Jackie Krentzman

When she was a sportswriter, Jackie interviewed athletes from Michael Jordan and Joe Dimaggio to Joe Montana and Richard Petty. However, no interview was as nerve-racking as this summer, in the course of writing about Anderson Valley and Mendocino for VIA, when she had to ask the famously gruff proprietor of the general store in Comptche, Calif., "Is the tallest tree in the world still in Comptche?" He replied, "How the hell would I know?" For the record, the second-tallest tree in the world is there, in Montgomery Woods State Park. It was recently surpassed by a sneaky little redwood in Humboldt County.

Jackie is the editorial director of Diablo Custom Publishing, and has written for the New York Times, Stanford, The Sporting News, West, San Francisco and Diablo. She lives in Berkeley and owns property in Mendocino.