Stories For Changing Identity

P1020126-5

The town of Calipatria has put a lot of its hopes on new industries that have come to town, including a prison and geothermal plants which surround the area. Art Valdez has had to change what he stocks at the store to survive.

Doug Jenner, rancher

Doug Jenner is a 4th-generation rancher in Scott Valley, West of Yreka. He and others in the area feel overwhelmed by regulations required by multiple state agencies.

Deborah Cahn at Navarro Vineyards

Deb Cahn of Navarro Vineyards, say old timers, back-to-the-landers, and immigrants all agree on one thing in the Anderson Valley.

exlogger

Two perspectives on how marijuana took hold in Southern Humboldt.

girlgrower

A young marijuana grower talks branding and the entrepreneurial spirit she sees as necessary for the future of pot in Humboldt.

supply

A local business is “too busy” during harvest season.

thrill is gone

A grower who moved to Southern Humboldt in the 70s on the end of outlaw culture.

vineyards in Anderson Valley

Full Story

For outsiders, Mendocino County’s Boonville used to be a “blink-and-you-miss-it” spot along Highway 128. Through the years it’s been home to sheep ranchers, apple farmers and marijuana growers. But recently, Pinot Noir grapes have put Boonville and the Anderson Valley on the map — and that has some residents worried. (aired on The California Report Dec 2010)

Lindsay main photo

Full Story

Lindsay is a Central Valley town of 12,000 built up around olive and citrus groves. Twenty years ago, a state-wide freeze signaled the start of a series of events that crippled Lindsay’s economy. But the town buried its troubled past and forged a new identity. (aired on The California Report Nov 2010)

charity

Full Story

The Humboldt County town of Garberville is a thriving center of California’s marijuana industry. For the past few decades, pot growing has gradually replaced logging and ranching as the economic engine there. Southern Humboldt reporter Kym Kemp and I tour Garberville to share the changing identity of a town underwritten by pot. (aired on The California Report Jan 2011)

Avenal

Full Story

In 1929, oil was discovered in the Kettleman Hills — and the nearby town of Avenal was born. But by the 1960s, the oil business dried up, and Avenal struggled to find a new economy and identity. They found one, but in an industry most towns had previously shunned. (aired on The California Report March 2011)

stateofjefferson

Up in far Northern California and Southern Oregon, if you drive through the high desert, forests and mountain valleys you’ll take the State of Jefferson Scenic Byway. You can check out the jam band The State of Jefferson. And if you’re searching for the public radio station, you’ll find Jefferson Public Radio. That’s because many people living there don’t really identify with California or Oregon. They say they live in the State of Jefferson. There’s been talk of a separate state since the 1850s, and earlier this month a group brought a resolution to the Siskiyou County board of supervisors to withdraw from California, and start over. In this piece, we visit Siskiyou County, to learn the history and culture of the State of Jefferson, and to find out how young people trying to make a life there fit into that heritage.