A few weeks ago, when I received my Spirit of the Old West Alive Award, a representative with my publisher was there. Short story long, it turns out the folks to do the Spirit of the Old West Alive Award know DR Buck Montgomery, who is doing the Wild Western Festival in Glendale the same weekend as Helldorado Days. As much as I enjoy Tombstone my publisher and I both agreed that a change in venue would be good thing, especially since I've been signing my books at Helldorado every year since 2006.
The event will be held at Historic Sahuaro Ranch, a site that's always been near and dear to my heart because back in 2001, when I first starting doing living history interpretation, I was working with the museum. I spent a year with them interpreting the main house as the WWII housewife, and I had a blast doing it. The museum is on a restored farm that originally dates back to the 1880s, with some of the buildings being renovated as late as the 1930s, so there's a nice time line for historical interpretation. The staff and other volunteers were good to work with too, but then the person in charge of the living history program took a job out of state, and that was the end of their living history program. Unfortunately, staff turnovers and changes in programs are an occupational hazard when working with museums. Since that time the City of Glendale has taken over Sahuaro Ranch, so I the people I knew back in 2001-2002 are no longer there. But from what I hear the city is doing an outstanding job running the place, and they've also done a major restoration of the historic buildings, so I'm really looking forward to going back for a visit.
GM
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