TownNews rolls out new WNPA Web site

     WNPA's new Web site is now online and, with new organization and more resources, should prove helpful to members. For example, if you want to suggest an idea for the 2007 convention to the chair of the Convention & Workshops Committee, you'll find Sue Ellen Riesau's e-mail address under Who We Are/Committees (and also under Who We Are/Board of Directors). Need to know the deadline for BNC entries? It's listed in Events/Better Newspaper Contest. We'll be posting online registration forms, too, though you'll need to call or fax credit card information to us.
   As with all detailed projects, a few loose ends await resolution -- in this case, a pair of loose ends are the 2x2 and classified ad download pages. TownNews is working to make those pages operational soon. Meanwhile participating newspapers will continue to receive the 2x2 ads and the weekly insertion orders by e-mail. Statewide classifieds are available by e-mail from us as well. Please e-mail Joanne Rich, jrich@wnpa.com, to request a txt file, or call her at (206) 634-3838.
   Also in process are archiving of this eBulletin and The Washington Newspaper and expansion of a pair of under-populated photo albums. TownNews will work out the archives issues, likely next week, and WNPA will be add BNC and convention photos to the albums over the next week or so.
   The site is best viewed on computer monitors set at 1024 x 768.
   If you find an error on the site, send an e-mail about it to Mae Waldron, mwaldron@wnpa.com, and include the name of the page where the error is. 
   Thanks for your patience while the site awaits these and other final touches.
  

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'Don't make me' column: Judy Halone

   (Note: Judy Halone is a Washington-based writer now producing a weekly column titled "Don't Make Me Turn This Car Around." Her column appears in the Enumclaw and Bonney Lake papers. She is offering the column free temporarily to WNPA members.)

Soldiers give their all when making the diving catch
    
    By Judy Halone
 
    I've seen them thousands of times - their photos laid out across the pages of our dailies and broadcast a world away on the evening news. I bet you have, too. But it took a photo recently e-mailed my way to make me finally notice them: The hands of soldiers who aren't afraid to make the diving catch.
   In this case, those hands belonged to my 23 year-old nephew, Army Cpl. Jeremiah Johnson, who lay motionless in a hospital bed too far from home.
   Maybe I noticed them because Jeremiah was not only family, but my son's age. Or perhaps it's because my heart ached for helpless family members confronted with tragedy. But I think the underlying reason I finally noticed a soldier's hands - my soldier's hands - was because of what they represented: Strength. Guts. Hope. Freedom. Commitment. Sacrifice.
   Jeremiah was critically injured in an accident in Iraq on Dec. 26 after his Humvee rolled over into a canal of dirty water, killing one of his buddies. After having been submerged for 10 minutes, he was rescued and airlifted to Germany for medical attention. While enroute he lost his best friend, also injured in the accident.
   The hands that aimed to make diving catches from his childhood love of baseball now lay weak and motionless, aiming instead to grasp on to the thread of life.
   "I always encouraged him to play with all his heart - to make the diving catch," said his father, David Johnson, of Vancouver.
   From the moment Jeremiah could walk, he explained, baseball became his passion.
   "I taught him how to bat, catch, and throw," he said.
   Their father-son relationship grew as David coached Jeremiah's teams from age five through 15.
   "He played through high school, then centerfield in Sr. Babe Ruth for Ryder Construction during the summers. His dream was to make the major leagues."
   Jeremiah's hands batted a thousand when he married and became the devoted father of two children. "He has been teaching my four year-old grandson, Isaiah, how to play baseball," David solemnly said.
   But since Dec. 26, his teaching hands lay still in a critical care unit one continent away from home.
   "We rubbed lotion on his fingers and palms," said his mother, Elizabeth, who together with husband David and Jeremiah's wife, Gale, were able to spend time at his bedside. "We did it for us as much as for him."
   Jeremiah's hands will no longer swing a bat with Isaiah; he lost his battle on Jan. 5, 2007.
   I wonder how many other Jeremiahs are out there - soldiers critically injured whose numbers don't make it to front-page coverage; soldiers who played centerfield and took the diving catch on my behalf?
   I can picture them - along with tens of thousands of other soldiers - kneeling down eye-level with their children upon deployment. "Let's play ball when I return," they might say, tussling their hair.
   I can see the hands of those who've patrolled in unsafe areas, who offer comfort to an injured and frightened orphan, and who salute the flag-draped caskets of those who have made the ultimate diving catch for their country.
   There are other hands too that offer hope, sacrifice, and strength: From the home front, they quiet the battles of sibling squabbles, manage to pay bills, take the dog to the vet, and do a load of late-night laundry after offering help on forgotten homework assignments - due, of course, the next day.
   That's making the diving catch too, if you ask me.
   So here are a few words of encouragement for the gravely-injured "Jeremiahs" out there, along with your loved ones - including the families of the 3,000-plus troops we mourn, those serving active duty, and families on the home front: Thanks for taking the diving catch on my behalf.
   Because, as David Johnson explained in the last hours of Jeremiah's life, "When you make the diving catch, you're giving all you've got."

  Judy Halone is a member of the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association and the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Send your comments to: judy@judyhalone.com.
  
   Copyright © 2007 by Judy Halone
  
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