The first Mexican Gray wolves put paws back on Southwestern soil in 1998 under a program headed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Today, around 40 of them roam throughout a roughly 5,000-square-mile area of eastern Arizona and western New Mexico, and that number is expected to reach 100 in seven years. Public support for the program has always been high, especially for those viewing it from a distance. But for many who actually live with the wolves, their view of the animals ranges from public nuisances on up to four-legged terrorists. Leo W. Banks examines problems in the wolf reintroduction program.
Susan Crichton, former ad director for Gambit Weekly and a beloved member of this trade association, died of cancer early Thursday morning at the age of 44. "She left our world as she lived in it, calm and graceful," says her husband, Russ Martineau, who is left to care for the couple's 16-month-old son, Cooper. Crichton was a key figure behind the success of both Gambit and the Alternative Newsweekly Network, which she helped to found.
"It's a newsroom in a lot of upheaval and unhappiness," Senior Editor Brian Parks tells Sridhar Pappu, who reports that the "rejiggering has only worsened an already troubled relationship between the staff and management." The complaints come from writers who have less space to write in and who felt left out of the redesign process. Voice Editor Don Forst says morale at the paper is fine and calls the implementation of the redesign "perfect." Pappu also reports that the Voice "had a pretax profit margin of 27.2 percent, according to an internal management source." (Second item.)
David Bernstein and Adam Reilly have both been hired to replace Seth Gitell, who left in May to become Mayor Tom Menino's press secretary, reports Boston Magazine's James Burnett. The double-hire also helps to address a vacancy created when Dorie Clark left the paper to serve as a spokesperson on Howard Dean's campaign. The Phoenix has been "a longtime incubator for well-known national political scribes," says Burnett, who lists Joe Klein, Sid Blumenthal, Michael Crowley and Ted Widmer among the paper's distinguished alumnus.
Nine years ago a high-school dropout and daily pot smoker attended his first Hempfest. That teenager, Dominic Holden, got involved and helped turn a backwater hippie smoke-out into the largest marijuana-law reform rally in the world; last year's crowd swelled to 175,000. Holden doesn't smoke pot anymore, but putting down the bong didn't quell his interest in drug-law reform in the slightest. Hannah Levin talks to the 26-year-old activist as he and his fellow organizers prepare for this weekend's Hempfest.
Shelby Sheffield is a corporate attorney, but her real passion is the triathlon, a grueling athletic endurance event that consists of three basic elements -- a swim, a bike ride and a run. In 2002, the 29-year-old Sheffield went from being a much respected triathlete on a regional level to a world-class competitor who qualified to compete this October in the Hawaii Ironman Triathlon, the most prestigious triathlon in the world. Bruce Dobie talks to Sheffield as she prepares for Hawaii, where competitors will test the limits of human endurance with a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride and a 26.2-mile run in temperatures that can reach 110 degrees.
Steve May and his wife Cherry Fisher May are picking a fight where other publishers might fear to tread, readying themselves for head- to-head competition with Gannett. Beginning this Friday, they will begin publishing an alternative newsweekly in Lafayette, La., where Gannett owns both the daily newspaper, The Daily Advertiser, and its 23-year-old weekly, The Times of Acadiana. The Mays used to own The Times, and their anger over what it has become is fueling their launch of a paper they have pointedly named The Independent. "Gannett has destroyed The Times," Steve May says. "These guys are Sears managers who have a one- size-fits-all approach to local publishing."
In the winter of 1956, Bill Potts and his trio made musical history in a D.C. nightclub when they played for six nights with jazz legend Lester Young. "We knew on the first tune," Potts says. "It was heaven." When the tapes were released more than two decades later, they helped rehabilitate the reputation of Young's later years. Eddie Dean writes about that magical week and the years leading up to Potts 1959 classic, "The Jazz Soul of Porgy and Bess."
