Josh Allen and the art of being The Man

 BUFFALO — In the days after the disconsolate conclusion of the Buffalo Bills’ season in January, players trickled into General Manager Brandon Beane’s office for postmortem interviews. Amid the fog of a playoff loss, Beane has learned, nobody wants to hear what they need to improve. “They’re looking at you, kind of fighting back on what you say,” Beane said.

When Josh Allen staggered into the room, Beane had little to critique. The Bills asked as much of Allen as any player in the NFL, and he had carried them to within a missed field goal of potential advancement to the AFC championship game. Beane planned to gently remind Allen he needed to limit turnovers and better protect his body. Before Beane could start, Allen launched into a self-appraisal that mirrored the notes in front of Beane.

“Josh will reel it right off to you as if he was reading your mind,” Beane said. “He don’t even want to hear it from you. He’s that kid that walks in — ‘I know; I f---ing did this, this and this. And I got to be better.’”

For years, Allen has been Buffalo’s Atlas — carrying the franchise, if not the entire city — and yet he has taken on even more responsibility in his seventh season. His constant quest for improvement has yielded a quarterback playing at the highest level of an awing career. After an offseason in which the Bills reset their roster, Allen has led them back to the upper reaches of contention and mounted the league’s strongest challenge to Lamar Jackson’s MVP hegemony.

Allen will again lead the Bills on Sunday afternoon against the undefeated Kansas City Chiefs, the boogeyman who eliminated them from last year’s playoffs and has blocked Allen from the NFL’s pinnacle. The Bills have won a playoff game in four consecutive years. Patrick Mahomes’s Chiefs have ended their season in three of them.

It has not dimmed Allen’s resolve, even in a season when the Bills were expected to regress. The Bills purged a raft of veterans in the offseason — most notably with their trade of mercurial wideout Stefon Diggs to the Houston Texans — to bolster their future financial outlook. Players not on their roster account for nearly $70 million against the salary cap, second most in the NFL.

But the Bills have Allen, which means they have enough to be 8-2 and cruising to a sixth straight playoff berth. Allen’s statistical résumé does not stand apart from previous seasons, aside from his career-low interception rate. Still, coaches and teammates are unequivocal in their belief he has never played better or been more in command.

“He just finds ways to improve every year,” Bills tight end Dawson Knox said, “when you don’t think that might be possible.”

In ways both obvious and unseen, Allen epitomizes what it means to be an NFL franchise quarterback. He throws military-grade passes and scrambles like a hurricane. He also organizes remote offseason workouts, calls players-only strategy sessions, picks up the tab at celebratory dinners, makes post-practice tee times and hosted the team’s Halloween party. At 28, Allen has mastered the delicate art of being both the Man and one of the guys.

“He’s basically got the weight of this entire city on his shoulders,” Knox said. “I don’t know anyone else that can do it like he does. I can’t imagine the type of pressure and stress he has to deal with. The way he does it is just mind-blowing. He hasn’t changed one bit in terms of just being a good dude. I don’t know how that’s possible with what he has to deal with.”

Allen grew up on his family’s farm in rural central California — “the middle of nowhere,” Allen said. His mother stayed home and raised him. His father worked the cotton, cantaloupe and alfalfa crops. When Allen reached high school, his parents made their home the social hub for Allen’s friends and teammates. They played cards and video games and pickup sports. “Not a whole lot to do out on the farm,” Allen said.

The experience provided Allen a framework for how togetherness off the field creates bonds on it. When Allen entered the NFL, he deferred leadership to older teammates. Even as he became a captain and a superstar, he allowed elder voices — Diggs, center Mitch Morse, safeties Jordan Poyer and Micah Hyde — to dictate the tenor of the locker room.

As those veterans departed, Allen became one of the most tenured players on the roster. He felt emboldened to shape the team’s culture.

“I’m careful to say it because it wasn’t just a Diggs thing,” Beane said. “Their relationship, what it was or what it wasn’t, even if it was perfect, he still would have acquiesced. It took the weight off.”

When the Bills gathered for their first offseason practices, the only wideout Allen had thrown a pass to was third-year slot receiver Khalil Shakir. Allen made it his mission to take “as many mental reps as possible” with new teammates, “whether we’re on the football field or we’re just hanging out, we’re on the golf course, talking.” He applied the ethos of his family farm to the Bills’ locker room.

“Getting to know somebody deeper,” Allen said. “I do believe that pays dividends on the football field.”

“He doesn’t make guys feel like he’s above everybody else. That’s not him,” wide receiver Khalil Shakir said of Allen.

Each week during offseason practices, Allen took a new trio of teammates out for rounds of golf, his offseason obsession. He made intentional choices to bridge different ages and positions — one nine-hole round included Shakir, backup quarterback Shane Buechele and third-year linebacker Terrel Bernard.

Between June’s mandatory organized team activities and late-summer training camp, Allen arranged a trip with his wideouts, tight ends and running backs. He wanted to bring them to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in the state where he played college football. When he realized logistical hassles would mean better attendance elsewhere, he made arrangements for his teammates to stay in Nashville.

In the mornings, Allen would throw passes and instruct how he wanted routes run. In the afternoons, they might play golf. At night, they would extend dinner long into the night, talking football and sharing personal stories before Allen grabbed the bill.

It can be challenging for a franchise quarterback to connect with teammates, especially younger ones. They face pressure other players cannot fathom. They make more money. Their fame opens doors — Allen played Pine Valley this past offseason; ask your best golf sicko friend if you don’t know what that means — but also burdens every public movement. Their stature promotes ego.

“That’s the cool part — I don’t even think about that,” Shakir said. “He doesn’t make guys feel like he’s above everybody else. That’s not him. That would never be him. That’s Josh. He’s such a dope person inside and out.”

Allen’s ability to connect stems from both his natural outlook and his self-awareness. As his fame has grown, Allen realizes that rookies and young players new to the team may regard him at first as the star from highlights and national commercials. “Probably the first time they all see him throw a pass, it’s just like, ‘Wow!’” offensive coordinator Joe Brady said. Allen ensures they view him as a teammate they can approach and ask for help, not a distant figure they have to worry about impressing.

Allen organizes offseason workouts and in-season team gatherings. “He understands the locker room, understands the people, understands how to communicate with certain guys,” Brady said. “That’s a unique and special trait. When you’re the quarterback, the city, the organization is always on your shoulders. Every decision is magnified. Every throw. Everything. That’s a lot.”

During the season, Allen takes teammates out to eat and invites them and their wives to his home. Allen and his girlfriend, actress Hailee Steinfeld, hosted the Bills’ team Halloween party. They dressed up as circus ringleaders and greeted every Bills player at the door.

“The attendance matters, too,” Buechele said. “If you have a party and only a couple guys go, that kind of shows. But the whole team was there, and they wanted to be there, and we wanted to be around everybody. It’s a testament to Josh.”

On a recent Monday, longtime Bills left tackle Dion Dawkins and former Bills center Eric Wood, now a Bills radio analyst, hosted charity events on the same night. “He could have told Eric, ‘Hey, man, I already committed to Dion’s thing,’” Beane said. “But instead he goes to both.”

Allen is the most recognized person in Buffalo. Allen undertakes those commitments with a particular weight. Being a franchise quarterback in a small city may not be more difficult than being one in a bigger market, but it is undoubtedly a different, more intense obligation. Allen’s visage covers 11 stories of the Statler, an iconic downtown building. His No. 17 adorns backs in dive bars, hospitals and offices on Fridays — only seven players moved more jerseys this season, per the NFL Shop. He is the most recognized person in town, the most important player on the most important team, the reason hundreds of thousands people will be happy or sad on Monday morning, one man responsible for civic well-being in a way that’s both ludicrous and inevitable.

“It’s not easy being Josh in any city,” Beane said. “But in Buffalo, he can’t go anywhere.”

On a Saturday in October, two days before the Bills played a Monday night game, Shakir held a pet adoption event at a local brewery. “My wife called me,” Beane said. “She was like: ‘This place was a zoo. Then Josh got there. I felt so bad for him. They’re trying to have a roped-off area, and people were just swarming him.’ But he handles it so well. I just don’t know many people that would care enough. He knows him showing up is going to do something for Khalil Shakir.”

“He’s a pleaser,” quarterbacks coach Ronald Curry said. “He plays for more than himself.”

‘Whatever he touches, it’s been good’

Every offseason, Allen identifies facets he wants to improve. “There’s always something,” he said. In January, he chose to focus his spring and summer on the mental side of football. He wanted to comprehensively understand an offense Brady was rebuilding around him. He determined he would throw fewer interceptions.

Bills Coach Sean McDermott said Allen’s “command of our offense” has reached a new level. Brady described the evolution of Allen’s grasp as the difference between knowing the offense and being able to teach it. Allen already knew where every player should be on a given play. Now he can tell teammates their assignment and explain the multilayered rationale behind it.

“That two-way street of communication has been better than it’s ever been with him,” Knox said.

Allen has thrown only four interceptions this season, one of which bounced off rookie wideout Keon Coleman’s chest. Allen made slight tweaks to his throwing form in the spring, shortening his stride and tightening the path of his arm. But his turnover avoidance hinged mostly on his mentality.

Rather than playing every second and long as a life-and-death struggle, Allen has treated those plays as an opportunity. Allen has recognized, Brady said, that beating defenses playing safeties deep in shell-like alignments requires patience. During practice, Allen sometimes will bypass an open receiver so he can read the entire progression of a play and throw a checkdown.

Even with his increased discernment, Allen has not sacrificed the playmaking that forms the essence of his game. Two weeks ago, against the Dolphins, Allen was hemmed in by pass rushers near the goal line. He darted forward. Two Dolphins converged on him. As they blasted him, Allen flicked a pass at a three-quarters arm angle. It zipped into reserve tight end Quintin Morris’s hands in the end zone.

“It’s insane,” Knox said. “He’s got three guys tackling him, and he throws a touchdown pass. I turn into a fan sometimes on the field with him.”

“He’s in such a groove right now, whatever he touches, it’s been good,” Curry said. “Even his interceptions, those are good decisions. He’s Josh Allen for a reason. He’s going to make those plays every Sunday. That’s just what he does.”

Every offseason, Allen identifies something in his game he wants to improve. (Grace Hollars/USA Today Sports/Imagn Images)

Allen has even managed to lessen, if far from eliminate, his exposure to physical danger. Beane has for years implored Allen to avoid injurious hits, to stop hurdling tacklers and lowering his shoulder into linebackers.

“He’s always holding that ball to the sideline,” Beane said. “When I was getting on to him after three or four games again, he smirked at me and said, ‘You know there’s some stat out there that my completion percentage is higher than anyone’s from within one yard of the boundary.’ And I’m like, ‘Okay, d---head, I get it.’”

Early in the season, Allen took a blow that damaged his left hand and forced him to wear a protective wrap. Since then, Beane said, Allen has improved at “protecting himself and understanding we need him fresh in January, not walking in there taped together.”

“I don’t want to brag too much,” Beane said, grinning. “We still got some games left. I could have to yell at him.”

Bills Coach Sean McDermott said Allen’s “command of our offense” has reached a new level. (Jeffrey T. Barnes/AP)

While pushing Allen to reduce risky throws, the Bills have never worried internally about Allen’s interceptions as much as the outside football community has. Many of them, Beane said, were heaved on third and long — effectively punts. Several others occurred when Allen threw to the right spot but his wideout ran the wrong way.

The latter form of excusable picks reveals another way Allen excels in his role. He has received extensive criticism for his interceptions and countless chances to explain them away, to snap just once and fault a wideout’s mistake. He has not done it.

“We all know guys, even when they don’t directly point fingers, you read between the lines,” Beane said. “Josh never even gives you anything between the lines.

“Josh looks at the man in the mirror first. We could put up 35 points in a game and lose. He’s going to sit there and think of a play that could have made it 38 or 42. If you walk in our locker room after a game, he might have had four touchdowns, he might have 80 yards rushing, and he’s got f---ing blood all over him, whatever, and he’s just distraught that we didn’t win the game.”

Allen struck that precise pose in January, sitting in front of his locker in full uniform, still padded and bloodied, after the Chiefs beat the Bills in the divisional round. The Chiefs had come to Buffalo for Mahomes’s first road playoff game after the ugliest regular season of his tenure. The Bills were on the precipice of a roster overhaul, maxed out and built to topple Mahomes. None of it mattered.

This season, the tone has shifted for the Bills. Allen has used the result as fuel, and the Bills have coalesced around him. The Bills’ current era has been defined by regular season brilliance and playoff bitterness, with a backdrop of unease. Diggs could be unpredictable. McDermott could grow tight in close games. With Allen further asserting himself as the franchise leader this season, the tone in Buffalo has shifted.

“A lot of guys that are happy to be where they’re at,” left tackle Dion Dawkins said. “I can’t say that for the previous years. But this is a different team. Everybody is just happy all of the time.”

Dawkins noted that the sun was unseasonably still shining, the western New York winter gloom still at arm’s length. The Chiefs are coming to Buffalo again. Turbulence may yet strike the Bills. But they have Allen, and so they know they have everything they need.

Rogue Rabbit

 By Randy Dotinga

On a spring day in 1979, a waterborne rabbit approached the leader of the free world as he fished near his home in Georgia. President Jimmy Carter splashed it with an oar, seeing the creature was “clearly in distress, or perhaps berserk … making strange hissing noises and gnashing its teeth,” his press secretary Jody Powell later wrote. The rabbit swam away, its pair of bunny ears visible above the water line.

Four months later, news of the peculiar incident transformed it into an irresistible metaphor for a sinking presidency: How could Carter be trusted to vanquish inflation and gas lines when he couldn’t manage to keep the peace on a pond?

“I didn’t think Carter had a paddle,” jibed humorist Mark Russell. Both The Washington Post and the New York Times published cartoons depicting giant “Jaws”-like rabbits attacking Carter’s boat from below. There was even a novelty song by folk singer Tom Paxton called “I Don’t Want a Bunny Wunny,” with the lyrics “Think about the country, think about sin/Along swum a rabbit, and he tried to climb in.”

It was a “nightmare,” Powell recalled in his 1984 book “The Other Side of the Story.” And he blamed himself. 

According to Powell, Carter mentioned the rabbit encounter after he returned from an April trip home to Plains, Georgia, the same home where Carter died Sunday, at 100. “Faced with a mortal threat to the Carter presidency, I laughed,” Powell wrote. “Nor, as painful as it is to admit, was that the full extent of my culpability in this matter.”

Powell, who died in 2009, took responsibility for leaking the story to an Associated Press reporter in the summer doldrums of August 1979. In his 2020 book “His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life,” biographer Jonathan Alter wrote that the information actually came from White House secretary Susan Clough. Whatever the case, the resulting lighthearted AP story landed on the front page of The Post (“Bunny Goes Bugs/Rabbit Attacks President”) and Page A-16 of the Times.

The Washington Post front page from Aug. 30, 1979, featuring an AP story on President Jimmy Carter’s unfortunate rabbit run-in. (The Washington Post)

“It was a killer rabbit,” an unnamed Carter staffer was quoted as saying, having a bit of fun. “The President was swinging for his life.” The AP reported that a White House photographer had captured a photo of president and rabbit but that the administration declined to release it.

Then the wisecracks started. It didn’t help that a bloodthirsty “Killer Rabbit” had appeared in 1975’s “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” To make things worse, “the president was repeatedly asked to explain his behavior at town hall meetings, press conferences, and meetings with editors,” Powell wrote.

For Carter, the timing of the goofy story gone viral could hardly have been worse. The nation was grappling with high inflation and long gas lines, and the Iranian Revolution had begun.

Carter did manage to get praise for a summer 1979 speech calling for the nation to buck up and regain confidence, said Kai Bird, author of the 2021 biography “The Outlier: The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter.” But that was followed by the shock of Carter’s entire Cabinet and senior staff offering to resign in an effort to revive his presidency.

The rabbit incident played into a perception that the members of the Carter administration were “over their heads,” “inept” and didn’t “know how to run Washington,” Bird said.

The story also, according to Alter, gave fresh ammunition to critics who mocked the Carters as uncouth Southern hicks. Never mind the fact that Carter was an expert outdoorsman, nor that swamp rabbits — familiar to native Southerners like Powell but a bizarre concept to others — are a real, distinct species from the smaller, better-known eastern cottontail. They’re found in much of the South and parts of the Midwest, and are about as long as a beagle and as heavy as a Chihuahua, according to biologist Hayley C. Lanier, of the University of Oklahoma.

This was “not one of your cutesy, Easter Bunny-type rabbits,” Powell wrote.

Was something wrong with the rabbit that met Carter? Maybe not. Swamp rabbits are unlikely to get rabies, Lanier said, so that seems an unlikely explanation. Instead, it may simply have been trying to get away from trouble, she said, since the rabbits typically aren’t aggressive.

The Carter presidency ended in 1981 with the inauguration of Ronald Reagan, whose administration later released the White House photograph showing Carter in his boat, a large splash from his oar, and a rabbit fleeing in the water. Even today, the story is “certainly something that people of a certain age all remember,” Bird said.

For his part, Alter laments that the rabbit tale has staying power while Carter’s accomplishments in areas like environmental protection are largely forgotten. “People in our business just have to do better than turning this kind of thing into a defining moment of somebody’s presidency,” he said in an interview.

But Carter didn’t seem bitter when his biographer asked him about the rabbit hoopla decades later.

“He smiled ruefully,” Alter said.

Column by Barry Svrluga

Hey, Jayden Daniels. You don’t have to stand on the goal line, exhorting the Northwest Stadium crowd to get to its feet. The fans are there with you. You’ve got them wrapped around your finger. You earned it. Fire them up by thrusting your arms in the air? They’re fired up already, brother. For Sunday. And for the future.

The holidays feel different in Washington, now and next year and a decade hence, because Daniels plays for the hometown football team. That was true before Sunday afternoon. But after the final seconds of Sunday’s absolutely improbable, he-didn’t-just-do-that-did-he 36-33 victory over the hated Philadelphia Eagles, what’s clear is this: With Daniels, the Commanders always have a chance. With Daniels, everything is possible.

“If you give him moments, he really lights up in those spots,” Commanders Coach Dan Quinn said. “Today, he became a heavy hitter. He really did.”

(Artur Galocha/The Washington Post)

It was just the latest data point. It is now the most important. With his team down by five points and 1:52 remaining — and only a single timeout to spare — Daniels and the Commanders took over at their 43-yard line. Nine plays later, they were in the end zone, where Daniels found wide receiver Jamison Crowder for his fifth touchdown pass of the day. With six seconds showing on the clock, Daniels gave Washington its most significant regular season win since … when?

That’s a great bar stool debate. What’s important is that there could be more to come, because Daniels leads the way. He’s only a rookie, just 15 games into his career. Already, it’s his team. It’s damn near his town.

“He’s so poised,” star wide receiver Terry McLaurin said. “No matter if we’re making plays or we’re missing plays, he just has a way to stay even-keeled. And I’ve never seen that from a rookie at any position, let alone quarterback. ...

“He has a way of just making the right plays when it’s time. You can’t teach that. And I feel like his ability to continue to get better each and every week and learn from his mistakes is why I feel like he has a chance to be one of the great ones.”

That’s not hyperbole. It’s only a chance. But it’s a real one.

This victory — which gives the Commanders 10 wins in a season for the first time since 2012 and allows them to clinch a playoff spot next Sunday at home against Atlanta — was far from clean. But the fact that Daniels pulled this out is an extension of the complete flip-flop of reality for this franchise.

Think about it a few different ways for this game specifically. The Commanders committed five turnovers — and won. They were down 14-0 less than eight minutes in — and won. They allowed Eagles running back Saquon Barkley to gain 109 yards and two touchdowns on his first seven carries — and won.

That’s in part because Daniels overcame two interceptions — just his second two-pick game of the year — and accounted for 339 yards of offense (258 through the air, 81 on the ground). Daniels’s speed is blazing, his arm strong and accurate, his shiftiness more like a salsa dancer’s than a quarterback’s. But his greatest strength is actually to take one play and — regardless of its result — think about the next one, not the previous one. Quinn said he’s “able to clear.” His teammates all notice that trait is hardwired.

“I think the biggest thing people don’t really see: It’s like, hey, if he throws an interception or something like that, it doesn’t faze him,” offensive lineman Sam Cosmi said. “And a lot of QBs, that can really get into their heads. He doesn’t allow it. He just keeps going.

“So that’s a really hard characteristic to have. And him being so young and being able to do that, with the experience that he has, it’s pretty impressive.”

Daniels is at the center of this entire transformation, and it’s clear the Commanders wouldn’t have come back Sunday, wouldn’t have overcome all the turnovers, if not for him. (It’s also fair to point out the Eagles lost quarterback Jalen Hurts to a concussion in the first quarter, and while Kenny Pickett was fine as a backup, he’s not Hurts.)

But Daniels aside, the Commanders could overcome all they faced because this team, in its first year with a roster built by grown-up general manager Adam Peters and coached by the we-play-as-one Quinn, has shifted in attitude and ability. It’s palpable. Early on in this overhaul of an organization, the Commanders have won games they should have lost and lost games they should have won. Those experiences are invaluable as the calendar marches on.

“It builds a little callus, you know what I mean?” McLaurin said. “They get you ready for the next moment. … You look at everybody on that sideline today — they were square-jawed, looking you dead in the eye, ready to make the play to try to win the game.”

Whatever the play necessary, it’s almost certain to involve Daniels. He kept alive one second-half drive by turning a this-play-is-dead fourth and 11 into a squiggling, dizzying 29-yard conversion, leading to the touchdown that pulled Washington back from 13 down to within 27-21. He put them ahead by recognizing the Eagles had 12 men on the field, understanding he had a free play and patiently waiting for wide receiver Olamide Zaccheaus to break wide open before flicking him a 49-yard scoring pass.

And when he arrived in the huddle for that final possession, trailing 33-28 because the Eagles had kicked two field goals, the interception he threw to end the Commanders’ previous possession might as well have come in his junior year of high school. It seemed that far in the past. Pick? What pick?

“There’s no, ‘Oh, my gosh,’” Cosmi said. “There’s just no panic. And that keeps the rest of the offense calm.”

One timeout, 112 seconds and 57 yards to victory. Got Jayden? No problem.

“I love those type of situations when it’s on thin ice and plays need to be made,” Daniels said. “That’s what you live for if you really love this sport — for those big-time moments where it comes down to the end.”

It’s not yet Christmas. The Commanders are closing in on the playoffs.

Keep reading those sentences over and over. Then thank Jayden Daniels.

“When you’re moving at a pace the way we are, the past you can leave in the past,” McLaurin said. “We’re taking the necessary steps to continue to move forward. I don’t even think about the past anymore, to be honest. I’m living in the present — and looking forward to the future.”

That’s simply not what it has been like to be a Washington NFL player — a Washington NFL fan — for a decade or more. What will Daniels do next? There are so many possibilities. What we know: The next game is on “Sunday Night Football,” in the lights of prime time. A win clinches a postseason berth. 

Thank Jayden Daniels for it all

.

Geronimo

RIMROCK — Jerry “Geronimo” Martin brought the words of the legendary Apache warrior Geronimo to life at the Sycamore Community Park Wednesday as he stood in the middle of a camp-fire style circle of about 50 people seated in lawn chairs and on plastic buckets.

And those words even rang louder today as the Yavapai-Apache Nation is actively working to bring its displaced members back to its ancestral homeland in the Verde Valley by acquiring more land and building homes.

Martin, who said he is the great-great-grandson of Geronimo, told his stories in a deep voice and traditional clothing and explained how Geronimo came to the decision to surrender in 1886.

Geronimo and his group of Chiricahua Apache resisters evaded the U.S. Army for decades and didn’t want to live on the San Carlos Reservation, Martin said

The elder women who were in Geronimo’s resistance group told him, “We’re tired, we’re being pursued like animals, we’re hungry because provisions are becoming too hard to possess, we’re getting old, and we’ve become so few of us,” Martin explained to the people seated in lawns seats and plastic buckets.

“If we can save our tribe by coming home, we need to go home,” Martin said to the Rimrock Community Gathering Group members who were dead-still and didn’t make a sound during his storytelling.

The group gathers every Wednesday for different speakers, yoga, music, meditation, chanting, prayer, singing, energy, medicine, geology, archeology, exercises, herbs and health and wellness and is open to everyone.

The elder women told Geronimo that, “If we don’t have our children, no one will ever know we ever existed.” So Geronimo surrendered in Skeleton Canyon in Arizona.

During his surrender to Lt. Charles Gatewood, the warrior reportedly said, “Once I moved about like the wind. Now I surrender to you and that is all,” the warrior told Lt. Charles Gatewood during his surrender.

“The people are coming back together,” Martin said. “We knew that would happen when we got the sign. The sign of the White Buffalo. And that has already happened.”

In 1875, 1,400 Yavapai-Apache were driven from their land in the Verde Valley by the U.S. government.

“We’re going to continue to grow,” Chairwoman Tanya Lewis said Nov. 4 during the historic land exchange with the U.S. Forest Service. “This is an opportunity for generations to come as we’re taught to prepare for those who are not here.” Lewis said the Nation will continue to acquire land, to build back on their historical homeland.

Hey hey, Major Lingo's Ziegler is here to stay

The merry, pied piper singer of the Major Lingo tribe, John Ziegler, is entertaining a new clan these days. Slowly they walk in, some helped strollers, others in wheelchairs. The Cottonwood Villages conference room is packed as residents inspect the cart with birthday cupcakes and adult libations ready for his show. VVN/Vyto Starinskas

By VYTO STARINSKAS The Verde Independent Oct 22, 2024 

COTTONWOOD — The merry, pied-piper singer of the Major Lingo tribe is entertaining a new clan these days.

And they are just as engaged and mesmerized by the talented, guitar-slinging musician.

Slowly they walked in, some assisted by walkers, others in wheelchairs. The Cottonwood Village Senior Living conference room was packed as residents inspected the cart with birthday cupcakes and adult libations.

It’s a far cry from the wildly clad, free-form dancers that used to weave and blend into Ziegler’s hypnotic words and his bandmate’s New World music during Major Lingo gatherings.

“Lingo performed for 30 amazing years,” Ziegler said.” “Lingo’s retirement seems official, but the future is unwritten.”

The band put out about eight discs and songs with names such as the Gold Trapeze, Carnival Lives, To the Lighthouse, Mombas, Seventh Seal and Flaming June.

On the afternoon of Wednesday, Oct 16, Ziegler was performing again and serenading his latest audience with ballads and hits, and they were singing in their chairs. Ziegler breaks into a Buddy Holly song:

All of my love, all of my kissin’

You don’t know what you’ve been a-missin’

Oh boy, when you’re with me, ho boy

The world can see that you were meant for me

Ziegler makes his way around the room making eye contact with his engaged audience members who were sipping cokes and other drinks.

Dum di dum dum, ho boy

Dum di dum dum, ho boy

Buddy Holly must have been smiling in rock and roll heaven as Ziegler cheered up another elderly resident.

Next, the musician sang a Kingston Trio ballad to serenade a long-time resident who was having a birthday.

It’s not your grandmother’s song, it’s a rocker!

And I don’t give a damn about a greenback dollar

Spend it fast as I can

For a wailin’ song and a good guitar

The only things that I understand, poor boy

“I’ve been performing at Cottonwood Village for roughly 25 years,” Ziegler pointed out. “Locally, I also perform adult and assisted living at Sedona Winds and Gracious Grannies.”

“I feel blessed to have been given this opportunity.”

The rewards of playing these venues are numerous, the seasoned performer said. “With music, I’ve got them in the palm of my hand and they have me in theirs. Smiling eyes that reminisce, tapping feet and clapping hands.”

Memory care and hospice patients have been a “miraculous experience” for Ziegler. “When someone lifts their head in recognition of a song and a time spent with friends or a loved one. We’re transported to that moment together as they smile and sing the words they haven’t spoken for we don’t know how long.”

Ziegler said that 25 years ago, he was tailoring his song selection to a much different age group than today. But many of those tunes can withstand the test of time, such as La Vie En Rose, Edelweiss and music by Fats Waller and Glenn Miller.

“I’ve been joined for the past 10 years by my gifted friend and chanteuse, Candace Gallagher,” he said.

With her, they collaborate on songs by Patsy Cline, Etta James, Peggy Lee and others.

“We love harmonizing on tunes from Appalachia, the islands, British Isles and post-modern jukebox. We even perform Major Lingo’s To the Lighthouse.

Zieger said for his 11th birthday his dad bought him a “sweet J-45 Gibson acoustic guitar for $50 bucks from a hock shop in Philly. He took lessons off and on for a year when he decided to learn the rest by ear. The Beatles helped guide his way.

Lingo performed for 30 years and having a small town like Jerome as the home base helped kindle the familial affection they had for each other.

“Egos were never an issue. And of course we had one of the most remarkable and creative guitarists on the planet, Tony Bruno,” Ziegler said.

“Our selection of original and cover music was highly influenced by World Beat/Rhythm and the crowds responded with swaying energy and enthusiasm.”

“We cultivated a respectful and loving relationship with our fans that we feel to this day. Our “All Ages” shows certainly boosted our popularity.”

Ziegler said he’s also slowing down as a solo performer and with others bands. “I still take on certain celebrations such as: birthdays, weddings, wakes and occasional open mics at the Spirit Room.”

That led to a standing ovation for Ziegler recently when Llory McDonald of Combo Delux lent Ziegler two of her bandmates, Steve Botterweg and Darryl Icard, for an impromptu mini Major Lingo reunion in the Spirit Room to perform one Major Lingo song.

“Lingo’s retirement seems official, but the future is unwritten.”

From Wikipedia:

Major Lingo is a band from Jerome, Arizona, founded in 1982, and lasting 30 years until its retirement in December, 2012. Band members as of the band’s retirement included original members Tony Bruno on slide guitar and John Ziegler on rhythm guitar and vocals; and more recent additions Sally Stricker on bass and vocals, and Steve Botterweg on drums and vocals. Alumni include drummer Tim Alexander, who went on to join Primus and Blue Man Group, bass player Darryl Icard, who has also played with the Gin Blossoms side project Low/Watts, bass player Linda Cushma of international band Oxygene8, vocalist Christine Thomas, original drummer Dave Rentz of New Mexico’s The Withdrawals, and original bass player Teddy Rocha.

C-OC Supt.

 COTTONWOOD — Officials at the Cottonwood-Oak Creek School District expect between 1,700 to 1,800 students will be enrolled when classes start districtwide on Thursday, Aug. 1.

That’s lower when compared to the district’s enrollment before the COVID-19 pandemic was officially declared in March 2020. The decline in the student population at the six schools in the Cottonwood-Oak Creek district can also be attributed to changes in the local economy, according to district Superintendent Jessica Vocca.

“The population in the Verde Valley is changing. It’s harder to raise a family here if you cannot afford a home. During 2008 to 2015, we had a big migration of families relocating here, and a lot of those family members were working in the service industry. But, lately we have seen a lot of restaurants closing and people can no longer afford to live in the area, so they are moving away,” Vocca said.

That means smaller class sizes at Cottonwood-Oak Creek District schools this academic year and that can be considered a positive for students and teachers because students will get more individual attention than they would with crowded classrooms.

This year’s anticipated maintenance and operations budget at the Cottonwood-Oak Creek District totals about $13 million, which is a slight increase over the previous school year — roughly an uptick of about $100 per student, Vocca explained.

In addition to state funding and other revenues provided to Arizona public school districts, Cottonwood-Oak Creek District regularly applies for competitive grants to bring in additional money.

Vocca took over as district superintendent last spring after serving as principal at the district’s Dr. Daniel Bright Elementary School. Vocca has been with the Cottonwood-Oak Creek District for 20 years, and she is a Verde Valley native, who grew up in Sedona and Cottonwood.

Her grandmother, Karen Pfeifer, once served on the Cottonwood City Council as vice-mayor and has been involved in other city committees and commissions. Vocca said she uses the inspiration from her grandmother to be dedicated to improving the community and she has some clear goals she wants to achieve as superintendent in the upcoming school year.

Among other things, she vowed to update curriculum and expectations for teachers as well as improving student proficiency in core academic areas. She aims to establish a more diverse and inclusive school culture where students feel physically and emotionally safe and connected.

Vocca has prioritized updating aging buildings, some of which were originally built in the 1950s. In fact, the district headquarters is located in a building constructed about 100 years ago.

“I also want to put more emphasis on the district participating in community outreach and creating tighter bonds with families of students who attend our schools, and that includes finding better means of communications with families. Right now, we regularly use robocalls, emails and apps,” Vocca added.

Currently, the Cottonwood-Oak Creek District reports it has hired all of the teachers needed for the new school year.

“However, we are still recruiting qualified candidates for paraprofessional positions, custodians and bus drivers. Bus drivers are a big need and some districts are even offering signing bonuses for new bus drivers. In the past, we have had to cut routes because we were not able to find enough bus drivers,” Vocca said.

All Cottonwood-Oak Creek schools will continue to provide free breakfasts and lunches for students during the upcoming school year.

As the first day of school quickly approaches at the Cottonwood-Oak Creek District, Vocca encouraged parents and guardians to get their students back into their daily routines including earlier bed times, planning for means of transportation to and from school, and contacting the district and schools with any last minute questions.

“After all, creating a path for success isn’t just up to the student. It’s the family and everyone in the community. We all have to be involved. Yes, it really does take a village,” Vocca said.

Mingus Supt.

 

COTTONWOOD — Melody Herne, Ph.D., the new superintendent of Mingus Union High School District, credits a strict upbringing by her parents and strong devotion to Christianity for helping her land an important leadership position in the community.

“I am a God-fearing woman who prays about everything, and I believe that’s helped me get to where I am today,” Herne told the Verde Independent.

Herne wants to use her position with Mingus Union District to encourage young women to consider careers in public education.

“When I was younger, there were not a lot of female role models. I want to try to use my position here as superintendent to connect to young women. I think being a strong role model requires a person to listen carefully, to ask others how their journey is going? It’s important to connect with young people so you can provide them with good advice about how they can reach their ultimate success,” Herne said.

Herne started her new job in May. Since then she’s been busy meeting her staff, students, parents and the five members of the Mingus Union Governing Board. Herne succeeds Mike Westcott, Mingus Union superintendent since 2019, who announced his retirement in September to allow an appropriate amount of time to find a replacement.

“I am going to use this position to always defend public education. I am focused on helping kids get to the next level in academics and in life. I always depend on prayer to help our schools, and I pray for all of our kids because they are the future,” she said.

Herne relocated to Cottonwood from Scottsdale, where she was previously superintendent of the Salt River Schools for the Salt River-Pima Maricopa Indian Community.

“I came on early in this new position in Cottonwood while Mike Westcott was still in the role. That gave us time to work together and we had a good time. We had a good working relationship,” Herne said.

“Building rewarding relationships is key to success in the superintendent’s role at Mingus Union or any other district where I was involved before I arrived here,” she explained.

Herne was born in Heidelberg, Germany, where her family lived while enlisted in the U.S. Army. Her mother was a teacher, and both parents were influential as Herne embarked on a career in education leadership herself.

“My father was a man’s man,” she said. “He was reassigned to Fort Huachuca, so we moved as a family to southern Arizona. From my mother I learned diligence, she always encouraged me to speak proper English, and I credit her for that,” she said.

While Herne was attending college working on her education credentials, she served as a substitute teacher in Sierra Vista. She landed her first full-time teaching job and moved around Arizona quite a bit over the years, serving in various teaching and administration jobs with Dysart, Higley, Mesa Public Schools and Phoenix Elementary school districts before she ended up with Salt River Schools.

“That’s where I got immersed in their language revitalization programs learning O’odham, Maricopa or Piipaash. They are considered endangered languages. It was a wonderful opportunity learning the language, and I even studied Latin during my earlier years,” Herne added.

In-between her different jobs at school districts, Herne was employed with the Arizona Department of Education, where she helped to create a statewide school grading and evaluation system that still exists today.

In her free time, she loves to sing and she has been involved in church choirs and Sunday School wherever she lived at the time, including at Cottonwood’s Faith Baptist Church.

Tinder Fire Post #9

Here's a short synopsis of The Tinder Fire as of Tuesday morning.  The official burner area is now over 11,000 acres. Quite a bit of containment line has been put in place but the official percentage hasn't been released yet.

The Fire People staged a meeting in Winslow Monday evening and posted a full transcript of the event.  It's the best source yet for understanding the situation.  See: https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/article/5763/42779/

At least one photo of a destroyed home has been posted on Twitter but officials haven't released a damage estimate yet.  The fire came within 100 feet of SR 87 on Sunday.

It looks like there is very good containment on the west side of the fire and unless the winds come out of the east, it's very unlikely the fire will cross highway.

Winds will continue to be problematic Tuesday but the much-anticipated stormette will arrive by late afternoon and winds will most like lay down as the mini-storm passes.  Not much precip is forecast--maybe an inch of snow on the fire line.  However, temps will plummet and humidity will soar and those are the two key ingredients fire fighters love and need to have in their favor for an incident such as this one.

Once the winds lay down, fire managers will probably be able to "go direct" on the north end of the fire and bring a halt to the expansion in that area.  Rumors abound that there are three four engine jet tankers waiting to drop retardant on the fire line.  If those tankers can be brought into the asset mix, the tide could turn very rapidly.

There's no word yet on when evac orders will be lifted. SR 87 will remain closed until the evac orders are lifted. Officials made it clear at the meeting last night they didn't want to let people back in only to have them ordered back out.  However, chances are pretty good that the evac orders will be lifted after this stormette passes and officials assess their collective  progress at that time.

We're speculating the evac orders could be lifted as early as Wednesday and almost certainly no later than Thursday afternoon.

The luck of having a stormette come to the fire line is certainly a favorable factor in stemming the evolution of the Tinder Fire.

Tinder Fire Post #8

(The previous Post #8 was deleted.)  The revised burned area has been set at 8,623 acres.  This is based on an overnight infrared flyover by NIROPS.

Total personnel is still listed at 510.  We expect additional personnel to be arriving today so that figure should rise in both the evening and Tuesday morning reports.  We have been unable to determine the quantity and type of aerial assets assigned to The Tinder Fire.

We did learn that an NWS IMET arrived in fire camp yesterday.  The IMET, as usual, will be a huge help to Day's T1 IMT in understanding localized weather patterns.

ABC15 did a Monday morning live flyby and captured very instructive video showing fire behavior at numerous locations along the far flung fireline.  Even though the ADOT Clint's Well weather data site shows relatively light overall wind and gusts in the teens, the ABC 15 overflight indicated active, wind-driven fire behavior.  Since winds are expected to increase Monday, we would expect fire behavior to likewise accelerate.

Winds will continue to blow out of the southwest and south southwest so the trend will be for the fire to continue to burn toward the northeast.  However, yesterday's fire activity produced numerous spot fires alongside and ahead of the main fire.  Fire fighters definitely have their hands full in addressing these challenging conditions.

The Monday morning IMT report indicates structures were lost on Sunday.  However, no official assessment has been conducted to determine the number of structures lost.  Undoubtedly it is too dangerous for officials to venture into the burned areas to conduct such assessments.

Typically in incidents such as this one, the Incident Commander will issue a call for assistance to fire departments from statewide cities and towns.  It is not uncommon for scores of structural strike teams and other assets to be sent to such an incident.  We would expect that to happen today and tomorrow.  We would expect such municipal assets to be assigned throughout the area to conduct structural fire protection in the event of sudden changes in fire direction and/or behavior.

The bulk of our coverage today will be on Twitter via the hashtag #TinderFire.

Tinder Fire Post #7

Obviously, The Wind is The Game here, folks.  Whichever way the wind blows determines what gets toasted and what doesn't.

We always like to look at The Big Picture when it comes to the wind.  If you just wonder about the wind in your own local neighborhood, you're missing the whole drift, so to speak.

Right now there is a "Controlling Low Pressure" in The Great Basin and it is guiding and powering the winds in Arizona.  There's Good News and Bad News in this situation.  First: The Good News!  The Wind direction will remain fairly steady and unlikely to suddenly shift direction(s) under such a pattern.  Now: The Bad News.  The wind speed isn't suddenly going to diminish when the sun goes down as it typically does.

Nope, this is a "frontal driven wind" and those are the worst winds, as far as fire fighting goes, because they are the ones that continue well after the sun goes down and sometimes continue all night along and kick right back up the next day.

Luckily, the prevailing wind direction is going to continue to drive The Tinder Fire northeast.  The farther northeast it goes, the more likely that it runs out of Maxi Fuel and runs into Mini Fuel.  Yes, those grasslands outside of the Coconino Plateau timberlands are rich with dry fuels but those fuels are NO match for air tankers and attack crews.  Once The Tinder Fire hits grass, it's hours are numbered.

 Source: https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-97.99,35.72,1225/loc=-111.888,35.838

It's inevitable that many properties on the southeast sector of this area were impacted.  We won't know the damage for a day or two but such damage appears certain. Our Heart goes out to those who have suffered losses.

Tinder Fire Post #6

(Editor's note added at 7:30 AM AZT: The Sunday evening fire report indicated burned area at 8,000 acres. Deduct the 500 acre earlier estimate and that leaves a gain of 7,500 acres or roughly 11 square miles.  That would be consistent with the 2  mile by 5 mile footprint shown by the MODIS data yesterday.)

The Tinder Fire has made at least a four mile run today based on yesterday's fire map and today's MODIS data.  The MODIS data shows the fire expanded to the northeast and this is verified by the fire's smoke plume radar footprint.

We used a pretty straight forward method of "approximating" the fire front location as of the latest MODIS data available to us.

We then interpolated a line of today's "run" to that point.  On a sobering note, if the winds would have been coming from the due south, a run of similar magnitude and length would have theoretically taken the Tinder Fire across State Route 87 and into the densely developed residential areas.

Tinder Fire Post #5

Here's another photo from AZ State Forestry taken at an undisclosed location. 

Here's a look at The Tinder Fire smoke plume as observed at 2:54 PM (AZT) by NWS Flagstaff  NEXRAD radar.  The NWS Flagstaff narrative says the smoke plume now extends 80 miles away from the incident site, reaching as far as Dilkon, Arizona, on The Navajo Nation.  NWS Flagstaff says the winds will continue into the evening:

"Southwest wind gusts in the 40 to 50 mph range to continue through this evening across much of northern Arizona as a late season low pressure system settles over the Great Basin. Wind speeds to decrease after sunset but will remain breezy (15-25 mph gusts to 35 mph) through midnight across the Mogollon Rim and other high terrain. This due to the passage of a mid level vort max. The smoke plume from the Tinder fire is being tracked on radar and extends 80 miles to the north northeast from the source. Expect smoke impacts around Winslow and Dilkon through at least tonight."

Source: https://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=NWS&issuedby=fgz&product=AFD&format=CI&glossary=1

Meanwhile, Claudia Hauser sent a photo of the closure of State Route 87 on the south end at Clint's Well.

Meanwhile, APS Tweeted: "Due to the current conditions of the #TinderFire, we are de-energizing about 1,500 customers in the Blue Ridge community. This is being done as part of fire mitigation efforts.