Page 11 - Sanger Herald 5-24-18 E-edition

Lifestyles
SANGER HERALD • 3B • THURSDAY, MAY 24, 2018
Recovering stolen cars earns deputy Optimist recognition
Sanger
By Mike Nemeth
Sanger Herald
Deputy Jason Royal has ventured into Sanger a number of times tracking stolen cars.
That’s what he does. Royal, a member of the Fresno Help Eliminate Auto Theft, or HEAT, Task Force, earned the distinction of becoming one of the Greater Fresno Optimist Club honorees at its Respect for Law luncheon May 17 at Pardini’s in Fresno.
“We actually chased a stolen car into the city of Sanger about four months ago,” he said.
Royal’s been credited with making 41 auto theft related arrests and recovering 109 vehicles in the past year, ranking him among the top detectives in his 10-person team.
Mike Nemeth / Sanger Herald
Deputy Jason Royal, right, was honored by the Fresno Opimist Club along with other law enforcement folks.
Flores of the Fresno Police Department and Valley Crime Stoppers. The Optimist Club has been issuing the awards since 1960.
“We get called on a regular basis (to Sanger),” Royal said. “We just had a victim two weeks ago.”
He said his team recovered the car, which had the keys apparently left in the ignition. However, the vehicle was stolen a second time because the thief had the ingenuity to copy the keys. Royal said the vehicle was recovered a second time, too.
And he advised two things: Don’t leave keys in the car or on the car, like on top of a tire, and get the locks changed if the vehicle is stolen and recovered.
The HEAT crew busted a chop shop in Sanger, where stolen cars were
taken either to alter their appearance and vehicle identification number or stripped for parts. “He was cutting up cars in his house,” Royal said. The suspect, who is in custody and awaiting trial, lived near Central and Bethel avenues in an area known as Tombstone.
Deputy Sheriff Tim Herzog, also a HEAT team member, said there’s something of a network in the Sanger-Parlier- Kingsburg-Selma-Reedley area where criminals specialize in stolen vehicles.
Royal said other than being careful and locking up a vehicle, he advised car owners “no warmups, quit leaving a spare key in the vehicle” and “get a secondary theft-protection device.”
Herzog added, “Don’t let somebody named Joe drive
your car.”
Royal said the team
does joke around a lot but gets results. The members present for his Optimist award said that they’re receiving reports of stolen vehicles that include quite a bit of variety, with multiple manufacturers and models. He was responding to a question of the whether a Honda Civic or Honda Accord was the most popular pick for thieves.
“Civics and Accords are still popular, but a lot of everything out there (is stolen),” Royal said. “There are equal opportunity offenders.”
The CHP’s 2017 Vehicle Theft Facts report lists the 1998 Honda Civic, 2000 Civic and 1997 Honda Accord as the most popular cars stolen that year. For
See Optimist, Page 2B
And Royal, wearing a suit and tie for the event while his team wore more casual jeans and polo shirts, talked a little about his mission to tackle the problem of stolen vehicles after the club handed out its seven awards. Also receiving awards were special agent
Joshua Copeland of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Officer Greg Makel of the California Highway Patrol, senior district attorney investigator Marshall Varela, Cpl. Scott Borsch of the Clovis Police Department, Officer Ron
Camping & fishing with scouts
By Mike Nemeth
Sanger Herald
The scouts with Pack 322 gathered around the fire pit they had just built using rocks.
They had arranged dry grasses and small twigs in a geometric pile in the center of the pit, fulfilling the first part of their mission to earn merit badges for camping. All they needed was fire. And cub master Antony Ricci pulled out the magnesium fire starter and went to work.
Sparks flew, scouts clustered around shouting encouragement and all was well behind Quail Lake Community Church near the shores of its little lake that evening on May 18.
Sort of.
Despite Ricci’s efforts, the grass just wasn’t catching. So Amanda Duffey, a church member and former Girl Scout, discretely struck a wooden match and lit the opposite side of the fire from where Ricci sent his cascading magnesium sparks. And it worked.
“Shhhh,” she said quietly.
Juan Rangel Jr., 10, had mentioned using a “flame thrower” but later explained he was talking about a torch. That would have worked, too.
But method didn’t matter. This was camp night. The boys, a couple dozen of them ranging from kindergarten to teenager, had a blast pitching tents, sawing branches into usable firewood and listening to instruction. Of course, they also played games.
Red Light Green Light
What To Do When You Feel You Are Sinking — Part 3
We have been looking at storms we all face in life.
Here are some ways to face the storms:
No. 1: Have COURAGE because Jesus is with you!
No. 2: Take a Risk in Faith. “If you want to walk on water you’ve got to get out of the boat.”
Last week’s No. 3: Stay Focused on Jesus and this week, No. 4, Don’t Doubt -
Mike Nemeth / Sanger Herald
Scouts with Pack 322 go camping and earn merit badges last week.
was amongst the first. “About half these kids have never been camping before,” said Bobbi-Ann Phillips, organizer, founder and tireless proponent for the troop. “More than half have never been fishing. When we found that out, weknewwehadtodo something. Every child should have have a camping
experience.”
So Phillips teamed with
Quail Lake church member Richard Keck, the guy who stages bike rodeos and fixes and repairs bikes for kids all over the Central Valley. And the two of them organized the event.
That Friday evening as the sun began to fade, Keck, wearing a shirt with a stylized drill that said, “I do my bit,” explained the significance he believed the experience would have on the scouts’ lives.
“The kids ought to have a really good growth weekend,” he said. “They’ll learn cooking, camping, wood carving and whittling.” Then he mentioned wood carving and whittling are about the same thing.
“We’ll actually do a lead pouring in a mold. It’ll be fun.”
The lead pouring came from a tradition Keck’s dad did with him. They’d whittle reverse molds for the lead and create rustic art.
“It’s a little bit of a challenge for the older scouts,” he said.
Zach Butts, 14, and his brother Donaven, 11, fit into the latter category. They had been camping and
got a lot more faith than you realize. Everybody has faith. We were born with it. The difference is in what you do with your faith. When you’re in a car on the freeway, you have faith that you’re not going to get in an accident. When you get on a plane, you have faith that the pilot is going to keep the thing flying.
You have faith that when you do a job that somebody is going to pay you for it. You use faith every day of your life. You can’t live without faith. We’re not
fishing. And both busted broncos and knew all about rodeo. There appeared not much outdoors stuff the pair hadn’t done with their dad, Josh, a scout master.
“I’ve even used a chainsaw,” Donaven said.
And both of them showed the others how to do stuff.
Keck said both boys are already bull riders. Then Keck began talking about his childhood and a Kentucky long rifle he shot. The gun, which was about 8 feet long and took lead shot and loose gunpowder, was his uncle’s and part of a collection of 40 or so distinctive firearms the man owned. Keck also mentioned at one point in his youth “sword” fishing with bayonets.
Really. They don’t make them like that any more.
As the evening wore on, the scouts got more and more into their surroundings. The scene was quiet and had the feeling of remoteness despite being close to the junction of Shields and McCall avenues. The setting sun cast shadows on the long private lake where a number of wild birds had taken up residence.
“I saw the mother duck and her babies,” said Paxton Vasquez, 7.
Then he went off to play Red Light Green Light.
The reporter can be contacted by email at nemethfeatures@gmail.com or by phone at the Herald at (559) 875-2511.
talking about having faith or not. We’re talking about who you put it in. You put your faith in the wrong things and you will get disappointed.
Put your faith in God and watch the miracles happen!
Pastor Sam Estes is city advance director and facilitates the Sanger Community Task Force that meets the first and third Tuesdays every month. He can be reached at pastorsam51@gmail.com.
Put Your Faith in God!
You need to believe your beliefs and you need to
doubt your doubts.
Peter looks around and
he starts to sink. The Bible says in Matthew 14:31, “Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. ‘You of little faith,’ he said. ‘Why did you doubt?’” Notice he didn’t say, “You of no faith.”
The no-faith people were those who never got out of the boat. A lot of times we think the reason we don’t have any miracles is
because we don’t have great faith. You don’t need great faith. It’s not the size of your faith that matters. It’s the size of your God.
Put a little faith inabigGodand
you get big results. To Jesus, walking on water only requires a little faith. I wouldn’t have thought that. If I had walked on water, I would have thought, “Man, I’ve got great faith!” I would have considered that
great faith to have walked on water.
Jesus says it doesn’t take great faith. It just takes a little faith. But you’ve got to put it in me. What is faith? Faith is something you
do. You’ve got to get out of the boat to show faith. Faith isn’t just saying, “Oh I believe! I believe!” No, you’ve got to put it on the line.
You might think that you don’t have any faith. You’ve
PASTOR’S CORNER
Pastor Sam Estes