Phoenix Zoo

Life is a many-splendored love in Phoenix and the wonderful VALLEY of the SUN SCALP DANCES, POW-WOWS, CONVENTIONS AND CELEBRATIONS

Two things common to each of the above are people and place. This edition is especially about people and a place; namely, Phoenix, Valley of the Sun Arizona, U.S.A.

Our April issue pictured the natural scenic marvels of Arizona. The history and stories of Arizona are filled with the trite and well-worn-out expression that Arizona is a land of the big "C" Copper, Cattle, Climate, Canyons, etc. To that cliché we must now add: Cities, Commerce and Conventions.

It's been a long time since man moved across Siberia, over the Northern Straits into North America and down through our Southwest. The first Americans had to hunt to live off the game that followed the grass. Later huntsmen became herdsmen and the wild grass followers became tillers of the soil. The first cities grew around the first grain fields. Today city population has grown in such power and number that it takes at least one farmer and herdsman to feed ten city people.

Naturally, hosts of problems came with the citieshousing, water supply, sanitation, policing, records, communications, transportation, etc. Our great eastern cities are more settled in their traditional orbits. In the West our cities are in a spiral of cultural up-draft which will be swirling around for many years to come. Phoenix and its satellite cities in the Valley of the Sun are especially active. The periods of turbulence are few in relation to the seasons calm, so the direction is perpetually upward and forward.

Phoenix is generally a happy city not necessarily a place where all of one's wishes are satisfied but a happiness evolving from being a part of a newness, a harmonious striving for meaningful goals for the community, for compatible groups, for family and for the individual. The benefits of blessed sunshine, clean air and soul-satisfying scenery motivate people to work for something they believe in rather than deteriorate in pampered idleness. We are fortunate to live in a place where men and women are doing things to tone up the whole society.

Special Editor Marjel DeLauer's mini-profiles beginning on pages 34-35 represent but a small part of the total measure of the dynamic human quality in Arizona's net worth.

Phoenix is fast becoming a premier convention city. One of the first major conventions held in 1975 was the National Indian Education Association Conference. More than 4,000 attractive and articulate Americans of Indian ancestry gathered in a modern-day pow-wow. A special event, especially for the women attending the conference, was the all-Indian fashion review featuring native costumes worn by Indian models. We are proud to present several of the entries in our color folio. It was a sight to behold the glory of great traditions among the splendid forms and textures of modern architectures. This modern pow-wow was quite a contrast to the scalp dances of 100 years ago.

In the true sense that past is prologue, we chose excerpts from Mary Austin's classic titled "A'Wa Tseighe Comes Home From the War" describing a very special "Scalp Dance." The Great Spirit is happy for the great progress made in the little time of half-a-century, in the numbers and quality of his Indian leaders. Our Celebration is scheduled for the future.

This year, on Saturday evening, June 14, ARIZONA HIGHWAYS will be honored as the recipient of the Don Quixote, at Arizona Civic Theatre's second annual Artistic Achievement Award Dinner to be held in Tucson. The tribúte is being given for fifty years of outstanding accomplishment.

Don Quixote, an original bronze sculpted by artist Tom Barringer, was conceived by A.C.T. to pay tribute to individuals or institutions whose contribution to the arts has enriched the national and state heritage.

They are planning the biggest, most glittering, celebration in Arizona's history! In addition to the dinner, A.C.T. will present the western premiere of the smash Broadway musical hit, "Diamond Studs," fashioned after the life story of one of our most famous and elusive outlaws, Jesse James.

The show caused such a sensation on Broadway, and is considered to be so unique, that a few words about its origins are in order. "Diamond Studs" grew out of the work of two blue grass, country western musical groups the Southern Fidelity Choir and The Red Clay Ramblers.

Presented more as an informal concert than a play, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, it was first seen there by Robert Kalfin, Artistic Director of New York City's Chelsea Theatre Company. Mr. Kalfin immediately recognized the energy and vitality of the music as well as the historical impact of the theme. Realizing that America had never really had a truly "western musical" it could call its own, Mr. Kalfin decided to restage the piece as a theatre musical and imported the two groups of musicians for a New York production.

The play debuted in Chelsea's Brooklyn Theatre and was so successfully received, that it was immediately moved to Broadway. The result was a rip-roaring, foot-stomping smash, the likes of which had never been experienced on the Great White Way. The setting for the play is in a saloon, architecturally designed to make the audience part of the action. Audience members are encouraged to sing and dance along, much as they did in the "good ol' days." Reaction has been, to say the least, wildly enthusiastic.

What better place to stage the entire gala affair, than at world-famous "Old Tucson," just a few miles from downtown. Nestled in the quiet valley west of the beautiful Tucson Mountains, "Old Tucson" is designed as a Wild West town replete with kerosene-lit streets, creekily ancient boardwalks, and mean-eyed gunslingers. Having played host to numerous film and TV celebrities, including John Wayne, Paul Newman, Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, Frank Sinatra and the entire "High Chaparral" family, "Old Tucson" combines all the components of western lineage. A.C.T. plans to utilize as much of the entire town as possible for their celebration staging gun fights during cocktail hour, offering stagecoach rides prior to dinner, and encouraging guests to participate in the square dancing in the streets. What better way to communicate a sense of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS, our Bicentennial, and Tucson's 200th birthday, than by embracing the participants in a total feeling of the western environment? However accidental the timing of its appearance on Broadway, "Diamond Studs" is especially suited for this year's A.C.T. dinner in honor of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS. Although different as art forms, both the magazine and the musical are deeply rooted in traditions. Traditions that are historically appropriate in this time of Bicentennial awareness. Both reveal a sense of unique beauty for a portion of the country too often stereotyped as ruggedly gruesome. The music and lyrics of Bland Sampson and Jim Wann, members of the Southern States Fidelity Choir, provide "Diamond Studs" with a clearly American repertory blend of country western, blue grass and ragtime. Contributors of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS provide their readers with visual Americana at its best. Both reveal the gentleness of a people and country too often described as hard and insensitive. Above all, both exude a feeling of celebration!

As a vehicle for entertainment, the Artistic Achievement Award dinner provides A.C.T., Arizona's only professional theatre company, the opportunity to do what it does so superbly produce exciting theatre art. But A.C.T. must face the pragmatic aspects of survival, and the Artistic Achievement Award dinner is also a fund-raising event.