Centennial Countdown

I have nothing against Oklahoma. Nothing at all. In fact, I want to shout “congratulations” as they celebrate their Centennial this year. As you’ll see, they’re celebrating in a remarkable way.

For example, remember “Rocket Man,” who led off the Rose Bowl Parade this year? Mind you, he led off the 118th parade. Well, he was an advertisement for the Oklahoma Centennial, and the parade honored the 46th state with that special honor. Organizers of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade gave Oklahoma the same honor, letting its float lead off the 2006 parade.

Very nice. And have you heard about the two-disc CD set of Oklahoma singers and Oklahoma songs a tribute to the state’s long musical history? Or how about the new national postage stamp honoring the Sooner State? Or maybe you already have some of the merchandise that Oklahoma has produced to sell during its 100th year of being a state in these United States of America.

Yes, the entire nation knows that Oklahoma is marking this milestone. In fact, the entire nation is celebrating with a state that once was known as “Indian Territory.”

As I’ve said, I have nothing against Oklahoma, but I’m starting to get jealous.

In five short years – count them: one, two, three, four, five it will be our turn. Arizona will mark its Centennial on Valentine’s Day, 2012. We are the last of the contiguous 48 states, so our Centennial will be the last centennial in most of our lifetimes. (We’d have to be around more than a half-century to celebrate the Centennials of Alaska and Hawaii in 2059.)

My big fear is that our day in the sun will come and we won’t be ready. We won’t have floats in national parades and we won’t have the eyes of the country looking at us at the very moment when we should be showing off to the best of our ability.

Faithful readers will remember that three years ago, I wrote a column urging folks to get going on planning for the Centennial. It takes years to get all this stuff in place. Nothing of this magnitude just happens overnight.

Certainly, you must be aware that the Arizona committee for a three-hour sporting event in 2008 – OK, it’s the Super Bowl, but it’s still just one football game is already working in earnest. Planners say it will take them every minute of the next year to get their act together to host this über sports moment.

H-e-l-l-o!!! Doesn’t it make sense then that we need every second of the five years we have left prior to our Centennial to get ready? It certainly makes sense to me. I just wish it did to everyone else. I’m not alone in this concern it’s shared by former Phoenix mayor and civic stalwart John Driggs.

Mr. Driggs knows what it’s like to not be ready. He became mayor of Phoenix the same year the state’s largest city was facing its Centennial. That was 1970. “In the spring we started planning for an October Centennial,” he remembers. “Nothing had been done, and we had only a few months to put it together.” In the end, a few events were cobbled together, and they called it a day. How pitiful. What’s more, I’ve lived here since right after that milestone, and I have yet to see the city of Phoenix commemorate any of its other big birthdays we’re 137 years old now. Whatever happened to celebrating the 125th? It came and went. What a missed opportunity.

Understandably, Driggs wonders if the same thing will happen to the entire state in 2012.

Driggs is the “citizen member” of the Arizona Historical Advisory Commission that, so far, is in charge of planning the Centennial. They got the job in 2004 during a joint announcement from Governor Janet Napolitano, Senate President Ken Bennett and House Speaker Jake Flake.

In the past three years, they’ve produced an 11-page report. I know, it doesn’t sound like much, although, a report on where we want to go and how we want to get there is important. But the contents of this report and I’m not bragging here, I’m just reporting the facts are very similar to the suggestions that I made in my 2003 column. And it certainly didn’t take me three years to write it.

The commission’s “Vision for the Centennial” is admirable: “Ensure a lasting legacy for future generations by encouraging all Arizonans to reflect on our unique and authentic history, to experience the rich and diverse tapestry of our heritage, and to explore our promising future.”

I like to muse as much as the next guy, but if that doesn’t sound like a dose of pabulum, I don’t know what does. If I were writing the vision statement, it would read something like this: “This is a moment for Arizona every city, town and burg, every reservation, every neighborhood to kick butt and put its best face forward. The feds didn’t want us in the Union in the first place, so let’s show them just how wrong they were, and why Arizona is a great place. Because many Arizonans today are recent transplants, let’s relive and showcase our rich and bizarre history. And let’s organize projects that will be a lasting legacy to all that’s good and promising about Arizona.”

It’s not just semantics; it’s energy – something that I’m afraid has been missing so far.

I know our Centennial commission intends to do a good job, and has all the right motivations, but this is a group of state agency heads heavy on librarians all of whom have other jobs and other responsibilities. Arizona’s Tourism agency isn’t even on the committee. Wouldn’t you think a task of this magnitude would at least include the one state agency charged with promoting Arizona?

I think we have a fundamental flaw here. And I’m reminded of the old saying: “God so loved the world, she didn’t send down a committee.”

Somebody needs to take this idea and run with it. And while John Driggs, bless his soul, has been trying to do that, he can’t do it all by himself.

It was during a holiday party last winter that John Driggs mentioned to me not bragged, as most would do, but just mentioned that he’d gotten an appropriation bill through the Legislature to provide the first money for our Centennial. That was in 2006, when our Centennial was just six years away. It was a breakthrough because, without that, there wasn’t a cent appropriated for the celebration.

The Arizona Legislature pledged $2.5 million to the Centennial Commission, with the condition that another $5 million be raised from non-state sources. “I’m a one-man committee to raise money,” Driggs says. Because of that, he’s going to cities, counties and tribal governments begging for money. And he’s hitting private industry, too. This money would be used to help finance “legacy projects” for the Centennial.

Well, I’m betting by now that you know exactly where I’m going with this. Our Legislature is so damn stingy that it gives a conditional grant for a lousy $2.5 million to commemorate this milestone in our history. Come on, let’s get real. Not only that, but to think that one man can do all of this on his own is ridiculous. Of course, if anyone can do it, John Driggs can.

Ridiculous or not, Driggs, a native-born son of early Mormon pioneers, is out there trying, and my hat is off to him. Believe me, his heart and his head are in the right place: “This Centennial is the best-kept secret in town,” he bemoans. “This is a chance for projects throughout the state that have broad public participation. We need to open doors for a lot of people to celebrate Arizona.”

And the man has done his homework. “Oklahoma started nine years ago to plan for its Centennial,” Driggs reports. “They set up a state agency and hired about seven people as permanent employees.” He says the words with such longing, knowing that a similar thing will never happen here. “You know, they had two floats in the Rose Bowl Parade. Everyone remembers ‘Rocket Man,’ but they also had a horse-drawn carriage in the parade commemorating their Centennial.”

You can just see him licking his lips at the thought of what Arizona could do with some parade money and the will to show off. I’m right there with him.

But those things would simply be icing on the cake. Where John Driggs has focused his hope is on the 90 individual cities and towns in Arizona, and what each one could be doing for the Centennial.

“We need to ask every city and town to appoint a Centennial committee, so we can get action at the community level,” he says. “That’s where it has to happen.”

Here is his formula to ensure a successful Centennial:

• There must be widespread awareness, interest and participation.
• Every community should be focusing on its history.
• We need “legacy” projects to commemorate the state. (“That’s our war cry,” Driggs says, noting that Oklahoma has 425 Centennial projects, with the biggest being a new dome on its state Capitol.)

Here in the Valley, I’m happy to see The Arizona Republic lobbying for a new statehouse as part of the Centennial at least new buildings for the House and Senate to replace the too-boring-for-words boxes that sit there now, obscuring the beautiful brick Capitol we originally built. The paper also wants to see a passenger train between Phoenix and Tucson, and I couldn’t agree more that would be a fabulous addition to Arizona.

For John Driggs, the “legacy” for Arizona’s Centennial should be the redo of Papago Park and Tovrea Castle.

Here’s a little-known fact appropriate for a Centennial discussion: Papago Park was once a national monument of 2,050 acres in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson named it the Papago-Sahara National Monument, and it included the land where Sun Devil Stadium now stands. But in 1930, the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce and other community groups went to Washington and convinced Congress to nix the designation so the land could be used for something other than a park, making this the first and only time a national monument has been abandoned. That’s how we got the Phoenix Zoo, Desert Botanical Garden, Phoenix Municipal Stadium, a golf course and Salt River Project’s headquarters, all on land that was formerly a national monument. (I know. We have been doing plenty of weird things around here for decades.)

Today, Papago Park still boasts 1,250 acres, and Driggs thinks it’s a resource to be cherished by the entire state. So do officials of Phoenix, Tempe and Scottsdale, who are working together to push this as a major Centennial project. They hope to get most of the money the state will hand out (if Driggs can raise the matching funds).

Driggs also hopes that Tovrea Castle (the “wedding cake building”) will become a “protocol house” to be used by elected officials, and restored as an Arizona museum. He also sees it operating as a visitor center that would be the first stop for folks from out of state.

Meanwhile, I’m happy to report that Winslow isn’t letting any grass grow under its feet in terms of getting ready for the Centennial. It intends to restore “Brigham City,” the first Mormon community in the Arizona Territory it was established in 1876, when Mormon leader Brigham Young sent pioneers out to colonize the Little Colorado River Valley in Northern Arizona. Brigham City only lasted five years, in part because other Mormon settlements had richer land and better water, and its bricks eventually went into other town buildings.