Editor Julie Pendray Bids Farewell July 6

Ramona Patch readers, there’s change in the wind. July 6 will be my last day with Ramona and I will move to become the Sonoma Patch editor in the wine country north of San Francisco. I am leaving to start a new season in my life. I hope that you will all continue in the spirit in which we began together and embrace our new editor.

I have lived in Ramona for nearly two years and had an opportunity to get to know many of you, in between dashing around town covering news. So it is not without a lump in my throat that I depart “the hill.” I might also take a quick look back as I go down the hill, to remember the quail and and the happy memories of snow up to my front door.

We are very close to announcing the new editor. Until July 6, I'll remain your contact at julie.pendray@patch.com  This upcoming week, I'll introduce our guest editor, Melissa Phy, around town in person. Melissa is a journalist who has helped Patch in San Diego county with news coverage on weekends and my vacation. She will share her email address with you when she takes the helm on July 8.

When I sip the fruit of the vine in Sonoma County, I will think of our very own version right here. I will chuckle when I remember my at Ramona's Oasis Camel Dairy. Thinking of veterans has been completely changed for me ever since in a drafty B-24 bomber out of Ramona Airport. Encountering wild turkeys , while crossing a lawn at 7 a.m. will be forever etched in my memory, along with the at the County Fair in Del Mar.

And ... now I can honestly say somewhere in the future, "This isn't my first rodeo, you know."

Though it has been educational learning to identify live snakes in close proximity, I will not linger on those memories with affection!

I began working on the launch of Ramona Patch in October 2010 and we went live—with —in early December that year. It has been a strenuous, exciting, fun, challenging, enlightening and rewarding 20 months. I’m really happy to say that I think we have “arrived,” since we have just had our two best readership months since our launch— this month roughly doubling last month's readership.

I am sincerely grateful to all of you who have told your friends, family and neighbors about us, supported us with blogs, news tips and advertising, joined the conversation on the site and on Facebook—even tried the adventure of Twitter—invited us to events and allowed us into your lives to capture moments on video. I know this has involved trust and I feel honored to have won your trust.

As I moved up to Ramona in 2010, I reflected on how Patch could really make a difference. My biggest goal was to provide a platform that could bring residents together for communication in times of emergency. It has been gratifying to see how, along the way, you have not only responded to Patch but also added information from your commute, smoke on the horizon, fire engines tearing down Main Street or the ASTREA helicopter circling above.

Please keep up the momentum to make this an even more dynamic, creative and useful site.

I will be at Ramona's July 4th event if you would like to come say hello or goodbye.

But it’s not a real goodbye … I’ll just be “up the road.” Who knows? You may see my byline sometime.

Please check out Sonoma Patch if you are ever driving through. My email will remain the same:  julie.pendray@patch.com

Best wishes Ramona

Julie