Catching Up: Portland

Back in July, I took a weekend trip to Portland, Oregon to visit my friend Alana.

Alana Simmons

Alana is an OHS grad and a member of my sister’s close group of friends, the “super sexy seven.” She moved to Portland several years ago to live near her sister.

Alana’s currently finishing up her bachelor’s degree, and hopes to go to grad school to study bats. Namely, she wants to help fight White Nose Syndrome, which has devastated bats throughout the US but has yet to be a significant danger to bats in the pacific northwest.

I was just in Portland for a few days, but I got to see a lot of the area. She’s moved, but when I was there Alana’s apartment was right on the Wilimette River, so we took a walk the first night. I explored some of Portland on Friday, crossed over to Washington and hiked the lower Ape Cave and a trail up to the top of the upper Ape Cave on Saturday and went to the Oregon Coast on Sunday. The weather was nice so we drove all the way to Manzanita before we were able to find reasonable beach access — people were everywhere even though it was freezing. Monday I took it easy until my flight out.

One of the themes you’ll see are that Alana and her boyfriend Jerek are very much nature people. Alana’s apartment is filled with plants labelled with their Latin names, dried plants/animal bones also labeled with Latin names, and Maggie, Alana’s adorably cross-eyed kitty. Throughout the trip, we examined lichens, prodded washed up jellyfish and explored pits along the trail path. It was in one of these little lava tubes, just a few feet deep, that I realized it and the Ape Cave are all just essentially holes in a giant pumice stone.

Here’s more pictures — they retell it a lot better than I could.

The Election Column

First off, an acknowledgement that I’ve neglected this blog for the past few months. I’ll be catching up on some of the high points. But first, to jump right back to now.

This week, I hit another milestone in our new normal at the paper. It was my first time writing the election column.

Granny, essentially since time eternal, wrote her column the week of the election as a review of how she would vote. It always began with the most important caveat: she wasn’t telling anyone how to vote, only how she would. It was always almost entirely positive, even when she had plenty of (rightfully) negative things to say elsewhere. But it was a place to share her thinking on what was important to her on the ballot.

It’s the first time I’ve really publicly discussed how I feel about candidates and issues at length since j-school, and it was exhilarating, though I was nervous about it in the week leading up to publication and the day-of.

I wrote in an Instagram post about how stressful it was in journalism school to not express my opinions. I grew up at Betty Spaar’s Odessan, where everyone knew we were Democrats. I grew up writing columns about Ike Skelton and Claire McCaskill (I first became a Claire fan in eighth grade when she ran for governor). I immediately connected to the message in our principles of journalism class that we should aspire to be transparent, and to create unbiased work, not be unbiased people. Yet once we were in the school proper and working for the student-staffed news outlets the Missouri Method is based on, we weren’t allowed to express our opinions on our public social media. It was stifling.

But it also stuck with me, and I’ve kind of stuck to the shadows. I’ve written the editorial for three years or so now, but I’ll admit to being happy when people assumed Granny was writing it. There are times I’ve expressed opinions, of course, but not nearly as much as I used to. Then I needed to write a whole column on why I support who I support.

But, I went back to the reason Granny wrote her election column this way. First of all, it’s just flat out being honest with people, which I think is important. I trust people more when I know where they’re coming from, and I think others do the same. It helps me know that they' aren’t trying to pull something over on me.

There’s also the fact that I feel like I have something to add to the discussion. The column doesn’t just say how I’m voting, but why. The idea that to be a good journalist you should be an opinionless, animatronic being rather than a human with personal insight and inner morals is a weapon that’s been used against journalists. Giving in to it won’t suddenly make the people calling newspaper #FakeNews find us more credible. As journalists, we pay close attention to what we’re covering, know more than we’re able to write in most cases, and know how issues link together into a broader picture. In many cases we have something to add.

In having the discussion this way, I think it takes some of the heat out of the conversation. I see people saying all the time that any opinion will make half of everyone mad, but the way the election column has always been written isn’t meant to put anyone on the defensive. I know many of my readers will vote differently than I will, and may disagree with what I say in the column. But all I’m asking of them is to respect my opinion. I tend to back away from the word “should” in most cases in life, and that’s one of the reasons I really gravitate toward sharing my opinions but not telling others how to vote. The only thing people should do is vote.

Finally, the column is expression, and that’s rewarding in and of itself. I like the way we do it here, where it’s personal. Voting is personal.

I hope that if you are able, you do so tomorrow.

Here’s the column.

Rotary

This week I was installed as a member of the Odessa Rotary Club, yet another organization I grew up with due to my family's involvement.

Granny was a charter member of the club, and always bragged that it was the first Rotary International club to be chartered with female members. 

Once upon a time, Odessa had a large restaurant called Countryside, which served all sorts of country style dinners, but had a fried chicken lunch buffet that was to die for. When I was in high school and working at the paper over the summers, Granny started taking me to Rotary with her, where I was jokingly referred to as the junior member. I was, of course, in my mind there to eat fried chicken, mashed potatoes, chicken noodle soup and rolls with apple butter, but I couldn't help but pay attention. It really stuck out to me that the organization's motto — Service Above Self — was something Granny had been teaching me in some way or another my entire life.

I've been around the edges of what Rotary does for the past several years, including walking some other new members through what the organization is, but after Granny died several members reached out to have me start coming to meetings. It's yet another room to be the youngest in, but I'm excited to help the club with its projects in the Odessa area. I got a certain look from Judy Stiles, the club president, when enthusiasm was mentioned in the installation, so I think they know what they're in for. 

Show Me 2018

Back in February, I got an email from one of my favorite people with an odd request. Kristie Williams, our event coordinator at the Missouri Press Association, had seen what can only be described as "the kids' table:" me, my friend Mary, who owns the Jackson County Advocate, and my friend Ethan, who is the editor of the Bowling Green Times. Emailing all of us, she asked if we would provide fresh legs to the Show Me Press Association board.

While Kristie has known me forever and saw me at countless Show Me meetings over the years with my family, she didn't know exactly how much Show Me Press was a family affair. Years ago, the regional press associations for central and northeastern Missouri were floundering. My great-grandfather, Les Simpson, and one of his friends got together — why not combine them? 

There's no way to describe something that stretches from Kansas City to Hannibal, so it was given the name Show Me. When I told Granny about Kristie's email back in February, she immediately jumped in to make sure I knew the story (of course I knew the story). But we're proud of our family projects, and while Show Me would be important regardless, the family tie makes it personal. Because it's personal, we have to put in the work to make sure it succeeds. There's no other option. 

And well, next year I'll be its president.

Show Me has struggled to bring attendees to that annual meeting in recent years, so one of my jobs for next year will be to figure out why. I have a few hypotheses, but I'm setting a goal to contact all members and find out the real reasons. 

To my childhood it was a weekend-long summer trip to the Lake of the Ozarks where my cousins and I ran loose on a familiar hotel property, but as I'm older now, it's a day of meetings (in a different hotel) that are a chance to connect, hold workshops and share ideas. 

This year, the board (filled out by two old hats at the Show Me Board, Buck and Sandy, who were glad for the relief to show up) put together a program that included two workshops by my first editor at the Columbia Missourian, Scott Swafford, and a forum for the Republican candidates for state auditor. 

Scott taught two workshops, one on news writing — a new workshop subject for him, although it certainly didn't seem like it — and one on local election coverage, which is his particular expertise. 

Catching up with Scott is always fun.

I was on the panel for the auditor candidates. The main topic I wanted to to know about was their views on the accessibility of the services of the auditor's office to smaller communities. Small government bodies — small cities, fire districts, road districts, some schools — don't always have the money to have a financial professional on staff, so their annual independent audits are the only in depth look at their finances. But that doesn't catch everything, and it doesn't catch performance.  Petitioned audits are so expensive for small cities that they're seen as the absoute last resort, so by the time the state auditor is brought in, the problem is almost always out of control. If there were oversight earlier, communities could save both money and, well, the headache of all the drama. 

The answers I got mostly told me that some of the candidates were unfamiliar with small communities, not understanding that independent audits are required, and that their responses were not tied down to practicality — no matter how much government waste your clear up, the state auditor's office isn't going to be able to audit everyone all the time. 

I also asked about what programs they would like to see audited, which got both typical (medicaid) and interesting (the state social services and public safety departments) responses, and what specific changes they would make in the office compared to the current auditor, Nicole Galloway, a Democrat. 

On the panel with Scott Swafford and Carol Stark, Missouri Press Association president.

I'm going to go ahead and mention that, in what felt bizarre for an auditor's race, David Wasinger apparently took a page out of Eric Greitens' 2016 Missouri Press Association debate playbook, and instead of answering the questions that were asked, spent all of his time each time railing against the fact that Nicole Galloway "is a liberal Democrat" or "career politicians." In a personal interview setting, I would have cut him off and pressed my question. Honestly, I think evading questions — especially questions that aren't even challenging your own beliefs or policies — that way is rude, not only to the interviewer, but to the constituents who don't get to know the answer. Another odd, tone deaf moment was when the Saundra McDowell, the only woman running for the office, said something that might have been a joke (it came out a little flat to be taken as one) where she seemed to state that she was a better mom than Nicole Galloway because she has more kids.

Here's a story from the The Jefferson City News-Tribune (which features a GREAT shot of the back of my head) about the forum. I know a few other papers are holding on to the audio/notes to write closer to the primary, while others just wanted to hear what was said to inform their future coverage. 

I really enjoyed being on the panel — as a few people pointed out, I'm usually asking questions when we have politicians in, anyway. I think Show Me is going to use this as a model for future packed primaries, because it went well. 

And yes, after the day's schedule was over, the board met and I ended up as president for 2019. Or, like I said when my uncle, John, was Show-Me President when I was in middle school (and I put in my Twitter bio), the Press-ident. 

A great year for The Growler

When we were asked to list our journalism experience at Summer Welcome at Mizzou before my freshman year, I was immediately intimidated by the lists from my future classmates. They'd been editors of student newspapers with dozens on their staff, attended journalism magnet schools, attended national high school journalism conferences. It was a semi-ridiculous display of teenage ego, with everyone around the circle trying to outdo the person who came before. I omitted any information about the size of our school newspaper and leaned on my experience with my column and attending state and national conferences, resulting in one of the girls I had been terrified later telling me that I had terrified her. We all laughed about it by the time we were sophomores. But, it stuck in my head as an example of what kids from Odessa are competing against. 

So, when I graduated, I set out to help my former high school journalism advisor, Kris Poisal, improve The Growler. Luckily, Poisal is the best sport in the world, and bought into the goal even though it has meant changing how she's taught the class for years.

Because Odessa is a rural school, The Growler's resources are much more limited than the large schools my peers had graduated from. We're lucky it's still going, as some local schools have stopped offering journalism classes among budget cuts and falling student interest. A language arts oriented elective can get lost in the shuffle when credit requirements cut certain paths, especially since so many pack their lower years now to make room for large numbers of dual credit college classes as seniors. But journalism education is important, not only for the few kids who will pursue journalism as a career, but to build skills for all students in writing functionally, seeking credible information and general media literacy. 

Again, because Odessa is a small school, Poisal is foremost an English teacher. A sainted English teacher, by the way, because she primarily works with freshmen. She didn't come to the school with any prior journalism training, but Granny took her under her wing, and even years later when I started coming up with ideas, she was ready to listen. 

It took a few years to really start seeing the difference, but the 2018 Growler is almost unrecognizable from the 2008 Growler.

In addition to changes we've put into the process, part of that change comes from the students in the school. This year students organized a day of reflection on gun violence and suicide and violence, heavy and timely topics. As one of the organizers told me in her summa cum laude interview, she saw it as a chance for students to talk about elephants in the room. 

The superintendent's office called to see if I wanted to cover the day, but my gut told me it would be better to come from the students, and that the Growler kids were ready. We had an issue all but put together, but I called Poisal, and we stuck a few kids on the story. It turned out to be my favorite story the Growler has ever done. 

My next big goal is to get students to read The Growler. Their classmates are doing a great job covering the high school and other district buildings, but the only way forward is if we start building up a readership among students in the district in addition to those who read it when it's printed in The Odessan. Building up that cycle of relevancy won't come overnight, but I think we'll get there.

Kinly Grubb, the Growler editor for the past two years, had to learn how to lay out a jump for the Mission Possible story. It broke our norms in a lot of great ways.

For the past two years, Kinly Grubb has been the Growler editor. When she was a sophomore and a member of the Growler staff, we were still struggling to get kids to buy into the vision for a better Growler, but Kinly (who, because I wasn't quite confident in my ability to tell her from her sisters Kylin and Kloee, I was calling "Middle Grubb") immediately bought in. She comes from the most athletic family in town, and when listening to my pep talk about how every program Odessa kids put effort into succeeds, she kept nodding, focused. It turned out that she was a great writer, too, so when the time came I decided I wanted her as editor even though we usually didn't take athletes because of their schedules. 

She's put a lot of work in these past two years, coming in during school and even late at night. Kinly likes journalism, and has added it as a minor, but her main goal is still to work for the FBI. It takes a special kind of kid to go headfirst into the two career paths most maligned by the President of the United States.

I've had a lot of fun teaching Kinly, so I decided to send her out with one last lesson. As those who attended Granny's funeral heard, someone (me) had taken to being pretty rough on the editorial students from the Missouri School of Journalism. Well, the professor in charge of that program retired last year, and sadly it looks like the program retired with him (I could, and probably will, write another post solely about the importance of teaching editorial writing). I must have missed the program a lot, because I decided to make Kinly write the graduation editorial for The Odessan. I put her through several drafts to make sure she was saying what she wanted to say and not what she felt expected to say, and to make it something meaningful to her class. I'm really proud of what she came up with. 

Based on her reaction when she opened the paper today, I think she is, too.

An editor reading her first editorial.

The hardest paper, the hardest blog post

Well friends, things have been tough lately.

As almost everyone coming across this knows, my Granny died last month.

She was 85, and while she had slowed down in the past two years, she had never truly retired. She was very proud of that, and out of all her accomplishments, it's what she'd most want us to say about her. Her obituary is here. 

Her death was actually the week after one of our friends, Kirk Powell, whose obituary is here. I am obligated by years of telling him that I would tell him so to point out for years I have been telling him he didn't need to drive. If you knew Kirk, you'd know that I'm not only allowed to make that joke, it's expected of me, because Kirk's favorite jokes were the ones you absolutely shouldn't say.

Kirk had been brought into the family fold when he bought my great-grandfather's paper, The Holden Progress. He had the paper in Pleasant Hill until a few years ago, which is the role I knew him in for years, as well as, again, the world's corniest jokester, part of the inseparable Kirk-and-Jan duo who were always at football games and press meetings. After Jan died, Kirk was always with us at press meetings, because he and Granny were walking at the same pace. I guess we didn't realize just how much they really were going at the same pace. 

Back in January, at Granny's 85th birthday party.

Granny, of course, was my first journalism teacher, mentor and boss, in addition to being my Granny and really my best friend. Some of my favorite memories are when she would pick me up from high school (the enabler behind my long years without a driver's license) and take me to Sonic while we listened to Mizzou sports radio... a departure from her usual NPR. When Mizzou was deep into the NCAA tournament one year I remember we sat in the parking lot of the office for more than half an hour listening to Mike Anderson. 

I meant it when I said at the funeral that Granny and I had been a team since I came home from college. My best work was done when she was still in the office to handle the day-to-day stuff and look over my work and ask, as we always teased her about from her appearance in the Missouri Press Association documentary: "is that really necessary?" She also had an encyclopedic knowledge of everything that happened since she bought the paper in 1960, down to the month. We went to almost all meetings and events together for years, and handled a lot of issues. 

As with anything tongue-in-cheek that ends up on our front page, my dad did the headline.

It's been an adjustment, over time, mostly when Granny had to start staying at home in early 2017. It wasn't easy for her to be away from the action, and she demanded first daily, then weekly reports of not just every bit of news (including full retelling of meetings on Wednesday afternoons, two hours before the paper got back and she could read it herself) but also everything else I knew about our friends and our friends' friends. She loved people, and there is a whole category of things I would report to her, like someone's kid's new interest or a story about their pet. 

So, I'm flying without my encyclopedia, and without my "am I/is this right?" wisdom check. That came into play immediately, because as she was ailing I was juggling a few topics I was unfamiliar with. We were, of course, headed to print the day she died... which meant that my dad called her out in the headline of the story about her death for missing a deadline for the first time ever.

Clayton with Pam Schuchner, our ad designer, leaning over my dad's computer. When Clayton told me he was coming back for the funeral and volunteered to help with the paper, I told him to brush up on his CS2.

The paper looked particularly good that week, because we had help.

One of Granny's longstanding traditions was the intern program. Interns have gone on to impressive careers all over the world. I mean that literally, partially because Clayton Crabtree is design desk manager at the Times of London. He made it back for the funeral, and volunteered to help us out with laying out the paper. 

Clayton usually gets a lot of teasing when he's in the office, because he's come a long way from the kid who rode his bicycle to work and had a lot of trouble spelling (though I'm pretty sure the spelling difficulties have just been masked by the excuse of British vs. American English). I was in middle school while Clayton was the intern, and spent a lot of my time tormenting him (to the point of throwing tennis balls!). It was really nice to have him back in town and part of the team.

We also put in a page of old photos that week, including some great pictures of her attending Mizzou games. 

For the next week, we asked members of the community to submit their memories and remembrances of Granny, which we published alongside the card of thanks from the family. 

We've been very aware that we can't be selfish — losing Granny has been a loss for the whole community. 

It's a big change for us, but like my dad put in the main story, our goal is for everything to be pretty much the same. We've been very, very grateful for the care our friends have shown us. 

That's a lot of cats (The Voting Guide blog post)

My first beat at the Columbia Missourian was government, and even though I covered zoning instead of elections, Scott Swafford still hammered one thing into our brains: interview local candidates, interview each and every one of them, and write profiles. He turned that mandate into an RJI project and a presentation that those of us who saw it at a Missouri Press Association meeting still talk about (only slightly because it has a great name).

Of course, it's a lot easier for the Missourian to give an in-depth profile of each candidate; the paper publishes first online, without the space constraints of paper, and several reporters each semester are assigned to government alone. Meanwhile, back at The Odessan, where overall we have a pretty large staff compared to similar papers, when it comes to elections I'm a one woman band.

Still, in 2014 when I found myself news editor and tasked with the first municipal election I had ever seen at this level, I told Granny I didn't want to just give out questionnaires like Bud did, they'd just give formulaic answers. I wanted to interview the candidates. And she said OK. 

That was the first year of the Voting Guide series. That year, anchored by mayor races in both Odessa and Oak Grove and a notable fire board race in Odessa, I tested out a system that I now have down to an art. Letters go out in January, candidates are asked to schedule an interview in February, the ones in Odessa will actually do that but most will schedule in March. The last three weeks of March, we run profiles. I'll admit that the first year I ran some of the profiles as Q and As, but since then they've been stories. It means a lot of additional stories a week; the week I covered all three school boards, it was three extra stories in the Focus on Oak Grove and five in The Odessan, as well as the tax issue story I did for The Odessan that week. 

Another Swaffordism is that journalism is herding cats. With seven cities (Odessa, Oak Grove, Wellington, Napoleon, Bates City, Lake Lafayette and Mayview), three fire boards (Odessa, Sni Valley and Wellington-Napoleon) and three school districts (Odessa, Oak Grove and Wellington-Napoleon), that's a lot of cats. Of course, we don't get every candidate, but I push to get every candidate in a contested race (something we've been very successful with) and every new member of a board (this year got every new member of a board except one, whose work schedule didn't make him available, but will be interviewed later). 

Voting Guide issues hanging on our page board at The Odessan. That's a lot of content!

As I wrote in my column last week, I appreciate every candidate who participates, but particularly the ones without opposition. It takes time to schedule an interview, and not to max out the use of Swaffordisms in one blog post, it can be pretty uncomfortable for people to have journalism done to them. However, these interviews let people get a little more insight and personal perception into the boards that make up local government. It's also a good reminder of who these people are, or even what the people you know do in the community. As I try to remind the community every tine there is a controversial issue, boards are made of people. The monolithic idea of government is wrong at all levels, but particularly on the local level. 

Of course, there aren't many races for local offices these days, which is a shame. The shining example of productive contested elections is the Wellington-Napoleon school district, a 1A school north of Odessa. The district frequently has races, and the discussions are so positive many will run multiple times if at first they do not succeed. 

School board races are fun to cover, because they're about something I really care about. My favorite question I ask is one hard to work into the profile naturally. To break candidates out of the cut-cut-cut attitudes imposed by years of state funding shortages, I ask them to abandon practical concerns like funding, facilities, etc., and name one program they would like the school to offer. I think it reminds district residents what's possible, but also shows where a candidate's priorities fall. It's produced a lot of great answers over the years, from real possibilities for the near future like ROTC programs and bringing back driver's education to more zany but enjoyable answers, like a bobsled team at, you guessed it, 1A Wellington-Napoleon. 

So, here's to another election down. And if you're reading this and thinking, wait, there's an election tomorrow? go grab a paper. Every voter in our coverage area has at least one taxing issue on the ballot tomorrow: two for the City of Odessa, one for Lafayette County, one for the Sni-Valley Fire Protection District. This week's papers have the Sni Valley question, and The Odessan can direct you on which back-issue you need to learn more about the other issues or races (if you're looking for part of the Voting Guide not in this week's Focus, it was in last week's). Back issues can be picked up at The Odessan or Focus on Oak Grove offices, and cost $1.50. And, yet another thing I learned from Scott, you can take newspapers and other written materials with you as you vote, so you can make sure you're making the decision you feel is right. 

The tornado anniversary

So, earlier this week was the anniversary of the March 6, 2017 tornado. Our reporter in Oak Grove, Ruth Ann Hafner, put together a wonderful anniversary section for us. Her own place in this story is kind of remarkable. 

Tornadoes have been my lifelong worst fear, but I never thought I'd actually see anything like what I saw the week of the storm: our friends and neighbors, throughout our coverage area, digging out and cleaning up, several friends losing their homes.

The storm hit on our deadline, so although we spent months telling the stories about those fast, hard days last March, I've never had a chance to really tell the whole story of what it was like for us, getting the paper out and trying to wrap our heads around what had happened. So, this is my chance.

While out seeing/photographing the damage Tuesday, I came across these two boys cleaning up damage from one of the most strikingly damaged homes. They lived around the corner, and their father had brought them to help out because their home was undamaged. They told me they thought it was "the least they could do." Thinking of a Mr. Rodgers quote, I titled the picture "The Helpers." 

The day of the storm, I wasn't thinking about the weather. It was Monday, and I'd returned late the night before from the True/False film festival in Columbia. I went to Oak Grove that night for the Board of Aldermen meeting, where it was mentioned that Mark Sherwood, the Emergency Management Director, was in the "bunker" instead of at the meeting, watching the weather. I didn't think much of it. I went over to my sister's house after the meeting for dinner and to tell her about the weekend; it was windy and I knew a storm was coming, so I took the flag down from the front of the house and handed it to my confused brother-in-law when he answered the door.

We ate and talked, and then when the wind really picked up we started to consider whether I would try to outdrive the storm or wait it was there. We turned on the TV, looking for information. We probably tried three channels before one said the storm was half an hour away. Then the sirens went off.

The sirens in Oak Grove aren't like any I've heard anywhere else; rather than an air raid siren, they're several different tones, and although you can't discernibly hear it inside, they allow for the emergency management director to speak out over the loudspeaker. Don and I went outside as Hallie encouraged me to try to beat it back to Odessa, but we immediately knew something was off. The wind was nothing I had experienced before: it felt like it was rising, going up, so that even though the clouds were low it felt like we were under a high dome. I began to listen to the speaker, and heard that the storm was much closer than they said on the news. We agreed I wasn't going anywhere, and because at the time I had the newest car in the entire family and my sister drives a tin can, we switched the cars out so I was in the garage. Then, in uncharacteristic caution for my sister, we grabbed the kitten and went to the basement. 

Back in the house, we got a call from my mom. I'm at Hallie and Don's. But it wasn't just asking where we were; one of the stations had said there was a tornado on the ground in Grain Valley. We didn't just need to be in the split level basement, we needed to be in the sub-basement. 

I forgot about this picture Don took in the basement as we all joked about the storm on Facebook. Note Josey the Kitten in Hallie's arms. I honestly can't remember why I had a fire starter.

The idea of a tornado on the ground in Grain Valley was weird — usually they're to the south. But in my head, a tornado on the ground was like the EF-0 tornado that had come through in 2014: a few trees down, roof damage, maybe a little bit of structural damage. Don asked me what work would be like for me the next day, and I shrugged, saying it might be changing. 

The power went out, so we entertained Josey the kitten with our phones, and talked, sitting on folding chairs in the unfinished sub-basement. Hallie disputes this, but at one point Don and I heard a noise and looked at each other. It was louder and deeper than a normal gust of wind, and had almost a churning quality to it. We only heard it for a second, then it was gone.

We stayed in the basement for a long time, hoping for the power to come back on. I think we charged the phones a little in the cars, but mine was trapped in the garage and we couldn't get the release to let it go. A steady parade of cars was going around Hallie and Don's neighborhood, which doesn't usually see traffic. 

Somewhere around this time, I came across a Tweet from one of the Kansas City news stations showing that a duplex had been destroyed in Oak Grove. I was shocked, and a little confused. I couldn't find any more information, and wasn't going to bother first responders as they dealt with the problem at night; the beauty of a weekly deadline was that it could wait until morning. So I got enough charge on my phone to last me the night, changed my shoes into some tennis shoes I luckily had in my trunk and set out to drive my sister's tin can car home.

That drive is going to be vivid in my memory forever. I was finally forced to consider the scope of the problem when I looked left down Broadway and saw flashing lights everywhere. The entire town was out of power, and as I got on the interstate, it was empty, even though it was only 10 p.m. Along the highway, everything was dark, through Oak Grove, Bates City and on to Odessa. Businesses were dark, billboards were dark. I passed one business that was clearly on a generator, the brightest thing around. Once I got into Odessa, the Bank of Odessa was lit up as well, blindingly white against the dark town. My parents didn't know much, only that the tornado had hit Oak Grove.

The not so beautiful aspect of a weekly deadline is, it's there. And for the Focus on Oak Grove, it's Tuesday night, and the one for The Odessan follows on Wednesday at noon. I knew going to bed that night that whatever happened, I had to have it early, and the rest of what I needed to get done would have to get done around it.

Tuesday morning I woke up early and got ready quickly, unable to see much to worry about my appearance in the dark. The news started making its way to me: at least one neighborhood in Oak Grove was essentially gone. 

I started in Odessa, checking in with city officials. A house had been knocked down, a giant tree was in another, a hundred people had gone to the wrong church for shelter and that church had been damaged but everyone was fine but it was still not great. The electric and water plants had taken a direct hit, and the intricacies of who supplies our power (KCPL) through what service (MPUA) meant that while they had been working all night, there still wasn't power. Without power, the city couldn't treat water, but hopefully that wouldn't become a problem. With nothing else to do, one of our employees grabbed a camera and started taking pictures. I got a call from Hallie: they had power. So I started up the tin can and headed back to Oak Grove.

I charged my phone and laptop in their house, it became my office for the morning. The first person I got ahold of was the Sni Valley fire chief, Carl Scarborough, who walked me through what they knew about the damage: hundreds of homes in the fire district, which includes Oak Grove, Bates City and the rural area in between, were destroyed. There were injuries, but nothing life threatening. Though he had been talking to news stations all morning, I think I was the first to ask for his personal narrative of the storm. He's the only person I've spoken to since who claims to have seen it, as he drove parallel to it on the highway as he returned from a child in his family's birthday party, reaching the fire station just as it took out the power.

Hallie and Don arrived back from breakfast (school had obviously been cancelled in both Oak Grove and Odessa, where Don teaches), bringing me a mocha that kept me going. After finishing it I went on to City Hall. In the driveway, back in my own car, I got a call on my cell phone. Congressman Emanuel Cleaver would be coming to both towns the next day. I said I'd likely only make the Odessa stop, because first I'd have to get past our deadline. 

I had never seen the Oak Grove City Hall so busy, and what struck me immediately is that people I have only seen in suits were dressed down. Younger aldermen were out in the hallways, having been out to help. Already in the zone for the better part of the morning,  I started asking questions, but one of my go-tos, usually on the ball with everything was absolutely dazed. I gave her a hug, and it started to become real to me: their hometown was wrecked. 

I instead started asking Tim Mathes, the assistant city administrator, questions, and he immediately asked if I'd seen it yet. I said I hadn't, I had planned to ask the police to escort me after I left City Hall. He told me to go with him, and so I set out to see the damage.

Hallie and Don's neighborhood is in the pink box, the arrow is the general line of the storm.

This wasn't the first time Tim had been my Oak Grove tour guide. When I first started covering Oak Grove in 2014, I knew nothing, and after asking what must have been a particularly dumb string of questions about Frick Park when the new water tower was being built, Tim offered to drive me around to show me the construction site, and when he did he showed me the other park and other aspects of orienting myself. So he went from introducing me to Oak Grove to introducing me to its wreckage.

Two neighborhoods were really hit the hardest by the storm, south of the Civic Center where I had been for the Board of Aldermen meeting the night before. The neighborhood to the West of Broadway was where the worst of the damage was, residents weren't allowed back into that area Tuesday. I took pictures of the East side, and couldn't imagine how the damage could be worse.  Only the pictures can really explain this part of the story. 

One of the hardest parts about covering the tornado was knowing that we had friends affected. As we drove through the neighborhood, Tim pointed out the Schnieders' house, part of its top story ripped off. It didn't seem real. 

I went on to try to see if I could find damage in Bates City, but every time I got close I came across a road block and a West Central Electric truck. My mom was calling periodically to ask if I'd heard anything on the electrical situation, and I hadn't. She sent me to buy backup equipment in case we needed to haul our ancient iMacs to the very small and not at all set up for this Focus office and put the papers together there; the delicacy of the server made this a particularly stressful situation. Finally, somewhere around Golden Belt, I got the call from my dad: power's back on, time to come back in.

Until a few years ago, everyone who got the Focus on Oak Grove got a copy of The Odessan, too. Splitting the papers had been a bit of a business ordeal. Because the papers were separated, the towns were so close together and I didn't really have time to write two stories. 

While I had been at City Hall, they had learned that Missouri Governor Eric Greitens would be going to Oak Grove, but no one knew when. Well, it was that afternoon, and rather than contacting us, we were sent a few well-lit pictures of the Governor walking with the mayor and fire chief. He is not believed to have ever contacted the City of Odessa.

That was a problem, because even though the direct human toll was much less and the power was back on, a crisis was boiling. Though the power came back on, the equipment at the water department did not. Some of the machinery had been damaged, keeping the city from being able to pump treated water into the system. The city issued a boil advisory. What I learned is that the difference between a boil advisory and a boil order is the difference between a tornado watch and a tornado warning: the advisory means it isn't here yet, but be careful because it might get there. 

The power had come back on around 4 p.m., the rest of the evening is a blur of writing, going through photos and designing pages until the time we got the paper "out," or sent to our printers around 10 p.m.. I know I had been trying to contact Adam Couch, Odessa's mayor, most of the day. I went back to my car and got inside just as he pulled up beside me. I groaned, cut the power and barely spoke as I gestured for him to come join me back in the office. This was before I took over Granny's office but after the power had permanently gone out in my own office, so we sat at the conference table. It was half reporting, half therapy session. The biggest concern was the water, and how close the city was coming to running out. Adam's a firefighter, so he was particularly worried with what would happen if there was a fire. I got home probably somewhere between 11 and midnight. It had been a long, difficult Tuesday, but not my longest.

Nici, Adam, and Congressman Cleaver. Adam later told me that none of us should have been worried about our appearance after a day of water conservation, because he "looked like a traffic cone" (he's a firefighter EMT)

I've designed the Front and Second front pages of The Odessan for a few years now, but I had to leave the front to my dad the next day, as I had to hurry over to City Hall, where Congressman Cleaver was meeting with city officials. He offered to contact Kansas City about trucking water to the city, but Nici Wilson, our city administrator, had some better news to share: the city believed an emergency fix for the water system would be in place that day. Congressman Cleaver shared some information on why he believed (correctly, it turned out) that the storm would not end up qualifying for FEMA assistance due to requirements that it cause so much damage to uninsured property. Then we went to the water department to see some of the damage.

Congressman Cleaver talks to Darrin Lamb, water superintendent, inside the water plant.

The day went on like that, with an emergency meeting of the Board of Aldermen later in the afternoon to declare a state of emergency in the city. Finally, sometime late in the afternoon, I got to go home and do what I do on a typical Wednesday afternoon: sleep. It was only Wednesday, but it felt like a different lifetime than the weekend before. But it wasn't quite over. 

Thursday I got to hold my crazy Tuesday in my hands: both of our newspapers finished and printed. But that afternoon I got a strange call.

"We definitely had a tornado out here in Mayview," a man told me. "Come out and see." 

Getting the Focus on Oak Grove out by our Tuesday night deadline was no small accomplishment.

The official maps had been a mess to start out with: despite contrary opinions and a definite line of damage in Odessa, the storm had initially been classified as straightline winds in town. But we had assumed, incorrectly, that we were the last of the damage. I got in my car and drove to the eastern edge of our coverage area, rural Mayview, 10 miles from Odessa and 20 from where the storm started in Oak Grove. Sure enough, the man was correct: they definitely had a tornado.

Two facing properties were damaged at odd angles, not as though wind had come in at one direction. A path of damage was visible up the hill to another local farm, with metal cleared from the road and placed in piles. Several buildings on both of the facing properties had fallen, and curtains were sucked out of a closed window on one of the houses. I wondered why I hadn't heard anything about the storm in Mayview, and asked the man if he had contacted the National Weather Service.

"Why, do you think I should?"
"Well, it'll probably help with your insurance."

Well, he did, and the storm in Mayview was classified as an EF-1. Odessa's storm was also reclassified, an EF-1 coming up the hill toward the utility plants and then an EF-0 coming down the other side. Comparing it with accounts of damages to churches, it appears to be the same path that a tornado took through town in the late 1800s, and one of the streets in Odessa hardest hit was also heavily impacted by the 2014 storm. 

Obviously, we had a lot of fallout to cover as our entire coverage area tried to recover from all this damage. But that's where Ruth Ann comes in. She was set to start with us as a reporter for the Focus in the back half of the week, and instead of running for the hills as fast as she could, she immediately dug in and has done a wonderful job covering Oak Grove's recovery. She also rolled up her sleeves and signed up to serve on committees herself, and I know the Oak Grove community is grateful. In Odessa I also had some recent help, as our newest employee, Jordan Wright, wrote a really nice piece about restoration to the stained glass windows at the Methodist Church that were damaged in the storm.

Everytime someone in Oak Grove mentions the tornado, they mention how lucky we all were: any small detail off and it could have been much, much worse (it was only 10 miles per hour less than an EF-4 classification, after all). Well, I'm lucky were able to hold it all together and get our papers out, and continue to cover what became, in just a few minutes on a Monday night, the biggest story of 2017. As we reenter tornado season, listen to me: when the sirens go off, go to the basement. 

FFA Week

Last week we published our other special section in February, the FFA section.

As if writing a bridal guide for my first big project as news editor back in 2014 hadn't been enough, I had to turn around and write about FFA.

I was tied for most-indexed in the yearbook my senior year of high school, mostly because I was in almost every club. There were even some activities that people thought I was in but I wasn't, I just had so many friends in them I was basically an honorary member. But FFA seemed like an entirely different planet when I was in high school. That's unusual, because all the Odessa students I've interviewed have been involved in several of the organizations I was a part of. But, my class wasn't exactly typical on any front, so I've just come to accept it. 

Elizabeth Fahrmeier with one of her bottle lambs.

It's been an interesting project over the last several years to learn about FFA, an organization that has set a lot of students in the area up for successful careers (I'm still kind of in awe of Ben Niendick's national award winning business, which I featured back in 2016). Of course, it hasn't come without stumbles; while interviewing Abby and Alli Bertz last year I was patiently explained that what they were talking about was a verb, to farrow pigs, not a noun, Pharaoh pigs. 

This year we featured Elizabeth Fahrmeier, the Wellington-Napoleon chapter president. Of course I was probably too excited to see her animals, as she raises sheep (the lamb nibbled my finger and I was delighted). Like many of our top FFA students in the area each year, Elizabeth'll be heading to Mizzou next fall. 

What I've really learned over the years of doing the FFA section is that despite being Odessa's most notorious city girl, I have more in common with our featured future farmers (or agribusiness execs, or agribusiness advertising designers — FFA is multifaceted) than I expected. I'm a fifth-generation journalist, just like they're several generations into farming, so I know what it's like to grow up in a career and follow a path your family has created. We all also love rural Missouri a whole lot. 

That time of year again

This week is our annual bridal section, Wedding Bells. 

This year, our three brides happen to be friends of mine: Jordan Fairfield from Odessa, Hollis Schnieders from Oak Grove, and Cailey Dowell with strong connections to Wellington. I've known Jordan, one of my sister's best friends, and Cailey, the daughter of one of my mom's friends, since before I can remember. When Hollis and I were seniors (she in Oak Grove, me in Odessa), she was the intern at the Focus and I was the intern at The Odessan. We then ended up at Mizzou together.

Wedding Bells is in this week's issue of both The Odessan and Focus on Oak Grove.

Before I became news editor, I had no idea we even had a bridal section. It was my first big project after ending up in the role, and it felt like the worst possible fit: I've spent my life as a workaholic, so I've still never seriously dated or felt like I was approaching some big wedding. I was also freshly 23 years old at the time, so I had yet to be through a wedding for any of my friends. My first few years, I got a lot of coaching from my sister, Hallie, who wants to be a wedding planner.

Hallie's bridal party: Jordan's second to left, I'm third to left.  Hallie's going to split duties as matron of honor at Jordan's wedding this fall. Molly McGraw, next to Hallie and one of her maids of honor, will be maid of honor.

Well, as I've documented in my column, my distance from the wedding scene changed drastically when Hallie got married. Hallie had two maids of honor (who weren't me), and yet I ended up being the one she bounced most of her decisions off. Don't worry, this didn't fundamentally change my character; I was still branded a few not-nice names for my lack of sentimentality around various aspects of the ceremony. 

That said, it has made it easier for me to talk to the brides, not that I needed any help this year. There are perks to being old enough now to know the girls getting married in the area.  Also, this was my fifth bridal section, so hopefully just doing it so many times means I'm getting better.

You have to know us well to know just how little patience Hallie has for me in this picture.

What I've learned is that weddings are serious business, so the stakes of making sure a wedding goes well are much higher than I had thought. But what's rewarding is to go beyond the basic planning aspects and tie the whole thing into the story of this stage of their lives. 

My point is, the bridal section is fun now. It was great to catch up with Hollis, who got engaged in Thailand. I couldn't help but smile as Cailey told me all the reasons she absolutely did not think she was getting engaged, from being told that it would have to wait to having gone through her fiance's bags. I knew most of Jordan's story already, but it was fun to put Dustin in the hot seat to ask him what, exactly, it is he likes about her. 

I'm excited for all three of my friends, and excited that I get to tell their stories for everyone to read!

Day at the Capitol 2018

Thursday was Day at the Capitol with my favorite organization, Missouri Press Association.

With some of my Mo Press faves: Mary Wilson (Grandview), me, Kara and Jacob Brower (Monett and Cassville)

I only started going to Day at the Capitol last year, which feels like a waste. Even though the two years were very different, both have been great experiences.

This year we were tasked with doing a bit more for ourselves than just catching up with our legislators, as the trend of bills affecting public notices still hasn't tapered off. 

If you're unfamiliar, public notices (or "legals") are official notices that have special requirements on the number of newspapers they have to be posted in. They include several items from foreclosures to election postings, and having them in newspapers means 1. they're somewhere visible and accessible to everyone, including those without internet access 2. they're handled by a third party (the newspaper) which doesn't have a bias on the issue 3. there's a historical record of the posting. These notices are also a large part of how small newspapers are able to keep going in hard economic times when people advertise less, allowing us to continue to do the work we do to keep our communities informed and employ our staff. 

So, we were sent out to defend ourselves, but due to the excitement of live government at work, not all of us got very far. The Senate was in a filibuster that had lasted all night. 

Inside the mansion. I have more photos on a highlighted Instagram story. My account name is HannahSpaar. 

I first went to the office of Oak Grove's new senator, Mike Cierpiot, but he was on the floor. I headed to my own senator's office, that of Denny Hoskins, and was told he was still meeting with constituents. An aide led me to a lounge off the Senate floor, where I was able to see the filibuster in action. The subject was allegedly utility rates, but the discussion I overheard had to deal with DACA, the failures of the University of Missouri System and the over-conservative nature of Claire McCaskill. Yes, these were supposedly democrats. 

Well, it turned out that Denny had slipped the staff, likely to take a shower and/or attempt a nap. I couldn't really blame him.

We had a few more items on our schedule inside the Capitol, including a talk with Eric Schmitt, the state treasurer. But as he knew, the next thing on our agenda was lunch, and not just any lunch: unlike last year, we were headed to the Governor's Mansion.

Since last year we went to the governor's office for the press conference, this was my first time in the mansion, which is beautiful. 

The meal was great, and then it was time for the conference. It got off to an interesting start, as Eric Greitens, governor, didn't hide the fact that he resented being asked questions about his admitted affair and alleged behavior related to it. 

But the conference continued. I happened to have the last question of the conference, which I chose to use for clarifying talk of "school choice" (vouchers), and how Greitens intends to protect high-performing rural districts from the impact of voucher programs. You can my full question and hear his answer in the accompanying audio file.

I really can't say anything other than it's a well-written answer to a completely different question. Nowhere in this answer does he actually address school choice, which is a priority of his, though he never seems to address it head-on and instead resorts to behind-the-scenes actions that I have yet to meet anyone who supports. 

The continued success of our school districts is the most important state-level issue for the communities I cover. I wish I had been able to bring home a straight answer.

Birthday bashes

Well, I'm 27!

Granny's birthday is January 24 (or 23, or 25, or 26, depending on who you ask...) and mine's January 28th.

I've been remiss; January has been a busy month that ended with a week of celebrations that kept me busy. All in one week I had the Chamber of Commerce award dinner, Granny's 85th birthday party and celebrations for my own 27th birthday.

Granny's party was a fundraiser for her Rotary scholarship, and raised at least $4,000, which is fantastic. In high school I worked at the office after school and in the summers, and spent every Thursday as Granny's guest at Rotary (mainly so I could eat Countryside), so I'm pretty familiar with the good Rotary does in our community. Granny's Rotary scholarship goes to a graduate of Odessa High School every year, so it was a great cause in addition to getting to see so many of our friends. 

TFW Granny tells everyone about how now that you work out of her office you've taken down the family photos and replaced them with your whiteboards. 

Grandkids with Granny: Me, Blanton, Don (Hallie's husband) and Hallie. My cousin Ellen, her husband Jaremy and their son, Titus, came as well but had to leave early — Titus isn't quite 1 and has an early bedtime. 

My sister, Hallie, came through with the balloons! 

Granny's big party was tons of fun — but I'd scheduled my own birthday party for the next night. I had a few friends come to a party at The Foundry in Westport, which was a lot of fun, despite how, as I wrote in my column, I ended up falling, getting my arm caught between two coffee tables and spending the next week with a huge bruise on my arm. I have few excuses for myself, except that everyone else thought the coffee table I fell off was a stage, too.

I don't often put enough forethought into my birthday to have a party, and it's always rough to know that several of my best friends are scattered across the country and can't come, but I'm glad i went ahead and had a party this year. 

Sunday the family got brunch at one of our favorite places, V's, and not to be done, Monday we had cake at the office. It's been a great start to being 27, and I'm excited for it to be a great year. Just, maybe don't expect me to dress up for a while... particularly because now I have the flu!

Hallie said her bright lip was in my honor.

Kim Jeffrey made my beautiful cake!

In daylights, in sunsets, in photo packages and special sections...

A few weeks ago, our intern, Kinly, came into my office and asked what I was doing.

"Working on next year," I said. That confused and surprised her. It makes sense: most news isn't something you can plan for. But much of what we do, and much of what is important to people, takes months of planning. 

Only some of what I bring to the planning meeting each year. Ruth Ann, who writes for the Focus, said I looked organized. I think I look like I'm trying to maintain a brain outside of my head.

Today we held our annual planning meeting, which this year was a trek through twelve months, three election cycles, nine special sections (but not the tenth my mom wants us to do), two city guides, four local fairs and various other annual events and stories. 

Getting a grasp on what's coming up has become almost a compulsion for me. When I first took over as news editor in 2014, everything was such a blur that I don't even remember the planning meeting, other than the realization that I would have to do all this stuff. I've run the meeting the past few years, with the help of three binders, my planner and my newest addition, a book of to-do lists. It's a little dizzying to wrap my head around all the dates and figuring out which week applies (Wednesday holidays this year mean July 4 and Halloween coverage will be a week late, which is frustrating), but once I have the whole year on a single piece of paper, I have some peace of mind. 

With a staff as small as ours, it's important to know what's coming up so we can make sure that if it's somewhere someone needs to be, we have someone there (usually me), and if someone can't be there, that we have it arranged that someone will at least get us a picture. It also gives us a chance to think about how we can best present that information. The earliest someone lets us know that news is coming, the better.

So, now I feel like I have a grasp on what 2018 is going to look like. There will be curveballs, sure, maybe even curveballs as large as August 2016, when we had to hold almost everything on the list because our entire paper was full of coverage about the police department. But, having that list meant that once things were back to normal, we knew where we had left off. As much as I can sit here and map out week by week what I need to keep track of all year, one of my favorite things about my job is that it's never entirely formulaic. 

The books I read this year

I tried to gather the books I read this year for a family portrait, but it turns out that despite not sounding like much, 25 books is a lot to fit into one picture. That's fitting, because once I got them all together, I realized how much information I was looking at. 

I usually read a lot of history, particularly about women, and that held true this year. There's significantly more political writing in my stack this year, as I've tried to stop just reading about people and read what they've said themselves. There were a couple of novellas by my favorite author (Elena Ferrante), several different types of fiction and a few books that float around the margins.

You can see the whole list of books I've read, this year and any other, on my Goodreads account. I was really excited when Goodreads was an option for the social media tabs at the top of this page, because it's honestly my favorite social media site, because there's nothing negative about people reading and sharing opinions on books. It's also helpful because I get questions on what I'm reading pretty frequently, and even if I have some oddball answer (The first book I'll finish in 2018 will be Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, which is engrossing but not what most people want to hear), there's something on there for anyone. 

But, here are some of my favorites from the past year:

Courage in a Dangerous World: The Political Writings of Eleanor Roosevelt
Since I was in second grade, Eleanor Roosevelt has been my political hero. Knowing that politics, particularly on social issues, have changed dramatically since she was writing made me apprehensive. Would she, after all these years of admiration, let me down? She didn't. Sure, once in a while there was something that made me wince, but it was usually where she tried to concede something to an audience not ready for her ideas that still feel modern and progressive. 

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
This book is deceptively simple: reading it reminded me of the historical fiction books I read growing up. But this book takes each happy ending you would expect in one of those books and shows how the reality of the dangers destroyed those endings. 

Joan of Arc: A Life Transfigured by Katheryn Harrison
Joan of Arc is a fascinating mystery. We still can't answer why a teenage girl in the middle ages put on pants and decided to lead an army. We still can't explain how she was prepared to, either. Most stories like this, when you look closer, fall apart and disappoint. But the more evidence you read on Joan of Arc, the stranger the story becomes. 

The Romanovs by Simon Sebag Montefiore
On the other side of history is the Russian imperial family, the Romanovs. I took a class on imperial Russia in college (hence why War and Peace is on the list of books I've read), but no class could encompass the complete mayhem that was the Russian court. It's an incredibly entertaining history, as well as a disturbing one, especially near the end. 

Catherine the Great particularly fascinates me, and although I read a biography on her alone just last year, her entry in this book made her come even more alive.

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
This is perhaps the most British book ever written. It's the second book I've ever picked up just because the blurb was written by J.K. Rowling, and both are favorites of mine (the other is The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge, which I read when I was around 13 years old). Reading about Cassandra's adventures was like being inside my own head. I haven't enjoyed book as much as this one in years.

Honorable mentions:

• Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward (a gutting look at problems that those of us in rural areas see frequently)
• The Isabella Stewart Gardner museum guide (#lifegoals)
• The Lost Daughter and Troubling Love (Elena Ferrante is a genius and also Troubling Love is a better version of Atonement, and was published first)

I'm enabling comments. What were the best things you read this year?

Hannah's Happenings (Online)

Well, this is something new.

As one of my 2018 resolutions, I'm working on professionalizing my online existence. There are a lot of terms we learned in j-school for this, but honestly I see it as an extension of my column (for those of you who haven't picked up a paper in a while: no, ever since I graduated from Mizzou it isn't "School Rules" anymore). For anyone who doesn't know me, head to the "about" tab. It's a little formal, but it should give you a good idea.

I'm not going to make any assumptions on how I'll end up using this space, so you'll have to figure out what's going to be here as I go. The best way to keep up with me and my work is, and will remain, to subscribe to The Odessan. 

Thanks for being here — we'll see how it goes.