Hanford Insider: City Council News, National Night Out, and Symphony Orchestra Highlights

Transcript

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On this week's episode of the Hanford Insider, rob will give us a quick community news update and review some of the busy fall calendar ahead.

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Then Dave Green stops by to share with us about the upcoming season of the King's Symphony Orchestra, and later I'll be back with a high school football recap.

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This is the Hanford Insider for Monday, september 30th.

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Hey everybody, welcome to the 60th episode of the Hanford Insider.

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I'm your host, Rob Bentley.

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Thanks for listening.

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In community news, the Hanford City Council will be meeting on Tuesday, october 1st.

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At the study session beginning at 5 pm, there will be a presentation highlighting the history, condition and needs of city-owned public buildings with historic designations in Amherst downtown.

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During the regular meeting at 7, there will be a badge-pending ceremony and oath of office for the promotion of Battalion Chief Tom McKean Congratulations.

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The only item to be discussed in general business is the second reading and adoption of the new ordinance to severely restrict sitting, lying down and sleeping on public and private properties and the addition of provisions to address camping on private property and prohibiting trespassing on business premises.

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The next City Council meeting will be held on Tuesday, october 15th.

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The City is working on the Active Transportation Plan which will address many items, including potential trails.

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They are accepting comments through October 18th.

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Visit the city website for more information.

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It's not even Halloween yet and the Salvation Army would like you to volunteer to be a kettlebell ringer this upcoming holiday season.

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If you'd be interested, call the Salvation Army at 559-582-4434.

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Speaking of the holiday season, the Hanford Chamber of Commerce has announced that registration for the 2024 Christmas Parade is now open For an application.

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Email them at info at hanfordchambercom.

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I'd also like to give a special shout out to my alma mater, monroe Elementary School, for being recognized as a 2024 National Blue Ribbon School.

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The last time a school in our area was chosen was over 25 years ago.

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Congratulations, mustangs and Hanford Elementary School District.

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It's bittersweet to announce that the Workingman's store in downtown Hanford is closing after 87 years.

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The current owner, tim Kuhlwein, is retiring after 50 years at the store years.

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The current owner, tim Kuhlwein, is retiring after 50 years at the store.

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Their liquidation sale starts this Tuesday and continues as long as items remain or December 22nd.

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Here are some items coming up on our community calendar On Monday, september 30th, mayor Travis Payton will be speaking about the Hanford Revenue Measure H at the 1776 Sons of Liberty meeting being held at the Hanford Elks Lodge beginning at 7 pm.

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Come and hear his presentation and ask questions about this important moment for the future of Hanford.

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If you're a supporter of Measure H, I encourage you to visit the Vote yes on Measure H Facebook page for more information and how you can help spread the word.

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Vote yes on Measure H Facebook page for more information and how you can help spread the word.

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I'll be hosting a special show with all of the city council candidates on the October 14th episode of the Insider and I need your help.

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I'd like them to answer my questions as well as some of yours.

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If you'd like to participate, please email me at hanfordinsider at gmailcom with your question and listen to the show on the 14th to see if your question is one of the ones selected.

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Thanks for participating.

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Hanford's National Night Out will be held this Tuesday, october 1st, in the Civic Park, beginning at 6 pm.

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Come out, enjoy all of the fun games, information booths and visit with our local first responders.

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North Star Courts, located at 682 West North Star Drive, will be holding a community celebration and ribbon cutting on Thursday, october 3rd at 4 pm.

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Tour the grounds and learn about the 72-unit project that is providing amenities, support services and a high-quality, affordable housing for individuals, families and farm workers.

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At the Thursday Night Marketplace this week, the theme is paint downtown pink in honor of cancer awareness.

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The band Flash Drive, a classic rock band, will be performing.

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The 45th annual Renaissance Fair will be held in the Civic Park on October 5th and 6th.

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Admission is five dollars for adults, three dollars for children under 12, and kids under three are free.

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Dress in your finest period garb and immerse yourself in a day full of adventure, laughter and unforgettable memories.

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Don't miss out on this legendary event.

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The Tulare Kings Ride to Life will be holding their annual National Life Chain on Sunday, october 6th at the corner of 11th and Lacey in Hanford from 2 to 3 pm.

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If you have an event coming up and you'd like some help getting the word out, let's work together.

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Send your information to hanfordinsider at gmailcom.

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Be sure to subscribe to my weekly newsletter to get a complete calendar of events.

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The Kings County Symphony Orchestra has a 61-year history in the Hanford-LaMoure area and we are very pleased to have with us on the show today music director David Green.

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How are you doing, David?

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I'm doing phenomenal.

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Thanks for having me on.

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Hey, David, I know you're excited.

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This is your second season with the orchestra, right?

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Yeah, I took over the directorship about a quarter of the way through last year, so this is second season with the group, but first full season starting out.

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Great, great.

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So you have some concerts coming up.

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But before we talk specifically about the concerts, can you tell us a little bit about your background?

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You and I have been friends for a few years but I know people in the Hanford area may not be as familiar with the name and everything and you're an outstanding music educator and we're certainly glad to have you.

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But can you kind of share with us a little bit about your background in music education and what led you to take the baton of the King's Symphony?

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Sure, well, I'm from Bakersfield, california, and I headed college at Fresno State, so my Central Valley roots are pretty deep there.

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After graduating from Fresno State, I moved back to Bakersfield to start an 11-year career as the band and orchestra director at Independence High School.

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This doing band and marching band and that was kind of my big calling, so I thought at the time.

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But I also had this secondary kind of side career, growing up as a pianist and that's where I grew to love Beethoven and Mozart and Chopin and a lot of the composers that are not associated with band.

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And so when I got to Independence High School I inherited a small string program of 19.

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And we built out a really robust orchestra program there.

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We ended up getting over 40 strings, expanding to doing a full symphony orchestra, taking that group to festival One of the few groups in the Central Valley that was taking groups at that time to the festival with a full orchestra and that program is still doing that with their new director.

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So I'm pretty proud of that legacy.

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But then I left Independence High School in 2021 to work at Bakersfield City School District.

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I'm an academic coach for the visual and performing arts department where I get to interact with a lot of junior high and elementary band and orchestra directors and choir directors and a lot of great music and arts administrators and teachers, but didn't really have a conducting component of this and so kind of been seeking out directorship positions of adult groups to scratch the itch, because even though I'm not in a teaching conducting role officially, it's my day job.

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Conducting and making music from the podium is a huge passion of mine, and so when I saw the posting available for the King Symphony Orchestra, I applied and got selected and it's been a really great partnership that I've really enjoyed.

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It's a special group of people and a bunch of great musicians and I'm just really excited to be part of this really special organization.

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Yeah, I've had the opportunity to play not currently, but I've had the opportunity to play with a number of the musicians that participate in the orchestra and I know that a lot of times people think that the King's Symphony Orchestra is made up of a bunch of musicians from Kings County and unfortunately we don't have string programs here in Kings County and that's something that we, the music education community, definitely would like, but trying to figure out how to make that happen, so we depend on some local people.

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There are some locals that play.

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Maybe they moved into the area.

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I know that a lot of your musicians come from areas outside of Kings County Fresno, madera, kings, tulare, kern County.

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Can you tell us about some of the makeup of the orchestra and kind of how it all fits together?

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Yeah, I mean, just like you said, it's kind of comprised of different musicians ranging from Kern County to Fresno County.

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There are some string programs and very fine ones, just across the 198 back over on Invisalia and so there is kind of a good basis there.

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But a lot of people have background playing strings, you know from previous experience or maybe they played when they were younger and in other areas that offered string programs and they they came to Kings County later on as adults and aren't necessarily music educators but they are either retired or in their non-music careers and just want spots to play.

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But I think that's kind of.

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The unique aspect of the group is that it's a community-oriented orchestra and a full orchestra at that, and there's not a lot of those out there.

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You and I, rob, are both music educators know there's not a lot of those out there.

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You know you and I, rob, are both music educators and we've worked together a lot on some CMEA Central stuff and it's not hard to find a community band out there and obviously you know we both have some band background and we love that.

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But there's nothing quite like a full orchestra and you know it's been really exciting about that and I think that it's just a really cool opportunity to um to have that in Kings County, and so really we're just going out there and we're recruiting and looking for string players who want to come play with us.

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Um, it is a full orchestra so it does have, um, you know, the full compliment of winds and percussion, you know, in it, um.

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But I but I always try to make sure that in our concerts that we've got some pieces that feature just our string ensemble, not just for the brass to get a chop break but to really showcase the phenomenal talent of these string players and what they can do.

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Basically, to answer the question, it spans from Kern County to Fresno.

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There's been some people that have been playing in it for many, many years, but part of my job as director is to work with our personnel manager and go out and recruit, and so if you're listening to this and you play a string instrument, get in contact with us, because we would love to get you involved somehow.

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Speaking of getting in contact, the symphony does have a website.

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It's kingssymphonyorg kingssymphonyorg, and there's lots of information about the orchestra and how you can get involved, and there's also great advertisements about your upcoming concerts, including the Fall Classics concert at the Hanford Fox Theater on October 13th.

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Can you tell us a little bit about what's on the program for that concert?

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Yes for sure.

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So the big highlight of the concert will be in the second half.

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We'll be performing the entirety of Symphony no 2 by Alexander Borodin.

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He was one of the Russian Five famous composers from that era, along with names like Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov.

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But the Borodin Symphony no 2 is not an overly played symphony but it's a really exciting one that is going to be really, really fun to listen to.

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And then we'll be incorporating a little bit of Beethoven on there, the Turkish March from his play the Ruins of Athens, using some Aaron Copland as well, a variation of the Shaker melody, which is a portion of his Appalachian spring ballet that he rearranged for community orchestra, and then featuring our strings looking at playing a Dante Testito by Gene Sibelius.

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So there's a lot of great music coming up on it and kind of a smorgasbord of, you know, different composers from different eras.

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You know we do call it the Fall Classics Concert.

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So we've got a little bit of romantic, a little bit of classical, kind of spanning some different eras and genres, there.

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That I think is going to be really exciting and really fun for the audience to listen to.

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For sure, and I know that you have three other concerts on the calendar for this season.

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You have your Christmas at the Fox on December 15th and I understand the high school choirs from Hanford High, hanford West and Sierra Pacific High some of their students are going to be participating as well.

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That must be pretty exciting.

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Yeah, we're really, really excited about it.

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This was an idea that was actually launched previously with our previous director, Jeff Fritz, in coordination with Jennifer McGill, one of the Hanford High School choir directors, and of course, we didn't quite get that pulled off in the past, but we're definitely going to be using it this semester or this year after the December concert.

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So it's going to be really, really exciting and we had a meeting inside the Fox with our president, Bill Wilkinson, and Jen just you know, kind of up to date and figure out the logistics.

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It's going to be a lot of bodies on a stage, but we're definitely going to make it happen.

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And then after that you take a little break and you have the March 16th spring concert, and then the concert that probably is the most visible one, because it's outside in the park, is the June 1st Pops in the Park and that's a lot of patriotic music, broadway music, those types of things.

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I know that's always a very popular concert.

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You mentioned earlier your partnership with some of the local schools for rehearsal space.

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Can you give a shout out to maybe some of the people that kind of help make that work, because obviously it's difficult administration building so we can't rehearse there, but we want to give a big shout out to them.

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We've also had Sierra Pacific High School open up our doors to us, so we're really just grateful to all of those schools and school districts and administrators who have been able to work with us and help us get in, because we are an orchestra without our own building so we do rely on that local support to make that happen support to make that happen.

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So, speaking of local support, one of the biggest events that the King's Symphony puts on is the Fall Classics Gala fundraiser out at the King's Country Club on November 12th, and they have information about it on their website.

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But, dave, what can people expect at the gala at the Country Club on November 12th?

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Well, this is our second annual gala and last year was a tremendous success Big fundraiser, great dinner, some live entertainment from some of our musicians, some silent auction items, but really it's just an opportunity to get together with some food and some drink and some members of the Hanford community and help raise money for a great cause.

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This is a community group, but that is I mean it's free.

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There are some costs associated with insurance and music and rental space for performance, and so raising funds is always an important thing, but this gala dinner is a great fundraiser for us that allows us to do that.

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So we would really encourage anyone in the area who'd like to come out and support by buying a ticket, um, come out and enjoy the dinner, enjoy some cocktails.

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If you flock me down, I'll most certainly buy you one Um, but we would love to have you out there, you know, supporting the orchestra and and helping raise funds for these talented musicians to keep on doing what they're doing.

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That's going to be a great event.

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I know that the support of the community kind of keeps the orchestra going after 61 years and we're looking forward to your concert schedule.

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And again, a reminder that the fall classics concert is going to be held on October 13th at 4 PM in the Hanford Fox theater.

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You can get tickets on the King's symphony website or through the Hanford Fox theater box office.

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And Dave, thank you for coming on the show and we look forward to seeing you at some of the concerts coming up.

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All right.

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Well, thank you, rob, it was great being on here and thank you for having me on to talk about the King's Symphony Orchestra.

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And now it's time for Hanford Insider Sports with Eric Bentley.

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Sierra Pacific was the only team in action and they took advantage of last week's bye beating Caruthers on the road 40-21.

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The Golden Bears now improve to 2-3 on the year and will start Tri-County Sequoia League action this week as they host Exeter at home on Thursday.

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Hanford High was on by this week after dominating non-league play.

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The undefeated Bullpups are averaging nearly 50 points per game and will look to carry that explosiveness into WYL play when they host Dinuba on Friday in front of what should be a great crowd for homecoming.

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And Hanford West was also on by, and the Huskies will hit the road this week in search of their first win at Reedley on Friday.

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As always, we'd like to cover as many local sports as we can, so if you have a score report or a story idea, make sure to email hanfordinsider at gmailcom.

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I'm Eric Bentley and this has been your Hanford Insider Sports Report.

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Well, that's all the time we have for this week's show.

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Join me next week when Lupe Villa, the Register of Voters in Kings County, gives us the important information we need to know about voting in the November 5th general election.

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And don't forget to submit your questions by email for the Hanford City Council Forum by October 6th.

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If you enjoyed this podcast and you'd like to show your support, you can go to buymeacoffeecom slash Hanford Insider to make a donation.

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Have a great week.

Hanford Insider: City Council News, National Night Out, and Symphony Orchestra Highlights

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