The Sacramento Press has approximately 2,000 contributors signed up on our site to voluntarily write articles. Without them, we wouldn’t exist. Among this group, there is a small core of writers and photographers whom we work closely with on a regular basis. These contributors go above and beyond by taking assignments from us, having their articles copy edited and making us very proud as they represent us in the community. To just tell you how great they are isn’t enough. So we’ll show you a tiny snippet of why we love them. For the next two weeks, we will be rolling out our "community contributor spotlight" video series featuring six of our top community contributors. Without further

It was a very tough decision to choose the winners of The Sacramento Press 2012 Journalism Open. Fifty-three community contributors shared 93 stories about the greater Sacramento area and the quality of submissions this year really impressed the judges. Thank you to all of you who made this year’s Journalism Open a success. The Sacramento Press judges were Casey Kirk, Director of Community Outreach, Brandon Darnell, Copy Editor and Reporter, and Colleen Belcher, Editor-in-Chief. Each story was judged on newsworthiness, research and sources, spelling and grammar and how interesting they were. Each winner could only win one prize. Click here to read the complete judging criteria. First

Jim Brickman opened his holiday concert tour in Sacramento at the Crest Theater on Friday evening. Brickman, a Grammy nominee with several gold and platinum albums, delivered on his promise to play a lot of hits, joking, "When you have hits, you should play them in your concert." His song selections ranged from his first hit, "Rocket to the Moon," through medleys of patriotic and Disney songs, featured guest singers as well as his own voice, and culminated in a powerful romantic rendition of "My Valentine." Joining Brickman on stage during the performance were vocal guests Anne Cochran and Ben Utecht. Cochran first sang with Brickman in high school, together winning a talent competition

Their opening game Saturday night at Hornet Stadium was a night of record-making, but that did not help the Mountain Lions as they suffered a loss at the hand of the Las Vegas Locomotives 23-17. The night was warm and the game was a sell-out as over 20,000 fans watched the game, making it the biggest United Football League (UFL) attendance at an opening game and beating last year by over 10,000. Yet despite the overwhelming attendance and inspirational rendition of the National Anthem by Pauletta Pearson Washington (Mrs. Denzel Washington), the game was ominous from the get-go for the Sacramento Mountain Lions when the Locos won the coin toss. After that it was a constant battle. Mounta

The California Capital Airshow brought aerial highlights to the Mather Airport on Saturday and Sunday. Thousands of specatators walked through aircraft on the ground and watched performances high above at the airshow which featured numerous patriotic tributes. The airshow opened Saturday when skydiver Kent Lane delivered a huge American flag to a group of Air Cadets on the ground during the National Anthem and Opening Ceremonies. A tribute to the 10th Anniversary of 9/11 closed the event on Sunday afternoon. Each day also included a re-enactment of the "infamous" attack on Pearl Harbor nearly 70 years ago. Numerous military and civilian aircraft flew above the crowd on both days, demonst

With everything they’ve worked for the entire season on the line, the Sacramento River Cats found themselves down 0-2 after two games of the first round of the Pacific Coast League Playoffs. After losing the first two games in Reno, 7-4 and 4-2, the Cats force a fourth game after beating the Reno Aces 5-2 at Raley Field on Friday evening and keep the best-of-five series alive. That’s good news for the team with the best record in the regular season. Josh Donaldson, who went 1-for-3 with two RBI, knew that it was just a matter of time before the offense woke up. “It’s something that we really haven’t been tested all year because we had such a big league all year”, said Donaldson as he l

The red hot Sacramento River Cats continued their dominance by defeating the Colorado Springs Sky Sox 12-4 Sunday afternoon at Raley Field. The River Cats used a seven-run second inning en route to winning their fourth game in a row, also making it their eighth win in the last ten games. River Cats first baseman Chris Carter started off the scoring in the first inning. With right fielder Jai Miller on first after a one-out walk, Carter sent his ninth home run of the season soaring over the center field wall to give the Cats the first two runs of the game. The Sky Sox came right back in the top of the second inning with two runs of their own. Sox left fielder Mike Paulk led the inning of

The Sacramento River Cats held their winning streak against the Reno Aces, killing with a final score of 10-1. With a turnout of 9,342 fans for the last of the five-game set, the I-80 rivals started off with an easy three-up, three-down and no on-bases for the first three innings. The first excitement of the night happened when River Cats left fielder Michael Taylor walked, making it the first on-base of the evening, but Aces turned around and scored the last out of the third inning by throwing Cats first baseman, Anthony Recker, out at first. The fourth inning was when things got intense. Aces right fielder Cole Gillespie made the first earned base, hitting the ball foul along the fir

The Sacramento Capitals hosted the Boston Lobsters Wednesday evening in a World Team Tennis match at Sunrise Mall. Prior to the match, Sacramento was in a three-way tie for first place in the Western Conference standings, sharing the spot with the Kansas City Explorers and the St. Louis Aces. Kansas City and St. Louis were playing each other on Wednesday, so it was clear that at least one team would finish the day in second place. As Sacramento and Boston took the court, the announcer told the crowd that St. Louis had won their match. It was Sacramento's chance to hold onto a share of first place. The first four of the five events went to tiebreakers and Sacramento led the match 19-17 goi

Continued from Parts 1 and 2. Click here to read Part 1 and here to read Part 2.   As one gets older, you start accepting that certain boxes on your personal “bucket list” will never be checked off. I’ve had to chance to meet several people that I either enjoyed their work or admired them from afar. From politicians to actors to athletes, all have been moments I’ve logged away in the memory bank. The day I interviewed Rickey Henderson is now on top of that list. In this final part of my three-part story with the great Rickey Henderson, he talks about playing the Big Apple and why, even though his critics said he was washed up, he delayed his retirement until he reached the ripe old a