The electricity is gone. At this time a year ago, all they had to do at America West Arena was turn down the lights and put the spotlight on the Suns. The crowd would go crazy with expectation. On the sidelines, the Suns subs were on their feet, waving towels…
Within the hour, Howard Hantman, 50, had been sworn in as a Pima County Superior Court judge. Now the lightly bearded Hantman, looking more like a dashing figure from a woodcut illustrating a 19th-century novel than a lawyer, was encircled by friends and colleagues. More than 100 of them had…
You should have read this story months ago. Two members of the Department of Public Safety team that guards Governor J. Fife Symington III used their state cars for private business. The officers regularly visited the apartment of a woman who had been a drug informant for them, sometimes while…
You should have read this story months ago. Two members of the Department of Public Safety team that guards Governor J. Fife Symington III used their state cars for private business. The officers regularly visited the apartment of a woman who had been a drug informant for them, sometimes while…
Within the hour, Howard Hantman, 50, had been sworn in as a Pima County Superior Court judge. Now the lightly bearded Hantman, looking more like a dashing figure from a woodcut illustrating a 19th-century novel than a lawyer, was encircled by friends and colleagues. More than 100 of them had…
Looking back, Tanya Becker realizes that she failed to heed a harbinger of what was in store for her. She recalls that when Steve Hart approached her about a lease-purchase deal on her north Phoenix house, “I told him I was so glad that he was going to rent my…
At the Phoenix Country Day School in Paradise Valley, students begin instruction in lab science at age 4. Spanish at 5. High schoolers learn physics on computers and fire ceramics in an imported kiln. They use a library that, in some respects, outranks the research facilities at Arizona State University;…
Charles Barkley, who’s been making noises about entering politics for some time, made it official a couple of weeks ago on The Tonight Show: After his basketball career ends, the Suns hero will return to his home state and kick some bureaucratic ass. He’s going to run for governor of…
Valley channel surfers who stumble upon the nation’s strangest home-shopping show should be forgiven if they mistakenly believe they’ve picked up a TV signal from a parallel universe. After all, how many video merchandisers would dare use dawn-of-television production values, cornball gags and swap-meet bargaining tactics to hawk this one-of-a-kind…
Here’s some advice for Louis A. (Chip) Weil III: Dear Chip, As publisher of the Arizona Republic and the Phoenix Gazette, you can emerge from this stadium-tax deal as the biggest winner of all. It’s no secret your newspaper company owns that white elephant of a warehouse located right in…
It was summertime when Sherrie Rabellino, her husband and two children first visited Prescott and became enchanted with its historic downtown square. The family was hell-bent on moving from its lifelong home in Santa Rosa, California, a once-rural community 50 miles north of San Francisco that in the last ten…
Critical mass Last July, Newsweek said, “Phoenix is on the cutting edge of the movement to meld art and public works.” A month later, the New York Times added, “Phoenix has shown that our capacity for invention is far from all used up.” In October, the Chicago Tribune noted that…
The moment had arrived. For days Robin Morris had been growing increasingly apprehensive about the role she must play on this night. Her part must be played to perfection. She must speak for her late father in a way that reflected her moral outrage at her father’s experience and yet…
A couple of Valley filmmakers responsible for a horrific new “shockumentary” are out for blood. “The whole intent of our film was to have red in every scene,” says Darrin Ramage, co-producer of Traces of Death, a grisly compilation of actual murders, suicides and fatal accidents culled from unedited TV…
It was February 7, 1991. Twilight was gathering on Capitol Hill as J. Fife Symington III faced off with Senator Howard Metzenbaum. The timing couldn’t have been worse. Symington was only three weeks away from a gubernatorial run-off election with Terry Goddard. Metzenbaum had convened a hearing into the failure…
Kevin Johnson talks like a choirboy. His intentions are always innocent. At least that’s what he always insists later. But never doubt that KJ is the most lethal member of the Phoenix Suns. He is the club’s assassin. KJ’s brutal blow delivered to the face and neck of the Chicago…
The television commercial sounded like a godsend to Ruthie Dennis. Pay nothing down! an authoritative male voice intoned. Get your financial fresh start today! A fresh start is what Dennis needed. Income-tax and other debts had haunted her since she’d retired from Honeywell in 1991 after 20 years on the…
One night in Minnesota, Dave Foreman woke up in his tent to a wolf howl, a desperate, aching sound that freezes time and makes domestic dogs try to hide under beds. At first, he thought it was the wind as he sat up in his sleeping bag. Then, when the…
The revelation in December that Samaritan Health Systems will shut down the only Poison Control Center in Phoenix passed as a blip on the public radar, coming as it did between Christmas and New Year’s. But the decision is sending waves of outrage and panic through the medical community, and…
With all the hubbub about the downtown baseball stadium–for which Maricopa County taxpayers are expected to pay up to $250 million–it’s high time for some perspective. With apologies to Harper’s Index, here’s what else could be done with a spare quarter-billion dollars: 1. Estimated number of molestation lawsuits Michael Jackson…
Scanning an office decorated with a shoe-shaped planter, a giant, boot-shaped piata and a picture of actor Daniel Day-Lewis as he appeared in My Left Foot, Jeanne Sallman smiles beatifically before offering a rather startling description of her occupation: “You might say I’m running a dating service for the feet.”…
They bid adieu to Robert Morris, the remarkable law professor, in a simple, elegant service in a downtown Phoenix church recently. Morris, 65, the only black member of the Arizona State University law faculty, had left a request. He wanted his funeral concluded by the playing of one of his…
