Walt Shepperd is a veteran of Central New York's political scuffle, having covered government and politics in Syracuse for more than four decades before being asked for press credentials.
He is the Senior Editor of the City Eagle and the Mayor of Montgomery Street in downtown Syracuse.
Shepperd is also the producer of the The Media Unit, Central New York national award winning teen performance and production troupe.
Samadee is his alter ego. At least that's the rumor.
Creation of ArtsWeek, the effort to link the annual summer Arts & Crafts Festival with the also annual Jazz in the Square, was chronicled with the arts week ‘zine, made in one day by the Urban Arts Rangers, a group seeking to foster connections through art in Syracuse. On Saturday, July 26, between noon and 6 p.m., the group: Tom Gokey, Chris Wildrick, Drew Stanley and Joanna Spitzner, solicited content for the ‘zine by talking to attendees, handing out cameras, paper and pencil, and printing editions as material evolved...
Approaching his second turn at the helm of the New York State Fair, Dan O’Hara claims plausible deniability when asked if he snuck into the annual agroentertainment bash as a youth. “I worked out here as a kid in high school shoveling horse manure,” he recalls. “What I learned then was the uniqueness of every element of the Fair operations.”
After taking on issues during his first effort last year, especially that of smoking, he reflects, many people were thinking he wanted ultimately to change the whole culture. “That was really not the intent,” he says. “People have to understand that this is an agricultural event with the focus that developed somewhat more on entertainment...
The Has Been had never been to Wal*Mart. The Wannabe hectored him for months, warning that lacking that experience he was flirting with being labeled as culturally deprived. Actually, talk of bargains never moved the Has Been. His self-imposed mandate to support downtown retail meant that except for shirt, tie and hanky sets at Bergan’s, and wedding, birthday and holiday gifts at Enchanted Bazaar, he did very little shopping. And except for Extra Bucks at CVS, and Corner Bistro entrees from Stouffer’s, he never clipped coupons. But reports that Wal*Mart management had issued memos to store supervisors, instructing them to scare employees regarding the coming election with warnings that if the Democrats win they could lose their jobs, had intrigued him...
Samadee sat at a table outside in the early evening on Hanover Square reflecting on his chances of entering the presidential race. They seemed slim. In all the time he had contemplated finding a righteous way to run, he had just never found an appropriate time and place to announce his intentions. Also he was beginning to understand the ramifications of his first campaign promise, not to solicit or accept any campaign contributions. In the year and a half that they had been running, Obama and McCain had raised half a billion dollars between them, and look what kind of messes each had bought for themselves.
McCain couldn’t remember where to go home and Obama was being hoisted on the petard of history...
