Pctured above: The Owl Bench made by Gail T. Roberts, commissioned by the Little Lending Library located in the Catalina Vista neighborhood in Tucson. Once a dental hygienist who chipped away at various artistic endeavors, Gail T. Roberts is well known for her clay murals adorning Tucson. Not only are her murals vibrant, but they’re…
Upon entering Gloria and Maurice (Mo) Goldman’s law offices, Goldman & Goldman, in Northwest Tucson, I felt transported into a beehive of activity. Four staff members speaking Spanish maneuvered around desks piled high with folders and documents awaiting immigration cases. A father sitting on the couch with his 12-year-old son told me that he recently…
Neal Cash is a realist about behavioral health. When Cenpatico Integrated Care rode into Tucson, he and Community Partners of Southern Arizona changed direction. The Centene Corporation, a Fortune 500 company, owns Cenpatico. For 18 years Neal served as CEO/president of CPSA. As a nonprofit community-based agency, which managed treatment of serious mental illness through…
When Starr Sanders was 13, she asked a friend about a tall guy practicing basketball at a Phoenix high school. “Oh, you don’t want to be with him,” her friend advised, “He’s into causes.” At that moment Starr decided that she did want to be with him. It wasn’t long until she and Andy became…
When Roni Capin was growing up in Nogales, AZ, there was no wall bordering the United States and Mexico. Her paternal grandmother, Nana Lil, was a Bracker, and grandfather, Papa Sam, was a Capin – both were pioneer Jewish families – who went back and forth from their city of Nogales to Nogales, Sonora, Mexico….
As the daughter of a Jewish refugee, Roberta Elliott knows “the heart and soul of a stranger better than most.” Her father, Franz Engel, left Vienna at age 29 – five months after Hitler’s invasion in 1938. He went into hiding then spent two years in a French alien camp. He ended up working for…
For years, Suzi Hileman had an idea in her head. Why not connect grandparents with school children who were missing out on that relationship? Grandparents in Residence, or GRIN, came to life following the Jan. 8, 2011 Tucson shooting, when Suzi was shot three times while holding the hand of 9-year-old Christina-Taylor Green. The two…
Who knew that elders, especially those ages 82 to 85, score higher on happiness scales than millennials? Whether octogenarians are more active than in previous generations, or that contentment accompanies aging, Marilyn Heins, M.D., advises individuals over 65 to “say yes to opportunities.” Although Marilyn has slowed down since retiring in 1989 as vice dean…
Ellen Melamed, 63, always asks herself, “How can I help others?” Currently, a lecturer in family and community medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, and artist-in-residence at the UA School of Fine Arts, Ellen’s healing path has been circuitous. For the first half of her life, she tried to cope. Born in…
Stanley G. Feldman, 82, retired as an Arizona Supreme Court justice in 2002, but he hasn’t retired from the legal profession. “I still work more or less full time,” says Feldman, who in 2003 returned to Haralson, Miller, Pitt, Feldman & McAnally – the firm he helped found. The former Arizona Supreme Court justice represents…
