16th Annual Chocolate Tasting Set for February 10

BISBEE, AZ – Valentine’s Day Weekend promises to be sweet, indeed, as
The Friends of the Copper Queen Library sponsor their 16th Annual Chocolate
Tasting on Saturday, February 10 at the Copper Queen Library in historic Bisbee,
Arizona. Doors open at 6pm.

This fundraiser, the Friends’ largest, helps purchase children’s books and sponsor
many library programs and special events. It promises to be fun for everyone!

Local dessert makers, both commercial and domestic, will donate a wonderful
selection of chocolate, to be served on both floors of the historic building. The
Bisbee Coffee Company will donate locally-roasted coffee to accompany these
treats and, as always, Bisbee’s merchants will support the Friends by donating
an interesting and eclectic mix of raffle prizes.

Music will be provided by Shade – Scott Baekeland on guitar, Adam Ambrose on
drums and Duane Reilly on saxaphone – for dancing and listening pleasure. And,
as an exciting addition to this year’s event, Bisbee artist Trish Steiner has
donated a painting for the silent auction!

For $12 per person, you will receive six tickets to trade for tempting sweets of
your choice from table or tray. While you visit with friends, queue up for
beverages, marvel at the library’s architecture and contents, or browse the
chocolates at tables on the second and third floors, our waiters will circulate
throughout the library with trays of delectable selections as Shade sets the
evening’s mood.

For those who wish to indulge privately, “To Go” boxes – which were a sell-out
last year – are available for reservation with advance ticket purchase and a
follow-up “To Go” call to Friends President Sondra Hartley at (520) 432-3476.

Those on the “advance reservation” list may pick up chocolates from 4 – 6pm on
Saturday, February 10 at the Friends Bookstore at 6 Main Street on the first floor.

Tickets are available for advance purchase in Bisbee at the Copper Queen Library,
the Friends Bookstore, the Bisbee Visitors’ Center, Atalanta’s Music & Books, and
Hot Licks BBQ & Blues Saloon; in Double Adobe at Phil’s Steakhouse; in Sierra Vista
at the Safeway; and will also be sold at the door on February 10 – but only while
the limited supply lasts!

The Copper Queen Library – this year celebrating its Centennial at 6 Main Street –
is, at 125 years old, Arizona’s oldest continuously-operating public library. Come
join in to celebrate the Valentine’s Day weekend, to support a good cause – and,
of course, to wish the library a very “Happy Birthday!”

For further information, contact the Friends at (520) 432-3476 or the Copper
Queen Library at (520) 432-4232.

Whitaker To Speak on African Americans in Arizona

In conjunction with the Copper Queen Library's "Black History Month"
programming, Arizona Humanities Scholar Dr. Matthew C. Whitaker, author of
Race Work: The Rise of Civil Rights in the Urban West (2005) and Assistant
Professor of United States History, African and American Studies, and Justice
and Social Inquiry at Arizona State University will lecture on "The African
American Experience in Arizona: 500 Years of History" on February 7 at 6:30pm
in the Library Meeting Room.

Whitaker is also CEO of the Whitaker Group, L.L.C., a diversity consulting firm,
and his commentaries on popular culture, race, class, gender, presidential
politics, and U.S./African relations, have appeared on NPR, PBS and other media
outlets.

According to Whitaker, people of African descent have been present in Arizona
since 1528, when the first of many Spanish-speaking people of African descent
arrived. By 1880, English-speaking Black people had moved to the state as
servants, lumberjacks, free farmers, and entrepreneurs. Hundreds later
migrated to fill remote military outposts.

The history of African Americans in the West, however, is primarily an urban
story of struggle for racial equality, so Whitaker's talk will focus mainly on the
20th century, when World War II and the industries that arose to support it
offered Black people more job opportunities and a freer life style in the West
and Arizona. As a result, the Black population grew greatly, paving the way for
the state’s civil rights movement.

This program is free and open to the public. For further information, contact
the library at 432-4232.

AHC Scholar Garate Presents deAnza

Arizona Humanities Scholar and Chautauquan Don Garate, Chief of Interpretation/
Historian at Tumacácori National Historical Park, will appear at the Copper Queen
Library on January 31 at 6:30pm to present a "first person living history” of
Spanish soldier, explorer and colonizer Juan Bautista de Anza (1736-1788) as part
of the library’s Centennial Celebration of its own history and the history of Arizona.

Juan Bautista de Anza was a Basque born in Cuquiárachi, Sonora, Mexico in 1736.
His father, who had the same name, was born in Hernani, Gipuzkua, Euskadi in
1693 and came to New Spain in 1712. He eventually became the Captain of the
Presidio of Fronteras, twenty miles south of Douglas, Arizona, in Sonora, Mexico.
Apaches killed him when Juan Bautista, Jr. was only three years old.

Growing up in Sonora (and what is today Arizona), young Juan was involved early
in Apache attacks and uprisings by other Indian groups. He joined the frontier
military at age fifteen and eventually became the captain of Tubac Presidio, which
is today in southern Arizona. Serving there for seventeen years, he was wounded
twice by Apaches and twice by Seri Indians.

In 1774, he led a group of soldiers in an exploratory expedition to find a route
from Sonora to California. Having success in that endeavor, he led some three
hundred settlers, soldiers, and workers to California the following year to
establish a colony on the San Francisco Bay. The expedition lasted a year,
starting with recruiting people in Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico in March 1775, and
culminating with their arrival in the Bay Area in March of 1776.

After his presentation, Garate will answer questions from a scholar’s perspective,
providing insight and context that the real character could not possibly know.

The presentation is free and open to the public. For further information, contact
the Library at 432-4232.

See Centennial Stars at CQL!

Live music, refreshments, and “stars, stars, stars!” will kick off the Copper
Queen Library’s year-long Centennial Celebration – A Century at 6 Main – on
January 24, as the high-powered telescopes of local astronomer Brian DeWelles
of Starlight Planetarium Productions gaze heavenward from the library’s balcony
from 7-10 pm.

A first quarter moon will grace the sky, and Saturn will rise at 6:30pm, so
stargazers should be able to get a glimpse of it, too. The rings of Saturn are
spectacular, and some of the planet’s thirty-plus moons – including Titan, Rhea,
and Tethys – should be visible almost a billion miles away!

Earth’s moon is a closer target and really sparkles, with thousands of its craters
within telescope grasp, and many “deep sky” objects will also present themselves
to participants, including the Orion Nebula, a hydrogen gas cloud big enough to
form thousands of suns.

This exciting event is free for the whole family, so plan to join us for this once-in-
a-century centennial opportunity to explore the night skies from the library’s balcony.

For more information, contact the library at 432-4232.

Cancer Lecture Scheduled January 23

On January 23 at 6:30pm at the Copper Queen Library, 6 Main Street, oncologists
Sanjeev Gopal, M.D., and Shahid Latif, M.D. of the Sierra Vista Cancer Center will
present “The Changing Face of Cancer.”

The community is invited to learn about cancer prevention, early detection and
treatment options, including the innovative MammoSite Radiation Therapy System.
The presentation is free and open to the public. For further information, contact
the library at 432-4232.