by afampov · March 2, 2021
By Frederick A. Hurst
Jynai McDonald is running for Springfield’s Ward 4 City Council seat placing her in position to join several other local African American women elected officials who have been playing a significant, if not dominant, political leadership role for the benefit of the African American community and Springfield in general.
32-year-old Jynai is the daughter of Lester McDonald III and Victoria Lewis. Her paternal grandparents migrated to Springfield from Mississippi and North Carolina many years ago. Her maternal grandparents migrated to Springfield from Georgia and South Carolina. Along with the McDonald and Lewis families, she is also connected to the Washington, Redd and Wilkerson families just like so many of our Springfield African-American families are so interconnected. And, like so many of us, Jynai is a product of the distant generation of Southern migrants who escaped to the North for a better
Snow fell here Monday, at last. Good, we need it. Weâve been parched, withered, absolutely drought-saturated. At this point, we would ve even settled for a nice dusting of graupel, anything for some moisture.
But â and I feel sheepishly guilty even mentioning this â one upside of the dry November and December in Flagstaff was that the trails higher on the mountain had mostly been easy to traverse, sans snowshoes or even Kahtoola spikes.
So it was that, on Christmas Eve morning, I had the unusual pleasure of running one of my favorite short loops one last time before (presumably) the onset of winter makes navigating the path (and the forest road leading to it) inaccessible until spring.
The hulking Toyota Tacoma, off-road 4x4 edition, that constitutes (so far) the fleet for the adventure startup Overland Flagstaff is painted orange, technically. But itâs not a garish orange, not some hideous spray-tan orange, more like a burnt sienna pigment that can blend in well with, say, a sunset in the Southern Utah red rocks.
Thatâs fitting, because the premise behind Mike Rickerdâs idea to rent Tacomas fully loaded with camping gear, from cutlery to tent and everything in between, is to have people get close to nature, to see as much as they can in a limited amount of time, and most of all blend in and become one with the environment.
Outdoors: Search for solitude high up on the Mooney Trail azdailysun.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from azdailysun.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Each year around this time, Shan Dan Horanâs thoughts naturally turn to, well, Taco Bell.
No, heâs not hankering for a toasted cheddar chalupa, per se. Heâs thinking back to 20 years ago when, as a 16-year-old saving for college and for equipment for his band, he was working the drive-thru window at a Flagstaff Taco Bell.
Near closing time, two masked men entered, toting guns. One robbed the safe, and the other kept the barrel of a gun pressed against Horanâs temple throughout. The traumatic episode made quite an impression on the teenager, and its memories stuck with him in the years since, rearing up seemingly unbidden every Dec. 14, the anniversary of the robbery.