First Person
Kennedy High’s track team is about to experience the wind in their hair SoCal-style. And some stiff competition. Eagles’ head coach Carl Sumler said the girls 4×100 meter relay team, and sprint specialist Takkarist “Takk” McKinnley will travel to Los Angeles this weekend and compete in the 3rd Annual Tiger Invite at South Pasadena High School on Friday, and then lace ’em up again the next day for the nationally recognized 46th Annual Arcadia Invitational at Arcadia High School. “There’s…
For those who move from one country to another change can be hard. Families are separated, speech is not understood and finding employment may be impossible. For others the change of address may be seamless. Curiosity brought Rosy Maria Barron to the United States. She was 18 years old when she and a friend arrived to California from Mexico. Now a Palo Alto resident, Barron makes daily 45-mile trips to Richmond to manage her supermarket on Cutting Boulevard.
Play Rugby USA, a nonprofit organization focused on the wellbeing of school children in disenfranchised communities, is getting a jumper in Richmond by piloting an after-school rugby program at Washington Elementary School in Point Richmond. According to Stuart Bagshaw, the executive director of Play Rugby USA’s California branch, the program is now in over 200 schools in New York and in 60 schools in Los Angeles. Students, both boys and girls, wore red and yellow Velcro belts Friday after school…
The Richmond Oilers’ baseball team defeated the Kennedy Eagles 6-5 on Friday to win a baseball game for the first time in three years – since the average price of gasoline was $2.81 per gallon. Now it looks as though the high school on 23rd Street has refueled its tank. After the game Oilers’ head coach Rob Collins mustered his team of Spanish-speaking players in left field and said, “Gentlemen, si se puede!” The coach’s declaration got a rousing ovation…
If smiles bought cheeseburgers, Salesian High senior guard Jabari Bird could sell a lot of Happy Meals. Bird, one of the nation’s top guards and a 2013 McDonald’s All American, donned an apron, stood behind a cash register and took Extra Value Meal orders from friends, family, teachers and teammates in San Pablo Wednesday. The restaurant’s owner and operator, Rachel Wong, donated $1,000 to the high school. Bird is one of 24 players selected from a field of more than…
Richmond Oilers head softball coach Rosalind “Roz” Randle wore a long white blouse, blue stretch pants, baby blue ankle socks and shower slippers as she stood in the dusty third base dugout Wednesday evening at Salesian High School. More team uniforms were on order, she said, as the second-year coach shouted instructions through the chained linked fence. “Mo stop biting your nails,” she said to her third baseman, Moesha Samuel, as a Salesian runner danced off the bag ready to…
The Kennedy Lady Eagles basketball team traveled to San Francisco Saturday night and battled Sacred Heart Cathedral in what would be Kennedy’s last game of the season. Sacred Heart, the number one seed in the NorCal Division III playoffs, withstood a frenzied Kennedy first-half attack to win 86-70. Instead of drawing X’s and O’s on a dry-erase board prior to the game, Lady Eagles head coach Rae Jackson told his players the Bible story about David and Goliath. He explained…
Something must’ve been in the air yesterday as the Kennedy High Lady Eagles’ basketball team traveled south toward San Jose to take on the Branham High Lady Bruins in the first round of the NorCal Division III playoffs. After a quick stop at Panda Express to eat some pre-game rice bowls, everyone jumped back on the bus with full bellies, and sang Sponge Bob Square Pants and Dora The Explorer theme songs for the next five minutes. Lady Eagle’s head…
Wednesday night’s California Interscholastic Federation basketball game against eight-seed Branham High of San Jose, as the regional championships kick off, will be no joke. One more Kennedy loss and it’s sayonara, Lady Eagles. But don’t shrug off the nine-seed Lady Eagles just yet—head coach Rae Jackson wants to keep the charter bus running. “We just want to get on that bus and get down there,” Jackson said before Monday’s practice, explaining how Kennedy will approach the school’s first-ever NorCal game….