Re: A POW-MIA Past

Date: January 11, 2004

"80-year-old at peak of game

Amanda J. Crawford The Arizona Republic

Lloyd Clark traces his finger along the wavy green lines of a topographic map of the San Francisco Mountains near Flagstaff, searching for the unnamed, 10,000 foot-plus summit on the northeastern side that has become the focus of his mission.

He wants to name the peak for Spc. Lori Piestewa, the Hopi single mother who died last year in Iraq.

The sentiment may seem, well, nine months too late.

But Clark has not been living in the dark.

The 80-year-old Surprise resident knows only too well that Piestewa's name already graces the Phoenix peak formerly known as Squaw.

In April, he was the only member of the Arizona State Geographic and Historic Names Board to vote against the name change advocated by Gov. Janet Napolitano.
"I voted for Janet Napolitano and think she has been a fairly good governor," Clark said, while discussing the matter recently at his Sun Village home. "But on this she is wrong because she did it as a political ploy, and that does not honor Lori Piestewa."

Still upset about the board's decision, Clark vows to push for his alternative plan until Piestewa Peak becomes official at the national level when it is considered in 2008, following the mandatory five-year wait after death.
When an advisory board met to discuss renaming the city's Squaw Peak Recreation Area last week, Clark was there to urge the board not to act.

When the Council on Geographic Names Authorities met in California in October, Clark was there to share his alternative plan. When the names board he has served on for a decade meets later this month, Clark will be there to urge his colleagues to reverse their decision.

He acknowledges it may be an uphill battle, but that hasn't stood in his way before.

Fifty years ago, the former Phoenix Gazette reporter began looking for the German U-boat captain who masterminded an escape from a World War II prisoner of war camp at Papago Park. It took him 30 years, but he eventually met the officer in Germany, formed the Papago Trackers, organized a reunion of the German prisoners in Arizona and wrote about their experience in a book about World War II recently published by the University of Arizona.

The octogenarian Texas native has reinvented himself several times with different passions and different careers. He has worked as a journalist, military officer, public administrator and college instructor. He became friends with Frank Lloyd Wright after soliciting the famous architect's input on the expansion of the state Capitol building in 1958. A Casablanca aficionado, he has seen the film 83 times and has a room decorated for it in his home. He co-founded the Arizona Rail Passengers Association and leads an annual Christmas Eve sunrise hike up North Mountain that drew about 70 hikers this year, the 17th annual.

A columnist for Sun City's Daily News-Sun, he may be best known among Republic and Gazette readers for his sometimes-corny one-liners and puns that he has regularly contributed to the editorial pages over the past several decades.
As he talks about his many interests, he disappears into his bedroom to pull out one of the dozens of binders he keeps with mementos from every year of his life. Now a great-grandfather, he has been married to his wife, Jean, for nearly 54 years.

Though he has vowed to remain nonpartisan throughout his life, he enjoys following politics because "it is fascinating the way people perceive what is good and what is bad."

For him, the move to rename Squaw Peak for Lori Piestewa was undeniably bad. He says some mapmakers have already begun referring to the peak as Piestewa-Squaw Peak, linking the Native American soldier's name to the term that some people see as offensive.

"That does not honor an Indian woman by putting her name on a terrain feature named Squaw," he said.

He disputes the assertion that the word "squaw" is derogatory, but says what upset him most was the process to rename the peak. National guidelines require a five-year waiting period after death for a geographic feature to be named for a person. This is so changes are not made in the heat of emotion. The state board voted to name the peak for Piestewa only a month after her death.

His plan, he says, makes more sense because the San Francisco Mountains are considered sacred to the Hopi people. When the national geographic names board considers the proposal for Piestewa Peak in 2008, he hopes that his idea wins out.
In the meantime, he'll try to win local support.

"It was the wrong time and the wrong place to put Lori Piestewa's name on a terrain feature," he said. "I am going to persist. Perseverance is part of the recipe for succeeding."

At that his wife looked up, explaining that the husband she insists has never bored her is just, well, dogged.

"It is like a dog with something in his mouth that it won't let go," she said.

Reach the reporter at amanda.crawford@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-4870.

©2004 Arizona Central"