Preps/JUCO reporter - Yuma Sun

This will be posted on JJobs shortly, but I wanted to open it up early for all the SJ folks... Yes, Yuma is unbearably hot four months out of the year, including now, and it's a bit isolated. But if you're looking to get a start in the business, there's no better place to start.

The Yuma Sun, an award-winning 20,000 circulation daily located on the Arizona/California/Mexico border, seeks a sports writer who is ready for the challenge of maintaining the excellent local sports coverage.

The right candidate will be a talented journalist with a demonstrated ability to write and report. We'd like to find someone with two to three years of experience, but are willing to train recent college graduates.

We do more than just write so you will be expected to design vibrant, reader-friendly pages, write clear and compelling headlines and be a sound editor of copy. You must be able to help execute a series of online sports initiatives and be able to work collaboratively with the other members of our newsroom.

Our staff covers eight competitive high schools, the Yuma Scorpions, a Golden Baseball League team and Arizona Western, one of the premier junior colleges in the Southwest with two nationally-ranked sports programs.

Our region offers immediate access to off-roading, hiking, camping, fishing and hunting. Housing prices are reasonable.

The Yuma Sun is owned by Freedom Communications Inc. We offer an exciting environment in which to continue to grow as a journalist and leader.

We are a drug-free workplace and all applicants considered for employment must pass background check prior to commencing employment. Benefits include health care insurance, vacation and 401k. Pay range is $23,000 to $25,000 per year.

If you are up to the challenge, first go to www.YumaSun.com and fill out an application, then send us a letter about what makes you the best candidate. Let the letter reflect your writing style. Send it, your resume, and three to five clips to Sports Editor Matt Maxson at 2055 S. Arizona Ave., Yuma, AZ 85364 or mmaxson@yumasun.com.

 

Miss the goddamn 3:10 and you'll never get out of that place alive.

Know nothing of the paper or the area, but Freedom is a pretty decent company to work for in a profession of managerial thieves. At least it was when I was in the chain last year. Bennies aren't terrible and the management is generally competent.

But goddamn, the heat...

 

All you need to know is you get to cover the only high school that has a trademarked mascot: The Yuma High Criminals.

 

Don't take the heat lightly. Rebel's talking 110s for most of the summer ... and of course, it's a dry heat. But the payback is shorts weather the rest of the year, while the rest of your friends and relatives are shoveling snow or dodging raindrops. Need a touch of civilization? It's about 150 miles to San Diego, Phoenix or Lake Havasu City, 250 to Las Vegas. There's also a significant snowbird population in the winter.

 

But it's not a dry heat right now. For it is monsoon season.

You can make the outer burbs of Phoenix and San Diego in a little more than two hours. Three hours will put you in Havasu or Tucson, four will put you in Laughlin, five will put you in Vegas or LA. The place was little more than a glorified pit stop between Phoenix and San Diego a decade ago, but some development (mall, three new high schools, independent league baseball that lasts more than one season, a couple of Indian casinos) has emerged since. And the Mexican food in Yuma is good and, most importantly for this gig, inexpensive.

 

I can't believe someone said Freedom is a good chain. Compared to who, Brown and Ogden?

 

Good is a relative term. Freedom was good to me, but it might've been more to do with the paper than anything else.

 

Yes, and you can actually GO to Mexico and eat Mexican on your dinner break and still get back in time to make deadline.

 

Yeah, that got me too.

 

The coach at Kofa is a former desker, good friend of mine. He'll be sure to make time for you after the game, so you've got that going for you.

 

Wow...can't believe that's permitted. Seems like it'd be something that'd definitely be treated with the same political correctness as the "Indians" mascot controversy, although for different, and obvious, reasons..

 

It's a historical reference. Yuma was the site of the old territorial prison.