We’ve turned the lights off at 4850 S. Park after nearly 50 years, and I’m not feeling a bit nostalgic about the newsroom moving back downtown. Sure, I miss the pressroom with its inky smells and booming classic rock ‘n’ roll. 

But the newsroom? Nah. It was never about the place. 

I walked into the Arizona Daily Star in the summer of 1980, green as the grass of my Ohio hometown. I jockeyed each night, sometimes three times, for yet another shared computer or a parking place that wasn’t a five-minute walk to the back door. 

 I kept my desk – dictionary, stylebooks, grease pencils and No. 3 black-lead pencils – in the school lockers that are still in entryway to the women’s bathroom. The newsroom was crowded and smelled of cigarettes and stale cigars and cheap take-out. If you needed to have a personal conversation, you went down the hall near the cafeteria and whispered into a pay phone. 

Of all the current newsroom employees, I’m easily the one who has spent the most time at the plant. Carmen Duarte has worked at the Star a few months longer than I have, but as a reporter she left the building much more often than I did. I sat at a desk most days editing copy and talking to readers. And she worked in sometimes rowdy places like the cop shop, and was a zone reporter working outside the newsroom, too. 

Our biggest celebration was in 1981 when Clark Hallas and Bob Lowe won a Pulitzer Prize for their stories about recruiting violations by University of Arizona football coach Tony Mason.

We celebrated, too, when Jim Davis was named a Pulitzer finalist in 1983 for his photographs of a shoot-out between a religious sect and local law enforcement  in Miracle Valley.  And again in 1988 when Fitz was a Pulitzer finalist for editorial cartooning. 

Reporter Jane Kay interviewed more than 500 south-siders for a 1985 series that mapped a plume of cancers and other illnesses in people whose drinking water came from TCE-contaminated city wells. Trichloroethylene is an industrial solvent that airport tenants used for cleaning, then dumped on the ground. Suits on behalf of 1,618 residents near the airport have been settled for in excess of $150 million. The cleanup continues to this day. 

In 1989, under Editor Steve Auslander, editorial writer Judy Donovan wrote a series of 16 editorials, called Restore San Xavier, that played a major role in the restoration of Mission San Xavier del Bac and got the attention of the Vatican. That restoration also continues today.

We’ve had two owners, first Pulitzer and then Lee Enterprises. Since being sold to Lee in 2005, Star staffers have won the company’s biggest honors, the Lee President’s Awards, every year, with multiple staffers being honored for their in-depth work and innovation.

In 2009, we helped found the Tucson Festival of Books, which has raised more than $2 million for local literacy groups. 

We’ve published at least a half-million local stories during our time at the plant. It might be a lot more – I didn’t have time to count them all. 

And now we’ve come full-circle. We’re going back downtown. We’re going to be sharing desks again. We have about the same size reporting staff as we did when we left. And we still have the smarts and the hearts to make a difference every day. 

• Please tell me the story of where you came from and how you got here.  Where born, where raised, where schooled and maybe a little about how your siblings are like/different from you.

I was born in Toledo, Ohio in August 1979.

My home life growing up was very chaotic. I spent a lot of time in the care of random people or my grandparents. We moved frequently and were homeless for a while as my mother struggled with addiction issues.

When I was 7, I spent a year traveling the country with my grandparents in a fifth-wheel trailer and I got to see 35 of the 50 states. It was an amazing experience.

I moved to Tucson to be adopted by my aunt. I now have a brother, Craig, and a sister, Stephani, (who were my cousins, when I was adopted into the family). I have a half-sister named Heather from my birth-mom, a step-sister named Abbey and I have eight half-siblings from my father (whom I only discovered 2 years ago). I have enjoyed learning more about my family’s history.

I’m the only visual artist out of the 13 of us. There’s a nurse, contractor, therapist, opera singer at the San Francisco Opera, theater manager, nuclear engineer, military careers, teacher, it’s really all over the place with us. We all seem to have a pretty great sense of humor about the world, in general, though. 

• What did you dream of becoming when you were a little girl?  This is my favorite question because it can say something of who we were before the demands of adulthood took over.

I wanted to be an entomologist. I would often be out of the house until 7 or 8 p.m.
I spent most of my time wandering around the desert with an Audobon guide for bugs I found at a yard sale for a quarter. I was constantly getting in trouble for bringing back snakes, lizards and bugs that were interesting to me. In middle school, I joined the Science Olympics and ended up winning a silver medal in state, and ninth place in the nationals in a bug-themed event called “Don’t Bug Me.” I also toyed around with the idea of becoming an orthopedic surgeon for horses or a concert pianist.

• How did you come to work for the Arizona Daily Star, and where else have you worked?

My very first job was when I was 8. I used would take a bucket with cleaning supplies around door-to-door in my grandmother’s trailer park. I would clean anything for 2 hours for $25. I would keep $5 and put the rest into a bank account for college. I started babysitting when I was 9 and did both housecleaning and babysitting. I was a live-in nanny while I was in college and working full-time at Circle K. I had worked briefly at phone call centers, at a cafe, and was a bartender for my first year of college. I would be a nanny at night/through the mornings when I had quit my job as a bartender. I had wanted to work for the newspaper since I was a little girl. The newspaper was a huge part of our morning routine- eat and learn about what’s going on in the community. I fully believe in what we do here at the newspaper and it is a huge point of pride that I am a part of it. I saw an ad in the newspaper for an artist when I was just finishing up in college in 1999 and I applied and was hired. I picked up a second job as a seamstress making hemp and yak hair beanies for the Wylde Men at the Arizona Renaissance Festival. in about 2007 or so, I moved away to Tacoma, Washington just before the start of the recession and was unable to find work. I was running out of savings, so I moved to Portland, Oregon, as it was more affordable at that time. I made money by drawing tattoos for people, cleaning houses and meal prepping for people. I had started volunteering at a theater group and started off as the photographer and was elected secretary historian and served three terms. While that did keep my mind busy, I still needed work so I went back to school and became a certified nursing assistant and got licensed in Oregon. After about six months of working as a C.N.A., a business office manager position opened up at the facility I was working at. I applied and was hired immediately and did that for several years before moving back to Tucson. The Arizona Daily Star was not hiring upon my return, so I worked as a graphic designer for another company until it was hiring again. I don’t ever want to leave again and would very much like to retire from the paper some day. I currently have two jobs. I am a graphic designer at the paper and have been certified through the National Safety Council to teach Traffic Survival School, which I teach on the weekends. 

• How has graphic design changed in the time you’ve been in the field?

When I was a student, there was a lot of paste-ups and manual design that went into creating a piece. I even remember cutting amberlith sheets to create color trapping for printing. When I first started at the paper, I would go upstairs to paginate a section and run ads that were printed on a shiny paper through a paraffin wax machine and use a glass roller to stick it to the non-photogenic blue-lined paper that a giant camera would take a photograph of to create the negatives to develop printing plates. Now… everything is done digitally and our plates get immediately created with lasers. It’s pretty astounding, really.

• What, in your mind, separates a great ad from a good ad….and what separates a good ad from an awful one?

A great ad catches your attention and tells you what you need to know within 3 seconds of looking at it. That’s the amount of time you have to catch someone’s eye. It should have minimal text and lots of white space. 

An awful ad will have every single bit of information regarding the offer. It frequently has too many graphics, way too much ad copy and is too busy looking, visually.

• I know you have many interests outside your job — can you list them and tell me what about them fascinates you?

I enjoy gardening, fishing, carpenty and metal work. I weld sculpture and shelving using a Mig Welder. I play the piano and the guitar and sing. I sculpt clay, carve wood, engrave coins, make ceramics, swim, play video games, sew and crochet. I am currently learning Japanese, French and Spanish. 

I’ve spent most of my life trying to be as independent as possible. If an opportunity came up for me to learn something I did not previously know, I would jump at it. This habit has left me with a full range of hobbies. With art, my grandmother had been a Girl Scout leader and had a basement full of art supplies. I was allowed access to them whenever I wanted and spent most of my time building doll houses and sewing outfits for my toys. In Ohio, my grandmother would grow most of our food in the garden and our cellar was full of jars of food we had grown and processed ourselves. I like creating things, whether it is food, music or art.

• I am betting you have an interesting philosophy about life. If I am right, will you share it?

I don’t know that I’ve ever sat down long enough to properly organize a whole philosophy. Most of what has gotten me through life has been a stubborn independence combined with an absurdly optimistic outlook on life. If I were to distill it all down to a single bit of advice, it would be this:

Do not concern yourself with how long it might take you to accomplish your goals. The time will pass regardless of what you choose to do.

• If you could give the leaders of this company one piece of advice, what would it be?

Please let us work from home forever. I would like to be closer to my family as I do not have any out here (but never want to leave this company again!). It would allow everyone the freedom to live where they wanted while working where they wanted. What an amazing work/life balance that could be.

In our work-from-work days, Sara Brown was, for many callers, the voice of the newsroom. As News Assistant, she heard from exasperated people with problems no one else had time to handle, confused people who’d called the wrong department, angry people itching to give the Arizona Daily Star a piece of their mind… and lonely people who just wanted someone to talk to. That’s no longer the case in our work-from-home era. Here are her reflections on that job and her life:

Her background in home delivery.

I was born in Post Falls, Idaho. I was born at home, delivered by my dad because we couldn’t make it to the hospital. I ended up living in Arizona, thanks to the “Ice Storm of ’99” they called it. We were sick of the winter and my parents had lived in Tucson 30 years ago, so we flew down to look around. The gem show was happening and so we couldn’t get a hotel in Tucson for the full two weeks we planned, so we ended up staying in Benson. My parents ended up buying a house there.

I am the baby of the family. I have two older brothers and an older sister. My dad has been in construction and custom cabinets and furniture. It was a family business, so I learned to pour concrete and set trusses and sand cabinets. My mom went to school to be a teacher but ran the paperwork for my dad’s business and was a stay-at-home mom. Pretty much everyone in my family owns their own business, so me working for someone else makes me the odd duck, I guess.

Star struck.

I started at the ADS June 2014 – as a part time news assistant. I am now the opinion coordinator and work full time. Before working at the Star, I worked for the Benson newspaper. My job has included working on letters to the editor and finding guests for the editorial department weekly zoom chat with our readers. I also do some briefs for business, Ask Amy, Adopt a friend, Death notices, we recommend, farmers market, Keeping the Faith page and whatever else I’m asked to do.

When I tell people I work at the newspaper they think that is cool. And they always say “we subscribe” or share their complaint about us.

Ask Sara.

One man would call with questions about certain articles, usually what something meant…but then he always had a joke to share. This happened a few times each week.

Upside/downside of the job.

I hate to say this, but I feel that this job hardened me a bit. I am naive and gullible in always wanting to take people at face value and think the best of others. But people say things as fact that have no basis and people are rude for no reason because they feel we are the platform for them.

On the other hand, I love what I do and my team I work with. I appreciate that my workplace has made me feel valued in the workplace as a woman and an individual.

My parents bought me a recorder from Costco when I was really young and I was always recording everyone’s conversations in the family, so maybe I’m doing what I always wanted!

Her outlook on life.

I look at things a bit different than most. My spirituality is number one and everything else is a means to an end in life. So yes, this is what I do for a living and I do love it, but this is not what defines me.

Life after work.

I am really involved in my church. I try to do as much for others to help as much as possible. My husband and I have two dogs, so we enjoy spending time with them and being outside. We love to cook together. I also make all my own laundry soap, dishwasher soap, deodorant, body wash; it’s fun and my body hates commercialized products I guess so I do it out of necessity, too.

We are super social and have a lot of friends and are always having them over for dinner and games or going out (the pandemic has changed that, but hopefully soon we can enjoy that again.)

My husband is my best friend. We have been married for 15 years this year, so we just enjoy doing anything together.

I guess he’s my hubby and my hobby.

If there was an employee award for the person born farthest from Tucson, Maria Maldonado, Advertising, surely would win. She’s come 5,724 miles—with a side trip or two—to be a translator on the Classified ad team. Recently she shared her journey and her thoughts with STARDOM.

Maria’s origin story.

I was born and raised in Ceuta, a Spanish exclave in North Africa. My maternal grandfather, a lieutenant colonel in the Spanish Army was stationed there, liked it, and ended up staying after retirement. I’m the oldest of three kids and second generation born there. I was 14 when our family moved to Madrid. Not in my wildest dreams would I have ever imagined that one day I would be living thousands of miles away in Tucson, Arizona

Love brought me here in 1984; that love story was short-lived, but certainly changed the course of my life and place of residence. I have six adult children, two of the youngest ones still live with me, together with two dogs, one ancient cat and several fish; incredibly, despite having so many children, I still don’t have any grandkids!

Childhood dreams.

When I was little I wanted to be many  different things; the aspirations would change often but two of them never did, traveling the world in a Land Rover (I don’t remember why I chose that specific vehicle) and becoming a dancer.

Reaching for the Star.

I started working at AZ Daily Start in 2004, alerted to the available position by someone I had met while trying to find work at Sunnyside School District. I already had experience translating, mostly news, while working for several years for two Spanish language radio stations here in town; I was a DJ there, but part of my daily responsibilities was to translate and write the news and some advertising ads.

Thinking in two languages.

I enjoy translating and interpreting. I find it both challenging and rewarding. I also have some experience in consecutive interpretation; the most challenging part in both cases is often to translate idioms and expressions while reflecting the culture and society of the target language.

In English, there is only one way of saying “you” no matter to whom we are speaking to; in Spanish, there are different ways of saying “you” we use a formal one when speaking to someone older or in a position of power or someone that you just met and is older than you; and use the informal one with family , friends, children or people you feel comfortable with. When translating, I most of the time mirror the tone of the text and adapt it when necessary.

Life off the clock.

Outside the job, I like anything and everything ocean related, I LOVE the ocean; also, hiking, backpacking, road trips, gardening, and dancing.

The work ahead.

I wouldn’t mind occasionally working in our new home in Marana, I would particularly like to see my coworkers in person, but I’m very happy working from home and I hope it stays that way.

Her advice to our leaders.

Same advice as to anyone else: Be nice, inspiring, fair and fun 😊

It’s refreshing to hear from a teammate who is engrossed in something besides the job. One such life-work-balance individual is Johanna Eubank, newsroom, who has strung together varied interests to create a happy hobbby.

When I have free time, I get out my beads and jewelry supplies. I’m no pro, but it’s lots of fun.  Now that my craft room has been invaded by my office, it’s getting crowded, but I’m making it work. I think my friends are tired of getting jewelry from me for Christmas and birthdays, so I might have to go back to sewing soon.

Julie Goksel, Digital Fulfillment

I have the liberty of starting earlier and get a jump on my day.  I can also circle back in the evening if necessary.  I stand and stretch more as I have the privacy to do so and feel healthier. Because I am not rushed to get out of the house I prepare healthier meals and do less fast food. My standard work-at-home business apparel is Yoga pants and T-shirt.

I miss the stand-ups where we were all present.  Although I feel very connected with my department, I feel I have lost touch a bit from the other side. (Hint to my friends on the ad sales side: It would be nice to be included in emails regarding new sales initiatives, etc.!)

Do I wish that working from home would remain some part of my job from now on?  BIG YES!

Tim O’Connor, Advertising Sales

I tend to rely more on emails these days.  The response rate is higher, and I can reach more customers/prospects. My standard apparel is a Hawaiian shirt, shorts, athletic shoes/sandals, and cowboy hat (optional).

Have my eating habits changed? I’m eating a better breakfast since I’m not driving to work.  Lunch is the same – PBJ + veggie

Working at home is efficient in so many ways.  But a balance of telecommuting and office would be better.

Jay Walsh, Digital Video

It’s actually pretty nice working when I’m at my most productive. Sometimes I wake up stupid early and jump on the computer, get a few hours in, then take a break to make breakfast. Plus, having access to all my equipment and software turns a 2-hour in-office job in to a 20-minute fix.

What’s missing is the ability to give that sideways glance to your buddy at the table when someone makes an incredibly, ahem, “questionable” comment. Not sure how to fix that… maybe have a second Skype window open with them?

My standard work-at-home business apparel is bunny slippers and a speedo. However, for important TEAMS meetings, I’ll break out the Dress Bathrobe. Surprisingly, not much has changed in my breakfast or lunch menu… except for, maybe, when I eat those meals.

Do I wish that working from home would remain some part of my job from now on? OMG… Yaaaasssss!!!

Missy Davis, Graphic Designer, Lead Paginator

My job is precisely the same whether I am working from home or at the office except I make fewer trips to Carlos’s candy bowl. I noticed that using TEAMS has improved communications and I enjoy Zoom meetings.

Working from home, I usually wear t-shirts and comfy pants and slippers and a robe. I may or may not brush my hair until around noon.

Being in a home office is lovely for so many reasons. I have been making healthy foods as I have the time to prepare them, now. It has been transformative. I have been making a lot of stews and slow-cooking recipes and casseroles and have been saving money due to not eating out as much. With the savings from dining, I purchased an exercise bike and it has become my routine to hop on it during my lunch break.

I hope that working from home remains an option forever. I cannot think of a single aspect of my life that has not been altered as a result, in a positive manner. It has revolutionized my exercise habits, nutrition, savings and mental health. Most importantly, I feel safe and valued. Additionally, not needing to drive is great for the environment!

After months of working remotely while prospective buyers toured our headquarters, one stepped forward with the winning bid in the auction held Sept. 17. Now begins planning for our new home…which is all but certain to be a spacious facility just off Thornydale Road and just behind Costco in Marana. It currently serves as our Circulation Distribution Center.

President and Publisher John D’Orlando gives us this update on that sale and those plans.

1. What do we know so far about the sale of 4850?

The sale was handled by the Gannett real estate team, CBRE and a third-party auction company. The property sold for over $3 million and the scheduled closing date is in late October.  Leading up to the closing date we’ll negotiate various agreements, including the ability for us to stay at 4850 for up to 9 months, this is called a ‘leaseback’ where we will be the new owners’ tenant.  Speaking of the new owner, we don’t know much about them yet, other than they are an out of state private investor.  We expect to learn more about them soon, as well as understand how the property will be used.

• What’s the reasoning behind our choosing the Marana Distribution Center as our new home as opposed to, say, Downtown?

First of all, there are some occupancy codes we have to clear before we can say we’re choosing the Marana location as a new home.  But our thinking about the distribution center has developed over time for several reasons:

• A year ago, when we were looking for a replacement office, we were looking for a very large office space with offices, cubicles, conference rooms and other amenities. After COVID-19 struck we realized that working from home was very efficient and that we may not need such a large office space.  After making more field trips to various vacant offices around midtown we came to see that our office needs could possibly be met with leased space we already have available at the Marana property.
• COVID restrictions have also changed how our distribution center is used, meaning our carriers are no longer entering the building to prepare their newspapers for delivery.  This afforded us the opportunity to reimagine new uses for the underutilized warehouse space.  While the warehouse does need some work to convert certain spaces to a suitable office environment, we are excited for the opportunity to maximize the space that we are already renting.
• COVID has changed the way we, and everyone, are looking at office space going forward. We won’t have a need for everyone to assemble every day. It’ll be equipped for employees to stop in when they need to, teams to meet when they need to, etc.
• If down the road we feel we do need more visibility we can always look at something closer to downtown or the geographic center of Tucson at that time. It may just be a small location while keeping a presence in Marana. We’ll play that by ear and readjust as COVID restrictions change with time.

• What, if anything, should employees gather now for the move?

As far as moving personal items goes, employees can certainly grab those items at any time. We don’t have any direction yet regarding moving work items or what that process may look like.  We will formulate relocation plans once more information has become available and we’re ready to move.

• What would be a conservative timeline for the relocation?

We’re hoping for late first quarter or the second quarter of 2021. We’re working with an architect and general contractor to secure the permits required to modify the warehouse to office space.  We’ve been told that’s taking quite a bit of time, which will drive the timeline.

• Can you give employees an overview of that facility?

It’s currently a warehouse/distribution center located right behind Costco and next to Top Golf. Our plan is to segregate a portion at the end of the facility, convert it to an office space, have a separate entrance for it, move 42 cubicles from 4850, have space for conference rooms and break room.

• What are your thoughts on how our post-pandemic workplace will function—the dynamics of working in place/working from home mix?

My gut feeling is that on any given day, at any given time, between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. there might be 20-25 employees working from Marana and the rest will be doing exactly what they’re currently doing, working from home.

• Do you want employees to send suggestions about what they’d like to see in the new office space, given the info you’ve presented?

I suggest they discuss these with their director since the directors are up to speed on everything we’re doing.  If ideas come up through that process, we can discuss how we could incorporate them.

Dannyle Norris projects an aura of calm from behind the Security Desk she occupies weekday afternoons at 4850. Like her early-shift partner, Sabrina Salinas (STARDOM, January), Dannyle keeps lookout quietly and mostly alone the entire shift. She’s all business. But away from the shop her life is fun, games and creative thinking. Here’s Dannyle on Dannyle.

1. My full name is Dannyle Rose Norris. Most friends call me El or Tristan.
2. I was born and raised here in Tucson. I went to four different schools, but ultimately got my GED after Junior Year at High School with Pima Community College.
3. Most of my family lives here in Arizona with only a few in the other states.
4. My interests outside this job are games (mobile, video, card, and tabletop) and arts and crafts along with reading and writing.
5. To pass the time there’s not a whole lot to do. I may jot some ideas down in journals I carry to flesh-out later on when I have time, though.
6. I wanted to be a lot of things when I was younger though they typically revolved around being artistic or entering the military or NASA.

There’s much, much more to know about Jorge Rancano than his talent for keeping our old, Rube Goldberg-ish plant humming. His name, for one thing. He is happy to go by the Spanish pronunciation (phonetically, “Hor-Hey”) or the English, George. Oddly enough, as a kid growing up in Mexico, everyone called him George. Then there’s his insistence that he came to us with a 5-year guarantee—a pledge of loyalty and quality performance he made to his boss, Joel Rohlik, when hired six years ago. Still under warranty, Jorge shared these thoughts recently with STARDOM:

• Where did you grow up? What brought you to Tucson?

I was born in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. I met my now-ex-wife when I was working in Nogales. I spoke a lot less English then than I do now, and she spoke very little Spanish, so we communicated by using a dictionary. She encouraged me to leave the job I had in Nogales and make a career in the United States. We moved to Sierra Vista and then, in 2000, to Tucson. I learned so much from her. Even though we eventually divorced after 12 years, I will always be grateful to her for that.

• Tell me a little about your family.

In our household there is my partner and me and her two daughters, Melanie and Melissa. Living with a 12-year-old and a 13-year-old is…interesting. That’s all I will say!

• When did you start work here? Where did you work prior to the Daily Star?

I started at the Star in 2014. I was a maintenance technician at another Tucson company before that.

• You seem to be able to fix just about anything—have you always had that talent or is it knowledge you’ve picked up over time?

I’ve always liked to fix and build things. When I was a kid I would take apart things like my mother’s blender and put it back together…or mostly together! When I was 13 I got a construction job helping make footings for houses. There was a lot digging in caliche hard as a rock in that job!

• What is a typical week at work for you now, when everyone else is working from home?

There really is no typical week. There is some routine maintenance—some of it every month, some of it every two or three weeks—but because of the age of the building and all the different systems in it, there’s a lot of fixing, too. This building runs on three systems, electrical, mechanical and pneumatic, and maintaining all of them means no week is ever the same.

• What is it about your job that keeps you motivated week-in, week-out—especially with almost no one in the building to talk to most of the time?

It’s the challenge of the job. Never knowing what’s going to happen. One day the chiller must be fixed. Another day it might be a water leak. This morning it’s the tree limb in the parking lot that broke in the storm last night.

• What are your interests outside the job?

I am a gardener. Gardening keeps me grounded. You can lose your balance in life if you are not grounded. Right now, I’m growing flowers, tomatoes and sweet peppers, plus pomegranate, grapefruit, tangelo, mango, orange, lemon, almond and plum trees. I also grow rosemary, lemon balm, ginger and a Mexican fan palm.

• Is there any little-known thing about you that would surprise your co-workers?

I was a bouncer in a Nogales, Sonora, bar before I came to Tucson. My wife convinced me that there was no future in that job.

• What did you want to be when you were a kid or a teenager?

When I was young, I wanted to be a policeman. Then I got a position in the Nogales Police Department. It changed my mind. It was called “support,” but it was like being a bouncer in a different way. I didn’t stay long, and after a while I never thought about that again.

• If you could give the leaders of this company one piece of advice, what would it be?

Make sure you enjoy life. Everything is temporary, so enjoy what you have and what you do right now.

• 

• 

• 

1. How did you find out about the rescue operation?

It was a mundane assignment and a lot of luck. I was given an assignment to photograph washes being cleaned for Metro. Rick Wiley, photo editor, gave me info on where TDOT would be working, and I showed up thinking I’d get far-off shots of some big equipment moving rubble out of the wash.

I was really lucky I got there when I did. One of the crew drove up and we chatted a bit. He recommended I walk a block or so up because there was more trash dumped in that area and he thought it was important for people to know about how littered these washes are.

When I got up there, the bulldozer operator suddenly stopped. I thought maybe I had done something but soon found out he had spotted these kittens in the wash. I still don’t know how he saw them, but he did.

2. Do you know what happened to the kittens?

From what I know, a neighbor took them to PACC. The TDOT crew took good care of them, putting them in a box of t-shirts and asking around to see if anyone knew about them. The neighbor offered to take them to PACC on her way to the vet.

3. Was there any sign of the momma cat during the rescue?

No sign of the mom. The crew looked around for a bit to see if there were any other kittens or the mom but found nothing. They discussed leaving the kittens there for the mom but decided against it when the neighbor offered to take them. I think there was a lot of worry to leave them in a wash.

4. Was running the photos in the Star an easy “pitch” to the editors?

I didn’t really have to pitch. We were running something on the wash cleaning either way. I let Rick know that something really unique had happened. I think as a photo department we all know the strongest photos should be given the best placement. Why run a generic photo of some machines in a wash if there is an image that tells a more unique story of what cleaning out Tucson washes really looks like?

5. What’s the key photographing breaking news stories?

You have to keep you head on a swivel and stay aware of your surroundings. Other than that, try to make good pictures that tell a story and convey emotion.