Richard Stubblefield  -  I was born on August 21, 1951 in the old Santa Cruz County Hospital on Emeline Street. Even though I was born in Santa Cruz, I always have and always will tell people that I am a native son of Watsonville, California.

I am the youngest of five boys - William Lonero (class of '60), Lawrence Stubblefield Fletes (class of '64), Michael Stubblefield (class of '65) and Ronald Stubblefield (class of '67). A younger sister, Patricia Marie, was called to the Lord as a stillborn infant on New Year's Day of 1959. Ronald and William were called home in May 2006 and January 2007 respectively.

My elementary school years were spent at Salsipuedes Elementary School, from where I graduated in 1965. I then entered WHS in the fall of 1965, graduating as a member of the class of 1969. I attended parts of the next two school years at Cabrillo College in Aptos.

Since March of 1975, I have been employed by three local companies. First, I was employed by Green Giant Company for 16 years until the plant's closure in 1991. From there, I went to work for Red Bryan and Frank Saveria at New West Foods for the next 11 years until the company's sale and eventual closure in 2002. In November of 2002, I was hired by the Pajaro Valley Unified School District, where I am still employed today. For what is almost 34 years, I have been employed in the payroll department of each organization over that time and have also enjoyed the support of all three employers over the years encouraging me to pursue my continued service to the youth of our community.

In 1967, I began what you might call my life's passion of serving the community's youth by getting involved with the Salsipuedes Little League. This service has continued for the last 42 years in various capacities as an umpire, team manager and league administrator for Salsipuedes, Watsonville National and the new Pajaro Valley Little Leagues. In the mid-to-late 1980s, I was recruited by WHS head football coach Ron Myers to serve as the public address announcer for the Wildcatz freshman and junior varsity home football games. I first got to know Ron when his oldest son Rob was a member of my Braves Little League team. In addition to the public address service for Catz football, I have also had the pleasure of sitting next to Ed Kelly as the scoreboard operator for the Catz varsity home football games on Friday nights as well for the last twenty years or so. In the early 90s, Bob Linney, the boys' varsity basketball coach, asked me to become the announcer for the Catz home games. I was recommended to Bob by Marilyn and Jimmy Valentine, former WHS parents and boosters. To this day, I am still in the fortunate position of being able to support all of these activities.

For the last three years I have also had the extremely rewarding honor of being an active participant for the annual radiothon for St. Jude Children's Hospital, which is hosted locally by KTOM 92.7 FM in Salinas. The 2008 radiothon involved 26 hours over a two day period of taking pledges from the many supporters of this worthy cause.