Volume 13 • Number 6
The Voice of the Catalina Foothills
March 22, 2023
www.tucsonlocalmedia.com
Best of the Northwest 2023
Read the community’s picks for their favorite shops, restaurants, parks and plenty more | Special Section
INSIDE Brett Dooley goes personal on solo record | Page 8 Xylazine: Another drug problem is looming | Page 8 Some spring cleaning in time for the vernal equinox | Page 10
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READER RECOMMENDED UA doctoral candidate inspires documentary BY KATYA MENDOZA Tucson Weekly Contributor
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t the age of 28, married and nine months pregnant, Charity Woodrum followed her passion and returned to school to study physics. Woodrum was thriving at the University of Oregon. By her junior year, she had completed a NASA internship, her family was happy, and life seemed perfect. On Jan. 15, 2017 — what she calls “The Worst Day” — her life changed. As Woodrum, her husband Jayson Thomas, 37, and son Woody Thomas, 3, walked in the sunshine at Boice-Cope State Beach in Oregon, they were hit by a sneaker wave. Charity was the sole See WOODRUM Page 3
Charity Woodrum films “Space, Hope and Charity.” (Sandy Cummings/Submitted)
Navarro-Hernandez joins Casa de los Niños as CEO BY VERONICA KUFFEL Tucson Weekly Staff
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ora Navarro-Hernandez felt a calling after 30 years in social services. “I felt this pull. It was very strange,” she said. “I needed to try to do something
JULIE KELLY,
where I could intervene earlier … to make a difference in the lives of children and families here in Tucson in a different way.” Recently, she was named the new CEO of the nonprofit Casa de los Niños. She follows Susie Huhn, who retired last year. For most of her professional life, Navar-
ro-Hernandez said she believed she was making an impact in her communities. Navarro-Hernández started her career in her home state of Illinois, working her way to deputy director at the Pilsen Wellness See CASA DE LOS NIÑOS Page 6
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