Other Projects | Brent R. Baker

A road trip through ‘Wyoming’

by Brent R Baker | Oct 9, 2020 | Other Projects

Did anyone say “Covid project?”

I certainly didn’t, especially not in 2019. 2020 is a different animal. One of the blessings of this strange and taxing year has been helping my songwriter friend Nicole Unser put together this companion devotional to her most recent album.

Before the virus hit, Nicole had started her “story night” home concert series where she weaves her music with stories about her life into the lives of those who are in her audience, who quickly become participants and even part of her rapidly growing extended family. It’s a unique and moving experience, but much of it came to a screeching halt in March when the world shut down.

One good thing that came out of it was this journal, which takes you on a “road trip” that encourages the reader / listener to examine their own lives in light of how the past impacts the present, and how God brings context and healing to it all, if we allow him.

I’ll be honest, this is the sort of thing that women tend to gravitate toward and men shy away from. But if we’ve learned nothing else this year, it’s that mental and spiritual pain is not just a female thing. We’re watching our society implode largely because we don’t know how to deal with what’s going on upstairs, in our heads. If something inside you is telling you that not everything is OK, and you are wondering if that is something that God can help with or even cares about, then this is a road trip you should embark on.

In the foreward I wrote, I talk about Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott and his struggles with depression and anxiety. There were some who criticized him for being so open about that. But guess what? When we don’t deal with these things, they fester and damage other people, even if we can’t see what these things do to ourselves. There’s plenty of evidence of the consequences of that kind of denial all around us.

So, are you up for the road trip challenge? Head over to Nicoleunser.com to pick up a copy, or even to just check out her music, video mini-documentary, and podcast appearance where she encourages us to take on this important and timely topic.

Gazette-Tribune Days

by Brent R Baker | Oct 14, 2019 | Journalism, Other Projects

Veteran Features

I’d only been a sports reporter when I started at the G-T. And I still love sports. But something special happened when I sat down to talk to veterans of our armed forces to hear and share their stories. Thanks largely to Michael Stewart – an Okanogan County vet whose story I would still like to write someday – these men shared what it was like to risk everything for their country abroad or their families at home. Please read these.

Gerald Baker (my grandfather) – World War II
Ken Fulford – Viet Nam
John Jones – Viet Nam
Hugh “Doc” Maycumber – World War II
Floyd Kennedy – World War II
Jim Pruitt – World War II
Adam Brazil – Iraq

A few other favorites

Jack (Black) was Here – My only celebrity interview, and my most-read newspaper story.

A Ca vallo – The story behind Quill Hyde’s fantastical, ominously charming, miraculously monstrous mobile party wagon.

A Taste of History – 105-year-old Lula Gardner on life in the early 1900s. Not my best-written story but one of the cool ones.

“Half-baked” columns

Little did I know that the idea for the name of my newspaper column would be co-opted by popular culture. When I first hired on at the Ogemaw County (MI) Herald in 2000, managing editor Bruce Bischoff forced me to start writing a column. That was his good move. Allowing him to suggest its name may not have been.

“Half-baked,” he said. “It’s perfect.”

I thought, “Yes! People always think that columns are poorly developed, and their writers lacking intelligence. And it goes with my name. Why not laugh at myself?”

Bruce was thinking of the movie by the same name that had come out a couple years earlier. A stoner comedy. It went right over my head. Less than a year later, a “Half-baked” column had won a state-wide award, and Bruce brought to my attention that he’d played me and that it was too late to make a change.

Too few years later, Bruce passed away. The column, at first dedicated only to sports, expanded to cover other topics during my time at the Okanogan County (WA) Gazette-Tribune. I kept the column name.

Bruce had actually hired me while standing on the sidelines of the old Detroit Silverdome during a state championship football game. A half-baked idea that worked out pretty well.

The Michigan editions of those columns exist only in bound editions in newspaper offices in West Branch and Standish, MI. But if you want a slice of deep rural life in North Central Washington, go for it: http://www.gazette-tribune.com/sports/half-baked/