In my formative years, my best friend’s dad owned a community newspaper — The Enterprise. Another friend owns that very publication today. Leon, the editor then, not only wrote the most biting pieces in the paper, he also snapped photos of the football team and the track girls, in between selling advertisements and subscription renewals — when he wasn’t coaching Little League baseball. Community papers are the “six man football” of journalism. Gritty … resilient … outmanned … but blessed with utility players, IF they are fit to survive.
Leon probably had a lot to do with my love of sports … and to a degree he may have steered me toward being a word nerd. (I have to take full credit and/or blame for the Wi-Fi geek, ping thing myself.)
So, when the Texas Center for Community Journalism at Texas Christian University invited me to write a piece on a small-town paper, I was elated. I luvs me some newspaper, and this assignment came with a road trip as well. Nothing like four to five hours in the PingWi-FiMobile to concoct a blog.
The Ping team’s mission was to interview the editor of The San Angelo Standard-Times and its on-line version goSanAngelo.com.
San Angelo is a mid-size city, known for football, sheep ranches, farming and football. Its university — Angelo State University, perhaps the “black sheep” of the Texas Tech University System — fields the aptly named “Rams.”
Tucked away in the arid West Texas ranchland, San Angelo and its hometown paper have grown up hand-in-hand, each shaping the other.
But today, the world is shaping the pair, with the infusion of real time news mingled with small-town flavor and modern technology.
You can learn more about the paper and how community journalism — like all news gathering — is modifying its content, its delivery and reaching new audiences all over the globe.
Texas Center For Community Journalism
Because most newspapers have gone worldwide on the web, one might assume the community and its viewing habits have gone wild … for modern communications … which nowadays usually includes wireless. So, after the journalism gig, we cowpoked (or perhaps more appropriately, “shepherded”) around town, looking for some stray Wi-Fi. Found it too.
Coke & A Smile
Based on the recommendation of the town’s chief editor, we drove about a half block to River Valley Coffee & Café on Beauregard (yes, love that street name). This guy knows his “eats beat.” RVC&C was spread among a couple of rooms of a vintage downtown structure, and teeming with some pretty progressive artwork comparable to the artist colony of your choice, perhaps surprising in a town with sheep statues on every other corner. Several artists were featured, although there seemed to be a similar, vibrant, large-canvass style.
Travis At River Valley
Call it the San Angelo movement. A person at one downtown shop said the town’s vision is to become a Santa Fe in West Texas. Well … cool … “aim high,” I always say.
Regardless, River Valley Coffee & Café served up an excellent meal, pushed the envelope with its art and allowed me to shout out to the world from its Wi-Fi hotspot — 5 pings.
Elsewhere, the PingWi-Fi team encountered more calories than Wi-Fi content … a dress shop with a vintage soda fountain inside — The Sassy Fox (LOVE the name), a tourist store with retro toys and vintage candies … lots of Texas Tech memorabilia in the pirate black tradition of former Head Coach Mike Leach … and the sort of things you would expect on the square of Mainstreet, Texas, USA. A nice little day trip.
Know what I sayin?
Next up: We take the PingWi-Fi thing from the sheeplands of West Texas to New Zealand … a sheep-to-sheep leap to the other side of the world, mate!
