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Still, as the years went by and civil rights laws were passed and enforced, Mitchell sensed that racism was dying down in Arizona. After her kids grew up, Mitchell got a high school diploma and earned a social sciences degree from Phoenix College. In 1987, she landed what she thought…

When a position opened up in January 1989, she applied. She scored 90 out of 100 on a test to get her old job back. But she was told that now she needed a law enforcement background. Diggs filed a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging she…

For four years, Wilda Heil has been battling ovarian cancer, and at the same time battling to hold on to her medical insurance. Guess which fight she’s winning. Heil is one of an estimated 35,000 “medically uninsurable” Arizonans-those who either have been canceled or who can’t find an insurer. (That…

Poet, painter, actress, gangland den mother-perpetual publicity hound LIZ RENAY may well be the most colorful character ever to emerge from Mesa. In and out of the Valley since she won a 1949 beauty pageant sponsored by a national bra manufacturer, Renay began piling up headlines when she was grilled…

IT IS 1975. Sixteen years after it first appeared in France, the legendary book Hollywood Babylon rolls off the presses in its first authorized U.S. edition. While the rest of the nation gasps over Kenneth Anger’s juicy compendium of Tinseltown tattle, Phoenix yawns. For starters, we’d seen it all in…

MARTY GIFFIN SMILES over at her 11-year-old daughter Samantha, who is working on her homework at the kitchen counter. “I’m responsible for her, just me,” Marty says. “I haven’t gotten much help. The judge told my ex-husband when we got divorced in ’84 that he had to pay child support…

Remembered for his still-murky link to the 1976 murder of Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles, Phoenix attorney Neal Roberts has long negotiated around legal-system land mines with stunning success. But now he’s in a pickle that should keep him behind bars for at least a short time. Phoenix police arrested…

MiAsia sat in a barber’s chair in a little shop in central Los Angeles. It was May 1983, and MiAsia, a Mary Kay cosmetics saleswoman, was looking for a dramatic change. The barber dyed MiAsia’s short, dark Afro auburn, but that wasn’t enough. She came back a week later, asking…

Abraham Cox, a precocious 7-year-old, attends a progressive school in Tempe. On this particular Friday evening, inside Tanner Chapel A.M.E., Abraham’s parents watch civil rights heroine Rosa Parks sign copies of her autobiography. Their son is devoting considerable energy to slipping artfully within range of the television cameras taping the…

“My wife is down at the stables, seeing to the horses. Call her there.” The crisp note of annoyance was obvious in the voice of John C. Pritzlaff, the former United States ambassador to Malta. Pritzlaff, now retired to his home and stables in Montecito, California, is the father-in-law of…

I take nobody’s word these days. I don’t believe the Warren Commission. I also don’t believe the conspiracy theories of his being killed by the mob and Fidel Castro. I don’t even believe County Attorney Richard Romley when he says he has solved the murder of actor Bob Crane of…

The big crowd oozes slowly into Arizona State University’s Gammage Auditorium. It’s early morning, and in a few minutes Vice President Dan Quayle will speak. An appearance by Quayle on a politically active campus would spark dozens of protests. There are few dissidents at ASU. It is a student body…

“NOT THIS WEEKEND,” J.D. said. It was February 14, 1991, the Thursday before Presidents Day. Something was up his sleeve that he wasn’t telling. “Loose lips sink ships,” he said. He didn’t answer his telephone that Saturday. Sunday night he finally answered. He was jubilant, but a little tired from…

Could J.D. have established a pattern of “arbitrary and capricious enforcement” by the Park Service if he’d had a good lawyer connecting the dots? Could a lawyer have proved that J.D. had been singled out for prosecution? The federal magistrate took the case under advisement. APRIL 14: J.D.’s GI Bill…

THE HEAVILY TRAVELED highway from Phoenix to Las Vegas has often been called Blood Alley” because of its high number of deadly accidents. These days, however, if you’re in a gambling mood, there’s another route to the action. You start out the same way, northwest on Route 93, the Vegas…

Head football coaches live in a terrifying dream world. In that world, tumultuous laughter and happiness can instantly turn into a nightmare. Great victories are the other side of the coin to heartbreaking defeats. These coaches are very much like politicians. They are addicted to adulation. They distrust and dislike…

Here is a fascinating peek behind the scenes as the Resolution Trust Corporation’s $140 million civil suit against Governor J. Fife Symington III grinds slowly forward. When you look closely at the background of the cast of characters, the picture begins to clear. After a report was issued June 12,…

LIKE A CHILD hiding a caramel from a playmate, Jim Cryer conceals the plastic key chain with puckish delight. He is about to tell what he calls a nasty joke.” ²In his native Tennessean twang, he begins with what seems like a well-rehearsed question: Have you ever been on Mission…

Just before closing time, Bill Mounts strolls past the bare shelves of Euro Market to the check-out stand. Mounts, night manager of the beleaguered upscale grocery, spies a rumpled dollar bill on the floor. This dollar could save the store,” jokes Mounts, as he grabs the bill and hands it…

NOW THAT THE holidays are over and the reporters and TV crews aren’t hanging around anymore, things are back to normal at Central Arizona Shelter Services. But normal at CASS isn’t exactly quiet. Property owners near CASS, located at 1209 West Madison, have always complained about how the state’s largest…

CASS shut down its outdoor campground in 1990, she says, because the agency didn’t have enough money to operate it. About 200 people per night had been allowed to camp there. As recently as last month, says Orton, the board discussed reopening the outdoor area. One plan was to build…

There, up on the stage, was Annie Leibovitz. At the very sight of the celebrity photographer, the standing-room-only audience in the theatre at Phoenix Art Museum burst into applause. Leibovitz is a tall, angular woman with a nose as prominent as the one that gave the late writer Lillian Hellman…