Campaign Centennial: Celebrate the Arizona Experience
August 24, 2011The Daily Courier
Monday, August 01, 2011
The Arizona Centennial comes around in 2012, but on Statehood Day this year, Feb. 14, 2011, a yearlong countdown campaign – called Celebrate the Arizona Experience – was officially kicked off by Gov. Jan Brewer.
Celebrate the Arizona Experience is counting the days through a calendar of Signature Events and Signature Projects — all designed to commemorate Arizona’s 100 Years in an exciting and educational way. Tick tock, the clock is counting the days with:
• Arizona Centennial Copper Chopper. This masterpiece of a motorcycle kicked off Centennial celebrations back in October 2010 at the Arizona State Fair. As official mascot of the Arizona Centennial, it’s been on tour ever since and continues traveling to every corner of Arizona, exciting young and old through February 2012. What’s more, one lucky person will win the Copper Chopper. Imagine that! Drawing tickets to win are available online at www.AZ100Years.org; at all Copper Chopper appearances; and at 600 Circle K stores statewide.
• Arizona Best Fest Series. Yes, that’s right. Prescott Best Fest is the first of three in this series. It’s also an Arizona Centennial Signature Event. The massive three-day street festivals occur in Arizona’s three territorial capitals: Prescott, as well as Tucson (November 11-13) and Phoenix (February 10-12). At Phoenix Best Fest, motorcycle enthusiasts also are invited to join the official Centennial Ride, inspired by our official mascot, the AZ Copper Chopper, of course. Visit www.AZ100Years.org to register.
• Union Pacific Steam Locomotive. If you think the Best Fest will knock your socks off, there’s more! Because a throw-back in time will roll down the tracks in November in the form of the Union Pacific Steam Locomotive, making a whistle stop tour along the historic corridor known as the “Sunset Route.”
• Mormon Tabernacle Choir. “America’s Choir,” as Ronald Reagan called them, arrives just in time to celebrate the Arizona Centennial Feb. 10 & 11, 2012. In fact, it will be the first time in 42 years the choir performs in Phoenix, at the US Airways Center.
• Arizona CENTennial Penny Drive. This children’s legacy project saw nearly 70,000 students from 118 schools in all 15 Arizona counties participate in this fund drive to collect copper pennies totaling $30,000, to support the effort to ‘Shine the Dome’ at the state capitol.
• Arizona Centennial Signature Tree Project. Here’s one to capture the imagination of youth. ‘Canopy for the Next Century,’ in conjunction with the Arizona Community Tree Council, cultivates student leadership and promotes environmental stewardship in a matching grant program to plant trees at Arizona schools. Learn more about the Signature Tree Project at www.AZ100Years.org.
• Commemorative Stamp & License Plate. Not to be forgotten is a ‘designer’ Centennial license plate and the U.S. Postal Service commemorative Arizona Centennial Stamp. Hey, it’s time to dress up…even the cars and envelopes!
• Centennial Way. As Arizonans know, if there’s one thing to count on, it’s a streets project. And Washington Street will be transformed into ‘Centennial Way’ at the state capitol complex. The transformation is a historic area of pathways, way-finding signage and historical markers representing 15 Arizona counties and 22 Native American Tribes.
Other projects include refurbishing Arizona Historical Markers, including the USS Arizona Memorial and the Wesley Bolin Memorial.
And, of course, 100th Statehood Day itself marks the First Day Issue of the Arizona Centennial Stamp, a Centenarian Brunch and much, much more! For more information on any Signature Event or Signature Project, visit www.AZ100Years.org.
