A Man, His Mule, and a Website-

Up and Down the Valley with the 3 Mules Group

A recent visit by a man and his mule in Turlock, Stanislaus County, draws attention to the 3Mules.com website and the story of this organization. Photo: Steve Newvine

There’s something one usually does not see while driving up and down the Highway 99 corridor in the Central Valley.  

A few ago, while waiting at a light at an access intersection to Highway 99 in Turlock in Stanislaus County, I encountered a man with a mule and a website address printed on a saddlebag.

The website 3Mules.com is for the 3 Mules organization. To find out exactly what they are all about, you can just look into the frequently asked questions section of the site.

At that point, one will learn these folks lead mules from San Diego to Sacramento. Once they arrive at the state capitol, they rest and head back to San Diego. They travel as many county back roads as possible.

“In Merced and Stanislaus Counties, we walked on county roads,” said John Sears, who answered my questions via the contact section of the group’s webpage.

While traveling to the state capitol and back, they move between five to twenty miles a day, stay outside, and spend their nights with friends or in public spaces.

That’s where the group’s legal issues begin.

A view of the 3Mules.com webpage featuring some of the mules that make the journey from San Diego to Sacramento and back every year. Photo: 3Mules.com

California Penal Code 647 covers many behaviors but is often referred to by this group as the illegal lodging law. It prohibits overnight use of public lands. Violators can be charged with a misdemeanor, which leads to a court appearance and possibly a fine.  

This does not sit well with the 3 Mules organization, which believes it has the right to use public space to sleep.

They had a legal dispute with the California Highway Patrol (CHP) that they settled when it looked like they would not win.

The CHP in San Luis Obispo County stopped one of their mule handlers in 2020. They took him to jail and sent the two mules to animal control. He was released the next day, and the two mules held by animal control were released after a $266 fee was paid.

The group used a GoFundMe campaign to help pay the costs incurred.

A journal page listing expenses from the 3 Mules group. Photo: 3Mules.com

Some argue that the plight facing the 3 Mules group is similar to those who find themselves homeless and either unable or unwilling to accept a shelter bed for the night.  

This group tries to maintain awareness of its advocacy for using public lands, but it also wants people to know more about the lifestyle these men and women have chosen.

Group members' technology, such as cell phones and laptops, have batteries that need to be recharged. This brings 3 Mules members into local libraries or coffee shops.

The group lists finding a place to sleep as their number one challenge. Other challenges include keeping the mules watered and fed and dealing with the results of people who call the local animal control center to claim the mules are mistreated.

They raise money when needed to cover animal care and legal expenses. The group offers accountability with photographs of handwritten journals that track how money raised is used.

“We are not aware of any issues here with the organization,” said CHP Public Information Office Eric Zuniga of the Merced region.  

So, maybe the lifestyle, the mules, and their annual journey from San Diego to Sacramento and back will continue for now.

If taken at their word, the organization just wants to be able to move freely along public roads, be assured they can camp for the night on public property, and enjoy the nomadic lifestyle.

Advocacy for an interstate trail system is a priority in the long term. While raising awareness may take time, this group can wait.

They are in this for the long haul at twenty miles a day, tops. 

-Steve Newvine lives in Merced

He will soon be featured in a McClatchy Media Group story about the famed Palm and Pine in Madera County, which will appear on the Fresno Bee website this summer.

Steve will speak at the Merced-AARP monthly meeting at the Merced Senior Center on June 26 at 10:00 a.m. The group encourages anyone to attend.

His new book, Beaten Paths and Back Roads, is available at the Merced County Courthouse Museum gift shop or online at https://www.lulu.com/shop/steve-newvine/beaten-paths-and-back-roads/paperback/product-emmv6r.html?q=beaten+paths+steve+newvine&page=1&pageSize=4

Celebrating Sixty in Print-

Merced County Times Anniversary is the Focus of the Museum Exhibit

The current staff and columnists of the Merced County Times, including a photo shot by Steve Newvine from a 2017 Our Community Story column on the late publisher John Derby (lower right). Photo: Steve Newvine

Day in and day out, the work cycle for a weekly newspaper is always the same. News is reported, copy is edited, the finished story goes through the layout process, and then the issue is printed and distributed

It’s a routine the staff knows backward and forward.  

The Merced County Times Sixtieth Anniversary exhibit, which is now open at the Courthouse Museum in downtown Merced, has an interesting story behind its creation.

The late John Derby, publisher of the Times, noticed that the Museum’s 2023 exhibit looking back fifty years to 1973 (Where Were You in 1973?) did not include any photographs shot by his paper’s photographers. 

https://www.mercedcountyevents.com/steve-newvine-1/where-were-you-in-1973-?rq=Where%20Were%20You%20in%201973%3F

The story, as relayed by current publisher Jonathan Whitaker at the new exhibit’s opening on May 23, ended with the Museum Executive Director suggesting an exhibit celebrating the Times on sixty years of service.

“John would go to Mexico every fall to enjoy his retirement,” Whitaker told the audience. “This year, John did not come back.” John Derby passed away in January.

The exhibit celebrates sixty years of publication, pays tribute to the staff that puts it together weekly, and honors Derby, who founded the paper in 1963.

John Derby was featured in an essay in this space in 2017 (Fifty-three Years of Community Journalism in Merced County — Merced County Events).

His story of creating the paper, preparing to end publication six months later only to be saved by an advertiser signing a one-year contract for advertising, expanding to specific community editions throughout the area, and the mantra “power of a positive press” are now all part of the weekly newspaper's legacy.

The Merced County Times exhibit includes two photographs from John F. Kennedy and Barrack Obama's presidential visits to Merced County.  

The Museum exhibit features photographs from the six decades the paper has been around. Select front pages from milestone events such as the creation of UC Merced and the visit by two US Presidents are featured on the walls..

Physical icons such as Derby’s typewriter and camera are also on display.

It is all on the second floor of the Merced County Courthouse Museum, and it will remain in place throughout the summer.

Selected front pages from the Merced County Times are part of the exhibit at the Courthouse Museum. Photo: Steve Newvine

Putting out a weekly newspaper in a community our size takes considerable effort and money. So, while all of the journalistic processes are going on, there’s an effort to generate advertising revenue.

At the exhibit's launch, readers and advertisers were thanked for keeping the Times alive over the decades. One group was not called out specifically, but they have played a role in keeping the paper going in recent years. This group is made up of individuals and businesses that are sponsors.

For the past several years, every January, the Times has asked for donations to help offset the costs of producing the paper.

Distributed free (and also available by mail now for eighty-nine dollars a year), the paper started the solicitation to help close the gap between advertising revenue and expenses.  

During the COVID years, the paper asked readers to consider an annual sponsorship. Sponsors pay one hundred dollars or more annually and have their names listed in the paper every week.

The sponsorship page from a recent edition of the Merced County Times.

Early in this experiment with reader sponsorships, John Derby wrote how the donated dollars helped during the supply chain crisis when the paper needed hard-to-find printing supplies.

The sponsorships continue to provide a steady stream of support for the paper.

The County Times took a short break on the evening of May 23 to reflect on its remarkable run, now entering its seventh decade of service.

Then it was back to work. The next issue needs to be reported and edited through the layout process, and then on to printing and distribution.

The cycle continues week after week.-

-Steve Newvine lives in Merced

He will be speaking at the highly anticipated Merced-AARP monthly meeting at the Merced Senior Center on June 26 at 10:00 AM. The group eagerly encourages anyone to attend.

His new book, Beaten Paths and Back Roads, is available at the Merced County Courthouse Museum gift shop.

Also, online at https://www.lulu.com/shop/steve-newvine/beaten-paths-and-back-roads/paperback/product-emmv6r.html?q=beaten+paths+steve+newvine&page=1&pageSize=4

A Valley Promise Fulfilled-

UC Merced Medical Education Building is the First of its Kind

A screen grab of a YouTube video produced by UC Merced touting the new Medical Education Building soon to be built on campus.

The young woman in the video from the UC Merced news release calls it a promise fulfilled.

“We built the future in the heart of California,” the voice begins on a ninety-second YouTube video produced by the University. “What once was a dream, an idea, a vision will become a reality.”

The woman, presumably a student who will one day attend classes in the soon-to-be-built new building, says the structure was built for the future. 

The sign promoting the new Medical Education Building soon to be built on the UC Merced campus. Photo: Steve Newvine

The construction project is the UC Merced Medical Education Building. Campus leaders and selected government officeholders participated in the ceremonial groundbreaking on May 14.

The building will house the University’s public health, psychology, and health sciences research organizations.

It is the brick-and-mortar, or more accurately, steel-and-glass, piece of the University’s effort to produce doctors who will serve the local community.

Construction will lead up to a grand opening of the new Medical Education Building in 2026. Photo: Steve Newvine

“Hard to overstate what a positive step forward this is not just for Merced but for the entire San Joaquin Valley,” said Mayor Matthew Serratto in a social media post.

At four stories tall and two hundred thousand square feet, the building will fit right in with the existing buildings that were part of the 2020 strategic plan from the previous decade. As mentioned in a column in this space from that time, the 2020 Plan effectively doubled the campus's footprint.

When it opened in 2005, UC Merced prioritized medical education. The Central Valley has been described as having a critical lack of health care professionals, so the University explored solutions to address the problem.

That solution is now known as SJV PRIME PLUS, a partnership with the University of California San Francisco and Fresno campuses. Those partners will bring their strength from educating future doctors to a new location ready to open new doors for students seeking a career path in health care.

It is a first-of-its-kind partnership. The partnership brings an institution such as UCSF, with expertise in medical education, to the valley.

The Medical Education Building is designed to fit in with the flow of other classroom buildings that were part of the 2020 project that opened a few years ago. Photo: Steve Newvine

“We know from the research literature that medical professionals are far more likely to establish practices in the places where they were educated and undertook their residencies,” UC Merced Chancellor Juan Sánchez Muñoz said at the groundbreaking.

That takes us back to the young student in the video. At one point, we see her viewing the campus far off in a farm field. The narration makes it clear she is happy about what’s in store for students preparing for a career in medicine.

“We are building the future again,” she says. “A dream delivered.”

The construction project will be completed in 2026. So, this UC student may be among the first to walk through the doors of the Medical Education Building when it opens for the fall 2026 semester.

-Steve Newvine lives in Merced

He will be speaking at the Merced-AARP monthly meeting at the Merced Senior Center on June 26 at 10:00 AM.  The group encourages anyone to attend.

His new book, Beaten Paths and Back Roads is available at the Merced County Courthouse Museum gift shop or on line at https://www.lulu.com/shop/steve-newvine/beaten-paths-and-back-roads/paperback/product-emmv6r.html?q=beaten+paths+steve+newvine&page=1&pageSize=4

The Big Story Becomes Local-

Anderson Passing Recalls Shared Reporting Efforts

Associated Press Foreign Correspondent Terry Anderson was taken hostage in 1985. Photo: AP

I never met Terry Anderson. However, the former Middle East hostage, a reporter for the Associated Press news service, brought back many memories from the years when I worked as a television journalist.

Anderson died on April 20 at the age of seventy-six. It had been thirty-three years since his captors freed him.

Back in 1985, I was working in a local television newsroom in Rochester, New York. Terry Anderson was once a resident of western New York, making his story a local one for our television audience.

It seemed as though every night for weeks following the start of his ordeal, we would run stories about his capture and try to make sense of the efforts to secure his release.

His sister Peggy jumped into the mix within days of his becoming a hostage.

She was engaging with the US State Department, trying to find answers. Over the coming weeks, her frustration was apparent in her routine appearances on the local newscast.

Terry thanked his sister Peggy for her efforts on the homefront to keep his captivity on the forefront of the minds of the public. Photo: Pool coverage from Wiesbaden, Germany, 1991.

It took a lot of work to put up with the apparent lack of progress our government was experiencing.

The weeks turned into months.

Like many other stories that go on for an extended period of time, the audience grew weary, and the news editors slowly removed the story from “front and center” awareness.

But Terry’s sister Peggy did not give up hope. Her perseverance paid off in late 1991. Anderson was released.

By then, I had moved to another station in Rochester, serving as Executive Producer.

Our station was part of an effort with a local radio station to be among the reporters who would meet with him upon his release in Germany.

We covered the return from captivity, asked questions at Terry’s first news conference as a free man, and brought the story home for our viewers.

Some takeaways from the events surrounding Terry’s release were easy to see at the news conference.

He made great efforts to thank his sister, Peggy, for keeping the pressure on the US government to end his captivity.

All he wanted to do was be with his family, including a daughter born within months of his capture.

Terry shared his story in an interview with the Bob Graham Center for Public Service on the thirtieth anniversary of his release by Hezbollah captors. Photo: Graham Center.

An embossed card arrived in our newsroom mail within weeks of Anderson’s return to the United States. It was a mass-produced thank you card that he sent to every news outlet in western New York and probably to national news organizations in New York City and Washington, DC.

He did not know our names, but he knew that the news media had kept the story alive for six years collectively.

He wanted us to know how much it was appreciated.

Terry’s life after captivity appears to have had more downs than ups.

The Associated Press report of his death stated he received millions of dollars from US-held frozen Iranian assets.

Yet, according to the AP, he filed for bankruptcy five years ago. He wrote a book about his hostage ordeal, appeared on the popular Phil Donahue program, and lived out of the limelight.

The AP reported he made unsuccessful investments, taught college students, and dabbled in business enterprises with limited success.

Terry Anderson was the most prominent face in those pictures of Americans who were taken captive by Middle Eastern kidnappers in the 1980s.

His story was kept at the forefront of local news outlets thanks to the tireless efforts of his sister, Peggy.

He was a man who remembered the efforts of the many journalists to keep his story alive. His gratitude is his legacy.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

He was a television journalist for several local stations from 1979 to 1994.

Though unrelated to the Terry Anderson story, his new book Rocket Reporter reflects on his years covering the Space Shuttle's early missions as a local reporter in northern Alabama.

The book is available at Lulu.com    

Seven from the Wall-

Remembering Soldiers Listed on the Vietnam Memorial- Wall that Heals

By Steve Newvine

The Wall that Heals on display in front of Merced College. Photo: Steve Newvine

There are over fifty-eight thousand names on the “Wall that Heals”.

This column is about seven of them.

The Merced community has been honored to host the Wall that Heals, the three-quarter representation of the Vietnam War Memorial.

The Merced Breakfast Rotary Club, the group that started the Field of Honor flag tribute on the grounds of Merced College over the past several years, was primarily responsible for getting the traveling exhibit to the community.

For the few days leading up to and including Easter Sunday, the wall allowed many of us to honor the brave soldiers who were killed in action during the Vietnam War.

My family had a soldier who fought and came home from Vietnam. US Army Specialist Four William Newvine served in 1966 and 1967. He made it back but was killed nine months later in an automobile crash.

I wrote about Bill both in this space and in a book (Finding Bill, Lulu Press). He did not talk much about the experience, and I was too young to probe.

Only in my later years, with the help of a man who has made it his life work to honor those who served in the same company as my uncle, did I get to piece together his story. 

As I wrote my book, he connected me with soldiers who knew my uncle. When I told him I was going to Washington, D.C., on business, he asked if I would check in on seven soldiers named on the wall. The book tells the stories of the men who knew my uncle and those from his unit who were killed in action.  

Here is a summary of seven of the more than fifty-eight thousand brave soldiers honored on the wall.

Seven soldiers who served alongside my uncle in Vietnam and who lost their lives on the battlefield. Photos from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (vvmf.org). Photo illustration by Steve Newvine

Armand Auffiere, Donald Evans, and John Faidley were killed on January 27, 1967, in the jungle about two miles from their base camp, attacking a bunker complex manned by Vietcong.

Their unit was hit hard, with two platoons devastated and a third going inactive for weeks after this battle.

Don is the first Medic to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Two medical buildings are named in his honor.

Joseph Noel died Jan 14, 1967. He was killed by artillery rounds that were accidentally sent into his column in response to a fire mission called when the Vietcong were spotted near a rubber plantation.

Tom Nickerson and Clint Smith were killed on March 15, 1967, when attacked while dumping garbage by Vietcong rummaging through the area looking for anything useful. The dump area had been moved, and the new site had no security to protect the men.

Larry Barton was killed on March 21, 1967, at the height of the conflict known as the Battle of Suoi Tre. He was filling in a foxhole as his unit was moving out.

The company was part of a mission that came to the rescue of a firebase that was close to being overrun by the enemy on that day.  

The battle was successful but at a tremendous cost. Larry was among thirty-one Americans killed. It’s estimated the enemy lost eight hundred soldiers, although the official count was six hundred forty-four.

The unit received the Presidential Unit Citation, a prestigious award only ever given during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II.

My uncle knew these men. He even wrote about Tom and Clint in a letter to his sister, Betty. Thankfully, images of those letters have been saved.

The Wall that Heals at night in front of Merced College. Photo: Steve Newvine

The pictures of the seven men who served alongside my uncle were found at the website for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. 

I learned a lot about these men thanks to the dedication of Bill Comeau, who runs the Alpha Association, which connects veterans, especially those from the Vietnam era.

Bill was a company clerk in the War and knew of my uncle. He recalled when he saw Bill Newvine return from a harrowing mission.

“The look on these men’s faces was that of sheer terror. But not Bill. He had a look of serenity, a calmness that communicated maybe he knew more than the rest of us.”  

My uncle Bill Newvine and one of the letters he wrote to family members in my hometown of Port Leyden, New York. Photo: Steve Newvine

Bill Newvine died more than a decade before the Vietnam Memorial opened. I always believed that he would have visited Washington, DC, to pay his respects to his fellow soldiers.  

Losing someone you know is hard enough. Losing seven who served under the conditions of war is hard for many of us to imagine.

I made that visit for him in 2012 in Washington, DC, and this year here in Merced at the Wall that Heals.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

His book Finding Bill is still available at Finding Bill - A Nephew’s Search for Meaning in his Uncle’s Life and Death (lulu.com)

Steve is grateful to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund and its website vmf.org for information and pictures of the seven soldiers who served with his uncle in Vietnam and who lost their lives in the War.