It is always interesting to me how the people that make the greatest impact on my life are brought into it and for John McReynolds it was a skateboard competition that was the catalyst.  A unique setting for two adults that were not proficient skateboarders.  He was a sports reporter for the Lompoc Record and was the tasked with promoting Lompoc’s first skateboard competition at the new skate park.  I was just trying to figure out how to run a skateboard competition.  And so our paths crossed.  What initially struck me about John was how he cared about the human element of the event.  The tricks to be performed, the venue itself, what type of boards or wheels were not important in his approach.  It was the participants, the competitors, the persons involved in making the event happen that he focused on and wrote about.  I remember observing this with interest and realizing later this tells you much about who John is fundamentally.  

Growing up in Modesto, California, one of John’s clearest memories is of watching the evening news and seeing the march over the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama.  He was appalled by what he saw and realized there was something going on that he didn’t understand.  The cultural climate in California was and still is very different than Alabama and his take away from that experience was, ‘We need to be listening and learning, asking questions and find out what role we can play so this doesn’t happen again.’  After speaking at length with John I wonder if this is what ultimately led him to his writing career and subsequent endeavors though the path was not a direct one.  

From Modesto, John found himself in the Bay area attending college where he met Barbara, his wife and the person he sites as the most influential in his life.  John shares he has a lot of crazy ideas and it is Barbara with her insightful questions and gift with relationships who helps rein those ideas into a semblance of reality when possible.  She is also his editor, his confidant, the person he looks to for honest feedback and confirmation.  It was also Barbara who brought John to Lompoc when she accepted a job with LUSD as a speech therapist.

Once in Lompoc, John walked into the local newspaper office and offered to be a sports reporter without pay for a limited time.  This volunteer position with the Lompoc Record grew into a part-time job as a sports reporter with the occasional feature article and took him on a journey meeting many different individuals in the valley.  His somewhat unplanned writing profession then grew to include three books about our local community; “From Pinot to Padres”, “Vanished” and “Jalama Beach.”  Books that are filled with facts and dates, but as I experienced with his sports writing, there is an emphasis on the people and their experiences.  The dates and facts are secondary to the humanity of the stories.  

John has since retired from the newspaper business but found himself once again playing the part of the reporter after attending the march for Spc. Marlon Brumfield in September of 2019.  Seeing the nearly 800 people in attendance, mostly of color, John was amazed as he had not seen another gathering like this in our community.  His old reporter senses were awakened and he began to ask questions about who had organized the event and to what purpose.  This lead him to Yasmin Dawson, who with no prior knowledge of how to organize a march, had navigated the logistics of making something she believed in happen.  She was a leader bringing people together, reminding him of the cartoon at his desk.  In the first frame a big fish is chasing a whole lot of little fish.  The next frame shows the little fish have formed into the shape of the big fish which are now chasing the single big fish.  Just like the march in 1965 and again in 2019, they are all a demonstration of the power of collective action. 

Perhaps because of this belief in collective action, John also has a quote at his work area which his wife Barbara shares with me, “I am one person and I can’t do everything but I can do something.”  She continues, ‘All the time I have known John he has tried to do something for social justice, to make life better for everyone.’  One of the most visible ways John has done this is through the Lompoc Valley of the Flowers Peace Prize.  Initially conceived over a discussion with his daughter Victoria, a graduate student at the time, she maintained that every town should have a peace prize.  John explains, ‘I was wanting a way to acknowledge the things people do in the community to bridge gaps and bring people together.  To find people and encourage them, people that think and want to make a difference. The Peace prize was a way to institutionalize that.’  The award itself is made up of wood, ceramic tile and copper as a representation of creating peace out of diversity; a coming together of the three divergent materials and creating a single beautiful piece of artwork.  Fittingly, the designer of this symbol is John’s daughter, Victoria.  And the most recent recipient of the honor is Yasmin, the person he met by joining a march and following his reporter’s instincts.   

As for John’s heroes, he states first and foremost there is his wife Barbara, then is Yasmin, his grandson Mateo ‘Who can do things I never even think of’ and John Lewis.  He then shares a list of names from our community including Victor Jordan (recently named Man of the Year for the Lompoc Valley), Ernie Freund, Pastor Paschal Hardy from Queen of Angels Church, Jeremy Ball who has become active in the community and is a newly elected City Council member.  He then speaks of Bill Mullins, a Lompoc City Council member for three terms, who was very intelligent, asked numerous questions and was well read but presented as just another person.  John summed up who his heroes are with ‘Ultimately, people that have been able to self actualize, think of themselves together with others or are like the little fish and gather together to become the big fish.  Those are my heroes.’  May we all strive to be little fishes coming together, supporting each other to make a difference and to be heroes to one and other.  ~♥~