2013 Columns Archive Stories

Carl “Sonny” Worrell, one of the top timed-event hands of his generation, died Jan. 28 at his home in Stonewall, Oklahoma He was 76. Worrell was the PRCA steer roping champion in 1978 and qualified for 14 National Finals during his career — five times making it to the National Finals Rodeo as a calf roper and nine times to the

John Quintana, the 1972 world champion bull rider and a six-time qualifier for the National Finals Rodeo, died March 25 in a plane crash near Roma in western Queensland, Australia. He was 65. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau said the crash occurred shortly after take-off from Roma Airport, destroying the aircraft and killing Quintana and n

A friend recently moved and gave me her gardening books. Among them are old favorites that I had borrowed and read in the past, but did not previously own. What a wonderful experience to be reminded of and re-inspired by principles and practices that I had learned years ago. One of my newly-acquired, old-favorites is Ruth Stout’s &

According to John Wood in his new book “Creating Room to Read,” one out of eight people on the planet today can’t read. That’s approximately 793 million illiterate people, and 90 percent of them live in developing countries in poverty. Studies show that learning to read helps break the cycle of poverty. Literacy u

Tulare County Foster Care Licensing links hands with partner agencies nationwide to celebrate Foster Care Appreciation Month in May. Foster care parents take children into their homes at any time of the day or night. On many occasions, these children arrive with nothing but the clothes on their backs, often wearing the battle scars of ab

We made it safely to 2013. Some of you had your doubts, though.   Reminiscing can be regretful or grateful as we look back on what might have been. But, as humans we can choose to look at the negative and wish we had done better, or rejoice in the things we’ve done well, or at the very least, done reasonably. I barely

Ghost, our big Charolais bull, has had another pair  of adventures, though I’m certain  he wouldn’t think either of them would be considered pleasant. As you faithful readers know, his previous misadventures have made him a character in this Daunt to Dillonwood column more than once. I bought the bull from a neighbo

One of the most interesting features of my home here in the foothills of southeastern Tulare County is the spring providing all of our domestic water, all of the irrigation to our lawn and a little water for animals. Even during the driest part of the summer, it still provides an adequate supply. Unless you were raised in the hills and a

In my years of living on the ranch, working out in the hills in my younger days, I was taught to watch what happened around me. I learned the animals, both wild and our domesticated cattle, horses and dogs, will tell me a lot about what is happening. Often, and maybe more importantly, they will also let me know what is coming in the near future.

After telling you how much we need rain for the grass to begin to grow, now it’s time to spray weed killer on some of that grass to control the weeds. Several times in the past week, I’ve seen neighbors out with their sprayers. My driveway is asphalt, and my dad found that if you spray along the edges this time of year it min

Once again we have come together as a community to celebrate the life of one of our neighbors, this time for Eunice Ethel Witt. She was a life-long teacher even though she technically retired in 1984 at “only” 72.   Life for Eunice Bell started in Nez Perce, Idaho as the sixth of seven children born to a grain farmer. Th

Chief Hap Meredith and his boys from Mobile Construction Battalion Five — MCB5 — had barely arrived in Vietnam, when they were pinned down in a withering firefight. The tracer bullets stitched the air in front of their trucks as they slid to a stop. Suddenly all was quiet. The smell of cordite floated through the air, but the

Last week, I prepared the evaporative cooler for the upcoming heat of summer. In this old house, built over 50 years ago, the air conditioning package is not efficient, thus is very expensive to operate. We gave up on that shortly after we moved here. We quickly tired of receiving Mr. Edison’s “thank you notes.” I remem

We have turned the page on 2012 and on Monday we gave our Top 10 stories of the year. You may have noted that there was not a lot of good news in that list. That is kind of the nature of this business. However, 2012 was not void of a lot of “good” news and among The Recorder’s 3,875 stories published in the past year, t

When it comes to attracting new retail stores to any community, it is not what people want that matters. It is what people can afford. In short, it is all about the numbers. Often we receive comments from people criticizing the city for “bringing in” another drug store or Mexican restaurant. Those misinformed readers somehow

Unfortunately, I had a couple of days at home last week with the flu and if that did not make me feel bad enough, the commercials shown throughout the day on television certainly made me feel worse.It must be that they think everyone who watches television during the day must be over the age of 80 at least. Now, the programming lef

World Ag Expo in Tulare next month should be on everyone’s bucket list if they have not already been to at least one show. World Ag Expo is the three-day farm equipment and technology extravaganza. Over 1 million square feet of exhibit space is utilized to the fullest by more than 1,600 companies displaying everything from tiny mic

After watching one of the best commercials during the Super Bowl in my estimation — the Dodge trucks tribute to the farmer — I pondered, what if farming didn’t exist in the Orange Belt. What would the town be like, life be like, the environment be like. If you missed it, the ad was the late Paul Harvey, the famous radio

The historical photos we run on Wednesday’s Heritage Page in the paper, courtesy of local historian and photographer Jeff Edwards, always draw a big response from our readers, especially those who follow us on Facebook. Last week, we ran a photo from 1927 that showed the Ku Klux Klan, in large numbers, marching through downtown Por

Monday, President’s Day, was a pretty slow time for me and allowed me to get caught up on correctly filing some of The Recorder’s old clip files. Clip files is how newspapers chronicled the events around town and was the only way to keep track and records of stories. Today, that is done electronically, but if I have my way, w

One cold Saturday afternoon, my daughter and I watch the Disney movie “Cars.” Now, I am not someone to watch an animated Disney movie very often, but “Cars’ is a little different in that it is about racing, and I can’t resist a sports movie of any kind, even if it includes talking cars. But I do admit, “Cars&r

I am continually disappointed by the lack of sensitivity, and at times, intelligence displayed by those commenting on stories, especially those commenting on The Recorder’s Facebook page. My disappointment resurfaced last week with the hundreds of comments made on Facebook regarding the tragic traffic accident that claimed two youn

When I first came to Porterville in 1983, Main Street still had that old west feel. No, there were not a bunch of hitching posts downtown, but the city still had its bars and saloons, many which looked like they just came out of the old Wild West. I have heard Porterville described as one of the last old west towns in California and in 1

A rare planetary alignment is building in the western sky this spring. Those who scan the evening sky regularly have seen Jupiter, king of the planets, make his way west during the last few months, as fall became winter then turned to spring. Now, Jupiter, that bright “star” sitting just above the western horizon after sunset

Family HealthCare Network and other community clinics and health centers in the state are at the forefront of health care transformation and have been preparing for health care reform implementation for years. The Affordable Care Act is now the law of the land, and millions will now have access to health care coverage. The ACA also put f