Column: News is a funny business

Talk about it

News is a funny business. Not always in a funny “ha ha” way, but sometimes in a funny “you can’t make this stuff up” way. And other times, it’s a funny “I love this job” kind of way.

News pulls at my emotions. It doesn’t really matter what the news is. News happens to everyone sooner or later. Some of it is good, some of it is bad. Some of it teaches a lesson, while some news just plain doesn’t make sense.

I can honestly say I go through a roller coaster of emotion from week to week. I know I’m not supposed to have opinions, and I genuinely try to keep my opinions out of my stories. Some days I want to drive home and never come back, and other days I can’t wait to sit down and start telling you, our readers, the stories I’ve come up with for the week.

Mind you, not all of the stories I want to tell come to fruition. For one reason or another, I sometimes get on the track of something and then it falls through. That can be frustrating, but give it a few days, and there’s something new and even better that seems to come along. Hence, the “roller coaster of emotions.”

I have to admit, these past couple of weeks have brought some pretty cool things my way. After more than a year of writing about the need for a new fire truck, I finally got to run some pictures and write about a new engine/rescue truck last week. Not to mention, in getting my “tour” of the new Engine 22, I also got a little spin around the block in the new rig.

Talk about a kid in a candy store! I went a little snap-happy in the cab, as fire captain Adam Fischer gave city of Farmington communications specialist Danielle Cahlander and me a ride up Pilot Knob Road and back again. Besides the overall coolness of getting to ride in a fire truck (and really, who doesn’t think that’s cool?) I was thrilled for the fire department. I couldn’t wait to tell that story.

On Thursday last week, I met a Farmington Elementary School fifth grader with a remarkable attitude. He hates having Type I diabetes, but he’s still going to walk in the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation’s Walk to Cure Diabetes later this month. He’s the captain of Team Jakers, since his name is Jake, and he’s pretty excited for this year’s walk. Of course, that could be because, in the past, he got to have his picture taken with Vikings cheerleaders, but he liked meeting Goldy the Gopher, too.

I left FES thinking Jake Campbell was a pretty cool kid. I felt pretty good about that story. Little did I know that the very next day, I’d meet another pretty remarkable student, and be able to share her story, too.

Farmington High School principal Ben Kusch called later Thursday morning to invite me to the high school Friday morning. The Make-A-Wish Foundation was coming to FHS to make a senior girl’s dream come true.

I spent an hour with Dian Bloom, her family, and the Make-A-Wish folks. I snapped pictures as she opened the letter telling her she’d been given a trip to Bora Bora. I was drawn in by Dian’s spunk. Here’s a girl who found out she had cancer right before her junior prom. She went through several surgeries. She had chemotherapy and radiation treatments. And with any luck, come March 7, she’ll be declared cancer free and in remission. And when she’s done, she wants to write “I kicked cancer’s ass” on her car windows. Yep, that’s spunk. I didn’t hug Dian – after all, we’d just met Friday morning – but I certainly welled up with tears a few times while talking to her.

Dang news! See? It’s everywhere. It pulls on my heart strings sometimes, but I figure that’s a good thing because it means it’s a great story to tell. I guess God gave me the gift to write, so I put that to use the best way I know how. By telling stories.

Tags: opinion, farmington, commentaries