The first thing I will disclose is I am writing this under duress.
Obviously, there is no Guantanamo Bay, Cuba dateline affixed to this column. John Ashcroft wants nothing to do with me – yet. Nor is anyone looming over my shoulder, cricket bat tapping against one palm menacingly, waiting to crack my skull if I somehow err (in their opinion) during the typing process.
No, I have been instructed to write this week’s staff column. It’s purpose: To introduce me, the new editor of the Mill Creek Enterprise, to you, the reader.
There are many ways one can answer an esoteric question such as “who am I?” Some involve a deep spiritual journey, others a psychological journey. And others are just plain ol’ dry facts. For the purpose of this space, I’ll stick to plain ol’ dry facts.
So why are these facts dry? I am a recent returnee to the Evergreen State, having returned from the Las Vegas area, where despite an annual average precipitation rate of four inches, they are just now realizing they are in a drought. I got to cover this realization as editor of the Boulder City News, a weekly newspaper located in a community of 15,000 just outside the Las Vegas valley.
Boulder City’s claim to fame, aside from being where Desi Arnaz Jr. lives, is that it was the town that housed the workers who built Hoover Dam during the Great Depression. It’s other claim to fame: It’s the only town in the immediate Las Vegas area that was not built by organized crime interests or developers. Oh yeah, it’s also the only town in Nevada to outlaw gambling.
One thing became clear during the two years I spent in Boulder City: I missed the Puget Sound region. Badly. During a previous five-year stint here, this place became my adopted home. After going back to Southern Nevada, I realized that I was a Seattleite, not a Las Vegan, even though two-thirds of my life has been spent in that place.
I’m also a journalism lifer. I’ve spent about a decade in this business both in Vegas and Western Washington. Previous places I’ve collected a paychecks include the Kent Reporter and Auburn Reporter newspapers in King County, both of which I edited, the North Kitsap Herald in Poulsbo, where I was sports editor, and the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nevada’s largest daily and a place I worked at both as a sports intern reporter and a sports stringer. I’ve won several state-level journalism awards, nearly all for column writing. I even majored in communications at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). No, I did not play for the once invincible Runnin’ Rebels basketball team, but I did play intramural hoops with my fraternity. I even once scored a basket!
All humor aside, I’m finding the Enterprise a great place to work at that produces a quality product. It was nice to come to a newspaper and not have to reinvent the wheel, the internal combustion engine, the automobile, and the satellite navigation system, which I have done, metaphorically speaking, at previous stops.
Also, I have found Mill Creek a pleasant place with plenty of good people. Having worked in places where half the town hated the other half, and neither side kept this fact silent, it’s nice to be around people who appear genuine, sincere, and laid-back. I’ve even been to a couple of Mill Creek City Council meetings already and I am a bit stunned. So far, it seems like they actually seem concerned about the interests of the community at large and city hall itself. But I’ll keep a vigilant eye on them, because in journalism, it’s all about vigilance.
So all in all, the first couple of weeks here at Mill Creek Enterprise cubicle have been quite nice. Now, if we can just do something about that daily commute …
John Santana is the editor of the Mill Creek edition of the Enterprise Newspapers.
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