Culturekeepers, started in 2002, annually celebrates ten Arizonans who are committed to upholding the traditions, rituals and cultures of the state. This year’s Culturekeepers were selected from more than 100 nominees. Nominations for 2006 are being accepted now.  The Arizona Historical Foundation and The Westin Kierland Resort & Spa collaborated on this still-new statewide cultural recognition project. The selection committee is led by Marshall Trimble, Official State Historian, and was originated by Katherine “Kax” Herberger, longtime Phoenix philanthropist, who passed away in 2003.

“We’re proud to acknowledge these unsung heroes,” said Trimble. “These are longtime Arizona residents who spend their days working to better their communities, but rarely are recognized for their contributions.”

Jim and Dean Cook (Wickenburg and Glendale, respectively) - Jim Cook is Arizona’s Official State Liar and director of the Wickenburg Institute for Factual Diversity, located beside the storied Hassayampa River.  He publishes a regular e-newsletter called the “Journal of Prevarication.”  As you might expect, he is a master of the Western tradition of the tall tale.  Jim Cook is a former editor and writer for the daily newspaper, The Arizona Republic, where he mostly stuck to the facts.  His history column was a fixture at The Republic until his retirement in 1994.  His brother Dean Cook is a performing songwriter, storyteller and cowboy poet.  A native Arizonan, he weaves his life experiences into songs and stories about the West as it was, is, and should have been.  Dean Cook is a regular at cowboy gatherings, music festivals, and historical events around Arizona and the Southwest.

Mona McCroskey (Prescott) – Mona McCroskey is a fourth-generation Arizonan, member of a pioneer ranching family in Yavapai County.  She has published several articles and books about Arizonan history and has endowed the Archives Internship program at the Sharlot Hall Museum, enabling beginning archivists to experience on-the-job training during the summer months.  McCroskey’s greatest contributions have come from her work as an oral historian for the Sharlot Hall Museum.  She has interviewed over 300 people since 1991.  In 2000 she received the coveted Sharlot Hall Award, which goes to a living Arizona woman who has devoted her lifetime to the preservation of Arizona history.

Paul Messinger (Scottsdale) – For more than 60 years, Paul Messinger has devoted his time, energy, vision and historic perspective to Scottsdale and the area as a businessman and community leader.  His passions include maintaining and promoting the city’s history, chairing fund-raising campaigns for the city’s most popular sculpture, “The Yearlings,” as well as “One With The Eagle” at the entrance to the Scottsdale Airpark.  He regularly writes about the history of Scottsdale for the Scottsdale Republic, part of the daily newspaper The Arizona Republic.  Through the years Messinger has been consistently involved in the community both publicly and behind the scenes.  Not a single-cause advocate, his interests range from good government to history to the environment.

Jayne Peace and Jinx Pyle (Payson) – Jayne Peace and her husband, Eugene “Jinx” Pyle, are the Official Historians of Payson, Arizona.  They are descendants of generations of pioneer families and steeped in Arizona history.  Having written several books themselves, in 2002 Peace and Pyle created Git A Rope! Publishing, Inc., the goal of which is to record and preserve the history of Arizona and to help Arizona authors of history get published.  Peace also started the Daughters of the Gila County Pioneers Scholarship Program, which gives a scholarship each year to a graduating high school senior woman of pioneer heritage in Gila County.

Jeri Robson (Wickenburg) – Jeri Robson and her late husband Charles also come from pioneer stock.  Charles had purchased the Nella Meda gold mining property in the late 1970s, near Wickenburg, and after Jeri and Charles were married, he proposed restoring the old mining town.  This was the beginning of “Robson’s Arizona Mining World.”  Fourteen buildings comprising a “Main Street” have been brought from other sites or built on-site and faithfully restored, including a hotel, a restaurant, replicas of old stores, and a collection of old mining equipment.  There is also an exhibit of mineral specimens and a collection of artifacts and antiques.  Here, Arizona’s “Old West” lives again.

Garnette Franklin (Holbrook) – Born Garnette Meadows in Dewey, Okla., in 1914, her family moved to Holbrook in 1919.  Franklin had her first story published in a popular children’s magazine in 1925, at age 11.  Franklin continued to write and draw, and in 1980, when the new county complex was built, Franklin was asked by county officials to start a historical museum in the old building.  Since then, preserving Holbrook’s history for posterity has been her life’s work.  Franklin remains to this day a talented artist and determined historian, and tirelessly promotes Holbrook.  The accomplishment of which she is most proud, however, is her map of the nearby Navajo reservation, which greatly assisted the Navajo living there.

Calvin Goode (Phoenix) – Calvin Goode’s family came to Arizona when he was an infant and settled in a homestead near Gila Bend.  He is a graduate of Carver High School, which was an all-black school until 1953 and is now the site of the George Washington Carver Museum, which focuses on Arizona’s African-American history.  Goode is only the second African-American to serve on the Phoenix City Council (he is now retired).  He championed a range of programs, from Head Start, a federally funded preschool program for economically disadvantaged families, to downtown-renewal projects.  In addition to his service to the city, Goode spent 30 years in a variety of administrative capacities with the Phoenix Union High School District. His dedication to civic issues was the inspiration behind naming the Municipal Building at Second Avenue and Washington Street in his honor.

Susie Yazzie (Monument Valley) – Susie Yazzie is of the Todicheenie Clan of the Navajo, and is considered the most photographed Navajo of all the 300,000 members of the Tribe.  Her rugs decorate homes and businesses throughout the world.  Since her teens Yazzie has invited hundreds of thousands of visitors to her Hogan, a sacred home for the Navajo who practice traditional religion.  She demonstrates how to card wool into thread, dye it, then weave fine Navajo rugs.  She also demonstrates cedar bead stringing; how the Hogan is constructed and why; and, for visiting women, how to put their hair in the traditional Navajo bun.  Yazzie is teaching her family to weave to carry on the tradition and keep the culture alive.

White Mountain Apache Tribe (Fort Apache) – The White Mountain Apache Tribe now consists of approximately 15,000 members. Many live on the Tribal Lands, but others live and work all over the country and the world.  On the reservation, over 2,600 square miles, one of the richest wildlife habitats in the state exists.  It is home to the Apache trout, a species brought back from the edge of extinction by the efforts of the tribe.  The White Mountain Apache Cultural Center serves as a repository for the Tribe's cultural heritage through the preservation of oral histories, archival materials and objects of cultural, historical and artistic significance to the White Mountain Apache people.  The Cultural Center also supports local artists and offers living history walking tours.  The Tribe has distinguished itself as the host for University of Arizona archaeological field schools and as the proponent of restoration and revitalization efforts at dozens of landmarks.

Travis Edmonson (Mesa; Nogales) – Travis Edmonson was born in Long Beach, Calif., and grew up in Nogales, Arizona.  He majored in anthropology at the University of Arizona and wrote the only existing dictionary of the Yaqui language after living with the tribe for a year.  He is the only non-Yaqui ever to be accepted into that tribe.  Edmonson got his start as one of Arizona’s premier musicians in a local mariachi band, later becoming a member of the Gateway Singers in the early ’50’s.  Later he partnered with Bud Dashiell and they became one of the great folk-pop duos.  Now working solo, Edmonson has been at the vanguard of the movement to bring Latin music north of the border.