Former Wildcat learns to love Campbell
By Dale Bryant
When I was a student at Los Gatos High School, Campbell meant one thing: arch rival.
One need only mention Campbell High School in those days and we Wildcats felt a surge of competitive energy. The longstanding feud played itself out every Thanksgiving morning on one of the two football fields.
Later in the day, there would be turkey with all the trimmings, but until then, there was rivalry with all the trappings--pageantry, pranks and cars draped in crêpe paper, horns blaring, parading through the streets of Campbell and Los Gatos.
These days, those memories have faded into a nostalgic corner of my mind as I've discovered in that old arch rival a city evolving into one of the least pretentious, most successful communities in the valley.
As the executive editor of Silicon Valley Community Newspapers (SVCN), which publishes The Campbell Reporter, I read every issue with interest. When the city recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of its incorporation as a city, The Campbell Reporter marked its third year of publication. The paper's staff celebrated with cake and candles in our offices at SVCN headquarters.
Those of us who are involved with The Campbell Reporter love this little paper. And we have reason to be proud. In its first year of publication, it was recognized by the California Newspaper Publishers Association for best design in competition with other weekly newspapers in its circulation category throughout California. This year we've been informed that we have won first or second place in the same competition in both the design and spot news photography categories. (Winners are announced at the end of June.)
We're not ready to rest on our laurels, however. Not by a long shot. The paper was successful from the day of its launching, but, frankly, it hasn't grown a lot since that March day three years ago.
We're not sure why, but I have a theory. Anyone who's ever tried to lose weight is probably familiar with the concept of set point. That's the theory that once the body stays at a certain weight long enough, it fights to maintain that weight, in spite of the intake of fewer calories. I'm not sure if any experts have analyzed the theory's application to newspapers, but I think the same principle is at play with newspapers that stay the same size for a long time.
So just in case The Campbell Reporter is stuck at a set point, we've decided to shake things up a bit.
Beginning today, and continuing through June, we've pulled out all the stops to bring our readers the best darned hometown paper they've ever read. We've got reporters from all our community newspapers helping out with stories; for that five-week period, I'll be editing the paper to free up editor Sheila Sanchez so she can be out in the community more, meeting people and writing about what she learns.
We're introducing a history page this week, and throughout what we at SVCN headquarters are calling our "Think Campbell Campaign," we'll introduce guest columnists to share memories and perspectives on historic Campbell. We'll also be running historical photographs. We hope this page will evolve into a regular feature on Campbell history.
We're going to look at Campbell neighborhoods to see where Campbell residents live and to find out what's important to them. We hope to learn more about the community and to provide good reading at the same time. Campbell schools and the changing business mix are also on our agenda.
Our staff kicked off its Think Campbell Campaign with a party at Stoddard's on the eve of the PruneFestival. Then some of our reporters, editors and photographers dispersed to take a look behind the scenes of the PruneFestival, where some of the festival's 250 local volunteers began working late Friday night, preparing for the crowds that would arrive early Saturday morning. The next day, we staffed our own Campbell Reporter booth, selling T-shirts and offering chances to toss our newspaper at a target.
From recent conversations with Campbell business people, we understand that we stumbled a few times when we were taking our first steps in Campbell. Now that we're 3 years old, we think we've got it right, and we're ready to grow. We hope you enjoy our all-out effort to improve and grow The Campbell Reporter as much as all of us at SVCN have enjoyed putting it together.
Dale Bryant is the executive editor of Silicon Valley Community Newspapers, publisher of The Campbell Reporter.
Campbell, California
