THE OAK LEAF MAGAZINE reflections & projections
Spring 2022 Vol. 3 Issue 1
Q&A with Jean Schulz All-American soccer stars Humans vs. feral hogs
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New vibes, same vines
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TABLE OF CONTENTS 4 5 7 11 13
Campus
12 things you probably didn’t know about SRJC and The Oak Leaf By James Domizio Transformation in education: How the pandemic forced SRJC to evolve its learning options By Garrett Ashton Big screen Bear Cubs: Four SRJC alumni producing feature length films By Aryk Copley Is SRJC truly a Hispanic Serving Instituion? By Liam Vinueza Rebuilder and retiree: Jane Saldaña-Talley leaves SRJC By Sean Young
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16 21 23 Spring 2022
The good and the bad of the decade’s worst video games By Alex Fuller
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Hospitality hostility: Waitstaff horror stories from SRJC students By Ava Domenichelli The metaverse: Boom or bust? By Stephen Howe
Community
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SRJC swim and dive receives Olympic-sized upgrade By Richard Tucker
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From Montgomery High to SRJC to All-American: Two soccer players honored among nation’s best By Christian Vieyra
Humans vs. feral hogs: Why can’t we be friends? By Michael Combs
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SRJC athletes score “state of the art” facilities By Christian Vieyra
SRJC baseball’s Gallagher and Handron join Sonoma Stompers By Tony Moeckel
Wax nostalgic: The resurgence of vinyl By Albert Levine
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Sports
15
Culture
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Fostering the “Peanuts” legacy: A Q&A with Jean Schulz By Garrett Ashton New vibes, same vines: How young wine aficionados are revamping a traditional industry By Nicholas Vides Top five pinball machines in Santa Rosa By James Domizio
On the cover: Student Body President-Elect Abrea Tillman inspects vines at Shone Farm, SRJC’s hands-on agricultural training center. (Photo by Nicholas Vides)
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MEET THE OAK LEAF Reporters
Letters from the editors
Michael Combs Aryk Copley Ava Domenichelli Albert Levine Tony Moeckel Richard Tucker Nicholas Vides Christian Vieyra Liam Vinueza Sean Young
My six semesters at The Oak Leaf have taught me more than I could ever hope to learn elsewhere. For example, I’ve learned that journalists never get any rest. That’s why I chose our theme, “Reflections & Projections;” to give myself, The Oak Leaf staff, and our community time to live outside the present. Our dauntless teacher Anne and fabulous TA Lauren helped us fully bring the theme to life.
Mark Fernquest
When Anne told us we were making a magazine this semester, I wasn’t sure we could do it. Over the pandemic, we lost a lot of institutional knowledge; our magazine editor was the only student to work on the last magazine two years ago. But between hard work, extensive content cuts and wildlife encounters in the newsroom, 28 pages became 46 and then 36. I couldn’t be more proud of the time and effort our staff put into these stories, and I would even go so far as to say they may be some of our best.
Advertising Adviser
Anne Belden
TA
Lauren Spates 643 Analy Village Santa Rosa Junior College 1501 Mendocino Ave. Santa Rosa, CA 95401
We hope you enjoy our first magazine since coronavirus first paused our lives two years ago. It’s the product of relentless work, sleepless nights, last-minute changes, a COVID outbreak and a turkey attack. We may be short staffed, and life in America may be harder than ever, but freedom of the press is more important than ever, too.
- James Domizio, magazine editor
I am so grateful for my experience at The Oak Leaf, and while I will not be continuing in journalism, I will always reflect fondly on these past five semesters.
- Alex Fuller, editor-in-chief
Want to get involved in journalism?
courses offered at santa rosa junior college
theoakleafnews.com and theoakleafnews on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook
Journalism 1: Intro To Journalism Journalism 2: News Gathering And News Writing Journalism 52: News Media Practice (The Oak Leaf) Journalism 55: Multimedia Reporting Journalism 56: Editing For News Media Journalism 59: Photojournalism Contact Anne Belden at abelden@santarosa.edu.
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12 things you probably didn’t know about SRJC and The Oak Leaf Of Santa Rosa Junior College’s 104 years of history, 98 have been tirelessly documented by its independent student reporters. Within that history and those chronicles lies a wealth of information most modern SRJC community members will never get to absorb. Who’s got the time, or cares enough, to read more than 2,100 issues of old newspapers?
• SRJC athletics coach Clarence “Cook” Sypher, the namesake for the SRJC’s Sypher Field, was commissioned as a first lieutenant in the Marines on April 23, 1942. The Stanford graduate coached eight SRJC teams to championships: three for rugby, two for football, two for hockey and one for baseball.
So here is a curated list of notable facts about the SRJC community, all from the pages of The Oak Leaf.
• “Jaysee,” “jay see” and “jaycee” all appear as substitutes for JC in early issues of The Oak Leaf.
90 years ago
May 27, 1932: • On May 20, the Associated Engineers presented the first moving picture to screen on SRJC’s campus. W. Shushaw, SRJC board president and Santa Rosa PG&E president, introduced and explained the film, which showed the construction of a hydroelectric power plant on the Mokolohome River 75 miles southeast of Sacramento.
80 years ago
May 1, 1942: • During World War II, The Oak Leaf published “news and views” from JC students and instructors fighting overseas. News reporter Tom Ratchford wrote: “A letter from Warren Harmon says the issues of The Oak Leaf he has been receiving tend to make him homesick. You can read the full article with 30 facts at theoakleafnews.com.
Spring 2022
prejudice,” and claimed those groups “mistake special privilege for equality.” Two weeks later, he said The Oak Leaf had been “accused of mediocrity and conservatism.”
55 years ago
May 4, 1967: • The front page featured a small blurb about a free upcoming performance at Burbank Auditorium by a banjo-playing comedian “who uses an unlikely combination of music, humor and magic.” The comedian’s name? Steve Martin.
30 years ago
Over 95 years ago
• SRJC’s first newspaper was called Bear Facts, and its first issue was released Dec. 12, 1924. The paper’s name changed to The Chatterbox in 1926 before eventually settling on The Oak Leaf in early 1927.
By James Domizio
75 years ago
May 2, 1947: • The issue contained a segment “for the benefit of foreign students attending this college” with short jokes in Spanish, French and German. “If you do not comprehend the full meaning,” it said, “consult Señor Hollidge, Madame Wilcox or Herr Schneider as the case may be.” A Spanish joke: “El profesor golpeó indignado sobre su escritorio y gritó: ‘¡Caballeros ... orden!’ Y todos los alumnos, a una, contestarón: ‘¡Cerveza!’”
60 years ago
Spring 1962: • The Oak Leaf reminded readers that SRJC required its students to be vaccinated against polio to attend fall semester classes. May 3, 1962: • Oak Leaf Editor-in-Chief Bob Davis wrote a defense of Santa Rosa schools from allegations of racism by the local NAACP chapter. He said he “can recall no hint of [racial discrimination],” implied the critiques come from “ethnic, political, religious, industrial and feminist [fringes]” who “have their own
May 7, 1992: • Child prodigy Michael Kearney reportedly graduated from SRJC at age 8 in 1992 and went on to receive a bachelor’s degree at 10 and a master’s degree at 14. Curiously, his name doesn’t appear among The Oak Leaf’s list of SRJC graduates, accurate as of May 6.
20 years ago
April 23, 2002: • In the last issue of the semester, staff writer Geneviève Buboscq interviewed SRJC’s Director of Open Learning Rick Sapanaro about the benefits of distance learning. Sapanaro said online courses “give the greatest flexibility in schedules” and he expected the visual element — teleconferencing and webcasts — to become more prominent as technology improves.
10 years ago
May 14, 2012: • In May 2012, SRJC’s Men’s Swim and Dive Team finished an undefeated season to win the school’s first swimming championship, and Head Coach Jill McCormick became the first woman named Men’s California Community College Coach of the Year. “There are so many great coaches out there; to be recognized among them is a tremendous honor,” McCormick told The Oak Leaf.
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offered three COMM 1 classes in Spring 2022 in a hybrid format, with one in-person meeting per week and speeches performed both in-person and on Zoom. While it may seem strange to conduct speech classes online, the pandemic catalyzed a greater need for online communication.
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s mask mandates fall and in-person gathering restrictions lift, the coronavirus pandemic might feel like it’s ending, but it’s not fully behind us — and it may never completely be. While many aspects of pandemic life are slowly disappearing, one isn’t going anywhere: online learning options. The pandemic forced Santa Rosa Junior College faculty, staff and students to tackle the online format, which the community now recognizes offers a more effective future for higher education, particularly at the community college level. “Since March 2020, online learning has been indispensable to preserving continuity in education,” said communication studies instructor Hal Sanford. “There was no better alternative. No reasonable person believed shutting down education or just ignoring the pandemic were better options. We evolved.” That evolution began immediately in March 2020 when SRJC President Dr. Frank Chong announced the closure of the campus as COVID-19 infections began to ramp up. Classes went entirely online until Fall 2021, when faculty could choose if they wanted to teach in-person. At
“I think that a benefit for students in online or hybrid public speaking courses [is] getting more direct feedback about how to present through remote technology, and for web-based content, which we [as a department] didn’t really focus on before,” communications instructor AC Panella said. the onset of the pandemic, Sanford hadn’t taught a single class online, but as of the end of Spring 2022 — two years later — he has hosted 36 online sections and settled on a successful formula. “My adjustment to online has eased with each semester. I am sensitive to the different dynamic between Zoom classes and in-person,” Sanford said. “I try to maintain high energy and a focused-but-informal demeanor. Keeping it loose and fun helps students stay engaged, Zoom or in-person.” It is all part of the process as instructors figure out what works best for them and their students.
In a September, 2021 Gallup poll of 4,034 randomly selected U.S. adults, two-thirds of white-collar employees reported working either fully or partially remote, a number that has hardly wavered even as vaccination rates have increased. “Now that more occupations are open to remote and hybrid work, students will need communication skills that span across face-toface, hybrid and remote contexts,” Panella said. “The communication department will work to ensure students get both the material and the type of classes they need to be successful.” Sanford, who also teaches public speaking, echoed those thoughts.
One course that has seen significant adjustment during the pandemic is COMM 1, Intro to Public Speaking, a California State University System transfer requirement. SRJC students can choose from a variety of learning formats.
“Online [education] provides students with training and experience in the future’s ever-expanding digital workplace,” Sanford said. “Learning how to successfully appear on Zoom is an important part of many jobs.”
Some COMM 1 classes offer Zoom meetings with assigned speeches given live, but others allow students to record their speeches and submit them separately, without having to speak to a group in person. The communication studies department
In other fields, face-to-face interaction may not be necessary at all. SRJC’s computer studies department did not offer a single in-person section within its more than 40 different class options in the Spring 2022 semester.
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The language departments have also benefited from hybrid options.
line, leaving only about one-quarter in-person.
“[Some] students were never able to take classes in-person before, and Zoom is what made college accessible to them. We’ve come to realize the benefits of offering different options for our students who have diverse needs,” said English as a Second Language Department Chair Luz Navarrette Garcia.
“I prefer teaching in-person because I feel the communal aspect of learning is vital,” Murray said. “While I was pleasantly surprised when my classes were able to develop this sense of community online, it felt like it took a longer time than in an in-person setting and in many cases, this sense of community did not ever actually develop.”
Students who work long hours, lack consistent transportation, live too
This could be due to many factors.
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Now that more occupations are open to remote and hybrid work, students will need communication skills that span across face -to-face, hybrid and remote contexts
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far away or experience some combination of these factors now have more ways to participate in college. That’s not to say hybrid learning is the best fit for every student. Navarrette Garcia sees the other side of the argument too. “Some students chose not to take Zoom classes at all, or they tried Zoom classes but didn’t like them,” Garcia said. “These students are happy and thankful for the ESL classes we started offering in person this year.” English instructor Matthew Murray volunteered to teach in-person English classes in both the Fall 2021 and Spring 2022 semesters and has also seen students struggle in a digital classroom. “In general, my students found online learning to be extremely challenging, especially the ability to remain engaged in the learning experience,” he said. Of the 47 English 1A sections taught Spring 2022, 35 were taught fully on-
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action we take,” he said. “There is something unique about sharing a classroom space and learning together and a particular kind of spontaneity.” Finding the proper balance between online and in-person classes will be key for SRJC — or any higher education institution — moving forward, particularly for faculty who took a liking to the new online or hybrid formats. “Many English department faculty, at least one-third, have expressed a wish to continue teaching online beyond the Spring 2022 semester,” Murray said. “My impression is that many faculty who had not taught online before the pandemic have, over the last two years, come to appreciate teaching online for a variety of reasons,” Murray said.
“A significant number of students are struggling [after returning in-person], so it seems like the pandemic is making learning challenging in general, whether in-person or online,” Murray said.
The entire SRJC community — students, instructors, faculty and administrators — has made clear it expects a mix of in-person, exclusively online, and hybrid class options to be available in future semesters.
Speech instructor Panella also sees the advantage of an in-person class experience.
“Ultimately, student demand determines how prominent it is going forward,” Sanford said. “There is an important place for both online and in-person instruction. Time will tell what that balance is.”
“A friend reminded me that school is a verb. It is a place we go, it is an
SPRING 2022 CLASS OPTIONS Intro to Public Speaking
English 1A
9 37
Sections fully in-person Sections fully asynchronous
Statistics
11 10
22 3
Sections only through Zoom Hybrid sections (in-person and online)
Intro to Programming
Sections fully asynchronous Sections fully in-person
6 0
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Sections fully online Sections in-person or hybrid
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Four SRJC alumni producing feature-length films
BIG SCREEN Bear Cubs By Aryk Copley
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“If you want to succeed you have to value the people you work with ... That’s something the JC gave me — a really great community”
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F
ormer Santa Rosa Junior College student and lifelong epileptic Miles Levin is using his filmmaking talents to bring awareness and representation to the epilepsy community. With the success of his recent award-winning short, “Under the Lights,” -which was met with incredible support from both epileptic and nonepileptic communities, Miles has his sights set on a feature-length film. Levin isn’t the only one to come out of SRJC’s film production program pursuing a feature. Three other alumni have completed or are pursuing their own feature film projects and credit the JC’s hands-on approach to building their confidence and skill set. Levin didn’t have a film program at his high school. A self-proclaimed theater kid, Levin’s interest in filmmaking started as a simple curiosity. His interest soon grew to determination, and Levin began to reach out to anyone who knew more than he did about cinema. Asking questions and writing letters to anyone with even the smallest amount of filmmaking experience gave him the springboard to write his first feature film script at age 15. Two years later, with a ragtag crew of classmates, he shot that same script over the summer of his junior year. Shortly after, Levin found his way into SRJC’s filmmaking program. With a feature film already under his belt, he was primed for success. Described as ambitious and determined by his SRJC filmmaking instructor, Brian Antonson, Levin took to the program immediately. He made connections, zeroing in on students he felt shared his intense motivation. He would furiously write and produce short films. He scoped out student film festivals to see who made a better film than he did to enlist them in his newest filmmaking projects. “He took to filmmaking very seriously,” Antonson said. “He’s always
Spring 2022
super enthusiastic about it.” While Levin pursued his filmmaking goals, he also worked as a counselor for a summer camp for children with epilepsy, a disorder that affects nearly 4% of the population. Participation and advocacy in the community is an integral part of Levin’s adult life.
boy with epilepsy determined to go to prom, even though he knows the lights will cause him to have a seizure. Levin never expected the outpouring of community support the project received. Small and large donations alike added up to fund the project to 170% of Levin’s original $10,000 goal.
“I would go to this camp, and I would meet kids who were within a handful of years [of each other], teenagers,” Levin said. “And they would say, ‘I have never made a friend before.’”
Even after the Kickstarter campaign wrapped up, community support continued to build.
That experience drove Levin’s filmmaking in a new direction. Levin wanted to write and direct a short film to bring representation to the epilepsy community. “The only time I’ve ever seen someone have a seizure in a movie is in a horror movie or in a hospital show where it’s purely a device that’s used to scare people. So people’s perception of this community is based in fear,” Levin said. “And it’s really quite easy to change that, which is you just have to give people an empathetic point of reference.”
“All these people who didn’t have epilepsy came forward and said, ‘I want to be a part of this. What is this? This sounds like it’s important,’” Levin said. “Which was deeply fulfilling to me as a person with epilepsy, because for the first time I’m starting to see the public is open to this. They want to know.”
Miles Levin on the set of “Under the Lights” with his two main actors, Disney stars Pearce Joza and Alyssa Jirrels.
Setting out to change public perception through media, Levin began work on what would eventually become his most personal project. Using his tried and true method of surrounding himself with people who knew more than he did about filmmaking, he managed to put together an experienced team. Next, he needed a budget.
Alyssa Jirrels and Pearce Joza, both Disney Channel stars from “Mech-X4” and “Z-O-M-B-I-E-S,” reached out to audition for the main characters in Levin’s short and cinched the roles. After constructing the two needed sets, Levin, his production team, half of whom were SRJC students, and the actors got to work filming the 10-minute short.
Originally estimating a $50,000 budget, Levin managed to reduce it down to just $10,000. He then got started on fundraising with a Kickstarter campaign and an Instagram account promoting his newest project: a short film about a teenage
After finishing production, “Under the Lights” entered the festival circuit, where it won a shorts award at the Savannah Film Festival, a directing award at the Rhode Island International Film Festival, and an audience award at the Woods Hole
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Film Festival. The short film was released online March 26. It has almost 17,000 views on YouTube, with more than 114 overwhelmingly positive comments. “You are proof that dreams come true. We may not be able to control epilepsy but by educating people with a heartfelt film like this, the world will be understanding and accepting of this disorder,” commented Colleen Quinn, the founder of New Jersey-based epilepsy awareness and support nonprofit Paul’s Purple Warriors.
He said his time at SRJC, although short, gave him an appreciation for a practical style of education.
“The things that I appreciated most from Brian’s classes were the number of projects that we actually got to do,” Austin Smagalski directs “Donovan Reid,” his first feature-length film, Smagalski said. shot in Sonoma County and released in 2019. “You can sit in a classroom, get information, be told what’s good and program for filmmaking that I’ve Levin credits a big part of his sucwhat’s not and what techniques you seen and been involved with.” cess to his time at SRJC, specifically can use, but you really don’t develop the film production classes he took as a filmmaker unless you have your Douglas said attending SRJC was with Antonson. “Brian has built hands on cameras and gear.” the perfect justification to hone his something really cool and motivatfilmmaking skills. “It’s an industry ed,” Levin said. “Everybody makes a Smagalski also praised instructor where you don’t necessarily have movie in Brian’s class.” Michael Traina’s film appreciation to have a degree. The reason that I class. “I saw some of my favorite and decided to go to school for it was to Independent filmmaker Ausabsolute least favorite films in that make connections and to actually be tin Smagalski and dynamic duo class, but I feel like that helped me able to spend class time as an excuse Mahlon “Zach” Tracy and Brandon develop my taste,” Smagaslki said. to make stuff.” Douglas are three other JC alumni “Figuring out what you like about pursuing their own feature films. film is a big part of developing your Levin said that the JC’s biggest style.” Smagalski is now taking the strength is its community. Smagalski transferred from the JC first steps to develop his second in 2013 to California State Universifeature film. “If you want to succeed you have ty, Monterey Bay. After graduating, to value the people you work with, he returned to Sonoma County Directorial and acting duo Douglas and that is what I credit most of my to shoot “Donovan Reid,” a feaand Tracy are currently working on success to,” Levin said. “That’s someture-length thriller released in 2019 their first feature film, “The Hauntthing the JC gave me — a really about a boy posing as a long-missing of Hype House,” a comedy-horgreat community.” ing child. While reception of the ror film about a man whose friends film was mixed, Smagalski sees the like him better when he’s possessed With the overwhelmingly positive pursuit, in retrospect, as a suitable by a ghost. Douglas and Tracy first reception of “Under the Lights,” replacement for grad school. worked together at SRJC and have Levin has his sights set on a feaspent much of ture-length production. With script their time afterin-hand, he’s beginning his fundwards creating raising efforts for what he says will films. Tracy’s be a million dollar project that will time at the JC delve deeper into epilepsy stigma sent him down and awareness. Levin knows he has a colossal task ahead of him, but the acting path. both he and Antonson believe he can achieve his goal. “It wasn’t until I came to the “His protagonist in the story is tryJC that I really ing to accomplish a goal with epilepfigured out this is what I’d like to sy,” Antonson said. “Miles is doing the same thing.” do,” Tracy said. Brandon Douglas expresses joy after filming a dialogue-heavy “It’s been the scene for his feature film “The Haunting of Hype House” at Additional reporting by Nicholas Vides. most hands-on director Matt Farren’s home in Woodland Hills Jan. 30, 2022.
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ce
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vine
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re s r g en u of vinyl
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ovato residents Ryan Kendall and Elaine Kuo browsed through boxes of albums, each searching for very different vinyl treasures at the Sonoma County Record Swap at Santa Rosa’s Shady Oak Barrel House in early April. Kendall looked for albums with songs he could not find on Spotify or YouTube. “There’s an enjoyment of just putting the record on and forgetting about it,” he said. “Now you’ve got the needle on, so you’re not going to go and jump the needle and move it to the next song or find the next album.” Kuo often comes across rare albums, but she’s more interested in whether she likes the music than if it has collector’s value. “I make fun of [Kendall] because I think for a lot of this, you have to have a collector’s personality,” said Kuo. “I personally don’t, and so a lot of times they’ll tell me, ‘This one’s so rare! And this one’s hard to find!’ And for me, I’m like, ‘Do I actually like that?’” Although music streams onto portable devices in seconds, Kendall and Kuo mirror a larger trend of music lovers returning to old-fashioned vinyl albums. In 2021, the Recording Industry Association of America evaluated that vinyl albums outsold CDs for the first time since the ‘80s, and in data compiled from MRC Data’s 2021 Year-End Music Report, vinyl LPs specifically made up 38% of album sales in the U.S.
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A Sonoma County Record Swap attendee browses the racks of available records at Shady Oak Barrel House in April.
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Wax o s t a l gi
Since 2020, at least three new record stores have opened up in Sonoma County, including Radio Thrift in Santa Rosa, Rain Dog Records in Petaluma and Spinning Threads in Sebastopol. James Florence, owner of Rain Dog Records, said his store has been successful since it opened its doors a year-and-a-half ago. “We’ve had a lot of new customers,” he said. “We had a lot of business. We had success and we just started out. We hope to keep growing.” Florence’s business partner, John Del Bueno, has been collecting albums since he was 16. “There’s definitely been a lot more people into it,” he said. “COVID definitely spiked it up more, but [interest in vinyl] has been gradually growing for the last eight to 10 years for sure, definitely more a crescendo,” said Sergio, an employee at Spinning Threads. Others, like Next Record Store employee Estefany Gonzales, have a different take. “I don’t really think it ever went away,” she said. “That’s probably why the store has been open for as long as it has. It’s exciting to see young people come in and ask about record players, or see people buy their first one.” Jason Lindell opened Radio Thrift, a record store and vintage clothing shop in Santa Rosa in spring of 2020. “There’s this famous quote: nobody wants to see your collection of MP3s, right?” he said.
Lindell, who grew up in Sonoma County, recalled that when he was in high school and college, he could buy music from nine Bay Area stores. “Then all of a sudden, when the MP3s came, it was all gone,” he said, noting the new record stores create a cultural venue to meet other like-minded people interested in music and collecting vinyl. In addition to opening a new store, Radio Thrift also co-hosted the April record swap, complete with multiple DJs, pinball machines, food and hundreds of Bay Area-wide collectors. Attendees helped answer the question why vinyl is resurging in the all-digital streaming era, and why the music medium is on the rise. “As the world becomes increasingly more digital, the sub-market for people who are interested in analog products and physical tangible products becomes more of a consolidated community,” said Evan Phillips, a local DJ and community organizer at the Sonoma County Record Swap. “There’s always going to be a market of people who want to collect and people that also want tangible products and goods,” he said. Zack, a record swap attendee, thinks the reasons might be both commercial and artistic. “Once everything became available through streaming, for bands, it was easy to figure out what they could actually sell that people would want to buy,” he said. “So I have seen a resurgence and interest in vinyl, more of an underground level, with people self producing, or doing small runs of records that they make themselves just to give something more of an artistic kind of value.”
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Is SRJC truly a Hispanic Serving Institution? By Liam Vinueza
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ince 2014, Santa Rosa Junior College has disbursed $30 million in student loans and been awarded at least $500,000 in grants from the U.S. Department of Education geared toward supporting Latinx, first-generation and low-income students, according to Pedro Avila, SRJC vice president of student services. Some of this funding is thanks to SRJC earning Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) status from the federal government because at least 25% of the student body is defined as “Hispanic.” But has all this funding actually helped Latinx students? “It’s kinda hard to say,” said student Jocelyn Toscano, MEChA co-chair. “The resources are there; it’s the access that isn’t great.” Indeed, new grants, health centers and educational courses have allowed SRJC to curb dissonance between Latinx students and the college; however, the Latinx community continues to face challenges in attending the college. “SRJC was doing absolutely zero outreach to the undocumented community,” said Rafael Vazquez Guzman, EOPS Outreach Coordinator, speaking on his experience starting out as a part-time SRJC faculty. Guzman, a first-generation Latino student himself, is aware of the importance of outreach to historically underrepresented communities; he had parents who could not support him through higher education. Guzman now focuses his efforts on reaching out to elementary to high school students to encourage them to think about higher education.
Toscano agrees that outreach from SRJC at an early age could be best for these students. Of her experience, she added, “The JC only connected with us when it was our second semester of senior year. When we were about to graduate… the JC said, ‘Hey, quickly sign-up in case you don’t get into your four-year college.’”
Students silently struggle Mental health is a significant struggle in the SRJC Latinx community, especially with a cultural stigmatization against seeking treatment for mental health issues. Between keeping up with expectations at home, work and school, students often silently struggle. “A lot of students are having problems with their mental health,” Guzman said. He recalled hearing students tell EOPS they feel too depressed and anxious to continue attending classes, particularly through online learning; others dealt with loss of family members due to COVID-19 complications. Toscano, a first-generation DACA recipient and the oldest of three siblings, has first-hand experience in dealing with the combined stress of school and home life on her mental
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Illustration by Liam Vinueza
health. She endured the pandemic while sharing a room with a younger sister and attending Zoom classes. Ultimately, Toscano had to move out to focus on her studies and escape the “chaotic” environment at home. She said she’s heard similar stories of fellow students having to keep up with home life, all while attending online classes. Guzman has noticed the difficulties students faced while attending online classes. “Zoom did not provide multiple things: the ability to ask questions in the same manner as in the classroom, different office hours and the privacy to participate fully in your education,” he said. Combined with the stigma of seeking support in their struggles, many students had only the option of dropping classes altogether. “For part of the population, [the other challenge] is really the economics of it all,” Guzman said. Hand-in-hand with mental health are students’ financial struggles.
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Although HSI grants and scholarships have paved the way for supporting SRJC’s Latinx community, not all students have enjoyed the benefits. Federal and emergency grants available to SRJC students during the pandemic excluded undocumented students. “The planning and execution sometimes are not what should be happening,” Guzman said.
In what ways has SRJC improved? “The JC has been going through a transition,” said Pedro Avila, vice president of student services, and an immigrant, first-generation college student and son of parents who picked fruit in the fields of Salinas. Avila said part of his mission is to transform SRJC from an institution that historically served white, English-speaking Sonoma County residents to a more inclusive one. This includes hiring culturally competent mental health support staff for Latinx students and expanding and relocating SRJC’s Dream Center, which helps undocumented students with AB540 admissions, DACA renewals, academic counseling and more. In addition to hiring a full-time Dream Center coordinator, the center is partnering with VIDAS, a nonprofit that offers free legal services for immigrant students. Avila also said efforts are being made to alleviate financial pressures on Latinx students. Avila and his team are working on a new HSI grant in partnership with Sonoma State University (SSU) that can increase transfer rates of Latinx students to SSU. Through the grant, Latinx students would earn guaranteed admission to SSU after completion of SRJC’s transfer requirements, as well as access to transitional courses to prepare students and scholarships to cover tuition costs.
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Programs such as PUENTE and the high school equivalency program (HEP) have also provided support for Latinx students at SRJC.
[DRD] can embed ourselves in programs on campus,” said Debbie Ezersky, deaf and hard of hearing program coordinator.
PUENTE focuses its efforts on mentoring and increasing student enrollment in four-year colleges while HEP helps migrant workers obtain a high school diploma through preparation classes, personalized tutoring, support with testing fees, transportation assistance and transition courses.
Ezersky is a member of the Lanzamiento team, a group that offers counseling, tutoring, mental health services, financial aid workshops and transfer support to Latinx, low-income and first-generation college students.
Low-income and EOPS students will have priority in choosing rooms in the new student housing currently under construction.
Lanzamiento students can take special course sections led by instructors who have employed enhanced teaching methods to ensure these students succeed.
According to Avila, Student Services is working on securing additional funding to reduce on-campus housing costs, which are already below market rate.
Brijida Aleman, a Mexican-American and Native American Student Health Services staffer and a first-generation college graduate, understands the cultural impact of mental health on Latino students.
MEChA is also trying to improve Latinx students’ circumstances.
“Latino culture doesn’t recognize mental health,” Aleman said.
From community work during the devastating 2017 Tubbs Fire to providing residents with masks and information during the pandemic and putting pressure on SRJC to re-
Recognizing that SRJC’s support for Latinx mental health hasn’t always been there, Ezerksy and Aleman are hoping to acquire a long term bilingual success coach for disabled
“I think in general, [SRJC] needs to continue to have honest dialogue about what we are and are not doing.” lease grant expenditure information and statistics on its Latinx student body, MEChA’s cultural, educational and political edge has found ways to better serve the Latinx community. SRJC’s Disabled Resources Department (DRD) is also expanding its outreach to Latinx students. It is updating the DRD website with Spanish translation to encourage Latinx students to reach out for mental health services and dispel common myths that are associated with the word “disabled.” “Rather than having students come to us, we want to start creating ways
Latinx students as well as expand therapeutic services to include family therapy. “I think in general, [SRJC] needs to continue to have honest dialogue about what we are and are not doing,” Guzman said. Though the college community has plenty of work to do, the resources for Latinx students are there — but only time will tell how successful SRJC will be in catering to this important and growing population in Sonoma County.
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The Oak Leaf Magazine 12
Rebuilder and retiree: Jane Saldaña-Talley leaves SRJC
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By Sean Young
t the end of July, a former teen mom, college-dropout, food stamp-recipient and public housing-resident will — after decades of education, sacrifice, persistence and grit — retire from Santa Rosa Junior College as Vice President of Academic Affairs.
degrees in psychology from California State University, Fresno. “I spent a lot of years in the K-12 system working in research and planning and evaluation,” the administrator said. “I then finally decided I really wanted to get my doctorate. So I went back to school again about 10 years after I’d been out of school with my master’s degree.”
Dr. L. Jane Saldaña-Talley did not take an easy or straightforward path to reach professional success and gainful retirement, but she managed to do so while raising her son, working full-time, navigating a divorce, earning her bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees, and becoming an integral member of the SRJC community through her thoughtful leadership style.
After graduating from her doctoral program, Saldaña-Talley was ready to be in the workforce again, but as an administrator. A coworker suggested she try working in community colleges. “And so I explored that,” she said.
Born in Fresno, California, Saldaña-Talley was the oldest of five siblings. Her father worked in the retail parts industry, and her mother became a math teacher and high school librarian after raising one boy and four girls, then returning to college in her 40s. Saldaña-Talley entered college majoring in office administration, but then she got pregnant. After the birth of her son, she couldn’t figure out what to do and decided it made more sense to go to work to lift her budding family out of their circumstances rather than stay in school. “We were living in housing projects, we were on food stamps, and I just decided we need to have some money coming in,” she said. So she quit college and went to work in multiple administrative assistant jobs, advancing from a clerk typist to an executive assistant to an employee relations assistant while putting her then-husband through college and law school.
Photo courtesy of Jane Saldaña-Talley
“If life circumstances stop your progress, never, ever give up on the dream,” is Saldaña-Talley’s advice to students trying to find their way.
“My skills in office administration were what kept the bills paid,” she said. Saldaña-Talley continued working, but the stress of providing for her family soon torn them apart. She and her husband separated not long after he finished law school. It took a heavy toll on her. “I had invested so much in his success to the detriment of my own. It took me a long time to recover financially and emotionally,” she said. “I couldn’t figure out what I needed to do, what I wanted to do,” Saldaña-Talley said. So she followed her mother’s path and returned to education. “It was really important to me. Education was very important,” she said. Back in school, Saldaña-Talley changed majors a few times, but “was much more clear-headed about what I wanted from my education.” She wound her way through college as a single mom to eventually graduate with a bachelor’s and master’s
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Saldaña-Talley worked at several community colleges in California and Arizona, taking teaching and administrative positions, and overseeing college budgets, police, financial aid and custodial services. She decided to return to California after working as the vice president of administrative services at Paradise Valley Community College in Phoenix, Arizona. The first job she landed in her home state was as vice president of SRJC’s Petaluma campus in 2007. Saldaña-Talley’s first challenge was upgrading the Petaluma campus to expand course offerings for students. “She convinced me that we needed to build more science labs down there and then we also built the Gateway to College program to get high-risk high school students to go to college,” said SRJC President Dr. Frank Chong. “Jane’s always been a very powerful advocate for the Petaluma campus.” Saldaña-Talley’s tenure as vice president of academic affairs began at a critical juncture in SRJC history when the district abandoned a longheld salary-determination method
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called Rank 10 and moved to cut faculty salaries while raising those of administrators. Faculty boycotted centennial events in protest. Simultaneously, three days before registration began — and without consulting deans, department chairs, faculty and students— the former VP of academic affairs and senior VP of finance cut the majority of summer courses to offset a projected $6.5 million budget deficit. The uproar was immediate and intense. Students organized an early-morning campus sit-in outside of Bailey Hall for the next day. Faculty groups declared no-confidence in SRJC President Dr. Frank Chong and the two vice presidents. Dr. Chong sent out an email apologizing and suggesting the decision would be reversed. Philosophy, humanities and religious studies instructor Sarah Whylly highlighted the labor relations crisis between the district and faculty. “Having this announcement made that summer classes were going to be canceled, just out of nowhere, it just felt like the ground was being ripped out from underneath our feet,” Whylly said. “And then the discovery that there were processes that were not even adhered to that were part of the rules for that, I think really made a lot of faculty angry and upset.” The uproar caused Mary Kay Rudolph, the vice president of academic affairs involved in the decision, to leave her position a few months before retirement. Dr. Chong appointed Saldaña-Talley to he role, after 12 years in Petaluma. “We had a pretty significant disruption in our executive team, and we were at a really low point in terms of labor relations with our faculty,” she said. “And while I had been with the college since 2007, stepping into the role of vice president of academic affairs and assistant superintendent was a big step.” Whylly, an All-Faculty Association (AFA) union negotiator and Aca-
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demic Senate member, still remembers when Saldaña-Talley took over as vice president. “One of the things that she did right away that really impressed me was that she came to meet with the faculty bodies. I remember sitting in the AFA house with her and just talking about what issues were in front of us and what challenges we needed to beat and how best we can work together to meet those challenges,” she said.
“If life circumstances stop your progress, never, ever give up on the dream.” AFA president and philosophy instructor Sean Martin, who regularly works with Saldaña-Talley in faculty negotiations and on college-wide committees, credited her with rebuilding the faculty relationship. “We don’t always agree on issues, but she is very mindful and respectful of tone and of discourse. We don’t always arrive at the same conclusions, but we can always count on her to respect the [negotiations] process,” Martin said. Saldaña-Talley shared a similar sentiment. “There was some healing that needed to be done in that moment,” she said. “We also were in the midst of beginning to deal with the fiscal challenges that we had as a college, so 2019 was a year where we thought we were gonna, kind of get back together and start doing things together. But, the college announced an early retirement incentive program, and by the end of 2019, we had almost 100 employees who took the early retirement incentive.” She headed into 2020 having to replace all those faculty positions, but faced a new hurdle. “In March, I had conducted one in-person interview, and we had all the rest of them queued up, and the pandemic landed on us and we shut down.
And I wound up hiring all the rest of those faculty and doing all the rest of that work in reorganizing academic affairs virtually, and it was very complex and challenging.” AFA President Martin lauded Saldaña-Talley’s leadership during the start of the pandemic. “She deserves a lot of credit,” Martin said. “We were all working 70-hour weeks on a regular basis, but if it had not been for her cooperative demeanor or proactively reaching out to say, ‘Hey, can we work on this together?’ It would not have been possible to come through the way we have.” Dr. Chong recognized Saldaña-Talley’s hard work when he announcing her retirement during a Board of Trustees meeting in February. “Jane’s leadership at SRJC has been critical in many of the advances we’ve made during her tenure,” Chong said. “Her work has influenced the many great things SRJC has accomplished in recent years and will ensure that her legacy persists long beyond her time with this college.” Not only did Saldaña-Talley help faculty and management reconcile during her time at SRJC, but she did the same within her own family, repairing a relationship with her ex-husband. “Remarkably, we are now friends, and I see him often when I visit with my son and grandchildren on the central coast.” Saldaña-Talley is excited for the next phase of the JC’s history. “I feel like the work that I’ve done since 2018 has really set the groundwork for a pretty exciting future,” she said. “And the thing that I’m really looking forward to is maybe in five years being able to stand back and look at the college and say, ‘OK, what did you do at that opportunity?’” Looking back, Saldaña-Talley expressed a sense of pride about her path through life. “I’m grateful for the challenges I went through, and I know I am fully responsible for my success. That’s a very good feeling.”
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The Oak Leaf Magazine 14
SRJC athletes score “state of the art” facilities
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Photos by Christian Vieyra
By Christian Vieyra anta Rosa Junior College may not offer Division I athletics, but you wouldn’t know it from the looks of campus’ south side, where approximately $31.4 million in state-of-the-art construction is underway to benefit the 500-plus athletes who play on 17 teams representing the Bear Cubs. “If you look around at all the big schools like Michigan and Alabama, they have great facilities, and they have great facilities for a reason, because it helps with recruiting, and that’s no different at our level,” said SRJC Bear Cubs Athletic Director Matt Markovich. New projects include a track and field facility with a rubberized track, a new turf football field and
box and a new fence. Updates to the baseball facility include a turf field and batting cages. A Bermuda grass soccer field was added for men’s and women’s soccer to share. An Olympic-length racing pool was built for the swim and dive team. All work on outdoor facilities should be completed by mid-May, according to Markovich. “We’re setting up our athletic facilities for the next generation of Sonoma County high school students,” the athletic director said. The new facilities provide safer playing surfaces that prevent injury. For example, all of the new turf fields have a shock pad underneath, which helps absorb impact.
of my recruits over there so they can “ Iseetaketheallfield, and they’re all super excited ” a two-story field house at the south end of the Bailey Field complex. The field house’s first floor will house locker rooms for football, track and field, and cross country teams. The second level will consist of coaches’ offices and a conference room. “[Football] coach [Lenny] Wagner told me that he has not lost a recruit yet since we put these facilities in,” Markovich added when discussing the immediate impact to the football team’s prospects. Updates to the track and field facilities give the college the ability to host track meets. The Big Eight Conference trials and finals took place on campus for the first time in late April 2022. Renovations include a new turf softball field, new bleachers, a press
“The type of turf we put in is probably the safest turf we could put in,” Markovich said. Markovich was on the committee that included coaches and faculty members who helped make decisions for the renovations.
But for women’s soccer coach Crystal Chaidez, the biggest difference is that “we’ve never had our own field for both women’s and men’s soccer. We’ve always either been on the baseball field…or been off campus at someone else’s field,” she said. “It’s gonna be a huge difference just feeling at home.” Chaidez noted that the new field has boosted recruitment. “I take all of my recruits over there so they can see the field, and they’re all super excited,” she said.
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Chaidez told next year’s team “they’re making history, this is the first time ever that we’re going to have our own facility, and they get to be the first group to play on it.” The new field house on Bailey Field has been planned for 15 years, since Keith Simons was the head football coach. Wagner said there were even blueprints drawn up. “We designed a whole different building back in the day, and because of the amount of funding we got, it has changed over the years and morphed into what we see now,” Wagner said. The football team won’t be scattered anymore, according to Wagner. “Position meetings were all over campus, and it was not a central location. Now, everything’s gonna happen in there,” he said. Wagner believes the field house will give the team a sense of ownership that’s been missing. “We’re in here all the time, you know, [an] ‘It’s our house’ type of thing.” When designing the field house, the football staff took ideas from a plethora of other junior colleges. “We really had a good idea of what was working for coaches because we asked them questions, ‘What would you change? If you could change something, what would you do different?’” Wagner said. Players are looking forward to the new space, too. “I am really excited to see what the new lockers have in store. I think it will be a nice change
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Left: Bailey Field can now host track and field and cross country meets.
Swim & dive receives Olympic-sized upgrade
Right: The new Olympic-sized pool on the south side of campus is now filled as of April 13.
By Richard Tucker
The infield at Cook Sypher Field is now entirely turf, including its infield, which is colored brown to look like a traditional dirt base path.
The SRJC swim team will dive into a new Olympic-sized outdoor pool this summer, after waiting almost five decades from when the inaugural swim season began. Celebrating its 50-year anniversary in the spring of 2023, the swim team began in April, 1973 when the Bear Cubs opened their existing swim complex near Tauzer Gym and competed in their final meet against College of Marin. That first team finished 7-2-1, and two Bear Cubs qualified for state. Half a century and many successful seasons later, it’s time for an upgrade. “I’m super excited to have the 50-meter pool built for future teams,” said SRJC standout swimmer Ruby Gonzalez, who will compete for a state title in the 50-meter freestyle, 200 freestyle, and 200 backstroke at East LA college.
SRJC football players run routes during Spring Training, April 19, in front of the new under-construction field house at Bailey Field.
from our previous locker room that we had to share with the other sports teams,” said offensive lineman Gabe Avila. “It’s finally come to fruition, so to see it happen is just awesome,” the football coach said. Funding for these projects came from Measure H, which passed in
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Coach Jill McCormick has led the men’s and women’s swim teams for 22 seasons, winning six California Community College Athletic Association (CCCAA) state titles and eight conference titles. She has coached more than 300 All-American athletes. The new 50-meter pool will seal her legacy as SRJC’s renowned swim coach.
2014 and granted the college $410 million from taxpayers to be used for new math, science and laboratory spaces and the new athletics and kinesiology department facilities.
Coaching the men’s and women’s swim and dive team requires more than just winning meets; it’s also about managing what goes on behind the scenes. McCormick hopes to help SRJC raise millions for the aquatic endowment which includes naming rights to the new pool. Funding for the new aquatic facility also came from the 2014 Measure H bond.
“I’m a big believer that athletics is a great vehicle to get people to graduate and go through school,” Markovich said, “and I believe that having great facilities is a big piece of that.”
“This new facility and the endowment will help develop, support, and protect the future of aquatics at SRJC and in our community,” McCormick said.
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The Oak Leaf Magazine 16
Fostering the “Peanuts” legacy:
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Q&A with
Jean Schulz By Garrett Ashton
Jean Schulz’s never-ending curiosity, active philanthropy and overseeing of an esteemed Sonoma County landmark characterizes her varied and fascinating life. Widow of the beloved “Peanuts” cartoonist Charles M. “Sparky” Schulz, Jean Schulz had the vision for the Charles M. Schulz Museum & Research Center and has been president of the board since its opening 20 years ago. She has played a vital role as custodian of both the legacies of her husband and work. Amid her busy schedule, Schulz spoke with The Oak Leaf about this role and her life inside and outside of Santa Rosa’s borders. The Oak Leaf: The 20th anniversary of the museum is this year. What was your original vision?
OL: Mr. Schulz’s 100th birthday is also this year. What do you think he would be most proud of about the museum?
Jean Schulz: It has to be homey and have a space for [Sparky’s] original art. I didn’t understand that, a museum where everybody [has seen] all the [“Peanuts” comic] strips. But other people said, “No, that’s the wrong way to look at it.” People want to see the original art, and they don’t know all the background. So that’s what you put in the museum. Our whole thing was we wanted it to be comfortable, we wanted it to be welcoming. We want to do what Sparky would do, which was if the museum opened at 10 [a.m.] and there were people standing outside who wanted to come in, let them in [early]. We tried to keep it in Sparky’s spirit.
JS: I think he would be most proud of, or pleased with, the friendliness and welcoming. One of the things that Sparky said was “Don’t sell anyone short.” In other words, don’t make a judgment about somebody and assume they can or can’t do something, or they are or are not going to be welcome or be good museum visitors. Don’t sell anybody short.
OL: What role do you think the museum has established within the community?
Photo by Garrett Ashton
JS: I think it’s still to explain; it’s to entertain people, if you will. I don’t like to say “educate” them, but it is, as much as they want to be educated. I think it contributes to the community because people come from literally three-quarters of the world and every state [to visit]. And we have classes and cartoonists who come and speak on Saturdays. When can you go sit next to somebody who’s drawing for two hours and hear what they say to others and ask them questions? If you go to a signing, maybe you get a couple minutes and you’re embarrassed and you leave. What we give to the community as a whole is people knowing Santa Rosa for something, and that experience that people can have with cartoonists one-on-one.
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OL: The past few years have been a time of change, partially catalyzed by the pandemic, partially from general social unrest around the world. What do you think people can learn from “Peanuts” and its characters today? JS: I think they can still look at the humanity of the characters. And ultimately, even though they pick at Charlie Brown … they all like each other, and they all get along in the end. There’s never any blame that doesn’t get resolved within that strip or soon after. And the other thing is the focus on humor. If you can look at things with humor, you can get through a lot that otherwise would defeat you. OL: What do you most want the world to know about your husband as a person — and a cartoonist — that you so intimately did? JS: He worked really hard, but he loved what he did. He gave a talk over in Forestville to some kids at school, and [the teacher] did a rough tape of that interview. Sparky said, “Believe in yourself and do what you love; find something to do that you love.”
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Because — this is a phrase he’d use — “There are a lot of Mondays.” And if you don’t love what you do, you’re not going to be very happy. And he was always that little boy who wanted to draw. That’s what made him happy. That’s what made him good because it was what he loved. He worked hard at what he loved to do. He didn’t like the weekends; he couldn’t wait for Monday to get back into his studio. When Sparky and I married, I would go into his office, and he was drawing a comic strip, and he was so good at it that he could draw and talk to me at the same time. I saw this happening day after day and for 25 years; I took it for granted. I didn’t realize how hard it is, how every line is a decision. You have to make the square, and you have to decide how much is dialogue and how the characters are, and if you look at a comic strip, say there’s Snoopy and Charlie Brown, they all have different proportions. He had to decide how to make the panel look interesting, so they couldn’t just be exactly the same; maybe they would be bigger or maybe he would put just a side of the doghouse and Charlie Brown standing there. So every panel was a new decision to make. And I didn’t realize that, so I took it all for granted. He used to draw the last panel first, because he said, “I don’t want to have an idea, and
“I think they can still look at the humanity of
the characters ... even though they pick at Charlie Brown ... they all get along in the end.
then I get to the end and it doesn’t work.” He wanted to make sure the joke worked. He would make sure that panel worked and fill in the others. He had to think all the time, but by the time I met him, he had been drawing it for over 20 years, and he was just an expert at it. OL: What is something simple that you would want, or would hope, the younger generation to know about “Peanuts” and Mr. Schulz? JS: There’s a lot of life lessons in “Peanuts.” Some of those are being kind to people, taking your lumps and getting up again. There’s a lot of philosophical wisdom in Linus and his quiet, thumb-sucking way. So I would hope that they might spend enough time with the stories to learn about the humanity, the forgiveness. So you can laugh at yourself. Everybody has problems, and they can be overcome. If [younger people] don’t know anything [about “Peanuts’’], I would hope they come here and would develop a little bit of a curiosity so that they might pursue some of the stories.
”
OL: I saw that you took some classes at the JC; what was your experience like? JS: I took John LeBaron’s photography class for maybe four semesters. Of course, John was a wonderful teacher, and the JC was so open, and it was small. It was a smaller community. This was in the late ‘60s, early ‘70s. I am not a wonderful photographer, but I enjoyed it. And then I took Liz Quant’s printmaking class. Liz was a first-class artist. And then I took a Japanese class because our Japanese business is big. All the classes were wonderful. OL: In 1977, The Oak Leaf interviewed Mr. Schulz, and we learned he taught a cartooning class at the JC. How did that come to be? JS: It was partly because I told him how inspiring it was to take Liz Quant’s art class and how many older people in the class there were. And so he said, “Maybe I could teach a cartooning class?” And he wasn’t as well known in Santa Rosa [then] as he would be now, but he said he would. So he went on the first day and told [the students] to come back to bring this and this. And they came back next week and didn’t have it. I think he was expecting them to be a little older, or maybe when he was that age, 18- and 19-year-olds were more focused on it as a career thing. OL: At the time of the interview, he was putting up a show at the JC art gallery with original strips and illustrations, and yet he told The Oak Leaf, “I’m not sure comic strips belong in galleries.”
Jean and Charles M. Schulz on the lawn at One Snoopy Place in Santa Rosa, in front of Mr. Schulz’s studio in 1975.
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The Oak Leaf Magazine 18
JS: Yeah, because he was aware that in a way, comic strips are a craft. Yes, they’re an art, but he said, “I’m a cartoonist, not an artist.” I think when he said “This isn’t art,” they thought he was being modest, but it wasn’t really being modest. It’s the truth. You’re performing a craft, you’re a craftsman. And that’s what he wanted to be, a skilled craftsman. It’s an honesty on his part, and he wanted to be admired. And he wanted his work to be admired, but as a cartoon as a craft, not hailed as an artist.
Jean and Charles Schulz at their wedding in 1973.
years and have held on and had a small enough footprint that they could hang on, with a narrow enough business. I treasure all of those local people. OL: What is currently the most important community issue to you?
OL: What does the JC’s role in the community mean to you? JS: When I first came to town, there were Quonset huts on the [JC] property where the married students lived. It was a community. The junior college embraced the community, and the community embraced the junior college. A lot of people in the community took classes at the JC. The whole thrust of the junior college was education for everyone, and I think maybe part of it is after the war, there were a lot of people who had been in [the] service and hadn’t finished their education, and [the JC] was there for everybody. Ev-
Paths, which I love, because they get kids out on the land who wouldn’t have otherwise. There are enough people in the community who value the open space and… they’re protecting it, they’re using it, they’re encouraging people to use it. OL: What, if anything, have you seen change within this community? What have you seen mostly stay the same?
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JS: I used to say when we first moved The junior college embraced the here in 1962 that if I walked down the community, and the community street I would always see somebody I knew. embraced the junior college. And now I don’t. One of the biggest changery time I go to the dentist and have a es was when the Raiders practiced new hygienist or somebody takes my down at [The El Rancho Tropicana blood at the lab, I say, “Did you get Hotel]; that was a fun thing. They your training at the JC?” There are a used to come to the Fosters Freeze lot of people in the community who [on 4th Street], and its still there, that can go to the JC, get a job and live in and the Superburger. It reminds me the community. I think it’s wonder- that some things stay the same, even ful. And I’ll always love their theater. though everything else changes. It’s a treasure. But when the big box stores came, OL: What are some of your favorite and that whole area was created, that parts of living here in Santa Rosa and just changed Santa Rosa, I’m guessSonoma County as well? ing at the end of the ‘70s. That did change it a lot. I still try to go to the JS: I personally love being close to local stores. But of course now peothe ocean. I’m also proud of all the ple order stuff and never go out at all. open space here. I contribute to Land But there were some stores there for
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JS: In terms of community, you want to have nice things. You know, you want to have nice neighborhoods to live in, you want to have nice restaurants to go to, nice parks, nice schools. But at the same time, you don’t want it to be nice for one group of people that counts on keeping another group of people at low-paying jobs so that you can have your nice restaurant and your nice garden and all that. I was just listening to something on the radio. It was a Black woman, I don’t know who she is, but she said that she thought the environment was the rich white people’s fight. And I realized, ‘Oh wait a minute, that’s my fight.’ So I guess you could almost say that the most important community issue is ignorance and closing your eyes to obvious issues. Closing your eyes because it’s easier or it’s painful. Everyone says young people are more in-tune, and I can only hope so because I don’t think we’ve done that great a job. OL: You were not born in the U.S.; when did you move here? JS: I was born in Germany. My parents were British, and they left when the war began and came to San Francisco. We lived in Mill Valley from 1942 to 1948. My mother and father divorced, and we three children moved to Southern California in San Diego County in a small agri-
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cultural town. They bought property and planted avocado trees. I married [my first husband, Peter,] and lived in San Francisco from 1957 to 1959, and moved to Hawaii for three years, then came here to Santa Rosa in 1962 [and married Charles in 1973]. So I’ve been a Californian most of my life. OL: You were a private pilot for a while. What initially attracted you to flying? JS: My mother and stepfather both flew. They were pilots, and they used to come up here on their cross country trips. They would come with their instructor and spend the night, so people were always talking about flying. One day Peter said, “I think I’ll go out to the airport and take a lesson today.” And I said, “Well, why don’t you wait at least until [our daughter] is in kindergarten, and I’ll do it too?” And he said, “Well, I think I want to do it today.” But I just wasn’t going to be left behind. OL: Even though you don’t currently fly, why are you still active with The Ninety-Nines, an international organization that promotes women pilots
through education, scholarships and mutual support? JS: Because it’s partly camaraderie. There’s still several of us who are talking with a lot of young women who are flying and have careers in aviation. And they’re trying to improve their skills and we — who haven’t flown in 20 years — still get together and talk with them. We’ve been doing it on Zoom for two years now. I’m anxious to see these people in-person, because I’m impressed with what they’re doing. OL: You also practiced flying trapeze when you were around 60. I was curious if there was a connection between the different types of flying? JS: No, I think only curiosity. I was at a Club Med [resort on vacation], and I went up [the trapeze platform] and tried to jump off, and I did jump off. But it was semi-terrifying. And I thought, “Well I can’t believe I can’t do that.” And my grandkids are little, and I used to take them to the park and go on the parallel bars, because I didn’t want to be not able to do something. And so then I discovered a trapeze [club] over in Sonoma. After a few weeks … I was hooked.
what I’m proud of, feel good about. But I’d like people to know about [my] curiosity. And I would say persistence is another [way I’d describe myself ]. I’ll persist in doing things that aren’t getting me anywhere, but I just feel as though I have to. OL: What brings you joy each day? JS: Simple things. When you leave, right on the corner, going down the road and seeing the spring flowers coming out. That sounds so corny, but it’s true. When you go back to Steele Lane on the corner, there’s three rose bushes and a lot of poppies in front of them. Those rose bushes volunteered; they came up a few years ago [without anyone purposely planting them]. I didn’t prune them last winter, but I pruned them the winter before to see how they would do. And they came back, and they just look beautiful. Those beautiful poppies and the rose bushes, they’re there for everybody.
OL: Would you encourage people to try flying trapeze or flying airplanes? JS: Both! You learn so much when you learn to fly. I say that you never quite look at the clouds the same way again, because you learned something about those clouds. You don’t take it for granted. I didn’t do any of them particularly well, but I you get an appreciation for what you learn. OL: Your husband is well-known, but what legacy do you want to leave behind? What do you most want people to know about you? JS: I’m happy that I have the museum as a legacy. That’s what I need. That’s
Check the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center’s website for up-to-date hours. The current exhibition, “Spark Plug to Snoopy: 100 Years of Schulz” runs until Sept. 18, 2022. Admission for students with valid ID is $5, adults $12. Photos courtesy of Charles M. Schulz Museum & Research Center. Special thanks to Stephanie King, Faith Yazel and Karen Ashton.
Jean Schulz practicing trapeze in 2010.
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SRJC’s Gallagher and Handron join Sonoma Stompers By Tony Moeckel
T
wo star Santa Rosa Junior College baseball players could be one step closer to the big leagues.
On March 27, the Sonoma Stompers of the California Collegiate League signed catcher Jack Gallagher and infielder Max Handron to play across California against other collegiate amateurs who have played at least one season and have at least one year of eligibility remaining on their NCAA Division I teams. The Stompers’ league acts as a pipeline to the majors.“This league is rated number six in the entire country out of 48 collegiate leagues,” said Sonoma Stompers General Manager Eddie Mora-Loera. “The league has about a 50% draft rate.” For both Gallagher and Handron, an opportunity to play for the Stompers will be pivotal to their career development. For Gallagher, he will be able to perfect his power-hitting craft and find out what it is like to catch for other talented pitchers; and for Handron, he will learn how to continue impacting games with his at-bats and infield at the next level’s faster pace. Both players’ improvement will come off the opportunity they have already seen with the SRJC baseball program. They are both on a roll this season for the Bear Cubs, leading the team to a 25-12 overall record through 37 games and a 13-9 record in conference play. “Getting the experience of playing at the college level and playing for some amazing coaches has been very influential on my development as a player,” Gallagher said. Gallagher and Handron are not the only ones to benefit from their rela-
Photos by Tony Moeckel Bear Cubs catcher and new Stomper Jack Gallagher jogs to home plate in the top of the third inning against the San Joaquin Delta College Mustangs at Cook Sypher Field.
tionship with the Stompers. SRJC baseball’s reputation will also get a boost as prospective players hoping to be drafted will see Gallagher and Handron’s path through the JC to the Stompers as a different way to make it to the big leagues instead of spending four years in a Division I program. Top local talent have used SRJC’s baseball program as a springboard to the MLB, often through transferring to universities, such as Hawaii, UC Berkeley and Sacramento State. Most notable is two-time World Series champion Jonny Gomes who spent two years with the Bear Cubs before joining the Tampa Bay Rays, Cincinnati Reds, Washington Nationals and other teams, including the series-winning 2013 Boston Red Sox and 2015 Kansas City Royals. MLB currently has two former Bear Cubs under contract, Miami Marlins pitcher Anthony Bender and Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Justin Bruihl. Bear Cubs alumni also fill-
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out coaching staffs in Baltimore and Seattle; Brandon Hyde is the Orioles’ manager, and Tony Arnerich is the Mariners’ hitting coach. The Sonoma Stompers are the California Collegiate League’s 11th franchise. The league’s North Division includes the Stompers, along with the Healdsburg Prune Packers, Lincoln Potters, Walnut Creek Crawdads and Solano Mudcats, while six teams compete in the South Division from Compton, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Conejo and Orange County. The Stompers haven’t revealed their full roster for the 2022 Summer season, but GM Eddie Mora-Loera is excited regardless. “We are going to have a competitive bunch here at Sonoma,” he said. “Adding an additional 45 games this summer is what they need to sharpen their skills.” The Stompers’ first regular season game is June 9 at Arnold Field against the Walnut Creek Crawdads.
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Max Handron brings speed to the game Handron played varsity ball for Sonoma Valley High School, graduating in 2019. As an extra source of pride, Handron will spend his summer on the same infield he roamed as a high schooler; the Sonoma Stompers share the Dragons’ home field, Arnold Field. “Max was our first player signed for this upcoming season. He’s a phenomenal player, obviously,” said Stompers’ manager Mora-Loera. “It only makes sense we bring him back to Sonoma on the high school field he played on.” Handron shifts momentum by leading off games at the top of the batting order. He recorded a .311 batting average, one home run, 20 RBIs and 41 hits so far this season. He is looking forward to the Stomp-
ers’ regular season, which fills a gap when he wouldn’t otherwise be on the field. “I think playing with the Stompers will expose me to some great pitchers and great players,” Handron said. “It will be great to further my game.” Handron is excited about the opportunity to play for the Stompers, but his eye is still set on finishing this season for the Bear Cubs. “Ultimately, it is a championship ring that we want, but we’re taking it one game at a time,” he said. Handron is committed to UC Berkeley, where he will need to compete for his spot in the Golden Bears’ batting order.
Jack Gallagher hits the long ball Gallagher played four years of high school baseball for the Petaluma High School Trojans before SRJC recruited him in 2020. Gallagher is a
huge source of offense for the Bear Cubs and leads the team in home runs and RBIs. He recorded 12 home runs and 41 RBIs in 37 games and posted a .364 batting average. “He’s really caught fire this year. He’s dominating at his position, just really putting together solid at-bats for Santa Rosa,” Mora-Loera said. The Bear Cubs will need Gallagher to continue his hot streak if they want to make it deep into the California Community College Athletic Association playoffs. “As a team, our goal for the re st of the season is to…find success in the playoffs and go as far as we can,” Gallagher said. After what he hopes will be a successful summer season hitting for the Sonoma Stompers, Gallagher plans to transfer in the fall but is unsure where.
“This league is rated number six in the entire country ... The league has about a 50% draft rate.”
Infielder Max Handron beats the defense to first base in a 8-2 victory against the Sacramento City College Panthers at Cook Sypher Field.
Spring 2022
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From Montgomery High to SRJC to All-American: Two soccer players honored among nation’s best By Christian Vieyra
S
anta Rosa Junior College goalie Emanuel Padilla was on the phone with his girlfriend when another call beeped-in. He put her on hold and heard a familiar voice on the other end of the line — his head coach, Marty Kinahan, calling to tell Padilla he was one of the country’s Top 11 junior college soccer players. Padilla had been named first team All-American. But that wasn’t all; Padilla’s longtime teammate, forward Alan Soto, also made the first team. Padilla hung up on his girlfriend to immediately ring Soto. “He just called me and said, ‘Congratulations!’ and at first I didn’t know what he meant,” Soto said. Padilla had beaten Kinahan to his teammate. Out of nowhere — or so it seemed to the two men — the United Soccer Coaches Association recognized Padilla and Soto as two of the best Division III junior college soccer players in the U.S., a group that consists of thousands of players. Padilla didn’t expect to earn All-American honors in his freshman season. “I started out bad to be honest,” he said. “I just think over time I got better.”
Soto, who graduates this summer, was also surprised. “I didn’t know if everyone really saw the quality in me, so it was cool,” he said. But the honor didn’t shock their coaches, not SRJC coach Kinahan nor their Montgomery High School Coach Jon Schwan. This year, in his debut season at goalie for the Bear Cubs, Padilla had 77 saves and nine shutouts. Soto, a forward in his last year at the JC, scored 14 goals and eight assists. “When they walked through the doors of Montgomery, we knew they were special players,” Schwan said. “They’re extremely competitive guys who wanted to win, and that always carried over to the field,” he said. Schwan was pleased to see both players leave Montgomery for SRJC for two reasons. “I get to stay involved in their lives and watch them continue to grow locally here,” he said, “and I went to the JC so it makes it even more special for me.” Now both players are looking ahead to next season. For Soto, that means his first year at Northwest Nazarene University in Idaho, where he plans to hold himself to a higher standard. “As an All-American, everyone looks at you like you know what you’re
23 The Oak Leaf Magazine theoakleafnews.com
Left: The two All-Americans show off their All-American jackets and scarves at Bailey Field. Center: Forward Alan Soto passes the ball in his final game as a Bear Cub, losing to Cosumnes River. Right: Goalie Emanuel Padilla slides for the ball on defense, in a 2-0 win vs. Merced College in the first round of the NorCal playoffs.
doing,” Soto said. “Now that I’m moving on, I have to give a good reputation for JC players, because they’re not always given the chance to play” [after junior college].” Padilla has another year of eligibility at the community college level and is focused on the Bear Cubs’ 2022 season, which he is calling a “redemption year” after the team’s playoff loss in November to conference rival Cosumnes River College. Soto has high hopes for his now-former teammate. “[Padilla] is just a beast. He’s a great player, great leader,” Soto said. “I think he’s gonna go somewhere after the JC, and hopefully it’s a good school with quality players just like him.” The United Soccer Coaches Association presented Padilla and Soto with their first team All-American awards at a ceremony in January in Kansas City, Missouri. Coach Kinahan traveled with them and their families and gave them advice before the ceremony. “He said, ‘Enjoy the moment while you can,’” Padilla recalled. “And I didn’t really think about it until it was over, and once it was over, I realized he was right. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity for many people, and we just have to enjoy it.”
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Photos courtesy of Kyle Farmer Meghan Walla-Murphy, SRJC instructor in national resource management and director of the North Bay Bear Collaborative, believes feral pigs benefit Sonoma County’s oak woodlands by rooting in the ground, which distributes acorns, aerates the soil and increases water percolation.
Humans
vs. feral hogs:
Why can’t we be friends?
By Michael Combs
Six million of them live in at least 35 states and cause $1.5 billion in property damage a year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and they are particularly infamous among Sonoma County vineyard owners. With titles of “hogacolypse,” “aporkolypse” and “feral swine bomb,” feral pigs are the animal many people think about when the name “invasive species” comes up.
Meghan Walla-Murphy, a Santa Rosa Junior College natural resource management instructor and director of the North Bay Bear Collaborative, thinks “invasive” is an inaccurate descriptor for non-native species because it simplifies ecological processes and species competition — which are constantly changing — into what people like and don’t like.
Yet “invasive” is a subjective term that implies a species is an invader that can destroy whatever native habitats it comes across. Feral pigs have lived in California since the 1700s and now occupy 56 out of 58 counties, but have been so inconsequential that there are still no accurate population estimates for the state. They’ve been an established part of the ecosystem for some time without killing everything they’ve come across, so why are feral pigs considered such a problem now?
She thinks this applies to our use of the term for feral pigs and suggests we change the way we refer to the controversial species.
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Walla-Murphy says invasive species are more accurately defined as “opportunistic species,” meaning they can survive in a variety of habitats and move into neighboring ecosystems when the opportunity arises. In the case of feral pigs, the opportunity for range expansion has all been human driven.
“A lot of people’s complaints about invasives are from a human-centric point of view and not really understanding their role in creating this imbalance within the ecology and ‘invasion,’” Walla-Murphy said. When we call feral pigs invasive, we ignore the relationships they’ve made with other species in California and their role in the native ecology, she said. For example, one role left open after Californians exterminated the California grizzly bear in the 1920s, was that of a large digging mammal that aided native plant propagation by mixing the soil. “Grizzly bears are big diggers,” Walla-Murphy said. “If you go anywhere there are grizzlies left, like Yellowstone, you can see fields where they’ve turned over the soil looking for tubers or insects, and it looks
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similar to after a herd of pigs have moved through Sonoma County’s oak woodlands.” Feral pig rooting also aids the Sonoma County ecosystem in resisting the effects of man-made climate change, such as extreme droughts, she said, by allowing more water to enter the soil via aeration. “When you see feral pigs in our oak woodlands, like around Lake Sonoma, they’re often rooting in contour,” she said of the pigs’ using their snouts to dig into the flat areas that ring hillsides. “So they create these micro-swales,” or depressions in the ridges, “and whenever it rains, water pools into these swales, which slows water runoff and increases ground percolation.” Walla-Murphy said people only use the term invasive for species we don’t want in our space. An example of this is the non-native Broadleaf Plantain, which indigenous peoples heavily used as a powerful plant medicine but most modern farmers call a weed. She loves California’s native species, but said we can’t choose what’s best for our ecosystem based on what we like. “When we have a non-native or even a native species that are encroaching or need some tending to, my question is, ‘How is a species functioning in the habitat or ecosystem, and do they need to be tended so that there’s more resiliency or biodiversity?’” Walla-Murphy said. Another non-native flora that is vilified and targeted for removal, she said, is the French Broom plant, which is an important food source for native and non-native pollinators, like bees. “If you rip it out, what are the results? Is it worth losing the pollinators that go with it?” she said. We run into a similar problem with feral hogs. Walla-Murphy said she commonly finds native species,
such as Juncus and Sage and the native Foothill Yellow-legged Frog in swales created by feral pigs. If we wantonly kill feral pigs because we see them as invasive and nasty, we may also be removing habitats for native species and reducing biodiversity and resiliency. Matt Nelson, owner of Redwood Coast Animal Tracking, has been hunting feral hogs all his life. He grew up in the hills of Annapolis among “poor country folk” who hunted feral hogs for food, and over time, he learned to respect them. “They’re amazing, social, intelligent, affectionate, communicative animals. And I think it would benefit us if we looked at them in that way rather than [as] invasive vermin to be eradicated,” Nelson said. He is writing a book about feral hogs, and after finishing his research has come to believe the pig problem is actually a human-driven problem. “I traveled all over Texas for my research and spent a bunch of time on different ranches,” Nelson said. “What’s happening is hogs are expanding into these large, corporate farms. And the corporations don’t like that, so they’re spreading information and creating this attitude of war on pigs.” According to Nelson’s review of the earliest written records kept on feral hog activity — records from Texas in the 1800s — feral hogs’ range was limited to land near human settlements, because they could not survive in the high desert without a water source. As colonists converted more and more land for agricultural purposes, thus expanding the hogs’ access to water, the species’ range expanded. Nelson said hunters have also purposely contributed to feral hog expansion by catching them and hauling them to new areas to populate new hunting grounds. Feral hogs’ bad reputation is exaggerated or misleading, Nelson
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said. Other non-native species are more devastating to the ecosystem; domesticated cats kill a billion songbirds a year, and wild horses decimate native grasslands in the Southwest. Nelson also thinks people blame feral hogs for destruction caused by preferred non-native species, like cows. While feral pig rooting disburses and aids the growth of new oak seedlings, cows love to eat baby oak trees, but people blame feral pigs for the decline of California’s oak woodlands. Walla-Murphy said most of the complaints about feral pigs come from vineyard owners who don’t want pigs in their vines because they claim the pigs cause erosion, for example. However, the only places she’s seen feral pig activity lead to erosion and sedimentation into our water sources are places where the soil has already been disturbed, like in vineyards. Rancher Kyle Farmer doesn’t hold any ill-will toward feral pigs, but his experience with their destructiveness makes him doubt their potential benefit. He joined his wife’s ranch, Magruder Ranch, in Potter Valley, California, in the middle of her family’s attempt to breed and tame 70 feral pigs of their own, but had to shut down the operation due to the pigs’ widespread destruction. There was significantly less graze left to regrow in the pasture where they raised the pigs, he said. A trend in California agriculture leverages indigenous and natural practices to both honor the land and increase yield while regenerating the soil sans pesticides. In some cases, for example, grape growers who follow biodynamic practices use livestock to thin a cover crop and fertilize the land as they munch their way between rows of vines. But modern attempts at harnessing historical perspective while also try-
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Feral pigs have been a part of California’s ecosystem since the 1700s but only recently considered a problem as property development has allowed this opportunistic species to spread to 56 of 58 counties.
ing to repurpose an invasive species are not always successful. “Native people had a form of tending the land that was harvesting and redistribution and not taking the whole harvest. Feral pigs are not so cultured,” Farmer said. They disturb everything in their path. Some disturbance to the ground is beneficial for the ecosystem, Nelson said, in agreement with Walla-Murphy’s bears-as-seed-sowers example. But too much disturbance is an environmental stressor that impedes growth and resiliency. Nelson said there are a “ton of pigs” at the north end of Potter Valley, and since they have little pressure from predators, they have plenty of time to eat a mountain top clean. While Farmer is hesitant to accept Walla-Murphy’s niche hogs-replacebears theory, he did compare their destructiveness to the reintroduction of fire within Sonoma County in that they’ve both been mismanaged for so long they’ve gotten beyond human control. Currently, there’s no such thing as successful management of feral hogs, Farmer said, and any perceived success is merely an illusion
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until the hogs adapt and become a problem again. However, he thinks hunting could potentially be beneficial for other reasons. “They’re easy to find, available year round, and it’s a sustainable yield of meat coming out of the hills. You can’t beat it,” Farmer said. “They’re also a great animal to learn to hunt from. I guide people hunting elk, and it’d be a lot better if they had started out with pig hunting.” Walla-Murphy thinks hunting would help manage feral pigs. “I was taught an invasive species doesn’t play well with others and kind of needs some boundaries put in it,” she said. “I believe they need to be hunted to be kept in check.”
is allowed, these intelligent animals will learn to congregate in areas where they can’t be hunted. The bill will also not impact the total amount of takes. According to the State of California and Wildlife Wild Pig Take Report, hunters purchased 53,923 tags to take feral pigs were yet they reported only 3,950 feral pigs taken in the 2020-2021 season. Of all the feral hogs taken, 90.4% were hunted on private land where hunters are required to have the owner’s permission to hunt and will usually have to pay the owner an extra fee anyway.
Some in the California statehouse agree. In January 2022, State Sen. Bill Dodd introduced legislation aimed at increasing feral pig hunting by replacing $15 per-pig kill tags with a $15 flat fee for a season-long pig hunting license.
Simply reducing the price to hunt feral hogs also promotes the reckless killing that can damage native habitats, which Walla-Murphy warned about. Feral pigs are thriving in California because they’ve developed a relationship with the existing flora and fauna. If humans want to minimize their feral pig problems, they need to respect their role in the ecosystem.
“We must increase opportunities to hunt them so that we may bring our pig population under control,” Sen. Dodd said in a press release.
“We’re not getting rid of feral pigs, period. So given that, then how do we come into a good relationship with them?” Walla-Murphy said.
Critics say that since the bill doesn’t change the range where pig hunting
“All things need boundaries, including humans.”
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New
same
Abrea Tillman, Santa Rosa Junior College Student Wine Club president and student body president-elect, is excited that a new wave of vitculture and oenology students are changing the approach to wine making.
By Nicholas Vides
How young wine aficionados are revamping a traditional industry
Photo by Nicholas Vides
hile breweries up the hops and booze companies add carbonation to appeal to a younger crowd, Sonoma County winemakers aren’t doctoring their wine to appeal to younger drinkers. They’re banking on another approach: letting a historically stodgy, stuck-up business model evolve. Abrea Tillman, Santa Rosa Junior College Student Wine Club president and student body president-elect, said the pandemic shook up the industry. “Now we have this new perspective about how we’re doing things when it comes to hospitality, when it comes to sales and marketing, and it really creates an opportunity for the younger generation to find unique and creative ways to get involved,” she said. According to Tillman, there is so much more to a bottle of wine than drinking it. “There’s this whole other aspect — being a fantastic farmer and this mad scientist winemaker and this all-around awesome salesperson. So really any younger person can find their niche and develop it in the wine industry,” she said. Kevin Sea, SRJC winemaking studies department chair, sees how his 20and 30-something students are shifting the focus. “In young people now there’s more interest in organic practices. Some people are interested in biodynamic ways of growing grapes, and that’s more on the grape-growing
27 The Oak Leaf Magazine theoakleafnews.com
side than the winemaking side,” he said. He finds many young people are looking for unfiltered, earthy wines, the opposite of the synthetic flavors and fruity seltzers that are hot on the shelves today. Paul Guisto, co-owner of Highway 12 and Highwayman wines, believes good wine will always speak for itself. “I believe younger wine drinkers get it, that wine is different from other beverage categories,” Guisto said. “If you want a fruity hard seltzer, drink that. But if you want a drink that is grown and rooted in farming, crafted by hands of winemakers and offers a connection to the land, wine can be so rewarding.” Jennifer Higgins, director of winemaking at Lambert Bridge Winery in Healdsburg and an SRJC alumna, echoed Guisto’s perspective. “We try to make the best wine we can without doing a lot of the bells and whis-
Spring 2022
Wine buyer Barry Herbst shows off a Petaluma Gap red blend that has been a hot buy for wine drinkers of all ages at Bottle Barn in Santa Rosa.
Jennifer Higgins, director of winemaking at Lambert Bridge Winery, sorts wine grapes in Healdsburg.
Photo courtesy of Adam Decker
ing, and we’re always trying to break through,” Higgins said.
class here because our awesome winemakers are much older, a lot of them. They’re in their 50s and 60s, and they’re kind of set in their ways about their experience in making wine,” Tillman said. “And our students are these very young, energetic, eclectic, new winemakers that have their own bold ways of bringing out the expression of the grape. It’s very interesting to see the difference in the generations of winemakers and how they decide to produce a bottle of wine.”
Each of these winemakers, Tillman included, believes they don’t need to change the essence of wine to court younger drinkers; they just need to make it more accessible. Photo by Nicholas Vides
tles because we’ve worked so hard in the winery. We don’t add anything to the wine, but we do filter before bottling,” Higgins said. “Our members and guests have high expectations of our great tasting wine.” Both Higgins and Guisto are applying Tillman’s philosophy, that wineries also need to adjust their approach to the sales side of their operation in a way that speaks to millennials and of-age Gen Zers. “We deliver a casual, laid back experience with wine being a component of our overall experience. Sure, wine is at the core of what we do, yet our customer enjoys not only our wines but our vibe, our approach and the connection with our awesome team,” Guisto said. Lambert Bridge Winery is also paying attention to the feel of their tasting room in an attempt to overcome the wine industry’s long-standing perceived snobbery. “Sometimes it feels like a secret code is being spoken in terms of what you should drink, what you should like, how you should act, what you should buy. It’s intimidat-
Spring 2022
And accessibility is what Barry Herbst provides. As wine buyer for Bottle Barn in Santa Rosa, Herbst sees what young people gravitate toward when they enter the shop, and while their choices might be different from an older shopper’s, the bottles they buy are not attempting to pump-up the flavors. They simply are what they are. Herbst believes that the younger market wants a more biodiverse wine bottle, a bottle filled with wine made without chemicals or the use of pesticides. “They’re pretty focused on what we call the hipster wines now, pét-nats, co-fermented wines, orange wines, biodynamic organic wines, all natural wines, and then [wines] from unusual areas,” Herbst said. “I think they just want to try new things, instead of the standard chardonnay or pinot from here in the valley.” Tillman and her classmates see this generational juxtaposition at Shone Farm where they study viticulture and oenology, grow and crush grapes, and then blend and taste wine, under the watchful eye of experienced Sonoma County vintners. “It’s very interesting coming to theoakleafnews.com
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The good and the bad of the decade's worst video games
W
By Alex Fuller
hether it’s an inspired character model or clever sound design, even bad video games have something to offer. Right? After using review aggregator Metacritic to find the worst games of the last 10 years, I spent an hour and a half on each game, taking note of gameplay, vibes and any glitches to test my theory.
Some of the games that follow aren’t the worst rated game of their year; some games are so bad publishers have taken them off digital platforms, leaving $60 eBay copies as the only way to play them. In those cases, I opted for that year’s worst game that’s available on Steam or the Nintendo Switch, which occasionally meant I played a slightly better game — poor me. I also used my own rating system, 0 to -5, from decent to waste of time. Realms of Ancient War (2012) Metascore: 39/100 My score: -3/-5 “Realms of Ancient War” is a topdown fantasy hack-and-slash action RPG (role-playing game). The good: The three classes to choose from cover the three basic playstyles: ranged, melee and a combo of both. The armor you equip shows up on your character, and full sets are fun to collect and mix and match. If I didn’t own “Diablo III,” a far superior action RPG, I would pick up this game for around $5 and it would be similar enough to scratch that itch. The bad: I chose rogue, the hybrid class, and the mouse and keyboard controls were less than ideal. Left-click on the mouse both moved my character and discharged my weapon, so I
walked forward into enemy attacks whenever I misclicked. Yikes. Takedown: Red Sabre (2013) Metascore: 34/100 My score: -5/-5 “Takedown: Red Sabre” is a first-person tactical shooter inspired by Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six series. The good: While I didn’t like the gameplay, the map designs were great. I liked sneaking around and exploring the biolab, the cargo ship and the tall glass office building maps. The bad: I usually have a decent time playing Rainbow Six-style games, but I cannot say the same about this one. Because the AI would spawn in different places each round, I wasn’t able to learn and adapt to the enemies’ behaviors, which is debatably more realistic, but also more frustrating. It wouldn’t have been as bad if the AI didn’t also have ridiculous super-human reaction times, often killing me in one shot. The game also crashed a few times while loading into single-player mode. I could only stand playing for an hour and 10 minutes. Escape Dead Island (2014) Metascore: 32/100 My score: 0/-5 The second spin-off in the Dead Island series, “Escape Dead Island” is a third-person adventure/survival/ horror/zombie game about an aspiring journalist with a camera on an abandoned tropical island. The good: The gameplay is much slower than other zombie shooters, focusing more on stealth kills, but I really liked the change of pace. Plus, the comic-style art and gruesome animation makes slowly sneaking up
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on zombies an entertaining experience. I enjoyed playing this more than almost every other game on the list and will be adding it to my regular game rotation. The bad: The only glitch I experienced was when I opened a door I was supposed to go through but saw absolutely nothing. I figured passing through would put me in a loading screen, but instead I fell into a void and my character died. Alone in the Dark: Illumination (2015) Metascore: 19/100 My score: -2/-5 “Alone in the Dark: Illumination” is a survival/horror/zombie game and the most recent installment in the widely loved “Alone in the Dark” series. It features a Lovecraftian aesthetic that echoes the original game. The good: Each of the four classes has a specific character with a unique story, and you can switch characters between each level. All the classes — like the hunter and the witch — have fun and interesting abilities, which made the levels replayable and kept me interested. The bad: It took a second for the enemies to fully spawn-in, and I couldn’t do damage until they were. I also encountered two back-to-back game-breaking glitches in the second level, making me nervous to ever load back into the game. Soda Drinker Pro (2016) Metascore: 30/100 My score: -5/-5 The self-proclaimed “world’s most advanced soda-drinking simulator,” “Soda Drinker Pro” is a game about drinking soda in various places. The good: The original build of “Soda Drinker Pro” was developed in just a day, which is impressive, I guess. The real gem is the secret second game, “Vivian Clarke,” hidden behind a
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door in the second level. After I finished drinking soda for 102 levels — yes, that is all you do in this game — I went back through the secret door to a minigame arena with tons of fun and surreal minigames to play. The bad: It was hard for me to tell whether this game was supposed to be a parody or a profound, spooky and surreal experience. The gameplay felt repetitive and slow with no payoff. I found that disappointing, since this could have been an entertaining playthrough with a little more effort on the developer’s part.
Vroom in the Night Sky (2017) Metascore: 17/100 My score: -4/-5 “Vroom in the Night Sky” is a magical girl-inspired bike action game in which you ride motorcycles and collect “stardusts” in a multitude of night skies. The good: I am a fan of the “magical girl” genre, so I was sold when I saw this game about riding through the night sky on a magical motorcycle collecting “stardusts” and “keystars.” The graphics are simple but cute, and there are so many cool-looking motorcycles to buy with the stardusts that you earn. The bad: I expected the “magical gas” resource to be utilized, but my meter hardly dropped below 90%. While I liked the level design, the gameplay was the same in every level, which got boring. Fast.
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The Quiet Man (2018) Metascore: 28/100 My score: -4/-5 “The Quiet Man” is an action-adventure beat ‘em up with a heavy story about a deaf man’s journey to avenge his mother’s death. The good: Although the live-action and animated cutscenes are mostly dialogue-free, the sound design attempts to convey what being deaf sounds like to the main character. The controls in the menu are explained uniquely via cute moving neon signs. The bad: The game inserts both live-action and animated cutscenes between short gameplay periods, which felt disconnected. Dane, the main character, knows sign language, can read lips and speaks occasionally, but I rarely saw subtitles, even though he understood what was said. After watching multiple upsetting live-action cutscenes depicting death and flashbacks of child abuse, I was left drained with no motivation to continue playing. Eternity: The Last Unicorn (2019) Metascore: 36 My score: -5/-5 “Eternity: The Last Unicorn” is a fairytale fantasy action RPG with classic game mechanics similar to FromSoftware titles like the Dark Souls series. The good: There is a unicorn in this game. The bad: If I didn’t know when this game was made, I would guess sometime in the ‘90s. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but instead of making me feel nostalgic for the older graphics and gameplay, it felt depthless. I had a horrible time moving my character through the uncontrollable, con-
stantly changing camera angles. What’s worse is there’s no sprint button; the short dash is the only way to move faster. Tiny Racer (2020) Metascore: 29 My score: -4/-5 “Tiny Racer” is a couch co-op racing game inspired by toy cars. The good: I was excited to play this game, as I love arcade racing games, and I really liked the graphics and overall aesthetic. The car I chose changed colors every race, and when I bumped or hit obstacles or other cars, little comic-style graphics with “pow!” and “thump!” popped up. The bad: Instead of feeling like I was driving a race car, I felt like I was driving a toy car, which isn’t as fun as it sounds. The physics are weird, and my car got sucked into terrain and the track-wall multiple times, forcing me to reset. Even though I played on the easiest difficulty, I didn’t get first place once. eFootball 2022 (2021) Metascore: 25 My score: -3/-5 “eFootball: 2022” is a free-to-play soccer simulation game. The good: I really liked the montages of teams and coaches before each game. The player models are realistic and animations are well made. The bad: The start screen features poor Lionel Messi, who looks like he is being held hostage, standing in front of a horrible, jewel-toned blue background with bright yellow lettering. It’s a strain on the eyes and is the unfortunate aesthetic of all the game’s menus. As for gameplay, I never made it close enough to the goal to make a shot, but that might just be because sports games are not my forte.
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Hospitality hostility: SRJC students share their waitstaff horror stories
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managed a customer allergic to electromagnetic waves. I discovered lost cocaine in the bathroom. I accidentally served alcohol to children and spilled soup on a guest. In my three years in the restaurant industry, there was never a dull moment.
But it’s not just me. Every server has horror stories — unforgettable incidents that permanently changed their perspective on the world of hospitality. With eateries finally open for in-person dining, SRJC students shared their restaurant server horror stories.
Dog declined Conor Sand, 19
I work at this ritzy place, so we get some high-class guests. One day, we get this one table that is like the owner of some company, and she brings her dog in too, and they both got the same steak the same way. Yes, she ordered a steak for her dog. The steak ended up being overcooked, so she complained because the steak wasn’t cooked right. She left a bad review, and the server got written up. It’s funny to think this guy got written up over a steak for a dog.
Call me daddy
Mielle McClure, 18
I was working as a hostess one night and this guy came in with his friends. I asked for a name to add him to the waitlist and he said, “You can call me Daddy.” I ignored him and kept doing my job. Then he said, “That shirt does really good things for your body. You should wear it more often.” For the rest of the night, he kept asking all of us to call him Daddy.
Outside heater Kira Reed, 20
I was working at this fancy restaurant, and we were serving outside because of COVID. We sat this lady outdoors, and she was just pissed off the whole time. Halfway through her meal, she asked us to turn on the heater outside. We don’t have heaters; there’s no sockets for us to plug something in. We can’t change the weather.
Illustrations by Alex Fuller.
By Ava Domenichelli
Ice bath
Todd Clow, 49
It was my very first night working in a restaurant, and this was like the mid-1990s. My buddy training me made me bring ice water to this table, and I was so nervous. I was almost shaking trying to set the water down on the table when the glass just slipped out of my hand. I spilled ice water all over this lady. The guy training me could not stop laughing.
Pepper and wine
Anna Jew, 18
We saw this guy put pepper in his red wine. I asked him, “Why, like, is it for flavor?” And he said “Well, it had no flavor, so I put pepper in it.” It was just weird, you know?
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Turning green Jose Gonzales, 25
It was St. Patrick’s Day, and this group came in already drunk. One lady from the group sat down at the table and just vomited all over it. It was 7 a.m., and she was drunk and throwing up. My coworker who hates dirty things, and is afraid of germs, was forced to clean it up.
Not like the picture
Trevor Baker, 30
I was managing an Applebee’s and there was a woman who got mad at me because her steak didn’t look like the picture on the menu. When I asked what was different, she said the steak in the picture was bigger. I didn’t feel like arguing with her, so I told her I would go back to the kitchen and look for a steak that matched the picture. I comped both steaks because I knew she would complain about the second.
Sliced bread
Taylor LaDelle, 27
I was slicing bread for a guest and a tiny sliver of the bread piece fell on the ground. I mean a sliver, like maybe the size of a quarter. The guest proceeded to yell at me, saying that I needed to take off a few cents from her bread purchase because she didn’t get the whole loaf. I offered to give her a new loaf that had the whole thing, and she wouldn’t take up my offer. She left the building screaming at me.
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Pretty privilege Lauren Kelleher, 18
I had someone come in and ask, “Are you sure they didn’t hire you just because you’re pretty?” I said, “It takes more than just looks to take orders, handle money and clean the restaurant.”
Lasted two weeks Rachel Mortimer, 20
My entire experience at this place was a horror story, I mean, I only lasted two weeks. I had a customer who wouldn’t look me in the eye, but instead just stared at my cleavage and told me I had “a nice set.” I also had a group of young guys that racked up a $1,000 bill and then left without paying. And I had a customer tell my boss that I had given her kid vodka instead of water. She also insisted that I had put toenail clippings in her water.
Tips to be a good customer — from your waitstaff By Ava Domenichelli
• “I don’t wanna wait a long time for a table!” Please just wait your turn. We are running a restaurant, a fast-paced, high energy venue. Sometimes, you need to wait for your reserved table. Or if you walk in with no reservations with a party of eight at 7 p.m., don’t be upset if it’s going to take a while to be seated. • “So just because I’m late, I don’t get seated immediately?!” If you make a reservation, be on time. When you’re late, it disrupts an entire chain of events. We plan tables and seating arrangements based on the reservations and headcount we have for the night. If you are not on time, it forces us to run late with your service, and then the next party — and eventually the entire night — is askew. • “I wanted that specific table!” Sit down in the seat I give you, and say thank you. Okay, I’m sorry I could not get your favorite table, but the one right next to it is open, set and ready. And no, I’m not giving you a bad table because I don’t like you; but if you keep complaining, I won’t. • “Why did you make my food taste bad?!” I didn’t cook your food, I didn’t cook your food, I didn’t cook your food. The front of the house is separate from the back. I am sorry your steak is undercooked, but I did not grill that. I was not hired to roast asparagus. I was hired to serve your roasted asparagus and recommend pairing your meal with a light, crisp sauvignon blanc. • “I’ve already paid enough for the meal, why add extra?!” Here’s a tip: Leave one. We have spent all night running to your table, filling water glasses, plastering on a fake smile and trying to make your experience as enjoyable as possible. The absolute least you can do in return is show gratitude by properly supplementing the hourly minimum I make with a 15% tip and round up my pay to a living wage.
Cookie to the ribs
Millie Dotto, 18
This guy brought a cookie up to me, and I told him he has to pay at the register and not with me. The next thing I know — bam! — cookie hits my rib cage.
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• “I’m taking my time eating, I don’t care how late it is!” We close at 10 p.m. Please leave. I just want to go home. If the host sat you 10 minutes before the kitchen closed, then you’re not going to finish before we shut the doors, and this does not apply to you. But if you’ve been occupying the patio table since 7 p.m., gone through three courses and are not planning to order anything else, please reevaluate your actions. If you have to ask, “Are we keeping you?” then it’s time to leave.
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The metaverse: Boom or bust? By Stephen Howe
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magine a virtual future where you and sit at your living room coffee table, whip out a pair of VR glasses, and suddenly all your work files float in front of you, the news flashes in a corner, and a co-worker pops up to chat in hologram form, like something out of “Star Wars.” After work, you select a virtual outfit and hop into a virtual card game, then invite your friends to hang afterward in a virtual house of your own creation. Or you slip on your headset and gawk at Yosemite’s Half Dome in stunning 3D. This is the anything-is-possible future that tech corporations, particularly Meta (formerly Facebook), plan for humanity. It’s been envisioned in movies like “Ready Player One,” and over the last few years, it sounds more and more possible. Meta has pushed a kind of digital world where we live, work, trade and socialize, just like we do in the real world. These companies want you to immerse yourself into their digital ecosystem — their metaverse — and their plans could go one of two ways: boom, or bust. Boom In the span of a few years, virtual and augmented reality has gone from experimental to mainstream. More people now have access to immersive virtual worlds and experiences than ever before, thanks in large part to the decreasing price of VR. When the first mainstream VR headset, the Oculus Rift, came out in 2016, its introductory price was $600; now you can enter the market with Meta’s standalone wireless Quest 2 with PC compatibility for half the price. Video game company Valve’s Index unit offers much more advanced features, such as finger tracking and fullbody VR, but is still semi-affordable at $999. The metaverse will also increase in popularity as users recognize it’s
not just about a parallel reality but about living in fantasy. Since the late 1990s, massively multiplayer online role playing games like “World of Warcraft” (MMORPGs) have offered players a chance to fight, adventure, go on quests and experience life in a fantasy world with other people from a third-person perspective. But now with virtual reality and the metaverse, players can participate in the first-person. What if you’re the one crafting that cool new armor set, casting that spell and fighting all those goblins? As more people of all income levels can have fun both in virtual reality and virtual fantasy, the metaverse will grow. Bust Despite all that coolness and convenience, there are issues with some visions for the metaverse, issues that could make it unacceptable to the mass market. First is that metaverse economies are built on the blockchain, a system that provides the foundation for cryptocurrency and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) so that users can buy, sell and trade goods and services without traditional banking and currency. But cryptocurrency needs to be “mined” — and requires extraordinary natural resources to do so. According to Cambridge University, in 2021, Bitcoin used more electricity than the Netherlands and Argentina. Moving to cryptocurrency is terrible for the environment, which will limit interest with young people and those who care about the world. In addition, Meta’s metaverse is “an attempt to capitalize off a growing market and to utilize their own NFT and altcoin technology to create a virtual economy,” one that Meta will have exclusive control over, said Lex Pulos, SRJC game design instructor. The company will control everything you purchase, including virtual property. If Meta so chooses, it can strip you of your virtual wealth. Everything you own
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Meta Quest has a number of different home screen themes. in the metaverse is digital. If the service goes under or the servers go out, users can say goodbye to all their virtual valuables, or at least access to them. Users are also wary of Facebook because of the way the company gathers information on its users to sell without informing the customer about how it is used. It is possible the company’s metaverse will not succeed because users will stay away because of the parent company’s untrustworthiness. The metaverse has been attempted before. In 2003 San Francisco-based Linden Labs started “Second Life,” a virtual world that groups like Dell and the GOP used for virtual meetings. “Second Life” and its Linden Dollar reached a $64 million GDP, but the masses didn’t take to “Second Life” because Linden Labs never adapted the platform to what most people used it for: games and social activity. Not virtual real estate and business meetings. The metaverse has also been seen in movies. In “Ready Player One,” the global economy and society moved into a virtual world called the OASIS to escape a sad, broken reality. A greedy corporation called IOI aimed to take over the OASIS to control the world. The protagonist won in the end and realized that people needed to spend more time in reality.
Just like VR couldn’t compete with real life in “Ready Player One,” it can’t compete in the real world either. Spring 2022
When did you last play pinball? Santa Rosa has over a dozen pinball machines across several local hangouts, so I ventured around town to rate them. Here’s my ranking of the top five currently operating pinball machines in town.
Top 5 pinball machines in Santa Rosa
#5: “Aerosmith” (2017) 440 Club, 434 College Ave. 50¢ for three balls
I’m not a huge fan of Aerosmith, but their brand of catchy, hookbased rock is a perfect match for the high-strung yet laid-back nature of pinball playing, and the machine is surprisingly fun. For two quarters, you get incredibly smooth gameplay and your choice of nine Aerosmith tunes to listen to while you play. Bonus points: the machine is stationed right between the bar and the bathroom.
#4: “Ghostbusters” (2017)
Shady Oak Barrel House, 420 1st St. 75¢ for three balls Who you gonna ball? “Ghostbusters” has an absolutely gorgeous playfield, voice lines by Ernie Hudson and the best high-speed pinball gameplay in town. This is the best modern machine I’ve played in Santa Rosa, so if you’re uninterested in pinball games more than 30 years old, this is the one I’d recommend. If you’re a fan of the classics, however, there’s a couple more I’d like to suggest.
By James Domizio
#1: “Star Wars” (1992)
#2: “Mr. & Mrs. Pac-Man” (1982)
Shady Oak Barrel House, 420 1st St. 50¢ for five balls Another slower machine, “Mr. & Mrs. Pac-Man” perfectly bridges the gap between high- and low-speed pinball. The paddles are chunky, but the gameplay is pure magic, and the video mode mini-game version of “Pac-Man” is beyond charming. The cherry on top is its ridiculously low cost, the best price on this list.
Juice Shack, 1810 Mendocino Ave. 50¢ for three balls I’ve got a good feeling about this. I’m a huge “Star Wars” fan, so I’m pretty biased, but this is nearly perfect. Just a stone’s throw from SRJC, this loud, vibrant machine has wonderful art, classic visuals, a thrilling playfield and a delightful cabinet. If you’re looking for an after-school activity, bring some quarters, grab a smoothie and park it in front of the best pinball machine in Santa Rosa.
You can read the full list with 15 pinball machines at theoakleafnews.com.
Congratulations on 95 years of Journalistic Excellence!
DR. FRANK CHONG
President/Superintendent
#3: “Star Trek” (1978)
Shady Oak Barrel House, 420 1st St. 50¢ for three balls Featuring a lower angle than most boards, and beeps and boops in lieu of a fleshed out soundtrack, the slowest and oldest pinball experience in Santa Rosa is a must-play machine for historians of the game. I’d also wholeheartedly recommend it to Trekkies, retro-futurists, classic console gamers and returning or beginner pinballers. Honestly, if you enjoy pinball at all and have some patience, I implore you to seek it out.
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