Photos by Ralph Freso / Slideshow
Love for America and Arizona is personal.
Grand Canyon University senior Alex Miller spent a lot of time writing a version of his love on a postcard Friday in the Road to 250: Arizona Traveling Museum, which visited campus.
His grandfather served on an Arizona base during the Vietnam War, so the Minnesota native said his parents were born in Arizona.
“Now I have an opportunity to be down here, and I can start my life in the same place they did,” he said, placing his postcard in a mailbox whose contents will be saved to catalog the anniversary. “I wrote how GCU and this state has altered the direction of my life.”
It was that appreciation that radiated from the Quad, where the Arizona America250 Commission’s museum trailer was parked to commemorate America’s 250th anniversary and share the state's history in one of 31 Arizona tour stops.
Students from five area schools toured it in the morning before the public, and GCU students and employees arrived in the afternoon, following a midday program that featured Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, who chairs the Arizona America250 Commission.
Fontes said that the fundamental freedoms of religion, speech, association and press were hard won over 250 years, many by people the age of students gathered Friday who sacrificed home and family to ensure those freedoms.
“… So that many people of different walks of life, different backgrounds, different perspectives, could chase after that lamp of liberty, could look toward learning new and interesting things. Because it is the diversity of perspective that we have as Americans that we should enjoy,” he said.
As Arizona’s chief election officer, he said it is elections that help those diverse perspectives come together.
“I like to liken our elections, which were not going to be possible without 250 years ago having that Declaration of Independence, as the golden thread that runs through the fabric of all our society. That golden thread holds together education, medicine, law, arts and sciences, business and the like. If we allow some to pull that golden thread out, our society will disintegrate.
“So let us celebrate a Declaration of Independence from sameness, from one way of thinking. … And let us look forward on the new strong shoulders of 250 more years of independence, liberty and freedom in the United States of America.”
The crowd cheered on the Quad, joined by GCU cheerleaders, Thunder, the pep band and Critical Mass choir, which sang “God Bless America.”
GCU President Brian Mueller told the crowd that GCU wanted to host the museum and hold the event because the GCU neighborhood is “a microcosm of America. Within 10 square miles of this place, 72 different languages are spoken,” he said.
“For whatever reason, God has brought the world to us. He has brought it here in this community,” he said.
Adding GCU’s student population from all 50 states to a healthy Arizona economy, the university is working to positively influence its future.
“In doing that,” Mueller said, “we can have a vision for how America can operate the next 250 years.”
Those who attended had the chance to tour the museum, which includes Arizona’s Liberty Bell replica, made from mostly Arizona copper with a few chinks in its armor from protests at its location outside the Arizona State Capitol.
“I think people are hungry for an event that is about politics but isn’t political,” said tour manager Steve Weichert. “Here we can all celebrate that America is not how we vote; we are all Americans.”
Weichert said he is a child of the 1970s who never forgot visiting the original Liberty Bell in Philadelphia when he was 6 during the nation's bicentennial. It’s why he is involved with the tour today, sponsored by Banner Health and launched on Feb. 14 in Prescott. The tour will conclude in Bullhead City on April 9.
Laura Terech, executive director of the Arizona America250 Commission, said many appreciate the key moments of American life and “moments big and small that make our own history,” leaving sticky notes of thanks to America on one exhibit.
They ranged from a woman from the Netherlands writing that she reached her goal of becoming an American to another who was thankful for the right to vote, she said. Visitors at GCU wrote thanks on Friday of coming to the U.S. from Ukraine “to achieve the American dream,” for beating cancer, or for their dual citizenship.
Arizona history is included in half of the museum with photographs of Arizona people, historic sites and a video of beautiful locations.
Again, it was personal.
Terech said that as a descendant of two World War II veterans, she most appreciates the photograph of the USS Arizona battleship destroyed in Pearl Harbor and special photos of the new one under construction.
While one could muse over Teddy Roosevelt at the Grand Canyon or learn that Barry Goldwater was one of first to navigate the Colorado River through it, you also can see photos of farm workers in Yuma or marvel at the O’Odham’s 500 miles of canal built hundreds of years ago.
Or one might just read the Liberty Bell and contemplate the crux of America’s remarkable run of 250 years:
“Dedicated to you, a free citizen in a free land.”
“It represents freedom and liberty,” Weichert said. “All the ideas we hold dear in America is wrapped up in that bell.”
Grand Canyon University senior writer Mike Kilen can be reached at [email protected]
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The Road to 250: Arizona Traveling Museum will stop in 31 locations from Nogales to Page, listed here.
