I’ve been with Salem Reporter for two years, and have learned the same lesson over and over again during my interviews: building community takes work.
Whether spreading joy or supporting one another after tragedy, nothing happens overnight. My list of top stories this year features people who put in the work to make Salem better.
I got a text on a Friday afternoon from a local advocate who advised me that I should make my way to the river at Wallace Marine Park. She was waiting alongside Derik Morganstern’s sister, Alaina, and his friends as divers searched for his body. He’d been missing for days after jumping into the river to save a stranger.
When I arrived, Alaina had been waiting by the riverside for hours, fielding phone calls and already feeling like no one outside the homeless community cared about her brother. It’s because of her effort to share his story and her willingness to talk to me that his final moments of heroism became known throughout the state.
Today at Bush’s Pasture Park, a community-made memorial marks the spot where Jose Manuel Vasquez-Valenzuela was killed. I take a moment every time I see it to think about that Thursday in March.
I’m grateful to the community members who experienced something horrible and were willing to talk to a reporter about it. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the looks on their faces, and hope they’ve been able to heal in the months since.
This article was breaking news coverage, written with all the information we could gather within a short amount of time. We followed up on it with in-depth reporting about the community reaction, and as we learned more about who Jose was. I’m proud of the work our team did.
I’ve written my fair share of budget cut stories, but this one sticks with me. I held onto it for weeks after it was written, hoping to hear from one of the homebound seniors affected by the program closure. But technological challenges and illness prevented that from happening. It was just a glimpse at the kinds of barriers this program, which brought books and friendship directly to people’s doors, had helped overcome.
Still, this story features several people worth meeting, and a look at the many lives changed through monthly personalized reading lists.
My face was actually sore from smiling when I left the courthouse the day before Valentine’s Day. Meda Duggan, who volunteers to make balloon art for couples getting married, has that effect on people.
I grew up in Oregon City, and childhood field trips instilled a lifelong love of history in me. I knew pretty quickly upon entering the Brunk Farmstead that this was going to be a long interview — mostly because I couldn’t go two feet without asking the museum’s head docent Christy Short another question about a historical object. I was there for two hours. I could have happily stayed longer.
When Ernest and Melody Welch entered the vegetable room at the Oregon State Fair — Melody wearing pink to match their little white dog Daisy — I made a silent wish to myself that they were the couple I was there to photograph. They were, and they were just as fun to talk to as I’d anticipated.
This story was a lovely way to meet some very cool Salem residents. I love knowing that anyone you meet — an optometrist, a neighbor, a 4-year-old — could have a hidden, blue-ribbon-worthy talent.
This was one of the longest stories I wrote all year, and it was a tall task to try to balance a plurality of perspectives about downtown Salem, a place where feelings and data don’t totally align. I’m glad our readers took an interest in this story, and that I could provide a more thorough answer to a question I’d been getting in my inbox for months: how is downtown Salem doing?
I’m not sure anyone, myself included, can capture Sofia Schwarz’s personality in writing. The morning I spent at her 89th birthday party, surrounded by her closest friends and family in a space she cultivated, made me grateful that my job gives me the chance to meet extraordinary people.
One of my favorite nonfiction books is called “A Tomb With a View” by Peter Ross, who interviewed graveyard caretakers around the United Kingdom about graveyards as both a historical site and a steward of the legacy of those buried.
I was thinking about that book while walking through Salem Pioneer Cemetery with its caretakers, who combined have over a century of knowledge caring for the space and sharing stories about the historical figures and everyday people laid to rest there. I’m grateful I was able to share their dedication to the space with the community.
Journalism has taught me that you never know what your neighbor has lived through, and what shaped them into the person they are today. Annie Clark’s story is extraordinary, but it’s also an important reminder to be kind to one another and to stand up for what’s right. I’m grateful her daughter was willing to let me flip through family photo albums and talk about her mother’s lifelong challenges after surviving war.
Contact reporter Abbey McDonald: [email protected] or 503-575-1251.
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Abbey McDonald joined the Salem Reporter in 2022. She previously worked as the business reporter at The Astorian, where she covered labor issues, health care and social services. A University of Oregon grad, she has also reported for the Malheur Enterprise, The News-Review and Willamette Week.
