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.
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
To explore Steve Newvine's complete collection of books, simply click on the link below.
CLICK HERE
Steve is also open to delivering speeches for service club programs and other public speaking engagements.
Contact him at: SteveNewvine@sbcglobal.net