Donald Lamarion Spence, 1962-2018
He went by a single name, “Spence,” and was equally singular in his focus on community and a very large circle of friends in his adopted hometown of Healdsburg. His full name was Donald Lamarion Spence and he died Dec. 13 after a long fight against lung cancer. He was 56. A large portion of his circle of friends held a candlelight memorial in the city’s Plaza last Friday, Dec. 14.
Guardians of the truth
TIME magazine’s ‘Person of the Year’ for 2018 is a group of imprisoned and slain journalists. The selection honors journalists as “guardians of the truth.” Besides being slain and jailed, journalists everywhere now face toughening challenges to investigate, report and defend the truth. This is true in oppressive non-democratic countries like Saudi Arabia, Russia, Myanmar and it is true right here where economic factors are eliminating journalist’s jobs and where our president calls journalists “enemies of the people.”
A favorite Christmas memory from old Sebastopol
This is a Christmas memory of an older Sebastopol. It took place in a Sebastopol before tourism was encouraged, before there were any hotels, when the Barlow was just one of many apple processing plants in the area. This was before the Rialto, Peace Park, Skateboard Park, a town square or tree lighting. This was when Sebastopol was part of the Redwood Empire, not wine country.
Arts & Entertainment
‘Angels’ lands at Raven Performing Arts
:Every Sunday matinee we do a post-show discussion with the audience, so they get a chance to make comments and ask questions of the actors. We saw there were a lot of people who were quite moved and quite touched by the play. So the opening weekend could not have gone better, as far as I’m concerned," said director Steven David Martin.
