NorthernArizonaNews.com
INSIDE A&E: Cupcakes, p 23 Sports: Track and field, p 17 Opinion: AZ centennial, p 8
SINCE 1914 Issue 5,
Life: Required reading p 15
VOL 99 Feb. 16, 2012 - Feb. 22, 2012
LOADED
LEGISLATION Bill goes to Brewer’s desk for round two
F
BY AURELIA ACQUATI
irearms may soon be allowed on Arizona college campuses if Senate Bill 1474 passes. This past April, Gov. Brewer vetoed the bill, which was then SB 1467. In her veto letter, she said the bill was too ambiguous in stating its key concepts of where weapons can be carried and how K-12 schools will be affected. “Bills impacting our Second Amendment rights have to be crystal clear so that gun owners don’t become lawbreakers by accident,” Brewer said. The bill has been modified to correct the areas in which Brewer said were too vague, in hopes of being passed this time around.
see GUNS page 5
ARIZONA TURNS 10 0 BY MARIA DICOSOLA
(Photo by Daniel Daw)
W
ith 13 vibrant yellow and red rays bursting out of a copper star atop a deep navy blue field, the Arizona state flag is celebrating its 100th birthday along with the state. What most people don’t know is the original flag was sewn together by an NAU alumna. Sean Evans, an archivist at NAU’s Cline Library, spoke to NAZ Today about the origins of Arizona’s historic state flag. “As it turns out, it looks like the person who made the flag was May Hicks,” Evans said. He explained Hicks was engaged to a member of the Arizona National Guard, Frank Curtis. The Guard was preparing to attend a shooting competition in Ohio when they realized they were the only state without a flag. Therefore, Curtis requested his fiancee, Hicks, to make a flag. “So, they did some rough sketching — I
guess Frank Curtis is supposedly the one who did the sketches of the flag and sent it back to Flagstaff,” Evans said. “May Hicks was a graduate of Northern Arizona Normal School, NANS, one of NAU’s predecessor institutions, and so in 1911 she stitched this thing together and sent it off to them and it wound up at the competition.” In 1912, the legislature chose to adopt the design as the state flag — which is the same design used today. Despite historical references, which include pictures of Hicks wrapped in the flag and holding it, he said the museum that the original flag is displayed in does not lend credit to Hicks. “The flag, as near as I know, is actually located at the State Museum down at the Capitol, but they just don’t talk much about May Hicks being the person who actually created the flag,”
Evans said. “Kind of her own Betsy Ross story, so to speak.” According to Evans, Hicks, who eventually married Curtis, graduated from NANS in 1905, most likely with a degree in education. Although Flagstaff is a smaller city in Arizona, Evans said the region contributed much more to the state’s history than many believe. “It’s sort of funny when you look at the history of Northern Arizona University and our institutions on campus, how little things like this sort of jump out and surprise you,” Evans said. “You tend to think of Arizona as being very Phoenixcentric or maybe Tucson-centric and yet, here’s little old NAU and we’ve just got these little stories . . . So we may be far removed from the Capitol and the seat of power and the politics and stuff, but our citizens contributed a lot over the years.”
Go to NorthernArizonaNews.com for daily updates, multimedia packages, extra content and stories before the issue hits the stands.