Fresno Famous

In lieu of a comment on the announcement post at the Beehive ...

 If anyone ever wondered what kind of city Fresno was, they could get more than a sense of it from Mike Osegueda.

I'm not talking about him personally, although he is as good an ambassador for the city as I've seen. No, the telling thing here lies in his career tradjectory. When he started working at The Fresno Bee in 2002, there was probably little indication he would be much more than what they hired; "a fresh-out-of-school hire for The Bee," a guy "who had only written about sports" (his words).

I mean, he wasn't even from Fresno.

What Mike has done and become since then is a shining example of the kind of opportunity this city affords those who are smart and willing to put in the work. There is no doubt that he's talented, ambitious and a tireless self promoter. He also has a higher-level understanding of the interworkings of this whole digital media thing. Those qualities would make him a success in any market.

In Fresno though, he was able to become an icon.

That is only slight hyperbole. 

The city did give him his own day.

And he did create an entire community of bloggers, music lovers, taco-fanatics and Fresnophiles. He didn't create it from scratch and he didn't do it alone by any means, but at times he did much of the heavy lifting.

Other papers in other cities have columnists and there are some who are no doubt loved by readers. But to many, Mike Osegueda is more than the columns he writes. He's not just the face of the Fresno Bee. He IS The Bee (or the Beehive at the very least).

And he will be missed (yes, I know he is not leaving town, or even the blogosphere).