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The coolest story we had in all of Arizona for July<\/strong>\u00a0was one\u00a0I got to tell about a local employee of one of our major utility companies here, Salt River Project (SRP), who was out working and came across one of many wild horses that roam our Salt River. The difference is that we\u2019ve had a very strong monsoon season and this employee\u2019s good sense discovered the\u00a0wild horse in need of rescue<\/a>\u00a0after getting stuck in the mud of the high waters. Her fast thinking saved its life!<\/p>\n July was all about our extreme monsoon season this year and the start of the new school year.<\/p>\n The other big story was in entertainment business news and about\u00a0Caesars Sportsbook (now that sports betting is legal in AZ) and Guy Fieri\u2019s Kitchen + Bar opening at Chase Field in downtown Phoenix<\/a>, where the Arizona Diamondbacks play. Guy Fieri loves Phoenix and has highlighted many of our restaurants here on his old Food Network show.<\/p>\n \u2014Kelly Mixer,\u00a0editor<\/em><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#F6871F” divider_weight=”4px” _builder_version=”4.17.6″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.6″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n There are two highlights that I would like to share this month from the Ripon Commonwealth Press\/Express.\u00a0<\/strong>The first relates to an international competition, the Red Bull Flugtag, that took place in Wisconsin this year and featured a team of Ripon High School graduates.\u00a0Reporter Joe Schulz talked to the team beforehand for a preview story<\/a>\u00a0and then I attended the competition in Milwaukee and took pictures\u00a0throughout the day. The Ripon team placed third out of 34 entries, and\u00a0we ran a nice follow-up story<\/a>\u00a0the following week. In addition to the community interest\u00a0it generated, we even sold $50 worth of photos that I took to other teams from around the state.<\/p>\n The other highlight is the job Joe Schulz did in\u00a0covering the passing of a Ripon native who was crucial in helping to bring clean water to Panamanians<\/a>\u00a0through missionary work. Upon hearing about Father Wally’s passing Thursday night, he reached out to a handful of people who knew him, sorted through hours of interviews, watched a documentary and did a great job of capturing his life and legacy. By reading the story, you would have never guessed that Joe Schulz knew very little, if anything, about the man that was well known in the community prior to working on the story.<\/p>\n \u2014Jonathan Bailey, editor<\/em><\/p>\n \n SHEBOYGAN<\/strong> MADISON<\/strong> Additionally, our sports team snagged some great ideas from this very monthly newsletter, creating a series where we catch up with former area athletes who have carried their careers beyond high school. We’re still rolling out some of the details and graphics with this (stay tuned!), but this is a great example of the benefits that come from this monthly check-in from the entire editorial department!\u00a0<\/p>\n \u2014Tara Jones, editor<\/em><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#F6871F” divider_weight=”4px” _builder_version=”4.17.6″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.6″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n Event-goers lounge on the green of the East Fairfield Meeting House during the 30th Jig in the Valley July 31. Photo credit: Josh Ellerbrock<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#F6871F” divider_weight=”4px” _builder_version=”4.17.6″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.6″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n Sometimes good stories just fall into your lap\u2014even on one of the first days of your career!<\/p>\n That is what happened with the feature below and our new reporter Rachael Siehs at the\u00a0Tri-County News.<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019ve been a professional journalist for about 43 years and this one was crazy even in my book.<\/p>\n At one of our Monday morning staff meetings we were talking about trying to find a new salesperson to hire and Tony from the Sheboygan Sun said (somewhat jokingly?) that we should hire this girl whom he encounters in the drive-through at the Kiel McDonalds. Immediately, several of us (myself included) said we absolutely knew who he was talking about as this girl just had the friendliest, most outgoing demeanor.<\/p>\n Well, a couple weeks later someone from our team indeed got a hold of her to bring her in for an \u201cinterview.\u201d While we were thinking \u201cemployment interview,\u201d we come to learn when she gets here that she was thinking \u201cstory interviewee.\u201d She was interviewed for possible employment. Pam Mathes then came into my office where I was working with Rachael on one of her very first days as a journalist. Pam explained the situation and said it sounded like this young lady might have a story to tell so I said to Rachael, \u201cWell, let\u2019s go find out!\u201d We did the interview together and found out she had QUITE the story to tell for a 20-year-old!\u00a0We\u2019ll let you read it to see for yourself.\u00a0<\/a>Rachael wrote it up, I tweaked it a bit and we ran it in our Verve women\u2019s magazine, the Tri-County News and on our website\/Facebook where it got a fair amount of attention along with some shares and comments.<\/p>\n Rachael and I didn\u2019t have this feature interview on our schedules that day but\u2014but as any journalist will tell you\u2014you just never know when an interesting story will come your way.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#F6871F” divider_weight=”4px” _builder_version=”4.17.6″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.6″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n Tom LIndfors, who covers the city of New Richmond for the\u00a0Star-Observer<\/strong>,\u00a0wrote about a\u00a0mother who led a fight to build a playground for her son who was born with Down syndrome.<\/a>\u00a0Tom captured the mother’s love for her son, the frustrations she encountered and the thrills of making headway on the project. It is an excellent example of a reporter capturing the emotions of the subject he was writing about.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/orourkemediagroup.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/takingflight.png\")
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We continued our pageviews success in Sheboygan as we stayed above 200,000 pageviews for two months for the first time, finishing with 224,748 pageviews in July. The last time we hit 200,000 last year, it was a one-and-done month, so we’re excited to have reached a threshold where we can now expect to be north of 200,000 on a regular basis. Sheboygan County is definitely a great place to be in the summertime, as our many photo galleries will show. Most of our content for the month consisted of event coverage galleries including Sheboygan’s\u00a0Independence Day Parade<\/a>,\u00a0Sheboygan Falls’ Ducktona<\/a>,\u00a0\u00a0Plymouth Mill Street Festival<\/a>, and Sheboygan’s\u00a0Hmong Summer Festival<\/a>. I’m particularly proud of the variety we were able to offer both in event type and location to our readers, which really helps expand our coverage area.<\/p>\n
Ah, special sections \u2014\u00a0always keeping managing editors on their toes! In July, our entire team (sales, editorial and design) pulled together the Stoughton Fair Tab, which published in the\u00a0July 14 edition<\/a>. We started the project late and didn’t think we would be able to pull off a full section, but every single person on our team cranked out the work, jumped in as necessary and helped get it done. I’d also really like to especially shout out our designer, Brad Allen, for his help getting this done. He’s always the first one to be there to help me meet deadline on something, no matter what. I continue to be extremely proud of the teamwork we have in Madison!<\/p>\n\n
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