Category: All Stories

[caption id="attachment_83" align="alignleft" width="900"]Miguel Folch, a veteran pararescue jumper, sits in front of strobe spotlights at a photo studio in the Lost Barrio in Tucson as he waits for a model to change her wardrobe. Folch has decided to pursue his passion for photography to escape the stresses associated with being a Tucson firefighter. (Photo by Josh Morgan/ASNS)[/caption]Miguel Folch, 40, is a paramedic, firefighter and fashion photographer from Tucson. He’s a veteran of the U.S. Air Force Air Combat Command operatives, also known as the “pararescue jumpers.”

And he suffers from combat post-traumatic stress disorder.

Folch is not alone. Approximately 23 percent of the nation’s more than 25 million veterans suffer and live with PTSD.

[caption id="attachment_81" align="alignleft" width="600"]Bob Newtson, executive director of Friends of Saguaro National Park, answers a visitor’s questions about the skulls displayed in his group’s booth during the BioBlitz. Newtson’s organization takes in donations and gives them to the park, local schools and nature conservation groups. (Photo by Conner Wilson/ASNS)[/caption]

 

Bob Newtson stood behind a table filled with skulls of various shapes and sizes.

“This one is of a grizzly bear,” he said, pointing to the biggest skull on the table.

Newtson, executive director of the Friends of Saguaro National Park, had lined up the skulls at his group’s booth at this year’s BioBlitz at Saguaro National Park, a Sonoran Desert ecosystem flanking Tucson on both the east and west.

Newston’s group was one of the main sponsors of the 24-hour blitz, which was conducted to count and categorize the various life forms that take refuge in the Sonoran desert.

Newtson explained that his organization attracted the attention of the National Geographic Society, which is helping conduct a BioBlitz in a different national park each year during the decade leading up to the U.S. National Park Service Centennial in 2016.

 

Ten-year-old Drake Patton sat in front of the sterile hood, listening to instructions from Dr. A. Elizabeth Arnold and her students.

Arnold, an associate professor at the University of Arizona’s School of Plant Sciences, warned Drake to make sure his gloves didn’t have any ethanol on them because it’s flammable.

“Let’s just get some more gloves,” said Drake, a Bisbee fifth-grader participating in activities during Saguaro National Park’s BioBlitz, a 24-hour species count that took place Oct. 21-22 at the park’s Rincon Mountain District east of Tucson and Tucson Mountain District in the west.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s warm-up time in the music room, where delicate harmonies, rich bass and clear treble are coming from Anthem, the show choir group at St. David School in Southern Arizona.

“Just the national anthem will be fine,” director Daniel Tenney tells his students gathered in a semicircle.

Mirrors line the large classroom. In the center, there’s a grand piano; in one corner, audio equipment.

Once they start, the sopranos hit the highest notes with ease, baritones round out the multi-harmonies and tenors fill the spaces in between. It’s like second nature to the members of Anthem, and they have the awards to prove they’re on the top of their game.

Anthem has received best showmanship, best musicianship and first-place awards in competitions, Tenney says. The group has traveled as far as New York City, but it also performs often at home in the St. David School gymnasium.