Free downloads of Best of Sports Talk available for one more day

One of the most enjoyable aspects of my 22 years as a newspaper reporter and editor, primarily at the Carthage Press and Lamar Democrat, was the chance to cover sports and meet some incredible people along the way.

For about 14 years of that time, I augmented my game coverage with a series of feature columns, Sports Talk, that focused more on the athletes than the games and on storytelling about those athletes.

Thirty-five of those columns have been collected in book form for the first time and for one more day, that e-book, The Best of Sports Talk, is available as a free Amazon Kindle download.

The book's Amazon page includes this description of some of the features that are included in the book:

-A football coach meets an eight-year-old girl who is permanently in a wheelchair because of a drunk driver 
-A cheerleader talks about her aunt, Nancy Cruzan, and the right-to-die case that went to the U. S. Supreme Court 
-A mother watches her daughter play her final high school volleyball match 
-The high school coach who murdered his wife and then committed suicide 
-A football legend returns to his home town after 25 years to be honored 
-The baseball great who fanned five Hall-of-Famers in a row 
-The high school girl who received her first kiss in front of 1,500 fans 
-A high school basketball player teaches Haitian children how to play the sport 
-A town tries to cope with the suicide of a football player 
-He played in one of the greatest Cotton Bowl games of all time, but this legend is stirred more by a high school rivalry 
-Family and friends help a basketball player whose house burns to the ground 
-On the day she was expected to lead her team to the state volleyball championship, funeral services are held for a star athlete 
-After an ACLU threat bans a pre-game prayer over the public address system, a community gathers in the end zone to pray 
-A football player overcomes a near-fatal accident to receive a college scholarship. 

The Best of Sports Talk relives the joys and sorrows of sports and of the people who participate in them.

Things I'm Thinking About, January 6

Lobbyists' gifts- Some of the legislation that has been pre-filed for the 2014 General Assembly puts a limit on the gifts legislators receive from lobbyists. Isn't it time we followed the example of other states that make it illegal for lobbyists to give legislators anything. The lobbyists already have an advantage- proximity. Is there any reason why they can't meet with senators and representatives in their offices instead of at bars or restaurants? And if they do meet outside of the office, is there any reason why the legislators can't pay for their own meals and drinks. We are already paying them a certain amount each day to cover meals.

If we can't do that- If our elected officials can't bring themselves to cut off their meals, drinks, trip and ball games, there are a few things I would like to see done. On the Missouri Ethics Commission website, require all gifts for legislators' wives, other family members and staff members to be posted on the legislator's page, as well as campaign contributions from the lobbyists. It is also high time that we cut down on the turnaround time from when a legislator receives a gift from a lobbyist and when it shows up on the Ethics Commission website. Currently, a gift received Jan. 1 will not be available for public inspection until March 1. It would still be better just to make the gifts illegal.

A shoutout for Gretchen Bolander- I have enjoyed the work Gretchen Bolander has been doing anchoring the news on KODE. As with the times she has done it in the past or the times she has filled in on the morning show, she always makes those programs better.

Joplin R-8- So many things have been done by the Joplin R-8 School District that have been intended for marketing purposes (down to the recent decision to start selling off the naming rights and monetizing everything else to try to dig out of debt), that it is easy to forget that the first ridiculous naming decision made by the Board of Education was not Soaring Heights, but changing Joplin R-8 School District to Joplin Schools. I was reminded that when I saw the words Joplin R-8 on all of the stations today as they posted schools that will be closed tomorrow. Every other school district in the area is R-1, R-2, R-3, etc. It is that way all across Missouri. Is it that much easier to sell Joplin Schools? I will continue to refer to it as the Joplin R-8 School District, not only because I like it better, but because to the state, that is still what we are.

Small Town News Sale- Don't forget that for two days beginning at 10 a.m. tomorrow, my first novel, Small Town News, first published in 2005, wil be available for 99 cents in e-book form. The book is the fictionalized version of events of October 31, 2001, when Diamond Superintendent Greg Smith disappeared and the bank of Diamond was robbed.

Small Town News e-book on sale for 99 cents beginning tomorrow

The e-book version of my first novel, Small Town News, will be available for a reduced price of 99 cents for two days beginning at 10 a.m. Tuesday morning.

Small Town News was inspired by events that took place Oct. 31, 2001, in Diamond when the bank was robbed and the school superintendent, Dr. Greg Smith, disappeared on the same day. At first, media reports seemed to link the two events, though later it turned out there was no connection at all. Dr. Smith's body was found the following week, in his car at the bottom of a pond just outside the Diamond city limits. Newton County Coroner Mark Bridges eventually ruled that Dr. Smith committed suicide.

At the time, I was teaching current issues, a writing-intensive class, at Diamond Middle School. In one of my classes, we discussed the situation and I was surprised by the vehemence of the opinions students had about the behavior of the media during the whole situation. They were particularly disturbed by the way Dr. Smith's widow was treated and the scope of the questions with which she was bombarded. Almost 100 percent of the students thought the media should leave the woman alone.

The student comments got me thinking about writing the book, which is a fictionalized version of those events. The focus is on the media, as seen through the eyes of a student, a high school junior named Tiffany Everett who has a one-week internship with one of the three local television stations.
Within the 196 pages of the book, the way the media handles news in a small town is scrutinized though the actions of the high school junior, her teacher, the television reporter to whom she is assigned, and the editor of the town's newspaper.

Small Town News continues to be available in paperback at Amazon.com and other internet sources and locally at Changing Hands Book Shoppe and Always Buying Books in Joplin and Pat's Books in Carthage.

(The cover that is pictured is the cover of the paperback and not the e-book version.)