Don’t get me wrong, I love the summer, especially in the Pacific Northwest.

I love the long, sunny days and the seemingly endless stretches of humidity-free sunshine that come as a three-month reward for surviving the rest of the year here at the feet of the Cascade Mountains.

As a Northeasterner, however, I do miss the cold, crisp autumns of Upstate New York with their stunning displays of color, slight nip in the air and the crackle of fallen leaves underfoot.

It’s just not nearly as photogenic out here in the fall, unfortunately.

Unless, of course, you work for a community newspaper and, thankfully, I do.

While summer may be the best time of year as a resident, the fall is easily the best season as a newspaperman, and for a simple reason: the photo ops and feature possibilities.

Beginning with October, we have three straight months with fun, photogenic holiday seasons packed with the kind of events that make people smile – perfect for front pages!

This past weekend, for example, things got started with Oktoberfest at the Piazza. As you can see from the photos, it was a colorful, fun time to kick off the harvest season.

But now that we are into October, Halloween will take to the fore. Always a fun day as a kid, Halloween has risen to become an industry unto itself, now ranking as the second most important shopping holiday for stores (behind Christmas, of course).

At the paper, we love to highlight cool, seasonal events or people that find new and unusual ways to celebrate the holiday.

Last year, for example, we brought you a story about a North Renton family that spent weeks turning their lovely home into a house of horrors for the entire neighborhood to enjoy as part of our Halloween-week issue.

At Thanksgiving, it was a story about a group of Nelsen Middle School students who prepared 15 turkeys for homeless families in the area.

Then, at Christmas, I had the opportunity to meet a pair of ladies up at Houser Terrace who spend the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas turning their senior housing center into an explosion of Christmas joy, complete with at least six trees and multiple displays of cheer.

All three were fun stories highlighting how some of our fellow Rentonians celebrate and how they enjoy sharing the various season that make up fall with all of us.

This year, I am reaching out to you, the readers, to help us find our holiday feature stories. Tracey, Dean and I only know so many people and don’t get to see all of the great and fun things that happen in Renton.

And if we don’t know about it, we can’t tell everyone else about the great things going on!

So as we make the turn toward year’s end, I am asking that you send us your feature ideas for the holiday seasons.

Do you know someone that hosts a haunted house? Makes costumes for neighborhood? Maybe someone whose home becomes some sort of Halloween shrine each October? We want to know about it!

Do you or someone you know always sacrifice their Thanksgiving for others? Do you have a strange family tradition for Turkey Day? We want to know!

Is there a neighborhood that goes all out decorating for Christmas? Someone who dresses as our favorite Holiday Elf every year to hand out gifts? Do you know someone who owns every single Hallmark holiday ornament released int he past 25 years? Is your Kwanzaa service the talk of the neighborhood? We want to know about it!

As I’ve said before, our job here at the paper is to tell Renton’s story; your story. We are here to highlight all the fun things that make this city and the people in it the best around. And we want to share that with the entire city.

But don’t assume we know about it! Give us a call!

Also, please be sure to send in your Halloween photos, as well as notices about food drives and special events around the city. We are always happy to highlight the good things going on in Renton!

You can reach me at bbeckley@rentonreporter.com or give a call at 425-255-3484 ext 5050. Let us know what makes this season special for you and how we can share that with the rest of the city.

And here’s to the fall!