A new millennium had dawned. The world was still easing itself into 2000, inching down slowly like the new year was a steaming hot tub, grateful that the warnings of a global technological meltdown were just the rantings of conspiracy theorists. You know, crazy people.
And just as citizens everywhere were finally allowing their lives to slip into a semi-conscious state of complacency, the Santa Maria Sun showed up and started getting into everything, splashing color everywhere and lifting up furniture to look underneath and telling anybody and everybody who would listen exactly what it had discovered.
This weekly newspaper has never been quiet, but those of us who work here like to think (hope? pray?) that our readers like it that way.
Over the years, the Sun has seen staffers come and go. But I’m still here. I’ve been a part of the Sun since six months after it first started rolling off the presses. I witnessed this community paper’s first tentative steps, which shook up Northern Santa Barbara County with news coverage and arts features and humor columns from some guy named Rob Krider. (He’s still here too, by the way.)
It looked like fun. So I stuck around. And, thankfully, so did you, our readers. I say “thankfully” because we’re thankful here at the Sun, though we aren’t surprised. The Sun is the paper we would read if we were you, and most of us are. You, I mean. We write about stuff we’d like to know about, we write in a style we’d like to read, and we write about Santa Maria and its neighbors because these cities, towns, neighborhoods, and people are worth writing about. Good and bad. Pretty and not-so-pretty. I’m talking about issues, by the way, not people.
So for this, our ninth anniversary, we decided to pull back the metaphoric curtain and introduce you to our journalistic wizards. In the scattered life stories here, get to know the old-timers (namely, myself) who’ve been around from as close to the beginning as possible, and the newbies who are so minty fresh you could brush with them after eating a pizza with the works and still confidently and passionately kiss your sweetheart.
I asked each editorial staffer to write a couple-hundred-word bio, and left the rest to them. First person? Third person? Funny? Serious? Dry? Here’s what they wanted you to know about themselves.
Ryan Miller, executive editor
I pretty much used up anything clever I had to say in my introduction to these profiles. All that’s left are the dry facts:
• I studied journalism at Cal Poly and graduated in 2001—back when the department was still accredited, but just barely.
• I began interning at the Sun in September of 2000. On my first day, the absentee editor left me a list of tasks, and a designer told me if I ever wore a tie again, he’d cut it off my body with a pair of scissors.
• I began work as a full-time Sun employee in July 2001. My title was “arts editor.” My first official cover story was about Lompoc’s murals. But I did more than just arts.
• Which is probably why, when the position directly above me opened up, management suggested that I might as well step in, since I was doing more than arts anyway. Thus, I became managing editor.
• Until, again, the position directly above me opened up. We had all the same conversations, only I was named editor at the end this time.
• In 2006, I was named executive editor of the Sun and editor of New Times, so I spent a couple of years handling the day-to-day grind in San Luis Obispo. Somewhere in the middle of 2008, I was named executive editor of New Times, and decided to come back to handle the day-to-day grind in Santa Maria. I missed the tri-tip.
• Over the years, I’ve covered everything from the people covering the Michael Jackson trial to political craziness at the city level to the area’s non-existent pirate history. There were gravestones and laser-erased tattoos and stained-glass windows and a disgruntled official or two along the way. I’ve talked down a few shouters in my time, fielded my share of angry phone calls, furious e-mails, and pointed barbs.
• I’m sure there will be more.
• On a personal note, I have a wife (Sarah), and a toddler (Hattie Rose), and another baby on the way (?). Next time you see me, try to ignore the dark circles under my eyes. (Not from what you might think: I stay up much too late reading whatever I can get my hands on, with an emphasis on fantasy and sci-fi. And we watch a lot of Hulu.)
—Ryan Miller
rmiller@santamariasun.com
Joe Payne
I started working at the Sun as an intern during the summer break between my sophomore and junior years of high school in 2005. The staffers took me under their wings and taught me the ropes of reporting and writing. Under the tutelage of Editor Ryan Miller, then-News Editor Andrea Rooks, and then-Arts Editor Craig Shafer, I was able to write feature stories—and eventually a cover.
I am now in charge of the paper’s calendar, for which I compile events that happen all over the Central Coast. I am now in my sophomore year at Allan Hancock College, where I study music with the immortal doctors Marcus Engleman and Ann Lucas. I plan to fulfill general education requirements and transfer to a university to earn my B.A. in music and continue to the Ph.D. level.
I love to play the piano, guitar, and mandolin and enjoy listening to and playing a wide variety of music, including blues, jazz, rock, rhythm and blues, bluegrass, classical, and opera. I’m also happily in love with a beautiful young woman: Candice Meras, who shares my musical aspirations and attends Hancock as well. She’s an opera singer with a beautiful dramatic soprano voice and is very skilled at playing classical violin.
Santa Maria is my native town. I have lived here for all of my 20 years of existence. I enjoy the climate, the scenery, and the people. While working at the Sun, I have learned much about the area and the people in it, and plan to carry what I have learned with me for the rest of my life.
And yes, I was the pirate on the cover of our last Best Of issue. That’s where you know me from.
If you have an event you want published, send it my way.
—Joe Payne
calendar@santamariasun.com
Shelly Cone
Shelly Cone is a local girl through and through. She grew up on the Central Coast, went to Santa Maria schools and Cal Poly in SLO. After living in the Santa Ynez and Lompoc valleys, she moved back to Santa Maria last year. She has four children, and spends most of her off time—if you can call it that—shuttling kids to school, soccer, or the skatepark, holding her breath and a few bandages, as she watches her babies skate effortlessly down the steep face of steel ramps. She spends the rest her time, rain or shine, at the beach, because if you don’t get in the ocean, what’s the point of living in California? She unashamedly chronicles her daily trials on her blog at TheseAreTheSaladYears.com, learning to laugh at herself. Otherwise she’d go insane.
Shelly has worked in journalism most of her life, having done time at Goleta Valley Voice, Santa Maria Times, Santa Ynez Valley News, Lompoc Record, and as a freelance writer and columnist for numerous newspapers and magazines. She’s also worked part-time in real estate sales with her husband, Ron, for the past seven years, both enjoying sharing a business with her spouse and learning that sometimes there is such a thing as spending too much time with one another. Shelly is a huge fan of Central Coast wines and quite possibly single-handedly relieved the industry during the wine glut a few years back. With so many responsibilities on her plate, Shelly decided she needed to add one more and push herself to her physical limits. Since a back injury (and her husband Ron) prohibit her from joining the Roller Derby, Shelly has undertaken training for the YMCA’s triathlon and simply hopes to not finish last.
Shelly said that, of her journalism experience, working at the Sun has been the best work environment, and has allowed her to better connect with the community in a most fulfilling way.
—Shelly Cone
scone@santamarisaun.com
Amy Asman
Like so many other members of the Sun’s editorial staff, I began my career at the paper as what we lovingly refer to as a lowly intern. I spent several enjoyable months heckling Santa Marians for Streetwise quotes, playing with action figures, and going on coffee and doughnut runs.
After graduating with a degree in journalism from Cal Poly, SLO, in 2007, I was hired as a full-time staff writer and introduced to the exciting world of news writing. Before coming to the Sun, I wrote primarily for the arts. But I soon discovered that covering politics, health care, and the like can generate just as much thrill and intrigue as any Shakespearean drama.
Over the last year and a half, I’ve learned many invaluable lessons about journalism and covering a tight-knit community like Santa Maria. I currently live in SLO, but often identify more with Santa Marians because I probably spend more waking time in—and know more about policies affecting—Santa Barbara County than I do my county of residence.
When I’m not on the phone or typing furiously away at my keyboard or looking at LOLcats, I like to play ping-pong in the Sun’s rec room or bug Executive Editor Ryan Miller with musical theater montages or X-Files and House, M.D., trivia. (Yes, we are that cool.)
I spend my time off practicing roundhouse kicks at a local martial arts gym, hanging out with friends, and exploring the many beautiful attractions of the Central Coast. I enjoy traveling, reading, baking, and, more recently, cooking, which my boyfriend knows can be quite a spectacle at times. I also spend time volunteering at my church, and serve as a Court Appointed Special Advocate for the Santa Barbara County Superior Court System.
—Amy Asman
aasman@santamariasun.com
Nicholas Walter, staff writer
A California born, Louisiana-raised recovering computer geek who’s decided he wants to be a history teacher when he grows up, Nicholas Walter is just biding his time until he wins the lottery.
During said biding, he’s worked as a deckhand on commercial dive boats in the Gulf of Mexico and sport fishing boats in the Santa Barbara Channel, sold cars (don’t laugh), waited tables, did time in the trenches of IT, and once worked a charity event at Alice Cooper’s house.
There’s a good chance he has salt water in his veins: sailing, scuba diving, and ocean kayaking all vie for his affections. Although, while good fun, they lose miserably to his beautiful wife and partner-in-crime, Heather.
Besides trysting with Neptune, Nicholas enjoys cooking (gumbo is his current obsession) for friends and family, reading, playing video games, going places for the first time, studying history, stupid one-liner jokes, and the number 42.
When not honing his journalistic ninja-ness for the Sun, Nicholas writes Geek Out, a column about the video game industry for New Times.
—Nicholas Walter
nwalter@santamariasun.com
Jeremy Thomas
The story began when thugs murdered my parents, which led me to devote my life to fighting criminal syndicates in order to keep the streets of Gotham safe. Wait … no, I’m thinking of Batman.
Anyhow, hello readers! I’m new here, not just to the paper but also to this town. I recently graduated from journalism school at Arizona State University, and after 20-plus years living in the dry heat of the Arizona desert, I’ve relocated to Santa Maria as a staff writer for the Sun. I’ve written on politics, the environment, and mixed martial arts at past reporting gigs, and now I’m in charge of the sports side of things, with news and business thrown in.
I’m looking forward to getting to know the area, and my seven-year-old daughter Teva can’t wait to visit the beach in the summer. Oh, and if you see me around town, feel free to buy me a beer.
Don’t hesitate to find me at JThomasSMS on Twitter.
—Jeremy Thomas
jthomas@santamariasun.com
This article appears in Mar 19-26, 2009.