The Oak Leaf Magazine Fall 2022

Editors

Michael Combs

Stephen Howe

Tony Moeckel

Nicholas Vides

Christian Vieyra Sean Young

Reporters

Jaden Burris

Lucas Cadigan-Carranza

Alex Cambron Padilla

Jonathan Cangson

Aryk Copley

Erina Corl

Bryan Fructuoso

Cristian Garcia

Sam Guzman

Peter Morales Garcia

Max Mwaniki

Dharma Niles

Javi Rosas

Hana Seals

Fatima Zarco Gomez Advertising Mark Fernquest Adviser Anne

Letter from the Editors

Fall 2022 has been a semester full of firsts for The Oak Leaf. A brand new newsroom in the newly renovated Garcia Hall, room 106. The hottest day on record in Santa Rosa history before the newsroom had working air conditioning on Sept. 6. The first earthquake in recent memory to shake SRJC buildings with a succession of two quick jolts on Sept. 13. Both of these days provided memorable moments that will last a lifetime.

It is fitting that the theme our newsroom chose for this magazine is “POST,” referring to a time to reflect and grow from something meaningful. We have to accept the changes that occurred within us after the catastrophic fires and COVID-19 pandemic, and we need to move into the future. A future without certainty, but not within darkness. After 18 years, The Oak Leaf is no longer stationed in drab temporary housing, and the permanent foundation of the newsroom coincides with the strength we’ve gained from the last two years, strength we will use to navigate unforseen hardships with confidence and composure.

We couldn’t be more honored to be the first editors-in-chief in this new home. We have such a varied group of aspiring journalists who specialize in sports, breaking news, arts and entertainment, opinion writing and more; we feel confident in saying that SRJC students in subsequent semesters will be well-informed.

From seeking refuge from an unexpected war to learning to heal from numbness and finding inspiration to pursue your dreams, this issue’s stories reflect how hardship leads to resilience.

We would like to thank our wonderful instructor, Anne Belden, the bridge between students and success, and the keystone of the newsroom, our T.A. Lauren Spates. We owe everything we have learned about journalism to both of them. We also would like to thank our fellow Oak Leaf editors. We would be lost in our positions this semester without them.

To our readers, we believe that our past shapes our present and helps us identify who we are and where we are headed. We at The Oak Leaf look toward the future with optimism.

- Michael Combs and Sean Young

Young Voters Shape Election Results Despite Low Turnout

By Dharma Niles

The predicted “Red Wave” was dulled to a splash by millions of young voters who cast ballots that carried progressive candidates and measures to victory in the 2022 election, reminding Americans of the power young generations hold.

Voters aged 18 to 24 have continuously exemplified their potential to change the political landscape, and the 2022 midterms were no exception. Young people shaped the outcome of close races in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona, among other states, with college-aged voters electing progressive candidates at margins roughly 20 points larger than their counterparts, according to Tufts University’s Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE).

“I tell students that they constitute one of the largest voting blocks ever,” Santa Rosa Junior College political science instructor Azamat Sakiev said. “We can see that when they participate, people really care about what they have to say.”

Despite possessing the ability to swing contests for the most powerful positions

in American politics, young adults don’t typically turn out in numbers parallel to other age groups. For the past 50 years, only 30-40% of eligible 18-24 year olds voted in presidential elections and 20% in midterms — compared to 60-70% of eligible voters for older generations, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

These patterns gave young adults a reputation for carelessness and continual disregard of politics; however, new research and youth-centered discussions among political analysts suggest more nuanced reasoning for their lower voting rates.

Santa Rosa Junior College students were among an estimated 27% of eligible 18-24 year olds in the U.S. who voted this year, which marked the second-highest rate of youth voter turnout for national midterm elections, according to political analysts at CIRCLE.

In an Oak Leaf-conducted survey of 75 SRJC students on the Santa Rosa campus, the vast majority were open about participating in the midterm election and felt as though their major priorities were adequately represented on the

ballot, with concerns predominantly focused around a few major topics.

Abortion rights was the most significant issue for more than 50% of SRJC participants, following the overturning of Roe v. Wade last June. The threat of losing reproductive rights spiked voter registration among young voters and women across the country, a change reflected in the results of related ballot measures in California, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana and Vermont.

SRJC students also cited climate change and issues of social equity; these progressive-aligned issues generally ranked as more concerning than inflation.

“The current generations aren’t as materialistic as previous ones. They’re willing to take a toll on income and care more about things like racial equality and social justice,” Sakiev said. “It’s refreshing and different.”

But these ideologies might also hinder students’ engagement in civic life. Roughly 15% of students surveyed believe the political system is unrepresentative of their values and described it as “too moderate” for results to elicit systemic change.

“If you think this election won’t fix everything, you’re 100 percent right,” March For Our Lives organizer David Hogg, 22, told PBS News. “But it’s one step closer to making things a lot better.” March For Our Lives organized a 1.2 million-person protest against gun violence in 2018, and has since held voter registration drives and continued to mobilize youth to vote with gun safety as a priority.

“People are emotional creatures. Stories change minds, not statistics,” Hogg said. “We want to work together on what we can agree on — the fact that nobody wants their kids to die in their school or community, no matter if they’re on the left or right.”

Youth-related issues are often underrepresented in political campaigns; many politicians don’t target younger voters due to their perceived small impact.

“The first things politicians will never touch, which have turned into an entitlement, are things for older generations,” Sakiev said. “Politicians care about them because [older generations] do vote, and if you mess with their Medicare or Social Security, they won’t be there.”

The lack of direction toward youth does reduce students’ inclination to vote.

“It just doesn’t seem like politicians care about us,” one anonymous SRJC student said in the survey.

“Colleges don’t catch everybody,” Sakiev said of higher education’s ability to drive political engagement. “It has to be through K-12.”

CIRCLE’s research has repeatedly shown that teaching about elections, as well as frequent discussions regarding current events, helps students establish an informed vote. However, due to the polarized political climate and administrative barriers, educators struggle to incorporate it into the curriculum.

my ballot gets thrown out,” Hogg said, noting that voters who registered as young as 16 might not remember how they rendered their signature back then. “[Republican strategists] know that’s something that disproportionately affects younger people, who may tend to vote more progressively or against people in power.”

Still, a steady increase in youth registration, thanks to civic mobilization via social media advocacy, could continue to increase youth turnout in the future, a proposition some politicians look forward to while others deride. Some conservative pundits even proposed raising the minimum voting age to 25 after witnessing the effect young voters had on the midterms.

On a broader level, political science and education researchers throughout the University of California system — including those at UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC Riverside — worked with CIRCLE in 2022 and determined that to effectively raise youth voting rates, elementary, middle and high schools need to adjust their flawed curricula to emphasize civic engagement.

“Unfortunately, even teaching about something so basic to representative democracy as free and fair elections and the peaceful transfer of power is sometimes now perceived as partisan,” research director Abby Kiesa said. “In order to maintain self-governance and the rule of law, we can and should promote instruction around informed and equitable voting in nonpartisan ways.”

A 2022 Tufts University study found students who learned about voting in high school were 40 points more likely to vote as 18-or-19-year-olds. College students have consistently voted at rates roughly 15 points higher than peers who didn’t attend a form of higher education, according to Pew Research Center and CIRCLE.

Fostering a culture of voting in early-learning stages would also incorporate a more racially and socioeconomically diverse demographic.

Other barriers to voting also exist for younger people, who face different opportunity costs with challenging schedules and financial instability. Missing a day of work is not possible for many of these voters and comes into consideration when voting lines reach six to eight hours long on election day. Learning about candidates takes free time some young voters don’t have, and the voting process is loaded with requirements that suppress youth voting, according to a study and analysis from UC Berkeley.

And if young voters traveled outside their home state for college, they might need to leverage the absentee ballot process, which can present another round of challenges. “If my signature on my absentee ballot doesn’t match the signature I registered to vote with,

“The fact that these youth voters are coming in so strong in an off-year is very concerning,” Fox News commentator Jesse Watters said. “[Schools are] polluting their minds and then they grow up and they’re in their 20s and then they vote for leftists.”

Either way — whether progressives push to engage younger voters or conservatives attempt to restrict them — both reactions highlight the power young people have to shape their political environment.

“Just one person might not think they’ll change things, but imagine if you have 10,000 of that one person,” SRJC student Joseph Girmay said.

“It makes a huge difference.”

K-12 civics education increases the likelihood of young-adult voting

Young voters face other barriers throughout the voting process

Don’t Flunk Me Records: Where JC Students Sign, Produce and Promote Local Artists

By Bryan Fructuoso

Ever wondered how to start a record label?

Well, students in Music 70A have your answer: “Take Jake’s class.”

“Jake’s class” is Santa Rosa Junior College’s Digital Media: Audio program, which illuminates what it means to work in the music business by letting students operate “Don’t Flunk Me Records,” a student-run record label.

Established in Fall 2021 as a two-semester class, Don’t Flunk Me Records is experiential learning at its core, letting SRJC students experience running a record label through every step of the

production process, from scouting potential clients to recording music for an album.

“Nothing will replace actual experience more than being out in the trenches of the music business,” said digital media instructor Mike Starkey. “We provide a safe, inexpensive, high-quality learning environment where students can try things out with relatively low risk.”

Musician, recording engineer and music recording instructor Jake Stillman had the idea to create a student-led record label after seeing a hole in students’ understanding of the music industry.

“We do a great job teaching technical skills, but what we don’t do a great job at is getting people an understanding of how the business works and how to leverage those technical skills in the real world,” Stillman said.

The two-semester track requires students to take two courses: Music 70A in the fall and Music 70B in the spring.

Located in SRJC’s Petaluma campus recording studio, students learn the ins and outs of how a record label works, including how to produce an album, how to analyze industry business models and how to market and distribute promotional content.

“My favorite part of working at a community college is that it makes these programs available and accessible to everyone. I know of many artists who either got into heavy debt, lost their way or simply changed their minds and would have appreciated the opportunities we now offer,” Starkey said.

Students work in teams. The production team is in charge of recording and editing the album, the marketing team

“Don’t Flunk me Records” production team finalizes edits for a video interview the marketing team will use to promote the label’s Fall 2022 artist, G.Rob Jamz.

bryan fructuoso

promotes the artist on social media, the public relations team pitches the recordings to radio stations and blogs, and the business team maintains the labels’ files and records.

Starkey, who supports Stillman with logistics, scheduling and communications with students in other digital media programs, says music industry employers look for job candidates with a solid fundamental knowledge in technical skills, including recording basics, signal flow and microphone placement.

But they also look for people who have a great set of soft skills, such as adaptability and critical thinking, two characteristics Stillman tries to foster in his class.

“There’s two things that will bring down any project: poor communication and poor organization,” Starkey said.

Stillman agrees. “Even if you have a good technical understanding of the equipment used, it doesn’t mean you’re the best candidate to hire. Record labels look for people who are professional, who are on time, have good communication skills — an essential soft skill that we don’t focus on developing in programs,” he said.

The label’s goal is to provide support to local artists, while also providing students with vital music business knowledge and real world, hands-on experience.

Although, during Fall 2021, in the midst of the pandemic, the label faced challenges. From low enrollment to artists getting COVID and delaying projects, the label had a rough start.

Top: Soulful singer and rapper G.Rob Jamz is this year’s “Don’t Flunk Me Records” featured artist. Bottom: Don’t Flunk Me Records signed local alternative rock band, Columba Livia, during Spring 2021.

“Getting going was a hurdle,” Stillman said. “No one really knew about the class, people didn’t want to be on Zoom because they were sick of Zoom, but they also didn’t want to come in person because of COVID.”

But in the end, Stillman’s students pushed through; they managed to sign local alternative rock band, Columba Livia, and released their first single, “As We Go.”

“Everything that has gone into developing the back end of our record label was done by students who were also dealing with the pandemic,” Stillman said. “Everybody put in a lot of work. Students felt invested in the success of the enterprise.”

Student Juan Venegas hopes to become an audio engineer. He took music production classes at Mendocino College

in Ukiah and completed internships involving music production but felt there was more to learn.

“I saw the programs that the JC offered and rather than spending a lot of money at a university, I decided to come here. It’s really accessible,” Venegas said. “It’s become my favorite class. I think anybody who’s interested in music, making music or the music business, this is definitely the class to be in, for sure. One hundred percent,” he said.

Taking the course helped student Louis Davis Jr., who loves to produce his own music, release his recent album, “Unconventional Loui 2.”

“The knowledge I’ve gotten from this class helped me make personal decisions about my personal projects,” Davis said. “We’re a student-run label, but it doesn’t feel that way. There is a

courtesy don ’ t flunk me records

“It’s become my favorite class. I think anybody who’s interested in music, making music or the music business, this is definitely the class to be in, for sure. 100 percent.”

post mario bros.

TOP THREE TV Adaptations of Video Games

The initial movie adaptations of video games have felt like they were written by out-oftouch producers, leaving a bad taste in viewers’ mouths. However, video game production budgets have increased dramatically in the last decade, which has contributed to deep stories that rival Hollywood movies. It’s not surprising then that streaming services have begun using games as inspiration for original series, and recent years have given gamers more gems than they expected. Here are the top three.

By Stephen Howe

“Cyberpunk: Edgerunners”

Animated by renowned studio Trigger and based on the role-playing game “Cyberpunk 2077,” “Cyberpunk: Edgerunners” debuted on Netflix Sept. 13 to critical acclaim. The show takes place one year before “Cyberpunk 2077” and follows protagonist David Martinez as he transforms from a poor kid struggling to survive in a dystopian future to a cybernetically enhanced mercenary. Martinez works alongside a gang of memorable characters trying to make a name for themselves in the underworld of neon-drenched Night City.

“Edgerunners” deals with themes familiar to the cyberpunk genre including class uprising, transhumanism and extreme capitalism, all presented via jaw-dropping, emotional episodes. The series is a visually stunning, bittersweet ride — in some ways superior to the game it’s based on — that will leave you both reeling and stuck with an earworm thanks to “I Really Want to Stay at Your House” by Rosa Walton. “Cyberpunk: Edgerunners” serves as a fantastic entry point to the Cyberpunk franchise.

“Arcane”

“Arcane” is an award-winning 2021 3D animated series based on “League of Legends,” a popular multiplayer online battle arena. “Arcane” details the origins of two popular League characters, Violet and Jinx, sisters with a strained relationship that suffers more after a horrible tragedy. “Arcane” is remarkable for its story, characters and visuals, and portrays the “League of Legends” world of Runeterra in ways the game couldn’t, which opens it up to a much bigger audience. This is a remarkable achievement since the game didn’t have an in-depth story, only short bios about the in-game characters, called Champions.

The action in “Arcane” isn’t as violent as in “Castlevania” and “Edgerunners,” but it’s still pretty intense. “Arcane” serves as a great introduction into the world of “League of Legends.”

“Castlevania”

While Netflix’s animated series “Castlevania” isn’t a direct adaptation of the games by Konami, it does take several story elements from Nintendo Entertainment System’s “Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse.” The story follows Trevor Belmont, Sypha Belnades and Alucard as they embark on a quest to defeat Dracula and restore peace to Romania.

The first two seasons adapt the story of “Castlevania 3,” and the following two are original storylines. Trevor is a snarky drunk who doesn’t like getting involved, but after meeting Sypha and witnessing the oncoming demon apocalypse, he jumps into the action. Alucard, Dracula’s son, lacks social skills — as happens when one is a vampire-human hybrid with few friends — but is extremely knowledgeable about the magical and scientific worlds and is an invaluable asset to the team. His tense relationship with Trevor makes for great comedic moments. The character dynamics give a lot of personality to the show and make it easy to fall in love with. “Castlevania” is dark, dramatic and unapologetically gory, and a fantastic watch regardless of whether you’re a fan of the source material.

Top Five Video Games of 2022

By Cristian Garcia

So many amazing video game titles debuted this year that it’s difficult to choose which games are worthy of your time. After much evaluation based on genre, graphics, replayability and creativity, here are the top five must-play games of 2022.

“Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II” 5

This sequel to the 2019 “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare” reboot introduces stunning visuals and design improvements to vehicle and gunplay. “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II” offers new multiplayer gameplay modes where you rescue prisoners, new two-player co-op missions and a three-player game mode called “Raids.”

The progression system has been revamped so you can select specific weapons attachments that fit your playstyle. If your aim is off, practice and improve in the game’s first-ever shooting range. “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II” is the best first-person shooter of 2022.

The first 3D mainline game in the Kirby series, “Kirby and the Forgotten Land” introduces an amazing platformer adventure in which you rescue Waddle Dees and upgrade Kirby’s ability to copy what he eats.

Kirby also has a new Mouthful Mode where he can swallow and control large objects, such as cars and vending machines. You can play this game with a friend as a co-op second player controlling Bandana Waddle Dee, who can spear enemies.

The game also has a series of minigames where players compete for the top score. Having sold more than 5.2 million copies worldwide, “Kirby and the Forgotten Land” is the best-selling game in the Kirby franchise and one of best-selling Nintendo Switch games.

“Destroy All Humans! 2: Reprobed” has all the charm of the original “Destroy All Humans! 2” but offers big improvements. The remade graphics make the game’s world amazing to behold. New locations to explore include cities modeled after San Francisco, London and Tokyo. The game’s story and characters are memorable and funny; it also has plenty of side activities and missions for players when they’re not vaporizing enemies with the large variety of weapons at their disposal.

the roster of Warner Bros. characters from “Space Jam 2,” including a toonform LeBron James.

“Multiversus” is a free-to-play live service game with 22 characters available and more planned.

1

2Have you ever wanted to see Batman duke it out with Shaggy, the Iron Giant, Rick and Morty, or even Tom and Jerry? “Multiversus” is a fun platform fighter like “Super Smash Bros.” with stylized cartoon graphics that blend well with

“God of War: Ragnarok”

The “God of War” franchise never fails to amaze because of its addicting combat system, compelling Norse mythology-based story or epic boss battles. Playstation’s “God of War: Ragnarok” delivers everything that made the original series enjoyable. When you aren’t engaging in the main story, you’ll be busy with side quests stretching across the nine realms of Norse mythology, in addition to managing weapons and armor upgrades. “God of War: Ragnarok” is an adventure that won’t disappoint.

The latest entries in famous video game series like “Call of Duty,” “Kirby” and “God of War” are several of the top video games of 2022. The diversity of gamestyle ensures something for everyone.

“Kirby and the Forgotten Land” 4

“Destroy All Humans! 2: Reprobed” 3 “Multiversus”

Flipping the Script:

By

SRJC digital filmmaking instructor Brian Antonson believes showing is better than telling.

To convey information to his students in a manner that better teaches them the concepts, Antonson “flipped” his classroom. In this style of instruction, normal classroom activities such as lectures and quizzes take place at home. Tasks normally done at home are instead done in class.

“I used to spend a lot of my class time explaining terms, definitions and technical things, and it was boring,” Antonson said. “What I find works better is I basically record myself doing what I would normally do in the classroom.”

Students watch the video recordings before attending class. This allows for their meetings to be more active. “Now my class time is spent engaging the material in more interactive ways. It’s not me in the front of the room talking and them taking notes,” Antonson said.

Antonson had slowly started to make this change before the pandemic, however, the pandemic expedited the shift.

Going from teaching in-person to teaching on Zoom was a jarring experience for most SRJC instructors as they struggled to adapt to new technologies while continuing to help students meet learning objectives. Instructors were forced to reinvent their classrooms online, and for many, that included changing their teaching methods to meet the moment. While many instructors complain about the pitfalls of Zoom instruction, from their online struggles came creative methods and new ideas that have lasted post-pandemic.

Humanities instructor Rafael Vasquez had never taught online before he was forced to in 2020. In his humanities classes, Vasquez teaches the history of gangs and the problems minorities face. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, he constantly interacted with the class, directly asking them questions based

To address the tedium of spending class time lecturing while students take notes, SRJC digital filmmaking instructor Brian Antonson flip-flops his curriculum so his pre-recorded lectures are delivered outside class time while discussions and hands-on learning take place during class hours.

on the topic they were learning and making the occasional joke. But once the pandemic hit, he was thrown into the online system “like, literally, from one day to the next,” he said.

Switching from direct engagement to PowerPoint presentations bothered him. “I don’t like lecturing; I like to interact with people,” Vasquez said.

Not only that, but he could also notice the pandemic hitting the students as well. He described how he could feel the difference in energy compared to the classroom, where everyone interacted with each other and had a dialogue.

“Switching to having small groups online and having them talk and then

have somebody report, it wasn’t very healthy,” Vasquez said.

But he quickly realized he had something that could help make the class more engaging: his skills as a radio host. “When you’re on the radio, you have to learn how to get your audience to [understand] a message that is not visual,” Vasquez said.

As soon as Vasquez applied this knowledge, the attention from the students rose in his classes. “The feedback that students gave at the end was that over time, they learned to capture the message in a non-visual way.”

He still uses these techniques during in-person lectures, and they have

Lucas Cadigan-Carranza and Peter Morales Garcia

max mwaniki

Creative instructors found new ways to educate during the pandemic — and are implementing those changes permanently

“

helped elevate his classes. “It has allowed me to also be comfortable being the only one talking in front of these audiences,” he said.

Despite most instructors disliking it, the sudden change to online instruction served as a positive and lasting learning moment for them.

Theatre Arts

Theatre Arts instructor Leslie McCauley teaches all levels of acting, literature, history, multicultural classes, and she directs main stage plays. “When COVID hit, we had just opened a show. We had to close that show,” she said.

She too, quickly realized she had to focus on enhancing student engagement. She found it vital to give attention to each student individually to prevent them from turning off their screens and making themselves “disappear.”

Now that theater classes are back in-person, the classroom environment is different. “There’s a high level of anxiety among students,” McCauley said. She found that she needs to emphasize teaching students how to move around the stage and to spend more time generating trust between them.

Elizabeth Dale, also from the theater arts department, said she had to learn to be more specific with students. “I think I teach more carefully and make sure students understand what I’m saying,” Dale said. “I’m not so theoretical. I balance it out with the practical.”

Mark Anderman, who has taught music theory, musicianship and applied music at SRJC since 1995, also made changes to his teaching style as a result of the pandemic.

Anderman had been thinking of doing an online class and had used Canvas a bit more each semester. “The pandemic kinda kicked my butt to do it now,” he said. “It gave me the tools I needed to do my first fully online course.”

He also found that having students turn in their assignments online allowed for him to return their work the same way so they could look it over before class. “They’re ready for the new lesson, they’re ready for their test,” Anderman said. Although his classes are now back in person, Anderman still has students submit work online.

Similarly, Jerome Fleg, who conducts the symphonic and jazz bands, was forced to use Canvas with a large group of students. “So much of what I do is with larger size classes, like a 60-person symphonic band, so organization becomes like the No. 1 thing I do to make that group successful,” he said.

So he had to learn the system and how and where assignments could be put, what audio and video formats were allowed, and how to provide recordings so students could hear themselves with their fellow band members.

He realized how useful it was to actually use Canvas, as it allowed students

to easily access all he posted. “More important than anything is just how you make sure people have equal access to anything they need, whether it’s rehearsal schedule or recordings to practice with,” he said.

Music Ethnic Studies

Native American studies instructor Lori Thomas also changed her approach to teaching. She realized her students were going through a difficult time and found she needed to become more compassionate. “I’m a lot more thoughtful and caring about their feelings, about the enormous amount of stress students are under,” she said.

Stress can affect the pace at which students want to engage with class content, which Antonson’s “flipped” classroom can accommodate for.

“They can listen at their own pace. They can multitask if needed,” he said of his pre-recorded lectures.

Describing it as “education on demand,” Antonson explained how students can listen to lectures as slow or fast as they need to gather information before taking the embedded quizzes then coming to the next session ready to apply what they had just learned.

“For me, teaching is about how you are going to convey the information for students to understand,” Antonson said.

“There’s a difference between teaching and putting a slide on the screen.”

For me, teaching is about how you are going to convey the information for students to understand. There’s a difference between teaching and putting a slide on the screen.

Former SRJC Punter is Waiting for Next Call

A stint with the Atlanta Falcons showed Seth Vernon what it’s like to play in the NFL

By Christian Vieyra

On Aug. 12, the Detroit Lions hosted the Atlanta Falcons in what most football fans called a meaningless preseason game. But for the Falcons’ punter, it was anything but meaningless. With a red ATL stitched across his chest and “Vernon” worn proudly on his back, the former Santa Rosa Stallions, Maria Carrillo Pumas, Santa Rosa Bear Cubs and Portland State Vikings punter took his place under bright lights at Ford Field.

Four months earlier, Seth Vernon was eagerly watching the 2022 NFL draft with his mother in Santa Rosa. As soon as the last pick was announced, his phone rang. It was the news of a lifetime, direct from Vernon’s agent: the Atlanta Falcons had chosen him to be their punter. It was a done deal.

“It didn’t really feel real. The dream was always to get [to the NFL]. After investing all this time since fourth grade and being like, ‘This is my passion. This is what I want to do for a career’ and telling everybody around you,” Vernon said, he finally made it — even though he had only focused on punting for two seasons.

When Vernon played Pop Warner in Santa Rosa, he suited up for the Stallions on offense/defense, not on special teams. “My dad made me play lineman,” Vernon said. “I wanted to play wide receiver.”

As a child, Vernon did as he was told. However, during his freshman year at Maria Carrillo, Vernon went behind his dad’s back. At practice, he laid out on everything from blocks to receptions. “I just started playing wide receiver, and then he came out to my first game and I balled out,” Vernon said.

In Vernon’s sophomore season, he was pulled up to varsity and asked to punt for the Pumas. His father was long-time friends with SRJC kickers coach Scott Tabor, having worked with him in law enforcement. Tabor was a first team All-American punter at SRJC in 1985, then got a scholarship to Cal where he was first team All-American in 1987

before the Los Angeles Raiders drafted him in 1988. “It’s a hard thing to learn,” Tabor said about punting.

Vernon wasn’t on board right away. “I’m just trying to play wide receiver,” he said. “I don’t really care” about punting.

When Vernon came to SRJC, he shared roles as a wide receiver and punter for the Bear Cubs. “[Tabor] was really pushing me,” he said. Vernon didn’t realize his value as a punter until he attended a Chris Sailer kicking and punting camp in which he dominated, earning a fifth-place ranking by the camp coaches. “And the top guys before me and the guys under me were committed to Clemson, Alabama. Like these big schools.”

Tabor saw Vernon’s promise. “I knew that if he put the time in, he would be at that level,” the kicking coach said.

Vernon wasn’t getting interest from any schools as a receiver, which swayed him to commit to punting. “I could really do this, and I’m really enjoying it,” the SRJC alum said. “I started to fall in love

with it and then made the decision to fully go for it.”

However, he didn’t solely focus on punting until transferring to Portland State, the only full-ride offer he had at the end of his Bear Cubs’ career. His time as a Viking consisted of “a lot of challenges, a lot of things that pushed me out of my comfort zone,” he said. “And I was put in a lot of positions where it’s sink or swim.” Vernon credited his parents with teaching him “failing is not an option.”

After Vernon graduated in December of 2021, he felt he was still very raw. “It wasn’t until this offseason, prepping for the draft, being able to come back to work with Scott for a couple months, that I really started to hone in,” he said.

Pre-draft, Vernon said the Falcons showed the most interest, with multiple conversations. “I kind of had a feeling that I was going to hear from them,” Vernon said.

During the draft, the Falcons reached out to Vernon and were up front with him; they wanted to draft another

Above: Vernon chats with young Falcons fans during training camp in Flowery Branch, Georgia. Right: Vernon practices his punts at Bailey Field on Nov. 16, trying to stay ready for any opportunity.

christian vieyra

A New Kind of ‘Beautiful Game’:

A tight end from West Africa and a strong safety from Europe take a chance on American football

By Christian Vieyra and Jonathan Cangson

When the Bear Cubs marched onto Bailey Field this fall, the roster consisted of many unique athletes — the usual California natives, as well as players from Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Oregon, Tennessee, Virginia and Washington. But the gridiron Bear Cubs’ melting pot of a locker room also included two international players, and in their respective countries a football is a spherical ball you kick into a net, not a brown egg-shaped pigskin that gets passed, handed off and punted.

Nils Lehmann

Switzerland is known for its natural beauty and artisan cheeses and chocolates. It’s not known for producing talented American football players. But freshman Nils Lehmann is playing at the junior college level despite not being from America and only picking up the sport six years ago.

Donning jersey No. 38 and playing strong safety for the Bear Cubs, Lehmann was raised in Steffisburg, Switzerland, where he lived until just last year.

He played soccer for six years before he switched to American football, where he played exceptionally well on the Thun Tigers, the closest American football club to him, from 2016 to 2021. Last year, his coach asked him if he wanted to play football in the U.S. because of his talent. Lehmann messaged SRJC football head coach Leonard Wagner, who replied with immediate interest.

Lehmann had been to the United States multiple times and attributed that as

the reason the culture shock didn’t bother him much. He did note that playing football itself is much different in his home country because American players tend to be much more intense and competitive. “It used to be more like a hobby,” he said. Lehmann also said playing on the JC team helped him make friends and feel more comfortable in Santa Rosa.

Lehmann already completed his education in Switzerland, so his primary

Dodji Dahoue

switzerland mali

Bear Cubs wide receiver Reese Bickart was working at a safety monitor stand outside of Kunde Hall when he spotted Dodji Dahoue leaving a math class.

“This dude is hella tall,” Bickart thought as he watched the 6-foot-10inch Dahoue tower over his classmates. Bickart approached Dahoue.

“I asked him if he plays basketball first,” he said, and then asked, “Have you ever played football?”

Dahoue told Bickart he’d consider it.

He had never played a team sport and barely knew anything about football; he had grown up mostly in the West African country of Mali, where soccer reigns supreme. Bickart invited Dahoue to workout with the team and see if he liked it.

“We connected on Instagram and I gave him the coach’s contact information. He came out the next week and then he’s been here ever since,” Bickart said.

Dahoue had contemplated the offer for about a week before he emailed head coach Lenny Wagner. His hesitation was understandable, given his football background was non-existent.

“I didn’t know anything about football, but then I met Reese and he told me to come by and I was like, ‘All right might as well,’” he said. “Then I stayed, and the more I came the more I liked it.”

Early on in the season, Dahoue could not properly catch a football. “He was always jacking up his fingers trying to catch a ball,” Wagner noted.

Although Dahoue redshirted, which is when a player is ineligible to play for a year to develop their skills and extend their college career, his improvements as a tight end have been unreal, Wagner said. “He’s put on 20 pounds of muscle since January. His ceiling is obviously

reason for attending SRJC is for football not academics. “I want to focus on football and get better. When I go back to Switzerland, I want to be one of the best players in Europe,” he said.

Although American football is not very popular outside of the U.S., Lehmann said it’s slowly gaining attention, but soccer is still the main sport worldwide.

Wagner said Lehmann has improved greatly this season. “The game where he’s from doesn’t usually end up playing at the speed we’re accustomed to here in America, where a lot of kids are groomed their whole life to play,” Wagner said. “So when he got here, there was a lot of catching up to do. But now he’s one of the guys; he spends every day simulating the best players from the teams we’re gonna play, and he does a great job doing it.”

When coaching international players on his team, Wagner has noticed one big difference. “Athletes from other countries, when they come here, more than one of them have said, ‘You guys take this so seriously, like where we’re from, we just play to have a good time. You guys are trying to kill each other for real,’’’ he said. “So they’re sometimes shocked when the coaches are yelling at them or they take a rough hit in a practice play. But in a way it’s fun to see; it balances out some of our guys who could learn something from them.”

really really high. No pun intended.” By season’s end, Wagner said every coach considered Dahoue to be the most improved player.

“I’ve heard that a lot because I never used to be athletic, so I’ve seen some progress and coaches have told me that I’ve made some progress,” Dahoue said.

“His threshold was so low to start with,” Wagner said. “It shot up and it’s really fun to watch because now he’s confident. He’s one of the guys.”

Adapting to the U.S. hasn’t been as difficult as expected for Dahoue, whose first language is English. Born in France, he moved to the Washington D.C. area soon after he was born. After living in America for five years, his family moved to Mali, where he became fluent in French, the country’s official language. He didn’t return stateside until 2021.

Dahoue, a mechanical engineering major, only came to Santa Rosa because he “just looked online for the best JC, and this one [SRJC] popped up first.” He decided he wanted to study at a California community college because his original goal was to transfer into UC Berkeley, and SRJC has a high transfer rate.

Little did he know his future goals would include becoming a starter next season, catching touchdowns, making blocks for running backs and modeling his game after 6-foot-7 Indianapolis Colts tight end Jelani Woods.

“I look up to him because we are the same physique. That’s my goal. That’s where I want to be,” Dahoue said.

Dahoue definitely has his work cut out for him. “He needs to get beefier if he’s gonna play tight end,” Wagner said. “He’s gonna have to move linebackers and defensive ends, so I think his challenges are gonna be his height in a weird way. In football you gotta get leverage so when you’re 6-foot-10, you gotta put your feet way [back] to get leverage.”

Dahoue believes the support around him will help him achieve his goals. He

SRJC football coach Lenny Wagner (center) under the Bailey Field lights with Swiss-born strong safety Nils Lehmann (left) and France-born Malian tight end Dodji Dahoue (right).

christian vieyra

“Have you ever seen somebody on a long field goal put a really tall person right at the crossbar and just jump up and swat the ball?... I think that might get us on ESPN.”

Attendance lags at marquee events No Students in Sight:

By Tony Moeckel

In their last game of the year, against the higher-ranked Sierra College, the Santa Rosa Junior College football team pulled off an unlikely upset. When the clock hit triple zeros, the Bear Cubs sideline erupted and a roar of cheers and screams could be heard throughout the stadium. The players stormed Bailey Field and created a giant mosh pit at midfield — a pile of players and coaches hugging and jumping up and down in excitement.

Except one thing was missing from the post-game celebration: the students.

Instead of rowdy fans rushing the field to jump for joy alongside the players, the stands were filled with only a few dozen family members and friends of players. But this was the type of game that should be packed with students because of the magnitude of the rivalry.

Four-year college attendees would never miss a big-time rivalry game, but two-year community college students at the JC missed out on the whole football season. They never formed a significant crowd for any home game.

The SRJC home football games have never hosted a packed student section, according to Head Coach Lenny Wagner. “In the 22 years that I have been here, there has not been much done to encourage general students to attend.”

There needs to be a significant change to the atmosphere around home games in general — not just for football. The student-athletes are deprived of electric

crowds, and the students are deprived of a collegiate experience they can remember forever.

SRJC Athletic Director Matt Markovich said post-pandemic attendance at home football games has mirrored pre-pandemic turnout, but he has some ideas to get students in the bleachers.

“One of the biggest steps we could do would be to put some resources behind a sports information director,” Markovich said. “That could help organize events like student red-out nights, create student sections in the bleachers and promote athletics on our campus more broadly.”

Wagner thinks the school can also entice students to attend home games with student rallies, free food and a designated student section.

Despite very little change in football attendance, Markovich said other fall sporting events have grown their crowd size. Volleyball and soccer have seen an uptick in attendance compared to pre-pandemic crowds.

But a large part of the increase at volleyball games is due to more family members and friends attending games. “They wouldn’t even open up the other half of the bleachers because it was only family members in the crowds,” star volleyball player Lilah Bacon said.

There is no reason why college sports teams should have lower student attendance and support than local high

school athletics, especially when the college teams are high performing.

The lack of student attendance at SRJC sporting events can be blamed on two things: the lack of advertising around campus and the continuation of students learning online, not immersing themselves into in-person college life.

Around Sonoma County, you can walk into a high school stadium or gymnasium and immediately point out the student section. Why is that not a thing for sporting events at the next level?

High schools do a better job than SRJC in spreading the word about upcoming sporting events. “Leadership class and the Trojan Live broadcast class [morning announcements] are two ways students hear about upcoming events,” said Petaluma High Assistant Varsity Football Head Coach Nick Emanuel.

According to Markovich, JC Athletics has advertised games to students on social media and on the Bear Cubs webpage, but the effort isn’t enough.

Although SRJC’s student attendance at sporting events fell slightly after the pandemic, high school sports took a different turn. Emanuel said when classes resumed in person last year, student attendance was through the roof at sporting events.

He had never seen such crowds; every home game seemed like the Egg Bowl, Petaluma’s famous game between crosstown rival Casa Grande.

Attendance at Bear Cubs sporting events lags due to low student interest influenced by the college’s lackluster effort at increasing school spirit.

Not only are football games attracting student fans for Petaluma High, other sports are as well. “I would say football is number one, but volleyball and basketball are tied for number two in terms of student attendance,” Emanuel said.

SRJC Athletics, with support from college officials, can adopt similar strategies as Petaluma High to increase student turnout at games. Free food at game day pep rallies could entice students around campus to attend the upcoming event, especially if the rallies take place in the center of campus to attract as many students as possible.

Student-athletes could give speeches at rallies and encourage students to attend their games, helping the athletes gain exposure, thus growing the college’s school spirit.

Signs or posters around campus advertising home games could also help. High schools provide fun atmospheres at home games by creating a theme for their student section, like White-Out Night or Country Night. SRJC Athletics could adopt similarly themed student sections in an effort to increase both the

students’ and the athletes’ anticipation for game day.

But while coaches and college officials need to improve their marketing strategies, SRJC students are also at fault.

Since the pandemic, Zoom and asynchronous online classes have grown in popularity. They are the first to fill — instead of in-person courses — because they allow students to be remote. However, remote students bent over laptops in their bedrooms are not participating in campus life.

If students are sitting at home, advertising and gimmicks are reaching no one.

Not only are sporting events taking place on campus, but theatre arts performances are back with the opening of two shows, “Stand and Deliver” and “The Spongebob Musical.”

“We opened our first show in the studio theater, which seats 200 people and it did great. It was at pre-pandemic levels,” said Leslie McCauley, theatre arts department chair.

However, attendance is still not consistent for the theatre arts program. Despite “The Spongebob Musical” debuting in a 400-person auditorium, the attendance was lower than she thought it would be on opening night.

Before Spring 2020, attendance at theatre arts performances was always strong. “Before the pandemic we were in swing space because of the remodel of Burbank auditorium. So we were performing at Maria Carrillo High School, Sonoma State and Newman Auditorium,” McCauley said. “We were all over the place, and our houses’ [attendance] were still excellent.”

To get to packed gyms and bleachers, SRJC students need to set down their computers and start experiencing college how it should be: by taking advantage of the multiple in-person events happening around campus every week.

So if you are tired of dozing off in another Zoom class or sick of doomscrolling alone, get on campus to help build the SRJC community and have a good time in the process.

Dismal attendance marks the Santa Rosa Junior College Women’s Basketball game against Shasta College Nov. 17, 2022, in Haehl Pavillion.

There needs to be a significant change to the atmosphere...The student-athletes are deprived of electric crowds, and the students are deprived of a collegiate experience they can remember forever.

“

School of Hard Rocks: The Story of Kevin Jorgeson

Renowned climber and former Santa Rosa Junior College student Kevin Jorgeson has made a career of scrambling up sheer rock faces with nothing but razor-thin handholds, navigating the margin between success and a crippling injury. But whether it’s bringing the sport of climbing to a million kids or pioneering the most difficult free climb in the world, Jorgeson is always looking forward to a challenge.

“I like climbing because it’s hard. Not in spite of that,” Jorgeson said. “It’s really easy to avoid pain and seek pleasure and try to make things as chill as possible, but there is so much growth that happens at the intersection of pain and pleasure, learning to thrive in discomfort, in fear, and adversity. Climbing helps you see challenges not as a red flag but as an indicator that you’re actually going in the right direction.”

The right direction for Jorgeson these days is Session, a 23,000-square-foot state-of-the-art climbing gym he opened in July 2022 with a business partner. The project took more than five years of planning and nearly ended when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down gyms across the nation, but Jorgeson’s determination paid off. Session is becoming a central hub for fitness enthusiasts in the heart of his hometown, the place responsible for setting his climbing career in motion.

Jorgeson’s climbing obsession began in Sonoma County

Jorgeson, 38, has spent most of his life stationed in Santa Rosa and credits much of his appreciation to the outdoors from growing up in the area. He said his parents “gave him a long leash” and he was able to run amok through Sonoma County.

“It’s such a beautiful place that has such a wealth of outdoor recreation. You can’t help but want to be outside a bunch, whether it’s mountain biking in Annadel or climbing out on the coast,” he

said. “That’s why when it came time to pick a spot to land on, my wife, Jacqui, and I chose Sonoma County.”

Jorgeson’s father, Eric, worked in the Santa Rosa Parks and Recreation Department’s records office for 33 years. Eric shared his love for the outdoors with Kevin and his brother, Matt, and took them on numerous camping and whitewater rafting trips to the Trinity River, Lake Pilsbury and Yosemite, which turned into an annual tradition.

When he was a kid, Jorgeson remembers his dad excitedly telling him he got on the waitlist to raft the Grand Canyon. Eric Jorgeson said each year he would have to send the park service a postcard to say ‘Yes, I still want to be on the list,’ which he did “religiously” for about 17 years. The waitlist finally paid off and he floated the Colorado River with his sons in October 2013.

“Rafting has a lot of similarities to climbing. It teaches you about risks and consequences, cause and effect,” Jorgeson said. “There’s a sequence to running rapids like there’s a sequence to climbing. You get the sequences wrong, you flip or fall. It’s taking the type of calculated risks that translate really well to life lessons.”

When asked about how he got into climbing Jorgeson’s answer is simple. “I never got out of it,” he said, noting how climbing is a natural urge for children, himself included. Climbing has since become part of his routine, like having breakfast every morning.

Eric said his son “was quite the monkey,” and would basically climb anything as soon as he was walking. “We’d be at a baseball game and somebody would give me an elbow and say ‘your kids on top of that backstop,’ and it’s like ‘Oh, I guess I better go get him down,’” Eric Jorgeson said.

Kevin Jorgeson’s first real experience in a climbing gym was at Vertex, which opened in Santa Rosa 1995, when he

By Michael Combs

was 11. His dad introduced him to Vertex with a Christmas gift of a climbing lesson. “He was immediately hooked,” Eric Jorgeson said.

It didn’t take long for Kevin to start working at Vertex. “I was too young to get paid so I would belay birthday parties for Snickers bars,” he said, referring to the technique used to counterbalance a climber if they fall. Eventually, he was old enough to earn real money and progressed to assistant manager and head route setter.

“I love that place,” he said. “They raised me. The coaches, Andy and Dave Wallach, pushed me so hard, like Rocky Balboa. Tortuous training exercises.”

Climbing was his community growing up. Instead of spending time with high school classmates, he climbed. “I’m surprised they let me graduate because I would spend so much time cutting class to be outside as much as I possibly could,” he said.

His favorite places to climb in Sonoma County are along the coast, at Goat Rock and Salt Point. “You could get lost in Salt Point. The landscape is so unique and unrecognizable,” he said. If he wasn’t climbing locally, Jorgeson said he would typically be in Bishop, in California’s Eastern Sierras, trying to climb highballs — really tall boulders — that haven’t been climbed before.

After graduating from Maria Carrillo High School in 2003, Jorgeson attended SRJC to pursue a kinesiology degree, because he thought it would help him coach climbing. But he had already won the national indoor climbing championships for 18-19 years olds, and instead of defending his championship or getting a bachelor’s degree, he opted to pursue his love for highball climbing.

“That’s when I dropped out of the JC. I didn’t tell my parents and started going on road trips and pursuing a career in climbing,” he said. He thinks he got his AA in kinesiology, but he’s not sure.

Left: Legendary climber Kevin Jorgeson scales a wall at his new climbing gym, Session, his latest passion after a life spent clinging to natural walls including Yosemite’s storied Dawn Wall, which he and his climbing partner, Tommy Caldwell, were first to summit.

His father said he supported Kevin’s decision. “He wasn’t just a high level climber, but had excellent writing and speaking skills, and was so good at meeting people and building relationships that I knew he was going to succeed,” Eric Jorgeson said.

From highballs to the Dawn Wall

In 2009, during a 10-year vagabond road-tripping phase in climbing, Jorgeson made the first ascent of the 45-foot-tall face of the Grandpa Peabody boulder in Bishop, California that he dubbed “Ambrosia.”

“It was a dream come true. What I love about highballs is that they’re so big you can’t ignore them. They are just right in the foreground and command so much attention,” he said. “And then you see a body where it shouldn’t be 40 feet up some face of a big golden piece of granite. There’s just something so arresting about being a part of the landscape.”

But highballs are also compelling to Jorgeson because of the risk they present. He thrives on calculating the fine line between safety and injury, and mitigating that risk through laser-focused practice and training.

“I never stepped on a highball where the conclusion wasn’t certain. It’s like all the fear was whittled away through the process of rehearsing it,” he said. “You play through all the worst case scenarios in your head so by the time you do it, you’ve had such an experience of it already. All that’s left is to just pull on and do it. It’s a fun process.”

After “Ambrosia,” Jorgeson wanted to move away from highballs because he didn’t want to become a soloist, or climber who climbs alone without the assistance of another person belaying. He felt he needed not just a new project, but a new discipline.

Then he saw the 2009 documentary “Progression” with legendary big wall climber Tommy Caldwell contemplating the first ever free climb of the Dawn Wall, the sheer southwestern face of El Capitan in the Yosemite Valley, which was not thought to be possible. Free climbing it would mean going without equipment and only using ropes to protect against injury from a fall.

“It looked like the most futuristic thing I’d ever seen,” Jorgeson said. That’s what I love to do, pull the future into the present. Look at a big thing that’s never been climbed before and figure out how to bring it into the present.”

Jorgeson asked Caldwell if he needed a partner, and Caldwell accepted. The two spent the next six years planning the 3,000-foot ascent, considered by many climbers to be the most difficult climb in the world with 12 of its 32 pitches rated at 5.13 on the Yosemite Decimal System (YDS) and seven rated at 5.14.

The YDS is a method for rating the difficulty for walking trails and sport climbing routes used primarily in the U.S. and Canada. A class 5 is used for climbing routes; any fall in a class 5 could be fatal. The second number is the subcategory for the climb, with a 5.1 suitable for beginners and a 5.13-5.15 the most technical climb possible without the aid of a rope to ascend.

“You spend two to three months a year on the wall, starting in October, until the snow comes, figuring out if it’s possible,” Jorgeson said. “You could describe

courtesy imdb

“Dawn Wall” documents the first-ever free climb by Santa Rosa native Kevin Jorgeson and climbing partner Tommy Caldwell of the 3,000-foot Dawn Wall in Yosemite National Park, thought to be the hardest big wall climb in the world. Jorgeson’s national profile skyrocketed after the climb.

it in stages. Early on it’s ‘Is this possible?’ Then there’s ‘Oh my god, we can do this,’ to ‘We’re going to do this.’”

Jorgeson started as the underdog of the duo, the “mentee” to Caldwell as mentor. But their dynamic shifted into a more-balanced partnership as Jorgeson improved his big wall climbing skills.

“Moving into big wall climbing was like becoming a beginner again. Without Tommy I couldn’t have reinvented my form,” he said. “It took six years to pass the exam and be at the point where I could have any hope of getting that thing done.”

When the pair finished planning the route and felt prepared, they began their ascent of the Dawn Wall on Dec. 26, 2014. Jorgeson hit one major hurdle, Pitch 15, which took him six days and 11 attempts to pass.

“You typically started at 3 or 4 in the afternoon and made an attempt every 90 minutes to two hours,” he said. “So I would climb until really late and throw in the towel after four attempts. Usually I’d be bleeding out of multiple fingers.”

During Jorgeson’s struggle, Caldwell had made it to pitch 20 and was in sight to finish the climb alone, but stopped to wait for Jorgeson to catch up. He wouldn’t conquer the Dawn Wall with-

out his partner, even if waiting too long could cost him the honor of the first ascent.

Jorgeson had a good feeling on the day he finally completed Pitch 15. It was overcast, so he wouldn’t get sweaty from the sun, and it was windy, which is good “juju” for climbers. “Something in the air gets you psyched,” he said. The magic ingredient, though, was changing his approach.

“That’s what my body needed,” Jorgeson said. “Using a more time-consuming foot stance would trick my body into thinking I was asking it to do something new as opposed to the same choreography. It all clicked.”

After completing Pitch 15, Jorgeson took about a minute to celebrate before moving on. “But that’s the fun of the battle,” he said. On Jan. 14, 2015, 19 days after they began the ascent, both he and Caldwell made it to the summit to an unexpected media swarm.

Kevin’s dad said his son and Caldwell were shocked by the publicity.

“We were following it, and at some point we said, ‘We gotta get out there.’ So we packed up and drove to Yosemite, and all the media vans were lined up on El Cap Meadow: BBC, CBS and NBC. It must’ve been 25 vans all lined up with

their satellite dishes. It was crazy,” Eric Jorgeson said.

Eric hiked the Yosemite Falls Trail to be at the El Capitan Summit when Kevin topped out.

After Kevin finished the climb, Eric said Kevin wore a huge smile as he made his way to a huge crowd and then girlfriend and future wife, Jacqui, “He was mobbed and I had to fight through to get a hug and a quick picture before the media grabbed him,” Eric Jorgeson said.

Getting down was also an experience of a lifetime for Eric. At the summit was Alex Honnold, a famous climber and friend of Kevin’s, who offered to rappel him down the East Ledgers of El Capitan, or “climber’s shortcut.”

Eric said the rappel down was exciting, but a little scary as the day got dark by the time he was halfway down. “I thought I was going to have a heart attack and ruin Kevin’s big day,” he said.

Kevin Jorgeson and Caldwell gained national fame after the Dawn Wall with an appearance on “Good Morning America” and a congratulatory Facebook post from President Barack Obama. “It must’ve been a slow news week,” Jorgeson joked. The climb was also documented in the award-winning 2017 film “The Dawn Wall.”

After the Dawn Wall ascent, Jorgeson planned to blaze another route up El Capitan with Caldwell and climber Alex Honnold in 2019, calling it “New Dawn,” but Jorgeson had to back out at the last minute to be with his wife, Jacqui, and son, Edsel, 4, during the Kincade Fire.

“That sucked,” he said. We were right on the border of the evacuation zone. We live in Montgomery Village and the fire was coming over the hill into Rincon Valley. I had to come home and pack up the house and be ready to go.”

Inspiring 1 million kids to climb

It was in 2010 when Jorgeson first asked himself, “How can I introduce a million kids to climbing?”

He started by raising money for a climbing wall at the Boys and Girls Club of Sonoma Valley.

Kevin Jorgeson rests up before attempting to climb the hardest pitches of his life as soon as the sun goes down. After spending 19 days on the wall, Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson reached the summit of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park for their historic first free ascent of the Dawn Wall.

photo and caption courtesy corey rich

But after completing the Dawn Wall — and benefiting from his newly raised profile — Jorgeson co-founded the non-profit organization 1Climb, which built climbing walls in the Boys and Girls Clubs of St. Louis and Santa Rosa using the Sonoma wall as a pilot.

Jorgeson chose to partner with Boys and Girls Clubs since 4.5 million kids a year spend their afternoons there and the clubs he worked with were all near a climbing gym, which he says is necessary so kids can continue to climb after they grow out of the clubs. So far 1Climb has constructed 14 walls across the country with four more opening soon, one in West Oakland.

The idea behind the name 1Climb is that one climb has the potential to change a kid’s life.

“Competing gave me something to focus on throughout my teen years. I was really lucky to have found something I was

passionate about early in life. It gave me a trajectory and a path I never looked back from,” he said.

Jorgeson knows a million kids is a lofty goal, but he said the point is to impact as many lives as possible.

“We found a simple idea and a way to execute it. It’s just a question of funding. There’s lots of funding out there. Good ideas are scarce. Money is not,” he said. “It’s a worldview that I have. To just focus on good ideas and impact and everything else will take care of itself.”

Jorgeson said his favorite days of the year are when he attends 1Climb grand openings and watches kids climb for the first time. He is also retrofitting the climbing wall at Chops Teen Club in Santa Rosa, where Jorgeson was the inaugural route setter when he was 16.

The Dawn Wall climb also sparked Jorgeson’s venture into motivational

speaking; he and Caldwell never meant for the climb to be a public spectacle, but they received speaking requests while they were still on the wall.

“Microsoft wanted us to come give a talk. We’re like, ‘What do I have to say to Microsoft about anything?’ But they’re super fun,” he said. “It’s being asked to recount an experience in a condensed format in a way that’s helpful to people. In that sense I probably learned more about the climb as a result of sharing the story as opposed to just hopping out and going on with life.”

Session: A place to hang

Now that Jorgeson has a family he said his biggest challenge is balancing his time with them and his current projects.

Jorgeson’s climbing gym, Session, is the project that takes up most of his time. Ringing truth to his words of growth from facing adversity, pushing through

photo and caption courtesy corey rich

Pitch 15, rated 5.14d, of the Dawn Wall of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park gave Kevin Jorgeson the most difficulty during his and Tommy Caldwell’s historic first free ascent of the Dawn Wall. It took Santa Rosa native Jorgeson six days and 11 attempts to complete Pitch 15.

construction of Session through the pandemic has paid off. People deprived of community spaces and activities during COVID strengthened their resolve to workout with friends, he said.

“I’ve had lots of folks pulling me aside saying ‘I’m so grateful this place got built. I’m finally back into yoga or an exercise routine that I didn’t have during COVID because I hate working out in my living room,’” he said. “It was brutal to take so long to build, but in hindsight things got better by the time we were ready to open.”

Session, located two miles south of SRJC on South A Street, has already attracted a number of students, Jorgeson said. He thinks climbing has a lot to offer students, whether it’s the process of movement as a de-stressor or to help returning to life in a post-pandemic world with uncertainties.

“Whatever you need, climbing will give it back to you like a mirror. It helps you face your fear,” Jorgeson said. “I think the more you can learn to enjoy things that push you really helps you discover what you’re capable of.”

Climbing is different from other sports, Jorgeson said, because you don’t have a coach spoon-feeding you on how to do everything. When climbers encounter a difficult section of a wall, they each have to find their own way to make it work.

“You can tell a lot about someone by watching them climb for 30 seconds,” Jorgeson said. “If their footwork is precise, what their breathing is doing and how much effort they’re exerting in their arms versus their feet. All this stuff tells you about a person’s mindset and how they approach scary things.”

Besides dealing with life, climbing is a great way for students to focus on a mental challenge other than academics, Jorgeson said. He designed Session with a lounge featuring cold brew coffee and kombucha on tap and plans to sell snacks and other light food in the future. The lounge allows patrons to toggle between work and play, a balance Jorgeson thinks is invaluable to any success. The gym is open until 10 p.m., which is later than most coffee shops or places to study in the area.

Jorgeson met his future business partner, Matt Schaffer, through climbing

as a teenager. Schaffer went down the academia path and became a professor, even teaching English at SRJC for a time. Schaffer was thinking of building his own climbing gym in Oregon when he heard of Jorgeson’s plans for Session. “He was literally teaching up until about six months before we opened,” Jorgeson said.

The partners created Session not just as a gym, but as a place where people would be happy hang out. Stepping into Session is like being in a climbing gym mixed into the Mayacamas Mountains, which peer through the wall-height windows and let the breeze rush through the array of blue, gray and tan walls that reflect the serene aesthetic of the great outdoors.

Even the location at the intersection of Highway 12 and 101 makes it an easy landmark to base proximity of the gym to the surrounding area.

Session isn’t just for climbers, Jorgeson said. There is also a yoga studio and a mezzanine above the lounge that features treadmills, free weights and climbing-specific training equipment.

“The hope is to surround yourself with people who have shared values and priorities for how they spend their time,” he said. “We’re focused on how we can make this a place where people feel their time is well spent in every interaction, from folks walking through the door to every yoga class and every route that goes on the wall.”

Session also offers climbing routes dedicated to thrill-seeking kids. “We added the [kid-friendly holds] so that kids will have something to do next to their parents while they’re at the gym. Kids just want to do what their parents are doing,” Jorgeson said.

Jorgeson began climbing at 11 and was soon belaying birthday parties for Snickers bars since he was too young to get paid. Now he makes his money at Session, his 5-month-old climbing and fitness gym.

24 Hours

in Kharkiv

Photos and Essay by Aryk Copley

Ukrainian Hennadyi Balabonav walks among the charred remains of his home that was torched by Russian forces after they learned of his son’s military service and sought revenge, in Malaya Rohan on Aug. 10. 2022.

Editor's Note: To protect the privacy of several individuals, some names in this story have been changed.

Idistinctly remember when I heard my first bomb. It sounded so similar to thunder, I thought. The explosion cut through the air exactly the same way, the vibrations worming their way inside of my skull, the sound dull and sharp at the same time.

I had just stepped off the train in Kharkiv, the morning sun beginning to bathe the square in front of the station in soft, yellow light. My vest, which I had purchased for its advertised resistance to artillery shrapnel, weighed on my chest and shoulders. My ballistic helmet sat snugly atop my head, a “MEDIA” sticker purchased from Etsy beginning to peel from its rough surface.

Not one of the dozens of people wandering the square gave me a second glance, but I felt thoroughly out of place. Nobody else wore any protective equipment, barr the heavily armed soldiers who stood in the periphery smoking cigarettes. The roar of a distant explosion consumed the entire square, the sound volleying between the tall, wide buildings surrounding it, but not even the pigeons took flight.

My path to Kharkiv started two months prior, in June of 2022. I’d been taking photographs since 2017, and made it a point to take on the most challenging assignments available to me. Working for Santa Rosa Junior College’s Oak Leaf publication gave me my first real access to the world of photojournalism.

I quickly became comfortable with protests and fires as my working environment. Enamored with the work of conflict and disaster journalists like Lynsey Addario and Daniel Berehulak, I was trying to build a base that could propel me into that dangerous and challenging world.

I’d been following the invasion of Ukraine since February, but being fresh in the photojournalist world, barely on my first real internship, meant I lacked experience, connections and resources. I did not have the money to hire fixers, the experience to convince publications to send me into dangerous areas, or the popularity to garner sponsors. I was just

a young man from a community college who’d started late in his career field.

But these things hadn’t stopped me so far. When a fellow student told me the trains and buses across the Polish border were back up and running, I immediately began planning a trip.

I purchased a plane ticket to Poland, blocking out the only two free weeks I had in the summer months. I navigated Polish and Ukrainian railway websites to purchase train tickets in and out of Kyiv. I furiously researched protective

equipment before placing an order for a ballistic helmet and vest. Ballistic plates were in short supply due to the war, so I purchased a second-hand pair on Facebook Marketplace.

I joined local Ukrainian Facebook groups, posting about my trip and making connections with immigrants, expats and first-generation Americans. My two weeks began to take shape with Kyiv as my home base. Trains and buses as transportation. Three stories to pursue: an organization in Chernivtsi

rehoming elderly refugees, a nonprofit drone team rescuing animals in bombed-out suburbs, and 24 hours with a volunteer team in Ukraine’s largest front-line city: Kharkiv.

After loading into a van with the team of local volunteers, I was given an introductory drive around Kharkiv. The city sprawled, an expanse of Soviet architecture connected by wide veins of freeways and avenues. Every few minutes, the driver would point out the window,

pull his cigarette from his mouth and mumble in Ukrainian. “подивіться там.” “Look there.” Without fail, he knew where every single bomb had fallen on our route. Entire buildings had been vaporized, offices, grocery stores, apartments.

Sometimes the rubble had been cleared away; other explosions had happened so recently, clean up crews hadn’t had the chance. Citizens still frequented the sidewalks in front of decimated buildings. Those who were going to flee

the city had long since left; those who stayed had long since grown accustomed to the destruction, just as they’d grown accustomed to the constant sound of the bombs.

I stood in front of an apartment building, looking up at the collapsed section. A missile had obliterated entire portions of the massive Soviet-style complex, reducing entire apartments to heaps of concrete, leaving only hallways that opened into hundred-foot drops. I pointed my camera up to take a photo

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A group of women, mostly elderly, spends hours in line for groceries and medicine doled from a Red Cross aid station in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Aug. 10, 2022, more than six months after Russian troops invaded on Feb. 24 and impeded normal supply chains in the process.

and found my lens wasn’t wide enough to fit the destruction in the frame. I turned and took steps toward the edge of the gravel pathway where we parked, planning to step into the brush to achieve my framing.

I heard a stern command come from behind me: “Stop.

I froze, turning to see my translator, Mira, approaching. A volunteer who left her home country to come to Ukraine, Mira had been my lifeline during my time here so far. She was a serious-faced woman with sharp, modelesque features and jet black hair. In the short time I’d known her, I’d learned to listen intently to her every word.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. She calmly stood next to me on the edge of the gravel pathway.

“Do not go into the brush. The Russians use cluster mines,” she said. “A woman last week was killed when she wandered into the bushes.”

I looked out into the lush green brush in front of me, imagining a mine perfectly obscured under soil and vegetation.

Another explosion cut through the air. It was louder than the previous blasts, the vibrations traveling through my chest. Mira shouted something to our driver, then turned back to me.

“We need to go. The bombs are getting closer.”

Piling back into the van, our driver, a volunteer by the name of Slava, began to chat with my translator. We peeled out onto the freeway, and Mira leaned up and over the front row of seats from the back.

“Slava says he could show you the village he grew up in for our last stop,” she said to me. “Would you like to see it?”

Malaya Rohan is a small village on the outskirts of Kharkiv. As you get farther from the city center, the sprawl cedes ground to the countryside. Apartments are replaced by pastures; skyscrapers by rolling hills and trees. A single road leads to Malaya Rohan.

Two children in army fatigues and toting toy rifles guarded the entrance. They ran down the road with their Ger-

man Shepherd; Slava playfully hassling them in Ukrainian. They told us that to get into the village, everyone in the car had to say the passphrase, “слава україні.” Glory to Ukraine.

We pulled up in front of Slava’s childhood home. Out stepped his mother, Nadegda, an elderly but spry woman with snow white hair who reminded me of my aunt. She stopped to feed two stray kittens wrestling in her garden before doting on her son. Mira was smitten by the strays and crouched down to play with them. I joined her.

For a blissful moment, everything was peaceful and safe. But a distant explosion brought me back, and I was drawn to the skeletal remains of Nadegda’s garage. Ironically, it looked identical to the remains of structures burned by the fires that ravaged my own hometown of Santa Rosa. Mira, holding a stray kitten, translated Nadegda’s words for me.

Malaya Rohan was invaded by the Russian military early in the war. To take over the area, the Russians conducted a wave of shelling that decimated many of the homes. The residents spent more than a month under Russian

An elderly woman walks in front of an apartment building destroyed by Russian shelling in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Aug. 10, 2022.

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occupation, before the Ukrainian military drove them out with an artillery campaign of their own, further damaging the village. As they retreated, the Russians shelled the town one last time, as a parting cruelty.

Nadegda is not sure if her garage or her neighbors’ homes were destroyed by the Russians or her own countrymen. But she was grateful to be out from under Russian occupation, and she was happy her son was safe.

Across the street, a man was outside harvesting apples from his orchard. Huge trees towered above him, and he used a long hooked pole to pick the highest fruit.

His name was Oleksander, a jovial elderly man who gleefully offered us his garden harvest. He motioned for us to follow him into his yard, where he showed us a large hole blasted into the side of his house.

“Подивіться! Подивіться!” he said. “Look! Look!”

He approached a crater, where the back end of a missile protruded from the

ground, buried up to its fins. “That’s a missile that landed in his yard and didn’t explode,” Mira translated for me. With a large grin on his face, Oleksander kicked it with a sandaled foot.

Mira and I took a large step backward, both of us nervously laughing at the gall of this shirtless man — surely somebody’s grandfather — kicking a live missile with no fear.

Oleksander told us of another man in the village whose home was not shelled, but burned down by occupying Russians. We made our way to that address, knocking on the heavy steel gate. It slowly slid open, revealing a tan, middle-aged man named Hennadyi.

Mira introduced us, and he took us onto his property. His home was a pile of bricks and ash, and he lived with his wife in the only remaining structure: a small shed. Russian soldiers discovered his son was a Ukrainian soldier and burned down Hennadyi’s house in a cruel act of vengeance.

He showed us a collection of missile parts and shrapnel he collected and kept as evidence of war crimes. He sent

us off with well wishes, shaking my hand and hugging Mira as a thanks for talking with him.

In the middle of Malaya Rohan sat a destroyed Russian tank, the unlucky recipient of a Ukrainian shell. Vegetation was beginning to reclaim it. Nearby, an elderly man picked through a pile of rubble.

Mira and I approached, and he introduced himself as Vasylyi. He motioned for us to follow him through the rubble pile, back to his home.

“He says not to worry,” Mira said. “He has already cleared all of the trip grenades left behind by the Russians along this route.”

He showed us his home, heavily damaged, but still standing. Half of his roof was missing, the hole covered by a blue tarp. His two dogs mobbed us, licking our hands as we entered his front yard.

He took us to his basement, loaded with non-perishables and survival essentials, where he, his wife, children and grandchildren had spent the month the village was under Russian occupation.

Left: Two children and their dog station a mock checkpoint on a road into Malaya Rohan, a town outside Kharkiv that came under Russian shelling. Right: Holes left by artillery shrapnel in a steel door to a shelter utilized by a family of six during Russian occupation in Malaya Rohan.

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Left: Vyacheslav Ilchenko cradles a stray kitten on the street outside his childhood home in Malaya Rohan, Ukraine on Aug. 10, 2022.

Center: Hennadyi Balabonav drags a missile casing from his backyard, where he has a small pile of missiles and shells that landed on his property.

Right: Oleksander Rubanok points jovially toward an unexploded missile that landed right next to his home in Malaya Rohan.

Bottom: A basketball hoop is the only structure left undamaged at a school bombed by Russian artillery in Kharkiv.

He pointed to six holes in the door that separates his shelter from the outside, where shrapnel from a shell punctured the heavy steel as if it were nothing but tin foil. His grandchildren’s toys lay in the corner of his attic, abandoned when his family fled post occupation.

A voice emanated from the street outside Vasylyi’s home, and Mira turned to me, telling me it was time to go. I thanked Vasylyi for his hospitality, and he let me pet his dogs one more time before we left.

Slava had pulled the van around, and I hopped back into the front seat, watching the sun fade from the countryside as we drove back into Kharkiv, where bombs continued to echo between the city buildings. Mira hugged me goodbye and Slava took a selfie with me for Instagram.

I made it back to the station — the same square where I’d started my journey in Kharkiv — climbed into the Soviet-era

train, and assembled my bed. The sun had just dipped below the green hills and the explosions grew more and more distant as we pulled away.

I drifted to sleep, barely aware of the train attendant stepping in to close my window shade, preventing the cabin light from attracting artillery fire.

A distant, low booming woke me from my slumber. My first thought was, “Where am I?”

Weeks of sleeping between trains and hotels made it hard to keep track, but adrenaline forced the sleep from my body only to replace it with panic.

Another boom rocked the room as artificial light drifted through the curtains from the skyline and bathed the room in a ghostly yellow glow.

My memories returned: I’d made it back from Kharkiv and was in my

rented room in Kyiv. The yellow glow was punctuated by a burst of light, and shortly after, another boom, louder than the first two. I rolled off of the rigid mattress and swiftly crossed the room to the terrace, snatching my helmet off of the couch.

Cautiously, I opened the sliding door. A wall of heat enveloped my body, the humid summer air instantly suffocating my pores.

Warm rain beat down hard, and dark clouds obscured the moon and stars. Another flash illuminated the skyline and its trailing boom shook the windows of my small flat.

I curled up on the edge of the terrace, too alert to return to sleep. I watched as a thunderstorm descended onto the city, thunder clapping loud above the Ukrainian capital.

As the storm passed over Kyiv, I thought how similar bombs sound to thunder.

Right: Nadegda Ilchenko walks through her garden in front of her garage, which was leveled by shelling in Malayan Rohan, a town outside of Kharkiv.

Waking Up to War

By Sam Guzman

The first explosions woke her up in the city of Dnipro, Ukraine, around 5 a.m. “Where is my daughter? Is she safe now?” she thought.

Everyone in her apartment building started texting and calling in a panic.

Anna Tereshchenko, 33, and her daughter Yeva, 12, rushed to Anna’s mother’s house, where they hid in her basement, listening to explosions overhead. “The bombs were everywhere,” said Anna.

Ten days later, on March 5, Anna and Yeva emerged from the basement and boarded a train to Poland.

They were two of more than 7 million refugees who have fled Ukraine since Russia invaded the country on Feb. 24. Many have found their way to California and some to Santa Rosa Junior College. Through programs like “Uniting with Ukraine,” refugees like Anna receive help to apply for work visas, enroll in schools and find housing. However, leaving her home behind and getting to America was a difficult journey full of loss and recovery for Anna and other new SRJC students.

After a brief stay in Poland, Anna and Yeva lived in Turkey for three months before hearing from friends that Ukraine was “not so dangerous.” They returned in June, and the mood had changed. Questions such as “How are you doing?” were now frequent among neighbors, and the usually stoic Ukrainians had begun to open up and be friendlier to each other.

However, explosions had become the norm, and Anna realized that for her daughter’s sake, they could not stay in Ukraine. With the help of a sponsor family, they flew to San Francisco and began a new life in Sonoma County.

Over in the city of Odesa, Yana Kalmykova, 34, received a call from her fatherin-law that Russia had begun bombing Ukraine in the early morning of Feb. 24. Within hours she, her husband Yehor, 35, and their son Dima, 5, could see the

A photo sent to Yana Kalmykova shows a high-rise building burning moments after a Russian artillery strike that Yana was hiding from one block away in her mother’s basement.

courtesy yana kalmykova

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rockets exploding two miles from their 13th-floor apartment. “When it started, you don’t understand. Your mind, don’t understand,” Yana said. “From there, it was a blur.”

Yana described a newfound sense of community that formed with her neighbors. “We were going to underground parking, and we used this like a safe space. All of our neighbors, we met. It was very often. It could be four, five times a day,” Yana said.

The neighbors created a group chat to keep in touch with one another. Yana, Yehor and Dima had to sleep in the family car in the underground lot for the first few days.

The decision to leave was not easy. Yehor gave Yana and Dima one evening to collect their things and go. “Because it’s not safe there. And Dima, I don’t

Above: Apartment buildings across from Yana Kalmykova’s burn on the morning of Feb. 24., the first day of the Russian attack on Ukraine.

left: More than 7 million refugees have been displaced to shelters like this one in Pshemysel, Poland, since Russia invaded in late February.

right: Anna Tereshchenko and her daughter, Yeva, struggle to find space on a crowded train carrying women and children refugees to Poland.

courtesy yana kalmykova

left and ri G ht : courtesy anna tereshchenko

Top: Former Dnipro resident Anna Tereshchenko is learning English at Santa Rosa Junior College’s Southwest Center, where any county resident can enroll in ESL classes for free.

Bottom: After the Russian invasion forced them to leave Ukraine, Yana, Yehor and Dima Kalmykova are adjusting to life in Sonoma County and are relieved to find how welcoming Americans have been.

want my son to see a bomb, or someone die. I want my wife and my son in a safe place,” Yehor told her.

The family scrambled to gather what they could, such as documents and clothes. Yana and Dima traveled by train to Bucharest, where they stayed for one month. Yana found a sponsor family on Facebook, whom she messaged and video chatted with about needed documents and the process of moving to America.

Yehor was not allowed to leave with them, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy required for all men be-

tween the ages of 18 and 60 to stay in the country be ready to fight the war. Yehor stayed in Ukraine for eight months, as he waited for a legal permit to leave the country. Once it was issued, he joined his family in Santa Rosa in September. Yehor “never belonged to the military,” Yana said.

Landing in Sonoma

Anna has been away from home for nine months, and for her, Sonoma County has been nothing but a positive experience. “Everyone asks, ‘How are you doing?’ Everyone smiles. It’s very nice,” she said of her day-to-day routine.

Now that she is here, Anna wants to work on her English. She takes ESL classes at SRJC’s Southwest Center and hopes to improve her English so she can find work here. In Ukraine, she developed websites for an international technology company and wants to do similar work in America.

Anna is uncertain about where she plans to live in the future. “When I came here, I was sure I would go back. And now I’m talking every day with my mom, with my friends who say ‘Stay there. You should stay,’” Anna said. Her biggest concern is keeping her daughter safe and in school.

Anna worries about family, including her mother, Iryna, 64, who is still in Ukraine. “Many people don’t have a choice,” she said. “For example, for men, it’s forbidden to leave the country, because of the military situation. Many families stay because of this. They don’t want to leave their fathers, brothers, husbands.”

Yana shared both Anna’s fear for those left behind and her gratitude for her welcoming experiences so far in California. “Very nice people everywhere, and everyone wants to support you. Here, it’s different than people in our country because everybody wants to smile when you see somebody, and everyone wants to tell you good morning,” she said.

Yana and Yehor keep in touch daily with their family and friends still in Ukraine. “I just go to my mom and I ask her ‘How are you?’ and she told me ‘I’m still alive,’” Yana said, noting her mother’s sense of humor helped her relax. “I think it was a good thing for me.”

Yana also talked about the electricity in Ukraine being shut down, which led to people losing their jobs.

Yana’s sponsor family helped her find classes at the Southwest Center, where she hopes to improve her English, so she can continue working as an animator, her job in Ukraine.

SRJC ESL instructor Daniela Kingwill has Anna, Yana and Yehor in her ESL 715 class, and teaching them has affected her as an instructor.

“It makes it so much more real, when you know people who are living through it,” Kingwill said.

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Dahoue

specifically noted defensive coordinator Dante DePaolo’s weight room speeches. “He’s just really inspiring and wants you to get better,” Dahoue said.

Offensive coordinator Vic Amick’s coaching has also been pivotal to Dahoue’s development. “He’s been watching me, telling me what to do, how to get better at receiver and tight end.”

Coach Wagner has already been scheming how to use Dahoue’s height. “Have you ever seen somebody on a long field goal put a really tall person right at the crossbar and just jump up and swat the ball? I’ve never seen that,” he said emphatically. “Like Manute Bol style. I think that might get us on ESPN.”

However Dahoue’s Bear Cubs career turns out, Wagner knows, “The sky’s the limit.”

Refugees

From Page 32

As a non-credit ESL teacher, Kingwill said it’s not only her job to teach English, but also to help with issues such as cultural norms and paperwork like driver’s licenses or school documents.

“Sometimes it’s as basic as helping with a quick phone call or making an appointment online, or just something cultural that we’re all used to here but are big hoops for them to jump through,” Kingwill said.

“Everyone loves her; she’s very active, she’s great,” Yana said of Kingwill.

“Our teacher for English is very very nice,” Yehor said.

The Southwest Center has a long history of supporting immigrants from all over the world, according to Hector Delgado, who oversees daily operations. He said the center not only offers ESL classes but also helps students assess the appropriate English classes they should take, meet with immigration attorneys, register for classes and apply to colleges. Non-credit ESL classes do not yield college credit, however they don’t require citizenship to enroll.

“Some [students] will be quite successful, and they transfer within one or two

semesters to credit classes,” Delgado said of the program.

Delgado is proud of the Southwest Center and all of the aid staff can offer immigrants and refugees alike. “This country is a beacon of hope. The beacon of hope for the world to look at it as a place where they can find peace,” Delgado said.

He hopes people will see the Southwest Center as a “human college,” and this will attract more people to the campus.

Anna and Yeva have adjusted well to Sonoma County. Anna is slowly conquering the language barrier and has some free time now that she has her work visa. Yeva loves school, particularly because she has less homework compared to Ukraine. She is outgoing and has made many friends, Anna said.

Yana, Yehor and Dima are also enjoying their time here. Dima is a student at Santa Rosa Charter School for the Arts. He started learning English in Ukraine, so he was able to quickly adapt.

The transition to living in a new country was difficult for him during the first couple of months, but he now understands English well and has made new friends. Eventually, the family plans to move near Los Angeles so Yehor can study programming full-time. Yana still

hopes to find a job in animation as well. They do not plan to return to Ukraine in the near future, mostly because of uncertainty as to when the war will end.

Session

From Page 21

Siany Escamilla, 24, a children’s climbing coach at Session and an SRJC welding student, said the gym offers kids a place to build on their natural tendency to climb walls and trees.

“Climbing isn’t just a physical exercise for them. It’s like solving a puzzle so there’s a mental exercise in critical thinking too. And the parents appreciate how it tires them out, in a good way,” Escamilla said.

One of the founding members of Session is Tyler Ripley, 23, an SRJC pre-nursing student who registered for the gym before it opened and said he’s loving his time there.

“I was a climber at Vertex before Session opened. It’s awesome to have two gyms in the area, because the community just exploded,” Ripley said. “There are so many new climbers, which have made it a really good experience for people getting into the sport.”

Santa Rosa Junior College tight end Dodji Dahoue catches a bullet pass during practice on Oct. 20.

The Performer and The Professor Bennett Friedman plays among giants

By Sean Young

He’s backed-up Sinatra, Elvis, Marvin Gaye and Michael Jackson. He’s tuned his sax in lounges and juke joints, and clubs and arenas. He’s jammed on jazzy tunes and Rock ‘n’ Roll, and R&B and pop and soul for some of the biggest names in music history.

Since 1977, Bennett Friedman has played for audiences of adoring students at Santa Rosa Junior College, where he is the full-time director of jazz studies. He teaches jazz appreciation classes and leads student jazz combos — all while juggling an active tour calendar.

At age 78, Friedman is the most veteran of SRJC faculty and shows no signs of slowing down. He rises at 6 a.m., jogs two miles every morning and then practices his beloved saxophone. He then heads into work, teaching students both an appreciation and a practical application of the music that lead him to his illustrious career. It could be said that Friedman was destined into a career in the music industry.

Born in Berkeley, California to classically trained musicians, Friedman’s parents exposed him to myriad artists and music genres. “My mother played piano, my father [played] violin and they performed together sometimes,” Friedman said. “But we listened to everything: musicals, Broadway shows, pop music–everything.”

His mother insisted that Friedman—at age 6— learn to play the piano before choosing another instrument. After two long years tickling the ivories, Friedman opted for the clarinet before picking up the saxophone at age 10.

Friedman took his clarinet-playing skills all the way to San Francisco State University, where he met his first wife while playing in the Symphonic Band.

“Bennett went to San Francisco State at a time when you could not study jazz, so he was a clarinet major,” said former Santa Rosa High School band director Mark Wardlaw. He met Friedman through the Sonoma County jazz scene. “He learned jazz the old-fashioned way: by studying, listening, gigging and working his butt off,” he said.

“I played all kinds of gigs and ended up playing more saxophone than clarinet by the time I got out of the army,” he said. “But it is very typical—whether it’s Shirley MacLaine or Liza Minnelli or any of those Broadway titans—that you play saxophone, clarinet, flute, maybe two kinds of flutes, maybe two kinds of clarinets because the music is written for those instruments.”

Though Friedman played with some of the biggest names in the music industry, he never made a personal connection with any of them. “We pass in the hall, in the dressing room… I never hung out with them,” he said.

About a month before graduating from SFSU, Friedman received a draft notice to serve in the Vietnam War. Trying to stay out of combat, Friedman pursued an opportunity to play in the U.S. Army Band, the premier musical organization of the United States Army.

“It’s a special band and they needed somebody who could play both jazz and classical music. So on my own nickel, I flew back and auditioned,” he said.

He aced it. “[The Army] was great — once I got out of basic training.”

After serving three years stationed in Washington D.C., Friedman returned home to the Bay Area to perform his own shows but was soon on the road again. “One of my first gigs was a road gig with Elvis Presley,” he said. Friedman toured with Presley on his 1970 tour dates in Portland and Seattle, where the band enjoyed seeing the relatively new Space Needle and Monorail. “From then on, I was accompanying all these huge stars.”

Following his tour with The King, Friedman worked in horn sections for other superstars, such as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye, Sarah Vaughan, Sammy Davis Jr., Natalie Cole and The Temptations.

His SRJC colleague, Dr. Jerome Fleg, is in awe of Friedman’s live performances with so many legends.

“He was one of the top musicians in San Francisco and one of the top saxophone players, playing for all the major names to come through this region,” Fleg said. “If you named like 10 or 15 jazz legends, half of them or more he’s played on a stage with.”

One gig Friedman fondly remembers was during his time as a graduate student when he met with a jazz organ player who was playing at the Tonga Room & Hurricane Bar in San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel. “He was looking for a saxophone player, and I had to play the flute [as well],” Friedman said.

For two years, the pair, along with a singer, worked five or six nights every week. One night, the organist and the singer were bantering. “He dared her to dive into the pool, and she did it. We got our notice the next day,” Friedman said.

When Friedman got the boot from the Fairmont he joined what would become his own group, the Bennett Friedman Big Band.

The band started out as the Chris Poehler Big Band and played out of the Great American Musical Hall in San

“If you named like 10 or 15 jazz legends, half of them or more he’s played on a stage with.”

The Performer

Francisco on Monday nights. Friedman took over leadership of the group after his friend and former band leader left. “I didn’t name it my name right off the bat,” he said.

Friedman has taught thousands of students to appreciate jazz and directed more than 200 jazz combos’ performances. “It’s very hard to come up with those numbers [of students],” he said.

Many students, especially those in the jazz combos classes, choose to repeat the course.

The Professor

The band performed at famous venues, such as Keystone Korner and The Reunion in San Francisco, as well as at the Russian River Jazz Festival. In 1977, Friedman was looking for more steady work so he could buy a house and support his young family with his first wife and their child. “After the army, I worked on my master’s degree, started teaching part time at SF State and Foothill College, College of Marin, sort of freeway-flier kind of existence, along with playing,” he said. “One day I was going to my faculty mailbox at Foothill College, and there was a job announcement and reading it, it was like [the announcement] was reading about me.”

The job was for the director of jazz studies at Santa Rosa Junior College. Friedman interviewed and, once again, got the gig. Since he started in 1977,

Friedman’s dedication to both instruction and performance for more than 45 years at SRJC has inspired many fellow musicians and instructors.

“I’ve learned a lot from Bennett, and he’s been a mentor to me in my time at the JC,” Fleg said. Starting at SRJC nine years ago, Fleg, a fellow clarinet player, asked Friedman for a wealth of resources, including teaching approaches. “He helped me to kind of get my feet on solid ground [at SRJC].”

Friedman’s approach has also positively affected students. “Bennett has had a large impact on me as a student musician,” said Nathaniel Rocheleau, a student in Friedman’s jazz combos class. “He has helped me learn jazz as a language. He teaches a way to think, rather than having me memorize stuff from a textbook.”

Wardlaw, a fellow saxophone player and music educator, speaks highly of Friedman’s diligence in practicing his instrument daily and organizing lectures. “There’s a lot to admire about a guy who has committed himself to these two things and done both of them at such a high level for so many years,” Wardlaw said.

Fleg agreed. “In our field it’s easy to let one [performance] slip because you’re teaching a lot and you’re putting effort there,” he said. “So you get this practical challenge of ‘Well, how am I supposed to practice for a couple of hours?’”

Friedman has found a way to excel at both callings.

Despite having spent several decades backing up legends and becoming one in his own right, he’s not ready to put down his sax just yet. `In fact, a wander through Forsyth Hall in the morning might yield the jazzy sounds of Friedman practicing in the tiny office that belies his status in the music industry.

“It’s my number one priority to keep my skills, to keep playing, to keep playing creatively,” he said.

Bennett Friedman continues to perform for audiences of loyal students and SRJC community members with an annual performance of his current jazz ensemble, The Bennett Friedman Quartet. The SRJC legend has backed up megastars like Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and Michael Jackson.

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Disneyland on a Dime: Making memories while saving money

By Javi Rosas

For a thrill-seeking student, Disneyland isn’t only the happiest place on Earth, it’s also one of the priciest. However, if you strategize in advance, you can get the most of your experience without breaking your wallet. Being prepared includes booking your experience ahead of time, searching for affordable hotels while staying in the vicinity and calculating how to save money on food.

The first thing you want to do is pick a less eventful day to go to Disneyland. The tickets are broken into different price tiers, with Tier No. 1 costing $98 for ages 3 to 9 and $104 for adults. The highest, Tier No. 6, costs $155 for kids and $164 for adults. The tiers go up depending on whether major events are happening, such as the “Oogie Boogie Bash” during October or the holiday parades in November and December. Prices are also higher — and the park is more crowded — on weekends.

When purchasing your ticket, you will also get the option to add Genie+. This service costs $25 a ticket but offers time-saving benefits. Some attractions can have up to 85-minute wait times, and if you want to fit the most rides into your visit, the lines can seriously hinder your progress.

With Genie+ you get to use the Lightning Lane to skip large portions of the line. This system replaces the FAST-

PASS tickets that were sold in booths in each of the parks. This can reduce the wait to 15 or 20 minutes. However, you can’t use the Lightning Lane more than once on the same ride, and you must make reservations at least one hour apart. These limitations prevent visitors from abusing the service and allow others to also enjoy the rides.

Another pitfall of Genie+ is that high-demand rides like “Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance” and “Radiator Springs” can have an additional fee to use the Lightning Lane. Instead of tacking on the extra fees, ride these attractions during lunch time when the line is shorter.

When buying tickets, you have to choose between Disney’s two neighboring parks, California Adventure or Disneyland, or purchase a Park Hopper pass that lets you visit both but costs an extra $65. You may also have to purchase a parking pass, and that can cost $30 per car.

Each park offers a different experience. California Adventure has more attractions catered toward adults and based on newer Disney storylines from Marvel and Pixar. The park is smaller than Disneyland, which can allow you to get the most out of your day.

Disneyland holds more of the nostalgic rides, such as “Dumbo’s Flight,” “Thun-

der Mountain” and “Indiana Jones,” and these tend to have long wait times. It also has more areas to explore, a wider food selection and a greater variety of shops. It also offers the immersive “Star Wars” area that features the build-yourown-lightsaber experience.

Food at Disneyland can get pricey, so consider preparing options ahead of time. Luckily, you are allowed to bring your own water and food. Another way to save money is to bring your own sandwiches. If you stay at a motel that has a complimentary breakfast, you can save on an additional meal.

While you may opt to spend more on your ticket to cover more ground in a shorter time, you can make up for it by cutting your lodging budget. While there are several hotels and motels nearby, they can get expensive, unless you bring friends and split the cost.

The closer you stay to the resort, the more expensive the lodging. Make sure to plan ahead to see the better deals. Or take your chances on a travel website and either bid for a hotel or look for last-minute hotel deals on sites such as lastminute.com or Trivago.

Hopefully, these pointers can help you save money while making memories in the land of the mouse, particularly now that COVID-19 travel restrictions are a thing of the past.

What I Need

to Do”:

Sonoma County residents feel compelled to join SRJC Firefighter Academy

By Nicholas Vides

In early 2017, Daniel Malcher’s niece fell off her scooter. He rushed to her side, scooped her up, cleaned her scrapes, motivated her to try again and sent her on her way.

The feeling of helping someone lingered with Malcher, so much so that a few months later he left his day job as a construction worker to become a personal trainer; he wanted to help people better themselves physically and emotionally.

When the Tubbs Fire hit in October 2017, Malcher performed community service, and his career trajectory changed again. Helping his niece, training his clients and then volunteering in the disaster brought him clarity.

“It kind of came full circle,” Malcher said. “The smoke was in the air, and I thought, ‘That’s what I need to go do.’ And so from there on, I pursued the fire service.”

In Spring 2019, he enrolled in SRJC’s Emergency Medical Training Course, a prerequisite for the Firefighter Academy. The course’s difficulty, however, led him to withdraw.

The following spring, Malcher re-enrolled and passed, then took a year off school to join a volunteer fire department in Dry Creek. Now he is enrolled and on track to graduate this December from the Firefighter Academy at SRJC’s Public Safety Training Center in Windsor.

Malcher is not an anomaly. Interest in the academy is up, thanks in part to recent natural disasters. “What the wildfires from 2017 through 2020 in our area did is motivate a lot of these people to become firefighters,” said Firefighter Academy Coordinator Kim Thompson.

According to SRJC’s Office of Institutional Research’s Fact Book, the Fall 2017 semester hosted 331 students in fire-related courses. After the Tubbs and Nuns fires, the Spring 2018 semester saw a 43.8% increase in student enrollment, with 476 students taking classes in the fire technology field. After 2019’s Kincade Fire, enrollment increased by 19%, bringing the number of students taking fire-related courses from 347 to 413.

Behind the numbers are students who, like Malcher, felt compelled to serve their community. For Rebecca Gary, be-

coming a firefighter means she can help her home state. “I love California, but it burns a lot,” she said. “We tend to have a lot of evacuations and power outages and it’s very frustrating if you can’t do anything.”

She joined the academy after a fiveyear stint as a volunteer firefighter in Sonoma County. “This past year, I was looking through my photos, and the times that I was smiling was when I was volunteering,” Gary said. “So I decided to quit my job and join the program full-time to pursue what I’m really passionate about.”

Gary is one of two women trainees in the 40-person academy. She said being a woman in the male-dominated program is a non-issue. “[The instructors] don’t care about gender; they care about what they see,” she said. “The guys have been extremely supportive. We’re each compartmentalized into a squad of four people total. And all three of my squad mates are very supportive.”

For William Stinemates, joining the academy was a calling. “When you [dial] 911, you expect the fire department to show up. You expect them to

“That’s

Firefighters on Mountain Hawk Road fight devastating flames as the Glass Fire moves in on eastern Santa Rosa Sept. 28, 2020.

nicholas

be there,” he said. “They’re the ones problem solving, getting things done. That’s what drew me there.”

Stinemates’ goal is to work as a firefighter in Lake County. “That place just burns,” he said. “It’s one of the poorest communities in all of California. There’s a lot of glamor working in a city like San Rafael. It’s a beautiful place, but I think what a lot of people miss about the fire service is that it’s about serving the community that needs the most help.”

For all three students — and many of their classmates — the massive fires in 2017, 2019 and 2020 drew them into the JC’s Firefighter Academy program.

But the rush of new students wanting to be firefighters created a bottleneck in enrollment. According to the Fact Book, 169 students wanted to take FIRE 208, a prerequisite to enter the academy, but could not take the course due to high demand in the 2021-2022 academic year. The newly added year-long session should help expand the Firefighter Academy’s accessibility.

In fact, interest in the program is so strong that administrators are adding a third session starting this spring, in partnership with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known colloquially as Cal Fire.

The new class is designed as a threepart course. The first stage will instruct students in a wildland component in which they will evaluate the fuel, weather and topography of a wildfire, learn to dig firebreaks by hand and execute progressive hose-laying maneuvers.

Students will also go through hazmat training, where they will learn how to wear and use personal protective equipment (PPE), how to assess chemical spills and how to properly decontaminate clothing and equipment.

The summer component will allow students to work alongside Cal Fire crews to experience life and work behind the firelines of next year’s disasters.

The third unit will conclude in the fall with the completion of Firefighter 1 and Firefighter 2, two certification classes established by the California State Board of Fire Services. These certificates enable trainees to find work with Cal Fire and local station houses that fight fires across the state.

“Basically once you come out of our academy, you can work on a fire engine,” said Ken Sebastiani, director of fire technology at SRJC.

Sebastiani said the idea of partnering with Cal Fire was well received by the agency. “We’re trying to be proactive and reach out and see if we can help people and do what a junior college should do and help the community be prepared for anything, education-wise and certification-wise,” he said. “Our bailiwick is the fire service.”

The third cohort will help both SRJC and the state meet demand. “Cal Fire is hiring hundreds if not thousands of people,” Sebastiani said. “At least 15 or so students out of 40 every academy are hired on by Cal Fire.”

Working for Cal Fire will always be in the back of Malcher’s mind due to its focus on wildfires. His goal, however, is to work for a city fire department.

“Ever since I started wanting to become a firefighter, San Francisco was always in the front of my mind,” he said. And he expects to learn from the best, which is why SRJC and its veteran instructors

with years of field experience have been a great fit for him. “Regardless if they are retired or still in it, these guys were the best,” he said. “That’s how I look at seeing and getting knowledge from these instructors, is learning from the top guys — the firefighters that were in the thick of it.”

It’s a far cry from his prior experiences in higher education, when Malcher felt his academic instructors weren’t superstars. “I went to the Academy of Art University. And the professors were great. They worked with a few directors and producers really high up,” the 35-year-old said. “But they weren’t the top notch people that you would love to be learning from like Spielberg, James Cameron or Jerry Bruckheimer.”

Respecting their instructors is critical because the techniques students must master can make a difference between life and death.

According to Sebastiani in a 2020 accreditation report, the origins of the JC fire program date back to the late 1960s when then-Dean Gene Portugal offered an 18-week “Basic Manipulative Skills” class. Demand was high, with 94 students commuting from Marin, Mendocino, Lake, Napa and Contra Costa counties to attend sessions either at the Santa Rosa Fire Station on A Street or at the old Naval Air Station in a building SRJC owned.

“The Academy is a little bit of everything [now]. It’s 585 hours. About a third of that is classroom lecture. The other two-thirds is hands-on work,” academy coordinator Thompson said. The physical components include dragging hundreds of feet of heavy rubber and nylon hoses, extinguishing mock house fires, swinging axes and sledgehammers to practice forced entry, and training while wearing heavy PPE.

The Firefighter Academy is currently offered twice a year: as a faster-paced Monday-through-Friday course in the spring, or an extended three-days-aweek format in the fall.

“Instructors want to see you succeed; they’re not here to just teach you,” Malcher said. “They’re here to mentor you, to push you, to drive you to be your very best that you can be, because they were that once and they would love to be that again. That’s what I love about this center.”

Daniel Malcher will graduate in Fall 2022 from the Firefighter Academy after weathering a series of career changes before enrolling.

nicholas vides

Mass Shootings on Campus: Is SRJC prepared?

By Hana Seals

Mass shootings have changed the way schools across the nation treat campus safety, and Santa Rosa Junior College is no exception.

Two gun-related incidents in 2019 raised concerns about safety on the Santa Rosa campus. A gun-on-campus alert near Analy Hall took place Jan. 17, then a shooting at Ridgeway High School, whose campus borders Santa Rosa High and is only blocks from SRJC, forced a three-hour campus lockdown Oct. 22.

With a pandemic and multiple construction projects later, has SRJC actually made improvements to its safety infrastructure or preparedness since the 2019 incidents? According to Santa Rosa Junior College District Police Chief Robert Brownlee, the answer is yes; the college has significantly improved its safety infrastructure. However, faculty members say training in the new security systems is lagging.

Promises Made

Solen Sanli Vasquez, a sociology instructor, was teaching on campus during the first incident when she received an alert that an armed subject was near Analy Hall. She and her teaching assistant instructed their students to shelter in place.

Philosophy, humanities and religion instructor Emily Schmidt was not on campus at the time of the alert but still raised concerns about not having a key to lock her office door. She sent her concerns to SRJC President Dr. Frank Chong in an email stating, “I want dates. On what date will my office doorknob and lock be replaced?”

Chong responded saying he would work with SRJC District Police to solve the door-locking issue.

Since then, Brownlee said facilities installed a new software system called C-CURE that allows campus dispatchers to automatically lockdown the electronically-controlled doors on campus with the push of a button.

Brownlee explained this upgrade was necessary because older buildings didn’t have the ability to be electronically locked down, so the next course of action was to update the perimeter doors so police could electronically control them.

“We looked at those issues that we had in 2019, particularly with Emeritus Hall because all those classroom doors are outside-facing but that was one of the first buildings where we established our security standard [that] all exterior doors are electronically controlled to enable district police to lockdown,’’ Brownlee said.

It’s important to note that C-CURE has not been implemented at Tauzer Gymnasium, because it is set to undergo renovations, Brownlee said.

Schmidt said her door-locking issues were resolved. “I feel like we have made some pretty significant security improvements with the access to exterior doors.”

Other safety improvements include the introduction of emergency buttons in Garcia, Kunde and Bussman halls. When pressed, the red buttons initiate a classroom or building lockdown and alert campus police dispatchers.

In all other buildings on campus, faculty and staff need to call district police at (707) 527-1000 during an emergency to have them initiate a building lock down.

“Haphazard” Safety Training

Some instructors who teach in the three buildings with emergency lockdown buttons have been trained on how to use the buttons while others have not. And those who did receive the training elected to do so at professional development day by their own choosing, not through official or mandated training.

Communication Studies Instructor Lex Pulos is aware of the emergency buttons’ existence in Garcia but was not instructed on how to use it.

When asked how the button worked he said, “Hit the button to lock down and alert, and then you have to twist and pull to reset I think.” His button knowledge comes from a “haphazard [professional development activities] selection” of workshops.

Another communication studies instructor said she learned about the buttons in a campus safety meeting at a professional development day workshop but didn’t know where they were located in Garcia Hall and hadn’t had any formal training on how they work.

In Kunde Hall, an administrative assistant said the buttons send a signal to the district police when pressed. She added that when the buttons were installed, they had signs above them stating they were for lockdowns.

Also in Kunde, administration of justice instructor Joseph Anderson said he didn’t remember receiving training for the emergency buttons but is aware there is a button inside each classroom that will lock the door in case of an active shooter.

Campus security also added, fixed and

updated all emergency call boxes across the Santa Rosa campus. Brownlee said all emergency buttons and call boxes are functioning.

Lack of active shooter drills

Another concern instructors raised was whether they are prepared to protect their students in case an active shooter appeared on campus. Instructors on the Santa Rosa campus haven’t had a lockdown drill since before the pandemic.

Brownlee said there is no state mandate for such drills, but they are frequently offered and never denied upon request. If an instructor or department asks for training, district police will offer one.

“At the active shooter training, we only had a handful, so there weren’t a lot of people that showed up for that,” he said.

Instructor Monica Ohkubo, a member of the SRJC Safety Committee, said, “There have been no active shooter drills or training [since the pandemic]. I hope that that’s something that restarts again because they used to have cam-

From top left: SRJC’s new security infrastructure includes emergency buttons in some buildings that initiate a classroom or building lockdown when pushed; SRJC District Police Chief Robert Brownlee; campus security added, fixed and updated all call boxes on the Santa Rosa campus.

button , call box by hana seals ; brownlee by nicholas vides

Ada Limón

U.S. Poet Laureate

Songs of Sonoma

By Michael Combs

Aftertwo years of pandemic-induced numbness, where we learned to accept social distancing to keep COVID-19 at bay, U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón reminded Santa Rosa Junior College students and faculty that now is the time to feel again.

“I need those of us who are willing to be hurt, and those of us that can receive the world and notice grief,” Limón said. “I believe we would be better off if we can remember that we are thinkers and feelers and we have capacity for more emotions.”

Limón read from her expansive poetry repertoire as part of SRJC’s Fall 2022 Arts and Lecture series held at Burbank Auditorium Nov. 22.

The author of six books of poetry, Limón’s latest work, “The Carrying,” won the National Books Critics Circle Award for Poetry, and her previous work, “Bright Dead Things,” was nominated for the National Book Award for Poetry, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award.

She has been a fellow with the Guggenheim Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center and the Kentucky Foundation for Women. Limón currently lives in Lexington, Kentucky and is a poetry instructor in the master of fine arts creative writing program at Queen’s University of Charlotte, in Charlotte, North Carolina. She also hosts the critically-acclaimed poetry podcast, “The Slowdown.”

On Sept. 29, the Librarian of the U.S. Congress appointed Limón to a one-year term as the 24th U.S. Poet Laureate, a position with roots dating back to 1937. In her job, Limón serves as the official poet of the U.S. and seeks to raise national awareness and appreciation of reading and writing poetry, in the style she chooses. Previous Poet Laureates have visited elementary schools to encourage kids to write poetry or tried to make poetry more accessible in airports, supermarkets and hotel rooms.

Limón drew much of her inspiration from nature around Sonoma, her hometown, and she chose to read a select group of poems she wrote about the area. “It’s hard not to just want to read all poems that have to do with home,” Limón said.

Her poem “The Contract Says: We’d Like the Conversation to be Bilingual” came from a story of her father, an elementary school principal. Limón said he attended a meeting with people who told him they didn’t want to park their car in the area because they thought Mexicans were going to steal the hubcaps.

Her father must have convinced them to park there anyway, and when they weren’t looking, he stole their hubcaps.

The Contract Says: We’d Like the Conversation to be Bilingual

When you come, bring your brownness so we can be sure to please the funders. Will you check this box; we’re applying for a grant.

Do you have any poems that speak to troubled teens? Bilingual is best.

Would you like to come to dinner with the patrons and sip Patrón?

Will you tell us the stories that make us uncomfortable, but not complicit?

Don’t read the one where you are just like us. Born to a green house, garden, don’t tell us how you picked tomatoes and ate them in the dirt watching vultures pick apart another bird’s bones in the road. Tell us the one about your father stealing hubcaps after a colleague said that’s what his kind did. Tell us how he came to the meeting wearing a poncho and tried to sell the man his hubcaps back. Don’t mention your father

was a teacher, spoke English, loved making beer, loved baseball, tell us again about the poncho, the hubcaps, how he stole them, how he did the thing he was trying to prove he didn’t do.”

When Limón’s dad later moved from the school district, he received an award of an engraved hubcap for his act, and she remembers people hailing him “Hey! Hubcap guy!” when she would walk with him in public.

Limón gained inspiration for another poem, “The Mountain Lion,” from watching nature videos, which she likes to do “when life is pretty wonky,” she said. The video in question was a night motion camera of a mountain lion leaping over a fence at Jack London State Park. She watched it on repeat.

And once, when Limón visited from Kentucky, she told her nervous husband to watch out for mountain lions, poison oak and rattlesnakes, on their hike. “It wouldn’t help that every park would have a huge majestic photo of a mountain lion,” she said as she laughed at the memory.

Left: 24th U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón thinks the pandemic was a time when it was easier for Americans to be numb and hopes poetry can help us remember we are thinkers and feelers.

U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón answered questions from attendees at SRJC’s Fall 2022 Arts and Lecture series where she offered hope that America could be united through shared emotional bonding, the type accessible through poetry.

What do you do with abandoned work?

“Everything that I’ve made and thrown away or put in boxes — I will tell you I have written three failed novels that are in boxes,” Limón said. “I have learned so much from making them, but no one needs to read them. Everything that I have made has brought me here.”

How do you manage to break away from expectations?

“Making art is something without limitations,” Limón said. “My goal is to have access to everything. For me the poem is the most free place that I can be. If I think too much about how someone may receive it or how someone might package it, it becomes already adulterated.”

What’s your favorite poetry prompt?

I think that one of the biggest ones that I love, which if you are writing about a particular event in your life, you look back and think, ‘What is the poem that would come before this? What is the poem that would come after?’” Limón said. “And you start looking at your work and finding out how to build on it.”

What is your message to teenagers?

“To remember that the thing that makes you strange or weird or lovely or idiosyncratic, that’s the thing that’s going to make you the most delightful as you age, and that’ll be the thing that makes your art,” Limón said.

In this time of great political division do you see poetry as a unifying force?

“Poetry can help us grieve or be joyful, and that it’s not just regionally,” Limón said. “I think poetry does a million things, but if there’s one thing it does across the board it will help you feel something, allowing us to tap in and remind us we are fully human beings.”

You vary the structure of your poems a lot. Can you describe how you go about choosing your structure for each poem? “For me, every poem has its own form. You have to work really delicately to listen to what form that is, and sometimes it’s a matter of finding the container for a certain kind of emotion,” Limón said. “I feel so often when we’re drawn to poetry we think, oh finally, I’ve found a container for something that has been troublesome for so long within me. I really think it’s about listening to what the subjects in the poem want to do and seeing if they’ll find their own format.”

“now is the time to feel again”

The Mountain Lion

I watched the video clip over and over, night vision cameras flickering her eyes an unholy green, the way she looked the six-foot fence up and down like it was nothing but a speed bump, and cleared the man-made border in one impressive leap. A glance over the shoulder, an annoyance, an ‘as if you could keep me out, or keep me in.’ I don’t know what it was that made me press replay and replay. It wasn’t fear, though I’d be terrified if I was face to face with her, or heard her prowling in the night, it was just that I don’t think I’ve ever made anything look so easy. Never looked behind me and grinned or grimaced because nothing could stop me. I like the idea of it though, felt like a dream you could will into being: See a fence? Jump it.

The Raincoat

When the doctor suggested surgery and a brace for all my youngest years, my parents scrambled to take me to massage therapy, deep tissue work, osteopathy, and soon my crooked spine unspooled a bit, I could breathe again, and move more in a body unclouded by pain. My mom would tell me to sing songs to her the whole forty-five minute drive to Middle Two Rock Road and fortyfive minutes back from physical therapy. She’d say, even my voice sounded unfettered by my spine afterward. So I sang and sang, because I thought she liked it. I never asked her what she gave up to drive me, or how her day was before this chore. Today, at her age, I was driving myself home from yet another spine appointment, singing along to some maudlin but solid song on the radio, and I saw a mom take her raincoat off and give it to her young daughter when a storm took over the afternoon. My god, I thought, my whole life I’ve been under her raincoat thinking it was somehow a marvel that I never got wet.

Cathy Prince, director of the SRJC High School Equivalency Program, said everyone needs to read “The Mountain Lion.”

“When the mountain lion saw the fence and effortlessly jumped over it, the message for me is that anything is possible. People need to realize that they too are the mountain lion,” Prince said.

Limón also read her poem, “The Raincoat,” in honor of her mom, who painted the covers for all of her books.

Limón said many readers refer to that piece as the “umbrella poem,” an idea that grew on her so much it is now how she refers to the work as well.

“So in my head I could see an umbrella [also], but there’s no umbrella,” she said. “It’s marvelous.”

Nancy Persons, SRJC public services librarian and Academic Senate President, said she was extremely touched by “The Raincoat.”

“It was really comforting and exactly the thought process I go through when I think about my mother. It was just amazing,” Persons said.

SRJC dance major Lily Bromley, 26, said it was beautiful to see how generously Limón gave to the audience and was received in turn.

“We were barely three poems in and I already saw people in the audience crying, me among them,” Bromley said.

“It felt special to hear her soft and confident voice warming the room, and watch her hands dance in the air as they painted images from her poems.”

From Page 10

punter if he was available. If that punter wasn’t available, they would fly Vernon out for a three-day workout.

Instead, the draft ended without Vernon hearing from any teams, but the Falcons reached a three-year deal with Vernon’s agent right after the draft concluded.

When Vernon landed in Atlanta, his biggest mentor ended up being the player he was competing with for a spot, eight-year veteran punter Bradley Pinion. “Between him and [Younghoe] Koo, those guys taught me everything they knew. There’s not a lot of guys — or environments — in the league that create that situation where we’re both competing to put food on the table, and he’s still willing to coach me up and help me out,” Vernon said of the Falcons’ punter and kicker.

Vernon felt prepared for his preseason debut in Detroit. “That was the most confident I felt just because of the support system I had around me,” he said. “So I was really able to just sit back and just have fun. I put in so much work during training camp during the offseason.”

Four days after his preseason debut, Vernon was a part of the Falcons’ initial preseason cut down. Atlanta had opted for Pinion. “Somebody has to go, and that’s just part of the business. It’s not personal,” Vernon said.

Vernon would receive a document that his contract was closed, “and I got it laminated and in my room…and there’s a box checked out basically just saying ‘you’re not good enough,’” Vernon said. He uses it as a constant reminder to stay motivated. “And what that can do to your mindset if you don’t believe in yourself, that’ll just be it.”

Tabor believes this is just a bump in the road. “I have full confidence that that kid will be playing for somebody next year,” he said. “There’s four new punters this year in the NFL that all came out this year with Seth. They all made it, and Seth is as good if not better than most of those guys.”

Vernon has continued to work with Tabor while waiting for his next opportunity. But Tabor’s role as a coach

has changed. “I just watch him, and he knows what he’s doing wrong and what he’s doing right.”

Patience is key at this point in Vernon’s career. “The way I see it, this is part of the plan. I’ve always been through trials and tribulations and even though this has a different face, it’s just another trial,” Vernon said. “I pray for the opportunity every day, and I know as soon as I get it, I’ll take full advantage of it.”

Gratitude for Tabor’s help is also important. “That dude is everything to me,” Vernon said of the coach who helped him realize his talent. “I’m not in this position without him teaching me everything that he knew, without him supporting me. I mean, the amount of hours that we put in, there’s no way that I could ever pay him back.”

Tabor said Vernon “gets what the NFL is about. We’ve had numerous conversations on what to expect. So when he went into Atlanta this year, he was doing really well,” which was not at all surprising to Tabor. “Nobody outworks that kid,” he said.

Safety

From Page 41

pus-wide lunchtime seminars where we could go learn and watch the video on ‘Run, Hide and Fight.’”

Ohkubo also hopes the training expands to other safety topics including “fire and air quality, earthquake safety, some of the things that we were trying to advance in the District Health and Safety Committee prior to the COVID-19 pandemic,” she said.

Math Instructor Cortney Schultz, teaches at Kunde Hall and said she receives safety training at the beginning of each semester as part of a professional development day.

“There are a bunch of training sessions to choose from. I elect to take sessions in safety for a shooter situation, but it’s possible not to,” she said.

Schultz also receives emails about campus safety, but said they speak to multiple subjects, including COVID protocols, fire safety and student behavioral issues. “So anything about shooter safety is kind of lost in the woodworks.”

From Page 5

level of professionalism here and a lot of work is put into it.”

Every fall semester one artist signs with “Don’t Flunk Me Records.” Local artists submit applications for a chance to sign with the label; all applications are reviewed by students. This year, the label selected soulful singer and rapper G.Rob Jamz.

“Having the opportunity to work with Don’t Flunk Me Records opened me up to a lot of more ideas and networking with more people. That’s just the gift of it, you know,” the Cotati-based artist said.

“I think it’s super cool that a program like this exists. I wish there was something like this for everybody because it’s a cool opportunity.”

The students see it too.

“Our digital media program has grown into an amazing environment of handson learning and real-world experiences taught by multiple highly skilled faculty that I believe rivals any private programs and schools,” Starkey said.

To submit an artist’s application for consideration, visit www.dfmrecords.com or for more information on the Digital Media: Audio program visit www.digitalmedia.santarosa.edu.

Don’t Flunk Me Records’ students Juan Venegas (left) and Louis Davis Jr. (right) with Instructor Jake Stillman (center).