School story

Well, most of my work lately has been for Statesman Journal special sections, which aren't online. If they do happen to get posted online, it's six months after they published. So, you don't get to see them.

Here is a news story I did last week for the Silverton Appeal. I find my work out there very rewarding and I am trying to get into some other small community newspapers just for the fun of it.

Mark Twain counselor story.

Violet and Cindy are back from New York. They flew out last week to attend Cindy's brother's wedding. I didn't go because it was: A. Too expensive. B. No extra time to explore or do touristy things. C. I had a bunch of SJ work to get done.

They both came back with a rash -- which supports my theory that I am allergic to New York.

Pat

I have a love/hate relationship with snow

Well, before the snow hit the Portland area earlier this week, I was able to get a couple of stories done for the Silverton Appeal and the Stayton Mail. Now that the snow is here, and Violet and Cindy are sick, work is kinda tough.

They are on the mend, just little head colds and an ear infection for Violet, and the snow is slowly (too slowly) melting.

Here are the articles:

Mount Angel FFA rebuilds greenhouse

Local companies help to make Stayton Library expansion a reality

Think mel

The Columbian online

Well turns out the work I am doing in the Home & Lifestyle magazine is online. Go figure. :)

So, I am going to link that here as they get posted, about once every two months.

Explore

Timely Matters

Have a good thought for Violet she is sick. This is our first real cold, and she is pretty miserable.

Very rewarding

With this whole freelance gig, I have found myself gravitating more toward stories that I would like to tell, versus what would pay the bills. I am in the lucky situation of having financial freedom right now. I am sure that will change when Violet hits school (or we have a second child) but for now I am free to do what tickles my fancy.

This last week I was looking for stories in Stayton and so I called local churches to see what they had going on. I came across these folks that I think we could all learn a thing or two from.

Congregation practices what they preach.

Hope you enjoy it -- I had a lot of fun writing and meeting these great folks.

Pat

Another story posted and, oh, Happy New Year!

Well I wrote a story for the Senior LIfe and it ended up in the regular newspaper.

Either they didn't have room in Senior Life, or they liked it so much it made the paper. Either way...

Here it is.


Have a Happy New Year!

Pat

It's been a busy month

Sorry for the lack of updates.

Been a busy month, personally and professionally.

First off, it seems as though the Silverton Appeal and Stayton Mail are not updating their Web pages anymore. If they start posting stories to them again, I will have links to the stories I do for them. Otherwise, you are stuck with what makes the Statesman Journal and Oregon.com.

Personally, my Aunt Jean and grandmother passed away in the month of December (a week apart too) so I have spent a large amount of time being with family and making trips to Bainbridge Island where they lived. I will always cherish the summers I had hanging out with both of them. We would go up for a month at a time during the summer and mess around, see sights and walk down to the bay to skip rocks. Good times and I am very sad to see both of them go.

On a more cheerful note, December normally is a pretty slow time for me, so I got to spend a lot of time with Violet. We visited the Oregon Zoo and the Portland Children's Museum, so I put together stories for Oregon.com. They can be found here:

Portland Children's Museum (with Violet photos!)

Oregon Zoo

I have also done a number of stories for the Silverton and Stayton papers, but they aren't online.

Have a Happy New Year!

Pat

Hi RSS feeder type people

I was talking to an old college buddy -- Christina -- and she told me I should turn on RSS feeds for my blog.

So that way when I update it every week you can be notified if you use this mysterious magics known as RSS.

I don't know about that. I am getting old and confused.

Who am I again?

Anyway, Hi Christina!

Mount Angel Woodcarver... is from Silverton! Ooops

Well, I like to think I have been fairly accurate during my time as a freelance writer. I usually don't get a lot of complaints, and I have gotten several nice cards.

That's why when things like this happen, I look at what went wrong so next time I can avoid the issues.

I wrote an article about a very nice man, Mike Reifle. He carves these incredible dragons and the story is HERE.

I didn't state in the story what city he was from -- which normally means he is from the city the paper is published in. In this case, Silverton. But the editor thought he was from Mount Angel. So that's where the problem came in.

Normally when you are writing about a community other than the one the paper is published in, you use a dateline. For example:

CANBY -- Patrick and Cindy Johnson are expecting another baby, so they bought a minivan last week.

This coming week there is going to be a correction in the paper and Mr. Reifle was very cool about the whole thing.

"I've always wanted to live in Mount Angel," was his response. Nice guy.

Here is his website, buy some of his carvings. :)

Mount Angel FFA

This story was fun, kids starting a new FFA Chapter in one of the centers of agriculture in Oregon. Somehow the chapter had died off, and the kids with their new advisor are bringing it back, even with some pretty major setbacks.

Anyway, HERE is the story -- I really like this one and had a great time writing it.

Hope you enjoy.

Pat

Better late than never?

Well I was surfing the Internet the other day and I noticed this story was posted on the Statesman Journal.com -- months after I had written it.

Ruth Stole story


I got a number of favorable comments, so that's cool.