Sports Editor -- Ridgecrest, Calif.

[dieditor]

The Daily Independent, an award-winning daily newspaper in Ridgecrest, California, is seeking a sports editor/page designer to join its hard-working news team. Reporters will have the ability to cover a wide range of prep and youth sports, as well as outdoor recreation events.
The successful candidate will be a highly motivated self-starter who is capable of covering beats fairly and accurately, as well as designing attractive pages for the paper and its niche publications. Competitive salaries and full benefit packages are offered at the paper, which has been honored by the Associated Press, Kern Press Club and California Newspaper Publishers' Association in the past few years. The newspaper was recently selected as one of Editor and Publisher magazine's "10 Papers That Do It Right."

E-mail resumes and clips to [email protected]. Information can also be mailed to The Daily Independent, Attn: Editor, P.O. Box 7, Ridgecrest, CA 93556.

 

[SoCalScribe]

This one is way out there but they are passionate about their prep sports from what I remember. All the kids/coaches from the Southern Section hate going up there.

 

[MileHigh]

Just 30 miles from Trona. As a CIF official once said of Trona: "It's not the end of the world, but you can see it from there."

 

[HanSenSE]

Ah, Trona, where there's more rocks than grass on the football field.

This one's next door to China Lake Naval Weapons Station along US 395. Death Valley is nearby too. Nearest large city is Barstow, where you can hit interstates to Vegas or L.A.

 

[SoCalDude]

It's like being on the East Coast. Hotter than **** in the summer, colder than **** in the winter.

 

[MileHigh]

Ah, Trona, where there's more rocks than grass on the football field.

This one's next door to China Lake Naval Weapons Station along US 395. Death Valley is nearby too. Nearest large city is Barstow, where you can hit interstates to Vegas or L.A.

No grass on the field at all. Can't grow it because of the alkaline in the ground.

And I wouldn't say Barstow is large. Pretty much the same distance to Palmdale/Antelope Valley, but still, it's out there.

 

[Spartan Squad]

The dirt field at Trona is actually pretty cool. They get that place ground down really fine, so it seems like its softer than grass. The football team can really claim home-field advantage. Ridgecrest isn't so bad. It's all kind of relative. If you're from the Los Angeles/Inland Empire areas or the San Francisco Bay Area, it seems like its out of the way from anything. But Bakersfield is about an hour and a half, Lancaster is about as far and Victorville is a little further, it's really not that bad once you've done the drive a couple of times. And unlike the East Coast, it doesn't get that humid in the summer aside from maybe a week or two where it jumps up to 20 percent.

Just to echo SoCalScribe, Ridgecrest is loves its local sports teams. The basketball games can get pretty loud. Trona is a place teams really hate going just because of the dirt, but its a blue-collar town that really gets behind its football team. They about rioted from what I hear when the team switched from 11-man to 8-man football.

 

[HanSenSE]

Ah, Trona, where there's more rocks than grass on the football field.

This one's next door to China Lake Naval Weapons Station along US 395. Death Valley is nearby too. Nearest large city is Barstow, where you can hit interstates to Vegas or L.A.

No grass on the field at all. Can't grow it because of the alkaline in the ground.

And I wouldn't say Barstow is large. Pretty much the same distance to Palmdale/Antelope Valley, but still, it's out there.

Just seems larger when I'd drive through it a couple of times a year while fleeing Arizona!

Here's a link to a story on Trona I found last week while trying to track down a score of a local team:

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/oct/29/local/me-trona29

 

[Editude]

I can vouch for the all-dirt field at Trona; I played there once. And the town is about one stop away from we-must-be-lost land. Ridgecrest is a bit rough around the edges.

 

[dieditor]

The town is a bit rough around the edges maybe, but this is a good starter gig. It was my gig from 2002-05, when I moved up to ME. The guy after me now writes for NCAA.com, and the current job holder is moving to ME as well, since I'm escaping from the biz. You can learn pretty much any aspect of the business you want to at this shop. Feel free to PM me for more info about the town or the job.

Just don't judge Ridgecrest based on Trona. That's like judging your family based on your jailbird Uncle Joey.