Tucson’s nuclear role during the Cold War was one of America’s best-kept secrets of its time. Now home to the only persevered intercontinental ballistic missile site in the country, it acts as an uneasy reminder of what could have happened, but what thankfully never did.

The Titan II ICBM was engineered out of our nation’s greatest fear of Armageddon. The ability to end the world as we know it created an undeniable sense of discomfort, but it also gave a strange sense of relief knowing if the Soviet Union were to erase the United States off the map, the U.S. had the ability to take the Soviets with them.

“There was a general anxiety here as well as in the rest of the country on the question of an atomic war—the fear that the Americans and the Russians would get into it and the obvious destruction that would follow,” said George Miller, former Tucson mayor and long-time Tucson resident.

Photo by Bill Morrow, Flickr

In the next month, roughly 6,000 undergrads, 200 Ph.D. students, 900 master degree students, will graduate among 29 individual ceremonies in Tucson.

With these thousands of soon-to-be graduates comes masses of family and friends coming to Tucson over the course of one short weekend next month for spring commencement ceremonies at the University of Arizona.

Local businesses, hotels, and property owners also prepare for one last busy weekend of business before the long, slow summer months.

Last May, 18,000 people attended the 2012 University of Arizona spring commencement ceremony.  “We had to turn away tons of people,” said Mary Venezia, assistant director of strategic initiatives at the University of Arizona.

Venezia works along with a committee on the yearlong process of planning a graduation for thousands of students and families.

Plans for this year’s commencement took a big turn when the planning committee changed the school’s usual venue from the McKale Center to Arizona Stadium.

With a bigger venue comes bigger expenses.  “We have a lot of first time costs this year, like paying someone to build a stage,” said Venezia about the customized stage needed for the ceremony held in the stadium for the first time since 1972.

Large trafficking of illegal immigration and drug cartels are the highlighted topics in media outlets, but residents along the United States-Mexico border believe that often times these topics are taken out of context.

To them, it's a just a place to call home.

Ada Wilkinson-Lee, a Latin American Studies professor at the University of Arizona, grew up in Douglas, along the Southwest border. She said she could hear crossers, but never feared them. Wilkinson- Lee's research today is in Latino health and border communities.

Tarantula Hawk' blasts off

It’s the second to last weekend of March and Sean Kean is pacing back-and-forth clutching a microphone in his hand as he read’s off of a sheet of paper: 

“Pad 21 now, where we have John’s ‘Tarantula Hawk’ on a I-327, expected to go to about  2,800 feet” 

“That’s almost 3,000 feet” a young spectator realizes.

All spectators gaze to the sky as they watch the rocket’s ascent. Listen closely, and you can hear some of their nervous voices quietly chanting “separate, c’mon, separate”

A small explosion releases a parachute that gently glides the rocket back to meet its owner. Sighs of relief, as there is no malfunction in which the parachute can be tangled upon release, increasing the rockets velocity as it descends often dangerously and unpredictably toward spectators below.

Dogging rockets is always fun. 

It’s no secret that startup communities are expanding across the country. As a major source of net job growth in our economy, startups no longer solely belong to tech wizards in the Bay area. The success of startups and entrepreneurs alike is starting to depend more and more upon co-working spaces, also popping up all over the country. Tech reporting giant Mashable even has a designated category on their site for co-working spaces.

Entrepreneurs are using co-working spaces to save money and to take the next step in growing their businesses Alex Gurevich, creative director and co-owner of web-design firm Graphic Fusion, is also one of the co-founders of Spoke 6, a co-working space in Tucson. Gurevich insists that Spoke 6 did not start out to be a co-working space, but rather more of a place where like-minded people could come together and help propel each other towards their business goals.

The director of The Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services resigned and an assistant he hired was fired Wednesday after Arizona-Sonora News Service reported that the new hire said menstrual cycles might be too problematic for women to be in combat. 

Joey Strickland resigned after the article on the new hire, former Tucson lawmaker Terri Proud, according to a spokesman for the governor’s office.

"It's fair to say that we voiced concerns regarding our learning of a recent hire of his via the news media,” said Matt Benson, spokesman for the Governor’s Office.

Hiring Proud in the first place went against specific instructions from the Governor’s Office. Benson said the governor had warned Strickland not to hire Proud.

“Col. Strickland was given very specific instructions about a year ago to avoid hiring this individual. He chose to do so anyway and unfortunately that individual’s questionable judgment was on display this week with some ill chosen public remarks regarding women in the military," Benson said.

Benson didn’t say why the Governor’s Office didn’t want Proud hired.

The Arizona Restaurant Association is aiming to take some of the guesswork out of who’s coming to dinner.

While it hasn’t quite been “lions, tigers and bears,” it has been “parrots, ferrets and squirrels,” according to restaurant owners, who say Arizona’s loose definition of service animal is resulting in service animal shams all over the state.

So the restaurant association is backing HB 2401, which passed out of the Senate 26-2 on Tuesday and now awaits the governor’s signature. The bill would align the definition more closely with the federal definition, which was narrowed in 2011.

The designation of service animal would go to the dogs—and a few miniature horses—that can perform a task to help someone with a disability. This would exclude comfort animals, which aren’t allowed at the federal level either, though people are allowed to have an animal that helps with psychiatric conditions, if the animal is trained to perform a task.

A former Tucson lawmaker just hired to coordinate a female veterans’ conference isn’t sure women belong on the front lines, at least partly because combat is no place to be dealing with menstrual cycle issues.

Terri Proud, a one-term state representative, was recently hired as an administrative assistant with the Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services at a salary of roughly $40,000, said Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services spokesman Dave Hampton. The conference is one of several responsibilities she’ll be undertaking, he said.

When asked about women on the front lines, Proud said that is a tough issue she didn’t want to talk about.

She said her position is drawn partly from her family’s military background and partly from biology.

If the first public hearing on Medicaid expansion is any indication, the debate is only going to get more uncomfortable for those on the religious right who oppose Gov. Jan Brewer’s plan.

While Brewer has already been trying to court her faith-conscious foes by using pro-life rhetoric in championing her plan, testimony by community members appealing to this crowd came out more as a God-based guilt trip.

Republicans are already trying to distance themselves from the one biblical barb that was on their side during the lengthy House Appropriations Committee hearing as the remark gains national attention.

“Jesus had Judas and Republicans have Gov. Brewer,” said Maricopa County Republican Chairman A.J. LaFaro.

It is safe to bet that cacti, triple digit temperatures and rattlesnakes all figure their way into your train of thought when thinking about the state of Arizona--its only natural.

Unless discussing the backyard pool or the urgency to escape another seasonal drought, it isn’t often that water matriculates its way into the barren desert land.

Albeit truthful, it is a stereotype that distracts from the state's water-related recreational opportunities. Do I dare even go as far as to tap into the Arizona Surf Club? Is that such a thing?

Although incomparable to Minnesota’s reputable 10,000 lakes, Arizona is home to 31 lakes, which offer various activities. From fishing to boating to kayaking to waterskiing, Arizona has room for them all. 

If you’re looking to kick your feet up, seclude yourself from technology and simply relax, then pack up your fishing gear for Patagonia, Ariz. Patagonia Lake, which rests just 12 miles north of Nogales, is Tucson’s closest lake. The quaint 2.5-mile-long and 250-acre lake is best known for its Largemouth Bass and Flathead Catfish.

Or, if you're looking to go tubing, jump on the I-10 up to the Salt River. If Lake Havasu is spring break, then the Salt River is spring break’s hangover. The inner-tube trip is as lazy as any Sunday should be as you soaking in the sun’s rays, all the while floating down through Tonto National Forest.

Drawing away from the college-polluted spring break city and “Personal Watercraft Capital of the World,” of Lake Havasu, try Northern Arizona to fulfill your wild side.