Those that know me, know I’ve often taken a challenge by the throat even if I had to learn what I was doing along the way. I’ve prided myself in the fact my Ego isn’t so fragile that I won’t ask for assistance about what I should be doing when one foot is stuck in the proverbial plant pot. To that end, I’ve done it again , but in a good way.
Sometime after Christmas I was chatting with Steve Arstad, former editor of the Keremeos Review, and I mentioned that I really liked George Elliott’s independent paper, the Similkameen News Leader, out of Princeton. I have a subscription and eagerly follow his ongoing “Saving Downtown Princeton” piece every week wishing he lived in Keremeos. If ever a downtown needed saving it’s the Keremeos one. Steve also mentioned that George could easily expand his coverage of the lower Similkameen with the changes in the Keremeos Review and the Princeton Spotlight. I agreed with him.
A few weeks later I was talking to George and mentioned it and we talked a bit. He told me they were looking at options. Out of that conversation I have gotten to know George and his wife Brenda quite well. It’s nice when you meet people who are almost on the same page as you. I started to send the News Leader photo’s of the lower area because basically as a one man band, it’s only an expression Brenda, they just don’t have the capacity to flit back and forth. Plus, I like to see my pictures used to tell part of a story. Slowly I’ve sent him bits and pieces. Some pictures and some with a bit of commentary to go with them. The last few weeks I’ve sent him small articles like the meeting in Cawston Hall on RF radiation, a couple of Smart Meter protest, a bit on Keremeos’s new CAO – Cathy Cowen, and I even scooped the Review on the car vandalized at the pickers camp being the first on on the scene after the police. I even managed to get interviews with both the police and the car owner.
On the downside, I’ve learned where the term “ambulance chaser” came from. Living four blocks from the fire hall and ambulance station, I get the feeling I should go investigate every time a siren goes off. I have to this point resisted the temptation but I’m sure that one day I’ll be running after them camera and notebook in hand.
If you haven’t read the Similkameen News Leader lately, you can pick up a copy almost anywhere in Princeton and at the Hilltop, Value Plus and FastGas in Keremeos.
