Armijo alumnus preserves local history, creates laughs

Kayla Smith, Staff writer|February 15, 2023

Tony Wade is also one of the supporters of the Armijo Alumni Scholarship offering $8,700 to students with parents or grandparents who graduated from Armijo High School.

Among other things, Mr. Tony Wade is one of the columnists for the Daily Republic, Solano County’s News Source. The Daily Republic is Fairfield’s newspaper and is owned by McNaughton Newspapers. His brother Kelvin has been a columnist for the newspaper for years, too.

Mr. Wade moved to Fairfield in 1976. He attended Grange Middle School and graduated from Armijo High School! After high school, he graduated from Solano Community College.

Forty years ago, when he went to Armijo, he wrote for the newspaper, which was physically distributed up to about seven years ago. He has always enjoyed making people laugh, which led to him creating humorous stories today. Although he is a writer now, that isn’t what he always wanted to do. He originally wanted to go into freelance writing, where he would work in a manner that influenced many media outlets, or become a stunt cycle rider.

Mr. Wade got his foot into the door at the Daily Republic by entering the “Worst Writing Contest,” which he has since won five out of six times. When he got the job as a columnist, the newspaper was already familiar with his humorous style.

The Last Laugh is Mr. Wade’s regular column, which you “read in your head and laugh out loud,” he said. He also writes a column titled Back in the Day, which features stories about local fame and touches on things from his generation.

More recently, Mr. Wade has taken to writing local history. He has published two books and is currently working on his third. Growing up in Fairfield California (2021) and Lost Restaurants of Fairfield, California (2022) can both be purchased online and in person at Barnes & Noble. He is currently wrapping up his third book.

For many years, Mr. Wade was a familiar face on campus. He used to visit sports events and work in the old snack shack selling goodies, cooking hamburgers, and grilling up hot dogs. He’s also interviewed some teachers and staff on campus over the years for his own stories.

He’s most comfortable creating stories and playing Scrabble, which is really good for the brain. Scrabble improves vocabulary, memory, and focus. As an alumnus, Mr. Wade advises students to “live and embrace in the moment” and “live in the now”.