Feb 05 100 ways to celebrate - Arizona Daily Star

Arizona Daily Star

Tucson is about celebrate the 100th anniversary of statehood in a much bigger way than it did the birth of Arizona on Feb. 14, 1912.

Dozens of activities - most of them free - are planned downtown for the weekend of Feb. 10-12. There will be concerts, movies, dances, re-enacted interviews with famous Tucsonans of the past, a car show, a four-on-four soccer tournament and lots more.

Nine downtown museums will be open for free on Saturday, and the whole shebang coincides with the 58th annual Tucson Gem and Mineral Show at the Tucson Convention Center. Some of the finest mineral specimens ever mined in Arizona are the stars of this year's show.

The Arizona Centennial Celebration Downtown is being organized by 2nd Saturdays Downtown, the group that puts on entertainment the second Saturday night of every month. 2nd Saturdays stepped in when the state's traveling "Best Fest" for Tucson was postponed. In the end, the Arizona Centennial Commission agreed to have 2nd Saturdays take the lead. Many local businesses and groups are providing additional support.

Organizers expect 30,000 to 40,000 people to attend - about three times times the entire population of Tucson in 1912.

Arizona became the "baby" state on a Wednesday, and according to newspaper accounts, it was a pretty normal weekday in Tucson. Stores raised the new 49-star flag, and whistles and sirens sounded. But kids went to school and adults to work. Expect a much better party downtown as Arizona hits 100.

Concerts

Sam Moore

Named by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the 100 greatest singers of all time, Moore is the biggest name on the schedule. He'll perform Saturday from 8 to 9:30 on the Jim Click Automotive stage at Sixth Avenue and Pennington Street. It's free.

"Moore boasts a scratchy voice with incredible range - all honey-sweet soul and raw sexuality, gutbucket blues and gritty rock," Rolling Stone said in picking Moore, who became famous as half of the soul duo Sam and Dave.

They had a bunch of hits in the 1960s, including "Hold On, I'm Coming" and "Soul Man." They split up and re-united a few times, ending for good in 1981. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1982. Moore, who is in his 70s, has had a solo career in recent years.

True Arizonan? He's lived in Scottsdale since the late 1980s.

Jerry Riopelle

The roots rocker has lived much of his life in Los Angeles, but he was sort of adopted by Arizona back in the 1970s because he performed so frequently in Tucson and Phoenix. His New Year's Eve shows up north have continued to be a hot ticket for almost 40 years.

Riopelle is the headliner Friday at 8 p.m. on the stage at Sixth Avenue and Pennington Street. It's free.

R. Carlos Nakai and the Tucson Symphony

The Navajo/Ute flutist has recorded more than 35 albums and appeared with orchestras and other artists around the globe.

He's on stage with the symphony in a concert of music, dance and spoken word. The program includes Ferde Grofé's "Grand Canyon Suite" set to a new piece of photo choreography by James Westwater. It will include images of the Canyon from the rim to the Colorado River.

The performances are Friday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets can be purchased through the TSO box office.

True Arizonan? Nakai was born in Flagstaff and is a UA graduate. The symphony had its first performance in 1929 at the Tucson High auditorium.

Soul Celebration

Southwest Soul Circuit is producing an evening of African-American music on Friday. Musicians will perform jazz, blues, R&B, gospel and soul music.

The acts include Kevin & Tanishia Hamilton, Crystal Stark, Neamen Lyles, Mark and Arlette Willis, and the Afro-Brazilian music and dancers of Batucaxé.

The celebration is from 7 to 10 p.m. at the Fox Theatre. It's free.

True Arizonans? Kevin Hamilton came from Nashville but gets points because he attended the UA. Tanishia Hamilton is from St. Louis by way of Dallas.

Dances

Tardeada

A tardeada is a big afternoon dance party, and this one is sponsored by Descendientes del Presidio de Tucson, a group that's all about preserving the history and culture of the city and the Pimeria Alta region.

Olga Flores with Grupo Alma y Corazon will perform traditional Mexican music, and DJ Pepe Galvez will provide barrio sounds for dancing. Participants are welcome to wear period attire.

A donation of $25 per couple and $15 for singles is suggested, and there will be a food collection for the food bank.

The dance takes place Feb. 12 from 2 to 6 p.m. at the Manning House, 450 W. Paseo Redondo.

True Arizona? Levi Howell Manning built the 12,000-square-foot mansion in 1907.

Rialto Theatre

Powhaus Productions is presenting "Arizona Gem," with Metrognome, Zackey Force Funk, and DJs Carl Hanni, Mother Tierra and Zackey Force Funk.

It's free on Saturday from 6 to 9 p.m. There's a charge of $5 from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. The Rialto is at 318 E. Congress St., between Fourth and Fifth Avenues.

True Arizona: The Rialto opened in 1920. It showed movies and put on stage shows that featured vaudeville, dance, comedy and singing.

Movies

"McLintock!"

John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara were the stars of this film, shot at Nogales, Old Tucson and Patagonia in 1963.

Cinema La Placita will screen it Friday at 6 p.m. along East Congress Street between Stone and Scott avenues.

Wayne plays a cattle baron who whips his wife, daughter and politicians into shape in a comic sendup of many of the Westerns in which he starred.

"Arizona"

Cinema La Placita returns on Saturday - same time, same place - with a showing of this 1940 film made at Old Tucson.

Arizona Daily Star reporter Phil Villarreal described the movie this way in a 2007 piece: "Without 'Arizona,' we wouldn't have Old Tucson or any significant movie heritage."

"When I took over Old Tucson in 1959, I realized that 'Arizona' was a cornerstone of the beginning for films here, really," Bob Shelton told Villarreal. "There were other movies shot in Southern Arizona in the early days, going back to the one-reel silents, but 'Arizona' was really the big renaissance for films here."

Columbia Motion Pictures erected the studio in 1939 to create what Tucson looked like in the mid-19th century. The plot follows pioneer Phoebe Titus (actress Jean Arthur). She operates a freighting business, faces down villains and falls for California-bound Peter Muncie, played by a then-unknown William Holden.

A week after Adolf Hitler's invasion of Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, Columbia halted production, then restarted it in April 1940 as a scaled-back, black-and-white version. The film premiered in Tucson at the Temple of Music and Art and four other theaters. Radio personality Kate Smith broadcast her national show from Tucson.

The Pioneer Hotel hosted Arthur, Holden, Fay Wray, Rita Hayworth and Hedda Hopper, who were involved in the festivities, which included a horse-drawn parade and a midnight menudo feast with 3,000 revelers.

AZ 100 Indie Films

The Screening Room pays tribute to the state's independent filmmakers Saturday from 6 to 9 p.m. at 127 E. Congress St.

Old film clips of Southern Arizona

Clips showing Tucson in the 1920s and 1930s will be shown as part of a event Saturday from 1:30 to 3:30 at the Fox Theatre, 17 W. Congress.

The films were created by the Sunshine Climate Club, a tourist promotion group founded in 1922.

Museums

Nine downtown museums will be open free of charge on Saturday: the Children's Museum of Tucson, Tucson Museum of Art, Science Downtown, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Jewish History Museum, the Presidio San Agustín del Tucson, Southern Arizona Transportation Museum, Arizona Historical Society Downtown and La Pilita Museum.

Historical Society

If you are even a little interested in history - and you must or you wouldn't be thinking about attending a centennial event - be sure to stop in at the Historical Society's downtown museum.

It's usually open only limited weekday hours, tucked inside the Wells Fargo Bank building at 140 N. Stone Ave. It's small but has wonderful exhibits about the Tucson of old.

True Arizona? The Arizona Historical Society was established in 1864. And as for Wells Fargo, although it's now known for banking, back in the 1800s it ran stagecoaches through Tucson as part of the Overland Mail Co. Stages traveled 2,757 miles in about 25 days to deliver mail from St. Louis to San Francisco.

Jewish History Museum

This is another small gem and also on Stone Avenue, but toward the south end of downtown at 564 S. Stone. It has a special centennial exhibit on the contributions of the Jewish community to state history.

True Arizona? The building opened in 1910 as Arizona's first synagogue.

Children's Museum

True Arizona? The museum has been open since 1986, but its building at 200 S. Sixth Ave. pre-dates statehood. It was constructed as the public library thanks to a donation from industrialist Andrew Carnegie.

Presidio San Agustín

This is a re-creation of the original fort for Tucson. It includes a tower, a soldier's family home and barracks, a warehouse, a presidio mural, an horno for baking bread and a 2,000-year-old pithouse. The museum is at the southwest corner of Church Avenue and Washington Street, toward the north end of downtown.

Gem and mineral show

The Tucson Gem and Mineral Society has chosen the theme "Minerals of Arizona" for its 58th annual show.

Minerals held in private and public collections around the world will be coming "home" for the show. More than 250 retail dealers will also have booths.

The show is open Thursday through Feb. 12 at the Tucson Convention Center, 260 S. Church Ave. Hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Feb. 12. Admission is $10 to the exhibit hall and arena. Lectures are free. More information is at www.tgms.org

Get Moving

Street Soccer Showdown

FC Tucson, the new men's soccer club, is organizing a four-on-four tournament from noon to 10 p.m. Saturday on the vacant lot on Fifth Avenue just north of Congress Street. There will be matches for both youth and adult teams.

Bike ride

Meet Feb. 12 at 9 a.m. at East Broadway and South Scott Avenue for a ride that will show participants how to identify low-water, native trees in the streetscape. The ride will last 90 minutes.

Lectures and Talks

Does Arizona History Matter?

Zócalo Public Square is organizing this free event on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. at Hotel Congress, 311 E. Congress St., downtown.

Moderator Jack B. Jewett, president of the Flinn Foundation, will talk with historians Thomas E. Sheridan and Erick Meeks; Lattie F. Coor, CEO of the Center for the Future of Arizona; and author Tom Zoellner.

Tucsonans of the past

Actors and a few relatives will play 10 famous Tucsonans of the past. They'll be interviewed Saturday from 1:30 to 3:30 at the Fox Theatre, 17 W. Congress St. It's free.

The group includes Federico Jose Maria Ronstadt, Carlos Corella Jacome, Madeline Heineman Berger, Monte Mansfield, Isabella Selmes Greenway King, Lew Murphy, Cele Peterson, Morgan Maxwell, Josiah Moore and Esther Tang. Tang, by the way, is very much alive.

Beloved local folklorist "Big Jim" Griffith will appear, as will storyteller Jon Richins.

This event also features film clips of Tucson in the 1920s and 1930s created by an early tourism promotion group, the Sunshine Climate Club.

There will be a show of cars from the past 100 years on the street in front of the Fox.

True Arizona? The Fox Theatre opened in 1930.

Arizona Civil Rights Memories

The American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona will sponsor this panel discussion from 2 to 4:30 on Feb. 12 at the Scottish Rite Cathedral, 160 S. Scott Ave.

Participants include longtime activist Cornelius Steelink, former Mayor George Miller, retired Arizona Supreme Court Justice Stanley Feldman and UA law professor emeritus Charles Ares.

True Arizona? When the Arizona chapter of the ACLU formed in 1958, it was illegal to marry a person of a different race or to be a vagrant.

Construction of the Scottish Rite building started before statehood, and it was dedicated in 1916.

The University of Arizona

"Arizona 100 and Counting: A Celebration Through the Lens of Time"

This free showcase on Saturday will include brief segments on a variety of topics - mini-lectures about anthropology, history, poetry, tree-ring research, natural history and astronomy.

There will be Mexican corridos and modern dance, along with the UA Symphony Orchestra and Symphonic Choir, and the Tucson Girls Chorus and Tucson Boys Chorus.

The event is being organized by the Colleges of Letters, Arts and Science and is directed by Jory Hancock, dean of the College of Fine Arts.

It will take place from 3 to 5 p.m. at Centennial Hall. That's just inside the main gate on the west side of campus.

Call the Fine Arts box office at 621-1162 to have tickets reserved. If any seats remain on the day of the event, they'll be available starting at noon at Centennial Hall.

True Arizona? The UA opened in 1891 with six students in its freshman class.

Poetry

The Poetry Center has an exhibit through March 31 of Arizona poets Sharlot Mabridth Hall and Hattie Greene Lockett, both members of Arizona's Women's Hall of Fame.

Hall was both a writer and a poet, although she's best known as the state's first official historian - appointed in 1909. She traveled the state collecting documents and, more significantly, oral histories. She came to Arizona with her family in 1882 when she was about 12.

Lockett moved to Arizona in 1897 and became both a rancher and an archaeologist. She wrote "The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi: First Hand Accounts of Customs, Traditions and Beliefs of the Northern Arizona Indian Tribe." She was also a short-story writer and a poet.

The Poetry Center is at 1508 E. Helen St. That's just north of Speedway.

"Becoming Arizona: The Valentine State"

The special collections library has both a centennial exhibit and lecture series.

The exhibit continues through May 30 at the library, 1510 E. University Blvd. That's on the Mall at North Cherry Avenue.

The remaining free lectures are:

• "The Sleeping Giant vs. the Politics of Fear: Arizona's Hispanic Society in the Twenty-First Century" with professor Tom Sheridan of the School of Anthropology. It's on Feb. 14 from 7 to 8:30 p.m.

• "Legacies of the Past: Historic Women of Arizona," with historian and author Jan Cleere. It's on March 28 from 7 to 8:30 p.m.

The UA Museum of Art

"The Border Project: Soundscapes, Landscapes and Lifescapes" exhibit continues through March 11.

It presents sound art, music, performance, painting, sculpture, installation, video, film and photography showing life on the border, past and present.

There are several special events scheduled in conjunction with the exhibit, including a panel discussion today from 2 to 4 p.m. on the history of Chinese in the region.

More event information is on the museum's website: artmuseum.arizona.edu

The museum is at 1031 N. Olive Road.

For kids

There are plenty of centennial activities suitable for kids, but these are a few planned especially for them.

Secret Agent 23 Skidoo

If that name makes sense, you must know the music genre called kid-hop.

23 Skidoo is is a leader in the style. Indeed, he's one of the performers on "All About Bullies ... Big and Small," which is up for a Grammy award as best children's album of the year.

The Grammys will be presented on Feb. 12, just a few hours after North Carolinian Skidoo performs here. His show at the Fox Theatre is being put on by the Christina-Taylor Green Foundation and Tu Nidito Children and Family Services. The latter provides comfort, hope and support for children and families whose lives have been impacted by a serious medical condition or death.

The 1 p.m. show at the Fox Theatre on Feb. 12 is free.

Multicultural and kids stage

This venue will be open from 1 to 8 p.m. Saturday at East Broadway and South Scott Avenue. The entertainment will include an illusionist, puppets, circus artists, clowns, Brazilian music and dance, Japanese ensemble drumming and more.

Daytime and early evening music elsewhere downtown on Friday and Saturday is suitable for families, and it's also free. In addition, there will be a Ferris wheel and a slide. There's a small charge to ride those, and proceeds go to downtown arts organizations.

At the library

There are also activities Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the main library downtown for kids through teens. Activities include story time, crafts and games.

Parking downtown

If you're savvy, it isn't as bad as you might think even on a busy weekend.

Traffic can get backed up on Congress Street and Broadway, the two main east-west streets into downtown. They'll be open on the weekend of the big centennial celebrations, but traffic probably will be slow because side streets will be closed and there will be plenty of pedestrians.

Consider taking 22nd Street to downtown, heading north at Sixth Avenue. Stick with Sixth, or branch onto Stone at 18th Street. There's a large parking garage on the west side of Stone just south of Broadway.

Or you can turn from 22nd Street onto the I-10 frontage road headed north toward downtown. Turn east at Cushing Street, and you're less than a block from the Tucson Convention Center.

You might also take Speedway, heading south at either Stone Avenue or Main Avenue.

Stone will get you close to the parking garage at 110 E. Pennington St. Turn left off of Stone to Pennington, and the light green garage is one block ahead.

Main, which turns into Granada Avenue, will take you to the west side of the TCC, although parking there is somewhat limited and probably will be filled all weekend with people attending the gem show and the symphony.

If you do decide to drive into the heart of downtown from either Congress or Broadway, there are two new garages on the east end.

The Depot Plaza is at 45 N. Fifth Avenue. That's a half block north of Congress.

There's also Centro. That's right at the east entrance to downtown, where Congress meets Toole and Fourth avenues.

There are also surface lots in many locations, and parking is permitted on some residential streets. Be sure to look first, though, for signs indicating an area is restricted to vehicles with residential parking permits. There's a fine if you don't display one on the vehicle.

Fort Lowell Day

This is an annual event, but it's worth mentioning alongside the centennial celebrations because of the importance of the fort to Tucson history.

The fort was built near the Rillito River, seven miles east of what was then Tucson. Today, the remains are part of Fort Lowell Park on Craycroft Road south of Grant Road. It was called Camp Lowell when it was established there in 1873, but in 1885 it received the status of fort. For many years it served as a supply base for other Army posts and as protection for civilians against Apache Indian attacks. Fort Lowell was abandoned in 1891.

The surrounding neighborhood has many interesting adobe buildings and was designated a historic district in 1978.

Fort Lowell Day takes place Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. There's free parking in the park, 2900 N. Craycroft Road.

Events include a 10 a.m. baseball game between the Bisbee Black Sox and the Tucson Sahuaros, members of the Arizona Territories Vintage Base Ball League.

A Sibley Army tent will be on display, and re-enactors will interpret what's now the fort museum for visitors.

At 2 p.m., the Old Arizona Brass Band will perform songs of the 1800s.

There also will be a walking tour and other events in the surrounding neighborhood.

"Centennial Clang"

As soon as it received the news the morning of Feb. 14, 1912, that President William Howard Taft had signed the statehood proclamation, the Citizen newspaper said it called the Fire Department, Southern Pacific railroad shops and other establishments having bells or whistles. That included laundries and the water plant, which had a big siren.

They began sounding them at once, the newspaper reported.

That noise will be repeated on Feb. 14, 2012.

Churches and other places that have bells are asked to ring them 100 times starting at 8 a.m.

Already on the list is the bell on historic steam Locomotive 1673, now housed at the Southern Arizona Transportation Museum, 414 N. Toole Ave., downtown.

The museum, by the way, will be free next Saturday as part of the big downtown centennial celebration.