Author: asnsadmin

 

Kevin Rudd stepped out of his truck in Carr Canyon, his $200 hiking boots crunching on the loose rock underfoot. He reached into the backseat for a short dagger because he’d forgotten his gun.

Slinging a bag over his shoulder, he began the mountain trek he makes every weekday.

Rudd, who came to town as a neophyte by way of Tucson, Scottsdale and the Florida Keys, found a Tombstone in trouble when he began his job as the city’s public works project manager.

The town too tough too die had only two aqueducts bringing mountain water to its 1,000-plus people, and they’d both run dry. 

This summer’s Monument Fire ripped through Carr and Miller canyons in the Huachuca Mountains, and subsequent landslides wreaked havoc on the town’s water lifelines. A chance meeting with Mayor Jack Henderson and then $50,000 in emergency funding from Gov. Jan Brewer led Rudd to Tombstone, where he has been charged with keeping the town from drying up.

[caption id="attachment_52" align="alignleft" width="700"]Gerardo Armendariz runs through salsa dance techniques in a class before the Sunday Salsa Social at Arizona Ballroom in Tucson. The social is held every second and fourth Sunday of the month. (Photo by Josh Morgan/ASNS) [/caption]

 

Rodrigo Fernandez swiveled and shook his hips with what looked like chaos inside the Tucson ballroom but in fact was the precision of his body moving with each pounding beat of the salsa music.

Fernandez, 28, a junior network administrator at DLC Resources Inc. in Phoenix and a 2005 University of Arizona graduate with a double major in computer science and math, said dancing salsa in his spare time is one of his passions.

“I say, people should try dancing at least once in their life,” said Fernandez, who speaks softly and always with a slight smile. “I think it’s one of those things you have to do before you are no longer on Earth.”

Christie Coombs’ husband was senselessly taken away from her in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but the Yuma native who now lives in Abington, Mass., has dealt with her sorrow for the last 10 years by giving back to others in need.

Coombs, a 1982 University of Arizona journalism graduate, lost her husband Jeffrey, a 1981 UA business graduate, when the plane he was on slammed into the World Trade Center in New York.

On Sept. 11, 2001, Jeffrey Coombs boarded American Airlines Flight 11 in Boston, on his way to Los Angeles on a business trip for his job at Compaq Inc.

Flight 11 was the first airplane to hit the World Trade Center.

Like humans, rattlesnakes like the outdoors this time of the year.

And the Mojave rattlesnake that’s commonly found in Cochise County might be more deadly than any rattler in any other area of Arizona.

Emergency room doctors in Tucson and Sierra Vista have noticed that patients who suffer from a Cochise County Mojave rattlesnake bite do respond well to the anti-venom, but they often come back to the hospital complaining of the same symptoms.

Herpetologists have gathered from these cases that the Mojave rattlesnakes in Cochise County have venom that is more potent than that from Mojaves in other counties, said Brian Gill, owner of the Tombstone Reptile Exhibit.

Vicky Westover had an itch for art, which propelled her from fine arts photography to film and then from London to Baltimore to Tucson – and the 2011 Tucson Cine Mexico Film Festival.

The festival, which is being held this week in several venues around town, came from Westover’s efforts to create community-driven venues to showcase international cinema. It will offer Mexican films not usually shown in the U.S., including Amores Perros, named one of the top Mexican films of the last decade, and a panel on documentary film chaired by Mexican documentary-maker Elena Fortes.

“I came to Tucson (in 2002) without a job and then I thought, ‘If I was a film programmer here, what festival would I start?’” Westover said. “At the time there wasn’t a Mexican film festival in the United States, and it made sense.”