The Arizona native spent half a decade compiling 100 years of Arizona’s history into the official book of the Arizona centennial, Arizona: 100 Years Grand.

“Since I was a kid I had always been excited about being alive during the centennial,” said Heidinger, who serves on two centennial committees and is the author of five other Arizona books.

This February Arizona celebrates turning 100 and people all over the state are gearing up to pay tribute.

Check out the three-part series about the anniversary.

• Part 1: Celebrating 100 Years of Arizona
• Part 2: Arizona's Historical Love Stories
• Arizona Native Writes Book on Centennial

This February Arizona celebrates turning 100 and people all over the state are gearing up to pay tribute.

"Communities small and large are celebrating because this is something that people have looked forward to and been planning for years," said Roger Myers, Associate Librarian and Archivist at the University of Arizona. "Now comes the time to enjoy it."

Myers and his colleagues put together the exhibit Becoming Arizona: The Valentine State in the university's special collections section to share primary documents dealing with Arizona's journey to statehood.

It was indeed quite the journey.

In an era where every school in every state is battling budget cuts, electives such as, physical education, music and art jump to the front of line when cutbacks need to be made.

With the rise of childhood obesity in Arizona, the cutback of physical education is diminishing the daily exercise that children need to be healthy.

Arizona was ranked 15^th out of 50 states for childhood obesity in 2007, according to the “F as in Fat Report 2010” by Trust for America's Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF).

It’s no secret that there’s a childhood obesity crisis in the country and the number of reasons is too long to list. Video games, television, computers and fast food all play factors in obesity, but the time of physical activity for children is hardly ever mentioned.

Solar energy is Arizona’s up and coming renewable resource, and the state’s energy companies are making good use of it.

In keeping with other states, Arizona’s energy companies are required to utilize renewable energy resources by the Renewable Energy Standard and Tariff, or REST.

REST was approved by the Arizona Corporation Commission in 2006 and took effect in 2007. It requires that Arizona utility companies produce 15 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2025, 30 percent of which must come from residential or commercial sources, according to the ACC website.

In order to comply, Arizona’s utilities implemented incentives and energy programs for customers who wish to use renewable energy to power their homes or businesses.

Arizona Public Service, a large electric company with 100,000 customers in the Phoenix area, and Tucson Electric Power, a company with 402,000 customers in the Tucson area, offer incentives for business and residential customers for services like solar water heaters, solar space heaters and solar panel systems, according to the APS and TEP websites.

Salt River Project, the country’s third-largest utility with 935,000 customers in the Phoenix metro area, similarly offers business and residential incentives for solar water heaters and solar panel installations, according to the SRP website.

From outlaws and warriors to activists and politicians, Arizona’s 100-year history stands as the home for infamous lovers and happy endings.

Here are three stories of love in the desert.

“The smaller the town you look at, a school district in a small town school district is going to be your No. 1 employer,” said Joe Thomas, vice president of the Arizona Education Association.

“You try to work with your employees as much as you can to where they want to live there, they want to be a part of the community,” Thomas said. “The idea of sitting down at a table and talking through a budget with the people that are going to be impacted by it, at the squad car level, at the classroom level, or at the waterworks level, that would be very much in line with small-town values.”

Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, introduced a bill last week that would require all Arizona residents at public universities prove that they spent $2,000 annually of their own cash regardless the amount of grants or other funding they receive to cover tuition costs.

Why? “I don’t think we should be giving away college degrees totally free,” Kavanagh said.

H.B. 2675 requires every student personally contribute $2,000 to tuition unless they are an NCAA student-athlete or solely merit-based academic scholar. His bill targets those who receive need-based funding help.

Arizona Board of Regents statistics show almost one-third of all undergraduate students pay less than $2,000 a year for tuition through scholarships, grants, and waivers—so they could potentially find their scholarships on the chopping block.

More than 30,376 in-state students pay less than $2,000 a year for their tuition, and Kavanagh wants to change the formula so student who get scholarships for reasons other than just merit, would have to foot a $2,000 tuition bill.

That’s the fear some people are expressing if the legislature passes and the governor signs a bill under consideration.

SB 1061, sponsored by Sen. Rich Crandall, R-Mesa, waives a mandate that kindergarten through eighth grade public school districts participate in the National School Lunch Program, a federal program that provides free and reduced-price lunches to children through cash subsidies.

While many Republican legislators laud the bill, saying it promotes “local control,” the bill baffles nutritionists and educators who say it attacks a federal program that provided Arizona more than $340 million in cash for lunches last year.

The program, called the “Healthy Hunger Kids Act,” was unveiled in detail Wednesday by First Lady Michelle Obama, detailing the increases of fruit, whole grain, and cut in sodium and trans fat—a $3.2 billion program to be implemented over the next five years.

School officials like Nutrition Director Karen Johnson of Yuma Elementary School District, is baffled as to why this bill is even necessary, calling the National School Lunch Program “a federal program that works.”

“He’s trying to plug a leak in a dam that’s not leaking. There’s no leak here,” Johnson said. Johnson fears this bill could leave some kids, even a small number, with no way to pay for or receive a lunch.

Stacey Morley, director of policy development and government relations with the Arizona Department of Education, believes public outrage would likely keep food on the plates of Arizona’s poorest.

While millions of people are getting ready to enjoy pecan pies for Thanksgiving, Sahuarita farmer Richard Walden and his crews at Farmers Investment Co. are getting ready for the upcoming holiday by preparing for their annual pecan harvest.

Walden, 69, is the president of the company his father Keith started in 1937 in California, which became Farmers Investment Co. FICO, which includes the Green Valley Pecan Co. and Santa Cruz Valley Organic Farms, is now the largest pecan grower/processor and the largest certified organic grower/processor of pecans in the world.