Calalus Revisited: How Arizona's Riches Rebuilt the Roman Empire (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781532987441)

Myra Nichols grew up visiting places like Yosemite National Park, the Salton Sea, Death Valley and Yellowstone National Park, as her family camped and fished in as many parks available. Vacations always included ranger directed educational programs. She developed a love of the wilderness, admiring John Muir and Ansel Adams' photography. During the great fires of 1988 in Yellowstone National Park, she worked in the Area Command Center, and was later assigned to the formal Congressional Investigation Team and helped prepare the interagency report for scheduled Congressional Hearings. The report, The Greater Yellowstone Complex, led to reforms, creating complete interagency cooperation on all levels with more effective outcomes. In her ten-year teaching career, she received several awards for her students' outstanding achievements, applying strategies and resources she developed in her Masters of Arts program that benefited all levels of students. John Nichols is a rare native Arizonan, hiking all the mountain ranges around Tucson. His family was very active in Arizona politics. His father's family helped settle Cape Cod and were steeped in American Revolutionary history. His teens were driven by his exceptional athletic skills, earning many accolades in football, track and field and baseball. His military career included a long assignment in Istanbul, Turkey where he spent his spare time studying the massive ancient Roman constructions in the region. His military service ended with an assignment in Canada. Upon his military discharge, John was deputized for the Pima County Sheriffs Department. When Southern Pacific Railroad called him to work, he left law enforcement. The Nichols both continued their environmental preservation efforts by attending a chance meeting along with Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt, regarding the protection of the Silverbell Mountains in Arizona. Secretary Babbitt took their information and led a climb up Ragged Top Mountain that led to the formation of the Ironwood Forest National Monument. Years later, Panda Energy of China tried to build a natural gas power plant, adjacent to the Ironwood's northern boundary. The Nichols were able to assist in hiring a retired federal geologist with the original aerial photographs of major flooding. Along with the subsidence issues, this project was stopped and exactly a year later, the river flooded again and decimated the construction site of the proposed Toltec Power Plant.