We want you to maybe get a little wet

We need some volunteers.

Wait!

Come back. This will be fun.

No meetings. No spending your own money. This won’t even keep you from your favorite TV show. You can fulfill the requirements during a commercial break.

We need volunteer weather watchers.

The hardest part of the job will involve walking outside when it’s raining. Just put a newspaper over your head and you won’t get wet.

The National Weather Service does a good job providing information about local storms, but that information is not always timely.

NWS’ official observers report rainfall totals, for example, early in the morning. Since we make this newspaper late at night, local rainfall totals are not always available until the next day.

Also, rainfall totals can vary widely from one side of town to another. Just because the NWS observer received 1.6 inches of rain at her house does not mean every Clovis resident received 1.6 inches of rain.

So we’re looking for about a dozen volunteers willing to field phone calls from reporters and answer weather questions.

How much rain did you get?

Any hail?

Any neighborhood trees uprooted by wind?

We will provide the rain gauge.

Contact me at the phone number or e-mail address found at the end of this column. And hurry. It’s probably going to rain again in a month or two.

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I learned a new trick last week.

Darrell Todd Maurina, our police reporter, taught me.

We can see what newspapers across the country are saying about Clovis or eastern New Mexico by going to this Internet site:

www.news.google.com

Type in a key word or phrase and the search will reveal stories from just about any on-line newspaper that has used that word or phrase in a recent story.

That’s how we found out a Cannon Air Force Base lieutenant colonel has been named to a court martial jury panel in Illinois.

The story was first reported in the Peoria Journal Star and Maurina found it when he did a search for Cannon Air Force Base.

The system is not perfect. If you’re searching for “Clovis,” you will learn a lot about Clovis, Calif., in addition to stories reported in the Clovis News Journal.

But it’s a great way to find local news in unlikely places.

From the Editor’s Desk is a weekly memo to CNJ readers. David Stevens can be reached at 763-6991, extension 310, or by e-mail: