It was just small talk, but a recent conversation stuck itself inside my head all week. As Sedona Red Rock News photographer David Jolkovski searched for the perfect backdrop for a photo package of a recent feature article, our subject casually told us “you can’t take these views for granted, you can’t get them anywhere else.”

Throughout the week, ultimately my last in this beautiful landscape I had the pleasure of calling home for the last 12 months and one week, I’ve reminded myself of that. I’ve made sure to lift up the window blinds in my Uptown Sedona apartment and enjoy the views, not taking any of it for granted.

It is with a bittersweet taste that I say goodbye to the Verde Valley, the Sedona Red Rock News and our readers this week. By the time this story runs, I’ve already started a new position at the San Jose Mercury News. There, I’ll report breaking news from the heart of Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area in an office three city blocks from my college apartment.

I came to Northern Arizona with a healthy sense of hesitance. My first day at Larson Newspapers was the first time I ever stepped foot in Sedona. My parents had been a couple of years prior, and they encouraged me to take the job as they raved about the beauty and majestic views.

But I’m a city boy at heart. I enjoy the hustle and bustle of the concrete jungle. I’ll marvel at a city skyline for far longer than a natural landmark. I’d be lying if I said the transition to small-town life was smooth, but I quickly learned that the Verde Valley had more soul than anywhere I’d lived before.

The people welcomed me with open arms. I covered a volleyball game at Sedona Red Rock High School my first day on the job. Despite the much smaller crowd than I was accustomed to from my days as a high school athlete in Southern California, the hearts of this area were on the sleeve of every parent, family member and friend of a student athlete in the stands.

The “Hoosiers”-like feeling of high school sporting events here never quite went away, I was constantly and consistently floored at the passion in these three towns I now consider home.

There are far too many coaches and athletes to thank and name — so I won’t — in fear of leaving people out. But just know that every conversation we ever had, on-the-record or not, helped me feel welcome in a place that was completely alien to me in the first few weeks after relocating.

Thank you all of those within the athletic departments at Sedona, Mingus Union and Camp Verde high schools for all of your help in my work and in friendship. Since I won’t be covering your games anymore and have shed the “sports reporter” title, I can finally consider myself a fan of all of you.

Speaking of friendship, the Larson Newspaper staff will forever be important to me.

Thank you to copy editor Carol Kahn, who deserves all of the recognition in the world. Carol is one of the hardest workers I’ve ever met and she is a saint for dealing with the delirious scribbles I often put on paper during my late-night and early-morning writing sessions. For most of my time here, she took on the work load typically made for two editors and she deserves every ounce of thanks for that.

To city reporter Juliana Walter, thank you for your friendship and for our endlessly recurring venting sessions. For the two months I worked here before you started, myself and my girlfriend Sierra Mahoney, who deserves her own thanks for taking a leap of faith moving here with me, constantly wished for more people “our age” in Sedona, and your company helped us tremendously.

Thank you to our two photographers, David Jolkovski and Daulton Venglar, who are the lifeblood of Larson Newspapers. For the rest of my life it will be impossible to think of my year in the Verde Valley without thinking of them, as I’ve spent more time with them over the last 12 months than anyone besides Sierra. Thank you both for not only being incredible photographers that always seem to capture the exact photo I want for each story, but also for becoming close friends I will keep in touch with for life. We’ve shared many laughs, many late nights and many bar-trivia victories, and I can’t imagine this year without them.

And finally, I cannot fully express how grateful I am for Managing Editor Christopher Fox Graham and General Manager Kyle Larson. I graduated from San Jose State University in May 2020. Each day that went by, so did hundreds of job applications that went unanswered or without an interview. As the months stacked on, I questioned everything — my choice in career path, my future goals, whether it was time to give up on my dreams — until I completed my phone interview with Graham in July 2021, while standing knee deep in the swimming pool in my parents’ backyard.

Every day for those 14 months I woke up thinking “maybe today is the day somebody gives me a chance.”

Graham and Larson were the ones that finally did when no one else would. I will forever be in debt to them for that, and even as my career progresses and my scope changes, I’ll always have them to thank for all of it.

So if anyone — especially student athletes I’ve covered and formed relationships with — has read these 1,000 words and wants to take something out of it, I’ll leave you with a piece of advice that you likely already follow. Open up those windows in your house or apartment. Get some fresh air. Go on a hike even though you’ve probably completed them all dozens of times by now. Go enjoy this wonderful place you call home. I guarantee you’ll never live anywhere else quite like this.