Firefighter Isaksen Awarded for His Commitment
Ike Isaksen, an EMT and firefighter who has long served with the Patagonia Fire Department, was awarded this year’s Emergency Medical Service award for Santa Cruz County. The theme for this year’s award was “commitment.”
Representatives of the Tucson Medical Center, the medical control through which Patagonia’s fire and rescue teams work, sent representatives to Patagonia to give Ike the award on May 13.
A pizza lunch followed the award ceremony.
Undefeated Patagonia Middle School Baseball Champs
Rotary Club Middle School Awards
By Inge Meyer
This year’s Rotary Club middle School Award recipients were :
Elgin Middle School
Citizenship award – Clarissa Etchart
Scholarship award – Alexandria Scheid
Leadership Award – Clay Lyman
Patagonia Middle school
Citizenship award – Juliana Quiroga
Scholarship award – Mia Arochi
Leadership award – Patrick “Duke” Norton
Each youth receive a certificate and a check for $100 to honor their accomplishment.
Rockin’ the House With Hairspray
On Saturday morning, May 10, word was getting around town.
“The high school play is great. Don’t miss it. It’s only on for one more night.”
By performance time on Saturday, the cast of Hairspray was playing to a full house and then, at the end, to a standing ovation.
The musical is a perfect choice for high school students. It’s all about them (albeit back in the 1960s, but how much has changed?), the music is groovy and there are lots of parts.
Everyone on stage seemed to be having a good time singing and dancing and acting their hearts out.
Along with the entire cast, the teachers who worked so hard to help put this on are to be congratulated.
Someone said that the following Monday, everyone at the high school was walking around in a daze, unsure of how to now use all those hours they’d been putting in to make such an impressive musical extravaganza.
Lots of Socializing at the Ice Cream Social
Wanted Dead!
The American Bullfrog
(Lithobates catesbeianus)
Borderlands Restoration of Patagonia is soliciting information on bullfrog locations in the area and help with access issues along Sonoita Creek.
Bullfrogs are a non-native invasive species that has wreaked havoc on our native fish and frogs. They can travel up to seven miles overland and have voracious appetites. Ongoing habitat restoration for native species is dependent on locating, then eradication, these pests, and the Patagonia Union High School Borderlands EarthCare Youth Corps will be out surveying Sonoita Creek and our beautiful mountains this spring and summer.
If you have any information, questions, concerns please contact Trevor Hare, Borderlands Restoration Project Manager, at 520 906-9854 or hare.trevor@gmail.com
PUHS Sports Awards
Trogon
It is not without distinction
that this tropical bird nests
in the high forests of Arizona,
With his dark iridescence,
bright red and green, long
dark tail feathers.
He is more than elegant.
Royal, regal as he flew from a
branch to snatch,
on the wing, a praying mantis.
Then back to his perch while
slowly eating lunch as if it were
common to be at the center table
surrounded by his minions.
And as he flashes those wings
from tree to tree,
we follow like paparazzi
glassing and snapping pictures.
— Robert E. Druchniak
Answer to Tracking Quiz
The roadrunner is the largest North American member of the cuckoo family. It is about 11 inches tall, and about 23 inches from beak to tail. It has brown and white streaks, and has black skin on its back that it can face toward the sun to use as a solar collector. Truly a runner, it prefers running to flying and can run up to 18 miles per hour! Carnivorous when possible, it beats its dinner against something hard because its bill is unsuited for ripping. Well adapted for the desert, it excretes excess salt from its eyes. The roadrunner mates for life. Some people believe that one seen crossing the road left to right provides good luck! It often seems quite unafraid of humans, and trots up close for a good view. It is a cuckoo, after all.
