It may be “June Gloom,” but The Coronado News has a lot to celebrate.
We are proud to announce that The Coronado News will be among the Coronado Fourth of July Parade Announcer sponsors, and our spot will be in the Churchill block. We also will be sponsoring the toy giveaways for kids during the parade.
And, during the next several weeks, you are going to see more than a dozen feature stories about the big event and the volunteers behind the best small city Independence Day celebration that attracts more than 100,000 people to the island.
One of those writers telling those stories is Sofie Fransen, who has gone from an unpaid intern to a part-time reporter to a full-time staffer as of June 1, for The Coronado News.
Meet Sofie Fransen
Fransen joins full-time staff writers Madeline Yang and Julieta Soto who have done an amazing job covering the Tijuana sewage crisis as well as City Hall and Coronado Public Schools.
Fransen, a recent graduate of Point Loma Nazarene University, has written features about Cheryl Landon, daughter of actor Michael Landon; Navy retiree and drone specialist Ken Bitar; and the $400 million renovation of the Hotel del Coronado.
Fransen, however, won’t be giving up one of her true loves: Commercial fishing for the sockeye salmon run in Alaska with her family in July. (Yes, she’s burning some vacation time to work 18-hour days on a boat.)
Summer interns
When The Coronado News launched at the beginning of this year, we were blessed to have an outstanding crop of interns from Point Loma Nazarene University and San Diego State University to get us off the ground.
This summer, we have five new interns who will be doing features, sports stories and – of course – Coronado Fourth of July coverage. Here are the interns:
Maya Sciarretta was born and raised in San Diego, and she’s a rising third year student majoring in religious studies at Grinnell College, a liberal arts school in Iowa founded in 1846.
Sciarretta is about to embark on her second podcasting adventure in college, and she has an “undying love” for all things radio, baseball and tea.
Andrew Nadler is a sports journalism student at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. He’s a Southern California native whose passion is to work in sports media and to be a storyteller to those who do not have a platform.
Nadler’s first story for The Coronado News was a profile of Coronado High School twins Mariella and Natalia Avanni, who have excelled in the classroom, golf and NJROTC.
Sam Datin is an aspiring broadcast journalist studying at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.
Datin hosts Sun Devil Athletic sporting events, serves on-air and production roles for Pac-12 Networks, and has previously worked in content creation, video editing, and social media.
Datin’s first story for The Coronado News was a profile of Coronado High School football player and photographer Graham Bower.
Melanie Coffman is a recent graduate from PLNU’s multimedia journalism undergrad program with a sociology minor.
As a California-based writer, she is inspired by the beauty and creativity of the people and places around her.
She is currently freelance writing and transcribing in addition to working at a local coffee shop. Her specialties include writing and editing, making to-do lists, and chocolate chip cookies (both baking and eating). Her first story for The Coronado News was a profile on the Bridge and Bay Garden Club.
Carson Arnold is a Point Loma native and rising senior at TCU, where he studies political science and sports broadcasting.
His passion and admiration for San Diego and Coronado are rivaled only by his love of the San Diego Padres.
KenKen Puzzle and 40K
Another new addition you will see is on the LIFE ON THE ISLAND page towards the back of the print edition of The Coronado News.
Joining our features stories is the KenKen Puzzle, a grid-based numerical puzzle that uses basic math operations – addition, subtraction, multiplication and division – while challenging your logic and problem-solving skills.
And, lastly, a big thank you!
Our website – TheCoronadoNews.com – reached a nice milestone at the end of May, when we eclipsed more than 40,000 online pageviews.
We just about hit 20,000 pageviews for the month, roughly the total of the previous three months since launching around Feb. 1.
We appreciate all of your support, and I hope you will drop by and say hi during the Coronado Fourth of July Parade. I’d love to hear your story ideas and anything more that we can do to cover the community.
You can always reach me at craig@thecoronadonews.com.
