Tucson Citizen Blogs

Sabino athletics will have some new direction this coming year.

Girls volleyball coach John Kramkowski takes over beginning this summer as the new Director of Athletics and informed me Wednesday the Sabercats will also have a new boys basketball coach next season.

Tim Battan, a former assistant coach at both Rincon/University and Salpointe, will be the new boys hoops coach, taking over a squad that went 12-15 this past season, including 7-4 in Class 4A Kino Region play.

“His contagious energy and positive vision for the long-term potential of our basketball program make him an ideal addition to Sabino athletics,” Kramkowski wrote in an e-mail.

Admittedly I know very little about coach Battan (I hope to talk with him sometime soon about his new gig) but I can say Kramkowski is a good one to work with and I look forward to working with him as AD.

– Geoff Grammer

May 14, 2008

Thus far our blogs have been about our experiences and adventures in Kenya. It is indeed exciting for a group of Americans to be immersed in a totally different culture for almost three weeks, and to be teaching young students in a totally new classroom setting. The challenges are formidable, but the St. Gregory seniors have not only done well in the classroom, they have also learned a tremendous amount about the lives of the people they interact with on a daily basis.

This blog is not about our experience, but comes from the Kenyans who work at Batian’s View, and shares their impressions of the Americans.

John Ngigi Ngece
“I am very happy when the visitors are here because then I have work. Not only do all of the employees at Batian’s View benefit with a salary, but our extended families benefit as well. Not everyone is working these days. I also enjoy cooking for the Americans and exposing them to our traditional foods. They are unfamiliar with many of the meals we serve at dinner, so it is a very new experience for them.”

Murioki Kibororo
“I’m not certain, but I think the Americans like coming to Kenya to experience a peaceful rural life. When I talk with the Americans they say that their lives back home can be very busy and stressful. Hapa, hakuna matata.” (Here, there are no problems.)

Charles N’Darangu Mutahi
“I am very happy when the St. Gregory students are there because there is a lot of work, and all Kenyans like to work. The Americans are also doing a very good thing in our schools. The Kenyan children, even the very youngest, can learn a lot from visitors who come from very far away. Most Kenyans have very little knowledge of what life is like in America, or what they do believe is not always true. For example, I was surprised to hear that there are people in America who are homeless. I thought that everyone in America lived in a big house and had a big car, but now I know that there are homeless people as well.”

Jachintha Waweru
“Our place is very different from America. The St. Gregory students enjoy seeing how we live, even if it is much more simple than what they are used to. When the students came to my house for dinner, I prepared the food over a fire and three cooking stones, as I always do. The students helped, and told me that in America they cook with electricity and they use machines to wash their clothing. Here we do everything by hand, which is new for them. Our community is also very happy that St. Gregory has been very generous with the many improvements they have sponsored at our schools. We are very grateful for their work.”

Frederick Wagura
“I believe that most people in America and Western Europe know very little about our ‘technology’. They can drive big cars and use computers, but I have found that many don’t know how to cook or how to clean their laundry. This is something we can teach them here.”

“I have found that the St. Gregory students enjoy doing things that bring them closer to the Kenyan people. For example, when visiting a neighbor for dinner there is always much singing and laughter. At the schools, the Americans don’t mind it when the small children touch their white skin or feel their long hair. We are learning about each other, which makes the world a better place for everyone.”

My final thought:
While many different topics were raised in my conversations with the staff at Batian’s View, the most prevalent was the fact that when there are visitors in Kenya, there is work. Work means a salary and the ability to support one’s family. It also means development, as the money is spread throughout the community. Everyone benefits. Tourism, until recently, was Kenya’s second largest source of income, the first being agriculture. The unrest and violence following the presidential elections early this year resulted in an 85% decrease in tourism revenue and an increase in unemployment. Slowly the situation is improving, but many Kenyans think that it will take years, not months, for the country’s tourism sector to recover. I am confident that once the St. Gregory/Rocky Hill School students are back in America they will help in that recovery with the many positive stories of their time in Kenya, and the memories they will have for many years to come.

Fred Roberts, St. Gregory Dean of Students

The ambassadors (bless them!) led me to an excellent source of information on one-way flights. The city tourism bureau compiled a list of nonstop and direct flights leaving Tucson. There's a map and everything! (Though my flight to Reno was not on the list.)

Carli Brosseau

It turns out you can get a certificate for greeting in Tucson. Not greeting only or exactly. But essentially.

The Metropolitan Tucson Convention and Visitors Bureau calls the program Tucson Ambassadors. A $25 fee, half-day class and passed open-book exam makes you a CTA, certified tourism ambassador. You'll get a pin. Mine would read, Carli Brosseau, CTA.

While I'm skeptical of the need for certification, I wholeheartedly back the idea. The idea, after all, is that people should be nice and helpful and that meeting nice and helpful people will make visitors want to come back. And, of course, that's true. How many times have you asked someone about a vacation and they've gushed: "The people there are the nicest in the world; I can't wait to go back"?

I test this all the time by saying, "Hello." Not scientific, definitely telling. It works best when traffic is channeled. My most recent test was on a climb Tumamoc Hill, the 102-year-old desert science lab on the West Side. Scientists dictate you can't walk off the path. That means you have to pass within speaking-voice range. Three of about two dozen strangers I passed did not return the greeting. That's a pretty good ratio by international standards, I've found.

This is a long way of saying I think Tucson is pretty nice.

Carli Brosseau

It took just one look to convince University of Arizona football coach Mike Stoops that safety Anthony Wilcox was good enough to play for the Wildcats.

And it took just one look at the UA campus last week to convince the Compton (Calif.) College defensive back to choose the Wildcats over Florida State, Louisville, Missouri and Arizona State.

“Coach Stoops came out in the spring and fell in love with him, and the rest is history,” Compton coach Jason Brown said.

The 6-foot-2, 195-pound combo-safety signed financial aid papers on Wednesday to play for UA, starting this fall. He will ahve three years of eligibility remaining when he receives his associate’s degree from Compton.

Wilcox was heavily recruited throughout the year after having 115 tackles and picking off eight passes this past season.

“He’s all over the place,” Brown said. “He is one of those guys who moves around and when he gets to you will really smack somebody.”

Brown, who also had two fumble recoveries for touchdowns and four sacks, has played every secondary position.

He will provide added depth to the Wildcats with the absence of four-year starters Antoine Cason and Wilrey Fontenot.

“I really liked the honesty that they showed me, and the trust,” Wilcox said. “They did all the right things. And when I talked to coach Stoops, he convinced me that they plan to win this season and I want to be a part of it.”

--John Moredich

Brittany Dickson, a starter this year on the Flowing Wells girls basketball state championship girls basketball team who also has played for several years on the Southern Arizona Lady Fire club team, has accepted a scholarship offer to play at Marshalltown Community College in Iowa.

Dickson visited the school last weekend.

She was an honorable mention all-southern Arizona selection by the Tucson Citizen and, according to her club coach Keithan Lyons, "was a pivotal part of the success of the Flowing Wells program over the last couple of years developing a reputation as a tenacious defender and excellent shooter."

Lyons coached Dickson since the seventh grade with the Lady Fire (formerly the Tucson Heat).

Brittany's name has been added to the TCVarsity Recruiting Trail.

– Geoff Grammer

If I were graduating, I'd enjoy having a little something sweet at a French restaurant. (Heck, I'd enjoy it anytime!)

Well, Citizen online database coordinator Jennifer West came across an offer that I expect will appeal to quite a few grads. Friday through Sunday Bistro Philippe will give grads of a free dessert with a meal purchase (That's the catch). Still, if the folks are buying. . . . Hey, you have accomplished something after all.

DINA

Yeah, I still haven't gotten mine. Not that it's that much.

Arnie Bermudez
Tucson Citizen Cartoonist and creator of Coyote Wash
"Fresh fish in Tucson? The closest natural body of water is at least 100 miles away how FRESH could any fish be here?" -ME

My friend (and chiropractor) Dr. Lynie Koslowski Stone sent me this wonderful picture of two (of seven) ground squirrel babies that are running around her back yard.

"It is so funny to see them eating a strawberry in their tiny little hands!" she writes. "They squeak back and forth to one another – it sounds so cute!"

Now she's waiting on the (potential) momma quail to hatch the 16(!) eggs she's sitting on!

–Randy

Is there nothing too trivial, no issue too insignificant to draw the attention of the Arizona Legislature? Apparently not.

HB 2039 had escaped my attention. Until now.

The bill was sponsored by Rep. Mark Anderson, a Mesa Republican. It required public schools to place multiple-birth siblings (twins, triplets, etc.) who were enrolled in the same grade level in the same classroom or in separate classrooms, as requested by the parent.

The bill was pushed by a mother who said her twins did better when they were in the same classroom. School officials apparently disagreed, so she went to the Legislature, seeking a state law.

Arizona school districts now establish policies that let principals or other school officials decide in which classrooms to place children based upon a number of education-related factors.

“Current statute is silent on the classroom placement of multiple birth siblings,” a legislative analysis of the bill solemnly noted. And it is going to stay that way.

The bill passed the House 32-27 and passed the Senate 19-9. But then Gov. Janet Napolitano took a look at it and pulled out her oft-used veto stamp.

That makes sense. What happened to local control of school districts? And why should state law step in and dictate a one-size-fits-all policy when there are only a handful of cases in which this is a concern?

Often the best law is the one left unwritten.

– Mark Kimble