Fairmead

This small group of residents has taken on a leadership role in the rural community of Fairmead, just a few miles outside of Chowchilla’s city limits.

A transgender advocate talks about how his drive to serve the community is inspired by his role as a father. Listen to this conversation and more on the podcast.

A transgender advocate talks about how his drive to serve the community is inspired by his role as a father. Listen to this conversation and more on the podcast.

We leave last week’s Western Stampede behind but return to the town of Chowchilla to find out more about its history from its Dust Bowl migrants to present day immigrants, including the only Yemeni-American family living in Chowchilla. We also meet the 84-year-old grandson of one of the town’s earliest white settlers. His grandparents sold 150 horses and left the cold weather of North Dakota to start a dairy farm in Chowchilla. Their 1910 house still stands. Like many towns back then, Chowchilla had racist housing covenants that kept certain groups of people out. But just a couple of miles from town was a place where Black people could actually buy property. At one point, the Black settlement of Fairmead had the largest single dairy in the state. We find out more about Fairmead’s past and what it can teach us today.

On this week's program Reporter Ezra David Romero visits the Central Valley community of Fairmead where dozens of private wells have gone dry.Also on…

Reporters flocked to the Valley town of East Porterville last year where over 600 private wells went dry. This year many other towns are facing a similar…