Hanford Insider: Community News, Walk for Freedom, High School Football

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 Angie Stafford stops by to talk about the upcoming Walk for Freedom, to bring attention to the issue of human trafficking, and later I'll be back with a high school football recap.

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This is the Hanford Insider for Monday, September 23rd.

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Hey everybody, welcome to this 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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I'm always looking for ways to get the word out about the show, but you're my biggest allies in helping me reach people who may not know about this podcast.

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You can help me grow the show by liking and sharing on social media or telling a friend about it.

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I have social media links on Facebook, instagram, threads X and YouTube at Hanford Insider, so there are lots of opportunities to share.

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I have a weekly newsletter that's exclusive to my subscribers.

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If you'd like to join, visit my website at hanfordinsidercom and click on the subscribe button.

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And, most importantly, if you have a show idea, be sure to email me at hanfordinsider at gmailcom and I'll look into it.

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If you enjoy this podcast and you'd like to show your support financially, you can go to buymeacoffeecom slash hanfordinsider to makea donation.

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In community news this week, the Hanford City Council met on Tuesday evening.

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A public hearing was held to review the multi-jurisdictional housing element that is being submitted to the state.

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It's a requirement that has to do with how Hanford is working to provide affordable housing for residents.

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After a lengthy discussion, the Hanford City Council agreed to move forward with the downtown improvement project, except the roundabout at 7th and Dowdy Streets is no longer a part of the project.

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The city is putting extra effort into improving drainage of stormwater, since that's been an issue for years.

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The final plans are being drawn up and it's hoped that a contract will be awarded by the end of the year.

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The Council also heard the reading of the draft ordinance that will soon limit the ability of the homeless to set up camps on private property.

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As always, I encourage you to do your own research by visiting the City's website and don't depend solely on what you read about on social media.

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Visiting the city's website and don't depend solely on what you read about on social media.

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Here's some things coming up on our community calendar.

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At the Thursday Night Marketplace this week it's Throwback Thursday, featuring the music of Eminent Groove.

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They play classic covers and R&B.

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Main Street Hanford has a ton of events coming up, like Oktoberfest and the popular Witches Night Out coming up.

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Be sure to follow their social media account for all of the upcoming events.

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

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Come out and enjoy all the fun games, informational booths and visit with our 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 high-quality, affordable housing for individuals, families and farm workers.

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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 $5 for adults, $3 for children under 12, and kids under 3 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 Right 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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The Hanford Fire Department will be holding their annual open house on Sunday, october 13th, from 10 am to 2 pm at Station 1 on Grangeville Boulevard.

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One on Grainville Boulevard.

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Pacific Park stage lights up again this Wednesday, september 25th for the Main Street Hanford and KJUG Radio's free country concert at 7 pm featuring Dylan Marlowe, frankie Justin and Kelsey Hart.

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As part of the Asian Experiences exhibit at the Carnegie Museum, there'll be a tribute to the China Alley Moon Festival on Saturday, september 28th, from noon to 5 pm in the parking lot next to the museum.

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Admission is free.

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There'll be performances by the Cal Poly Lion Dancers and the Fresno Gumi Otaiko.

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For more information, visit the museum website at carnegiemuseumofkingscountyorg.

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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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Well, it's a great opportunity for us to learn about the Walk for Freedom that's coming up on Saturday, october 19th, and joining us today is Angie Stafford.

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Welcome to the show, angie.

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Hey, thanks, Rob.

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Thanks for having me.

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I know a lot of people are really excited about the event coming up on the 19th.

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Before we get into the larger issue of human trafficking, can you tell us a little bit about the event?

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Sure.

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So Walk for Freedom, as you said, is on October 19th.

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It really is a walk.

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It's a campaign that came about through an organization, a nonprofit organization called A21, which I can share about a little further in a minute.

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But I just wanted to say that with Walk for Freedom it is locally.

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We are gathering together, people will gather, we'll rally together and when we begin our walk it is literally a single file, silent walk.

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It's about a twomile distance and we will be actually gathering at the corner of 10th and Grangeville, in the parking lot of Glad Titans Church, and we will walk south from there a mile, down to where East Lacey and 7th Street meet.

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We'll cross the street and then we'll walk back and then finish up rallying in the parking lot again.

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Walk for Freedom is more than just an event, more than just a walk.

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It's a day of global action.

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It's dedicated to raising awareness that human trafficking still exists and basically, which I shared.

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What happens it's that we walk On Walk for Freedom Day.

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We will rally, we'll give some information to the people about you know how you can further your education on human trafficking.

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We'll talk about what human trafficking is, because a lot of times when people hear about human trafficking they just think of like sexual exploitation, but human trafficking really involves abuse of men, women and children for their bodies and labor.

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So there's the labor aspect of it as well, and not just the sexual exploitation aspect of human trafficking.

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On that day we will also pass out flyers as we're walking and pass by people, and the flyers will give statistics on human trafficking globally, but also locally, and it will also give the phone number for if you see it, you can report it.

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The flyer will share with people where they can go for more information to be more educated on the subject.

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That's what it is.

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It's really an awareness walk, hoping to give people more hope that this issue isn't something that, though it's horrible and it's something that we need to address and fight against.

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The Walk for Freedom is there to increase awareness and inspire people to be part of the solution.

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So this isn't just a local event, it's actually a global event, and I know there's an organization that helps with these events.

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Can you tell us a little bit about that organization, sure?

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Sure, yeah.

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So A21 has been around for about 15 years, a nonprofit organization that was started by Christine Kane.

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I actually was looking up what the whole, what A21 meant, because I realized just recently I was like I don't even know why they came up with that name.

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But A21 stands for they want to abolish slavery, human trafficking, in the 21st century.

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So that's where they got A21 from.

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Their mission is to abolish slavery everywhere, forever.

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A21 has a website, a21.org, where anyone can really go on there and look up information about human trafficking, about the work that A21 does, because they do more than just host walks around the world.

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They have an education portion where I'm actually taking some of their classes right now.

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They have some free and then there are some that you have to pay for, but the education helps you to be able to communicate about human trafficking and how to be aware and avoid and so forth little kids K through 12.

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So they have education materials out there.

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They have an aspect of it that helps with victims and survivors and I'm honestly constantly getting emails from the organization letting me know that you know, somebody has, you know, was rescued or somebody was, you know, given us another chance in life because they were able to be pulled out of a vulnerable situation.

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Yeah, that's pretty inspiring.

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That's pretty inspiring.

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You're pretty invested in this.

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What was your inspiration for getting involved in the human trafficking issue?

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A long time ago when I was a young adult I actually it even started way back when I was just a young teenager I had heard a speaker at a camp I went to that shared about a young person I was actually only 12 or 13 at the time and this speaker was sharing about a 16-year-old young girl who was back then.

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It wasn't when I was that age I don't think we heard the term human trafficking that much but they were talking about how this young girl was living on the streets and caught in prostitution and the sex trade and it broke my heart.

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As a 12 or 13 year old girl I remember just crying for this girl.

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That I didn't know at all and I didn't know what to do with those feelings.

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It just broke my heart.

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I had a sense of compassion about that.

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So the next day, like I said, it was at a camp and so the speaker I was at breakfast and the speaker approached me and told me that he saw me during his session when he was talking and how I was.

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It broke me and he just said I really think that it was a.

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It was a Christian camp.

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He said I really think that God wants to use you in some way at some point, and I had never heard anything like that before.

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So I was just like okay, and I left that camp.

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But I remember a week later I was spending some time with God in prayer and I just told God that I wanted to do whatever he wanted me to do.

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And so then fast forward.

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Years later, as a young adult, I was at another conference and the speaker at that conference asked us to spend some time alone with God and just ask him to give us a dream.

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Spend some time alone with God and just ask him to give us a dream and something you know like well, a dream you know and something to aspire to, something to hope for.

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And so I did that and I really felt like the Lord was leading me to get more involved with this issue of people that were caught in sexual exploitation and human trafficking and so forth.

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So I didn't know how to do that, and so it's always been a place in my mind that one day I would get involved in that and somehow to help people that were caught in that area.

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And so, about four years ago, I met a young girl who was hosting the Walk for Freedom in Tulare County and they were holding it in Visalia and she invited me to come and walk.

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So I was like I jumped on that right away because I was like, oh, of course you know that it just that's a thing that has always been a passionate place for me, by what they shared and how simple it was to help people become aware that human trafficking isn't something that just happens on the other side of the world, but it happens locally and it's happening in our own communities.

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Certainly.

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That I wanted to bring it to kings county.

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So I was concerned that I wouldn't get approved to host a walk in hanford because we're only 20 minutes or so from visalia.

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But, um, I applied to be a host through a21 and I just let them know that kings county though, where hanford is only 20 minutes from where the walk is in Visalia, that Kings County is.

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You know it's a separate county there, tulare or Kings County, but rural community that expands quite a large geographical area, and so I really felt like it would be beneficial to have the walk in Kings County where we could just put it out there to all of the surrounding little towns.

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So they approved it.

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So we did our first walk three years ago in Kings County.

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It started small, we were downtown.

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We did the walk downtown that year and we had about 50 participants, which I was really excited about.

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But then it was very difficult with the traffic just part of it, because we were downtown and lots of traffic signs and we didn't want to impede traffic.

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So we decided to take it over to where I was attending church at Glad Tidings, and we just walked up and down 10th Avenue, last year going north, but this year we're going to go south.

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That'll be good.

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Let's review some of the details on the event.

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So it's Saturday, october 19th, from 10 to 11, meeting at the Glad Tidings Church, and where can people find out more information about this event and maybe get signed up to help?

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It's actually from 10 to 12 because it will rally and then we'll walk and it takes a little bit to walk the two miles and then we'll rally again at the end.

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So I estimate it to be about two hours.

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But to register for our local walk you can go to the website a21.org forward slash Hanford and that will take you directly to the Hanford walk, the next closest walk, because they are not doing one in Tulare County this year, but the next closest walk is in Bakersfield.

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Or you can go north to Tracy.

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So I really encourage people, if they want to get involved with this, that they go ahead and register for our walk here in Hanford and then I will just stay in communication.

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Once they've registered I'll be emailing reminders and what to do where to go.

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But registration that day or check-in that day will open at 9.30 in the parking lot on the corner of 10th and Grangeville at Glad Tidings Church and then we will promptly begin the rally at 10 am and then line up for walking.

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Well, angie, thank you so much for coming on the show.

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I know it's going to be a great turnout and I know bringing it to Hanford is close to your heart and it definitely shows your passion for the issue of human trafficking.

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And, on behalf of the community, I'd like to thank you for your involvement in the organization and bringing attention to this really important matter.

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Thank you so much for letting me share about it, and I just hope to be able to bring awareness more and more each year, and I could really use the community to make that happen, and now it's time for Hanford Insider Sports with Eric Bentley.

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It was the Corte Glass show at Neighbor Bowl on Friday night, as the senior rushed for five touchdowns in Hanford High's 52-12 route of Redwood.

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In a game that started similarly to their matchup against El Diamante last week, the Bullpups trailed early in the first quarter before finding their rhythm.

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Thanks to a pair of glass touchdowns and a Justin Clark Strickland pick six, hanford led 24-12 at the end of the first.

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A pair of touchdown passes from Daniel Gomez to Albert Richardson and another glass touchdown gave Hanford High a 42-12 lead at halftime, and two third-quarter touchdowns from glass ended the scoring and prompted the running clock to finish the game.

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The Bullpups, a consensus Division I top-10 team, finished their non-league schedule 5-0, outscoring their opponents 247-119.

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They'll get a bye this week before starting WIL play at home against Dinuba next Friday.

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Hanford West is still looking for their first win of the season after being shut out by Minacci and, fortunately for the Huskies, they will get a much-needed bye week this week and, coming off of their bye, sierra Pacific, who sits at 1-3 this season, will finish their non-league action as they travel to Carruthers on Friday.

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We'd like to cover as many local sports as possible, 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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Stay cool and have a great week.

Hanford Insider: Community News, Walk for Freedom, High School Football

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