EDITOR"S LETTER

Cowboys & Indians
I rode a school bus to Lake Delton Elementary with George Greendeer. I was sent to the principal’s office with Harrison Funmaker. And I played basketball with Byron Thundercloud. Those three guys are some of the kids I grew up with. They were classmates, friends and neighbors. I saw them every day, and I can tell you that George was quiet, Harrison was funny and Byron was deadly from the free-throw line. I knew that much, but I’m ashamed to say that I knew almost nothing about their Native American heritage. I knew they were Winnebagos, but that’s about it. To me, they were just kids on the playground.

Today, I’m paying more attention to what’s right in front of me. Arizona is home to 22 Indian tribes, the largest of which is the Navajo Nation. Through the pages of Arizona Highways and dozens of nonfiction books, I’ve learned a bit about the Navajos. And the Apaches, Zunis, Hopis, Yavapais ... I’ve also gone back and studied the Winnebagos.

Among other things, I know that they once occupied more than 10 million acres in the Midwest, and they officially reclaimed their original name, Ho-Chunk, in 1993. Their history is fascinating, and so is that of the Navajos, who live in a temperamental environment. Some of their homes are even being swallowed by sand dunes. You’ll read more about that next month. This month, we’re focusing on the faces of the Navajo people. Literally. And we have cowboys, too. Cowboys and Indians.

Jones Benally is one of our Indians. He’s a traditional Navajo healer, and he rides a 40-year-old horse. You saw him on our cover, standing next to Casey Murph, a soft-spoken cowboy who lives in Holbrook. Neither man knew the other before our photo shoot on Mother’s Day, and I think that unfamiliarity comes through in the image. It’s authentic, which is what we wanted. In fact, we were intent on not staging anything. “Nothing contrived. No stereotypes.” That was the art direction for the cover and the cover story. As you’ll see, there’s no sign of Hollywood in either.

Instead, we have Cody Cunningham, a working cowboy in Apache County; José Adame, the foreman at Sierra Bonita Ranch near Willcox; and Lutie Wilson, a classic Navajo woman from Pillow Hill. Of the 45,000 portraits Joel Grimes has made of Navajos, he says his shot of Ms. Wilson is one of his favorites. It’s easy to see why. It’s spectacular, like all of the images in Cowboys & Indians, which ranks as one of the most powerful collections of portrait photography we’ve ever published. It anchors our annual “Photo Issue,” and it’s followed by a 1960s flashback.

We like to resurrect the photography of Josef Muench. Not just because he was a pioneer with tremendous talent, but also because of his prolific body of work, particularly at Monument Valley and Lake Powell. He was one of the first photographers to shoot the lake, and he wrote about the experience in our January 1964 issue: “Last spring something new happened in the red-rock country. Not a new volcano spewing and spouting for a few hours or days, but something as earth shaking. When the gates closed behind Glen Canyon Dam and water began to go places it had never been before, a quite literally new world was opened.”

To mark the 50th anniversary of the creation of Lake Powell, we’re bringing back Mr. Muench’s wonderful essay, along with some of the images from his initial visit to the big lake. His photographs — shot over the course of 22 days with a 4x5 Linhof camera and Ektachrome film — helped put that now-iconic scenery on the map. They also inspired a new wave of landscape photographers to follow in his footsteps, including some of the thousands of people who entered our fifth-annual photo contest.

Like every other year, we were impressed by the submissions. There were so many great shots, but the best was a photograph by Adam Schallau. It captures a lightning strike over the Grand Canyon, and when you see it, you’ll understand why it finished first. It’s a strong image that holds its own in an issue that includes portraits of José Adame, Casey Murph and Jones Benally. Of course, nothing quite compares to the shot of Lutie Wilson — her face draws you in and makes you wonder about her life. When we asked Joel about the photo, he told us that “capturing Lutie on film was like winning the lottery.” We feel the same way about having her in our magazine.
 

COMING IN OCTOBER ...
Our annual look at autumn in Arizona, a fresh perspective on Bisbee and the mystery of the South Rim swimming pool.