Dillard to Speak at Globe Christian Center
February 23, 2007 | Leave a Comment
photo & story by Ed Kuehneman
A series of meetings with evangelist Stacy Dillard begins Sunday at 11 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. at the Globe Christian Center on Maple Street north of Globe High School. The meetings will continue Monday through Wednesday, March 31 - April 2, at 7 p.m. nightly. The public is welcome. Dillard’s messages are spiced with joy and humor, but carry a serious purpose. “We all have real problems,” he says. “Jesus has real answers.”
Dillard was a “military brat” as a teenager, playing “catch-up” basketball in faraway countries. “Without Christ, I got in trouble and disgraced myself,” he says. He moved to Tempe, hoping to be picked up by the Phoenix Suns, but found himself “adopted” by a largely-Hispanic church instead.
“I couldn’t figure why they loved me,” says Dillard. “I had totally rejected God. Meeting Jesus changed me completely, and gave me a purpose for life.”
Dillard was a pastor in the U. S. and Malaysia. He began evangelism as a rap singer but wound up preaching. He says, “When you preach the truth of God from your heart, from your own changed life, then faith rises up in people, and Jesus heals bodies and changes lives. That God could rescue my broken life and use it to help others - that’s a real miracle.”
‘Don’t Close Our Forest Roads!’
February 20, 2007 | Leave a Comment
photo & story
By Ed Kuehneman
“The Forest Service is closing our roads!” is the complaint of many people who live and camp in the back country. State Senators are looking at legislation to keep the roads open. An amendment to S.B. 1264 would claim “rights-of way across public lands under section 8 of the mining act of 1866.” The sponsor, Senator Karen Johnson, told CCN that the bill, if passed, would at least give the Arizona Attorney General “something to fight the feds with.”
“This is occurring in other areas,” says Johnson. San Diego County passed similar legislation and it has been upheld in court.
When Senator Flake, as Chairman of Natural Resources, first heard Johnson’s bill, the room was packed with folks from outlying communities who wanted to testify. Most seemed happy that somebody was finally doing something about the loss of their roads. Sylvia Allen, candidate for District 5, said that five counties had officially protested the closures.
Closing roads has never been a law — just Forest Service policy. Some warned that 80% of the back country could be affected. “The Forest Service wants the footprint of the human out of the forest,” says Johnson. “These lands are public lands, not Forest Service lands.”
The bill sailed through caucus and is now before the committee of the whole. Senator O’Halloran of Sedona disagreed with most Senators in caucus; evidently he believes the Forest Service’s explanation that the back roads are too expensive to maintain.
“If we can spend a billion a day in Iraq, we can keep our county roads open,” says Johnson. “Counties, towns, even volunteers would maintain the roads and trails to keep them open.”
The Forest Service District 3 issued a Travel Management Plan in January which Velma Hodson says is “as usual difficult to understand,” but seemed to imply “terrific restrictions” and fines for puzzled recreationists who are on the wrong road.
New Book Tells Stories of Pioneer Girls
February 1, 2007 | Leave a Comment
by Ed Kuehneman
Jan Cleere, author and freelance writer from Oro Valley, AZ, has written “Amazing Girls of Arizona,” a collection of tales gathered from the vaults of historical societies and brought to enthusiastic life by a connoisseur of a good story. Cleere’s previous book, “Outlaw Tales of Arizona,” contains the story of Lafayette Grime, lynched in Globe. “Outlaw Tales” was a National Winner of the Federation of Press Women.
One chapter of “Amazing Girls” tells the story of Olive Oatman. Olive’s family was massacred by an unknown Indian tribe, and she and her sister were taken away and roughly treated. Later they were sold to Mojave Indians and treated more kindly. Still, they went hungry when the tribe did, and Olive’s sister died. Alone among strangers, Olive gave up hope of ever being rescued, learned the Mojave language and customs, and received tattoos from the corners of her mouth, wrapping around her chin. When she was returned to civilization, she discovered that her brother had somehow escaped death as well.
Olive began to travel and give lectures on her experiences. The late 1800’s had no TV or movies, and folks loved to read long books and go to interesting lectures. To tell the truth, many also liked to be amazed with the bizarre, and this nice proper white lady with her “brutal” tattoos may have brought stares and an involuntary shudder or two. The customs of Native Americans were not well known and the idea of actually living in another culture must have seemed very adventurous and fascinating to folks used to long hours of drudgery at home.
Perhaps she got tired of being an oddity, for Olive settled down in Sherman, TX. She learned to cover the tattoos pretty much with make-up, and her husband said there would be no more mention of her former adventures in their home.
Olive’s full story, and several others, are available in “Amazing Girls of Arizona,” available at amazon.com.