Pulling up now-deep roots to learn about new community

We moved the first time when I was 5, from Weston, Ore., to Milton-Freewater. Then at 11, to Eugene. At 16, I went to Los Angeles, and returned to Eugene at 18. By 19, I had moved to Roseburg, Ore., and by 21 was back in the Eugene area, living in Springfield.

At 28, I returned to the east side of the Cascades, to Walla Walla, Wash. At 35, the move was to the east side of the continent, at Newport, R.I.

Thirty-six found me in Conway, N.H., and at 37, I was back in Rhode Island, living in Jamestown this time.

By 41, I had returned to Washington (Centralia) and I was in Yakima to celebrate my 45th birthday.

That was 11 years ago.

And now it's time to move again. To Kansas.

In many ways, the roots I've put down in the Yakima Valley are deeper than anywhere else, if only because I've never lived in one place as long as I've lived here.

But length of tenure is just one reason my roots have grown here.

Those lengthy roots really have more to do with the depth of the relationships, both professional and personal, I've been privileged to discover here.

There is a long list of colleagues at the Yakima Herald-Republic. In fact, it's so long that I won't risk missing some by trying to name them.

But any list would start with then-publisher Chuck Cochrane, who hired me as editor in 1997, and the Blethen family, which owns the newspaper yet always allows those of us in Yakima to run it.

There were also women throughout the Yakima Valley who became something of my unofficial support group -- who helped me get to know the history and personality of the Valley and its people.

The list includes Kathleen Ross, Ester Huey, Jane Gutting, Corky Mattingly, Georgette Bayless, Priscilla Wyckoff, Cec Vogt, Patricia Whitefoot, Barbara Greco, Carole Folsom-Hill, Jane Gutting, Bertha Ortega, Suzanne Obermeyer, Jeanne Crawford and the late Donna Hill.

I'm probably forgetting as many as I'm remembering, as I think back to random acts of kindness from all of them.

Others were less kind, shall we say, but always as sincere.

It wasn't long after I started filling this Sunday space in the fall of 1997 that I heard from the first of the careful readers who would collectively become known as the Word Police.

These grammarians kept all of us on our toes as they pointed out split infinitives, subject-verb disagreement, dangling modifiers and the like.

I was ever grateful and almost always chagrined by the attention of Hal Skinner, Ben Van Eaton, Becky O'Grady, Roger Carlstrom, Betty Mastel, John Klingele, Jeanne Crawford, Paul Franklin, Barb Searles and scores of other officers who over the years have worked to make us better wordsmiths.

Some of the work we've done over the past 11 years has made us better people, too.

The One World, One Valley Festival was actually presented by the Herald-Republic the first time about two weeks before I started as editor, so it seemed as though we were growing up together. Held at the fairgrounds the Saturday after Labor Day, the festival brought together food, music, entertainment and people -- lots of people -- from all of the diverse cultures that make up the Yakima Valley.

A year later, we added the One World, One Valley Awards, to honor the people I call the "worker bees" in our community. This wasn't an award for the people who stand at the front of the room with the microphone; it wasn't to honor those who could give money or status to fundraising drives. Instead, it was to recognize those who at every event were doing the behind-the-scenes grunt work, or who were spending time one-on-one with kids who didn't have anyone else, or who were simply and quietly filling the needs of their friends and neighbors.

In 10 awards ceremonies, we have had the privilege of honoring more than 30 of these individuals from throughout the Yakima Valley. The honor has unofficially become known as the Unsung Hero Award, but I am the one most honored by having been a part of it since 1999.

I am also honored to have been there for the beginning of an evolution of sorts, when in 2005 publisher Mike Shepard took the lead for the Herald-Republic in combining our diversity festival with the failing community Fourth of July celebration. "One World, One Valley, One Nation" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, but the combination served to save Yakima's Independence Day party at State Fair Park.

Yakimaherald.com didn't exactly roll off the tongue, either, when we launched it in 1998, but today it accounts for roughly 1 million page views and more than 150,000 "visitors" a month, and is pushing our staff to explore new technologies to expand coverage of our communities.

That coverage has been at my core for 31 years as a reporter and editor, and I am very proud of the journalism the staff of the Herald-Republic has produced during my 11 years here.

Most notably there were big stories like coverage and the ensuing investigation of the 2001 Thirtymile Fire and the 2003 Mabton mad cow disease outbreak, and projects like "Race in the Yakima Valley" (2000), "The China Challenge" (2004), "Citizen Soldiers (2004), "Native Sons" (2005), "Kids Who Will Make a Difference" (2005) and "Hidden wells, dirty water" just a couple of months ago.

As important as those stories were, it is the smaller, less noteworthy stories that have made the Herald-Republic a daily part of your (and my) life. Journalists don't generally win awards for attending city council meetings or covering games at 33 high schools or reporting the ebb and flow of local politics or telling the stories of local people and organizations that just make the community a better place to live. Maybe they should, because that's the journalism that keeps a news organization like the Herald-Republic at the heart of its community.

That's the journalism that has also been in my heart, too, and that's the part that will be the hardest to leave.

For years, when people elsewhere have asked where Yakima is, I've said, "Think of the state of Washington; Yakima is exactly in the center."

Now when people ask where I'm going, I say, "Think of the United States; Concordia, Kansas, is exactly in the center."

Neither is strictly correct, but both are close enough to give a good idea. And I have a good idea of the work I'll be doing as director of communications for the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia. I'll be a different kind of reporter and editor working for the Catholic order, and I'll learn about a very different kind of community.

When the sisters use the word "community," it's a kind of shorthand to mean "the people we live and work with every day, the people who make us who we are, a physical home as well as a home for the heart."

That's the same meaning I intend when I say I will truly miss the community of the Yakima Valley and all you have given me.

Thank you.

* This is Sarah Jenkins' last column as editor of the Yakima Herald-Republic. She can be reached at sjenkinsyakima@yahoo.com.

If you have a question or concern, you can reach interim editor Barbara Serrano at 577-7672; P.O. Box 9668, Yakima WA 98909; or bserrano@yakimaherald.com.

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