Next time you’re confronted with charts and graphs and reams of data at work, you might want to simply shove it all aside and look at the person sitting across the table and ask: “So, what’s your sign?”

While it may sound like a bad pickup line from a single’s bar, talking about astrological signs in the workplace may be gaining acceptance as more people look to develop communication beyond the hard data often continuously spit out by technology.

Steve Weiss, author of a new book on using astrology in business, says that he does believe astrology can be an important communication tool on the job.

“No way, no how, is astrology a substitute for everything else you need to know,” Weiss says. “But I think it can help create a language for us to understand one another better.”

That’s why he says he has written “Signs of Success: The Remarkable Power of Business Astrology,” (Amacom, $24).

Astrology – defined in the dictionary as “the study of positions and aspects of heavenly bodies with a view to predicting their influence on the course of human affairs” – is often only experienced by others through brief astrological predictions in the morning newspaper (Taurus: “Money will come your way this week”).

But Weiss says that by using the “terminology” of astrology for business trends, people can develop a greater ability to understand why people – such as bosses or co-workers – behave in certain ways.

He stresses, however, that astrology should not be regarded as something written in stone, and even goes so far as to say that some aspects of astrology – such a predicting specific events – is “a bit wacky for my tastes.”

“In the wrong hands, astrology is just another form of intolerance,” he says. “It’s not a science. It’s much more like an art – like art wrapped up in the science of math and astronomy.”

The book provides information about each of the 12 astrological signs, and gives examples of traits for those born under various signs. For example, “creative entrepreneurship is the true stamp of the Leo leader, frequently to the point of personality cult as well as to fortune and fame.” Weiss says those born under the sign of Leo include Martha Stewart, Magic Johnson and Mick Jagger.

Or, “a Capricorn is inclined to the more conservative position that a happy destiny is the result of a hard, well-managed, socially-sanctioned climb.” He says that 19th-century author Horatio Alger “was a Capricorn to his very soul,” while founding father Benjamin Franklin’s dedication to hard work and movie star Mel Gibson’s movies about family honor (“Braveheart,” “The Patriot”) show the Capricorn’s traits.

Weiss further points out that by understanding our astrological sign, we can better grasp how we react in today’s business climate, and have a clearer understanding of other individual’s strengths and weaknesses. (To join the blog discussion of astrology and business, check out www.anitabruzzese.com.)

For example, when dealing with an Aquarius: “Try not to take offense at their forgetfulness, which may even include the name of long-term associates. They are easily distracted by their own bullet-train of thoughts.”

Or, “Scorpio plays secrecy of intent as an advantage, so accept that you will rarely be granted a full confidence. But also know that loyalty and competence will be handsomely rewarded.”

Weiss says this ancient tradition of studying astrology has an important role to play in our modern society.

“We are clearly living in an era of metrics. In the last 20 years, it’s been the story of the personal computer and the Internet. We’re great data-sharers. And yet, that doesn’t always drive us to insight,” Weiss says. “Astrology reminds us that…we can’t write an equation for inspiration. Astrology creates those opportunities.”

Weiss says that by increasing our understanding of astrology, we can better develop interactive skills that improve communication and understanding. Still, he cautions that it’s only one tool that should be used by someone trying to survive in the business world.

“I see beauty and precision in astrology, but it’s a very complex craft,” he says. “It depends on the person interpreting it. It can’t make mean people not mean.”

Weiss also points out that as we all try to compete in a global economy, astrology may be another way to build a bridge between cultures.

“There are many places such as South America, India and China where astrology is not that foreign to them,” he says.

Anita Bruzzese is author of “45 Things You Do That Drive Your Boss Crazy…and How to Avoid Them,” (www.45things.com). Write to her at: anita(AT)anitabruzzese.com or c/o: Business Editor, Gannett News Service, 7950 Jones Branch Dr., McLean, Va. 22107. For a reply, include a SASE.

By the time you’ve been out of work six months or more, your mind starts playing tricks on you.

The past starts looking pretty darn good and you forget how much you hated the first 15 years of your career and conclude with almighty certainty that you really did like purchasing. Or that being in information technology wasn’t so bad after all. Before you know it, you’ve convinced yourself that you should go back to your previous, lackluster career.

That might be. Or you could be falling for the when-all-else-fails-go-back-to-the-past strategy.

I keep meeting more and more people banking on former careers they left years ago as a new and improved place to hang their hat for the next decade or so. Many reason that, “I just need something secure for the next 10 or so years.”

If that is what’s making you nostalgic for the past, better rethink your plan.

First, you don’t want to end up miserable again. Second, it’s not necessarily an easy sell. Obviously you will have to answer sticky questions from potential employers about your change of heart. They will also compare you to newly minted graduates eager to jump in. How can you beat that? If a return to the past is truly what you want, you need a three-pronged approach to be a serious contender:

-Anticipate employers’ objections.

It’s only natural for an employer to probe. So expect to hear questions like, why after ten or more years, do you want to go back to what you did before? Why did you leave the field in the first place? And, if you’ve held management or leadership positions, why do you want to give it up?

You can bring up their concerns before they do: “You might be wondering why I want to get back into accounting…” Then give your well-thought-out response that explains your new career objective.

One of my clients who had been in information technology ten years before becoming a teacher explained how, even as a teacher his focus had been on helping students understand and use technology — a subject he loved. Now he wanted to apply his teaching skills to help adults understand technology by working in a customer support role. It’s a logical step, and he also had a story to tell.

- Explain how you’re up to speed and will keep up to date.

If you’ve been out of the field for years, you need to be up on the latest and greatest processes, issues the industry faces, as well as required skills. So be ready to explain how you’ve done that. What training have you taken? What do you read to stay abreast? Be prepared to talk about how you’ll stay ahead of the curve.

- Explain what has reignited your interest and why you’re excited about the work.

Employers can smell it if your heart’s not in it. How will you explain your renewed interest in a field you haven’t worked in for years? What is it about the work that you can’t wait to do again? What has happened in the last ten years that might add to your value in this new direction? How do you see yourself developing in this field?

If you can’t seem to come up with a story that you believe with all your heart, how can you convince someone else? In that case, perhaps heading back to your past is not the best plan for moving forward.

—

Andrea Kay is the author of “Life’s a Bitch and Then You Change Careers: 9 Steps to Get Out of Your Funk and On To Your Future.” Send questions to her at 2692 Madison Road, No. 133, Cincinnati, Ohio 45208; www.andreakay.com. E-mail: andrea@andreakay.com

PHOENIX — State officials say three environmentally contaminated mines in Arizona would get a $23 million cleanup as part of a settlement with the mining company that owns them.

The deal is subject to the approval of a Texas court overseeing the bankruptcy reorganization of Asarco LLC, the Tucson-based company that owns the mining sites.

State officials say $20 million would fund the cleanup and revegetation of the Sacaton Mine, a 3,000-acre open-pit copper mine near Casa Grande that was abandoned in the 1980s.

About $3 million would pay for cleaning and restoring the 600-acre Salero and 335-acre Trench mines outside Patagonia in southern Arizona. Both mines were abandoned about a century ago.

The deal is part of a $260 million, 11-state settlement with Asarco to resolve ongoing environmental disputes at 17 mines.

“Resolution of these environmental claims is part of our effort to meet our obligations to our creditors, reorient ourselves and emerge from bankruptcy,” said Doug McAlister, Asarco’s general counsel.

Environmental regulators worry that hazardous chemicals left in mine sites will leach into the soil and groundwater.

Crews will use fresh rock or soil to cover piles of waste from mine operations and allow vegetation to grow. Officials expect the move to direct the flow of rainwater around the waste.

Officials don’t think the groundwater has been contaminated at any of Arizona’s three sites, but the settlement includes money for groundwater cleanup if it is needed, said Patrick Cunningham, acting director of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality.

Cleanup could take up to 30 years if groundwater is found to be contaminated, Cunningham said.

Also as part of the settlement, Arizona would get about four miles of riparian habitat along the Lower San Pedro River south of Hayden and Winkelman in Gila County. The land, which has not been mined, is valued between $3 million and $4 million.

Officials say the property exchange would compensate for damage to Mineral Creek and the Gila River caused by releases from Ray Mine and the Hayden Facility, two active Asarco operations nearby.

The riparian habitat is home to many migratory birds, nesting raptors, waterfowl species and the endangered southwestern willow flycatcher. The settlement includes about $4 million for land management.

“The San Pedro River is one of the most important riparian areas in the state, and perhaps the most threatened,” said Mark Winkleman, commissioner of the State Land Department, which owns much of the land surrounding the river. “This settlement will help preserve it, and that is of the utmost importance to this state.”

The Tucson Citizen as we knew it is officially no more.

The print edition, which could have been reinstated if a judge ruled in its favor, was denied Tuesday afternoon.

The idea that the Citizen could come back actually made me a bit giddy. The thought of being back rubbing elbows and ideas with those I miss at this cavernous office was an exciting premise.

It would have also been quite interesting to see, if the judge had ruled to continue the print edition, how one would have been pasted, scrambled and cobbled together for publication the next day.

I figured I get to luck out and sneak a photo of my dog on the cover.

One more question was whether or not my pals who had been laid off would have come back if requested or walked away in a rebellious huff.

Monday’s hearing, which almost put me to sleep, did bring up some interesting information:

• Gannett said issuing a print edition of the Citizen was losing the company $10,000 each day

• The Attorney General’s representative argued that newspapers were worth saving because they print Macy’s coupons

• The judge has a granddaughter he had to pick up from school at 5 p.m. and he seemed like he’d make a cool grandfather.

At least those are the highlights I most remember.

Some former staffers stuck with a measly two week’s severance pay are kind of bummed.

Those who had longer, like photographer Val Canez who worked here for more than a decade, had a different take.

“I’m kind of relieved it’s over,” he said on the phone as he was calling to confirm the judge’s decision.

The saga began back in January when we got the first announcement of pending closure. The suspense dragged on worse than weekends between soap operas.

“It was like one big, long pin prick,” Canez said, “and the pin kept getting deeper.”

What do you think?

Are you relieved the historic saga is finally over?

If the judge ruled it back into print, could the Citizen have regained its former glory?

Should Gannett have sold it for the $200,000 offer, well below the $800,000 it was asking?

PHOENIX — Republican legislative leaders have set the stage for Senate committee consideration Wednesday of a new budget proposal that includes privatizing several state prisons to help close a big revenue shortfall.

The Senate on Tuesday suspended rules in order to allow short-notice consideration of the proposal.

Leader said it’s a revised version of a plan endorsed recently by a House committee and is a joint proposal by House and Senate leaders hoping to intensify negotiations with Gov. Jan Brewer.

Senate President Bob Burns, R-Peoria, previously had said he wouldn’t have the Appropriations Committee consider a budget proposal unless he had enough votes in the full chamber to assure passage.

He indicated that’s not the case now.

“I changed my mind based on the fact that time is slipping away from us. I think we have to make some changes in our plans of actions,” Burns said.

Senate Appropriations Chairman Russell Pearce said the privatization proposal calls for transferring operations of several prisons to a private company in exchange for an upfront payment of $100 million to $200 million.

The Mesa Republican said the state would continue oversight of the prisons and save money on operations. State employees working at the prisons could transfer to other state prisons or find work with the new operators, Pearce said.

Pearce said other elements of the plan include cuts in funding for K-12 schools and having the state grab some vehicle license tax revenues now going to local governments. The local governments then would be authorized to use some of their impact-fee money to backfill for the lost money from the vehicle license tax, Pearce said.

Arizona’s tax collections have been hammered by the recession and the collapse of the housing industry, and the state faces a projected $3 billion shortfall in the fiscal year that begins July 1. Depending on what spending cuts are made, the budget could total approximately $10 billion.

Sen. Jay Tibshraeny, R-Chandler, said the impact-fee proposal is fraught with legal and practical problems. Cities and towns are now preparing their budgets and need to know what money they will have, said Tibshraeny, a former mayor of Chandler.

Longtime Tucsonan Sheldon Gutman walks around with a pile of Tucson Citizen newspapers under his arm.

He is not a hawker selling them on the corner of Ajo Way.

Nor is he a homeless man using them for padding.

He just loves the Citizen.

Gutman, in his 70s, loves it so much he even came to the Monday afternoon hearing that would decide if the Citizen were ordered to continue its print edition.

Gutman came to testify.

No matter it was not an open hearing and no testimony was being heard – just lengthy lawyer legalese – Gutman came anyway.

It was unclear if he normally walks around with copies of the Citizen under his arm or if this was a special occasion.

His favorite was the calendar section. “It has movie listings, concerts.”

He then proceeded to go over all the headlines on the other sections and issues he had laid out in a messy accordian style on a courtroom bench.

“It covers cultural areas, state legistlature, pets,” he said. “There is such a variety. It has the greatest University of Arizona basketball coverage with Steve Rivera.”

Although Gutman has been in Tucson for decades, he only discovered the Citizen last year and now can’t get enough of it.

He better hang on to those copies in case the restraining order doesn’t go through.

“For 19,000 subscribers all they read is the Citizen,” he said. “It has inserts, sales at department stores.”

The judge passes down his decision on Tuesday, and you can bet Gutman will be there.

I’ll let you know if he brings his pile of Citizens.

Read story on the hearing: www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/frontpage/116713.php

Jilted buyer wants to stop closure action by Gannett

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Tucson late Friday to stop the closure of the Tucson Citizen, which was announced by the Citizen’s owners early Friday.

The lawsuit said closing the Citizen stemmed from an agreement between Gannett and Lee Enterprises Inc., owner of the Arizona Daily Star, to eliminate competition and increase profits to both companies.

The case has been assigned to Judge Raner Collins, but Goddard said in a phone interview Friday night that his staff could not reach Collins to “express the urgency of the case.”

“Usually there is some district judge to handle emergency motions and we are trying to find one,” Goddard said. “But I’m not at all certain we will be able to find one; it is a small panel in Tucson.”

Kate Marymont, vice president of news for the Gannett Co. Inc., told Citizen employees Friday that the last print edition would be Saturday. Gannett will continue to run a “modified” Web site of daily commentary and opinion with a weekly insert of editorial content appearing in the Star, she said.

She said two people accepted positions with www.tucsoncitizen.com but declined to say how many staffers the Web site would eventually hire.

“That’s my starting point,” Marymont said.

A preliminary job description for those hired showed that the site would focus on the “watercooler buzz” of the day.

Staffers would likely link to other Web sites and blogs, offer an opinion and open the discussion to commenters in an online forum. The site would also incorporate social networking, the document showed.

The staff will be responsible for defining the Web site’s form, Marymont said. “I’ve left it to them.”

The recently launched Metromix entertainment hub will continue on a “provisional basis” only, Marymont said.

Gannett’s joint operating agreement with Lee Enterprises Inc. also will terminate Saturday, although the two companies will continue as business partners in Tucson Newspapers, a subsidiary that handles all noneditorial operations for both papers. The JOA has been in effect since 1940.

Under the arrangement, Gannett takes the unusual step of partnering with a newspaper publication in which it has no editorial say to retain its profit interest in the operation.

Lee and Gannett will continue to share equally in the operating costs and profits of Tucson Newspapers, also known as TNI Partners, just as they did with the JOA, CEO Mike Jameson said. TNI, though, will no longer receive the limited antitrust immunity offered JOAs under the Newspaper Preservation Act.

The 1970 act gives newspapers operating under a joint operating agreement an exemption from federal antitrust laws in the hopes of increasing editorial diversity in cities and towns.

The announcement brings to a close months of uncertainty for the paper. Gannett announced in January that it was offering the Citizen archives, Internet domain name and lists of subscribers and advertisers to potential buyers, but not its 50 percent share of the JOA. If no buyer came forward, it intended to close the paper March 21.

On March 17, Gannett delayed the closure, saying “viable” buyers had come forward. The paper has operated on a day-to-day basis since.

Marymont informed Citizen employees of the closure at 9:30 a.m. Friday, about 30 minutes after notifying interim Editor Jennifer Boice.

“This is not about the journalism,” Marymont said. “Do not in any way take this as a reflection on your journalism. You have done outstanding journalism for decades.”

Laid-off employees will receive a week’s pay for every year they’ve worked for the paper up to 26 weeks, with a two-week minimum.

Boice, who has worked at the Citizen for 25 years and was appointed interim editor in July, could not hold back tears when making the announcement

“It’s been a difficult time,” Boice said. “But it’s also been fun. We’ve had people, even when our time was limited, going all out on stories, doing an incredible job of keeping the newspaper not only going, but good. And I am really grateful to all the people here who have put forth their heart and soul and energy in letting us go out with our head held high.”

Goddard was informed of the Citizen’s pending closure when Stephen Hadland, CEO of the Santa Monica Media Co. and the final bidder in the sale, wrote a letter Friday morning asking Goddard to intervene.

“The Tucson Citizen has been systematically destroyed by its owners and I believe it remains a viable and popular newspaper in the community,” he wrote.

Goddard said Hadland’s request was compelling, especially after he spoke with Gannett representatives.

“Their lawyer was unable to tell me how the proposed Web site would serve Tucson as a separate editorial voice,” Goddard said. “We took action because there was nothing in front of us that indicated any commitment to a vigorous continuing presence for the Citizen in some form.”

Reached Friday at his Santa Monica office, Hadland said, “We were, we are and we remain a bona fide buyer. We made a substantial cash offer; we later amended the offer to close to half a million dollars and were told that nothing less than $800,000 would be acceptable.”

In addition, Hadland said, he was “amazed” that Gannett was shutting the printed paper and going to an online-only operation because during negotiations, “a printed edition was an absolute requirement of Gannett’s.”

“This is the biggest perversion of the Newspaper Preservation Act that I have ever witnessed,” said Hadland, who publishes five weekly papers in the Los Angeles area.

Goddard said the arrangement between Gannett and Lee did not, in his mind, “meet either the spirit or the intent of the (antitrust) exemption” granted through the federal act.

The U.S. Justice Department began an investigation into the sale of the Citizen in February, when potential buyers told Justice representatives they were being told by Gannett’s sales broker that the Citizen wasn’t a good deal because Gannett wasn’t selling its interest in the JOA.

Marymont confirmed discussions with Justice were ongoing for the past month, but would not say Justice insisted on having a Web site instead of completely closing the Citizen’s presence in Tucson.

She said Gannett had not determined the length of commitment to the new Web site, and that there “is no legal document” saying the site has to remain operational for a certain time.

“In our conversations with the Justice Department, it was agreed that it was important we sustain a second voice in the community,” Marymont said.

Justice Department spokeswoman Gina Talamona said Friday that Justice “closed its investigation today and no enforcement action was taken.” She would give no further details.

National media experts had predicted the paper would never sell because, without the JOA, the Citizen was all loss and no profit.

Thus the paper appeared poised to be another casualty of a newspaper industry struggling to survive amid declining advertising revenue and Internet competition.

But the Citizen defied the odds, at least for a while, because of the federal investigation.

At least five people expressed interest in buying the Citizen. All decided against bidding when they couldn’t persuade Gannett to include the JOA in the sale.

The Citizen was started in 1870 as a weekly, the Arizona Citizen, preceding Arizona’s statehood. Its reporters were on the front lines covering everything from the raids of Pancho Villa to the first university-led space mission.

In its last two months, the paper reported on its own predicted demise.

“A newspaper doesn’t close, it dies, and the death leaves a hole in the community,” said Boice.

———

Other troubled newspapers

• Hearst Corp. printed the last edition of Seattle’s oldest newspaper, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, on March 16, turning it into an Internet-only news outlet with 20 staff members, down from more than 150.

• E.W. Scripps Co. in February closed the 150-year-old Rocky Mountain News, one of two daily newspapers in Denver.

• Employees of the San Francisco Chronicle were told in February to prepare for closure or massive layoffs.

• The Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and The Philadelphia Inquirer sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in recent months.

• The Ann Arbor News announced in April it will close in July. In its place, the Web-based media company AnnArbor.com LLC will be launched, publishing continuously online and a print edition twice a week. About 272 employees remain at the News, and experts estimate that will fall to fewer than 50 for the Web venture.

By Carli Brosseau, Renee Schafer Horton

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard shortly before 5 p.m. Friday filed a complaint in U.S. District Court in Tucson to stop the closure of the Tucson Citizen.

A motion for a temporary restraining order is in the process of being filed, said Anne Hilby, spokeswoman for Goddard’s office.

The case has been assigned to Raner Collins, Hilby said, “but we do not yet know if he will rule on it before tomorrow morning.”

“The process has been initiated,” Hilby said. “We will be notified by the court as how Judge Collins will rule.”

Collins could not be reached for comment.

Kate Marymont, vice president of news for Gannett Co. Inc., visited the Citizen newsroom Friday morning to say the paper would print its final issue Saturday, continuing with a “modified” Web site focused on opinion and commentary.

When asked about Goddard’s action, Marymont said she could not comment without seeing the actual filing.

“I have little to say, I’d need to see what was filed and speak with our lawyers,” Marymont said.

Goddard was informed of the Citizen’s pending closure when Stephen Hadland, CEO of the Santa Monica Media Co. and the final bidder in the sale announced by Gannett in January, wrote a letter Friday morning asking Goddard to intervene.

“I am requesting the Arizona Attorney General’s office file a Temporary Restraining Order preventing the Gannett Corporation from closing the Citizen and require Gannett to continue printing the newspaper pending a sale to a qualified buyer,” Hadland wrote. “The Tucson Citizen has been systematically destroyed by its owners and I believe it remains a viable and popular newspaper in the community.”

Hadland has contended from his first bid that Gannett was not serious about selling the paper because it was only offering the name of the paper, its Web site, archives and a subscriber list, but not the 50 percent interest in the joint operating agreement it has with Lee Enterprises Inc., owner of the Arizona Daily Star.

The JOA has been in effect since 1940 and allows Lee and Gannett to share equally in the operating costs and profits of Tucson Newspapers, also known as TNI Partners, a subsidiary that handles all noneditorial operations for both papers.

Hadland,who said his bid for the Citizen “assests” was $400,000, considers his media company a qualified and viable buyer, something Marymont denied in speaking with employees Friday morning.

“In the end, there was no buyer,” she said.

Hadland said in a phone interview that if a paper goes without printing one day, it loses all value and that is why he urged Goddard to act quickly.

By Carli Brosseau, Renee Schafer Horton

1870

Oct. 15

John Wasson publishes the first issue of the Arizona Citizen, a weekly Republican publication meant to counter the Democratic voice of the Weekly Arizonan, owned by Pierton Donner. Tucson’s population according to the U.S. Census is 3,224. The state’s population is 9,658.

1871

April 29 Weekly Arizonan folds after bitter, politics-fed newspaper war in which both publishers traded brutal published insults. Wasson called Donner the “malicious booby of the Arizonan,” among other things. Tucson is now a one paper town.

1875/76

R.C. Brown and John L. Harris become co-owners at different times but by the end of 1876, Wasson buys back their interests and is again alone atop the masthead.

1877

March 29

L.C. Hughes, a Democrat, publishes the first issue of the Arizona Star, a three-times weekly paper

Oct. 23 Wasson sells the Arizona Citizen to John P. Clum and a consortium of investors from Florence. The paper moves to Florence.

1878

Sept. 6

Clum, who is now the sole owner of the Citizen, moves the paper back to Tucson.

1879

Hughes publishes the first issue of the Arizona Daily Star, twice. There was a Vol. 1, No. 1 copy published on Jan. 12. Then no issues published until June 26, which also has Vol. 1, No. 1 on its masthead. It continues daily publication after that.

March 1

Clum changes the Citizen to daily distribution.

1880

Jan. 3

Clum sells a half-interest in the paper to R.C. Brown, making him an owner again. Brown had been working for the paper in various capacities since 1875.

Feb. 6

Believing Tombstone to be the next great city of the West, Clum sells his remaining interest to Brown and moves southeast to establish the Tombstone Epitaph.

1881

June 10

The Citizen’s office and press burn while Brown is away in California on business. Most of the paper’s early archives are destroyed.

Aug. 7

Nearly ruined by fire, Brown sells a half-interest in the paper to J.A. Whitmore, former publisher of a Wisconsin paper.

1881-84

Turmoil. The paper changes hands numerous times. Whitmore sells his interest and Brown retires. Among the owners listed on the masthead during this time are S. A. Manlove, W.W. Hayward, George Clum (brother of John Clum), William C. Davis (one of the founders of Valley National Bank) and Herbert Tenney. The paper also moves several times during this time but always remains downtown.

August

Herbert Brown’s name appears on the masthead as general manager. By 1898, though no announce-ment was ever made in the paper, Brown (no relation to R.C. Brown) appears to have gained complete control of the paper.

1898

September

Brown is appointed superintendent of the Yuma territorial prison and leaves the paper. There was apparently another tumultuous period for some months as several names appear on the masthead as either editor or general manager but Brown remains owner. George H. Smalley is finally named editor.

1901

Brown sells the paper to mine owner Charles M. Shannon and copper and cattle magnate William C. Greene, both Democrats.

1901 (cont.)

Shannon and Greene name O’Brien Moore as editor and John Behan as man-ager, both Demo-crats. Behan had been the Cochise County sheriff and witness to the gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone. The politics of the paper change overnight.

May 23

Behan’s name disappears from the masthead after a dispute with Moore.

At one point, Behan barricades himself in the newspaper’s office and threatens to kill Moore if he tries to remove him without paying him $600, his supposed investment in the paper. Shannon comes to town and apparently pays him off.

Dec. 16

Moore and new manager Mulford Winsor change the paper’s name to the Tucson Citizen.

1906

Aug. 24

Moore dies without leaving a will. After another brief bit of turmoil, his widow, Agnes, takes over ownership of the paper.

1910

Feb. 26

Republicans James T. Williams Jr., Allan B. Jaynes (for whom Jaynes Station Road is named) and John B. Wright (for whom the TUSD elementary school is named) buy the paper. It returns to its Republican roots and editorial policy.

1910 (cont.)

Shannon and Greene, both immensely wealthy, invest heavily in the paper, mostly to advance the cause of their Democratic-machine politics. Jaynes takes advantage of those improvements and the paper has its greatest financial success since its founding. Jaynes also resumes the fierce newspaper war with the Star.

1912

Feb. 4

Fire again strikes the Citizen. It was a blow to the paper, which had been campaigning hard for statehood and hoped to be the first newspaper in the state to herald the joining of the Union, which was imminent. The Star, which was then owned by a copper mining company that later became Phelps Dodge, comes to the rescue and allows the Citizen to use its press until the Citizen can install a new one.

Feb. 14

The Citizen, being an afternoon paper, is the first to announce statehood in Tucson, printing its evening issue on the Star’s press.

1914

The Citizen moves to a building at the corner of Stone and Jackson, its eighth move in 30 years. It will remain there for 26 years.

1920

November

Jaynes dies. His widow, Kathryn takes over control of the paper and puts her son Oliver, in charge. Oliver, though, was poisoned by mustard gas in World War I and is frequently ill and absent from the paper. The paper’s hard-right editorial edge languishes.

1928

Frank H. Hitchcock (picture on previous page),an initial investor in the Citizen with Jaynes in 1910, acquires control of the paper. As the country descended into the Great Depression, Hitchcock championed the building of the Santa Catalina Highway by the Works Progress Administration. The road is still officially the Gen. Hitchcock Highway, though few call it that. It’s more commonly called the Catalina Highway.

1929

Jan. 1

Hitchcock tweaks the paper’s name, making it the Tucson Daily Citizen.

1929-35

The Depression and Hitchcock’s poor management nearly doom the paper. The Star rises as the dominant paper in the city. Democrats are in control in the city, in the state and in the country and the Star is a Democratic newspaper. Businessmen in the city are reluctant to advertise in the Republican Citizen out of fear of a backlash by city and state fathers.

1935

Hitchcock dies with no heirs and his sisters in Minnesota become owners. They have no interest in moving to Tucson or owning a paper there. The sisters hire William Johnson to sell the paper. He contacts an advertising firm based in Chicago owned by William A. Small (photo next page) that Hitchcock had hired as the Citizen’s advertising firm, and suggests a partnership. Johnson and Small buy the moribund paper

1936-40

With Johnson in charge, the Citizen becomes a moral crusader, attacking prostitution, gambling and liquor in town. Johnson convinces Small, who still lived in Chicago, to invest more money in the paper. Johnson also revives the political fight with the Star, even bringing back some of the vitriolic tone of the Wasson era by criticizing by name the Democratic editor of the Star, William R. Matthews.

1940

July 1

The increasingly expensive newspaper war between the Star and the Citizen leads to a truce and a partnership. The papers agree to enter a Joint Operating Agreement in which they will move into one building, at 208 N. Stone Ave., and form a partnership to provide all the nonnews functions of both papers: circulation, billing, printing and advertising sales. The newsrooms were to remain separate and under the control of each owner. The Republican-Democrat split also remained. Johnson and Matthews, forced to enter the building through the same door, barely acknowledge each other as they pass, and rarely speak for the next 10 years.

1950

Johnson retires. Small, who at some point moved here from Chicago, takes over as editor and publisher.

1964

Johnson dies and his ownership interest is purchased by Small, who is now the sole owner.

Claiming that he wanted to keep the Star from falling into the hands of Ohio-based newspaper chain that wanted to buy it, Small asserts a first right of refusal provision in the JOA contract and buys the Star for $10 million. His stated intent is to find a local buyer but the U.S. Department of Justice, claiming the purchase violates antitrust laws, immediately sues to force the Citizen to sell the Star. Small, even though he wants the same thing, in keeping with his Republican principles, resists what he believes is an unwarranted interference in his business by the federal government.

1966

Feb. 1

Small retires. His son, Bill Jr., takes over as editor and publisher.

Nov. 28

The International Union of Typesetters strike, which lasts into February when the strike is broken and the typesetters return to work. Only one issue is missed,

Feb. 4, when the press operators refused to cross the picket line.

1967

Small enlists the aid of Arizona Carl Hayden, who is in his fifth decade as a U.S. senator and a Democrat, to introduce legislation, the Newspaper Preservation Act, that exempts from the Antitrust Act newspapers operating under joint agreements. The bill gets a hearing but is never brought up for a vote before the 90th Congress ends in 1968.

1968

A federal judge orders the Citizen to sell the Star. The Citizen makes a direct appeal to the United States Supreme Court.

1969

The Supreme Court rules for the government that newspaper joint operating agreements violate the Antitrust Act, but before the court’s dissolution order can be carried out, Congress passes the reintroduced Newspaper Preservation Act. The bill was sponsored this time in the House by Mo Udall, another Democrat.

1970

July

President Richard M. Nixon signs the Newspaper Preservation Act. The original 1940 JOA is restored, but with the stipulation that the Citizen immediately sell the Star.

1971

April 8

The Citizen sells the Star to Pulitzer Publishing for $10 million and the two companies enter into a new JOA.

1973

Aug. 19

The Star and the Citizen move out of downtown to their current location at 4850 S. Park Ave. It is the first time the Citizen has been out of downtown since its return from Florence in 1878.

1976

Nov. 30

The Small family sells the Citizen to New York-based Gannett Co. Inc., ending 106 years of local ownership.

1977

June 1

Gannett drops “Daily” from the name and the paper becomes just the Tucson Citizen again.

Bill Small Jr. retires, ending the Small family’s 42-year involvement with the paper. Gannett names James Geehan as publisher. Tony Tslentis is the editor.

1981

Sept.

Gannett names Gerald Garcia publisher. He becomes the first Hispanic editor of a major metropolitan daily newspaper in the country.

1986

Sept.

Gannett names C. Donald Hatfield publisher after Garcia abruptly resigns. Hatfield also takes on the title of editor.

1998

June 4

The Tucson Citizen enters the Internet Age.

2000

Gannett names Michael Chihak publisher. Chihak started his career at the Citizen. He left for another Gannett paper in the 1980s.

2008

July 3

Chihak resigns and moves to San Francisco.

Senior Editor Jennifer Boice is named interim editor.

2009

Jan. 16

Bob Dickey, President of Gannett’s Community Publishing Division, breaks the news to Boice and Citizen staff that if no buyer for the paper is found by March 21, the paper will close. While not clear at the time of the announcement, Citizen staff soon learn that Gannett plans to continue its interest in the JOA with the Star but not produce a paper.

March 17

Gannett announces that “viable” buyers have come forward and delays closure of the Citizen. Instead the paper operates on a day-to-day basis.

May 15

Gannett announces that there will be no sale and instead it will cease publishing a printed paper and will operate a web site only. However, the web site will serve primarily as a community voice for bloggers and opinions, no news will be gathered and posted on the site by news staff.

May 16

The Citizen publishes its last print edition.

A family’s journey from hand-set type to hand-coded hypertext

The Internet killed the newspaper.

No, it’s the economy, stupid.

Or overleveraged publishing chains. Left-wing columnists. Whatever the cause, change is in the air of the publishing world, but it’s blowing faster than ever.

From the cover of Time magazine to a slew of bloggers, the changes sweeping the news business are an untiring meme lately.

Newspapers big and small are stopping their presses, not to replate with the latest breaking scandal, but to lay off their staffs, shutter the doors, retire the nameplates.

It may be news, but it’s not new. My family has been involved, off and on, in the newspaper game for more than a century. Each generation saw shifts in society and advances in technology challenge their publishing acumen.

My great-grandfather got into journalism in 1900. George M. Smith began writing for the Naperville (Ill.) Clarion fresh out of high school. After attending Wheaton College, just outside of Chicago, where his father taught, he worked his way through a succession of reporting jobs.

In 1913, he purchased the Du Page County Tribune, a weekly in Wheaton, setting himself up as editor and publisher.

Printing a newspaper in those days was a labor-intensive operation. Every line of type was set by hand, using individual die-cast metal letters, thousands per page.

Hot lead and Linotypes

In 1915, the Tribune purchased a new typecasting machine – a Linotype. Headlines still had to be made up by hand, but the body text of stories was cast in lines – slugs – by molding hot lead. Linotypes were complex mechanical contraptions, prone to breakdown, with 90-character keyboards.

The paper was successful under George’s leadership. To speed production, he invested in another. In 1933, in the midst of the Depression, it became a daily, and the nameplate was changed to the Wheaton Daily Journal. A subscription to the solidly Republican paper ran 5 cents per week.

My grandfather, Robert Smith, followed in his dad’s footsteps, writing a column for the Journal, and studying journalism at South Dakota State College – where he met my grandmother Eileen.

She’d been active in her high school newspaper, which was a full page in the local Milbank (S.D.) Herald Advance, printed every week. She studied printing and journalism at South Dakota State before graduating in 1938.

“There were not that many women in printing – really just a few of us in the whole field of journalism.

“At the college, we set some type by hand, but mainly with the Linotype. Working the hell box (where miscast slugs and wrongly-set type were discarded, to be sorted out later) wasn’t much fun. We had to go through and pull out all the letters and put them back.

“Everything was done by hand. The letterpress was hand-fed, which was a lot of work.

“Bob was very good at setting type. I suppose it came easy to me. I’ve been able to do a lot of computer work – at the museum and such – because of it, using a different keyboard than a typewriter.”

They both put themselves through college working for the college press – writing, proofreading, making up pages.

World War II came soon after my grandparents graduated, interrupting Bob’s endeavors in journalism with a stint in the South Pacific for him and California for Eileen. Two boys also arrived, my uncle Joel and my dad, Steve.

After the war, the Wheaton Daily Journal responded to its growing market.

“Everybody brought two papers – the Chicago paper (Tribune) and the Journal. People were working in Chicago, taking the train in.”

Many commuters began to identify more as Chicagoans than as members of their formerly sleepy suburbs. The ubiquity of radio and growing television market – pioneered in the ’30s by The Chicago Daily News – challenged the small suburban publishers.

George Smith died in February 1949, having spent his life putting ink on paper, telling stories.

My grandfather and his two brothers stepped in to run the family business. Bob took over as editor, the others managing the business side.

Hand-set to high-tech

While the presses weren’t hand-fed anymore, pages were still cast in hot metal. Steve Smith – my dad – recalls the press room as a noisy, messy place.

“My father used to come home with burns” from working on the Linotype, he recalls. “You talk about a complicated machine. And that was a tough bunch of guys. He had a crown on one tooth from getting hit with a wrench by a pressman.”

The changing business and inevitable conflicts among the brothers led to a sale of the Journal in 1953.

Bob went into teaching, first for a local high school, eventually becoming a journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire. Before he died in 1975, he was working to move the college’s program to a new computerized system.

From hand-set to high-tech, in a lifetime.

My dad went to college to study printing just as technology was shifting.

In the late ’60s, newspapers were moving to more-efficient platemaking processes and high-capacity web presses.

Colleges were still teaching outdated photoengraving techniques, even as the new technology penetrated the business. A career based on a fading process didn’t seem too viable.

Besides, the art department held more attraction. It didn’t take long for my dad to drop his journalism and printing courses.

My journey through journalism began in high school, where I learned how to type, badly, and paste up a news page by hand, using hot wax and type output from a primitive computer system at the local Prescott Courier.

After some schooling at the University of Arizona, I wrote and edited copy for a string of Tucson alternative papers whose names are mostly lost to history.

I served a stint as editor and publisher of ¿K? Magazine, an arts and culture monthly, in the mid-1990s. Despite the streamlining of the desktop publishing revolution, print publishing remained an expensive proposition.

Learning the code

In the late’ 90s, I moved into Web design, learning an alphabet soup of languages: html, xml, js, css and more.

A few years ago, the Citizen was kind enough to take me on, and eventually let me manage the Web site.

In the short time I’ve been here, the technology we use has dramatically shifted. From basic html pages to rich applications that feature video and databases, the addition of reader comments and forums, the focus of the Citizen online has changed along with the culture of the Internet.

But the impressive values of the Citizen staff have remained: accuracy, fairness, truth.

This may well be the last piece I write for a daily newspaper. It leaves me with a bit of an empty feeling, sitting at my desk, preparing for the Citizen’s last edition, knowing that my family’s history with the printing press has stopped rolling.

The family paper, having changed hands several times through the years, continues as the Wheaton Sun – a suburban weekly that’s part of the Sun-Times group.

Yes, they’ve got a Web page.

And like many newspaper chains, the Sun-Times recently filed for bankruptcy.

I hope to carry on my ancestors’ legacy of reporting. Given the trend, that will have to be in some online-only capacity. I’ll miss the smell of fresh ink, but I enjoy the 24/7 challenge of keeping the news fresh.

No matter if it’s delivered by a paperboy on a bike, or via the never-ending stream of the Internet, it’s all about telling stories.

———

Ink in the blood

Many Citizen staffers have families with long histories in the newspaper business.

Alan Fischer’s father, George Fischer, was in the newspaper industry his entire life. He started as a carrier for the Grand Forks (N.D.) Herald as a youth, and held a number of jobs there before becoming a pressman. He brought his skills here, working as a pressman for Tucson Newspapers from 1965 until his retirement in the late 1980s.

B. Poole’s mom, Norma Poole, and sister, Cathy Rowe, were typesetters for newspapers in Illinois during the ’60s and ’70s.

PK Weis’ grandfather PK Weis Sr. was a reporter for the Moberly (Mo.) Monitor in the early 1900s. Senior began his career as a printer’s devil when he was a young boy.

Polly Higgins’ grandfather Rathbun R. Higgins wrote a column called “The Stamp Man” for the Chicago Heights Star from 1948 to 1960 and resurrected it for the Columbus (Ind.) Republic 1967-82.

Garry Duffy’s father, Joseph L. Duffy, was an assistant to Roy Howard, of Scripps-Howard newspapers, in the late ’40s and early ’50s.

Fernanda Echavarri’s great-grandfather Jesús María Benítez Martínez, was a columnist for the local daily in Querétaro, Mexico, from 1973 to 1997.

Randy Harris’ grandfather was circulation manager of the Danville (IL) Press-Democrat from the age of 15. His mother was women’s editor for the Marion (IN) Chronicle-Tribune in the ’60s and ’70s.

Bruce Johnston descends from three generations of journalists on both sides of his family. Both of his great-grandfathers owned weekly newspapers in Canada; one of them brought the first Linotype into the country. The papers passed on through the next two generations in his family. One still publishes today, although no relatives still work for it.

Ray Suarez’s grandfather Edgar worked for TNI in the mailroom and advertising. Grandmother Beatriz was a switchboard operator, while Ray’s father, Stephen, worked in the composing room. Aunt Selina works in circulation for Gannett, while another aunt, Eloina, worked the switchboards. All told, Ray says that his family has put in 117 years working for TNI and the Citizen.

Starting Monday, subscribers to the Tucson Citizen likely will begin receiving copies of the Arizona Daily Star

Former Citizen subscribers will receive the Star for the same price, said Mike Jameson, CEO of Tucson Newspapers Inc., which handles production, circulation and advertising for the Star and Citizen.

Jameson said plans call for all subscribers to receive letters with details about the change.

As of 1:15 p.m. Friday, TNI officials had not yet received word from their attorney “green lighting” the changeover.

“We believe Arizona law allows us to substitute something of similar or greater value if a product ceases production,” Jameson said.

Citizen subscribers who don’t want the Star can cancel their subscriptions and receive refunds, he said.

If TNI does not receive the go-ahead to begin distributing the Star in place of the Citizen, Jameson said, then the company would start “sampling” readers next week. Under that scenario, readers who want the Star could purchase subscriptions.

One of the funniest things that ever happened to me was when I met the Dalai Lama.

After the press conference he walked straight over to me, pinched both cheeks and asked me in a whisper, “Are you from Mexico?”

I responded, “NO, I’m from Arizona.” He then whispered something more in my ear.

As I looked around I noticed every camera in the room had turned on me. I made every newscast, and my family in Casa Grande even saw it.

When a reporter pulled me aside and said, “Oh my God, you must be blessed. What did the Dalai Lama say to you?”

I responded, “He said I was the darkest Mexican he ever saw.”

FRANCISCO MEDINA

Photographer

It’s odd for the “highlights” of my career to be marked by tragedies. Major news events on deadline put a journalist to the test, the times you look back on and marvel at how so much got done in so little time and was done well. I can see exactly what I was doing at work when the first shuttle blew up, when the tragedy in Bhopal was revealed, when students were killed at Columbine, when we went to war in Iraq and, of course, on Sept. 11, 2001. I remember so clearly saying, “Paul, did you see that (Associated Press) bulletin that a plane flew into the World Trade Center?”

Despite 24-plus years of cynicism and deadline pressure for nearly every working hour of every working day, I’m going to miss the whole thing.

Newsrooms are odd places. They are places where daily discussions — of grammar and design, politics and current events — involve everyone within earshot and we never agree.

Journalists are odd creatures, many overflowing with sarcasm, cynicism and vitriol. I love them!

MJ McVAY

Designer

There is no way to condense 13 years into a few quips and memories. So, on a grand scale, the Citizen has been about family – literally and figuratively.

I have worked in the same room as my husband, Mike, for all of my 13 years here, though not always at the same time. (There were rumors, for a while, that we were the same person). Both our children were born while we worked here, and with no actual family in town, it was coworkers who came through when our first came three weeks early.

Catherine, said oldest child, grew up in this newsroom. She was here for at least a couple of hours every day until she started preschool. The library ladies were her grandmas, the newsroom staff her aunts and uncles.

She even spent New Year’s Eve 1999 – at the tender age of 5 1/2 months – in the newsroom, because we both had to work in case Y2K shut down the world.

It didn’t. But she has a commemorative T-shirt to prove she was there.

TERESA TRUELSEN

Editor/designer

This newsroom, since I arrived here in June of 2006, has always had great, great people. They’re pros; and they have always put the needs of the readers first. Tucson will be poorer for the newspaper’s folding because the loss of all that talent in one place.

WAYNE BAKER

Copy editor

My first job over 40 years ago was as a paperboy for the Tucson Citizen. I had a route that ran from First Street to 10th Street between Tucson Boulevard and Country Club.

In 1967 I got a job as a cub reporter for the Citizen and I ended up with the Pima County Board of Supervisors as part of my “beat.”

Covering Pima County back before the days of open meeting laws was a hoot. The three county supervisors would meet before the official meeting and decide the agenda. The guys let me in the room, but did not let my female counterpart from the Star inside. Being an afternoon paper with a deadline for the home delivery edition of noon, I’d often file my story about what the supervisors decided before the meeting was over, so the Citizen could beat the Star.

I got to experience the last days of the old-style newsroom. We used manual typewriters, and if the City Desk didn’t like our copy, they’d wad it up and throw it back across the newsroom. The older reporters were grizzled guys with bottles of whiskey in their desk drawers. Nothing like the antiseptic cubicle newsrooms of today with glowing computer screens.

I didn’t last long at the Citizen after the night a military jet crashed into a supermarket on South Alvernon. In the midst of that chaos, I failed to get the names of a bunch of Air Force colonels who showed up the next day to inspect the smoking ruins who didn’t have their names on their jump suits, and Nellis Air Force Base (from whence they came) wouldn’t give up their names. So the paper had to run a picture with “5 unidentified colonels.” Officially I was told I “lacked a proper sense of immediacy.” So, off to law school I went to become a lawyer, a profession where immediacy is not a virtue.

HUGH HOLUB

Former staff member

In 2005, my brother, Dontia, was in his early 20s playing varsity tennis for San Diego State University, where he was set to graduate with a degree in psychology. Devastating news came during the late evening hours on Sept. 23: Dontia had been in a vehicle wreck that day and had passed. I left immediately for California. My family was not fully financially prepared for his passing and in speaking with my editor that week about requesting additional time off I told her about the difficulties my family was experiencing. That day, she informed the Tucson Citizen staff about the situation and the staff began collecting funds to help with the funeral expenses. Days later, the staff sent the funds to my parents. I have seen the Citizen staff do this with numerous others — whether it was for a newborn child or a devastating event. These are testimonies of what the Tucson Citizen family represent.

La Monica Everett-Haynes

Former staff member

I’ve been amazingly fortunate that for the past 32 years I’ve been paid to read and write for a living while working at the Tucson Citizen.

For many years, on the Citizen’s dime, I was able to travel across America, and once to Japan, to cover sporting events. It was a pretty good gig.

But the coolest time was from 1991 to 1994 when I did my first stint on the copy desk. I had the power, as the late man on my shift, to stop the presses for breaking news stories – with the approval of the managing editor, of course.

With a touch of a button on my phone, I had a direct connection to the pressroom, and the thundering machines would come to a halt while we remade the paper.

I was always tempted to do a Humphrey Bogart impression (he played an editor in “Deadline U.S.A.”) when I shouted out “Stop the presses,” but it would have been lost over the roar.

DAVE PETRUSKA

Copy editor

One of the more amazing moments I experienced at the Citizen was being with the Tucson-based science team for the Phoenix Mars Lander mission when the spacecraft safely settled on the planet’s surface May 25, 2008.

The craft faced a danger-filled “seven minutes of terror” as it used the Martian atmosphere, a parachute and 12 descent thrusters to slow from 12,500 mph to a soft landing to end its 10-month, 422-million mile journey.

The 400 people packing the Tucson Science Operations Center waiting for confirmation of safe landing erupted in joy as the Lander’s first images from the Martian surface were shown on large screen monitors. The “live” images took 15 minutes to travel from Mars to Earth.

ALAN FISCHER

Reporter

I was about 5 when my oldest brother started delivering papers for the Citizen. Every afternoon, I helped him fold them and wrap a rubber band around them. I felt proud, as though I were part of something very important.

Many years later, I got my first newspaper job at the Citizen.

I remember the night Old Tucson burnt down. I went to the newsroom about 7 p.m., thinking a few old-timers would be there – in those days, the newsroom starting lighting up about 3 a.m. to put out the afternoon paper. At 7 at night, everyone should be home and exhausted, gearing up for the next day.

But the newsroom was hopping, keyboads going at a rapid pace, phones pressed to reporters’ ears. The sense of loss was palpable as we all worked to get the story about the blaze.

But we also wanted a story — stories, really — that talked about what the old movie set meant to Tucson’s economy, Tucson’s tourism, Tucson’s citizens.

We all worked late into the night and got those stories. We wrote with compassion, knowledge and precision.

We all were part of something very important.

KATHLEEN ALLEN

Former staff member

When I arrived at the Tucson Citizen’s police press room for my first shift in December 1999, I carefully inched toward the one-room office and opened the door just enough to peek inside. I was visibly nervous; a big fish at the college paper, I was suddenly a nobody with a notepad, thrown into an internship at a professional news operation.

“Are you Dave Teibel?” I asked, my voice quivering.

The man put down a newspaper and adjusted his Coke-bottle glasses to get a closer look at me. “I am,” he curtly replied.

Knowing a bit about Teibel’s storied career in Tucson, I said “Well, it’s truly an honor to meet you, sir.”

I expected to hear “Nice to meet you, too.” That’s what normal people say.

Instead, he groaned and put his feet on the desk, opened his newspaper and proudly muttered, “Yes … yes it is.”

That brief conversation scared me half to death and I nearly quit on the spot. But then, somehow, we began to click.

Over the next three years, this wonderful man – part pit bull, part teddy bear – helped craft the person I’ve become today. He did the same for dozens of rookies before and after me.

DAVE CIESLAK

Former staff member

One top memory: Arizona softball coach Mike Candrea leading Team USA to a gold medal in softball at the 2004 Olympic Games in Greece. His team dominated, not that it was a surprise in going 9-0 and outscoring opponents 51-1. What struck me, though, was his humility, poise and pride in the journey. It came just five weeks after his then-wife, Sue, passed away from a brain aneurysm while on the pre-Games tour.

I remember him in the dugout, hand on chin, taking in the team celebration on the field. Heartfelt and memorable.

“I thanked them all for the greatest moment of my life,” he said at the time. “I love this team.”

And, through it all, he didn’t get a medal. Coaches don’t get medals.

“That’s not what this is about,” he said.

STEVE RIVERA

Reporter

Nothing in my 21 years at the Citizen has been personally more life changing than covering the Tucson International Mariachi Conference.

My first encounter with the conference showed me that this was a world-class tradition with instrumentalists and singers to rival the best orchestras and opera companies in the country. But in time I realized that I was watching history unfold before my eyes as Mexican Americans recast their self-image through their culture and set sail toward a future of higher education and pride in their personal and collective accomplishments.

What seemed at first concerts and workshops became the seeds of the transformation of a people, and it was my good fortune to be there to write about that historical pivot point as it was unfolding.

DAN BUCKLEY

Reporter/videographer

I’ll miss all the cursing and yelling.

Before becoming a foul-mouthed vulgarian journalist, I was a repressed foul-mouthed vulgarian hospital executive (executive being a relative term) who had to do all his cursing outside the staid confines of the hospital and the inpatient admissions office.

Dilbertian cubicle life is hushed and chaste. Mere hells and damns can elicit gasps from the cubists and frantic calls to HR and personal injury attorneys.

Raising your voice to a fellow employee was almost always followed by a trip to the HR office and mandatory anger management training.

But not in a newsroom. Here we let the expletives fly. Yelling at co-workers and editors is de rigueur.

My first day here, the border reporter yelled at the city editor. The photo editor yelled at the sports editor and the o\n\ned page designer yelled at the photo editor (a lot of people yell at the photo editor, and vice versa). A general assignment reporter yelled at everybody.

I thought to myself, “I’m home.”

I dread returning to the monk’s life of the grownup corporate world. Here’s hoping another newsroom needs a fat bastard editor who can say f*** you with the best of ‘em.

MARK B. EVANS

Assistant city editor

I did not choose a career as a journalist to be a government watchdog, expose corruption or to influence people. I became a journalist to make money while writing the Great American Novel. And along the path of becoming the next Jack Kerouac, I was led to a newsroom described by an editor friend of mine as a place “similar to the island of misfit toys.”

It was a melting pot of tree huggers, gun-lovers, cowboys and city slickers, vegetarians, meat eaters, animal lovers, beer drinkers, rock and rollers and hip hoppers.

What I remember most about those 10 years in the dusty and dark newsroom at Park and Irvington was the enjoyment of working in a place and having a career where you had access to inside information (off the record), met famous people (Tiger Woods), and had the rush of chasing breaking news.

There was never a dull moment in the Citizen newsroom. Everyday was different and as reporters our desire for knowledge was never-ending. I am a better person, a better public servant, and thanks to the Tucson Citizen I am a man who knows a little about a lot rather than a lot about one thing.

More importantly, working on “the island of misfit toys” taught me tolerance and open-mindedness to those who are different than I. Now if I could just finish that novel…

MICHAEL GRAHAM

Former staff member

Even on this doomsday I feel truly blessed to have worked in the Tucson Citizen newsroom.

I have spent over five years in this newsroom, and it has not only improved me as a photographer and a news person, but it has truly fostered my appreciation for knowledge.

I must give credit to my unforgettable mentor P.K. Weis. He reinvigorated my love of photography. And when I became a legitimate photographer, he taught me how to be a better photographer and the importance of connecting with all the people I photograph.

He instilled a confidence in me.

For Mr. Weis and the Tucson Citizen, I am more than grateful. I am a better person.

RENEE BRACAMONTE

Photographer

Drug trafficking was really starting to heat up along the Arizona border in the early ’90s. I spent a lot of time with the U.S. Border Patrol.

I remember walking through the brush with two agents on a moonless night and being forbidden from using my electronic flash to take pictures since we were being watching by drug runners. I slept in the back of a beat-up Border Patrol truck for four hours while agents tracked drug-runners by moonlight – no headlights or tail lights.

I had the privilege of covering the Arizona Wildcat football and basketball teams at home and on the road for six years.

My first NCAA tournament trip was to Denver in 1989. I walked into the Associated Press darkroom and said that I needed film processing services. The AP photographer running the lab, an intimidating 6-foot-7-inch bearded fellow, stood over me and yelled at me for not calling ahead and following procedures. I was speechless. Another wire service photographer put his arm around me and quietly pulled me out of the room. He helped smooth things over so I could process film.

During this trip, I was rooming with columnist Corky Simpson. I finished transmitting photos at 3 a.m. following the game (it took 30 minutes to transmit each photo in those days) and quietly snuck into the hotel room to get some sleep. At 6 a.m., the drapes were thrust open to daylight. I bolted up from bed to Corky proudly proclaiming that he was going out running. I knew it was going to be a long, sleepless tournament.

I worked some strange hours to cover for P.K. Weis, the photo editor, when the Citizen was a true afternoon daily.

I woke up at 2:30 a.m. each day one week to make it to work at 4 a.m. to cover P.K.’s shift. Managing editor Dale Walton strolled into the newsroom around 4:30 a.m., looking dapper with coat and tie and ready to tackle the news day. By the news meeting at 5:30 a.m., the tie was loosened and he looked completely disheveled and exhausted.

It was then I knew I never wanted to be a managing editor.

The same day, I fell asleep on the shoulder of the sports editor during the afternoon meeting.

RICK WILEY

Former staff member

In 1996 our current interim publisher, then business editor, Jennifer Boice hired me right out of journalism school.

I said, “Are you sure you want to hire a single mom with three kids?” I’m glad she did.

Over the past dozen years not only have my children grown up – but I have as well.

I’ve had the opportunity to reach out and talk to people I normally would not have had access to including several political figures and entertainment icons such as Jay Leno, Roseanne Barr, Phyllis Diller and Don Rickles.

The interview that sticks in my mind is when Sen. John McCain made me sick. This is not a political comment.

About four years ago he came to the Citizen and I interviewed him. He had a horrible head cold. He sneezed into his hand and then shook mine. It was a bit sticky. A few days later I was sick. Thanks, senator!

LORRIE BROWNSTONE

Assistant city editor

I was a huge baseball fan as a kid. I’d watch any game I could on TV, hardly missed a Baseball Tonight on ESPN, and read every copy of the Star’s or Citizen’s sports section that I got my hands on.

So imagine my excitement, when as a young adult and covering sports for the Tucson Citizen, I had the opportunity to interview one of my childhood heroes in the clubhouse after a Diamondbacks spring training game. We’re talking someone whose poster used to hang on my wall as kid – how exciting, right?

The entire time I talked with him he had one foot propped up on a bench, a cigarette in one hand, a beer in the other, and his eyes glued to a golf tournament on the clubhouse TV. He never even once looked over at me during the interview. Talk about having your bubble popped.

In 2005, I was sent out to Desert Diamond to cover the weigh-in for the next night’s fight between Demetrius Hopkins and Tucson’s Nito Bravo.

Hopkins was the nephew of Bernard Hopkins, who at 40 was the oldest man to ever hold the Middleweight Championship in boxing and who had defended his title, a world record, 20 times.

The publicist asked me if I wanted to talk to Bernard Hopkins and I said yes, obviously.

So the publicist walked me to the bar where Bernard was sitting and told him who I was. As he was talking to Bernard, I turned around and looked – there was a long line of boxing fans going back out the door – all waiting to talk to and get an autograph from Bernard Hopkins.

Bernard Hopkins told me to sit down with him at the bar so I could interview him. He talked to me for over half an hour – about everything from his nephew, to his own career, to the weather and even the big pancakes the casino served him for breakfast.

Meanwhile, I had a large and growing line of inpatient boxing fans – most of whom were drinking. If there wasn’t a famous boxer sitting next to me – I think I might have needed a bodyguard. (On a side note, the next night, at the fight, I got to interview Oscar de la Hoya too.)

MICHAEL CACCAMISE

Copy editor

My four underpaid, overworked years at the Tucson Citizen were, without doubt, among the most joyful of my career. The Citizen taught me how to report, how to write, and to honor the classic Finley Peter Dunn mandate to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

I last lived and worked here in 1985, so the smaller city I knew and the larger newspaper I loved have been gone for a while (though the beer garden at the Shanty is still strangely, wonderfully unchanged after 24 years). The Citizen of that era honored good writing more than most newspapers, thanks in large part to the influence of Dick Vonier. We took on ambitious stories, including an epic series examining the flood of Central American refugees in the ’80s that made Tucson a center for the Sanctuary Movement, and an investigation of flaws in a major child abduction and murder case. For the latter, I was personally gratified to be labeled “Inspector Closeau” by a sputtering County Attorney Steve Neely, who was angered by our findings.

The paper had some memorable foibles. One was the paper’s fondness for publishing animal tales on the front page, a proclivity I once demonstrated by stapling a year’s worth of such stories together end to end, producing a paper chain of doggy heroes and record-breaking snakes and cats that could carry a tune that ran from the break room bulletin board some 39 feet into the hallway. In typical Citizen fashion, another reporter was assigned to write a story about my little project (which I suppose was better than canning me).

The story about animal stories ran, naturally, on the front page.

ED HUMES

Former staff member

There was always something about the Citizen, something that set us apart.

What it always came down to was a staff that cared – cared about Tucson, cared about each other and cared about doing the best job possible, even as resources dwindled to nothing.

We were the scrappy underdog (hate that phrase), frequently beating the competition on breaking news and in sheer writing talent.

More importantly, we had heart. We always wanted to do our best, to be the best.

And we had fun. When I was moved to the “Big House” after working in our downtown office for years, I was assigned a desk in what had to be the most fun corner in the universe.

I was surrounded by irreverent, brilliant, funny and sometimes a bit dysfunctional folks. We pulled pranks. We got in trouble. Once we got so rowdy, Art Rotstein of the Associated Press tape recorded us. We were appalled at our own behavior.

But we did the best journalism of our lives.

It’s hard to imagine Tucson without the Tucson Citizen.

But life will go on. It always does. News will happen. I just hope someone who cares as much as we did is there to cover it.

GABRIELLE FIMBRES

Reporter

Being able to go to the State of the State address with Mark Kimble has always been one of my favorite memories of working at the Citizen. I sat with legislators, mayors and the governor just feet away from me. I will always remember seeing the mayor of Phoenix stick his cell phone in his sock. I felt like a kid in a candy store. This was the culmination of my government classes in public education.

Later, on that same trip I found out how knowledgeable he was not just about news but our state and its history in general. Upon buying lunch at McDonald’s (Mark is also a health nut), we discussed Fife Symington’s new career path in the food industry. Mark then revealed to me that during his childhood Mr. Symington saved some kid from drowning. Later, when Fife got indicted and convicted this kid came back into his life and rescued him by granting him a presidential pardon. The kid’s name was William Jefferson Clinton. So if it wasn’t for Symington, Clinton would be dead by now.

That day was one of the days that I learned the most in any job and one more thing that will be with me for the rest of my life, thanks to the Citizen and thanks to Mark.

ARNIE BERMUDEZ

Artist/designer

In this world of celebrity overload, we in the journalism business in Tucson don’t get that many opportunities to interview celebs, let alone have them admit to something publicly that had previously remained buried in their past.

But when I interviewed ABC sportscaster Al Michaels in 1977, that’s exactly what happened.

Some background: Michaels was sports editor of The State Press, the student paper at Arizona State University, in 1965. While there he perpetrated a hoax on The Arizona Republic’s sports staff by inventing a fictitious athlete from Fredonia High School in northern Arizona. Michaels and his school buddy George Allen concocted baseball star Clint Romas, then kept embellishing a legendary career for him through calls to the Republic sports desk. As long as the Republic kept printing the stats and linescores, they would keep calling in with ever-more outrageous feats by Romas.

The hoax fell apart when the Republic finally decided to call Fredonia to do a story on Romas and found out he didn’t exist. Just who had conned the Republic remained a mystery, though – at least until Michaels admitted it to me in the interview and I published his account.

How did I know about the hoax and to ask Michaels about it? Let’s just say a reporter never reveals his sources.

The best part of this for me was hearing Michaels’ hearty laugh when first hearing Clint Romas’ name, and then his regaling me with some of the juicier facts behind the hoax. Try getting that from a celebrity today.

BRUCE JOHNSTON

News editor

The first day of my first story, then-city editor Jim Wyckoff told me to go to the scene, every time. Do an interview over the telephone, he warned, and you’ll miss the bullet hole in the window, or the refrigerator magnet, or the family photo that could provide little nuggets of insight. If you want to chronicle human moments, he advised, be there to see the tears and anger and pain and beauty.

I learned about the power of words to nudge and inspire.

I did piece on a crime victim who needed surgery to save her eyesight. Readers responded with donations to provide the medical care her insurance company wouldn’t.

In that moment of a community pulling together, any sense of victory was tempered by sobriety. What I wrote had the power to move people, to influence policy, to change lives.

I felt awe, then humility, that people trust me to tell their stories and to be an accurate filter of their experience.

RHONDA BODFIELD

Former staff member

Black Friday is my favorite shopping day of the year. I love the deals, the chaos and getting home at noon with all my Christmas and birthday shopping done. I hate getting up before dawn, but justify it with the thought that I’ll get to take a long afternoon nap.

For Black Friday 2007, I agreed to be the reporter out covering the chaos. It meant that I would have to be up at 3 a.m., and also meant dragging along my 14-month-old foster child, Bamm Bamm. I thought he would sleep in the stroller the whole time.

He ended up staying awake for most of the trip, but managed to be the easiest part of completing the story. After our first stop to interview the folks in line at Mervyn’s I got back into my truck to head to Circuit City.

My truck wouldn’t start. I had four stores to hit in less than two hours and I had a dead battery. At each store photographer Xavier Gallegos had to jump my battery. When it came time to file my story, I did it while sitting in my truck in the Tucson Citizen parking lot typing on my laptop with my engine running and my little boy finally sleeping.

HEIDI ROWLEY

Former staff member

On a whim, after spending the 1948 Fourth of July weekend in Tucson, I sought and landed my first post-Princeton job at the Citizen. Elated, I found my desk in the seven-reporter newsroom, sat down, and admitted: “I don’t know how to type.” To which the veteran newsman next to me offered wise counsel: “Fake it.”

I managed to hunt-and-peck my way through four enjoyable stints at the state’s oldest paper for a total of 20 years. Closing my initial stay as acting sports editor, I joined the FBI in 1951, only to return a year later as city editor, 1952-55. Alcoholism slowly had a grip on me, so I wandered far and often until the Citizen gave me another chance as day police reporter (1962-64).

My stories were generally good, my behavior wasn’t, so I disappeared again until finding recovery in AA (9/24/69). By 1971, I was welcomed home for one last fling – as political writer, columnist and editorial page editor – until 1983. Thanks for the memories.

ASA “ACE” BUSHNELL

Former staff member

Obama plan’s start slow; foreclosure alternatives added

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration on Thursday outlined an expansion of its housing rescue plan that will help homeowners who face foreclosure because they are ineligible for current assistance programs.

Officials also provided a report card of sorts on how the home-loan modification and refinancing efforts are going since the housing rescue plan was announced in February.

The expanded program includes:

• Foreclosure alternatives. Homeowners unable to qualify for a modification will see a more streamlined process for pursuing short sales and deeds-in-lieu of foreclosures, which transfer a home back to the lender. The goal is to help homeowners avoid a foreclosure that could lead to a severe hit on their credit scores.

A short sale occurs when a home is sold for less than the remaining mortgage, but lenders agree to consider the debt paid.

• Protections for homeowners whose home value has fallen. Under a $10 billion program, new incentives will be provided to lenders to help them make modifications in regions where home prices have had steep drops.

The Obama administration has said it expects up to 9 million homeowners to get help through mortgage refinancing and loan modifications.

But the complexity of the program has made for a slow start and done little to dampen foreclosures, which have risen as banks ended temporary moratoriums on foreclosures.

“It’s been slow. The foreclosure problem is not going away,” said Mark Zandi, with Moody’s Economy.com.

Some people who live near the intersection of East Grant Road and North Alvernon Way used to avoid shops there.

“People want to shop near their homes,” said Blanche White, 73, president of the Oak Flower Neighborhood Association, one of four neighborhoods bordering the intersection.

But “in one neighborhood meeting, someone said, ‘I don’t feel safe there, so I drive to another place farther away.’

“That was really eye-opening, I think.”

Since that meeting some months back, the four neighborhood associations – Oak Flower, Garden District, Palo Verde and Dodge Flower – have worked with area businesses and organizations to make shopping a safer and more pleasant experience.

The associations are honoring seven with Business Good Neighbor Awards at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Tucson Botanical Gardens Pavilion, 2150 N. Alvernon Way.

The Botanical Gardens is one of the honorees for offering its facilities for neighborhood meetings and special events.

The others are Specialists in Dermatology, Northgate Laundromat & Cleaners, Fry’s, Emmanuel Baptist Church, Sign-A-Rama and Emerge!

Those honored will get a certificate and a placard proclaiming they make good neighbors to place in their front windows.

“We have a lot of neighborhood businesses that are deserving,” White said. She added that more awards will be forthcoming.

The two businesses in her neighborhood, Specialists in Dermatology and Northgate Laundromat & Cleaners, both had good reason to nab the awards.

The dermatology practice worked with residents even before the office was built a few years back. Some employees have attended neighborhood cleanups.

The laundromat has increased security by making sure a worker is always present and posting a security guard at night.

“One of the problems we have is the panhandlers that hang out in the parking lot,” White said. “Businesses have made more efforts to put security guards out, to walk people to their cars if they don’t feel safe. It’s improved considerably.”

The entire area has improved, said Tucson Police Department Capt. David Neri, who is in charge of the midtown division.

The Good Neighbor Awards are just one phase of a larger program, the Alvernon-Grant Initiative. Those involved include the associations, area businesses, Tucson police, City Council Wards 3 and 6, and Pima County Supervisor Districts 3 and 5.

Efforts began about four years ago, Neri said. One of the most successful phases started in February 2008.

“In our first monthly report, we removed in excess of 40 weapons off the street,” Neri said. A number of arrests and confiscated narcotics also were part of the effort.

“It’s far safer now than it has ever been.”

Progress has been marked from February 2008 to February 2009 with a 60 percent reduction in burglaries, auto thefts and all types of fraud, leading to a 13 percent overall dip in crime.

“It’s really a great project,” said George Pettit, spokesman for Councilwoman Karin Uhlich’s Ward 3 office. “People are working hard trying to turn around the neighborhood. It’s really a feel good kind of thing.”

PHOENIX – Gov. Jan Brewer signed the latest midyear budget-balancing legislation into law Thursday but added a warning to lawmakers that they should bend her way next time.

“It would be fiscally irresponsible for the Legislature to ignore the depths of the (2010-2011) state deficit by promoting a budget plan for (2009-2010) that relies primarily on one-time measures,” Brewer said in a statement.

To close the latest $650 million shortfall in the current budget, GOP lawmakers resorted to accounting maneuvers that postpone $400 million of education spending into the next fiscal year. They also included $250 million of stimulus money, an amount larger than Brewer wanted but much less than lawmakers sought.

The plan also set the stage for the state to grab some school district savings to help balance the budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1. Estimates on how much money that would produce aren’t firm.

Brewer told lawmakers that the next state budget shouldn’t rely primarily on similar maneuvers because that would spell trouble for the following fiscal year, which starts July 1, 2010. It also faces a projected big shortfall that spending cuts alone won’t close, Brewer said.

Most majority Republican legislators have balked at Brewer’s call for a temporary tax increase to produce $1 billion of new revenue to help balance the next several budgets in face of deteriorating revenue collection.

Brewer said she “will not approve” a budget that doesn’t take into account the following year’s “needs and requirements.”

“I am hopeful that, with a continued emphasis on negotiation and compromise, the Legislature can reach consensus with my policy goals to approve a (2009-2010) budget package promptly,” she said.

Lawmakers approved the $650 million plan about 3 1/2 months after they closed a previous $1.6 billion budget shortfall. That action included spending cuts, raids on special-purpose funds and use of stimulus money.