APRIL 22, 2011
TELLING IT LIKE IT IS
Something to ponder: How many Ropings?
By Sarah Elliott
Okay, I’m just going to say it: You’ve got it wrong, Three Rivers Lions Club. This isn’t the “61st annual” Roping this year, it’s the 62nd.
I first noticed the discrepancy in 2000. The Lions were pulling out all the stops to celebrate the 50th year — a half century — of Ropings.
However, since starting this newspaper in 1995, husband John and I had been doing a lot of Roping research and determined most certainly that the first Three Rivers Roping was held in 1950.
We went along with it at first. Our 1995 headline states “45th annual...” But it was the golden anniversary in the year 2000 that raised the red flag for me. The count was off by one year; the 50th annual Roping should have actually been celebrated in 1999!
I’m certain my mathematician father could explain this better (just ask him when the Millennium really was), but let’s calculate: 1950 plus 50 equals 2000. So that’s 50 years, definitely. Except that the first Roping was held in 1950, which means one additional year must be added, which equals 51 Ropings.
If having problems with my layperson’s explanation, do it this way: count from 1 to 10 on your fingers. You get 10, correct? But you must add one more for 0 (i.e., 1950), so it’s actually 11.
This is also why we are celebrating our 16th anniversary of publishing THE KAWEAH COMMONWEALTH, but are covering our 17th Jazzaffair, Roping, and Redbud Festival.
Perhaps no one has noticed because we’ve been extremely subtle (till now), but in the past 11 years, the newspaper has not placed a number on how many “annual” Ropings there have been because it would differ by one year from how many the Three Rivers Lions are saying it is. We don’t want to be adverse, after all, it is the Lions Club’s event and they can call it whatever the heck they want.
But it’s the newspaper that people are going to turn to when wanting an accurate history of the life and times of Three Rivers. We have a responsibility to them to be correct.
Yep, this will all be history someday, and John and I take that responsibility seriously. We write for the here and now, week after week, but always know that the newspaper is a lasting vestige that tells the story of Three Rivers.
APRIL 22, 2011
MAKIN’ HISTORY:
826 / 16
by John Elliott
When March 1 came and flew by this year, Sarah and I barely had time to look up from our desks. As publishers of THE KAWEAH COMMONWEALTH, that historic date marked 16 years of publishing the local newspaper.
Nobody in these parts has ever come close to that kind of longevity, consistency, or the creating of an enduring legacy — a long-distance publishing run, I like to call it.
Essentially, it means over these 16 years we have covered Jazzaffairs, Lions Team Ropings, Redbud Festivals, events of all descriptions, hundreds of public meetings, elections, school sports and science fairs, accidents, search and rescues, obituaries, historical events, races, picnics, family reunions, backcountry trips, day hikes, grand openings, elections, new park employees, retirements, 1st Saturdays, politicians’ visits (even a U.S. president), fires, floods, snow storms, wildlife encounters, local businesses, award ceremonies, a bank heist or two, a shooting, and the list goes on and on and on some more.
What we are doing is publishing a weekly newspaper in a small, unincorporated community. Where there once were several now there are none left in Tulare County (maybe the entire Central Valley; we just haven’t had time to thoroughly research that fact).
For now we will be content with serving Three Rivers, Woodlake, Lemon Cove, and Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks — what we happen to know is the last best place on the planet.
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