YOUR HOMETOWN WEEKLY NEWSPAPER
Vol. 15, No. 33
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Timber Point Big fun at Big Cat welcomes Poker Run new principal
August 18, 2017
Living The Good Life
by Lauren Huffmaster Correspondent
The Byron Union School District (BUSD) is starting off the school year with a new principal at the helm of Timber Point Elementary. On May 11, the Byron School Board appointed David Croy as principal, replacing the school’s former principal, Tom Jones, who accepted another position in the Livermore Valley School District. “The district is pleased to have Mr. Croy as the new Timber Point principal,” BUSD Superintendent Debbie Gold said. “Mr. Croy was selected from nearly 40 applicants, and he was interviewed by administrators, teachers, parents and other see Principal page 30A
Experience the best life has to offer by staying fit, healthy and energetic after 50. Page 1B
Art, Wine & Jazz Returns Photo by Richard Wisdom
B
oating enthusiasts converged on the Delta last weekend for the Discovery Bay Lions Club’s annual Big Cat Poker Run. The two-day, family-friendly regatta raised over $100,000 for charity, according to Glenn Hoffman, Lions Club president. Proceeds will benefit local churches and community organizations.
Press founder, former publisher dies by Ruth Roberts Staff Writer
James ‘Jimmy’ Chamoures, 58, founder and publisher emeritus of the Brentwood Press & Publishing Company, passed away Saturday, Aug. 5, in his Rancho Mirage home. An energetic, upbeat and savvy individual, Chamoures built a publishing empire that began with the development of his Yellow Pages publications – first in Milpitas and later in East Contra Costa County. The Connecticut native attended the University of Arizona, where he took on his first phone-book project as a college assignment and later parlayed that success into a business that garnered him financial independence in his early 30s. But the publishing world would continue to call, and it was Milpitas where Chamoures landed to help reinvent the Milpitas Post in the 1990s under the guidance and partnership of his friend and mentor Mort Levine. “I had been asked to revive the Milpitas paper that I had founded in 1955, and I went back to Milpitas to have a look around, and someone said to me, ‘Hey, you should do something
PRESS FOUNDER JIMMY CHAMOURES
with the Yellow Pages guy; he’s a live wire,’” said Levine. “So I managed to get together with him, and within three months, the paper was thriving. He had a good sense of community and what made a project work. He had a magical touch.” Chamoures took that magic and went on to create East County’s local Yellow Pages in 1997, targeting advertisers in Brentwood, Oakley
and Discovery Bay. But a meeting with a young newspaper columnist and reporter named Rick Lemyre, eventually launched the award-winning Press newspapers – first the Brentwood Press in 1999, followed by the Discovery Bay Press in 2000 and the Oakley Press in 2001. “Jimmy was already publishing the local Yellow Pages in 1999 when I contacted him about a possible weekly newspaper,” said Lemyre, who went on to become the paper’s founding managing editor. “I had been a newspaper columnist and reporter for only a couple of years, but despite my lack of experience he took a chance and had me pencil out a mock edition of what I had in mind. “His energy and drive were inexhaustible, and the trust he showed in me gave me the confidence to undertake something I had never even contemplated just months before. I knew my weekly newspaper idea would work, but the fact is, had I hooked up with anyone else, The Press would never have happened. At times, working for him felt like being a water skier zipping along behind the speedboat Chamoures. I wasn’t always sure which direction we’d
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Soil Health
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State of California offers grants to farmers to help them improve overall soil health.
Local favorite Art, Wine & Jazz Festival returns to downtown Brentwood. Page 10A
Saving Lives On The Field
Freedom football players and coaches learn how to use AEDs to save lives. Page 21A Breaking News..................19A Calendar.............................32A Classifieds..........................27A Cop Logs.............................31A Entertainment..................11A Food.....................................10A Milestones.........................13A Opinion...............................20A Pets......................................15A Sports..................................21A
Animal Services
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Community rallies behind calls for county shelter to be audited and reformed.