How border town libraries became cooling centers during record heat waves
The library did not volunteer for this. It has air conditioning, it is free, and it does not ask you why you came in, and those three facts made it the default.
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Keeping watch with the overnight ham radio operators of Cochise County
At two in the morning there are perhaps six people awake and listening across a county the size of Connecticut, and they are talking to each other on frequencies most people have…
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The daily routine of a retired deputy patrolling the Arizona desert
He does not have a badge any more and he is very clear about that. He is a volunteer with a county programme, he drives a marked vehicle, and he has no arrest authority.
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How border search and rescue volunteers find lost desert hikers
Most of the people who go missing in the desert around Tucson are not experienced hikers who made a dramatic error. They are ordinary people who went out for an hour, took a wrong…
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The mechanics who keep ancient school buses running on dirt roads
The bus that collects children on the county roads east of here was built in 2004. It has something over three hundred thousand miles on it and it will be running next year,…
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Why local water wildcatters are drilling deeper in Cochise County
The well that served a house for forty years goes dry in August. The owner calls a driller, the driller comes out, and the conversation is about how much deeper and how much it…
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Why Tucson mobile home parks are forming cooperatives to buy their land
If you own a mobile home in a park, you own the home and you rent the ground it sits on. That arrangement is the whole story, and it is why residents in a growing number of parks…
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What happens when a small town loses its only ambulance service
The service does not usually collapse dramatically. It resigns, or the contract is not renewed, or the volunteer roster falls below the number needed to crew a truck, and the…
