Name: Mike Noel Vocation: Utah state representative (R-Utah District 73) Day Job: Executive director of the Kane County Water Conservancy District Favorite Foods: “I actually got introduced to sushi with a buddy of mine up at the Legislature. I really like that. I kind of go with all the cooked stuff. I don’t like baby […]
Uncommon Westerners
Posted inMay 14, 2007: Two Views of the Verde
Saving the Sierra, tale by tale
NAMES: jesikah maria ross, Catherine Stifter PROJECT: Saving the Sierra: Voices of Conservation in Action RÉSUMÉ EXCERPTS: Stifter: Two Peabody awards for independent radio productions; firefighter, EMT, and water truck driver for North San Juan volunteer fire department; lives off the grid in solar-powered cabin. ross: UNICEF youth radio project in Ethiopia; community media projects […]
Posted inApril 30, 2007: Rural Education 2.0
Tripping over T-Rex
Name: Bob Harmon Hometown: Bozeman, Montana Vocation: Chief preparator of paleontology at the Museum of the Rockies and crew chief Known For: Finding the first dinosaur bones with soft tissue Bob Harmon is not an excitable man. His face isn’t animated as he points out the sauropod leg he is building out of fossils and […]
Posted inApril 16, 2007: Phoenix Falling?
Bay bags his way to the top
NAME: Brian Bay AGE: 23 VOCATION: Front-end grocery store manager and full-time student WORLD CHAMPION: of grocery bagging HOBBIES: Coin collecting. Goes to work with a pocketful of change and trades it out for interesting coins. FAVORITE MOVIES TO QUOTE FROM: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Princess Bride, Three Amigos and Dumb and Dumber One […]
Posted inApril 2, 2007: Disposable Workers of the Oil and Gas Fields
Lewis’ Web
NAME: Randy Lewis VOCATION: Professor of microbiology MARRIED: To his high school sweetheart CURRENT FUNDERS: National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Air Force BREAKTHROUGHS: Sequenced genes for several Rocky Mountain arachnids, including cat face, garden, wolf, jumping, and brown widow spiders. KNOWN FOR: Wearing gray or tan Wranglers. FAVORITE TIME OF DAY: Lunch. “It’s […]
Posted inMarch 19, 2007: The Silence of the Bees
Busy as a Buchmann
NAME: Stephen Buchmann HOMETOWN: Tucson, Arizona AGE: 53 VOCATION: Pollination ecologist FAVORITE INSECT: Bees, especially the genus Centris, which can be seen visiting paloverde blossoms in the Sonoran desert. FAVORITE HONEY: The honey from the lady bee, “Xunan Kab,” a stingless bee kept by the Maya of southern Mexico. MOST STINGS IN A DAY: 200-300 […]
Posted inMarch 5, 2007: Wish You Weren’t Here
A wolf’s life
NAME: B7 WEIGHT AT RELEASE: 74 pounds AT DEATH: 97 pounds ESTIMATED WEIGHT IN HIS PRIME: 120 pounds RELEASED: Indian Creek, Idaho, Jan. 20, 1995 ESTIMATED AGE: 13.75-14.75 years old ORIGINAL PACK: The Oldman River, Alberta KNOWN FOR: Being the last of the 29 wolves introduced into the U.S. from Canada in 1995 EMBARRASSING FACTS: […]
Posted inFebruary 19, 2007: One nation, under fire
New Mexico’s water rebel
Name: Bill Turner Fond Childhood Memory: Listening to the Lone Ranger radio show: “Good will prevail.” Coffee or Tea: Coffee, black, in a to-go cup with a few cubes of ice Resume Excerpts: Firewall riveter for Navy S2F submarine-hunter aircraft (1958); Peace Corps volunteer and geologist in Cyprus (1963-1964); New Mexico natural resources trustee (1995-2003); […]
Posted inFebruary 5, 2007: The Efficiency Paradox
Red Feather builds homes and communities
NAME Red Feather Development Group HOMETOWN Bozeman, Montana FOUNDED IN 1994 FOUNDED BY Rob Young NOTED FOR Building straw-bale homes on Indian reservations across the West. In recent years, Red Feather has focused on Hopiland in Arizona, and the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana. FAVORITE FOOD Pop-Tarts. Legend has it that the two-dimensional pastries fueled […]
Posted inJanuary 22, 2007: Salmon Justice
Fill ‘er up with moonshine
Name Chris Myles Age 51 Vocation A chronic volunteer, he’s studying to become a paramedic and makes homemade classic guitars. Known for Attempting to distill homebrewed ethanol On what brought him to Silverton “The blue skies here are like nothing I’d ever seen before. You get clear days in the Midwest but there is always […]
Posted inDecember 25, 2006: Confessions of a Methane Floozy
Tequila-fueled tunes
Name Roger Clyne Age 38 Vocation Front man for the Tempe, Arizona, band Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers. The Peacemakers are made up of Clyne, P.H. Naffah on drums, Steve Larson on guitar, and Nick Scropos on bass. Also markets his own brand of tequila. Known For The band’s high-energy live shows and Southwestern sound. […]
Posted inDecember 11, 2006: Old but Faithful
Have knives and hooks, will travel
Name The Mobile Matanza Hometown Taos, New Mexico Measurements 36 feet long by 13 feet, 6 inches tall Items on her wish list Gloves, hook-eye sharpener, meat band saw blades, meat grinder plates, three-way oilstone, platters, long butchering aprons, butchering supplies and knives, brushes and scrapers. She’s sleek, full-figured and gleaming white, though not […]
Posted inNovember 27, 2006: The West: A New Center of Power
Conspiring with caddisflies
“He hath ribbons of all the colours i’ the rainbow; inkles, caddisses, cambrics and lawns.” —from The Winter’s Tale, by William Shakespeare Name Ferg (no first name, no last name, just Ferg) Vocation Father of two, a Renaissance man who draws, paints, sculpts, composes poetry, plays music, and makes jewelry from beetle carcasses. Age 40 […]
Posted inNovember 13, 2006: Bred for success
State of Jefferson: A place apart
Name Brian Petersen Age 40 Vocation Entrepreneur: Runs a local car wash, fabricates signs, grinds stumps, manufactures plastic trays for bed-bound laptop users, and silk-screens T-shirts for local soccer teams. He recently bought a $30,000 laser-engraver whose commercial potential, he says, is untapped; he’s still dreaming up ways to use it. Known for Promoting the […]
Posted inOctober 30, 2006: Peace Breaks Out In New Mexico's Forests
In search of greener pastures
Name Laina Corazon Coit Age 55 Vocation Hemp ice cream maker Home Base Near Briggsdale, Colo. Noted for Working to create Colorado’s first green burial grounds, on the eastern prairie She says “I’m for earthworms. We intend to use every possible way to make sure the land remains sacred to the grave sites and the […]
Posted inOctober 16, 2006: A River Once More
Getting out of the office, and into hot water
NAME Jeff Mount VOCATION Geology professor AGE 52 HOME BASE Davis, California KNOWN FOR Pointing out that building houses below sea level and surrounding them with weak levees is a recipe for disaster MOST RECENT EXPLOIT On a dare from his son, giving up his raft to kayak the Grand Canyon this summer: “I saw […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 2006: Going Big
A pilgrim with a battered Nikon
Name: Jaelyn deMaría Hometown: Albuquerque, New Mexico Age: 26 Vocation: Photographer at the Albuquerque Journal Pet: Tweak, a Chihuahua Favorite food: Her grandmother’s Sunday breakfasts of eggs, beans, fried potatoes, tortillas and homemade chile. She says “When we decide to become a pilgrim on any sort of religious pilgrimage, what is important is just the […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 2006: Blast from the Past
The rural West’s pragmatic booster
Name Larry Swanson Vocation Economist and demographer Age 55 Home Base Center for the Rocky Mountain West, Missoula, Mont. Known for Hair-raising presentations about dramatic shifts in Mountain West demography and economics. He says “We can’t successfully adapt to change without a fuller understanding of it. Good people with good information make good decisions.” Larry […]
Posted inAugust 21, 2006: The Lure of the Lawn
Safety first
NAME Steve Ficklin VOCATION Petroleum Engineering Technician AGE 54 HOME BASE Silt, Colorado KNOWN FOR Keeping drill rigs from blowing up HOBBIES Working brainteaser math problems, fishing, hunting, camping. HE SAYS “Each hole is different. No two wells are identical.” Steve Ficklin doesn’t talk a lot. As he drives along a dirt road outside the […]
Posted inAugust 7, 2006: Is It or Isn't It (Just Another Mouse)?
Where there’s fire, there’s global warming
“I think there was a tendency to think that the overwhelming factor (driving forest fires) was short-term weather. There’s this idea that drought matters, and it does. But it’s taking time and a lot of research to show that climate plays a big role as well.” — Anthony Westerling Six years ago, climate scientist Anthony […]