings on the new section of the campus: the south side.

These buildings opened to students in just the past year. It feels funny to describe that side of the campus as new. UC Merced has only been around a little over ten years.

The Innovate 2 Grow event included half-hour judged presentations by School of Engineering Students. This portion of the event was held on the newly opened southern side of the campus. Photo- Steve Newvine

Inside the classrooms, student teams made half-hour presentations of their projects.

Each team of judges was assigned to evaluate three student presentations. As judges we would listen to the presentation, ask questions of the students, then fill out our digital evaluation forms.

The engineering professor who coordinated the presentations used the judges’ evaluations as a component of each student’s final grade. “Look at these presentations just as if the students were a real engineering firm making an engineering solution pitch,” Professor Alejandro Gutierez told us prior to the judging.

This pair of School of Engineering students developed an app solution that created a sensor to help the staff detect the number of people in specified sections of the UC Merced Library. If implemented, the solution would replace the current process of having staff manually count the number of users. Photo- Steve Newvine

Presentations were divided into three categories: Innovation and Design, Engineering Service Learning, and the Mobile App Challenge.

The three student teams within the Innovation and Design classification that our group judged took this final assignment seriously.

They were dressed in business clothes and were well rehearsed for the formal portion of the presentation.

I was impressed with each team’s handling of questions from the judges. They answered the questions, helped one another by providing additional information, and clearly demonstrated they were invested in their projects.

One project we evaluated was a solution to capturing bit pieces of plastic that fall to the floor from a recycling facility. The students analyzed the project from a cost, efficiency, maintenance, and complexity perspective.

They discussed their prototype, shared their implementation issues, and touched on barriers to moving forward.

Mark Matsumoto, the Dean of the School of Engineering, told me many of these students are first generation students. “This is their first exposure to the realities of engineering as a career.”

Innovate to Grow, or I2G as it is referred to on campus, started in 2012.

It engages the local community by identifying real engineering problems that students work on to solve. Having the public involved as judges of their projects helps take these students out of their relative safe comfort zones on campus to a more “real world” atmosphere where they have to sell their ideas.

They also have to sell themselves as authorities on their projects.

As one of the students summed up her experience with the Innovate to Grow initiative, “It’s great!.”

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

His new book, Course Corrections- My Golf Truth, Fiction, and Philosophy is now available on Lulu.com .

He will be the featured speaker at the annual meeting of the Merced County Historical Society annual meeting on February 8.

Preview of Course Corrections

My latest book shares some fiction, some philosophy, and some Merced County History

Click on the image above

The General Archie Old Golf Course at the March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, California. Photo: General Old Golf Course website (www.generaloldcourse.com)

I hope you will enjoy my new book Course Corrections, available through LuLu.com.

In the book, I take my passion for the game of golf and share about thirty stories of my experiences, my imagination, and my philosophy behind the game.

If you’re a golfer or have a golfer in your life, this may be something to pick up.

If you appreciate local history, there are a few stories sprinkled in the book about Merced County and golf. Here’s a sample from the chapter on the man who led a historic military mission back in the late 1950s that started right here in Merced County. His connection to golf is a course in Riverside County that bears his name.

In the history of local golf courses, very few people will know or even care about the General Old Course in Riverside, California.

The course is on the site of the former March Air Force Base. The base was renamed March Air Reserve Base in the 1990s as part of the Base Realignment and Closure Act (BRAC) that was designed to improve Defense Department efficiency. March now houses Air National Guard, Army, Navy, and Marine reserve units.

The land has since been put to new military uses in the ever growing southern California region.

This sign greets golfers playing at the General Old Course in Riverside County, California. Photo: General Old Golf Course website (www.generaloldcourse.com)

But the golf course that was on the base still stands.

It’s named after Lieutenant General Archie Old.

It was named to honor the man who played a key role in a little known military milestone from more than sixty years ago.

That milestone was the first ever around-the-world non-stop flight by an airplane. It is known by the mission’s name: Operation Power Flite. It happened in January of 1957. The mission made possible the first-ever around-the-world flight of a jet without landing to refuel.

Operation Power Flite, and I note the Air Force used the spelling of the word that the rest of us spell as “flight”, began at Castle Air Force Base in Atwater, Merced County deep in the center of the Central Valley of California. .

A contingent of three aircraft took off from Castle on a cold January morning.

One plane developed mechanical troubles and had to land. A second plane left the group, as planned, over Great Britain.

The third made it around the world. Thanks to aerial refueling, the jet could keep going for the forty-five hours it took to circle the planet.

Although the jets started from Castle, the mission didn’t end there.

Foggy conditions in Merced County led to the decision to land at March Air Force Base.

Behind the controls for the landing was Lieutenant General Archie Old.

Operation Power Flite was an important chapter in our nation’s military aviation history.

In the middle of the Cold War, the United States wanted to send the message that it could scramble a group of aircraft from any place in the world within minutes, and keep those planes flying for as long it would take. It was the kind of deterrent many thought would keep the Soviets at bay.

The 1957 mission was considered by military experts to be a significant development in aviation.

The role Castle Air Force Base played in the nation’s defense is documented at the Castle Air Museum.

The Museum created a small display area within its’ permanent collection to commemorate Operation Power Flite.

The story of this history making flight made the cover of Life magazine on January 28, 1957.

The story took up over a dozen pages in that week’s issue. The pages are so large that it’s impossible to copy a single page on a regular eight-by-eleven or eight-by-fourteen inch copy machine.

Magazines were much bigger back in the 1950’s; not only in the size of the pages, but also in the influence wielded in our society.

Magazines back then were a big deal. Life magazine, especially the cover story on Life magazine, was a really big deal.

Course Corrections-My Golf Truth, Fiction, & Philosophy

If you read the rest of that chapter, you’ll learn what’s in the future for that golf course.

That chapter is available for a free preview right now on the book preview page.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

He will be the featured speaker at the annual meeting of the Merced County Historical Society in February.

Two Greeting Cards

Simple expressions of seasonal joy, appreciated by the recipient

The most recent seasonal greeting card received at my house. Photo: Steve Newvine

I’m a big fan of greeting cards.

I have fond memories of my mother sending cards for birthdays, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, and Thanksgiving. She’d buy most of them from the card rack at the local store in my home town.

In my college years, I grew to appreciate cards from home that would arrive at my dormitory mailbox.

Mom kept on sending them through my adult years. My dad, brother, and sister continue to do the same thing.

In a day and age of email greetings and Facebook birthday wishes, the card, especially with a few words written on the inside, carries a lot of good feelings for me.

A variety of cards that will be sent from our house in the coming months. Photo: Steve Newvine

Talking about greeting cards with a friend at the coffee shop the other day reminded me of two particular cards and how each helped me through a couple of rough spots in my life.

In my early years as a working professional, I had been on the job for several months. I thought I was doing rather well when my boss called me into his office.

“We’re going to make some changes that involve you,” was how he started the conversation.

I walked out of the office with something he called a promotion and what I called a new area of responsibility.

It was a low point in the early part of my career. Other than my wife, I only shared my disappointment with one close friend. It was in late April when I called to tell him about my plight.

A week later, a Mother’s Day card arrived in my mail. It was from my friend. On the inside of the card he wrote “I got this for my Mom, but I think you need it more than she does right now.”

Those were the perfect words to say to a friend, and here I am nearly forty years later thinking about that day.

As things turned out, my new duties led to a very fruitful career path in the management ranks. It was indeed one of the best things that ever happened to me professionally.

I have my wife to thank for this family card file that helps us keep track of birthdays, anniversaries, and other special occasions. Photo: Steve Newvine

Flash forward to thirty-plus years later where I found myself choosing just the right birthday card to send to another friend.

As mentioned earlier, cards are pretty important to me. I found the perfect card to mail my friend in a couple of months for his birthday.

One month later, I almost forgot about the card when I reviewed some email while away on vacation with my family. There was a message from someone I did not recognize.

The subject line displayed my friend’s name.

I read about the unexpected passing of my friend in an email message. I was in shock. I immediately called his family to express my condolences.

After hanging up the phone, I remembered that birthday card I had so carefully chosen for his special day. Upon my return from vacation, I pulled out that card, wrote my reflections about my friend, and sent it to his family.

Cards for every occasion. Photo: Steve Newvine

Those two cards were special because they were for a specific occasion.

What made them even more meaningful is not what was depicted on the card, but rather the handwritten comments inside.

One was received and remembered.

The other was sent and provided an outlet to let a family know how I felt about the loss of their son, my good friend.

So as you can see, I’m a big fan of greeting cards.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.  

He will soon publish Course Corrections, a book about his experiences with golf.

Nut Harvest Time in Merced County

Growers are pleased with the production, concerned about prices and water

Workers pruning nut orchards in Merced County following a successful harvest. Photo: Steve Newvine

It’s been a good season for almonds and other nut crops in Merced County.  With most of the harvest on the way to processing, growers are back in the orchards pruning to give the trees a better shot for a more productive season next year.

While the official numbers are not in on the harvest of 2019, current trends point to another good season for almond growers.

According to the Merced County Agriculture Commissioner’s 2018 report, the almond harvest including hulls was valued at about $460 million.  Over one-hundred thousand acres were in use that year.

Pistachios and walnuts came in at $27 and $16 million respectively.

Tractors and nut harvesting equipment on display at the Merced County Nut Festival held at the County Fairgrounds in October. Photo: Steve Newvine

There was even a Nut Festival in October

This first-of-its-kind event was organized to celebrate the nut industry in Merced County, to educate the community on just how big the business is, and to establish a mechanism to give back to area non-profits that help young people.

“We are a major player on the world stage with these commodities,” said Necola Adams who headed up the Festival.  “We needed to celebrate this!”

In a report to the Board of Supervisors, and available to the public at the county’s website (https://www.co.merced.ca.us/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/810) Agricultural Commissioner David A. Robinson stated the 2018 almond acreage was down a little over one-percent by about six thousand acres. 

That decrease is part of an overall decrease in farm acreage in the year attributed primarily to falling commodity prices

Still, overall agriculture in Merced County had a gross value of three-and-a-quarter billion dollars according to the report.

The Merced County Nut Festival was started in 2019 to celebrate the large nut growing and processing industry. Over 100,000 acres of farmland produced almonds, pistachios, and walnuts in 2018. Photo: Steve Newvine

Nuts, particularly almonds, are a big piece of Merced County’s agricultural market.  

Commissioner Robinson’s report to the Board of Supervisors makes it clear that while almond acreage and prices are down, the crop remains number two in the County’s top fifteen commodity rankings. 

Milk continues to be the County’s top commodity.

“Commodity prices are affected by trade and are linked together,” Commissioner Robinson says. 

Merced County almonds and walnuts are exported all over the world. 

The Commission report states that phytosanitary certificates, relating to the health of plants with respect to the requirements of international trade, have been issued worldwide. 

Japan, India, and Mexico are the top three countries in terms of the number of certificates issued.

Children enjoy a mini-train ride as part of the Merced County Nut Festival. Photo: Steve Newvine

The greatest threat to the burgeoning nut industry in Merced County is water. 

But prices, trade regulations, and urban growth will continue to inflict pressure in the sector.  

“Commodity prices and water availability are an ongoing concern for growers of all commodities including almonds,” Commissioner Robinson said.

Necola Adams with the Nut Festival says that’s exactly why informing the community about this important part of agriculture is necessary.  “We also needed to educate the community on who we are, and the process it takes from tree to table.”

The County’s first Nut Festival program speaks to growing the now one-day event into a three-day affair with attendance crossing over the 100,000 mark over the next several years. 

The Festival’s challenge, like most of the nut industry in the region, puts a lot of hope in maintaining the Central Valley’s role as a leader in the world markets.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced. 

He will release Course Correction, a book about golf, in December.

Returning from the “You Can Never Go Home” Tour

A visit to the place where I first worked forty years ago.

Standing in front of station WICZ, from 1980 and in 2019. Photos: Newvine Personal Collection

Someone once told me the house where you grew up stops being your home once you get your own place.

Those words rang true during my recent visit to my native upstate New York. Since leaving my childhood home after graduating from college, there have been more than a half-dozen places I have lived and worked.

The first of those places I would call home was a ten-unit apartment building in Johnson City, New York, a suburb of Binghamton where I started my television news career four-decades ago.

I paid $120 a month. It was ten minutes from work, five minutes from the shopping mall, and three hours from the small town I called home.

On this lot stood a three story apartment building where I lived in 1979 and 1980. The building was torn down more than ten years ago. Photo: Newvine Personal Collection.

On my recent visit back to upstate New York to visit family and friends, I made a detour to get another view of that apartment, the place where I started work, and the familiar surroundings that were part of my life four decades ago.

The first surprise I experienced upon crossing the Johnson City limits was finding that the apartment building no longer existed.

Someone in the neighborhood saw me peering out my rental car window and asked me what I was doing.

I explained how I once lived in the building that sat on the property. This person explained that the apartment building was torn down many years ago.

A discount store that was less than one-hundred yards from the rear of the building was also gone.

The former store property was converted to a parking lot.

I then drove to the Catholic Church that was off a traffic circle less than a mile away.

I remembered walking to Mass on many occasions, even for Midnight Mass at Christmas. The building remains, but another faith community occupies the space.

Someone explained to me that after a flood a few years ago, the building was sold to a Christian college next door so the college could expand.

The next stop on my “you can never go home again” tour was the television station where I worked for two years.

The call letters and building remain the same, but a lot has changed in forty years. For starters, the station changed affiliations from NBC to Fox more than twenty years ago.

I reconnected with the station manager who was working at the station as an advertising sales representative when I worked there forty years ago. Another department head I worked with was out of the office while I was visiting.

A microphone flag that attaches to the top of a hand held microphone from WICZ Fox 40 in Binghamton.

The news team I was part of numbered about five in 1979. Today, there are over a dozen working journalists.

The set where I anchored the late news is gone, replaced by a green wall and floor. The set is now electronically generated so that it looks like a contemporary and colorful background.

News Director Suh Neubauer took me around the facility. I met some members of her news team. Other staffers were either out in the field gathering news or coming in later in the day for the evening shift.

She gave me a microphone flag; a plastic covering that fits over the top of a hand held microphone to identify the station.

I was surprised when I realized that with over thirteen years in the television news business, I never collected even one mike flag.

My Fox 40-HD NEWS flag sits proudly on a shelf in my den.

Gone was the desk and clock from the set where I read the news four decades ago. The area in the WICZ studio is now painted green with an image imposed over it for broadcast. Picture: Newvine Personal Collection

Thanks to the invitation of a local Rotary Club, I was able to share some of my reflections from my day back to where it all began.

The Vestal Rotary Club welcomed me as I recounted my connection to their community.

Rotary Clubs do a lot of good in their communities and worldwide through the Rotary Foundation. As a former Club President, I have seen the power of an energized club like the one in Vestal, New York.

My last stop was the Vestal Public Library, where I donated a copy of my book Stand By, Camera One.

Head librarian Carol Boyce is adding the book about my experiences in the area to the Library’s local author collection.

Carol was also a great source of local history and caught me up on some of the changes in the community over the years.

As I left the Binghamton community on that rainy fall afternoon, I was satisfied that I made the detour.

The community gave a lot to me back in the late seventies and early eighties.

A lot has changed, just like a lot has changed in my life.

I think you can go home again, but I suggest my low impact version.

My effort was deliberate: stay just a few hours, enjoy the memories, and don’t be surprised as you learn how the rest of the community has moved on.

Remember, you’re now just a visitor.

I was glad to be their guest for a few hours on a rainy October day.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

He is working on a new book to be published in December.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

He is working on a new book to be published in December.

Central Valley is Prominent in Country Music

PBS Documentary References California Influences

Country Music, a Film by Ken Burns ran over eight nights on PBS. The series is now available by DVD.

For eight nights in September, Public Television aired the Ken Burns documentary Country Music. It was a comprehensive timeline of the evolution of this genre. From the roots in Irish folk songs to the stages of twenty-thousand seat arenas, the program held true to its intention of telling the story of a truly American art form.

California’s Central Valley played a significant role in the story of country music, and the documentary features a few vignettes of pivotal players.

The country singing group Maddox Brothers and Rose settled down in the Modesto area for most of their music career.

The Valley’s connection to the bigger picture of country music starts with the influx of migrants from the Midwest during the dust bowl.

The program begins with the group known as Maddox Brothers and Rose. The Maddox family came to the west as a migrant family looking for work. The documentary quotes Don Maddox, the only surviving member, telling the story of hearing a country song on the radio as the family picked vegetables with other migrant workers.

In the documentary, Maddox talks about finding a better way to earn a living, telling the interviewer, “We thought, maybe we can form a group so that we can get out of the fields.”

The Maddox Brothers and Rose eventually settled in Modesto, and went on to be a successful act in the late 1940s and 1950s.

The music of what was then known affectionately as a Hillbilly band enjoyed a resurgence in recent years.

Reissues of their music have opened up the Maddox Brothers and Rose to new audiences. In addition to being interviewed in the Ken Burns program, Don Maddox has made sporadic appearances at different venues.

In 2012, he performed on the highly regarded music program “The Marty Stuart Show”.

Country music legend Buck Owens’ likeness as showcased at the Bakersfield Music Hall of Fame.

The development of the Bakersfield Sound is detailed in the broadcast. The program includes a segment on Buck Owens, the singer who, along with Merle Haggard and others, established what most identify as the Bakersfield Sound.

Buck had a prosperous career that included dozens of hit records in the 1960s and 1970s, a big television profile from his years co-hosting the music/comedy show Hee Haw with Roy Clark, and a retirement that featured him and his band The Buckaroos performing regularly at his night club “The Crystal Palace” in Bakersfield. Buck passed away in 2005.

A plaque honoring Merle Haggard sets in front of a Harley Davidson dealership north of the City of Bakersfield. Photo: Steve Newvine

The late Merle Haggard’s story is poignantly on display in a few sections of the program.

The viewer learns the well documented back story of Haggard’s troubled Central Valley childhood that took him to youth detention centers and would eventually take him to an adult prison sentence at San Quentin.

There in the prison, he attends a Johnny Cash performance and commits himself to turn his life around. Through his music, his poetic lyrics of hard times and redemption, he becomes a star and ultimately a legend in the field.

Country music singer and songwriter Bill Anderson shares his reflections in several episodes of the Ken Burns documentary Country Music. Steve Newvine met Anderson when the singer performed at Modesto’s Gallo Center in 2017. Photo: Vaune Newvine

Helping tell these stories is country music singer and songwriter Bill Anderson whose interview reflections are sprinkled throughout the sixteen hours of the documentary.

Bill returned to the Central Valley a couple of years ago for a performance at Modesto’s Gallo Center.

At that time, he shared with me some of his encounters with these Central Valley music legends.

Of the Maddox Brothers and Rose, Bill talked about knowing the group in the 1960s, telling me “I knew Rose rather well and was acquainted with Fred Maddox. Rose ran a nightclub in Ocean City that I performed at back in the sixties.”

For my book, 9 From 99, Bill Anderson told me about meeting Buck Owens on a flight from Los Angeles to Nashville. “We got into a debate about whether singers should only record songs they wrote as opposed to including songs from other writers,” he recalled. “It didn’t take me long to realize I was in the presence of a man who knew who he was and where he wanted to be in his life.”

Bill was performing with Merle Haggard the night Merle played Okie from Muskogee before a live audience for the first time. “I talked to him about it after the show,” Bill said. “Merle said he wasn’t sure how audiences would accept the song given it had patriotic overtones. I told him not to worry.”

Thanks to the Bakersfield Sound, Central California was well represented in the PBS series Country Music. And thanks to the would-be historians of the genre, like Marty Stuart and Bill Anderson, who gave their time to the Ken Burns team to share their reflections, the story of Country Music now has been told.

California’s Central Valley and its’ contribution to the growth of country music, remains a big part of that history.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

He recently completed another presentation on workforce improvement using his book Soft Skills for Hard Times as a source authority.

Merced, an International Rest Stop - Buses bring worldwide visitors and their wallets

Visitors depart their motor coach for a rest stop at a local supermarket. Photo: Steve Newvine

After seeing to it that his passengers are safely off the bus, Juan speaks with pride about his job as a motor coach driver for a travel company.

“We like stopping in Merced,” he says.

Frequently, huge tour buses stop for a rest break at a few Merced area supermarkets.

Those buses are loaded with visitors, many from other countries. All of them are passing through town as they make their way to Yosemite National Park.

On a recent Saturday morning, visitors from three bus tours made their last stop before Yosemite at the Raley’s supermarket in north Merced.

One group was visiting from France.

Another group was from Taiwan.

A tour bus can bring a lot of spending power to a local business. That’s why stores like Raley’s and Savemart cater to these tour groups heading to Yosemite. Photo- Steve Newvine

Juan’s bus was a little late making it to the parking lot at Raley’s. The California Highway Patrol was pulling all motor coaches off a section of Highway 99 near Merced for a safety check.

“We passed,” Juan said of the impromptu inspection by authorities. “But that’s because our company has strict rules about keeping our buses safe.”

It’s the hope of tourism professionals in Merced that local businesses capture as much of the economic windfall as possible from a tour bus. The Visit Merced website displays plenty of information about activities motor coach visitors might experience while in the County.

The Merced California Tourist Information Center on 16th Street has all kinds of brochures, and they assign staff to help answer questions about the area.

But these visitors know exactly where they are going.

Yosemite is world renown as a destination anyone should experience.

“We’ll take them up there, and they’ll have a great time,” Juan says.

Driver Juan stands in front of his bus. Juan drives for a company based in Los Angeles and he’s been to Yosemite dozens of times. Photo- Steve Newvine

Drivers like Juan say the stop in Merced is perfectly timed.

“The prices here are better than what they see in the park,” Juan said. “Up there, a typical meal, say hamburger and fries, might run them twenty dollars. Here, they get different things and can save a lot.”

The visitors seemed impressed with the vast selection of foods and beverages than line the shelves.

One group of about six Taiwanese visitors gathered in front of a beverage refrigerator case discussing, in their language, what might be the best one to buy.

The group seemed oblivious to the other shoppers who were trying to pass by. Eventually, I caught their eye and smiled.

They immediately formed a single line to allow shoppers to pass.

Another reason why the Raley’s stop is attractive to visitors is access to the ATM in front of the Wells Fargo Bank. Photo: Steve Newvine

According to the Ontario Motor Coach Association, an international organization for the industry, a bus filled with visitors can bring over fourteen-thousand dollars in economic benefit per day to a community.

That calculation takes into account spending on hotels, meals, admission fees, and souvenirs.

Even a small slice of that economic pie will suffice for restaurants, supermarkets, or a reasonably priced attraction such as Castle Air Museum in Atwater or the Fossil Discovery Center just over the southern Merced County line in Fairmead, Madera County.

The National Parks Service reports that Yosemite alone accounted for nearly seven-hundred million dollars in economic benefit to California just three years ago.

It won’t be long before Yosemite becomes a billion-dollar a year attraction.

That suits drivers like Juan just fine. He plans on retiring in a couple of years, but he says he may stick around part time after that.

“I love this work,” Juan says.

And with that, he finishes his cigarette.

He’s back to work, tending to his passengers on their way to Yosemite, just seventy miles away from the City of Merced.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced. He’s written about California in two books: 9 From 99-Experiences in California’s Central Valley and California Back Roads-Stories from the Land of the Palm and the Pine.

Both books are available at Lulu.com

For more information about Yosemite, the Merced Tourist Information Center and other attractions, go to: www.visitMerced.com

For more information on the economic impact of Yosemite, go to: www.nps.gov For information on the motor coach industry, go to www.omca.com

Merced County’s Elevator Speech

A local company doing its part to help grow the regional economy. Photo: Steve Newvine

Most of us are familiar with the term “elevator speech”.

It’s grown to mean how we explain a detailed concept in the amount of time it would take to ride an elevator up or down several floors.
Here’s the scenario.

Someone walks into an elevator and stands next to a friendly-looking stranger. As the doors close, this person strikes up a conversation. You don’t have much time to answer.

You want to make a good impression.

That’s the idea behind the elevator speech.

You have just a few moments to cut to the most important aspect of the question, and you have to leave an impression with the person you are talking to.

The five-year strategy document prepared by the County Economic and Community Development department contains the elevator speech about Merced County.

The document was prepared by the Community Economic Development Strategy committee or CEDS.

In Merced County, a CEDS Steering Committee has representatives from six cities and two from the County. The CEDS Committee is the Workforce Investment Board where I serve as Vice Chair and served as Board Chair a few years ago.

The Community Economic Development Strategy or CEDS document.

In order to get federal economic development funding, a CEDS document needs to be in place. The 2019-2024 CEDS is fifty pages long. It has an executive summary, sections on such topics as demographics and transportation, and a breakdown of seven primary locations for industrial growth. There’s a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) recap, and the section called “Action Plan”.

That Action Plan is the elevator speech for Merced County.

In just three pages, the reader can see the top three priorities for economic development in our community. Broken down in three sections, this action plan/elevator speech should serve as a quick front-and-center awareness statement for Merced County.

The Elevator Speech

• Grow our Economy- create local jobs by helping existing businesses and bringing in new companies.
• Enhance our Competitiveness- prepare the County for business investment by addressing real estate infrastructure, improving the permit process, and developing business parks.
• Develop our Talent- work with business and education to create a work-ready labor force

If you can articulate these three statements, in your own words, to someone who wants to know more about doing business in Merced County, you will have mastered the elevator speech.

So how do you tell this elevator story?

Here’s a quick primer. Grow our Economy. We can begin by saying we’re working hard to create local jobs.

Point to last summer’s effort to save hundreds of jobs at Foster Farms in Livingston. That effort didn’t just happen. A number of key organizations, like the City of Livingston, Merced County, and the State of California stepped up to do what they could do to keep Foster Farms from moving most of their chicken processing operation out of state.

Several months after the deal was made, the company announced further expansion plans in Merced County.

Intensified efforts to improve Career and Technical Education in Merced County Schools exemplifies the “Enhancing our Competitiveness” component of the Community Economic Development Strategy. Photo: Steve Newvine

Enhance our Competitiveness.

We can talk about how local governments are working to make it easier for businesses to start, expand, and grow. We need to remind people there is now a one-stop permitting center inside the Merced County Government Center on M Street in Merced.

Develop our Talent.

We can point to the Career and Technical Education (CTE) efforts going on right now in the Merced Union School District. Every student, not just those on the CTE track, now are required to take two courses that are designed to prepare for the workforce. This makes sense when you hear how employers are looking for workers who are prepared for work. It makes even more sense when we realize that just about every college student holds a part time job while pursuing their degree.

All of this rolls up into the Strategy document. When it is formally adopted by the Board of Supervisors, it will be on the County’s website.

The words matter.

The actions matter even more.

9 From 99 w/new afterword

Steve Newvine lives in Merced. For the past thirteen years, he has served on the Merced County Workforce Investment Board including two years as chairman.

For the past eleven years, he has written an annual assessment of Labor in Merced County; first with the Merced Sun Star and now with MercedCountyEvents.com

Gilroy Grieves

Life resumes in community scarred by shooting

This banner in the downtown area is one coping mechanism residents are using to deal with the July shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival. Photo: Steve Newvine

July 28 is a date that will forever be remembered in the community of Gilroy in Santa Clara County.

On that day, this city of just under sixty-thousand located on the other side of the western Merced County border, endured a tragedy many will never forget.

The story is familiar to most of us. A man enters the Gilroy Garlic Festival and pulls out a gun. Shots are fired.

Two children and one adult are killed while more than a dozen others are injured.

Police were able to fire and hit the shooter, who then shot and killed himself.

The story shocked the nation. But Gilroy’s brush with a deadly gunman was knocked off the front pages shortly after in the wake of shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio.

One of many roadside stands that line highway 152 going into the City of Gilroy. Photo- Steve Newvine

Gilroy is known to most Californians as “that garlic place”.
Agriculture is the backbone of this community with rich soil and ideal growing conditions that produce a bounty of vegetables and fruits.

Roadside stands selling everything from avocados to zucchini, and yes even fresh garlic, are a common site. Today, those vegetable stands remain.

Visitors stop by to pick up whatever is in season.

Some go about their tasks.

Others can’t help but ask the local residents about the tragedy.

City Hall Caption: Gilroy City Hall. Photo- Steve Newvine

The community of Gilroy is coping with the loss of part of that small town feeling many residents have grown to appreciate in recent years.
The annual Garlic Festival was more than something people from outside the area came to see. It was something that defined the community.

“Not only did it raise money for local charities, many non-profits raised funds from the influx of visitors to the festival,” a local resident told me on a recent visit.

Tens of thousands of visitors came to the Festival every July.

Organizers had worked tirelessly over the years to tweak the logistics of moving thousands of people from designated parking areas to and from the Festival site.

Security has been a priority in recent years, and a strong law enforcement presence at the site was noted as a factor that likely kept the number of deaths to three.

The City of Gilroy’s community park where families are winding down their summer vacation days. Photo: Steve Newvine

So now, one day at a time, residents touched by the shooting and its aftermath are getting on with their lives.

Some are going to the park, others are taking in a shopping trip, and others are just staying home.

Life may never be quite the same, but it goes on. “It’s really important that we have the Garlic Festival again next year,” one local resident said.“It means so much to us.”

Another crop matures in a field in Gilroy. Photo- Steve Newvine

Throughout the City on the mid-August afternoon when I walked along the streets, there was a sense that residents are moving on with life.

No one talked about it, but there seemed to be a feeling that the community must get past the tragedy, eventually.

Maybe just not today. Not yet.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced. His book California Back Roads is available at Lulu.com

Volunteers Get the Best Gift

Summer Enrichment Programs End in Merced with Happy Kids and Delighted Helpers.

Children take part in the Summer Enrichment and Reading program organized by Harvest Park Educational Center in Merced. Photo: Steve Newvine

Ask any non-profit organization how valuable their volunteers are, and you’ll get an earful of praises.

Most of the kind words can be summed up in one sentence: We couldn’t do it without them!

That’s the case for the Summer Enrichment and Reading Program organized by Harvest Park Educational Center, a Merced-based non-profit organization that is sponsored by Valley Harvest Church.

When Esmeralda Ramirez decided to devote part of her summer helping young people, she knew it might be hard.

“I wondered what it might be like, and wondered whether I was up to it,” she says.

Esmeralda got everything she hoped for during her time working with young learners.

“It’s really encouraging to see these kids be excited about learning.”

One of the first projects students in the Summer Enrichment and Reading Program embarked upon was stuffing t-shirts for use as pillows during rest breaks. Photo: Steve Newvine

We heard about the organization’s program last year and shared the story of children getting immersed in exposure to such STEM areas as science, technology, engineering, and math.

Those lessons continued in this latest version of the program, but there were some changes.

“We added a reading program this year,” says Managing Director Gloria Morris.

“We acquired a nationally acclaimed program called “All About Reading” and introduced it to the students in the afternoon session.”

Volunteers helping out include a reading specialist, a parent, a high school student who was served by the program when she was younger, and four college students.

Magdalena Valdez is another college student who made the most of the five weeks she had with the children in the program.

“I created lesson plans and served as the lead intern in charge of pre-K through third grade,” she says. Like everyone touched by the program this summer, the time went by quickly.

“The summer just flew by,” Magdalena says. “I can’t believe it.”

Lily Ketchum and her daughter Jaime continue to give their time almost every year. “Jaime participated as a student in 2008,” Lily says. “And now she’s back as a volunteer.” Betty Jackson-Yilma helped pilot the “All About Reading” component to this year’s program.

“The improvement in the student’s reading comprehension has been gratifying,” she says.

“But to see their desire to read, to want to read more and more, is really satisfying to me as an educator.”

The Summer Enrichment and Reading Program ran for five weeks this summer with students spending their mornings in a classroom at UC Merced, and their afternoons at the Harvest Valley Learning Center on 25th Street in Merced. Photo- Steve Newvine

Colleges represented with interns this year were UC Merced, Merced College, UC Stanislaus, and San Jose State. Melissa Chavarria is pursuing a children development college curriculum.

She came to the program because service in a child development program was a course requirement.

She’s leaving her volunteer post with a great deal of satisfaction. “Working with the children opened my eyes a little,” she says. “Now I know I can handle it.”

If there is such a thing as a winner in an effort like the Summer Enrichment and Reading Program, one needs to look no further than the smiling faces of participating children.

Most of them greeted me with a smile when I entered the classroom. One of them made his way up to me and shook my hand.

He was seven years old. Managing Director Gloria Morris confirms reading skills have increased, character development is becoming more prominent, and children are having a good time.

“We are pleased with the results from this year’s program.”

While the volunteers are praised by the staff that puts on the program, they in turn give kudos by heaping lots of admiration to the team that makes it all possible. One of the volunteers said it best with just a few words.

“I couldn’t get over how caring the staff is toward us and toward each other.”

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

You can read about some of the places he has traveled in the golden state in his book California Back Roads, available at Lulu.com

An Apollo 11 Scrapbook

Some of the pages from the Apollo 11 scrapbook I made when I was twelve.

My Grandma Newvine would save clippings from local newspapers and put them into scrapbooks back in the 1960s and 1970s.

That’s where I got the idea, when I was twelve years old, to collect stories about the mission of Apollo 11 that took Americans to the moon.

Back then, scrapbooks were nothing like what you might see now at a local crafts store.

The scrapbooks from my grandmother’s era were made with thick construction paper and cardboard covers. No stickers or 3-D accruements from the hobby store.

My scrapbook from 1969 includes articles from the days leading up to the launch from the Kennedy Space Center and into the first days of the mission.

All the clippings were from our daily newspaper from northern New York State: the Watertown Daily Times.

The Times arrived every evening, hand delivered by our paperboy.

The newspaper price in 1969 was ten cents.

Sprinkled among the clippings in my space scrapbook are articles about the preparations for the historic launch. There are several stories about the first two days of the mission as the astronauts were heading to the landing spot named the Sea of Tranquility.

Aldrin family Caption: Photos clipped from newspapers featuring Astronaut Buzz Aldrin and family.

There are plenty of sidebar stories.

I clipped pictures with captions featuring Buzz Aldrin and his family. There’s a photo of his son with a caption suggesting that the young boy may be the most popular child in school.

Barbara Aldrin, the wife of Buzz, is shown in a photo unfurling the American flag. Buzz is highlighted from a demonstration the astronauts did inside the orbiter midway to the moon.

I wonder whether I just favored features about Buzz Aldrin, or whether Neil Armstrong, who was noted for his desire for privacy, asked NASA to downplay stories about his family to the media.

There’s a small glossary of acronyms NASA used throughout the mission. In the days long before computer graphics, the paper had artist renderings of how the lunar module would separate from the command module for the moon landing and subsequent rejoining of the mother vehicle.

President Nixon’s phone call to the astronauts is the subject of one of the clippings, and there’s a story that reports NASA may move the actual first steps on the moon from 2:21 AM Eastern Time on Monday, July 21, back to a more viewer friendly time on Sunday evening.

And that takes me back to Sunday July 20, 1969

Newspaper diagrams of the Apollo 11 landing.

My family had planned to spend the better part of that Sunday evening at the Port Leyden Firemens Field Days in my hometown. The mix of rides, games, and carnival food was a big part of the summertime tradition.

When we learned the actual walk on the lunar surface would take place on Sunday evening, the Newvine family left the field days earlier than in previous years.

We went home, gathered around our television set, and watched the coverage.

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Neil Armstrong’s words were about as clear as a voice on a long-distance phone call. The image of his stepping on the lunar surface was hard to make out in black and white. But there was no doubt both Armstrong and Aldrin made it.

Astronaut Mike Collins orbited the moon until it was time for Neil and Buzz to reconnect and head home.

I couldn’t wait for the next day’s newspaper to arrive so that I could begin clipping the stories of the moonshot.

There is was in glorious black and white: mankind’s great achievement. We were eyewitnesses.

Photos from the local newspaper that were clipped for my Apollo 11 scrapbook.

The scrapbook stayed with me for all the moves made after I graduated from college and went out on my own.

The covers were lost somewhere over the past five decades. The scotch tape that held the clippings had long lost its’ stickiness. The pages from the actual landing and subsequent return to Earth are missing.

But I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’ll never forget how the US race-to-the-moon ended.

The scrapbook was my “Google” of the moonshot several decades before we ever heard of search engines.

The Apollo scrapbook belongs to me, but the idea of keeping up a collection of articles about this historical event came from my Grandma Newvine.

Thank you Grandma.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

He wrote two books about his hometown of Port Leyden New York: Growing Up, Upstate and Grown Up, Going Home. Both are available at Lulu.com

Sidelined by a Sidewalk- How a Simple Fall is Taking Me Off Track This Summer

Where my fall took place in north Merced.

I won’t be playing golf for a while.

A fall on a north Merced sidewalk on a recent summer Sunday morning has taken my activity down a few notches.

There we were: one moment taking in the serenity of a walk together. The next moment changed everything.

Immediately upon hitting the ground, pain shot up from my foot to my hip. I felt numbness in the first minutes following the fall.

The thought that I might suffer some paralysis actually crossed my mind.

My wife was with me and as soon as she felt I could be left alone, she went back to our house to get a car. By the time she returned ten minutes later, I was standing and walking slowly.

During the wait, three motorists passed by me as I was writhing in pain.

No one stopped.

She took me home, and took care of me for the next couple of days. Slowly, walking became easier.

After a couple days rest, some over-the-counter pain relief medication, and treatments of heat and cold to my upper leg, my doctor confirmed our earlier diagnosis.

I suffered a severe sprain of the upper thigh.

But for the next few weeks, I am what you might call sidelined. No daily runs in the morning Merced sun.

Golf might resume when it stops hurting as I take my driver stance. I resumed work after a day-and-a-half sick time. I hate taking sick time.

This longer shot of the street shows at least two other spots where excessive water may pose a safety issue.

It’s easy to blame myself for not being fully aware of my surroundings.

I slipped on a light layer of sidewalk mud before several years ago. While the earlier fall was not nearly as severe as this latest one, I dropped my guard and did not anticipate a safety hazard.

Whoever is responsible for watering that particular section of grass should share some responsibility. There are no homes directly on the street, but rather a cul-de-sac divided by a wall.

According to the City of Merced, watering is permitted on Sundays. Their website reads: “Addresses ending in even numbers may water on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Addresses ending in odd numbers may water on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. Watering is allowed before 9 a.m. and/or after 9 p.m. on those days.” The houses across the street had odd numbers.

That would make the side I was on the even side; meaning the sprinklers should not have been on.

But regardless of whether this was the correct day use irrigation, the water in this section was clearly on longer than it needed to be. If mud forms on the sidewalk, water may be forcing dirt from the grass to the pavement.

No one is suing anybody. I hope to continue making progress so that I can eventually resume my daily runs and weekly golf outings.

I sent an email to the City telling them about my concerns. I got a prompt response telling me they would look into it.

They followed up a few days later.

They also directed me to a new app called Merced Connect, available at Google or Apple Playstore, where citizens can report things like the water issue and follow the progress on these issues.

But I urge everyone to check into areas where irrigation systems push dirt onto sidewalks. Adjust the watering times if necessary. Be a good neighbor.

I’ve already forgiven whoever was responsible, especially me. I’ve also forgiven the three motorists who passed by me when I was on the ground and nearly in tears with pain from that fall.

And every morning, I get into my golf stance. Once I can swing without pain, I’m back on the golf course.

It’s safer there.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

His murder mystery Ten Minutes to Air is available at Lulu.com

Speed Dating with Community Information- Cramming Two Weeks of Radio Programming into One Afternoon

KYOS Audio Engineer Casey Stead checks microphones for two guests on Community Conversations. Photo- Steve Newvine

I welcomed the opportunity to fill in again for host Roger Wood for the KYOS public affairs program Community Conversations.

It was my hope that interviewing local people for a couple of hours might help me develop an idea or two for future Our Community story columns.

The segments were recorded at such a fast pace, that it felt like speed dating.

Eight segments, each running about nine minutes, are recorded at the KYOS studios during an afternoon session.

The segments are stacked to make two full-hour programs. With commercials and station announcements added to the stack, we walk out of the studio knowing that two hour-long shows are “in the can”. In broadcasting, that phrase means the shows are done.

The purpose of Community Conversations is to hear from local non-profits, government, and others about fund raising events, issues of concern, and services available to people.

The audience gets informed through listening to the weekly broadcast (7:00-8:00 AM Saturday).

As the fill-in host, I got my information first hand and crammed into a two-hour window as we recorded the interviews.

Community Conversations is public service program of KYOS, AM 1480, in Merced.

The person heading up the Atwater Fourth of July celebrations stopped by to tell us what’s new and different about this year’s event.

Atwater has been doing this since 1962, so there’s not much new. But the reminder was still worth the effort.

By the way, Fourth of July fireworks begin at Castle at dusk.

Admission is ten-dollars a carload.

(Details at Atwater4thofJuly.com)

Merced’s Police Chief once again sat behind the guest microphone.

He offered an update on how the City’s illegal fireworks enforcement will roll out this year.

Two representatives from the Merced County Historical Society described the upcoming exhibit Shaping Justice: A century of Great Crimes in Merced County.

The exhibits are always interesting, and this one sounds like it will be in that same category.

Three of the guests touched on the importance of STEM or science, technology, engineering, and math curricula.

Each interviewee came from different organizations and each highlighted summer enrichment events. But as the interviews unfolded, I couldn’t help but see the connection as they described how these programs continue in the direction of more science, technology, engineering, and math for our students.

One guest, from the Merced County Office of Education, added an “A” to form the acronym STEAM.

The “A” is for arts. The other guests were from Merced City School District and Merced Union High School District.

A photo from my first guest host radio stint in early 2019.

Two UC Merced professors chatted about the Extension Program teacher training offerings available to local educators.

The pair, now in their third decade as a married couple, brought some variety to the usual format of host talking to guest.

It was a refreshing mix of guest talking to guest and then talking to host. Speaking of variety, we broke with the regular format again with a monologue by yours truly. I spoke to the audience about my writing of this column and the ten books I’ve written over the past decade.

I read from California Back Roads and Stand By, Camera One.

The City of Merced’s Assistant to the City Manager discussed upgrades to Applegate Park, and a local band leader rounded out the interviews to tell listeners about a big band concert soon coming to the Merced Theatre stage.

It was a jam packed afternoon as KYOS audio engineer Casey Stead recorded my interviews with these local folks.

The content for Community Conversations is assembled with the help of the public information departments of the City of Merced, County of Merced, County Office of Education, and host/producer Roger Wood.

I just happened to be the lucky fellow who spoke behind the microphone on a warm summer afternoon.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

His new book Stand By, Camera One is available on Lulu.com and Amazon