Fairchild-Engineer Turned Artist

SPRING in our land comes in full of gaiety and sunshine. If your quest is blossoms you can take your pick of the scenery in May, April and June. Wherever you travel in our land the next two or three months, you'll find no end of natural beauty along the highways to say nothing of the scenic delights spread richly throughout Arizona that always await you in any season or weather. Here nature is the great gardener, the rains of winter the master cultivator. Our soil, needing only water, produces in Spring sheer masterpieces in color. Our Spring bouquet is truly something to see. Once seen, it will always stay with you as a pleasant, cherished memory... R. C.

Loren W. Cress

(Continued from Page 20)tain, Oak Creek Canyon, the Vermilion Cliffs, Meteor Crater, Lake Mary, Mormon Lake, and many, many others. U. S. 66 carries thousands of people through the county, east and west, each year, and other thousands ride the smooth asphalt of U. S. 89 and State Routes 64, 67, and 79.

So from this travel-minded county, Governor Osborn selected a travel-minded commissioner.

Mr. Cress has been a resident of Coconino county for over a quarter of a century. His family settled in Council Grove, Kansas, in the '80's, where Mr. Cress was born in 1887. As a young married man Mr. Cress came west 30 years ago to make Los Angeles his home. En route the train stopped at Flagstaff. After a hot ride through the desert, the stop-over at the Coconino county seat was a refreshing experience. He went to California, but never forgot his brief pause in Flagstaff.

"The town was so cool and clean looking," he says in reminiscence. "The air was heavy with the scent of pine and the mountains were clear and sharp. When we decided to leave California we moved to Flagstaff and we've been here ever since."

When Mr. Cress moved to Flagstaff, Coconino county was noted for lumber and ranching. Tourists were unheard of.

"In those days," he says, "it was a hard day's drive to go to Winslow and back from Flagstaff."

During his residence in Coconino county he has seen the development of the great highway system and the growth of the tourist industry that has brought such wealth to northern Arizona.

As a business man in Flagstaff he has been active in civic and fraternal affairs and has always been noted for his enthusiasm for good roads.

"Our highway system," he says, "must keep apace with the demands of the travel public. Without good roads we cannot compete for the travel business with other states. We all realize the importance of the tourist industry to Arizona, and those highways which carry the brunt of transcontinental travel through our state must never be neglected if we intend to retain our major portion of transcontinental traffic."When Mr. Cress speaks of the Arizona highway system he speaks in terms of the state as a whole, by saying that "what benefits one county benefits the state and what benefits the state benefits every county in the state." Coconino's new highway commissioner brings to the people of the state a broad knowledge of highways and their mission, One of Coconino county's favorite sons, Mr. Cress has long been an advocate of good roads. Mr. Cress knows roads and their purpose. His home city of Flagstaff is one of the great travel centers of the west, through which hundreds of thousands of people pass each year on U. S. Highways 66 and 89.both present and future. His conscientiousness and his oft-demonstrated worth as mem-ber of his community and his state presages a term of great service to Arizona.

Mr. Cress is married and has one son, Leighton, who resides with his parents in Flagstaff. The son attended Flagstaff public schools, the University of Arizona and Arizona State Teachers College at Flagstaff, of which he is a graduate... R. C.