OPINION

Send your opinions to opinions@scottsdale.org

Scottsdale.org l @ScottsdaleProgress /ScottsdaleProgress

Webinar shares importance of city’s tourism promotion

BY RACHEL SACCO

Progress Guest Writer

As residents, we all enjoy the bene�its that come with living in a thriving resort destination – hotels, spas, museums, restaurants, golf courses and more. Yet we don’t always recognize the parts that keep this economic engine thrumming. I hope that will change June 16 when Experience Scottsdale and the city of Scottsdale host “A Look Inside Scottsdale’s Tourism Industry,” a webinar that will cover the mechanisms in place to keep Scottsdale’s tourism industry strong. This spring, Scottsdale saw visitors return to our community in numbers not seen since February 2020. Occupancy rates reached their highest levels since the beginning of the pandemic in March, and with rates strong, our hotels and resorts injected valuable bed tax dollars into our coffers. What brought these visitors to Scottsdale? For some, it was the allure of special events like Barrett-Jackson Collector Car Auction, the Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show and Cactus League spring training. Others may have booked Scottsdale through the guidance of a travel advisor. Many surely came here to enjoy our incredible spring weather that they perhaps read about in a magazine article or heard about in a news segment. The city of Scottsdale helps create and fund special events that bring so many to our community, while Experience Scottsdale keeps the destination in the spotlight. This longstanding partnership between the city and Experience Scottsdale, now going on 35 years, has made our local tourism industry the economic driver that is it today – an industry that employs thousands, plays host to millions and generates billions in economic impact. I hope you’ll join Experience Scottsdale and the city for “A Look Inside Scottsdale’s Tourism Industry” as we cover the ins and outs of our partnership that has proven so bene�icial to the industry and community at large. During the webinar, you’ll get a glimpse of Experience Scottsdale’s advertising and promotions – those that so effectively attract visitors from around the globe yet are so rarely seen by residents. You’ll see the commercial that airs in markets like New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas and beyond. You’ll hear about the ways in which we train and educate thousands of travel advisors and tour operators to sell Scottsdale vacations. You’ll �ind out how we pitch stories about Scottsdale to generate positive media coverage in publications like AFAR, Travel + Leisure and The New York Times. And you’ll come away with an understanding of what it takes to book conferences, meetings and events in Scottsdale’s hotels and resorts. You’ll also learn how the money generated by visitors and meetings groups is funneled back into the community as the city invests visitor-paid sales tax dollars into important public services like police, �ire and transportation. Meanwhile, bed tax dollars, those paid by visitors staying overnight at our hotels and resorts, are used to support, improve and grow tourism events and capital projects, from Canal Convergence to Scottsdale Stadium. As one the city’s largest partners since 1987, Experience Scottsdale feels a great responsibility to our community’s residents. Our organization takes great pride in our work, and I think you’ll be proud too once you witness all that goes into our tourism industry and tourism promotion. Over the course of an hour, representatives from Experience Scottsdale and the city of Scottsdale’s Tourism & Events department will cover all this and more. Visit ExperienceScottsdale.com/Community/Tourism-Industry-Webinar to register. If you would like additional information, please contact Experience Scottsdale Director of Community Affairs Stephanie Pressler at spressler@ experiencescottsdale.com.

Editor’s Note: Rachel Sacco is the president and CEO of Experience Scottsdale.

Bracelet calls to mind Memoria l Day’s meaning

BY TRUDY THOMPSON SHUMAKER

AFN Guest Writer

Alovely woman has helped me with my nail care for 15 years. She gently removes my wedding ring, then The Bracelet. She carefully places them in a pretty glass bowl. She is as careful with The Bracelet as she is with my wedding ring. It’s sturdy stainless steel, scratched and a little lopsided from years of wear. For more than 50 years, I’ve worn it. Nobody ever asks about it. Except for an observant paramedic once. I told her no, it’s not a medical alert bracelet. Just load me up and take me to the hospital, will you? And last week an Uber driver asked about it. Her dad had served in Viet Nam but had come home safe. Physically safe, she emphasized, leaving the rest unsaid. The Bracelet isn’t jewelry. The now-battered band of stainless steel cost me $10 in 1969. I made money by babysitting for 50 cents per hour. All my classmates were buying them. I bought mine at the Fort Worth Fat Stock Show. Earnest, long-haired college students were there to sell us bracelets and tell us how important it was to wear them in support of POWs in Vietnam. My friends and I dug $10 from our bell bottoms and we made the solemn promise: we’d “wear them ‘til they come home.” Our bracelets were shiny stainless steel then, and the black block letters engraved on them told us the name of a young American and the date he had been lost. Mine read: CAPT. JERRY ROE 2-12-68 At home that night, the television news showed young American soldiers �ighting a war, just like we saw every night at dinner. Walter Cronkite droned on about the day’s casualties. I didn’t really realize that meant dead soldiers just a couple of years older than me. My dad asked me about The Bracelet. I did my best to explain what it meant. I told him about my promise. He looked at my mom and neither said anything. Did any of us high school students understand what our shiny new bracelets really meant? I didn’t. But now, more than 50 years later, I think I do. Mine meant that a young wife in Texas was left with a hole in her life. Was she a widow? She didn’t know. She hoped he would come home. A mom and a dad had lost a son – or had they? They hoped he would come home. Word spread through the friends that Jerry was missing. Was he ever coming home? They hoped so. Jerry had been born into a close-knit ���BRACELET ���� 27

Letters Reader questions gender row in SUSD

This is an open letter to Mrs. Dubauskas regarding the article “2 SUSD teachers under �ire for class behavior”. The concept of gender identity is actually not new. For example, it’s an integral, historical part of many Polynesian cultures and can center around creating a greater sense of family. So, the assertion that this concept is “woke” ideology is incorrect and I suspect more of a defense mechanism against something you are unfamiliar or afraid of. I don’t have all the facts of this story, but do you? When the children expressed concern, did you talk to Mia? Did you try to understand more about the conversation? Educate yourself or your children on why Mia doesn’t choose to identify? Or did you hide behind your letter? (for the record, Mister and Mrs are nothing more than social constructs we impose on ourselves, but I digress) Knowledge is power. When children are fearful, the best thing we as parents can do is educate them about what they fear. We cannot keep them from things that exist simply because they make us as parents uncomfortable. Indoctrination is the process of teaching a person or group to accept a set of beliefs uncritically. So, in fact, you are the one doing the indoctrination by not challenging yourself or your children to think critically about this issue. Rather you are simply accepting your misconceptions about gender identity. Can we instead teach our children to have intellectual humility, diversity of thought, curiosity and empathy? Can we ourselves as adults be better for our children? I applaud the school for standing by Mia and encourage everyone reading this to ask more questions and be okay with being uncomfortable on the things we might not yet understand.

-Michelle Bergquist

Editor’s note: The headline to the story, published May 16, should have read “2 SUSD employees under �ire for class behavior.” One was not a teacher. family on March 16, 1943 in a safe little town called New Boston, Texas. He left for Vietnam after college and �lew helicopters for the Army in Vietnam. Jerry’s family and friends kept him in their prayers, praying that someday he would come home But it’s been more than 50 years, and there’s still no word. Yet. On Feb. 12, 1968, Jerry, his crew and his helicopter disappeared without a trace into the jungles of Vietnam. Every day, until they died, those who loved him wondered what had happened to Jerry and his three crewmen: Wade L. Groth, Alan W. Gunn and Harry W. Brown were with Jerry that dark night. Jerry’s parents, his beloved cousin Sandy and many others have died without answers. What about the Groth, Gunn and Brown families? They have never gotten clear answers, either. That happens in war. Jerry’s family knew the U.S. Army helicopter he piloted had disappeared from the radar screen of his home base about 20 minutes after he and his crew departed. They were on an urgent medical

27

evacuation mission. Jerry’s family knew there had been an intensive three-day search, per Army protocol, then all four crew members had been declared missing. U.S. military members searched for signs of the helicopter and crew. Nothing. Many years later, there were reported sightings and other evidence that some of the crew were alive and imprisoned in Vietnam. But nothing about Jerry Roe. I remember feeling guilty as I went to college, because I was a girl, unconcerned with being drafted to go to Vietnam. So I did what I could, which was pathetically low-impact on my life. I kept wearing The Bracelet.

I started donating blood through the American Red Cross. I started volunteering with the American Red Cross. I read books about how the American Red Cross had been founded during the war, and was still serving during blue skies and gray skies. Fast forward to Memorial Day 2022. Captain Roe is still not home. He’s almost 80 now. I’m almost 69. I’m still giving blood. I’m still volunteering with the American Red Cross. And I’m still wearing The Bracelet.