My work as Prescott Journal editor

After teaching in New Mexico and Wisconsin for nearly eight years, I went back into newspapering into spring 1999. I got a job as the managing editor of the Prescott Journal, a weekly newspaper in Prescott, Wis.

Prescott was a special town for me. First, it was where a cousin, who was like a brother to me, lived for several years during our childhood, so I always had fond memories of the town. Secondly, I actually lived there for a few months as a baby while my father (Grandpa Bignell) worked in nearby South St. Paul, Minn.

My staff and I totally revamped the paper's look and content. We began to sell more and more copies and quickly became a force in the community and recognized among our peers.

In fact, in 2001, the Wisconsin Newspaper Association named us Weekly Newspaper of the Year for our work done during the year 2000. I consider it one of my greatest achievements.

My next teaching job

After working in New Mexico for two years, I came back to Wisconsin looking for a better paying job. I landed one in Merrill, Wisconsin, where I taught from fall 1994 to January 1999.

My first year was spent teaching English to eighth and ninth graders, The next year, our junior high became a middle school, and we changed to a "team teaching" concept. I taught English to eighth graders on the Delta Team, a five-teacher team, which I headed for four years.

During this time, I went to school during evenings at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and earned a Master's degree in English. I spent two years of night classes and summer school from fall 1996 to spring 1998 getting it done.

I also wrote a lot of short stories and even a couple of novels during this time! None of them are anything I'm particularly proud of, though each of them have their moments. It was more a lot of "practice" as I learned the craft of writing.

Going to a new school in Knapp, Wis.

Just as you had to switch schools from California to Minnesota, when a little boy I also had to switch schools! When I was in second grade many years ago, my parents bought a new farm outside of Knapp, Wis. We moved there from Elmwood in March 1974.

Switching schools was very difficult. Not only did I leave all of my friends behind and not know anyone in my new school, but it also was very small. There were only 10 or so kids in my class at Knapp by more than 25 in my Elmwood class! The teacher at Knapp also was teaching different things than I was learning in Elmwood.

The Knapp school building was very old while the Elmwood school was brand new or only a few years old. To reach my classroom, I had to go up a long flight of stairs to the second floor. The Knapp school I attended isn't there anymore, as it was replaced by a new building.

But I made new friends and figured out all of my lessons, and it all worked out!

Moving from Elmwood to Knapp, Wis.

In March 1974, my parents moved from Elmwood, Wis., to a new farm outside of Knapp, Wis. Grandma and Grandpa Bignell still live there today!

They moved because the farm was much larger and could better support us. While I was little anxious about going to a new school, I was excited because I got my own room in the farmhouse we lived in (Though during winters I had to move back in to the room with my brother because it was better insulated and so warmer).

The farm was very large with a road running through it, so the barn and farm buildings were on one side while the house was on the other. It also was surrounded by woods, which were very fun to explore.

I do not have many pictures of the farm because our farm house burned down in 1985. But here's one for you of my brother (your Uncle Chris) and me (I'm on the left) sitting on the front lawn with the camera looking roughly northwest; the girl in the middle was a neighbor's daughter, and her name was Missy.

Where I went to kindergarten

Do you know where I went to kindergarten? When I was a little boy your age, my family lived on a small farm, and I went to kindergarten in Elmwood, Wis.!

Kindergarten was only a half-day, and I went in the morning. We had a class of 25 children, and there were two teachers. My best friend, Ronald Wolfe, who lived next to me, walso went to school there. Unfortunatley, I don't remember the name of my kindergarten teachers (Though I think my teacher was Mrs. Thompson.)! That's pretty bad, isn't it?!

I do remember my first grade teacher's name, though. It was Mrs. Rheil.

I liked going to school in Elmwood. My dad took me to lots of high school basketball games there. We had a very good team that won a lot of games. Our team name was the Raiders, and our school colors were red and white.

In second grade during March, my family moved to a new farm, outside of Knapp, Wis. (Grandma and Grandpa Bignell still live there!). At that time, I stopped going to Elmwood Elementary School and went to Knapp Elementary School!

The first place I remember living

I suspect the first place you remember living in is the "green house" (as you called it) in Lancaster, Calif. Well, the first place I remember  living as a little boy was a farmhouse in rural Plum City, Wis. The picture at right is of me as a four-year-old in the living room of that farmhouse at Easter 1970.

All of my toys fit in a cardboard box and were kept in the living room, where I spent most of my day playing. My bedroom was upstairs on the second floor.

I had a dog named Scotty when I lived in the farmhouse. We went on lots of adventures together! But winter in the Midwest is long, so I only got to go outdoors for maybe five months during the year!

The house is still standing, though the garage, small barn and various trees that were there when I was a little boy are gone. When we are together again, I will show you the place!

Places you've lived

Although you're only five years old, you've lived lots of places!

Here's a list of them:
g Crescent City, Calif. (birth to Sept. 2007)
g Eureka, Calif. (Sept.-Dec. 2007)
g Knapp, Wis. with Grandma and Grandpa Bignell (Dec. 2007-Sept. 2008)
g Santa Clarita, Calif. (Sept. 2008-Feb. 2009)
g Lancaster, Calif. (the "green house") (March 2009-March 2011)
g Palmdale, Calif. (April 2011-May 2012)
g Plymouth, Minn. (May 2012-current)

Where will you live next?

My years working as a teacher

You probably remember from a past entry that I mentioned I was a teacher for a few years. When I first went to college, I earned a degree in education so that I could teach English and journalism to grades 7-12. While in collegeat the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, I taught for several weeks at Park High School in Cottage Grove, Minn., under Joe Adams, the head of the English Department there.

I decided to go into journalism after graduating but then went back into teaching. From 1992-94, I taught at Deming High and Middle schools in Deming, N.M. My first year there, I was named teacher of the year at the middle school thanks to an essay written by one of my best students ever, Chris Martin Briseno.

I then moved back to my home state of Wisconsin and taught at Merrill Middle School. I mainly taught English to eighth graders. During that time, I earned a master's degree in education at UW-Stevens Point. In 1999, though, I went back into newspapering.

Today is Grandpa Bignell's birthday

Today is your Grandpa Bignell's birthday. He is 67 years old. That's treally old, isn't it! When I told him that, he agreed!

Although you may not remember him, you lived for a few months with Grandma and Grandpa Bignell. I have a couple of great photos of you and he laughing together when you were a baby, but they're packed away, so I couldn't post them here.

Grandpa Bignell was born in Durand, Wis., and grew up in the country near Arkansaw, Wis. He worked for a while at a meat packing plant in South St. Paul, Minn., where his father and an older brother also worked. But he spent most his life running and building his farm, outside of Knapp, Wis., which is where I grew up.

Here's a photo of Grandma and Grandpa Bignell in the late 1970s when I was a little boy. That's me on the right and your Uncle Chris behind me.

My high school school spirit award

One award you'll always see hanging on my office wall, Kieran, is one I received my senior year of high school for "leadership in school spirit"!

From my sophomore (10th grade) through my senior year (12th grade), I announced wrestling meets, basketball games, and track meets at my high school in Menomonie, Wis. In addition, during my senior year my friends and I launched a "sticker" campaign in which the morning of the boys basketball game, we'd hand out stickers, with some slogan on it about beating whatever team we were playing that night, to everyone in school. Sometimes we'd also hang up posters with the slogan.

The stickers and posters helped get fellow students excited about the games, and more people started to attend, which I think got the basketball players more excited, and they started winning more games!

The reason I'm so proud of this award is because it shows what people can accomplish when they work together - and it just takes a few people to get everyone else excited about working together!

Jobs I've held in journalism, teaching

In a previous entry, I mentioned that these days I work as an editor and a writer. That's been my career for most of my life!

When I went to college, I studied journalism so I could work at a newspaper. My very first job was as a newspaper reporter in Red Wing, Minn. I covered Wisconsin news. I met your mother while I worked in Red Wing.

For several years, I also worked as a teacher. I mainly taught English but also journalism to grades 7-12 (and mainly eighth and ninth graders at that) at a school in New Mexico and one in Wisconsin.

But my heart was in writing and editing, so I went back into journalism and worked at several newspapers and magazines for several years in the 2000s. The biggest newspaper I worked for was The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, Calif. I also was the top editor at two newspapers - the Prescott (Wis.) Journal and The Daily Triplicate in Crescent City, Calif. (You were born when your mother and me lived in Crescent City!).

Places to show you in Wisconsin

I've arrived back in Wisconsin today, Kieran, so that I can better continue the legal battle to regain custody of you, to ensure you are protected, and so ensure that we can see one another again. While I will miss California and all we could do there - Disneyland any day we like, the ocean beach, Legoland, the mountains, the many aquariums and museums, the desert hikes, the festivals galore - so long as I am with you, it doesn't really matter where we are.

I always planned to take you back to the Midwest just to show you where I'd grown up but had hoped to wait until you were a little older so it all might be a little more meaningful. I grew up on three different farms in Wisconsin - one near Plum City, another near Elmwood, and the other close to Menomonie (this is where I spent most of my childhood, from second grade until I graduated fromhigh school, and is where your grandparents still live). I'd love to show you those places and the main streets and stores in Plum City and Durand and Menomonie where my parents shopped when I was a child, and to show you the "ancestral valley" where your great-great-great-great-great grandfather and his two brothers came to Wisconsin; they being among the first pioneers in the state. I want to show you where I went to school - elementary school in Elmwood and another in Knapp,  junior high and high school in Menomonie (yes, Jane went to school there, too), and on to college in River Falls. I'd like to show you the dorms I lived in during college and my first apartment in Red Wing, Minn. (where I held my first full-time job out of college, as a newspaper reporter covering Wisconsin news), and the newspapers I worked at in Red Wing and Prescott. I'd like to take you to all of the carnivals and festivals I went to as a little boy - the Durand Fun Fest and the Dunn County Fair and the Minnesota State Fair. I'd like to show you a thousand other places that I've been to and always wanted to go to but never did.

We will do all that and more one day. Don't be discouraged, my son - time is on our side.