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Sarah Reith at the Promise of Paradise event, Grace Hudson Museum October 2019

Sarah Reith

News Director

Sarah Reith was born into a circus family in San Francisco, and ran away to join the army as soon as she turned 18. She was a parachute rigger at the jump school on Fort Benning, Georgia, where one of her incidental duties was “wind dummy,” or jumping out of an airplane ahead of a class of airborne students so the instructors could check the wind conditions. After concluding that life as a dummy lacked intellectual stimulation, she used her GI Bill to earn a BA in creative writing at Mills College for women. She worked as a bike messenger and a barista for some years before going back to school in Germany. She studied for her MA in German literature in the shadow of a medieval castle.

She came to Mendocino County in 2008 and worked as a reporter and freelancer, joining KZYX as a community news reporter in 2017. In 2018-2019, she had the life-changing honor of working with local theater and history maven Kate Magruder and brilliant reporter and policy whiz Laura Hamburg on “Promise of Paradise: Back to the Land Oral Histories of Mendocino County.” The half-hour programs aired weekly on KZYX for a year.

Sarah became the KZYX News Director in March, 2023.

  • Local News
    Today is the last day to vote in the presidential primary election, which includes supervisors races in the first, second, and fourth districts. It also includes Measure R, renewal of the abandoned vehicle abatement program. That will result in a one dollar fee for every vehicle registered to an owner with an address in the county. There will be an additional two or maybe three dollars for certain commercial vehicles, depending on whether the impartial analysis or the text of the ballot measure is correct. Presumably, if it passes, whatever the fee is will be renewed for another ten years.
  • Local News
    A firefighter was late to the fire at the Leggett post office on Friday night — because he rolled his truck on the way to fight the blaze.22-year-old Brian Lewis caught a ride from the crash site to the fire, where he helped with the mopping-up effort. He’s borrowing a friend’s vehicle until he can replace the one that was most likely totaled after he hit a patch of hail.Snow fell even at lower elevations over the weekend, and as of Sunday afternoon, Highway 101 at the top of the grade was down to one lane from the Haehl Creek bridge to Highway 20, due to snow. And snow accumulated on 175 between Hopland and LakeportThe Leggett Valley Fire Department reported that at around 5:40 pm on Friday night, lightning struck a large redwood tree just outside the post office. “The tree was shattered and fell through the building,” according to a Facebook post by the department. Half an hour later, the post office was fully engulfed. It was a total loss, but the local market was saved.The seven-member Leggett Volunteer Fire Department did have help from the neighbors. Caltrans personnel and firefighters from Piercy, Laytonville, and CalFire assisted at the scene.As for Lewis, he spent Sunday morning driving around in a borrowed truck to make sure the neighbors were okay.Friends have set up a Gofundme account to help Lewis replace his truck. It’s up to a little over half of the $10,000 goal as of Monday.
  • Local News
    Seven inmates appear to have overdosed on narcotics at the Mendocino County at jail this afternoon. Sheriff Matt Kendall reported that five of them were taken to the hospital, and one of them passed away. Kendall spoke to kzyx late in the afternoon on March first.
  • Local News
    The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously on February 27 to offer a hiring bonus to entice an Ag Commissioner to head up the ag department. The county has been without an ag commissioner since 2022. This puts farmers and customers of any business that uses scales or other measuring devices at a disadvantage, because the Ag Commissioner also serves as the sealer of weights and measures.
  • Local News
    Two supervisors recused themselves from a closed session discussion about the first round of botched ballots that were sent out for the March 5 primary election.
  • Local News
    The VSO will move back to the small house in a quiet neighborhood, after an unpopular relocation to the Public Health building less than a block away.
  • Local News
    The Fort Bragg City Council voted unanimously at its February 26 meeting to approve a resolution calling for a cease-fire in Gaza, after about twenty people spoke in favor of it.Abraham Cohen, of a group called SURJ, or Showing up for Racial Justice, opened by reading the document. It also condemns the October 7 Hamas attack on Israeli civilians and calls for the release of all hostages and the unrestricted entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
  • Local News
    The Board of Supervisors chambers, the overflow room, and the courtyard at the Mendocino county government campus were packed yesterday for a highly interactive public participation hearing about two proposals from AT&T.
  • Local News
    Some voters will get a third round of ballots as the elections office scrambles to make sure they are voting in the correct district, according to boundaries that were adjusted three years ago.
  • Local News
    Some voters are receiving a second round of erroneous ballots to replace the misprint that every voter in the county received earlier this month.