WINNEMUCCA - As we finish celebrating Thanksgiving, I would like to take some time to reflect on my many years here at Winnemucca Publishing.
I have now been at Winnemucca Publishing for a little more than 19 years and pretty much started at the bottom of the company. I was 19-year old kid in 1994 looking for a job a year out of high school and anything would suffice. I put my application in for a stuffer, a position that helps stuff store inserts into the newspaper, and was hired.
A day later, Pizza Hut called as well offering me a manager position but I turned it down. I put a bunch of applications in at the time. I always wonder where I would be today if I took that job with Pizza Hut.
Well, my life as a stuffer lasted all of one of week when the assistant pressman went AWOL. I was asked if I wanted to try my luck at help running the press. I said, yes, and I went through a bunch of clothes in that eight years or so. My duties included cleaning out ink trays, washing blankets (are used to transfer ink to the paper) and various other duties. I will say I don't miss those days.
One of those days was me sitting in a Tucson, Ariz., Red Lobster at 5 p.m. while on vacation for Spring Training, trying to explain on a cellphone on how to re-web the press to people back in Winnemucca. By this time the paper was way past deadline.
I started my foray into sports writing back in the spring of 2003 on a whim when I said I would help out, while they looked for another sports writer. Little did I know what was ahead of me.
At the time I was not sure what I had gotten myself into but this has been a joy in the last 10 years. Well, minus the 65-hour work weeks, never having weekends off or losing your vacation time because you don't use it.
You have to love weekends, where you are in Fallon on Thursday for regional soccer, Friday in Reno for Division IV volleyball and Saturday in Dayton for Division I-A volleyball.
There is also the day when you are in Truckee on Saturday morning for a 10 a.m. volleyball match and drive to Fernley for a 1 p.m. regional football game. I will just say that I pushed the speed limit to make it in time for kickoff.
I am thinking I need to get a map and some push pins and start filling in everywhere I have been in my travels through Nevada. I will get to add another pin in February with a trip to Primm for state wrestling.
Also in the past 11 years, I have learned my way through Las Vegas. Until a few years ago, I had not been to Las Vegas since 1992 when Lowry played in the state football championship.
I will admit the first time I went back I was scared out of my mind. I knew nothing about Las Vegas, but now I know the streets in Las Vegas better than the ones in Reno.
It is sad to say this but a couple of years ago I made more trips to Las Vegas than Reno. Let's all remember Las Vegas is 475 miles away and Reno is 167. Yeah, I don't get out much, but I am trying to fix that.
I have had the opportunity to witness a number of state championships, heartaches, tears and have had the opportunity to meet great people, students and coaches in McDermitt and Winnemucca and throughout the state. My travels have also taken me to Austin, Battle Mountain and Lovelock.
It is strange to think that the high school kids I cover now were just beginning elementary school and the freshmen and sophomores weren't even in school. I have a strange feeling that I will be covering the children of the students currently in high school. As far as I know, I am a Winnemucca boy and not going anywhere, unless I get ran out of town.
The kids are a huge part of what I do and they keep me going on the days where I think to myself, what am I doing and do I need to be here. I look at the students as one of mine, because I want to see them succeed so bad and I see them everyday. I watch them grow up.
I feel their pain when things go wrong and I feel their excitement in that special moment of glory. There will be more of those emotions in the final six months of the school year and more years to come.
Winnemucca Publishing sports editor Tony Erquiaga can be reached via email at t.erquiaga@winnemuccapublishing.net.
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