The RODEO PARADE HONORS GIFFORDS, KELLY FOR COMMUNITY SERVICE

Former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly, have been chosen as the Grand Marshals for the 88^{th Tucson Rodeo Parade. They are honored for their community service to Southern Arizona and the nation.}

“Gabby,” as she’s affectionately known, is a native Tucsonan, graduating from University High School before graduating from Scripps College in California and earning a Master’s Degree in Regional Planning from Cornell University. She worked as an associate for regional economic development at Price Waterhouse in New York before becoming president and CEO of the family business, El Campo Tire Warehouses, a local auto service business.

Her political career began as with an election to the Arizona House of Representatives in 2000. In 2002 she became the youngest woman to be elected to the Arizona State Senate. In 2003 she was named the Arizona Family Literacy’s Outstanding Legislator, and in 2004 was named Legislator of the Year by the Mental Health Association of Arizona.

She was re-elected Senator in 2004, but resigned that position in 2005 to begin her campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives. In 2006 she became the third woman in Arizona history to be elected to the U.S. congress representing U.S. District 8, and was re-elected in 2008 and 2010. She was an advocate for comprehensive immigration reform that included a secure border, increasing Border Patrol Agents, and a guest worker program. She was also a staunch supporter of the military and increasing the minimum wage. In February 2010, Congresswoman Giffords honored the Tucson Rodeo Parade with an official commendation on the Congressional Record for its 85 years of service to the Tucson and Arizona community.

In January 2011 she was wounded in an assassination attempt, and resigned from Congress in January 2012 to focus on her recovery.

Mark Kelly is a retired U.S. astronaut and former Navy Captain and naval aviator who flew combat missions in the Gulf War. Kelly was selected to become a NASA Space Shuttle pilot in 1996 and piloted the shuttle in 2001 and 2006, and commanded shuttle missions in 2008 and 2001, the latter being his final mission and the final flight of the Space Shuttle Endeavour. During this mission, he received a call and papal blessing from Pope Benedict XVI; the first such call from a pope to astronauts during a mission.

In 2007 he and Gabby were married. After the Tucson shooting, they were thrust into the media spotlight and he has become a spokesman on what constitutes acceptable civil discourse. They have penned a memoir about their individual and shared experiences after the shooting titled Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope. They have recently launched an initiative called Americans for Responsible Solutions, calling for responsible changes in laws to require responsible gun ownership and reduce gun violence.

The Tucson Rodeo Parade Committee is proud to honor Gabrielle Giffords and Mark Kelley as Grand Marshals for their history of national and local community service, and their legacy of hope, strength, and love.

The Tucson Rodeo Parade Committee typically honors individuals as its Grand Marshal. This year the Parade Committee is honoring a Tucson institution. The Tucson Arizona Boys Chorus will lead the 2012 Tucson Rodeo Parade. The Boys Chorus exemplifies the tradition, culture, and southwest heritage that are epitomized in the Rodeo Parade. They have always included western songs such as “Ghost Riders in the Sky” “Cool Water” and “Ragtime Cowboy Joe” in their repertoire. The Boys Chorus was founded in 1939 by Eduardo Caso, a nationally known tenor who moved to Tucson to recuperate from tuberculosis. Caso took the boys on tours, introducing them to national audiences at the 1950 Chicago World’s Fair and on television programs such as the Bell Telephone Hour, the Ed Sullivan Show, and the Mike Douglas Show. They became international stars on tours of Europe in 1955, and Australia in 1960. In 1963 they sang at the White House at the annual Christmas treelighting ceremony. They are truly Tucson’s “Ambassadors in Blue Jeans.” The Chorus has had only four Directors in its 72 year history. Caso continued as director until his sudden death in 1965. Jeffrey Haskell, a University of Arizona doctoral student stepped in and served as Director for the next 10 years. In 1975 Dr. John Davis, a former soprano for the Boys Chorus, was named Director and continued the Chorus’ tradition of touring and community representation. The Chorus’ current Director, Dr. Julian Ackerley took charge in 1980 and took the boys to tour the Soviet Union, Germany, Austria and Poland to celebrate their 50th anniversary in 1990. They continue to tour nationally and internationally to locales such as Mexico, New Zealand, China, Southeast Asia, Europe, and South Africa. They have represented the United States at international choral gatherings in South Korea, Hong Kong, and the Czech Republic and have performed at several American Choral Director’s Association Conferences, AmericaFests singing festivals, the World Symposium on Choral Music, the International Children’s Choir Festival, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. In 1996 the Boys Chorus received the Governor’s Arts Award for Arts in Education acknowledging their artistic excellence as well as their aggressive community outreach program. The boys are also recording stars, recording their first album in 1959. They have recorded numerous albums featuring American popular music, Western ballads, patriotic favorites, Christmas and Hanukkah standards, and religious and spiritual classics. The Boys Chorus has passed along the principles of discipline, responsibility, commitment, and hard work to thousands of young men. The Tucson Rodeo Parade is proud to have the Tucson Arizona Boys Chorus as its 2012 Grand Marshal.

Joel D. Valdez currently serves as a special adviser to President Robert N. Shelton of the UA Foundation, offering guidance on the University’s growth and development and the UA’s role in the city’s Modern Streetcar Project, the future expansion of the Marriot University Park Hotel, the potential redevelopment of the northwest corner of Speedway and Campbell and much more. Prior his position with the Foundation, Valdez spent 20 years at the University of Arizona as senior vice president for business affairs where he served under four university presidents in his two decades on the job and implemented more than $1 billion worth of construction projects that have changed the face of the campus. Valdez’s work with the University followed a long successful career in Tucson city politics. From 1974 until 1990, he was appointed Tucson City Manager, during which time he oversaw 4,000 employees and administered hundreds of millions of dollars in capital improvements in many areas, including housing, water and sewer, public safety, libraries and various private ventures. Throughout his life, Valdez’ sphere of influence as extended far and wide in Tucson. Constantly active in his community, Valdez dedicated much of his free time to help others, where he has served on the boards of the Mariachi Conference (for which he is also a co-founder), Hellenic Cultural Foundation, United Way and the Diocese of Tucson, where he has been named a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre. He received a BS in education from UA in 1957, a Certificate from the Sloan School of Management, M.I.T in 1972 and a diploma fro Harvard University’s Senior Managers in Government school in 1978. Valdez, a Tucson native, and his wife Mary Lee have two children and five grandchildren.

The Tucson Rodeo Parade is honored to present,
James “Big Jim” Griffith as its 2010 Grand Marshal.
Teacher, founder, anthropologist, author, story teller, award-winning musician, and folklorist all describe the 2010 Tucson Rodeo Parade Grand Marshal, James “Big Jim” Griffith.
For over four decades Big Jim has studied folkways and religious expression throughout the United States-Mexico border region. Griffith’s work as an academic and public folklorist has been extraordinary and his legacy includes founding the Southwest Folklore Center at the University of Arizona and the annual Tucson Meet Yourself Folk Arts Festival.
Jim Griffith was born in Santa Barbara, California, and came to Tucson in 1955 to attend the University of Arizona. He has considered himself a permanent Tucson resident since 1963. He loves Southern Arizona and has said, “I guess I’ll stay in Tucson as long as it gets worse slower than other places.”
He received all three of his degrees from the University of Arizona, the Ph.D. in cultural anthropology and art history in 1973. From 1979 until his retirement in 1998 he ran the University’s Southwest Folklore Center. He is currently a Research Associate at the Center.
With his wife, Loma, he started Tucson Meet Yourself in 1974. The celebration of Tucson’s ethnic and cultural diversity now draws over 100,000 participants annually.
Although he retired as director of the festival in 1995, he is once again heavily involved in this project. Starting in 1985, he wrote and hosted “Southern Arizona Traditions,” a weekly 3-minute spot on KUAT-TV’s Arizona Illustrated program. For 2 ½ years in the late 1980s he wrote a monthly column on “Local Custom” for the now-defunct City Magazine. He was curator for eleven exhibitions of regional traditional arts, the most recent being “La Cadena Que No Se Corta/The Unbroken Chain: The Traditional Arts of Tucson’s Mexican American Community,” at the University of Arizona Museum of Art in the winter of 1996-7.
Griffith has written seven books on Southern Arizona and Northern Mexico folk arts, traditions and religious art. He has been honored by several literary societies and includes such awards as the 2005 Henry Glassie Award and the 2009 Pima County Library Lifetime Achievement Award. He is currently researching for a book on the religious art of Sonora, and finishing a guide to regional folklore.
Big Jim is also an accomplished and award-winning banjo player. He recorded Dixie Cowboy, a CD collection of bluegrass and folk tunes, and also collected the songs and wrote the liner notes for the CD Heroes and Horses: Corridos of the Arizona-Sonora Borderlands,
Jim Griffith’s professional commitment has always been to try to understand the cultures of this part of the border, and to pass along that understanding, as respectfully and accurately as possible, to the general public. His commitment to the history and culture of the Southwest make Big Jim a natural selection as Grand Marshal.

Mayor Robert E. Walkup was elected to his third term as Mayor of Tucson in 2007.

During his tenure there have been numerous fundamental changes in the way the Tucson region operates.

Under Mayor Walkup’s leadership, Tucson has begun utilizing its share of Colorado River water in 2001 to supplement its potable water supply and reduce its dependence on groundwater.

Mayor Walkup was instrumental in forming our Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) and gaining voter-approval for its $2.1 billion multi-modal transportation plan.

He helped form the Meth-Free Alliance, the Men’s Anti-Violence Partnership, and he led the City Council effort to increase public safety support over a ten-year period with 560 more police officers and 336 more firefighters and paramedics.

Working together with Pima County, Mayor Walkup has engineered consolidations of economic development agencies into one regional entity, the Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities, Inc. (TREO), and consolidation of our regional library system funding. His efforts in economic development have contributed to a net increase of 50,000 jobs and $10,000 per year in average worker earnings during his tenure.

Mayor Walkup was the first Arizona Mayor to sign the U.S. Mayor’s Climate Protection Agreement. His local environmental efforts that have resulted in doubling Tucson’s recycling rate, instituting impact fees to make new growth pay its fair share and requiring LEED certification on all new city buildings.

Believing that mayors can play a key role in reducing health care costs, Mayor Walkup initiated the Healthy Tucson Initiative locally and the Global Alliance for Community Wellness internationally. The Global Alliance commits mayors and city governments to partner with local health care leaders to demonstrate healthy lifestyles and support prevention programs in order to improve the city’s quality of life.

Mayor Walkup has a degree in Industrial Engineering from Iowa State University. He served in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and worked for over 37 years in the aerospace industry as an Industrial Engineer and Executive for Rockwell International, Fairchild Republic and Hughes Aircraft. He is Vice President of the Arizona League of Cities and Towns and is a member of the League’s Executive Committee. He also serves as Chairman of the Aviation Subcommittee for the US Conference of Mayors’ Transportation Committee.

Mayor Walkup and his wife, Beth Walkup, have five children and six grandchildren. He enjoys astronomy, classical history and is an avid cyclist.