Greetings
What? Back to school already? What is the world coming to?
We will get to that, I want to send out a big thank you. Last month was amazing and I was fortunate to have been the Grand Marshall for the Modesto 4th of July Parade. What an honor for me and my family. I can not even begin to thank enough the members of the Modesto Kiwanis Club, Jeremiah Williams, John Fields and the whole team for this fantastic honor and keeping this amazing Modesto tradition alive. Also last month we celebrated the 10th Anniversary of ModestoView Magazine. This was an exciting milestone and our event at the Peer Recovery Gallery was a great time to connect our ViewCrew with our readers and celebrate “serving civic pride daily”. Our favorite covers exhibition continues this month. We are proud to be a positive voice in our community for people, change and to build the city we want to live in. But life goes on, and it seems to be going fast and there are hundreds of people all over our downtown discovering our city with Pokemon Go.
This month, we want to slow things down this month and get back to basics. Let’s stop and smell the roses, pick some fruit, wander the farmers markets and simplify our dining and enjoy what the Modesto USA community has to offer. Summer freshness has never tasted so good. Modesto really is a “Classic American City” and in addition to our classic Graffiti history and our Rockabilly music history, one of the things that makes us the most classic is our fresh produce, fresh eats and our farmer’s markets. Many places have discovered farm to fork, but Modesto has been farm to fork since MID was created. Not only that, we were one of the first cities with a fully functioning electrical network in 1923, so it is only fitting that we have a really cool night market and our downtown streets are all lit with twinkle lights and we even have a cool DoMo (Downtown Modesto) Night Market along with our ArtWalk. Things are coming together.
We celebrate our amazing agriculture this month but we also celebrate our talent and our people as we enjoy X Fest, that for 2016 moves to the San Joaquin Country Fairgrounds, but is a major venue for our local bands and musicians. This has been a spring board for many careers. Speaking of a springboard, we are proud to be apart of the Valley Talent Project on Aug 26 & 27. We are fortunate to have Hollywood casting professionals that are from Modesto and this is the time for our talent to get discovered and even make it to TV or the movies, just like Jeremy Renner, Tim Olyphant or Lindsey Pierce. Who is going to be next? ModestoView will be there at the judging table, hopefully launching a new star.
But in the middle of all of this fun, it is time to go back to school. Yes, it seems like it gets earlier every year and most kids will pack up their summer vacation on Aug 8. Wow, time is going by fast, so lets make sure our kids are ready, they have backpacks full of school supplies and they are ready and prepared to learn what they need to take on the world to be our next leaders. We all have a part to play but adopting schools, volunteering in classrooms, being a mentor our even just donating books and supplies. A well educated city is a successful city and it is really up to all of us.
Thank you so much for being our Modesto friend. Thanks to the amazing businesses in this magazine that make it possible to reach hundreds of thousands of people across our region. We are all in this together and we all will make a difference. Please let me know what you like about ModestoView and what we could do better. Make sure you follow us on Twitter @modestoview and like us on Facebook so you are connected to our city like we are.
Have a fantastic August,
Chris Murphy
Publisher & Founder, ModestoView
chrism@modestoview.com
On the Cover
Not only are we the home of American Graffiti and the birthplace of Rockabilly music, we feed the world. For most cities, either one of the former would be all you need, but we are all three. Yes, our ag world is the envy of the world. Even in the drought, we still are the top of the pops and this month we celebrate getting back to the basic. Thanks to Michael J Mangano, we capture the spirit of our valley with this amazing August cover.
