Highlights, lowlights from the week’s news

HIT » No community has a better feel for what’s happened to Greenville than Paradise.

Last week, the Paradise High School student body raised more than $6,000 for Greenville’s Dixie Fire victims.

The community was supposed to be at a football game with the Bobcats having Greenville High stickers on their helmets last Friday night, but COVID-19 forced the cancellation of that game against visiting Red Bluff.

Coach Rick Prinz says he would like to see Greenville’s football team attend a Paradise game this year if in fact they’re not playing themselves. As he knows from his own experience following the Camp Fire, the team is likely scattered about.

Paradise High is fully aware of the support they received following the Camp Fire. Several teams wore stickers in their honor throughout the north section.

So the student body, along with the football program, get a hit for passing that goodwill forward to another community that went through the same awful ordeal.

MISS » From “the vaccine changes your DNA!” to “the COVID test causes cancer!” the amount of misinformation and flat-out falsehoods spreading about COVID and vaccinations remains beyond frightening.

So, when we share anything that isn’t accurate, we’re going to do everything we can to set the record straight.

In this space last week, we included a link to a story out of Oklahoma about emergency rooms being overcrowded with cases of ivermectin overdoses. As it turns out, the story was, to put it kindly, exaggerated. One hospital said the doctor in question hadn’t worked in their location for some time, and the doctor himself has said he was “misquoted” in the original story.

Meanwhile, the Oklahoma Center for Poison and Drug Information said they received 12 ivermectin-related calls last month — so, it is happening, albeit on a smaller scale than reported last week. And that’s still a problem.

You know what’s a muchbigger problem? The fact that a few anti-vaxxers are pointing to that story as some sort of twisted truth that their beliefs are justified. They’re not. The numbers are overwhelming and they don’t lie: If you get vaccinated, your odds of not getting COVID (and staying alive if you do) are much greater than if you don’t. And that’s no mistake.

HIT » How about that rain early Friday morning? Sure felt like fall for a few minutes — and, the local sports scene has a few latesummer touches that are worth embracing as well.

The Gold Cup is taking place at Silver Dollar Speedway, which just finished hosting the Louie Vermeil Classic sprint car races. (Speaking of car races, how about Corning’s Tyler Reddick cracking NASCAR’s top 16, making him eligible for the Cup championship?)

The Giants still have the best record in baseball, the NFL starts this week and — perhaps best of all, at least from our point of view — the Butte College Roadrunners have their home opener this Saturday at 1 p.m. against Laney College. Butte has been a junior college football powerhouse for more than three decades and they’ve already pulled off one thrilling victory this season.

Also, it’s Sept. 11, and Butte has some special ceremonies lined up. We say check it out — it’s the best of late-summer collegiate sports in Butte County.

MISS » We’re concluding this week’s “hits and misses” with our least favorite kind of “miss” — the kind that means we’re going to miss somebody.

This is Sharon Martin’s last week with the Enterprise-Record. She has accepted a great job with the Bay Area News Group as their Night Sports Editor.

So while we’re happy she’ll at least still be part of the same company (BANG is owned by MediaNews Group, same as our paper), we’re sad to see her go. She’s been an invaluable part of the E-R for years, from sports (and news) coverage to serving the past several months as a member of our editorial board.

Whatever challenges are ahead for her, we have no doubt she’ll succeed. Remember, we’re talking about the same person who went to San Quentin a couple of years back to cover a baseball game.

To fill her spot on the editorial board, we’ve spoken with a few members of the community about an “interim” position until we select next year’s community board member. We’ve found someone who we think can present a great mix of views and opinions just as Sharon did, and we’ll be making that announcement soon.