Some like it hot...... sportswriter/desk in Yuma, Ariz.

The Yuma Sun, an award-winning 20,000 circulation daily located on the Arizona/California/Mexico border, seeks a sports writer who is ready for the challenge of maintaining our excellent local sports coverage.

The right candidate will be a talented journalist with a demonstrated ability to write and report. We'd like to find someone with two to three years of experience, but are willing to train recent college graduates.

We do more than just write. You will be expected to design vibrant, reader-friendly pages, write clear and compelling headlines and be a sound editor of copy. You must be able to help execute a series of online sports initiatives and be able to work collaboratively with the other members of our newsroom.

Our staff covers eight competitive high schools, a junior college and the Yuma Scorpions, a Golden Baseball League team.

Our region offers immediate access to off-roading, hiking, camping, fishing and hunting. Housing prices are reasonable.

The Yuma Sun is owned by Freedom Communications Inc. We offer an exciting environment in which to continue to grow as a journalist and leader.

We are a drug-free workplace and all applicants considered for employment must pass a post-offer drug screen and background check prior to commencing employment. Benefits include health care insurance, vacation and 401k. Pay range is $23,000 to $25,000 per year.

If you are up to the challenge, first go to www.YumaSun.com and fill out an application, then send us a letter about what makes you the best candidate. Let the letter reflect your writing style. Send it, your resume, three to five clips and no more than five designed pages to Sports Editor Brian Williams at 2055 S. Arizona Ave., Yuma, AZ 85364 or bwilliams@yumasun.com.

 

Note that it was 114 F in Yuma on Monday. Yuma is in the far southwest corner of the state, along the Mexico border and has been featured on the ABC-TV show "Homeland Security" and in various news stories dealing with immigration and other border issues

In the past, the paper has dabbled in some Phoenix and San Diego stuff, including a writer at the U.S. Open golf at Torrey Pines in 2008 and the Arizona Cardinals home games. But that's not the bread-and-butter. The main course is, not surprisingly, preps, preps and more preps. Including coverage of the Yuma HS Criminals (I'm not making this up, that's the team name. School is on the site of an early 1900s prison.)

 

Nick Pappageorgio is a good guy to talk to about this one.

 

Most Arizonans I've talked to say temperature wise, there's hell (Phoenix), and then there's Yuma. I had a friend in college that worked at this paper in HS... some of the high schools are 5A, so they compete with PHX-area schools.

Have fun with that drive on their $23-25K...

 

Ah yes, the armpit of Arizona.
FYI, Yuma has an In-N-Out Burger. The grand prize winner can stretch that $23K while filling his/her belly with tasty grub.
Also, I'd be more concerned about an encounter with one of Yuma's many testosterone-inflated Marines than an illegal immigrant.

 

Andy, how far is Yuma from Fort Hancock?

 

Meh. The heat's not bad if you can handle Phoenix. Yuma's day temperatures top Phoenix's, but never by much, and it gets cooler at night. The place ain't the Lettuce Capitol of the World for nothing. It's surrounded by agricultural land, so it doesn't trap the heat in as much as the Phoenix sea of blacktop. My old apartment overlooked a lettuce field, back in my Yuma days.

The real temperature hellpit in AZ is slightly to the north, in the Lake Havasu City/Mohave Desert area. Granted, it's all 110+ degrees this time of year.

 

I'm holding out until the Ice hockey beat comes open there. Either that or the winter olympics beat.

 

Word is this place has been hammered with recent layoffs, mandatory furloughs and permanent pay cuts so the job security factor might be pretty low and there's probably no chance of raises from your 23K salary in the middle of the barren desert. Freedom is an absolute mess right now.

 

Fort Hancock, Texas. Right on the border ...
"I find I am so excited I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope."

 

My high school was in their region in the 90's and Yuma always had a tough time against the Phoenix schools.

 

You almost had your chance. There was a push to build an arena there last year that would've housed a minor-league hockey team as its anchor tenant.

That thing went to a ballot measure and flopped. Which is probably for the best in the current economic climate, but it means Yuma remains a town with nothing to do outside the movie theater, bowling alley and one of the seediest bar scenes I've ever had the displeasure of frequenting. I was never able to manage more than two or three trips a year to Phoenix or San Diego on my news side salary and schedule, and I had family in Phoenix. The Mexican city of San Luis is the best option for weekends, if you can find a Spanish speaker to tag along with.