Over the last few weeks, some of the more astute news followers among you may have heard about the small town of Crestline, Calif.

This normally idyllic mountain village made national headlines along with many others in the San Bernadino Mountains as they received more and more and more snow, stranding residents. Houses and buildings were crushed under the massive weight. Gas lines ruptured, starting fires that could not be put out because the roads were still covered.

But see, I know Crestline for another reason: I lived there. I’ve met the people who now sit stranded without food, medicine or electricity. The image of the town’s only supermarket fully collapsed with all its inventory lost hits a bit harder when I bought my groceries there.

The area was in a true state of emergency. And so, the nation watched on, learning of the struggles of more people in this vast world we live in. Once again, we’re left wondering why there so much hurt in the world. For me, though, I had another question.

Why do we only hear about these places in the worst of times?

News on a national scale covers issues the nation should be interested in. Politics, war and a bank collapse all seem like newsworthy topics. If some small community gets featured, it seems like

READ continued from 1 there are only two reasons. Either there’s some hokey tradition or another piece of inane trivia that some producer somewhere once heard about and decided to throw in as some kind of “good news” to break up the negative.

“This was a great opportunity to use our gifts to help build the students interest in reading. Along with that, we hope these students become fans of the team and hear our story and what we play for,” said Foore.

Or the much more likely option: This place has been ravaged and torn apart by some natural disaster, vicious killer or an accident that has changed the place in such a way that it can no longer be ignored.

Perhaps around here some of you may have heard of East Palestine, Ohio, before one of the trains that ran through every day decided to stop, abruptly. But I can all but guarantee that the people of Crestline hadn’t. Suddenly, though, now this town is shoved into the news cycle and has become a household name across the country.

Looking at the news, it seems the world is surrounded by only hurt. So little good gets nationally reported.

That’s part of what I love about my job working for this paper. We don’t report constantly on tragedy and crime. We cover fun events and highlight interesting opportunities that faculty and students have had. There’s a balance to the coverage that makes the bad stuff bearable.

Obviously, though, ABC News is not going to run the schedule for bingo at the local church on nightly primetime. There’s a place for that in local news, or at least there was. There used to be a place to turn every morning in the local paper to find the stories that don’t need national coverage but highlight your

Martin spoke similarly, “It is important in any community to support one another, but what resonated most with me was the positive impact this event had on the Grove City College students. Many of the college students were reluctant to sign up to volunteer as a reader in an elementary classroom. I am

friends and neighbors.

Now though, local news continues to slide into obscurity, moving online to be surrounded by the hubbub of other, “bigger” stories. The uplifting story of the school kids helping out Old Joe down the street gets lost.

There’s simply no shock and awe to those types of stories, so, they rarely get picked up. But is there actually shock and awe to the bigger stories anymore?

Our society has seemingly become numb to the horror that we see every day. We hear of Ukraine and see videos filmed by residents on the ground as tanks come rolling through, but even for such a shocking and awful event, there is not much thought given.

I don’t think that what qualifies as news will change anytime soon. I think we will continue to hear of small towns on national news only when tragedy strikes, and honestly, I think that’s probably okay, and right.

These types of issues come to the national stage when they can start a national discussion. The snow that has destroyed Crestline is evidence of a larger climate change, part of a pattern that has global implications. The derailment in East Palestine brings up a discussion about transportation safety, corporate greed and public health.

These issues are important, probably more so than the new library going up in a town of a few thousand people. But there should still be a place for that story.

We can’t afford to lose our local news, because that’s where the hope is.

sure that for some this was a really new experience.”

“Every college student I interacted with after they shared their story was smiling and very positive about their interaction with the children,” Martin said. “They discovered something inside of themselves. It was a great day for everyone.”

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