Odyssey Storytelling Presents: Dissent
Curated by Tony Paniagua
Thursday, June 6, 2019
Doors at 6:30, show at 7
The Sea of Glass Center for the Arts
330 E 7th Street
$10 Adults, $7 Students
Boycott, break away, protest, resist or strike. Differ or disagree. Chart your own course, refuse to submit or to follow the rules. Object or oppose- be your own person, embrace individuality, enjoy variety or seek diversity.
(Not to be confused with descend [verb] or descent [noun], decent, the scent or the cent.)
Storytellers include:
Jim Walmann began working in the Tech industry early on, starting with the FADAC computer in Vietnam in 1968 and worked his way through IBM 360s, Mini Computers, PCs and Macs. He’s been retired 10 years now and lives with his wife Patty, 1/2 time in St. David and 1/2 time in Tucson. He loves Tucson. He also loves traveling, birding, hiking, card games, cross-word puzzles and all things Green Bay Packers and Citroën cars.
Fran Krackow is a former teacher who has worked in Tucson and New York. While she was teaching her first year in Brooklyn, she took a gun away from a second-grade student who brought it to class for Show & Tell. His mom was a single mother and kept it under her bed… Fran just retired in May 2018 after teaching 11 years in Tucson. She taught students with the most severe disabilities at Cholla High School for eight years. She now volunteers at Casa De Los NiñosThrift Store and the Rincon Migrant Shelter. Fran’s husband Bob worked across the street from the World Trade Center which quickened their move to Tucson. Their oldest child graduated the University of Arizona and they always thought they would retire to Tucson. She has been dissenting all of her life and has many stories to prove it.
Timmothy Haver was born in Denver and moved to southeast Colorado with the family when he was in kindergarten. He lived a sheltered life and went to Catholic School until the 6th grade but entered public school in the 7th grade, when he was first exposed to bullies. After high school, he tried to study pre-pharmacy at the University of Colorado. However, he decided to follow his passion and began a new chapter at a restaurant school in Philadelphia. He excelled and returned to Colorado to work, and eventually moved to Los Angeles in 1983. During his California days he became a noted chef and was featured in both Los Angeles newspapers. In 1986, depression and alcohol led him to make poor life decisions- and after a routine health test back in Colorado- he was informed he was HIV positive. He did not seek medical attention until 1994 in Tucson, where he had moved to care for his elderly parents. They were extremely supportive and so were others. After 33 years, Timmothy is a long-term survivor of the disease, and he believes he owes that entirely to the nurturing community in Tucson.
Barbara Lewis– not the singer- arrived in Tucson at the age of 18 months and grew up in a loving but strict Roman Catholic household which meant she had to “improvise” to enjoy some adventures. She attended segregated Dunbar School, Tucson High and University of Arizona. She moved to Los Angeles in 1962, married twice, raised three daughters and went through several life changes including membership in a “Guerrilla” theater group in the late 1960s/70s. She returned to Tucson “kicking and screaming” in 1998 and is presently helping to preserve that segregated junior high school she attended so many years ago.
Betts Putnam-Hidalgo is a long-time activist on a range of issues. Whether it is the environment, sanctuary for Central Americans and Mexicans, studying in and doing research on Cuba, pushing drought-tolerant plants instead of roses in the desert, protesting war or dressing up in funny hats and singing truth to power with the Raging Grannies- she has been there. With the addition of a Mexican family to her life that included two teenage stepsons, protesting military recruitment became the flashpoint. With her own son’s education, becoming a public school advocate and perennial Tucson Unified School District board dissenter was added to the palette. She lost three elections for TUSD School Board but has not given up on trying to improve that district. She believes that dissent is always possible: it is simply a matter of creative thinking about how to change the world for the better.
David W. Fitzsimmons ,“Fitz,” is the Editorial Cartoonist and Columnist for The Arizona Daily Star where he has worked since 1986, back when Geronimo was a paperboy. A 1988 Pulitzer Finalist, Fitz is Syndicated to over 700 news publications worldwide. His work has been reprinted in USA Today, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and China Daily, among others– bringing amusement to millions of downcast parakeets in their birdcages around the globe. When Fitz was not at his drawing board slinging ink or editorials, the “Fastest draw west of the Potomac” has entertained audiences with chalk talks in every meeting room, theatre, school, clubhouse and VFW Post west of the San Pedro. Not to mention Denver, Portland, Palm Springs, Seattle, Reno, Las Vegas, Toronto and Los Angeles.No one in his audience is safe as long as his pen is uncapped. Fitz has an exceptionally beautiful and fantastically brilliant wife who wrote this biography for him, three bright children, two wonderful grandkids, three worthless cats, and a missing mouse. Described as a “Flaming moderate at the fringe of America’s center” Fitz is a snappy dresser who loves reading hate mail from readers and making his kids laugh.
Tony Paniagua (Curator) is a huge fan of real-life stories. He has been working as a broadcast journalist since the early 1990s and has listened to and reported or produced thousands of segments about fascinating and not-so admirable people and other topics. Subjects have ranged from Africanized bees, business, crime, and depression all the way to water, xenogamy, youth, and zoology. He is a reporter/producer at Arizona Public Media, the NPR/PBS affiliates in Tucson, and discovered Odyssey Storytelling more than a decade ago and became a common fixture as a volunteer and occasional curator/host.
Instagram/twitter: @tbreadnwater
