©1997 Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Telecommunication
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By Emma Simone The drumbeats shook the ground as if they were the heartbeat of the universe. Falsetto male voices filled the air, waking up the dancers. Debbie Tsosie's blue and pink, knee-long, fully beaded moccasins moved fast with the beat. She was a butterfly, fluttering about with her shawl, making quick turns. Every movement was dedicated to her culture, family and tradition. But then she approached one of the judges. If she was dancing fast enough, good enough, she could be the one to win the women's shawl-dance category at the ASU Powwow and a cash prize of $300. Powwows are the biggest and fastest-growing Native American tradition in the United States. Originated among the Northern and Great Plain tribes hundreds of years ago, the powwow was a traditional ceremony where people came to dance, sing and share stories, gifts and religion. Now, the ceremonies are held practically anywhere, including college campuses, and they are intertribal, drawing people from all over the country. While they give outsiders a glimpse of other cultures, many Native Americans fear that the commercialism will take away their original purpose. Tsosie, 24, a Navajo dancer and former student at ASU who now works in the ASU Bookstore, said powwow dancing is her life. She travels all over the United States and Canada to compete every second weekend. She said the competitions have changed her way of dancing. "When I was small, I pretty much danced for fun," she said. "But these days I find myself thinking, 'Oh, I need a new outfit, I should do this now or I should turn more and I should be faster.' It's more pressure now. Sometimes it takes away from the fun." "We are all getting greedy" Lee Williams, a 38-year-old Navajo and coordinator for the ASU Powwow that was held in April, said the tradition used to be like ceremonial prayers, where people got together to have a good time. "Nowadays, this prize money got hold of this," he said. "People base their trips on which powwow has the largest money. It's getting kind of out of hand." Williams said some big powwows, which often are staged by gambling casinos in the East, offer total prize money of up to $850,000. "The good dancers just make their living out of it," he said. "They just go from one powwow to the next. If you are really good, you can get at least $1,000 every weekend. "That tradition, I guess, comes from the white people with their money," he said. "I guess we are all getting greedy." It's not just about greed, Tsosie explained. Dancing is expensive, and the top competition dancers depend on the money, she added. Tsosie has made all of her outfits and said that just the material for an outfit costs about $1,000. She said that at one time, competitions were unusual, and the prizes were usually groceries or trophies. "But in these days we have to have money,"she added. "Dancers have to spend all the money on traveling, the food, the gas and the outfits. A lot of the kids might use it for school." Tsosie, who grew up in Chinle on the Navajo Nation in northeastern Arizona, often attends smaller powwows on the reservation. She said they are often hosted by a family, and the dancers are invited for dinner. There are also more ceremonies at a reservation powwow, and there is no exact schedule to follow. At off-reservation powwows it's all about competition, she said. "They are so large that there are hardly any time for social dances,"she added. She said she has seen children today who take the contests far more seriously than she did as a child. "We would just go out there and dance," she said. "The young kids today have gotten very very good, even the very young ones, but they don't smile as much." The competition sometimes leads to jealousy among dancers, and they can get unfriendly, she added. She said she has seen some dancers storm off the dance arena if they don't win, or criticize the judges afterwards. These dancers are not respected among the others, she said. Native American identity Patrick Begay, a 23-year-old Navajo and political science major at ASU, said he thinks it's strange how people can compete within a religion. "It's a competitive religious form," he said. "To me, it's not right." He said he used to sing at powwows, but for him it was more important to learn the Navajo culture than the intertribal powwow culture. "I'm more proud to be a Navajo than I am to be a Native American," he said. He added that he thinks it's sad that many of his own people turn to powwows to find their Native American identity. He admits that powwows are great for uniting different tribes, but at the same time he said he fears that these intertribal gatherings may lead individual tribes to lose their own original culture and language. "Is our goal to become one tribe and one people?" he asked. Tsosie said she does keep practicing the Navajo dances, but not as much as she thinks she should. She added that her friends from other tribes who dance at powwows are involved with their own ceremonial dances. "If there was a powwow and one of the dancers had a ceremony back home with their own culture, they would go home for the tribal dances rather than going to the powwow," she said. Alvis Robertson, 44, a special education major at ASU, said the intertribal tradition is not a threat to his tribe's culture. He is a Sioux from South Dakota and he considers powwows still to be his tribe's tradition. Robertson said anyone can join in the dancing as long as they respect the traditional rules. He drew a circle with his finger in the dust on a table, explaining that powwows are all about circles. The dancers move in circles. The drum is a circle, as the Earth. Everybody on Earth is somehow connected to each other, and at one time everyone was dancing, he said. Robertson used to teach members of other tribes different powwow dances but he always asked them first if they knew anything about their own dances and songs. "If they don't respect their own tradition, I can't expect them to respect mine," he said. "It's up to each tribe to keep its culture alive." Forgetting about the reason Robertson has been competing as a grassdancer for more than 15 years. The yarn hanging from his outfit represents the grass swaying in the wind. This dance came from the Omaha Indians in Nebraska but it is now a popular dance in nearly every powwow. He recalled that he once wondered why he stopped winning competitions. Then he heard a friend tell her daughter at a powwow "to be sure to listen" before going out on the dance arena. He said that was when he realized he was forgetting to listen to the drum and his heart. "I was more concentrating on doing the fancy moves for the judges," he said. "I forgot about the reason why I was there." Robertson said he has seen young dancers who don't know how to behave at powwows. He said at one event some young Native Americans started dancing in their own way, kicking their legs during a traditional round-dance. Finally, the arena master had to tell them to stop. "As soon as they started dancing like that, the rest of us would all go and sit down," he said. "They don't know or don't care. Some of them think they can do anything they want. "Young people have to understand what powwows are. The ones who just go for money or to hop around and be 'weekend warriors' - they have to understand. They have to learn how to listen and listen to learn." Tsosie said most dancers still respect the tradition and the rules. If an eagle feather falls to the ground during a dance, the dancing must stop until a ceremony has taken place. Well- respected dancers pick up the feather in a sacred dance and bless the dance arena. Every powwow still holds onto that tradition, she added. Before Tsosie and other dancers begin, they pray and give thoughts to the creator who gave them the dances and the eagle feathers, she said. However, she said many elders are upset that old traditions in powwows are disappearing, such as exchanges of gifts. "They used to give away horses, meat and material,"she said. "These days, it seems like just to rush for time's sake, just to get through contests, they don't go with giveaways anymore. To most of the older people, that is not a way of doing powwow." One of the dancers who received prize money at the ASU Powwow was Pierce Hearson, a 24-year-old Yakima from Washington who won the Men's Northern Traditional Dance. He bowed his back and head with the drumbeat. His headgear, made of porcupine and deer hair and tinted in blue, red and white, stood straight up from his black hair. He held part of an eagle feather attached to an eagle foot in his right hand and a spear in his left. A red No. 410 adorned his arm. "I remember when I first came down here, long way from home, no family, and I met friends at the powwows,"said Hearson, who attends ASU. "They became like a second home. "If there weren't any powwows I would probably be a white person because down here, it's all I do." Robertson said that, despite the commercialism, people at powwows "still dance and sing to the heartbeat of the universe." For Tsosie dancing is an expression, a way for her to get away from her 8-5 job in the city. She said it's also about searching for identity. "We live in two worlds,"she said. "To reconnect with ourselves, both spiritually and as a person, we need to go back to the reservation or keep in contact with our own people. Powwows are like that. "There is a lot of positive energy. Just even the drum itself (a group of people who sing and play on a big drum). If you take some time and go and stand with the drum and just listen and watch how each person is singing with their full heart and just give to that drum, then you'll understand that feeling as well."
By Deanna Darr Tom McDonald approached his shaggy, muscular opponent, knowing it was capable of causing him considerable pain - or even death. The horse's eyes shifted wildly as the gate closed and trapped him upright in the metal chute. When a small, light saddle with a single handle was placed on the bronc, it arched its back and kicked hard against the restraints. A half dozen cowboys jumped onto fences to escape. McDonald smiled widely as he gazed down at his adversary. He stepped across the chute and sat gingerly on the horse's back. The animal jerked and its muscles twitched in response to the extra weight. McDonald prepared himself, tipped his head and the chute gate swung open. The horse unexpectedly turned and faced the chute. Cowboys leapt for cover. McDonald hung on and the horse finally cleared the gate. Seconds before the buzzer sounded, McDonald lost his grip and was thrown into the trampled dirt of the arena. He got up quickly, dusted off his 47-year-old frame and walked back to the side of the arena, still smiling. For McDonald and other cowboys, some of whom qualify for senior discounts, rodeo is an addiction. It's part of them, like the Wranglers, Stetsons, ropers and spurs that have become their uniforms. It's why they continue to put their bodies through the punishment usually reserved for those who have the excuse of youth. They started in rodeo when they were young. They made a life for themselves on the road and in the arena. McDonald dressed in his horse trailer the morning before the rodeo. He brushed his sandy brown hair back with the palm of his hand before he stepped out into the crisp morning air. Making his way back to his truck, he sat on the lowered tailgate as fellow cowboy Don Germain made his way over to burn some time before the rodeo began. Germain, a Montana resident, first rode into rodeo in 1958. He's 62 years old now and still living the life of a cowboy. "It's like a disease, I guess," he said while sitting on the tongue of a horse trailer, waiting for a rodeo to begin in the Phoenix-area suburb of Goodyear. "You get in and you just can't stop, you just keep going." "I can't imagine doing anything else. I mean, what would I do? Sit in a rocking chair and get fat and make Kool-Aid? It wouldn't work. I've got to have something to do, keep moving all the time." He fidgeted with two magnetic balls, twirling both in one of his massive, well-lined hands. He spoke of his 20 years of bull riding and 30 of bull-dogging, or steer wrestling, where a cowboy leaps off the back of a horse onto a running steer and wrestles it to the ground. Now he competes only in team roping, in which another cowboy helps him chase down a calf. He has a constant reminder of his previous adventures in the form of a plastic knee. He ruined the original one when he jumped from a horse in a bull-dogging competition and jammed his leg into a hole in the grass arena, shattering it. For Germain, getting into rodeo made sense. "I bought a horse one time and the son-of-a-bitch used to buck me off all the time, and I got used to it," he said. "Then I got to where I could ride him and I said 'man, maybe there's something to this' and I just started going to rodeos." He now travels around the West as one of the 2,500 members of the Senior Pro Rodeo. Members of this organization are between the ages of 40 and 90 and travel around the West to 70 group- sanctioned rodeos. The competitors are all experienced cowboys, but they still enjoy a few modifications of standard rules, such as a seven-second minimum ride instead of eight. "The old guys that are still doing it have 40 years experience," he said. "Like in our age group, the 60-age group, they're better than the guys in their 40s. They've had more experience and they're smooth. They ride $20,000 horses." Germain, who is also a cowboy poet and therapeutic magnet salesman, leaned back against the trailer and adjusted the worn blue baseball hat on his head. He maintained his constant straight- faced expression as he recalled his trip to the national senior rodeo finals in Chicago, where he won in 1983. He remembered the lodging. "Boy, I'll never forget that night," he said. "We stayed in a hotel right there at the airport. $99 for a room for two hours sleep." These days he brings his own lodging - a beat-up motor home - with him wherever he goes. "Looks like shit on the outside, but it's nice on the inside," he said. He's ready to die on the job if he needs to. "That's the best way to go," he added. "I've had so many friends that have died in the rodeo arena, but they're doing what they love best. What if you died at home in a rocking chair? Anybody can do that. "It's the adrenaline, the thrill of beating somebody. To think you're this old and can still beat somebody. If we didn't do it the kids today wouldn't know what it was like. This way we give them the opportunity to come see how the West was fun." McDonald's legs dangled off the edge of his truck's tailgate. His creased, dusty boots hovered just above the ground swinging slightly. He listened intently as Germain recited several of his poems, groaning at the sentimental ones and chuckling at one involving a barroom brawl and a bull. McDonald has only been in the United States for six years, but the Australian is a 30-year veteran of rodeo. "I like to live on the extreme," he said. "Everybody's good at something... and everybody likes to beat other people doing some thing, and this is what I'm good at." McDonald competes in saddle bronc riding, steer wrestling and team roping in the Senior Pro Rodeo tour. In his off time he works on a ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyo. Disappearing into the back of his faded pickup, McDonald emerged with several large silver and gold belt buckles, his trophies from various rodeos. A shining silver all-around-title buckle from a rodeo in Wickenburg, Ariz., rested in a blue box. A massive gold and silver creation, a reminder of a senior national steer wrestling title, adorned his belt. He said his pride and joy is a buckle that has nothing to do with rodeo. Then-President George Bush once visited a ranch McDonald was working on. The cowboy got to know the Secret Service officers who had accompanied the president, and they gave him a buckle that is an exact replica of a Secret Service badge. "There's only one other like it in the world," he said as a smile spread across his face. A pickup is home for this man with Idaho license plates, a Wyoming address, Montana drivers license and an Australian accent. "This is the master bedroom," McDonald said, gesturing to the covered bed of the truck. An olive-drab bedroll on top of a mattress dominates the small space. What is left is filled by several large duffel bags, containing most of his possessions. The rest of his residence is the cab of the truck, or the lounge, and the horse trailer he pulls behind, also known as the dressing room. "If I got married I'd have to quit all of this," he said. "I wouldn't put this sort of life on any woman." Germain smirked from his listening perch on the horse trailer. "He had a wife once, but her husband came and got her," he said, his previously expressionless face revealing a smirk. McDonald said the only thing that could make him give up competing is if he stopped winning, or if there was no money left in the sport. The $500 he won in his previous rodeo was enough to keep him interested. Germain agreed. "They say the first thing that goes out of baseball is your eyes," he said. "The first thing that goes out of football is your legs. The first thing that goes out of rodeo is the money." McDonald said he plans to slow down in a few years. "I'll get married and buy a ranch in Oklahoma or Texas," he said. Two young boys, both under 5, ran by the edge of the arena carrying stick horses. Dressed in blue jeans, denim button-down shirts and black cowboy hats the two trampled through the dust. The taller boy pulled a red bandanna over his mouth and nose. They ran together, underneath the grandstand, shooting at each other with their finger guns. Rodeo is a family affair for Butch Myers, a 41-year-old cowboy from Athens, Texas. He was raised in a family heavily involved in the sport, and he started at age 9. His grandfather rode saddle broncs, his father roped. He competes in steer wrestling and calf roping. His oldest son competes in calf roping and another son has started competing in amateur rodeos. Unlike Germain and McDonald, Myers still competes as a member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboy's Association and is not in the senior tour. Between stops on the pro tour and the amateur events he plans to attend with his son, he will compete in 130 to 140 rodeos over the next year. "I can do everything I did when I was younger," Myers said. "I'm not as old as most people my age." He has made the trip to the national finals 10 times and still holds national records. One of his most memorable trips came in 1995 when he competed against his son in calf roping. Myers finished in 13th place; his son finished second. Three years ago Myers became increasingly involved in his non-rodeo interests, leaving him no time for the sport. He found himself getting tired and gaining weight, so he came back to rodeo. "I don't have anything else," he said. "I need to do it and I like it." Myers said he decided to compete at the pro rodeo level rather than the senior level because it is more of a challenge to compete against younger cowboys. "All the kids I have to beat now - I had to beat their dads a few years ago," he said. "Experience is priceless. Age seems to bother everybody but me." He said the money he makes from rodeo is a nice bonus to the enjoyment he takes away from it. In 1995 he earned between $80,000 and $90,000. Troy Nabors worked his way through a crowd of cowboys gathered behind the cattle corral. His wife, Jan, held his arm as she walked by his side, dressed from head to toe in pink. Nabors stopped every few seconds to speak to an acquaintance, shaking hands with the men and tipping his black hat to the women. Nabors has spent the last 50 years involved in rodeo as a rodeo clown or as a trick roper. Now 65, he took his first applied grease paint and stepped into the rodeo area while he was still in high school in 1947. Earlier this year, he sat in the winner's tent at the Parada del Sol Rodeo in Scottsdale amidst the cowboys competing that day. He was the youngest of five children growing up on a farm in Oklahoma during the Depression, and rodeo always made him smile. "I remember when I was very young we went to a rodeo, and the clown made everybody laugh," he said. "There were a lot of hard times, but I seen the clown made everybody laugh and I thought that was a fun thing, that was a great thing to be." He left home for Oregon and a rodeo in 1950. "I packed up the horse and left just as soon as I graduated high school," he said. "Might as well have, I wasn't learning anything in school anyways. I was studying rodeo." Nabors smiled under his massive black cowboy hat as he recalled the 14 Oregon State Fair rodeos that gave him his true start as a rodeo clown. In those days a rodeo clown needed to be multitalented. "I'd come riding in the arena in my clown outfit on my mule and take my entrance as a rodeo clown," he said. "Then I'd run back out and wipe all the makeup off, put my trick roping clothes on and run in there and do a trick roping act. Then run back out and put my boots back on. Then the arenas had like five acres in them; they aren't the narrow ones they are now." Two U.S. presidents as well as Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip have seen Nabors perform. "Pretty good for an old boy right out of southeast Oklahoma," he said. "We didn't have electricity until I was in the 10th or 11th grade." Nabors moved to Scottsdale in 1961 with his wife, Jan. That same year he joined the Screen Actors' Guild. He was featured in 10 to 15 national commercials, was named the Honeycomb Cowboy in 1966 and had a small role in the 1987 movie, "Raising Arizona." He worked directly with rodeo for 43 years before he quit working on the circuit. "When I quit rodeo, I thought it was the end of the world. My lip just dropped," he said. He is now promoting rodeo and the lifestyle by performing trick roping at various conventions around the country. He said rodeo is so much a part of his life, he could never leave the sport completely. "It's in your blood and you love it," he said. "I love the smell of that arena. I love it more than any sport you could ever ask for." Meanwhile, McDonald was preparing for his second event of the day. The fine tooling on his saddle included World's Champion, Steer Wrestling. Calves were herded down a narrow metal corridor and isolated just before the lead calf was released into the arena to be chased down by a cowboy. McDonald waited as one contestant after another took his turn against the clock. McDonald's horse pranced to the side as he maneuvered into the chute. He signaled to the officials and a calf burst from the enclosure on McDonald's left. He spurred his horse into a run, breaking the rope barrier and starting the clock. As he neared the calf, now running at full speed, he leaned forward in the saddle and shifted his weight to the right. McDonald hovered just over the back of his target. Picking his moment, he leaped from his horse onto the calf, latching on around the animal's head and neck. Planting his heels into the ground, McDonald pulled back on the calf, twisting its head to the side. The calf's hooves flew into the air as McDonald forced the animal onto its back. A flag dropped from the hands of an official, signaling that the attempt was finished. McDonald released his hold on the calf, allowing it to continue its run to the pen on the other side of the arena. He got back on his own feet and retrieved his horse. His time wasn't good enough to earn him any money, but there would be other rodeos. He led his horse back to his rolling home. Dancing and drinking would fill up the evening. Tomorrow would be the final day of the rodeo. "I'm a dancing fool," he said. "You've got to go out partying and dancing in between. That's part of it."
Jennifer Netherby Warner Glenn tipped his tan cowboy hat and offered a handshake. His dogs were barking and slobbering behind him. Glenn is a lanky John Wayne type, a slender 6-foot-6 Arizona rancher who wears Wrangler jeans, a long-sleeve, western-cut khaki shirt and cowboy boots the color of his hat. He's also a hunter, but when he spotted a rare jaguar last year, he shot only pictures. Make no mistake. Glenn is a cattle rancher, proud of his land and beef, and protective of his rights. But he's also worried about the environment and endangered species. Glenn and his wife, Wendy, are part of a group of 15 ranchers in southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico who belong to the Malpai Borderlands Group, which is trying to show the public that ranchers and environmentalists want the same thing - to preserve the land and what it supports. The group has done more than just talk. In 1994, it teamed up with traditional ranching foes - the Nature Conservancy, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Arizona and New Mexico Game and Fish departments, state land agencies, the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management and a number of other government agencies. Their mission: save open rangeland from developers and endangered species. The name Malpai derives from a Spanish word meaning "badlands." The MBG covers about one million acres in Arizona and New Mexico, stretching from the Mexican border north to Rodeo, N.M., and east from Douglas, Ariz., to just west of Antelope Wells, N.M. About 53 percent of the land is privately owned, and the other 47 percent is state, Forest Service and BLM land. Property not included in the group is scattered throughout the area. Not all ranchers in the area have bought into the idea of an alliance with government agencies and the Nature Conservancy. Judy Keeler, a New Mexico rancher, said she is worried that the Nature Conservancy will use endangered species as a pathway into managing private property. She added that the Nature Conservancy, which has bought land throughout the West for conservation for future generations, was at first opposed to ranching when it came to southeastern Arizona. "The Nature Conservancy is not about wildlife,"she said. "They came in with the attitude that they knew it all and we were ignorant." The Glenns said they're not concerned about the Nature Conservancy's motives. "They don't have any hidden agenda," said Glenn, 60. He and his wife, who is 56, have been prominent MBG members since the group's inception. They moved onto their ranch in 1963 although both have lived in southeastern Arizona their entire lives. Their 15,000-acre ranch borders Mexico. Most of it leased from the state. Malpai co-director John Cook of the Nature Conservancy said the conservancy was invited by the Malpai group to join in. The group has allowed the conservancy to help ranchers prevent overgrazing on their own land by allowing ranchers to graze their cattle on Gray Ranch, a conservancy-owned ranch in New Mexico. Not all environmentalists agree with the conservancy's methods. Susan Schock of Gila Watch, a New Mexico environmental group, said it is impossible for ranchers to run enough cattle to make a living without overgrazing the land. "Anybody who's rich can run a few cattle and make it look OK," she added. "It's not reality. It's the cowboy myth that they're perpetuating." Glenn said ranchers don't want to overgraze the land. "Ranchers could do that for maybe three or four years and then they'd be out of everything," he said. "They'd cut their own throats. You can't keep overgrazing the country. You ruin it and you've gotta go." Most ranchers give different patches of their land a rest from grazing at least every other growing season, Glenn said. The BLM, a federal agency under the Department of Interior that manages public lands, requires the patchquilt grazing. The BLM charges ranchers $1.35 per cow for each month the land is used. If the rancher owns state and private land in addition to BLM land, the rancher is charged for the percentage of BLM land used rather than the full amount, said Jim McCormick, BLM bureau chief for Las Cruces, N.M. For example, if one-third of a rancher's land is private, one- third is state and one third is BLM, the rancher would be charged 33 percent of the BLM fee in addition to state fees. The fees fluctuate based on the cost to produce beef, fees for leasing private lands and beef prices. McCormick said this year's fees are at an all- time low because of high production costs and low beef prices. Most ranchers have a second income to supplement their ranching income. Glenn works as a professional hunting guide with his 35-year-old daughter, Kelly Glenn-Kimbro. One of the biggest threats to ranchers comes from the land itself and what it holds: endangered species. Under the federal Endangered Species Act, the habitat of an endangered species is studied to find what, if any, steps are needed to protect it, said Terry Johnson, chief of endangered species for Arizona Game and Fish Department. The land could be listed as a critical area and ranching could be stopped. But Johnson said that in Arizona, a rancher never has been forced off his land because of an endangered species. "When a rancher has an endangered species in his country, it scares him to death because he's afraid (Endangered Species Act) is gonna stop everything," Glenn said. " he'd be dumber than a post to say, 'I've got one here.'" The group was put to the test last year when Glenn spotted the jaguar. "It was the prettiest son-of-a-gun I'd ever looked at in my life," he said. He took pictures of the jaguar, an endangered species, but said that at first he was concerned about showing the pictures or telling state and federal agencies about the spotting. "If they find an endangered species on your place, they can make you take your cattle off, close you down, put you out of business,"Wendy Glenn said. So what we're working with is trying to show that in spite of the fact that we're ranching, there are endangered species here that are doing very well." The Glenns' concerns were put to rest after they told the Nature Conservancy about the spotting. "They (Nature Conservancy) all thought it was a wonderful thing that we had a jaguar in the area," Glenn said. Johnson said between 64 and 84 jaguars have been found in Arizona since 1880, and Arizona Game and Fish believes the animal can exist with ranchers. Ranchers worked with 16 different government agencies on an agreement to protect the jaguar, Johnson said. The agreement focused on Santa Cruz and Cochise counties in southern Arizona and two New Mexico counties. All 16 agencies approved the agreement in April. Johnson said the conservation agreement has encouraged many ranchers to come forward and work with Arizona Game and Fish. "Because it's a volunteer approach, there are people who think it's wonderful," he said. The Nature Conservancy's Cook said his group also is supporting the agreement. "It provides the best opportunity to engage private landowner support," he said. Ranchers help wildlife by maintaining water supplies on private and public land. They must maintain water lines and pumps in good condition to get water to their cattle. This means a supply of water is also guaranteed for wildlife. "It's a really hard deal because if we weren't out here on these ranches, who's gonna take care of the country, who's gonna water the wildlife?" Wendy Glenn said. "People don't really think about that. They want us all off all the land." Malpai ranchers Matt Magoffin and his family are a perfect example of ranchers aiding wildlife. The Magoffins hauled 1,000 gallons of water five miles out to a dried up pond each week on their 17,000-acre ranch for the past four years. The pond is home to the endangered Chiricahua leopard frogs, who without the water would die. The Magoffin family alone kept two groups of the frogs alive during one of southeastern Arizona's most severe droughts in the past 50 years. Anna Magoffin estimated that over that time, the family provided more than 100,000 gallons of water for the frogs. The Magoffins also are concerned about backlash from helping the endangered frogs on their land. Anna said that a decade ago, a rare species found on someone's land was viewed as special, but now it is looked at with fear. "Everything we did could probably turn around and stab us in the back," she said. The Malpai group formed after state and federal agencies began stopping natural fires on ranchland. The Glenns had met with neighboring ranchers to work with the agencies and work out a fire plan. "The perspective for so many years was Smokey the Bear put out every fire that ever happened," Wendy Glenn said. The ranchers claimed that the fires cleaned up brush and put ash back into the ground, fertilizing the land for cattle and wildlife. The group worked out a plan to have prescribed burns in different areas every several years. The first burn took place in summer 1995, covering 6,000 acres in Baker Canyon in the Peloncillo Mountains, about 30 miles east of Douglas. The second burn will take place in June. Ultimately, the MBG wants to work out a schedule to burn at least 5,000 acres a year. Because of their success at lobbying government agencies for burns, the ranchers decided to work to solve other ranching problems. McCormick said the group has made a big difference in relations between the BLM and ranchers and has helped with coordination and research. A BLM representative sits on the group's board, which meets several times a year. McCormick said the partnership has made compromise easier. Glenn said the ranchers have gained a new perspective on the different state and federal agencies. "Surprisingly enough, the agency people ... they really realize what's going on as far as grazing," he said. "They realize they need that, that's a revenue. It's one of the few revenue-producing uses on this public land. We don't have timber down here." At about the same time the group was lobbying for fires, the Nature Conservancy had bought Gray Ranch in New Mexico. One of the Glenns' neighbors began talking to the conservancy about working with the ranchers. The Glenns said they were at first unsure about working with the conservancy because of things they had heard from other ranchers. "We were typical ranchers; we were scared to death of them," Wendy Glenn said. After meeting with Cook, members of the MBG decided the conservancy could help get their message out. "When we started, one of the big problems we had was the public trying to force ranchers off of grazing on public lands," Glenn said. "We wanted to bring somebody into the country to show 'em that we'd seen so many pictures taken and printed of just a few isolated spots that were really severely overgrazed and damaged by cattle. And we wanted to show 'em there were some spots that weren't, some spots that were under good management. We thought the Nature Conservancy people could help us get that message across to people back there in Washington where they're making policy for us. And they've really done just exactly that." Cook said the conservancy got involved in the group to support landowners' efforts at maintaining endangered plants and animals. He said that although there are still real issues between ranchers and environmentalists, the coalition allows the conservancy and ranchers to talk and act. "The Nature Conservancy has definitely gone through an evolution," Cook said. "Not only the Nature Conservancy, but other environmental groups and rural landowners have experienced 20 years of litigation and really banging heads." He said the conservancy also is working with ranchers and other agricultural groups in Wyoming, Colorado, Hawaii and other states. Glenn agreed that the conservancy also is beginning to see ranchers in a new light. "If those grazing permits are taken away from the rancher, we would be left with quite a few acres of land but not enough to make a living off of, and we'd have to sell that off and move off," he said. "And that land would go to the highest bidder. A lot of times that highest bidder is the developer. The Nature Conservancy people are beginning to think that maybe the grazing's a little better than the pavement." Growth in rural Arizona and New Mexico has brought with it housing and land subdivisions, one more massive threat to ranchers. The MBG is offering ranchers land easements to prevent ranchland from becoming 40-acre plots. If a ranch within the Malpai area is on the sale block, the rancher can sell possibly the subdivision rights to the MBG. A ranch doesn't have to be up for sale to be put into a land easement. By selling the subdivision rights to the Malpai, the land is guaranteed not to be subdivided even if it is sold. The land is appraised and the rancher is paid the difference of the subdivision value of the land versus the ranch value. If a ranch were valued at $400,000 for the ranch value and $700,000 if subdivided, the owner would get $300,000 from the MBG. The MBG is funded by private grants and donations. The rancher could either buy the ranch and put an easement on it or the group could buy the land at the subdivision value and sell it back to the rancher at the cheaper ranch value price. The easements can either be for a specified amount of time or perpetual. The contract forbids the MBG or anyone else from subdividing the land. "Our critics are saying that we've got these guys over a barrel, and what choice have they got," Glenn said. "Well, they have a lot of choices. They can sell their cattle or they can pay for their own grass. We're just offering them another alternative and we're not forcing anyone to do this." Ranchers can get out of the easement if their state or federal grazing permits are pulled or if the MBG goes defunct. Four Malpai ranchers have put easements on their land that add up to 20,000 acres. "Years past when you got caught in a situation like that, you just got to sell off your herd," Glenn said. "And now when a rancher gets caught in a situation like that in this area, we want to try to give him a safety valve, so to speak." Only three ranches near the Malpai area have been sold for subdivisions at this point. While not everyone in the area is convinced the group will do good in the end, the Glenns said they aren't worried. "A lot of them have talked to me and have said, 'boy you're making a big mistake,'" Glenn said. "And I ask them, 'Well what are you gonna do, just sit here and do nothin?' And they don't really have an answer. But we're trying something. Whether it'll work or not, time will tell. But so far it seems to be."
Story and Photos By Lori Cain David Kurtz tapped his silver-tipped white cane from side to side, measuring each step as he walked east on University Drive. The cane clicked each time it struck the cement, helping the 88-year-old retired draftsman with impaired vision feel the difference between sidewalk and pavement. Kurtz decided to use the cane after he fell last year. Now he uses it to make it to class safely and on time. The Alzheimer's victim and veteran of World War II is a junior at ASU majoring in sociology. He's also the oldest senior on campus. "I think there was a guy here who was 91, but he graduated," said Kurtz, who will be 91 when he graduates, if he's on schedule. Six percent of the student population at ASU is older than 35. There are a few students in the 60 to 79 age group. Kurtz is the oldest undergraduate of the 42,000-plus students on campus. There are two graduate students in their 90s. Every Monday and Wednesday like clockwork Kurtz arrives at University Drive and Mill Avenue on bus No. 44 at 8:10 a.m. He takes the same path each time - down University across two intersections and onto campus via Forest Mall. "I keep going the same way," he said "Then, I won't get lost." He has to take special steps and make a conscious effort to remember daily information that can get mischanneled in his short- term memory. "I have to think differently," he said, referring to how he manages to capture the daily occurrences of his life and in his studies. Varda Myers, the woman who assists him with his everyday needs, said, "The information is in there. He just has to figure new ways to get it out." Myers was influential in convincing him to go to college. She and her husband share a house in Phoenix with the elderly student and provide him a safe and comfortable environment. Myers has the philosophy that everyone is important and that life is about relationships and learning. "Think of the worst thing you've done that you can't forgive yourself for," she said. "Now think of your best friend. If your friend did the same thing would you forgive him. Yes. Then you should forgive yourself." Myers added that her purpose in Kurtz's life is to teach him more about life and how to open up to people. Clad in loose-fitting Levi's that he bleached accidentally, a plaid flannel shirt and a bright white cap with the bold maroon ASU logo, Kurtz carefully picked his way down the steep staircase into the Architecture Building where his first class of the day was. His black backpack was cinched tightly around his shoulders. He was the first to arrive in the fluorescent-lit classroom. He got out his notebook and text, sat down at the desk in the front row and waited for his sociology professor and the rest of the students to arrive. Kurtz took off his cap, revealing a sparse crown of white hair and making the amber-colored earring in his left ear lobe more visible and out of character. "The amazing thing about David is he is still preparing for a career,"said Bob Dare, Kurtz's sociology professor, who taught him at ASU and South Mountain Community College. "He's on the same wavelength as other students. Grades are important to him and are an index of his success. He's interested in his evaluation as a student." Dare said that some older students may be taking a class purely out of interest and not to get a grade, but Kurtz takes his classes as seriously as the younger undergraduates and considers his grades crucial to his success in a future career. "He's very much a student,"Dare said. "David comes to class quite regularly. He's extremely responsive and involved in class. He has ideas and is willing to express them." A lifetime dream "I've always wanted to go to college," Kurtz said. "My mother never wanted me to. She thought I was uneducable. Now I'm going to go." He graduated from Senn High School in Chicago with about 800 other students in 1926. He studied architecture at Chicago's Architecture Center and got his first job drafting in 1933. He traveled from job to job. "The most I worked was three to five years at a job," he said. "Then, I would go to another. They would invite me. They would tell me about the job and then offer the dollars and whoop I'd go." Kurtz traveled throughout the United States working as a draftsman. He's been married five times and has had no children. "He has the perspective that he might be getting toward the middle of his life," Dare said. "He's a man out and about. He makes me reflect on my own life and wish I would take more time to sit down under a shade tree and get on the same level." Kurtz is determined. "I was afraid some professors wouldn't let me in their classes because of my age, but I scored higher on the math than most college students," he said. He has a 3.0 grade point average and has received federal grants for most of his education. He plans on getting a master's degree in sociology and is already preparing for his thesis, which he will do on the problems with current rehabilitation methods used in state prisons. "My math professor told me that I would run into professors who wouldn't want to teach me because they would have to teach at a different level," he added. "I have to have extra time to take tests, because I think slower." Going beyond requirements Dare said Kurtz goes beyond class requirements. He added that when Kurtz was assigned excerpts from Generation X Goes to College, he read the entire text. Because of his impaired vision, he spends hours in the Access for Disabilities Accommodations room of the Hayden Library, reading his assignments on a closed-circuit television that magnifies the type to a size he can see. He takes exams under special arrangements in Matthews Center, where ASU's Disability Resources for Students is located. "I'm amazed at how students support him," Dare said "They make allowances for him. "I'm mystified and chagrined at university departments and administration that don't want to deal with him." Kurtz attended South Mountain Community College for a few years before enrolling at ASU in the fall 1996. He takes six hours of classes each semester, and if all goes as planned, he'll graduate in 2000. "He's quite the person," said Betsy Tait, an orientation and mobility training specialist who worked with Kurtz when he first started using the cane. "he's very independent. "I find him inspirational maybe because I'm aging myself. In this country that admires youth, a lot of people think you get old; life is over. David has no preconceived notion of his future. He takes everything in stride. I guess what is most inspirational about David is that he sees a future when a lot of people his age are seeing death." Kurtz has more than school to keep him busy. He volunteers every Tuesday and Thursday to help fellow seniors at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Phoenix. "I've got over a 100 hours here," he said, smiling. He needs to work 140 more hours to fulfill part of the requirements for his degree. He works close to six hours each time he goes in. "They feed you lunch if you're here for more than four hours," he added. On one recent Tuesday, Kurtz walked to one of the two computers in the corner of the volunteer services room at the medical center and bent over so that he could see the monitor. "I need to fill in all my information here," he said, hitting the enter key. A small printer on the right whirred and spit out Kurtz's meal ticket. He took the ticket and walked to the main building. On the sixth floor is a well-equipped gym complete with treadmill and a stair-climber machine. "You see, I start here," he said as he stepped onto a treadmill that faced a large window overlooking the center. "He's the oldest outpatient I have in the clinic,"said Rich Kutt, a therapist who treats the effects of disease, injury and congenital disorders through the use of therapeutic exercise and education. He said Kurtz comes to the clinic regularly and is in good physical health. Kurtz finished his 10-minute walk on the treadmill and sat beside Kutt to have his blood pressure taken. Next, he would work with the weights. "After this, I go work on the computers,"Kurtz said. He spends about an hour each visit increasing his skills on the computers. His impaired vision makes it difficult for him to see some of the images on the monitor. After his morning routine, he headed for the cafeteria, where the disabled veterans were filing in for lunch. "A lot of these men need help feeding themselves," he said as he walked over to help one of the veterans open his milk carton. The gentleman was not much older than Kurtz, but he was wheelchair bound and was having a difficult time opening the small containers on his tray. Kurtz unwrapped the veteran's straw and moved onto the next resident. When he returned home later in the day, Myers was sitting at the table in the kitchen of the sparsely furnished home. "When people ask, I say I'm David's mother,"she said. Myers and Kurtz met at a bus stop a few years ago. Every other weekend Myers' grandchildren visit them at home. Myers said it's good for Kurtz to be around other people, especially children, because he learns to share and can enjoy unconditional love. His room is in the southeast corner of the house. Photo copies of Amelia Earhardt, who was on an around-the-world flight when she disappeared in 1937, cover the white walls of the 10-by-30 room. Kurtz said he married her "spiritually"in 1995. His single bed is decorated in black and white and covered with pillows. A small shrine sits on a shelf laden with memorabilia. Kurtz is a spiritual man and meditates frequently during the day. He combines aspects of various religions to form a belief that gives him a plan for his life. He said he is primarily Christian but borrows from Islam, Buddhism and other eastern religions. "This is my seventh sojourn here on earth and I can't wait until I've become complete," he said.
By Jason Farrell "Do you, Jason, take Joumana to be your lawfully wedded wife; to trust, honor and obey, through sickness and in health, 'til death do you part?" A Phoenix judge asked Jason Kidd the question. The Phoenix Suns point guard fidgeted. Rather than simply saying, "I do," he took a deep breath and recited the entire wedding vow to his soon-to-be-wife. He chuckled out of embarrassment, and his face glowed nearly as red as his tie. Hours after his wedding on Feb. 21, Kidd was out of his black suit and into his Suns uniform. Soon he would have another reason to glow. His team was about to upset the Cleveland Cavaliers. Change has played a championship role in the 24-year-old Kidd's life, especially since his rookie year in 1994. He has matured, he is married and his transition from Dallas to Phoenix helped catapult the Suns into the National Basketball Association playoffs. When he came to the Suns franchise from the Dallas Mavericks late in December, the Suns had one of the worst records in the NBA. After he signed on, the Suns won more than 65 percent of their games and entered the playoffs as the seventh seed in the Western Conference. It took Seattle a full five games to eliminate the Suns in the first round. With Kidd in a purple, orange and copper jersey, the Suns compiled a glittering 23-9 record during the regular season, including an 11-game winning streak. In an April win against the Timberwolves, Kidd had his 15th career triple-double - double digits in three different statistical categories. It was his second as a Sun. After a 101-76 victory against the Mavericks in March, both the Dallas and the Phoenix media wanted a piece of Kidd. He was wearing a green silk paisley shirt, gray slacks and a gold wedding band when he stood in front of the reporters and the jockeying cameramen. His green eyes stared through question after question. "I need them as much as they need me,"Kidd said of the Suns. "And that's the way basketball is supposed to be played. Here, there's really no pressure. Now I just go out there and play and have some fun." Since Charles Barkley left for Houston, the Suns had been without a franchise player. Kidd said he hopes he can be the next one. "What's going to separate me from other franchise players in the league is that it's not just going to be me," he said. "It's going to be the rest of my teammates out there. "When we win, it's going to be a team. It's not that Jason has done it single-handedly. You look at Mitch Richmond and those guys (Grant Hill, Penny Hardaway). They really have to do it day in and day out. I'm going to do it day in and day out, but in a different way." Tom Ambrose, Suns' vice president of public relations, agreed that Kidd could become the Suns' franchise player. "This year has been one of great turmoil, transition and change," Ambrose said. "I think that with the arrival of Jason Kidd came the beginning of some semblance of order, which is what we were seeking from the beginning. He is the cornerstone of what this franchise will be in the years ahead." In Dallas, critics saw him as a young, spoiled superstar. When the Mavericks were losing, he was quoted as saying that he would have to turn to baseball if the Mavericks didn't improve their franchise. Kidd, who played college ball at the University of California- Berkeley, took most of the weight of Dallas' losses on his shoulders. "I'd try to soak it all up," he said. "I should have let the team take it, instead of me single-handedly saying that it was all my fault." A much publicized rift between Kidd and teammate Jimmy Jackson added fuel to the fire. Supposedly, their problem arose from a mutual affection for singer Toni Braxton. "He doesn't even know her," Joumana, said. "He was with me on the day that the papers said he was supposed to be with her." She added that, at first, Kidd's giggle at the accusations bothered her. "He says that I have to have tougher skin," she said. "And that's pretty much what I'm doing now. It's just one of the sacrifices you have to make to have a relationship with an NBA player." Kidd said the problem in Dallas was between Jackson and forward Jamal Mashburn. He added that the dissension between the players arose because their expectations were not met. "I just think that a lot of people expected a lot there, and it just didn't happen," he said. Kidd admitted he had a problem with Dallas Head Coach Jim Cleamons. "Kidd said some things about Cleamons before he left that rubbed people the wrong way," said Richie Whitt, a sportswriter for the Fort Worth Star Telegram. "Then he kind of went public with his feud with Jim Jackson and people saw him a little as a spoiled brat." The Dallas fans emphasized this by booing every time Kidd touched the ball when the Suns visited in March. " he was booed because Mavericks fans boo uniforms and not players," Whitt said. "If he was traded back there next week, he'd get a standing ovation. "Jason Kidd leaving the team has ruined the Dallas Mavericks. The only thing the Mavericks had was hope and excitement. Now they don't have either one of those." Whitt said that he thinks Kidd's problems spawned from getting too big too fast. In his first year in the NBA he was named co-rookie of the year along with Detroit Pistons' All-Star forward Grant Hill. Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls called Kidd the leader of the next generation. Barkley said that Kidd is one of the few players that he'd pay to see play. Former Celtics' great Bob Cousy said that Kidd will transcend point guard play. Kidd entered the 1994 NBA draft after his sophomore season at Berkeley. "A lot of players get very selfish and self-centered when they're handed the million dollar contracts and the commercials right out of college," Whitt said. Earlier this year, it was clear that Kidd needed a change. In his final games with the Mavericks, he didn't even record one of his trademark "triple-doubles." Suns Head Coach Danny Ainge said: "Jason has an inner passion that few players possess. He had that passion in his first two seasons. I watched him a couple of times this season (in Dallas) and asked myself 'Where has that passion gone?'" The passion flew to Phoenix in December when the Suns acquired Kidd, guard Tony Dumas and center-forward Loren Meyer from the Mavericks for guard Sam Cassell, guard Michael Finley, center-forward A.C. Green and a second-round pick in 1997 or 1998. Rather than choose his No. 5 jersey, Kidd opted for No. 32, which in his eyes meant "triple-double." But the wins would have to wait. In his second quarter as a Sun on Dec. 28 against Vancouver, Kidd was sidelined with a hairline fracture of the right collarbone and a sprained sterno-clavicular joint. Still he almost completed a triple-double in the first half. The fracture kept him out for 22 contests, including the All- Star game. For the first couple of weeks, Kidd was placed at the end of the Suns bench. He looked uncomfortable sitting unemotionally in a gray pinstripe suit. Occasionally, he would stand and join the huddle. But, more often than not he would just sit and stare at the scoreboard. During his break, Kidd worked to mentally prepare for his return. He also worked on his shot. "My shot's going to come in time," he said. "I just have to be more assertive on offense. The biggest thing is being unselfish. That's what gets me in trouble a lot. But, I just have to work on it. As I get a little bit older, I can start understanding that I do have to shoot the ball, but that just comes with time." On his first game back, Kidd finished with eight points on 4- of-5 shooting and nine assists in a 110-93 victory over the Clippers. "he looked very good out there," said Clippers guard Malik Sealy. "Nine assists on his first day back. I don't know if I've had nine assists in my whole career." After the game, Kidd grimaced as he pulled off his jersey to reveal his ace-bandaged shoulder and the tattoo of a black panther on his left breast. The panther was a design that he and his best friend of 14 years, Andre Cornwell, had tattooed on their bodies. Kidd and Cornwell met at St. Paschal's Parochial School in Alameda, Calif. They grew up playing basketball together. It was with Cornwell that Kidd started to develop his now-famous passing abilities. "(Passing) is what the fans have to get used to," Kidd said. "It's not going to be me going out there and scoring 25 points a night and beating our opponent that way. It's going to be the little things, like getting the rebounds here and there, and the passing. "Everybody knows that I can pass. But, having to guard their best player defensively and making it rough on him, that's the only thing I can do. I can't go out there and score 50 points and hope that we'll win the ballgame." Kidd's "little things "have injected a long-overdue " will to win" into his new teammates. "His energy level just makes everybody's job easier," said Suns guard Kevin Johnson. "It's so contagious." Suns forward Cedric Ceballos added: "The way he plays intensifies the game. There's going to be a great marriage between him and our basketball team." Marriage means more to Kidd than basketball. He attributed his change in attitude to his wife. "The situation of being married and starting a family is something that will make anybody settle down where they're more focused just not on basketball, but on life," he said. "That's something that Joumana's helped me with." Jason and Joumana, who is also 24, met 3 1/2 years ago in Oakland when she was attending San Francisco State and he was playing at Berkeley. At first, he had little luck in getting her attention. "His friend was dating a friend of mine and they were always trying to get me together with Jason,"Joumana said. "I just had that typical athlete' perception of him. I wasn't interested." Then Kidd's friends had a party and invited her over. When she arrived, Kidd and his friend were alone in the apartment. After five minutes, she left upset. "He still gives me a hard time about leaving," she said. "He tells me, 'You were being so mean.' It wasn't that, I was just being cautious. I guess I stereotyped him more than anything." They kept in touch while he was playing in Dallas. Her friends would go to Dallas with her to see him. That's when she said she realized that he's "such a great guy." "We just got closer and closer," she said. "Naturally, we became exclusive and serious." At their marriage, Suns Assistant Coach Paul Silas and his wife Caroline stood as the best man and maid of honor. "We just did it to get it out of the way and be married," Joumana said. "It was weird, but it's marriage and we wanted to do it. Our parents weren't upset because we're having a big wedding in September. "My hesitation at first was that I didn't want to be in such a high-profile sort of situation. I just wanted a normal life; a white- picket-fence-type regular family." Family life seems to be on the top of both of their minds. "I definitely have a desire to start a family and have kids," Kidd said. "It's something we're not going to pass up. I think we both want to start a family and I think that will be great." How many Kidds? Joumana said she would like to have at least four children. "I only have one brother," she added. "And I remember my best friend's family had six kids. They always had so much fun and they didn't have to go out and play. They entertained each other. That way, the burden of the parents kind of lessened as they got older." She said she now realizes that her husband is not the bad guy she once perceived. "Jason's not an outspoken person,"she said. "So, if he's with 10 guys and they do something, he takes the blame because he's the famous guy. "The biggest thing that I can do to help him is just to make sure that he's in the right situation. I know. I was one of those people who wanted to change him and was crucifying him for being a troublemaker. Now that I know the way it works, a lot of times he was just a victim of circumstance." The weather also has made the transition a little easier. "It's an easy place to adjust, especially being from the West Coast," he said. "This is a beautiful place all year round. It gets a little hot here and there, but anybody who can afford air conditioning can survive the heat. Eventually, Joumana and I will settle here. We're looking to build a home this summer." Kidd's vows have proven to be true to both his team and his wife. "We only really have one chance on this earth for a short period of time," he said. "And, I'm going to live the life that I want to live; not the life that somebody chooses for me. "Once basketball's over you go into your new life, your next life. You won't have basketball. You won't have the fans. And, you won't have the media writing about you. Now you're in the real world. "That's something that I'm going to have to get ready for. And thank God, I'm going to have Joumana right there for the next 60 to 70 years."
By Vivi Stenberg Barbara Schischa said she knew that she would never see her husband again when he took off in his four-seater nearly 20 years ago. "I tried to tell him not to bring my boys,"she said quietly as she described her feelings surrounding the plane crash that killed her husband and one son. "I didn't want to live with the guilt." Her voice got louder as the memories became more painful. "The dental records - that's what ended it." Schischa, a hospice worker and hypnotherapist, shared her story with other members of Wings of Light, a support network for families and survivors of aircraft crash victims. She lost her husband, Erwin, and 13-year-old son, Gary, in October 1978. Wings of Light is a Phoenix-based non-profit organization that aims to help people who have been traumatized by plane crashes. The Phoenix group meets on a regular basis. The organization also has members in 26 states who communicate mainly by telephone and electronic mail. Some of Schischa's audience had heard the story before. For others it was new, although far too familiar. "We are sharers,"said Suzy Thomas, 41, whose father died in small-plane crash in Page, Ariz., in June 1996. "My husband thinks we sit around and cry, but we don't. It's not as if we sit and dwell. We laugh; we want it to be positive when we share our stories." Andrea Waas, 39, of Phoenix, who founded the organization in 1995 and was the host of the Sunday network meeting, said that naming it "Wings of Light"was a way to reflect that positivism. Waas lost her 64-year-old father in a plane crash in October 1987. He was a dedicated hobby pilot who passed the passion for flying onto his daughter. His four-seater went down near Lincoln, Neb., due to a mechanical failure. Although the crash changed Waas' life, it didn't discourage her from giving up her love for flying. She said that she eagerly grabs every opportunity to get in the pilot's seat. "I feel more safe in the airplane than in a car," she said. However, Waas admitted that her father's accident made her a more cautious pilot than before. "There are certain pilots I won't fly with. They just aren't careful enough," she said. At the time her father was killed, Waas was pursuing a master's degree in business at a college in Wisconsin and needed a subject for her master's thesis. She decided to do her thesis on starting an organization for people whose lives have been "touched by aircraft accidents." "I really expected to do the research and have it come back saying that there was not a need for such an organization, that there were enough other organizations out there that uplifted people like us," she said. Instead, she said she found that there were a lot of people who were looking for the kind of organization she had in mind. Waas' master's thesis sat on a shelf for five years. She said, "I kept thinking: 'you know, I should start this thing,' so, in April 1995, I decided to go ahead and start it," Her group was incorporated in Arizona as a non-profit organization on the eighth anniversary of her father's death, Oct. 15, 1995. "I took that as a message that I was on the right track - that I was doing the right thing," Waas said. Positive yet hurtful Schischa, who joined the organization about a year ago, said her membership in the group had been "invaluable." "It helped me in the sense that when I talked about my loss, it was related to my husband - I never talked about my son," she added. "So, when I have talked to people who have lost their sons - it brought my son from very deep, down in here," Schischa said, pointing with a clenched fist to her stomach. "And it forced me to try to get in touch with those feelings that I have been sitting on. "That's the positive, but hurtful aspect of (Wings of Light)." After Waas in-corporated, she contacted people who had helped her with the research for her master's thesis and asked for their volunteer help. Soon after the organization was established, she received national media coverage. Waas also reached a growing number of people through articles in various national aviation publications. Thomas contacted Waas as soon as she read about Wings of Light in a local weekly. "I called her, and I came right over here," Thomas said. "I would talk to my husband. He was supportive, but he is tired of my story. My kids are tired of my story." Margi Cook, who lost her 25-year-old son, Jason, in a crash in the Grand Canyon area in November 1995, said her first contact with the organization was "as if a light bulb went on." Wings of Light does not offer professional counseling to its members during meetings. However, Waas has established partnerships with the National Organization of Trauma Counselors Referrals and the Association of Death Education and Counseling, and she refers her members to the organizations. Most of the "therapy" offered by Wings of Light is the comfort to meet with and talk to people who can relate and understand a person's own experiences. "We can get together and talk about it and no one ever gets tired of you," Cook said. "We listen." Thomas said, "I needed something. Someone to talk to, someone to understand. And when I met her (Waas), I felt like I had known her forever. I said to myself: 'Thank God, finally someone who knows.'" Schischa, who is currently pursuing a bachelor's degree in psychology, said that the insight and understanding - spoken or unspoken - members shared comes from the heart. "If you go to a shrink, they can't relate, unless they themselves have experienced such losses,"she said. "This isn't something they can look up on page 313, because we all react differently." The members of the family network agreed that they are an audience that never grows tired of hearing each other's stories. Thomas said she tried to attend a support group in her church before she joined Wings of Light, but it offered her little comfort. "Everybody there had spouses who had died from cancer," Thomas said. "They had all been able to hold their hands and say goodbye. When I told them my story - they couldn't even comprehend it." Although Wings of Light caters to everybody - from skydivers to astronauts - who have had experiences with accidents in the air, most of the organization's members have been affected by accidents of small aircrafts. "It is often a very different issue, especially with airline crashes," Waas said. "A lot of times they are people who aren't interested in flying. They may not even like flying. With us, everyone we lost were in those planes because they loved it." Cook added, "I do think people like us have been forgotten. People concentrate on anything big, like the TWA crash. But it is all us little people here who are suffering every day." Still, Cook and the others who have lost loved ones in small- plane crashes are not shy to show their support for the family of a local victim of the July 1996 crash of a TWA Boeing 747 airliner in the Atlantic Ocean outside New York. The parents of 11-year-old Larkyn Dwyer, who died in the crash that claimed the lives of 229 people, recently held an event to raise money for a horseback riding arena that will be built in memory of their daughter. The young girl was supposed to go to France to meet her French exchange program friend when the plane blew up in the sky just after takeoff and killed everybody on board. Cook, Thomas and other Wings of Light members brought their families to the fund-raiser to support the Dwyers both financially and emotionally. "Here are my Wings of Light friends,"Ann Dwyers, 44, told other fund-raiser participants at the muddy rodeo ground in New River. "It's ironic, this common bond we have, but wish we didn't have. It's good for us, though." Dwyer and her husband Ron, 43, are building a world-class horse arena in cooperation with the local Kiwanis Club for the New River community to enjoy. Ann Dwyer said that Larkyn had an attention deficit disorder, which vastly improved after she got her own horse as a 9-year-old. Both parents hope the arena will become a future playground for disabled children. "To see how that horse changed her life, that is why we have such a commitment to make this (the memorial arena) happen," Larkyn's father said. Support for rescuers, too Wings of Light also has networks that go beyond supporting families of victims. Waas established a support group for police officers, accident investigators, firefighters and others who respond to accidents. Douglas Pelley, 44, a retired firefighter from Mesa, is a member of this rescue/response personnel support network. "It's crucial that we can talk about what we experience," Pelley said. "For a new fireman who sees something really nasty, and then just blocks it out - dwells on it - it's not healthy." Although he is retired from his job as a driver for the Scottsdale Fire Department, Pelley said he sees himself as valuable to the organization. "Andrea and Suzy, they ask me all kinds of questions," he said. "I'm a technical nuts-and-bolts kinda person, and sometimes it scared me whether or not I said the right thing. I can eat spaghetti and talk about vomiting at the same time, so I have to watch what I say to other people." Although the soft-spoken ex-rescuer said he tried to be sensitive to other people, he also admitted the best way for him to deal with the gruesomeness of his work was through humor and laughter. "I'm a religious guy, so I don't care much about sexual jokes, but I do have a morbid sense of humor," he said. Wings of Light also has a third network, geared towards those who have actually survived plane crashes. The members of this network are scattered throughout the nation, and they found the way to Wings of Light through word of mouth and publicity in the aviation community. Waas said she established the third network because "after my dad died, some of his pilot colleagues didn't want to get back in the air." Since she started the organization, Waas has encountered numerous ways of dealing with the consequences of aircraft accidents. She said that after her father's death, she contacted everyone she could to talk about the accident. One of the first things she did was to call the newspaper that had printed pictures of the accident and got them to send her the contact sheets. What Waas didn't see on the contact sheets, but became painfully clear when she received the actual pictures, was a charred profile of her dad in the wreckage. She admitted the photos resulted in "a lot of crying,"but in an odd way they also had a healing function. Because her dad was so badly burned, the funeral home director refused to let anyone see the body. Waas said that seeing those pictures helped her come to closure with her father's death. In search of closure Another thing Waas did in search of "closure" was to see the wreckage where her dad spent his last minutes. She gathered the items that weren't too badly burned: His sunglasses, flight manuals and the steering column that only had one handle. Waas said that her father had such a firm grip on the column in order to avoid the crash that he broke off the right handle on impact. She put the items in what she only refers to as "the box." During the years after her father's crash, Waas said she would take out the box on various occasions to look at and touch the charred items. "It was part of my healing process," she said. Thomas also has such "a box." "I had to know everything," she said. "I think the reason I suffer so much, is that I know everything. I have the impact of it," she said. For Schischa the story is again different. The plane crash that killed her husband and son was so devastating that it left nothing but scattered pieces. "They (investigators) called and said that they had found a charred pocketknife, and I asked them to send it to me," Schischa said. She received the only item that had made it in one piece through the crash, only to realize it wasn't her husband's. "I just couldn't send it back," she said. "The lack of closure is a huge factor in my life. It is something I will take with me to my grave." Even so, Schischa said she has had a chance to use her devastating experience in a positive way. "It has made me very thankful for what I got," she added. "The two children I have now, I always tell them that I love them. "I'm thankful for the God within me and what I have created within me; I have learned to give unconditionally. "I have learned how to smell the roses."
Six in-depth articles written by ASU journalism students are featured in today's edition of The Electronic Bulldog, which is published periodically by the Cronkite School of Journalism and Telecommunication and ASU's Student Publications. The Electronic Bulldog is an outlet for journalism students who always are looking for places to publish. The articles will range from feature stories to hard-hitting investigative articles. Afterall, we are The Electronic Bulldog. Today's newspaper was produced electronically. Special thanks go to designer Julie Knapp, photographer Lori Cain, and Vicki Carroll, who created The Electronic Bulldog. We hope you enjoy The Electronic Bulldog. Look for us again in the winter.