The 1970s

Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves was the No. 1 song in America in November 1971. That same month, Editor Joseph Stacey shared the news that after 33 years, Raymond Carlson had retired as editor of Arizona Highways due to "complications resulting from illness of more than two years, during which time it was necessary for Mr. Carlson to direct the editorial details of the magazine from his home and at times from a hospital bed."

In a summary of his mentor, Mr. Stacey wrote: "As editor of a magazine which he transformed from the 'Ugly Duckling' of the publication field into a colorful 'Bird of Paradise,' he, more than any other person or agency, has done more for the state of Arizona than is possible to compute."

And so it was, for the first time in a very long time, Arizona Highways had a new editor. Mr. Stacey, however, wasn't new to the organization. He'd been with the magazine since 1956, when Mr. Carlson hired him as a freelance writer. A decade later, in August 1967, he became the editorial assistant and began shadowing the master.

Although no one would ever want to follow in the footsteps of Mr. Carlson, Mr. Stacey embraced the opportunity and maintained the magazine's tradition of awe-inspiring photography and compelling stories. And in the process, the circulation climbed to 503,218. Of course, like all editors, he faced some challenges.

The first came in November 1972, when longtime Art Director George Avey said goodbye to Arizona Highways. According to his son and would-be editor, Gary, "a lifetime of using fixative sprays and airbrushes in poorly ventilated small quarters caught up with him."

In the course of a year, the magazine had lost both of its founding fathers. And there would be other challenges.

In October 1973, Arab oil producers cut off exports to the United States as a way of protesting American military support for Israel, which was at war with Egypt and Syria. The embargo led to inflated gas prices and long lines at gas stations. In addition to making it more expensive to produce stories, the gas shortage devastated the tourism industry and, subsequently, the mission statement of the magazine. In response to what was happening, Mr. Stacey began looking at content beyond traditional travel journalism. And he found it.

Known today as the "turquoise issue," the January 1974 edition was dedicated entirely to the history and culture of turquoise jewelry and some of the talented Native Americans who fashioned it. "We regret that we are not able to make mention of all the fine, reliable, dependable and deserving dealers engaged in the industry," the cover story explained. "We designed our presentation to depict examples of the best known types and classes."

Despite the disclaimer, that issue, which featured a bejeweled buffalo skull on the cover, holds the distinction of being the biggest-selling issue in the history of Arizona Highways - it was reprinted three times and sold more than a million copies.

A year later, the magazine celebrated its golden anniversary. "We think of our fifty years past as an almost incredible journey," Mr. Stacey wrote in April 1975. "Metaphorically it began on a raft and has touched home port on a world-cruising super ship. Our ship is a very special kind of ship... a treasure ship... its wealth measured in a unique collection of words and pictures."

Unfortunately, mandatory retirement would force Mr. Stacey off the super ship in 1976. And unlike the previous four decades, which saw unprecedented stability on the masthead, the last half of the 1970s would be defined by several personnel changes. It was a trend that would continue into the 1980s.

1971

David Muench's photo of "an October picnic in the Lukachukai Mountains" got its own spread in our January 1971 issue as part of a Muench portfolio. The accompanying story called Muench's photography "graphic proof of the near-perfect rapport between a fine artist, his medium and the subject before him." Muench, the son of Josef Muench, remains a contributor to Arizona Highways today.

ARIZONA HIGHWAYS ARIZONA HIGHWAYS ARIZONA HIGHWAYS

The vibrant 1970s ushered in a refreshed Arizona Highways cover logo - a rainbowthemed design whose colors varied from issue to issue.

When through one man a little more love and goodness, a little more light and truth comes into the world, then that man's life has had meaning. Alfred Deip October 1971 was Raymond Carlson's last issue as editor of Arizona Highways before he voluntarily resigned due to illness. The following month featured this tribute to our founding father, who remained the magazine's editor emeritus through 1975.

George Avey, Arizona High-ways' longtime art director, retired in October 1972. In November of that year, the magazine honored his more than 30 years of service, saying that "too few of us know the degree of nobleness and sacredness he poured into even the simplest of everyday challenges."

John W. Hampton's illustrations accompanied Exploring Arizona's Literary Trails, a September 1972 Lawrence Clark Powell story about Arizona-inspired novels. This one depicts a scene from Zane Grey's Riders of the Purple Sage, published in 1913.

This drawing of a curve-billed thrasher was one of several avian illustrations that appeared in the February 1972 issue, which focused on birds of the Southwest. A note from Editor Joseph Stacey explained that the drawings came from a mid-1800s report on the United States and Mexican Boundary Survey.

THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON

January 17, 1972

Dear Mr. Stacey: Your outstanding efforts to assist the Cocopah Indian Tribe by publicizing their needs in your magazine have come to my attention recently. I understand that you played a significant role in the success of the Cocopah Cry House project, and I would like to extend my warmest congrat-ulations to you for your worthy contribution to this cause.With my best wishes,

Sincerely,

Mr. Joe Stacey Editor Arizona Highways Magazine 2039 West Lewis Avenue Phoenix, Arizona 85009

THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON

January 17, 1972

Dear Mr. DeGrazia:

Your efforts to assist the Cocopah Indian Tribe through your contributions to their Cry House-Community Building project re-cently came to my attention. I understand that you have volunteered the proceeds earned from the sale of your pastel, "Little Cocopah Indian Girl," to the Cocopah Indians, and I welcome this opportunity to commend you for your generous contribution to this important project.

With my best wishes for the future, Sincerely.

Mr. Ted DeGrazia 6300 North Swan Road Tucson, Arizona 85718 with a special pride in the Majesty of all who participated in the Cocopah experience.

EXCERPTED FROM PRESIDENT RICHARD M. NIXON'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS, JANUARY 1968 We are caught in war, wanting peace. We are torn by division, wanting unity. We see around us empty lives, wanting fulfillment. We see tasks that need doing, waiting for hands to do them.

To a crisis of the spirit, we need an answer of the spirit.

In this past third of a century, government has passed more laws, spent more money, initiated more programs, than in all our previous history.

ing March 1972 featured letters to Editor Joseph Stacey and artist Ted DeGrazia from President Richard Nixon. The president had taken notice of the magazine's and DeGrazia's efforts to help the Cocopah Tribe raise money for a "cry house," a building used for funerals.

90TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE

1973

To avoid becoming too predictable, the magazine often published the unexpected and asked questions like this: What will Arizona look like in the year 3000? Robert McCall, an Arizona resident described as the "world's premier aerospace artist," imagined this floating metropolis, which appeared in our November 1973 issue. The astronomythemed issue featured a profile of McCall, along with stories on Kitt Peak National Observatory and the Apollo program.

A stagecoach met a Mustang at Rawhide Western Town in our October 1973 issue. This photo by longtime contributors Herb and Dorothy McLaughlin accompanied a Turk Smith story chronicling Arizona's history as a proving ground for men and machines. At the time, Rawhide was in Scottsdale; it's since been relocated to the Gila River Indian Community.

The year 1973 brought another logo change, but this one would stick around into the 1980s.

1974 ARIZONA HIGHWAYS

Southwestern pottery was the focus in May 1974, and the back cover of that issue featured a Jerry Jacka photo of two Hopi pieces: "The polychrome jar on the left is by 'Feather Woman,' Helen Naha, and the one on the right is by 'Fawn,' Eunice Navasie." Jacka would become one of our legendary photographers.

Our January 1974 issue was all about turquoise, as evidenced by the cover: a Neil Koppes photo of "9,000 carats of turquoise over a buffalo skull." The issue explored the mineral's importance in Arizona's Native American cultures and became the biggestselling issue in our history.

What happens when you combine yoga and tennis? Well, you get yoga tennis, as readers learned in April 1974. The story and photos, both by Carol Osman Brown, profiled Baba Rick Champion, "probably the nation's foremost authority" on the sport. Yoga tennis was described as "spreading like wildfire," but perhaps the fire burned too hot and too fast.

Yoga Tennis

Emerging tense and defeated from battle on the tennis court, a player hears a soft voice from the sidelines saying, "Your opponent is not your enemy, but your friend, who brings resources out of you by challenge."

With a tone of profoundness equal to that of Kung Fu, it adds, "Your true enemy is the distracted mind which knows fear and expectation and doesn't live in the present."

The instructor is Baba Rick Champion, Scottsdale resi dent who is probably the nation's foremost authority on Yoga Tennis. Sometimes referred to as Zen Tennis, the concept had its birth through Champion and is spreading like wildfire throughout the tennis world.

Above: Students grasp the concept of the racquet as an extension of the hand. Left: Baba Rick applies the concepts of Yoga Tennis as he becomes one with the ball."

Others discovered how great it is too when Champion began teaching Yoga Tennis classes through the parks and recreation departments of Phoenix and Scottsdale. As interest grew, he established a three-court Yoga Tennis Center in Scottsdale and did a stint as a teacher at John Gardiner's Tennis Ranch. He begins his classes with brief meditation to help students "get it together." Then everyone does a variety of yoga exer cises designed to loosen up particular parts of the body which are especially used in tennis. Next they meditate on a specific movement demonstrated by Baba Rick. Then they move to the tennis courts and put it all into action.

1975

Some of the Southwest's most accomplished artists and their work have been featured in the magazine. For example, Fritz Scholder's Hopi Dancers appeared in our March 1975 issue, which focused on the historical importance of trading posts as a link between Native Americans and European settlers.

PRIMER FOR RENEWAL

We do not agree with those who hold that the LaForce engine will never happen because oil and automobile interests will pay a king's ransom to "bury" it. We believe that our brilliant inventor and innovator will succeed because he and his work coincide with a major crisis and a series of related crises which motivate acceptance of the innovation.

We are ready for the renewal which the LaForce engine indicates thanks in part to the Shahs, Sheiks and Emirs of the Persian Gulf States thanks in part to President Ford who has warned the auto industry that they must design for lower gasoline consumption and control pollution.

The real irrefutable reason for the acceptance of the LaForce engine is that society has come to a point of crisis at which we must move on to a new solution or lose our equilibrium to a point where we may be off balance tomorrow.

This January 1975 editorial by Editor Joseph Stacey appeared less than a year after the oil crisis of 1973 and 1974 had abated. It and other items in the magazine stumped for the experimental LaForce engine, which supposedly could markedly increase gas mileage in cars. The engine never caught on, and the magazine no longer publishes editorials.

1976

Arcosanti, architect Paolo Soleri's experimental community north of Phoenix, was featured in May 1976. In this Ivan Pintar photo, Soleri teaches a seminar group in the Arcosanti Ceramics Apse. Soleri died in 2013 at the age of 93, but Arcosanti is still going strong.

Photographers David Muench and Paul Markow joined forces with lapidary Jerry Muchna for our January 1976 cover. Muench's photograph of Monument Valley formed the backdrop for Muchna's quartz figures, titled The Spirit of '76. Markow then made a studio photograph to combine the two pieces. The issue was Tom Cooper's first as editor following Joseph Stacey's retirement. Muench and Markow are still frequent contributors.

Actors re-created scenes from Edward Fitzgerald Beale's camel-aided expedition across Arizona in photos from our July 1976 issue. The actors were making Hawmps!, a comedy-Western film about the Beale Wagon Road expedition. Roger Ebert gave Hawmps! two and a half stars out of four.

1977

1978

Senator Barry Goldwater and photographer David Muench collaborated on Arizona, a 1977 book about the state's beauty and history. An October 1978 story about the book included this quote from Goldwater, who made predictions about Phoenix's and Arizona's population growth. Goldwater was half right: Phoenix has indeed become the sixth-largest city in the U.S., but Arizona's 2012 population was only about 6.5 million.

I have stated publicly and in the book that I feel that Phoenix will grow to be the fifth or sixth largest city in the country. I was asked to project Arizona's population through the year 2012 and from all the data that I used, the number 20 million people came up. But I tempered it and said 18 million.

In speaking with Senator Goldwater it is difficult to remember that he is a living legend-almost a symbol for the state. For a man who first entered politics in 1949 when he was elected to the Phoenix City Council, he is remarkably

TALES OF THE FIRE GOD

Maggie Wilson's Tales of the Fire God, a story in our July 1978 issue, explored the long-ago eruption of Sunset Crater Volcano and the event's possible place in Hopi mythology. The accompanying David Muench photo of the dormant volcano was combined with a kachina carved by Leo LaCapa. The scenic wonders of Northern Arizona continue to grace our pages.

The young warrior

Where the ancient ones stood I stand. Facing the sacred place Where slowly the sun rises. My grandfather is beside me, He too Watches the daylight God Begin the long journey. When the sun has traveled But twice The thirty-two trails I will go meet the enemy. My mother sits in the hogan Wailing. She heard my death-song On the wind last night.

Jean Humphrey Chaillie In keeping with our focus on Native culture, our September 1978 issue focused exclusively on the Navajo people. "Treat these people with the dignity they and all of mankind deserve," Editor Tom Cooper wrote, "and you will come away as an enlightened and richer person." On this spread, John Running portraits of young Navajos accompanied Jean Humphrey Chaillie's poem The Young Warrior.

1979

Longtime Arizona Highways contributor Larry Toschik showed his whimsical side in our February 1979 issue, pairing a great horned owl with several Hopi owl kachinas. The entire issue was devoted to Toschik's words and paintings, a project that took Toschik three years to complete.

Sunsets have been a dominant theme in the history of Arizona Highways. In June 1979 we featured The Dramatic Skies of Arizona, a portfolio of what Arizona - nans see when they look to the heavens. In this Josef Muench shot, twilight settles over Joshua trees on the Mohave Desert of Northwestern Arizona.