Posts in Guest Blog
#MyGrandCanyonStory | Representative Raquel Terán
#MyGrandCanyonStory | Representative Raquel Terán

HECHO spoke with Representative Raquel Terán of Arizona to learn about her personal connection to the Grand Canyon, her favorite memories there, and why she believes the Grand Canyon should be protected from uranium mining.

HECHO: What is your personal connection to the Grand Canyon?

Representative Raquel Terán (RT): I had never been to the Grand Canyon growing up. I finally went to visit in my early thirties. It was so easy to just get in the car and go visit the Canyon. It was amazing, and the colors were striking. It was so peaceful, and I remember thinking to myself, how is it possible that we had never driven here before? This wonder is in our backyard and it was just so gorgeous. The Grand Canyon holds the colours of Arizona….

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#MyGrandCanyonStory | Dennis Chavez
#MyGrandCanyonStory | Dennis Chavez

HECHO spoke with Dennis Chavez of Flagstaff, Arizona to learn about his personal connection to the Grand Canyon, his favorite memories there, and why he believes the Grand Canyon should be protected from uranium mining.

HECHO: What is your personal connection to the Grand Canyon?

Dennis Chavez (DC): My personal connection to the Grand Canyon is I was born and raised here in Flagstaff. I was born 65 years ago and I've lived here ever since, never left. My connection to the Grand Canyon started back in the1960s. My uncle worked on the Glen Canyon Dam. That was our first exposure to the Grand Canyon was when the dam was just being built. So, we saw a glimpse of the Grand Canyon before it was dammed up. It started there.

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#MyGrandCanyonStory | Theresa Huereña
#MyGrandCanyonStory | Theresa Huereña

HECHO spoke with Theresa Huereña of Phoenix, Arizona to learn about her personal connection to the Grand Canyon, her favorite memories there, and why she believes the Grand Canyon should be protected from uranium mining.

HECHO: What is your personal connection to the Grand Canyon?

Theresa Huereña (TH): My personal connection to the Grand Canyon is that it is in my backyard. I've experienced it through visiting with school groups or work, and it's just a beautiful place to visit…

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#MyGrandCanyonStory | Isabel Chavez
#MyGrandCanyonStory | Isabel Chavez

HECHO spoke with Isabel Chavez of Phoenix, Arizona to learn about her personal connection to the Grand Canyon, her favorite memories there, and why she believes the Grand Canyon should be protected from uranium mining.

HECHO: What is your personal connection to the Grand Canyon?

Isabel Chavez (IC): As an Arizona native, my connection to the Grand Canyon is exactly that. It's one of the wonders of the world and it's here in my home state. I think a common thread that I used to share with a lot of native Arizonans is that they had never been there. It wasn't a preferred destination, maybe because of the social economics of my neighborhood, that wasn't an option. When I finally went to the Grand Canyon, I was already older…..

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#MyGrandCanyonStory | Morgan Moore
#MyGrandCanyonStory | Morgan Moore

HECHO spoke with Morgan Moore of Phoenix, Arizona to learn about her personal connection to the Grand Canyon, her favorite memories there, and why she believes the Grand Canyon should be protected from uranium mining.

HECHO: What is your personal connection to the Grand Canyon?

Morgan Moore (MM): My personal connection to the Grand Canyon is rooted both in its place, as well as the people that connect me to it. I grew up in Arizona. I was born and raised here, so I have been to the Grand Canyon plenty of times, mostly with family. I have gone there since I was a toddler. My parents took me, even though my dad was afraid of falling from it…….

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#MyGrandCanyonStory | Juliana Huereña
#MyGrandCanyonStory | Juliana Huereña

HECHO spoke with Juliana Huereña of Phoenix, Arizona to learn about her personal connection to the Grand Canyon, her favorite memories there, and why she believes the Grand Canyon should be protected from uranium mining.

HECHO: What is your personal connection to the Grand Canyon?

Juliana Huereña (JH): So, what is my connection to the Grand Canyon? It is that it was in my backyard and so I was able to take advantage of the wilderness and the opportunities that the Grand Canyon has offered. The beauty of it, the Majestics of it, all of it….

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#MyGrandCanyonStory | Mark Cardenas
#MyGrandCanyonStory | Mark Cardenas

HECHO spoke with Advisory Board member Mark Cardenas of Arizona to learn about his personal connection to the Grand Canyon, his favorite memories there, and why he believes the Grand Canyon should be protected from uranium mining.

HECHO: What is your personal connection to the Grand Canyon?

Mark Cardenas (MC): My personal connection to the Grand Canyon -- that was where, you know, growing up you would always go on the weekends, to the parks and to go hiking in the mountains, because that was what we could afford. I remember one of the biggest trips that we got to go on was a road trip to the Grand Canyon. I was probably like six or seven years old. was really little, and it was just so amazing that one, we got out of the city and two, there's this huge place that, you know, when you go into the parking lot there's license plates from all around the country…

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#MyGrandCanyonStory | Steve Peru
#MyGrandCanyonStory | Steve Peru

HECHO spoke with Steve Peru of Flagstaff, Arizona to learn about his personal connection to the Grand Canyon, his favorite memories there, and why he believes the Grand Canyon should be protected from uranium mining.

HECHO: What is your personal connection to the Grand Canyon?

Steve Peru (SP): My personal connection to the Grand Canyon started, and I don't know when it was that our parents took us to the Grand Canyon, but I was probably older than grade school, middle school years. It's probably more exciting to the parent, at the time, than it is to the child. At the same time, given the fact that our parents didn't always have a lot of resources to make that investment of time and money to take the family to the Grand Canyon, it must have been very special to our parents….

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#MyGrandCanyonStory | Mesa City Councilmember David Luna
#MyGrandCanyonStory | Mesa City Councilmember David Luna

HECHO spoke with Mesa City Councilmember David Luna to learn about his personal connection to the Grand Canyon, his favorite memories there, and why he believes the Grand Canyon should be protected from uranium mining.

HECHO: What is your personal connection to the Grand Canyon?

David Luna (DL): My personal connection to the Grand Canyon begins with the fact that I'm a native of Arizona, which gives me that personal connection to one of the seven wonders of the world. I’ve had the opportunity to take visitors, relatives, and my grandkids to the Grand Canyon so they could see its majesty, its wonder, its uniqueness, the way one should experience it – in person. The Grand Canyon is something that we truly celebrate here in Arizona.

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#MyGrandCanyonStory | Rebecca Chavez-Houck
#MyGrandCanyonStory | Rebecca Chavez-Houck

Rebecca Chavez-Houck (RCH): So, in reflecting on my experiences and my personal connection to the Grand Canyon, I looked at it through some of the different phases of my life. My first recollection of having visited the Grand Canyon was when my husband and I took our daughter on a trip there. I believe that I was expecting our second child and it was during the off season. It is kind of interesting how, when we think about our experiences in the outdoors and we think about going to different, amazing places, incredible places like the Grand Canyon, the experiences kind of fall together….

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Guest Blog, Grand Canyonadmin#MyGrandCanyonStory, Grand Canyon, Uranium Mining, Arizona, Utah, Rebecca Chavez-Houck, Advisory BoardComment
#MyGrandCanyonStory | Michael Lerner
#MyGrandCanyonStory | Michael Lerner

HECHO spoke with Michael Lerner of New York, New York to learn about his personal connection to the Grand Canyon, his favorite memories there, and why he believes the Grand Canyon should be protected from uranium mining.

HECHO: What is your personal connection to the Grand Canyon?

Michel Lerner (ML): My personal connection to the Grand Canyon is that I've had the privilege and the honor to be there three times as an adult. Once as a kid, but I was honestly too young to really appreciate it. As an adult, I went on a visit to some family friends in Arizona. I'm from New York City so it's not, by any means, nearby but they suggested going there and I wasn't really aware that you could just drive up and get into the best of it without privileges or paying a lot of expensive fares or permits. So, this family friend suggested staying over at Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Grand Canyon…..

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#MyGrandCanyonStory | Feliz Baca
#MyGrandCanyonStory | Feliz Baca

HECHO spoke with Feliz Baca of Albuquerque, New Mexico to learn about her personal connection to the Grand Canyon, her favorite memories there, and why she believes the Grand Canyon should be protected from uranium mining.

HECHO: What is your personal connection to the Grand Canyon?

Feliz Baca (FB): My personal connection to the Grand Canyon is that I was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, but split my time between Arizona and New Mexico growing up. Half my life consisted of living in Northern Arizona, in Flagstaff, taking trips to the Grand Canyon with my family. I didn't start exploring the canyon as much until I got a little bit older and went away from the state because, when you're from Arizona, you don't take as much time to truly enjoy the beauty and everything that it has to offer…..

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#MyGrandCanyonStory | Whitney Walker
#MyGrandCanyonStory | Whitney Walker

HECHO spoke with Whitney Walker of Maricopa County, Arizona to learn about her personal connection to the Grand Canyon, her favorite memories there, and why she believes the Grand Canyon should be protected from uranium mining.

HECHO: What is your personal connection to the Grand Canyon?

Whitney Walker (WW): My personal connection to the Grand Canyon happened when I relocated here from Virginia. I was all of 23 years old and the first person in my family to not only graduate from college, but the first one to be accepted into law school. I drove across the country by myself, leaving my family 3000 miles behind. I felt brave, but alone. During my first semester, I connected with the group of folks in my section that shared a similar experience. We took a trip up to the Grand Canyon right after our midterms during fall break. That visit was such an amazing and confirming moment where I felt that I could do anything I put my mind to…..

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#MyGrandCanyonStory | Patrice Horstman
#MyGrandCanyonStory | Patrice Horstman

HECHO spoke with Patrice Horstman on her connection to the Grand Canyon, and why she believes it deserves protection and advocacy.

Patrice Horstman (PH): I moved to Flagstaff in 1972 to go to school in Northern Arizona University, and like many, I fell in love with the San Francisco peaks and the Ponderosa Pine Forest. Having the Canyon as a neighbor has allowed me an up close and personal relationship with it. I've been able to spend over four decades exploring and hiking its trails, river running on the Colorado river through its red walls, and spending literally countless hours on the rim. The Grand Canyon is also an economic engine for us here in Northern Arizona. It has over 6 million visitors that visits the Canyon annually, which brings hundreds of millions of tourists dollars here to Arizona and has produced tens of thousands of jobs.

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#MyGrandCanyonStory | Nikki Julien
#MyGrandCanyonStory | Nikki Julien

HECHO spoke with Nikki Julien, Outreach Director for the Arizona Wildlife Federation to learn about her favorite memory at the Grand Canyon, and why she believes uranium mining poses a dangerous threat to the National Park.

HECHO: What is your personal connection to the grand Canyon?

Nikki Julien (NJ): My personal connection to the Grand Canyon started the first time I visited, I was probably about five, six years old. My family had moved to Arizona and my parents, of course, put my brother in boy scouts. They had a boy scout trip to go down to Havasupai Village and we all hiked all the way down and back up again. While I was there, I actually learned to swim in that beautiful blue, green water. I learned how to swim in Mooney Falls. I was just a kid at the time, so I didn’t think much about it until after I realized how major it actually was. In the education field and nature writing field, and nature advocacy field, one of the first questions that is asked at almost any conference, is about your connection to the land. When that is asked, I get to say that I learned to swim at Mooney Falls at Havasupai Village which is an amazing, amazing experience. Not many six year olds can make that trip down and back out again. In 2014, I was able to helicopter down into the village and that was remarkable.

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#MyGrandCanyonStory | Viviana Reyes
#MyGrandCanyonStory | Viviana Reyes

HECHO spoke with Viviana Reyes of Flagstaff, Arizona to learn about her personal connection to the Grand Canyon, her favorite memories there, and why she believes the Grand Canyon should be protected from uranium mining.

HECHO: What is your personal connection the Grand Canyon

Viviana Reyes (VR): As far as my personal connection to the Grand Canyon, I was born and raised in Arizona. I grew up in Phoenix, and, as a child, the Grand Canyon was one of the only places that we were really able to visit. For one, it’s in our home state and it was really close. And, also, it’s kind of an affordable place to visit in the sense that we would just kind of get together as a family and drive. One of the first times I got to visit was with an uncle and it was super breathtaking and beautiful. I remember thinking that it wasn’t real, that it just looked like a picture, like a postcard almost.

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#MyGrandCanyonStory | Lynn Córdova
#MyGrandCanyonStory | Lynn Córdova

HECHO sat down with Lynn Cordova of Arizona to learn about her connection to the Grand Canyon, and why she believes the Grand Canyon should be protected from uranium mining.

HECHO: Why do you think it’s important to advocate for national parks against the threat of uranium mining?

Lynn Cordova (LC): I think national parks are important, and we, as a society, need to have places to visit and unwind. As you probably know and read my story about growing up, and growing up low income, I didn't have a ton of exposure to public lands. I lived in Colorado, and it's a beautiful state. There are tons of mountains and hiking trails, but I rarely got to experience that because, often times, it was a matter of my mother not having enough money to even get us to the mountains. If we did, it was the closest foothills we could get to and that was our version of a picnic or camping.

Now that I'm older, and since I have yet to visit the Grand Canyon, it’s on my bucket list— especially since I now live in Arizona. I want to ensure that it's going to be available for me to visit. But if uranium mining occurs, I’m worried about the potential of water contamination in the area, and who knows what other repercussions could happen from that. It’s important to ensure that it doesn't happen so that everyone can visit the Grand Canyon.

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Guest Blog, Grand CanyonGuest Blogger#MyGrandCanyonStory, Grand Canyon, Uranium Mining, Arizona, Lynn Cordova, Advisory BoardComment
Guest Blog: Leading With A Love For the Land, Family Traditions, and Culture With Santa Fe County Commissioner Henry Roybal
Guest Blog: Leading With A Love For the Land, Family Traditions, and Culture With Santa Fe County Commissioner Henry Roybal

My family has a long history in the Pojoaque Valley of New Mexico. Both my mother and father’s side of the family has been a part of this county for generations, dating back to the early pre-Hispanic settlers in the area. Growing up in New Mexico, I was immersed in the traditional farming community and grew up with the ranchero lifestyle.

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Guest Blog, HCLCGuest BloggerHenry Roybal, New Mexico, Querencia y Herencia, Traditional Land Uses, Ranching, Farming, Acequias, Wildlife Connectivity Corridors Comment
Guest Blog: Bridging Culture, Community, and Nature: Latina Leadership Benefits Maricopa County's Parks
Guest Blog: Bridging Culture, Community, and Nature: Latina Leadership Benefits Maricopa County's Parks

I’m proud to be an 8th generation Arizonan. My family has traced our long history in Arizona back to the 1740s. Both my maternal and paternal grandparents were farmworkers, tending the fields. My father was a farmworker as well.

My family settled in Pima County after an uncle bought a plot of land and invited his brothers to join.

Arizona is what I know best. I was brought up in South Phoenix, and moved after gentrification pushed us out. Afterwards, my family moved to Golden Gate Barrio. I find comfort in familiarity and today, my children go to the same elementary school I did.

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Guest BlogGuest BloggerArizona, Picknicking, Traditional Land Uses, Outdoor Recreation, FishingComment