Rachel Sauer
FEATURE WRITING
Grand Junction Daily Sentinel

Rachel Sauer says she likes "seeing the look people get in their eyes when they talked about their trucks."

The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel feature writer has an eye for a good story all right. This is her second triumph in Best of Cox Community feature writing in the past three years.

Good editors spark good stories, and Sauer's truck feature recalled a time when Feature Editor Laurena Mayne Davis arrived at a weekly planning meeting. Davis had with her several story ideas, and one was a line from a poem by Baxter Black. It begins:

"I like a truck that looks like a truck and not like a tropical fish..."

Taking her cue to develop one of her bright features on this topic, Sauer discovered that Coloradans do indeed have a passion for the vehicles. Furthermore, truck love is different than car love.

"People do something really abusive to their truck one minute -- like drive it up a mountain -- then coo over it like a baby the next minute," Sauer said.

The 1996 Brigham Young University graduate reported briefly for the Southwest Times Record in Fort Smith, Ark., before joining the Daily Sentinel staff in November 1997.

She has entertained Daily Sentinel readers on a wide array of topics ranging from trucks and "Chicken Soup for the Soul" books to a woman caring for her dying sister.

She was asked, what makes good feature writing?

"You can take anything you're interested in, anything you want to write about, but it has to be based on good reporting," Sauer said. "Be unassuming and willing to listen. I have a quote pasted to my computer.

It says:

" 'The greatest gift you can give another is the purity of your attention.' "