The Show for May 22, 2026: Maricopa County election fight, saying goodbye to a school and more

There’s more disagreement over running elections between Maricopa County supervisors and the recorder. Our Friday NewsCap panelists analyze that and the rest of the week’s top stories. Plus, making green pancakes — and saying goodbye to a school that's closing its doors.

Transcript

MARK BRODIE: Hi, I'm Mark Brodie, co-host of The Show, an original production from KJZZ. Every weekday, we bring you the latest news and culture from across the state. You can find much more at theshow.kjzz.org. Here's today's episode.

MARK BRODIE: Good morning, it's The Show here on KJZZ 91.5 in Phoenix, I'm Mark Brodie. Coming up, how a lack of a medical examiner hinders investigations on the Navajo Nation. And saying goodbye to a school and garden that's closing its doors.

But first, it is time for the Friday NewsCap and some voices from the news this week.

WARREN PETERSEN: But I will say now that the governor’s back at the table, we are making progress. We’re meeting almost every single day.

ADELITA GRIJALVA: We left paperwork for her to fill out. And, um, we’ll continue to hold this administration accountable. This is horrible. We’re praying for you, Karla, and know that we’re all in your corner.

THOMAS GALVIN: This is the first time that I can recall of our own employees and volunteers being threatened with criminal penalties, not only in Maricopa County, but in Arizona and the United States of America. This is shocking and appalling.

KATIE HOBBS: This is a decision that affects jobs in Tucson, farms in Yuma, businesses in Nogales, and families across our entire state.

CARINE WERNER: They have come to me with evidence that fraud is still occurring, and the very same bad actors our elected officials claim to have cracked down on are still operating in their communities.

DAVID SCHWEIKERT: In ours, the gap is quite narrow. But what’s shocking to us and, and, and to the other pollsters if you dig into the numbers, is almost half the Republican primary voters really have not even tuned into the race yet.

RUBEN GALLEGO: Let’s just let that sink in. The president of the United States sued his own government, and then negotiated an arrangement with his own Department of Justice, creating a nearly $2 billion fund to compensate himself, his family and his allies.

MARK BRODIE: And joining me to talk about more fireworks within Maricopa County government, some new polls on upcoming elections, and more are Christina Corieri of Consilium Consulting. Christina, good morning.

CHRISTINA CORIERI: Hi, Mark. Thanks for having me.

MARK BRODIE: Thanks for being here. And Dawn Penich of Agave Strategy. Dawn, good morning to you.

DAWN PENICH: Good morning.

MARK BRODIE: So Christina, let me start with you on a hearing this week in Maricopa County where the supervisors and Recorder Justin Heap, who have, let’s say, not been getting along so well over the last number of months.

CHRISTINA CORIERI: A fair description.

MARK BRODIE: Yeah. I mean, and it seems like they’re upset again about the placement and location and sort of administration of drop boxes — ballot drop boxes — that was sort of what this one was about. Is it surprising that a month out from early voting, these two entities are still sort of at each other’s throats?

CHRISTINA CORIERI: Surprising, no. Unfortunate, yes. We’re going to have ballots mailed here in just a couple weeks. And as you know, the vast majority of Arizonans vote early. And in Maricopa County, a huge number of those — 631,000 in the last election — dropped their ballots off at these ballot drop boxes. So it is an important issue. It is important that we have certainty on that, and it is quite unfortunate that it’s happening at this time.

MARK BRODIE: Yeah I mean, Dawn, does this impact how the primary election goes?

DAWN PENICH: Well, that’s key to what the County Board of Supervisors has been saying. One of their reasons that they wanted to take control and kind of stop this is because they’re saying there’s not enough time to do this right at this point.

Obviously there’s disagreement there, but you referenced they haven’t been agreeing for a few months now. Next week will actually be a year, a year that the Board of Supervisors and the county recorder have been suing one another back and forth trying to determine who gets authority over what part of the elections because it is a split responsibility between the two parties.

But it all stems from Heap and the Board having no trust between each other. Heap is essentially an election denier. The Board believes that it’s their responsibility to ensure there is no limiting of voters’ access and no corruption or misdoing by someone who thinks that elections have been stolen here before, which we know not to be true.

MARK BRODIE: So Christina, Dawn mentioned the the lawsuits, and there was a court ruling not that long ago basically saying that the Board illegally took some of the power that should be with the recorder away from him. And it seems like he’s using that ruling as a rationale for why this agreement with the drop boxes shouldn’t happen.

But then the (supervisors) are saying, “Look, we’ve been talking with your office for several weeks about this, and they’ve been on board with what we’re doing.” So how do we try to figure out what’s actually going on here?

CHRISTINA CORIERI: Yeah, it’s very messy. And unfortunately, this specific issue of drop boxes was not included in that decision. And so both the Board and the Recorder’s Office have a a legal rationale. I mean, most of these drop boxes are at county facilities, which are run by the Board.

I think the most unfortunate thing here is that people, average voters are going to be the ones that deal with the fallout of it. If they cannot have a drop box that’s convenient for them, you’re now looking at over half a million people that are either going to have to go stand in line on election day to vote and adjust their schedule to do that, or they’re going to be sending it in via mail.

And I think you may have an implication that the election critics, I’ll say, aren’t going to want, right? The thing they tell you over and over that they want is faster results for an election. If you drop it off at a drop box, those signatures are verified before election day, and they’re in that big number of votes that drops right at the closing of polls. If they’re forced to put it in the mail or they drop it off on election day —

MARK BRODIE: Those dreaded late-earlies.

CHRISTINA CORIERI: Those dreaded late-earlies, you are going to extend the time to get results, which is the opposite of what everyone, especially them, say that they want.

MARK BRODIE: Well and Dawn, I wonder if there’s also a feeling that … we always hear voting is a habit, right? Like if you don’t do it once, maybe you don’t do it going forward and vice versa. If voters have voted by mail and maybe dropped in drop boxes in the past and that’s not an option, might they just not bother to vote?

DAWN PENICH: Yeah, it definitely creates confusion. I mean, if we are all old enough to think back to when there used to be like you could only vote at one location and then it moved to voting centers. Anytime you move someone’s cheese when it comes to where and how they vote, there’s going to be confusion, and there’s going to be those people.

And of course, what Democrats are concerned about, it’s always the youngest voters who aren’t sure what to do and might just leave the thing sitting on a counter or just give up when they’re not sure what location they’re allowed to go to.

And you know what compounds all of this is the Legislature is also looking at changes to different deadlines by when we need to be able to do what kind of voting. So we’re getting so close to the point where this is becoming destructive to what we as Arizonans have always enjoyed as a very well functioning election system.

CHRISTINA CORIERI: Although I would say there is a little bit of a difference between legislative actions and this. When the Legislature passes a law, it’s going to have to go to the general effective date. You’re not talking about something changing a matter of days before an election.

Anything that the Legislature might pass this session, presuming it either gets a governor’s signature — which is challenging on elections issues — or it goes to the ballot, it’s not going to affect this election, and there’s going to be plenty of time for implementation.

This is different because we don’t have that time.

MARK BRODIE: Christina, I also want to ask you about the fact that this disagreement, as Dawn mentioned, almost a year going on now, is by and large between Republicans. I mean, the recorder is a Republican, the Board of Supervisors is 4-1 Republicans.

Is this indicative in any way of a larger sort of chasm in the party, or is this unique to these particular individuals?

CHRISTINA CORIERI: You know, I think that there is some difference in elected Republicans between those who have greater trust in the system and those who have less trust in the system, and I think that’s what you’re seeing play out here. I think you probably see that a little less in the voting population, but you see it more in folks who handle the day-to-day details of elections.

MARK BRODIE: OK. And Dawn, for Democrats, we’ve heard pollsters say that, you know, election fraud, 2020, not real winning issues in the general election. Does this become an election issue, do you think, or is it mostly just, “Hey, let’s make sure that the election is actually going to go off OK”?

DAWN PENICH: Yeah, you have to be kind of a politico or pretty wonky and nerdy to for this to be in your top 10 even for what you care about in an election when gas prices, food prices and home prices are higher than ever. The details of election administration is not the kind of thing that’s going to settle anyone’s vote.

MARK BRODIE: OK. Christina, let me ask you about a poll that came out this week from Noble Predictive Insights. This is looking at the gubernatorial election. It found that in the GOP primary, Andy Biggs, Congressman Andy Biggs is leading Congressman David Schweikert by quite a hefty margin: 48% to 18%. But still about a third of the electorate is undecided, 34% was unsure.

Is there anything to say about that? As we talked about, early voting is starting not that long from now. Is it in any way surprising that like a third of the electorate is still undecided in this race?

CHRISTINA CORIERI: I mean, I think that’s pretty normal. You’re not going to see the ads go up until later. But Congressman Schweikert got into this race pretty late, and he’s been pretty silent. And so I think politicos across the parties would say it would be a very good bet to bet on Congressman Biggs to win this election, and it would be quite a shocker if Congressman Schweikert had a come-from-behind victory.

MARK BRODIE: Let’s assume for a minute that you’re right and that Biggs wins. Do you think it would be by a margin that’s, what, 30 points?

CHRISTINA CORIERI: Quite possibly.

MARK BRODIE: Yeah? So Dawn, the same poll found that Gov. Hobbs right now is ahead of both Congressman Biggs and Schweikert, a narrower margin with Biggs — about a four-point spread, about a seven-point spread with Schweikert. …

What do you think of those numbers? Do you think she really is four points up on Andy Biggs at this point?

DAWN PENICH: It could be. You know, that would mirror what we’re seeing nationally in a lot of polling of other places where, you know, you have, you know, kind of these Republican primaries, Democratic incumbent, and even in other situations.

But there is a national trend. It’s less that it’s trending toward Democrats and more that it’s trending away from Republicans, and certainly the most MAGA and populist of Republicans.

And so that those are real stats, I think is completely believable. And those are probably fairly close to what the win would look like if it goes that direction.

MARK BRODIE: Which would be a much bigger win than Governor Hobbs had 4 years ago, right? Which was what, 17,000-some-odd votes. I mean, 4 points would be a landslide for her at this point.

DAWN PENICH: Yeah, absolutely. But, you know, the world outside has also changed in a way that is moving people in that direction. I think across the country, and certainly here in Arizona, regular voters — certainly the most kind of moderate, centrist, swing voters who take each candidate as they come and don’t have party loyalty — they’ve become disillusioned with the wide gap between what Republicans and MAGA Republicans have said they’re fighting for and what our lives actually look like at the kitchen table, at our pocketbook.

And so you’re seeing people saying like, “Well, you know, Katie Hobbs is not responsible for all the absolute chaos and unbelievable scandals happening in Washington. But Republicans, they’re closer to responsibility.”

MARK BRODIE: Well, so yeah, Christina, I mean, does that sort of national mood, and we’ve seen a lot of polls that show the generic congressional ballot Democrats are ahead and things like that, does that impact state-level races like the governor’s race? And, second part of this question, does it matter that either of the candidates running against the governor will be sitting members of Congress?

CHRISTINA CORIERI: Well, a couple of things. It’s said often, but it’s the truth: November’s a long time away. And neither party should be counting their chickens before they hatch. There are signs that are helpful to both parties.

So back when Gov. Hobbs won in 2022, Republicans had a 170,000 advantage in voter registration. They’ve almost doubled that this time. That is not something that you can count out. So that does play in Congressman Biggs’ favor, presuming he is the nomination.

But Gov. Hobbs has something else in her favor, and that is that it is really hard to unseat an incumbent governor. So hard, in fact, that it hasn’t happened in Arizona since 1966 when Sam Goddard was defeated by Republican challenger Jack Williams.

So they both have that playing in their favor. It is hard for a party that’s president is in power in a midterm election. That’s not to say that they can’t push back against those wins. So for instance, in 2018, Republicans lost 40 seats in Congress, but Gov. Ducey won reelection by half a million more votes than he won his original election in 2014. So again, it’s just too early to say what’s going to happen.

MARK BRODIE: All right. Let’s take a quick break. Christina Corieri, Dawn Penich are my guests. I’m Mark Brodie in Phoenix. The Friday NewsCap continues in just a moment.

MARK BRODIE: Good morning, it's the Friday NewsCap on KJZZ 91.5, I'm Mark Brodie. My guests this week are Dawn Penich of Agave Strategy and Christina Corieri of Consilium Consulting.

Dawn, there was another poll from Noble as well this week looked at President Trump’s job approval rating, and it’s kind of similar to what we’ve seen in other states, sort of the national. It was a 40% approval, 58% disapproval. On the economy, the numbers were a little worse for the president, and among independents and Hispanics, 66% of those groups disapprove.

This kind of goes to the question that we ended the first segment with with Christina. Those are obviously not great numbers for the president, and presumably there would be some effect on Republicans on the ballot from that. How far down the ballot in a place like Arizona — which as Christina pointed out, still has a pretty significant Republican voter advantage — how far down the ballot do you think that lasts?

DAWN PENICH: Well, it’s more a question of like at what point of the timeline does it impact, you know? Even when you see numbers like that which aren’t just not great, I mean, they’re abysmal for presidential approval ratings, even with that, I think that same poll also shows that 80% of loyal Republicans are still with the president.

And so for a primary, the president’s endorsement, his priorities is still going to drive the conversation toward his candidates. Then they’re going to have to walk that always entertaining walk of figuring out how to turn that around for a general.

So, at this point — again, back to this like it’s still a long way from November — we have some very clear places where those approval ratings don’t matter, and then they’re going to matter a lot.

MARK BRODIE: So, Christina, in a case like this where we have a poll that shows Andy Biggs up pretty big on on David Schweikert, and, who knows, you’re right, the even the primary, you know, a month or two months is still a long way away politically.

Do you think this would be the time for Andy Biggs to start maybe talking in a more general election way? Or maybe he doesn’t the quote-unquote "pivot" to the general election because he’s obviously somebody who is very aligned with President Trump, he has the president’s endorsement, he was very much on board with contesting the elections back in 2020.

Do you see a pivot coming from him?

CHRISTINA CORIERI: You know, Congressman Biggs has been active in politics for a while now, and he is who he is. And I think expecting him to do any sort of a major pivot would suggest that you don’t know Congressman Biggs well.

So I don’t think he is going to change his opinion on many policies. The economy right now, there’s mixed signs, right? If you want to look at the stock market, the Nasdaq’s up double digits year-over-year, and the Dow and S&P are also up over five points.

But while that is true, and while that is helpful to people in their long-term retirement planning, what people tend to look at when they judge the economy is the two things that they have to buy every week. And those are groceries and those are gas.

Now, it is May. Those prices can change before we get to November, but action needs to be taken to get them to change now. I think it’s been commonly said that gas prices go up like like a rocket and down like a feather, so it takes some time.

And if the president wants to address those issues as well as groceries — which some of those price increases are tied to things like tariffs that he’s been implementing — I think now is the time that they need to be taking those actions.

MARK BRODIE: If the president’s approval rating stays roughly where the polls suggest is now and it’s come November, what kind of impact do you think that has on gubernatorial candidates, congressional candidates in Arizona? Does that impact them in a place, as you mentioned, where it’s a pretty significant Republican voter advantage?

CHRISTINA CORIERI: You know, I think it will have more impact at the congressional level than it does at state-level elections. I think people are more likely to look at Congress as the potential check on the president rather than the governor. Obviously, the governor’s not passing federal laws, so I think the gubernatorial elections tend to play out a little bit more on state issues than federal issues.

MARK BRODIE: Dawn, would you agree with that?

DAWN PENICH: Yeah, yeah, I think that sounds right. And you know, we’re kind of seeing real-time debate and consideration of Trump and what to align with him on in Congress. We’re we’re seeing in Congress votes getting delayed because a few Republicans are starting to kind of pull away, and so it’ll be really interesting to me to watch how much that grows or if they’re able — which they often are — to kind of rein everyone in and get all Republicans back on board. But we’re seeing people starting to pull away in a way that we haven’t before.

MARK BRODIE: And what’s interesting about that, Christina, is just in the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen the president’s influence over the Republican Party, right? Between primaries in Indiana, we saw the primary in Louisiana where Sen. (Bill) Cassidy was defeated just this week in Kentucky. So, clearly among at least in some places, among Republican voters, President Trump’s opinion still seems to matter a great deal.

CHRISTINA CORIERI: Among Republican primary voters that is absolutely true. Although I think some of those results may not play well for him for the next few months. I think Cassidy’s loss in the primary may free him up to vote in a way he might not otherwise have voted.

MARK BRODIE: Yeah, that’ll be interesting to watch. OK.

So guys, we saw this week and heard this week that it seems as though maybe there’s a budget deal on the horizon. The Senate president has said they’re more than 90% of the way there. We heard from another member of Republican leadership saying they expect to vote sometime in early June on a budget.

Dawn, this seems like they’ve come a long way from even just a week or two ago.

DAWN PENICH: Yeah, no, at this point meetings with Republican leadership are daily, with Democrats every few days. The other telltale sign is that you’re starting to hear about bills shaking loose that have been stalled up in either moratorium or just they needed a deal to be brought back to life.

So you’re starting to see all those signs coming out of the Ninth Floor. So I think it won’t be too many more Friday NewsCaps until we’re doing a retrospective of the legislative session.

MARK BRODIE: I think there are a lot of people who’d probably be pretty happy to hear that that is the case.

DAWN PENICH: Absolutely.

MARK BRODIE: So, Christina, you’ve worked in a governor’s office. You worked for Gov. Ducey. What is this time of the session typically like? It seems like it’s almost a lot of hurry up and wait, like a lot of activity, and then you got to wait on something. Is it sort of like frantic activity, and then you have to pause for a few minutes?

CHRISTINA CORIERI: Yeah, and I think that there’s always a breakdown in budget negotiations before you can finally come back to the table and get an agreement. I think when it was Gov. Ducey and a Republican legislature, those breakdowns happened behind closed doors and didn’t usually spill out into the public.

When you have mixed control, I think those breakdowns become a little more emotional on both sides and a little more public on both sides, and so I don’t think it’s all that different from how it used to happen, it’s just more public now.

MARK BRODIE: Are you expecting that this will be sort of a traditional compromise, where nobody gets everything they want and each side has to sort of give a little? Because there were some lines in the sand on both sides.

CHRISTINA CORIERI: You know, I think the Republicans are going to get what they want as it relates to tax conformity. I think they’re going to have to give the governor a win too, on a separate issue. But they’re pretty close, and both sides are going to have to give a little bit. I don’t think you’ll see the broad and deep agency cuts that were in the proposed Republican budget.

MARK BRODIE: So would you expect that the final budget will look more like the one that the governor vetoed than the one that she proposed in January?

CHRISTINA CORIERI: I don’t think it’s going to look like the one she proposed in January. That had new taxes and new fees, and I don’t see that being a starting point for anyone. I think the tax portion is going to look a lot like what the Republicans passed and was vetoed. I think the agency cuts that you saw in the Republican budget is what’s probably likely to change a lot in what’s finally passed.

MARK BRODIE: OK. So Dawn, what would you what would you anticipate, or maybe as a supporter of the of the Democrats, what would you hope would be the Democrats’ or the governor’s win in that?

DAWN PENICH: Yeah, well, definitely not taking some of these cuts to agencies like Christina is saying. Democrats really want to — Arizona would be the only state in the country that does total conformity if they go with everything that’s in there.

And so some of these private school voucher programs — and it’s an STO program different than the ESA program — is something that Democrats are really trying to make sure doesn’t happen.

Democrats are also very interested in getting data centers to pay their fair share. This is something that’s extremely popular across all political parties. It’ll be a question, but data centers if they have to be here should at least be pitching in. The funding that they bring in could be used to help real people pay their electricity bills and other bills.

And employee healthcare costs is something that Democrats are really pushing for. So there were some things that didn’t get done in education. So, I think it’s probably true to your earlier question, will this look more like what Republicans originally — it won’t look like either one of them, but it’ll probably lean a little right.

MARK BRODIE: OK. I’m sorry, I know you want to jump in, Christina, I’m sorry we’ve got to leave it there. Dawn Penich, Christina Corieri, thank you both so much for the conversation, I really appreciate it.

DAWN PENICH: Thank you.

CHRISTINA CORIERI: Thank you.

MARK BRODIE: Good morning, it's The Show on KJZZ 91.5, I'm Mark Brodie. Coming up, how the Navajo Nation is struggling to investigate murdered and missing people's cases due to the lack of a medical examiner.

But first, James Beard Award-winning chef Charleen Badman founded the Blue Watermelon Project a decade ago as a way to address many things: childhood hunger, poor diets, a lack of knowledge about how our food grows. And she started it at Echo Canyon School by planting a garden and cooking with the kids. She was their first chef in the garden, and she still cooks with the kids there today. She knows their names, their stories, the recipes they've liked the most. But this week was their last time cooking in the garden together.

While the Blue Watermelon Project has expanded to more than 50 schools across the state, Echo Canyon is closing its doors, the latest in a string of school closures happening here and across the country. The students will be going to new schools around the Valley, and the gardens and orchards that Chef Shar, as they call her, and a team of volunteers and students have cultivated for years could just dry up. My co-host, Lauren Gilger, and our producer, Amber Victoria Singer, got the chance to be in the garden with them all this week on their last day. Here's a taste of what it sounded like.

KIDS: Double this this, double double that that. Double this, double that. Double double this that. (laughing)

LAUREN GILGER: It’s an unusually cool May morning in the courtyard of Echo Canyon School, and a group of middle schoolers are gathering around a big round table with piles of Swiss chard on it. Chef Charleen Badman is getting them ready to make one of their favorite recipes from years of classes like this.

CHARLEEN BADMAN: Swiss chard pancakes.

LAUREN GILGER: The Swiss chard pancakes are memorable. They’re bright green, surprisingly savory and packed full of a vegetable these kids grew in the garden beds next to them.

CHARLEEN BADMAN: They’re very green. I mean, they’re bright green. That’s why I think they call them the green zombie pancakes.

LAUREN GILGER: But really, they’re cooking these today in honor of Principal Kat Hughes.

KAT HUGHES: This is one of my favorite things on the entire planet to eat, and I love it.

LAUREN GILGER: She’s leaving the Scottsdale Unified School District at the end of this year, following the vote from the school board to close the school she’s ran for the last decade. But she told me she’s determined to end it right.

KAT HUGHES: We decided that we were going to honor our legacy the best way we knew how and to enjoy our last year together rather than wallow in sadness.

CHARLEEN BADMAN: Watch those fingers. Keep them back. Remember: Use your claw.

CHARLEEN BADMAN: I understand there’s budget cuts, but t’s an amazing school, and it’s given so much opportunity and growth for students, and it’s a shame. When I was pulling up, I started to get a little weepy, and I was like, “You got to keep it together.” So—

LAUREN GILGER: Chef Badman says when she was first asked to come cook with the kids at Echo Canyon, she told them one important thing.

(To Badman) For a chef who’s worked at this particular school and in schools around the state for so many years now, you didn’t like kids, right?

CHARLEEN BADMAN: No.

LAUREN GILGER: Wasn’t that your first response?

CHARLEEN BADMAN: That was my first response. If it wasn’t a somebody that I knew that wasn’t a friend that said, “Would you come and do this?” And I did say that. I said, “You know, I just I’m letting you know ahead of time, kind of my disclaimer: I don’t really like kids.”

And I finished the first lessons with the students, and I just said, “How can I come back and do this again?”

LAUREN GILGER: All of the kids here today to make these bright green pancakes were chosen because they’ve been participating in Badman’s homegrown cooking classes here since kindergarten. And talking to them, it’s clear how much this program has impacted them.

CHLOE: My name’s Chloe. I’m in eighth grade.

LAUREN GILGER: And you’ve been doing this program for a long time, it sounds like?

CHLOE: Yeah, I’ve been a part of it since kindergarten.

LAUREN GILGER: Any meals that stick out to you?

CHLOE: Um, well, I really like the Swiss chard pancakes, and I like the I’itoi onion rice. I feel like they were all so good.

EMMANUEL: I remember I made this dish they call like snow pea stir fry, which was really good. I think like everything was my favorite. My name’s Emmanuel. I’m in sixth grade.

JONAH: Jonah. I am in 8th grade. I have been here since kindergarten. It was weird because I remember like a while ago, especially like maybe like a year or two ago, I was really picky. I didn’t like eating new things.

I think this program really helped me experience a bunch of new tastes. I definitely learned about a bunch of new plants. I didn’t know about like Swiss chard, or I remember we did one about squash blossoms last year. I’m like, “I never knew what that was before. I never knew you could eat blossoms!”

EMMANUEL: With this program here at our school, it’s like you get to like try new things, like eating food and like working with other people, even if you don’t like it too, but I liked it a lot here.

ADEEN: My name is Adeen, I’m a sixth grader. I remember one time there was like peach trees outside my classroom, so we got to go and pick them and eat them. There was always a garden outside our classroom. We always got to like play there before we had to go in. We usually like played hide and seek and hid behind the plants.

EMMANUEL: I think the gardens are like really important here.

JONAH: I feel like I’ve seen these gardens in like tons of different shapes and sizes.

CLOE: I remember always walking through the halls and seeing the sunflowers grow really tall.

EMMANUEL: I planted many flowers, and think it was like a potato or something.

LAUREN GILGER: And then you get to eat them?

EMMANUEL: Yeah, then like it just like you make it into something you like a lot.

LAUREN GILGER: So, you’re going to have to change schools next year?

ADEEN: Yeah, it’s scary because I kind of have only ever gone here. I’ve gone here since forever.

CHLOE: I really am sad because it’s been 9 years of me doing this, and it’s kind of like all I’ve known. And then I’m going to high school next year, so it’s — I’m kind of not going to get it either way, but it’s definitely sad that I won’t be able to come back for senior grad walk. I’m happy that I get to participate in this one last time, but it’s sad. Yeah.

EMMANUEL: I wish I could stay here longer because I think it’s a really good school.

JONAH: It’s weird that I’m leaving this all behind and everyone else is also leaving.

LAUREN GILGER: Are you sad to say goodbye to this school?

JONAH: 100%, but it’s just like leaving is — it’s hard.

LAUREN GILGER: What will you miss most?

JONAH: Probably the people.

EMMANUEL: I’ll miss like everything here, like this program here where we get to cook. And I’ll miss a lot of the gardens and all the teachers and my classmates.

ADEEN: I kind of wish I could take all the people here with me because the teachers and all the people here that have been here with me for a long time, it’s kind of like home.

JONAH: It’s a big, like, 300-kid family.

LAUREN GILGER: And as they say goodbye to the program and to their school on this day, Badman says she owes them a lot.

CHARLEEN BADMAN: It’s definitely a passion my staff sees when I come back, and they’re like, “From the person who didn’t like kids, you you are so excited about coming back from a school and what they said, how they responded, the fact that they had this new experience, all of those things.”

LAUREN GILGER: Has it kept you going over the years, like because I mean, it’s a hard job being a chef. Like it’s every day it’s physical. Is this one of the things that’s made you kind of stick with it?

CHARLEEN BADMAN: I think so. I mean, it’s it is, it’s tough. Your body gets really tired. I mean, 10 years ago, I was like, “I’m going to be cooking on the line forever.” And now I’m cooking on the line, and I’m like, “Oh, my foot hurts.”

but I come here and hang out with the kids, and I get so inspired to go back to the restaurant and do dinner service, and it’s just like the momentum of working with them continues on into my work at the restaurant.

LAUREN GILGER: Kids are inspirational.

CHARLEEN BADMAN: Absolutely, 100%. from the things they say to the joy they bring you to how they just, again, they inspire me to want to continue pushing. Like how many more other crazy vegetables can we try? What can I get them excited about that I’m excited about?

LAUREN GILGER: You’re the vegetable whisperer, yep. So, I mean, this school in particular has been special because this is where it began, and I know you do this all over. The program’s not ending, but the school is closing. So I wonder how you’re feeling about that?

CHARLEEN BADMAN: I mean, I’m very sad about that. I wish it wasn’t happening. This school I’ve seen throughout the years has been a different sort of way of teaching a student, and that students that maybe have a harder time have really been able to be successful.

And I know a lot of students that have come from this school that are now from farmers to doctors to nurses. I mean, I was in a store yesterday picking up some stuff and and somebody came up to me and started talking to me, and she said, “Oh, my granddaughter went to Echo Canyon,” and I said, "Well, that’s where I’m going to be tomorrow.”

LAUREN GILGER: What a coincidence.

CHARLEEN BADMAN: Yeah, it’s crazy.

LAUREN GILGER: Tell me about the gardens here in particular because we’re not sure what’s going to happen to them?

CHARLEEN BADMAN: We don’t have any idea. We don’t have any idea. And there’s beautiful trees here. There are pomegranates and Meyer lemon trees and peaches and apples and so many things growing throughout this entire campus. I really hope however they see of repurposing the space, that somebody sees these spaces as an opportunity to continue to have things growing.

LAUREN GILGER: What will you miss most?

CHARLEEN BADMAN: Echo just has a different feeling than a lot of other schools. The gardens are really super important. We had an opportunity at one point where Alice Waters came and saw the campus, and she’s like, “Oh, this is a garden with a school.” And I think that says it all, and the students that are around here being able to share this opportunity. So, yeah, it’s going to be sad.

LAUREN GILGER: Going to miss it all, it sounds like.

CHARLEEN BADMAN: Absolutely, absolutely, 100%.

LAUREN GILGER: All right, you got to serve up some pancakes here.

KAT HUGHES: What do we say?

KIDS: Thank you!

CHARLEEN BADMAN: Enjoy! Bon appétit!

MARK BRODIE: Good morning, it's the Friday NewsCap on KJZZ 91.5, I'm Mark Brodie. When crimes are committed on the Navajo Nation, officials have to look elsewhere for a medical examiner. That's because the nation's Department of Criminal Investigations doesn't have one, instead relying on outside agencies or other workers to do the job. ASU student Ellis Preston, health disparities reporter for Cronkite News, has written about this. She joins me to talk more about it. And Ellis, the Navajo Nation just doesn't have a medical examiner of its own?

ELLIS PRESTON: No, they don't. So, they have never had a medical examiner on staff. And eight years ago, they created a resolution in 2018 ... and it created the position for a medical examiner in that department, but it never got filled, because they don't have enough money for it.

MARK BRODIE: Do they not have enough money like at all, or just not enough money to recruit somebody to do the job?

ELLIS PRESTON: Well, I mean, the Navajo Nation does not have a lot of money. It does not have a lot of resources. But they rely a lot on Indian Health Services to like federally grant them money, and so they've been kind of advocating since they created this position to subsidize the cost of a medical examiner. Because they have some money for it, but not enough to pay a competitive wage for someone.

MARK BRODIE: So who is doing the job a medical examiner would do in the absence of somebody actually in that post?

ELLIS PRESTON: So they outsource. One of the medical examination offices that they go to is the Coconino County Medical Examiner's Office. But they also have had to start relying on some of their onsite criminal investigators that work for Navajo Nation, who are also already understaffed.

I spoke to Dale West. He's the supervisor of the Shiprock, New Mexico, department of criminal investigators, for the Navajo Nation Department of Criminal Investigations. ... But he said that they had eight people on staff and now they're down to three. And so these criminal investigators who are there to see who did a crime and if there is a crime are now having to do some work of medical examiners as well.

MARK BRODIE: Are they trained to do that?

ELLIS PRESTON: They've had to get training. ... When I was talking to Dale, he was saying that they've they've had to do a little bit of training, but it's obviously it's not their role. And they need to separate the roles because if everyone is doing what they're paid to do, then things will go a lot more smoothly, they'll be more efficient, and there's less room for mistakes. And especially for missing and murdered Indigenous people's cases, you want to make sure that you're flagging things accurately. And sometimes there's a death and you want to make sure that if it is a homicide, that that's flagged as quickly as possible so they can investigate.

So a medical examiner is responsible for finding like the cause, manner of death, creating death certificates, looking for evidence at the scene, doing autopsies, identifying missing person remains. And then a criminal investigator looks at like the crime, they're law enforcement, they're looking for who may be responsible for something.

MARK BRODIE: What are some of the the main implications of this job not being filled? You mentioned, you know, there's been obviously a lot of attention on missing and murdered Indigenous people, especially missing and murdered Indigenous women. What does it mean for those cases to not have a medical examiner in this pretty high-profile office?

ELLIS PRESTON: Yeah, so, it's definitely a big issue, homicides on tribal land. I actually tried to find a little bit of statistics, but there's not a ton of research on it just because a lot of nations can't necessarily like afford to conduct this sort of research.

But something recently that I found was that the CDC recently reported in 2023 that homicide was the fourth-leading cause of death among 1- to 44-year-old American Indian and Alaska Native males and the sixth-leading cause for women. So, it's very prevalent in their community, and it's very essential that all of these roles are just filled to be as accurate as possible.

... I think things get pretty convoluted from people that I've talked to who do outsourcing work. Like, I talked to this woman, Heather Edgar. She's a forensic anthropologist. So she doesn't do what a medical examiner does, she doesn't do what a criminal investigator does. She deals with like remains of bodies that are really deteriorated so she can identify that, and she has worked with the nation in an outsourced way.

And she says sometimes when she gets things back from them, photos are maybe blurry and they don't have all the details of a case. And if they had proper staffing, proper funding, things would maybe be easier for just all parties involved.

MARK BRODIE: Things get lost.

ELLIS PRESTON: Yes, yes, 100%.

MARK BRODIE: So what do folks on the Navajo Nation say about what they're doing to try to get the money to be able to hire someone?

ELLIS PRESTON: So there's the Navajo Nation Law and Order Committee, part of the Navajo Nation Council, and they've been trying to work with Indian Health Services since this resolution for a medical examiner was created in 2018. And they've been trying to kind of advocate to subsidize the cost for a competitive wage of a medical examiner.

But Indian Health Services hasn't been very reciprocative towards them. According to the Law and Order Committee, they maybe have been avoiding some meetings and not they haven't made it clear that they're willing to fund the position at all.

And they've also stated before that there's not enough on-site death counts or in-facility death counts to warrant the need for a medical examiner for the Navajo Nation. But that can get convoluted, too, because in-facility death counts means death counts in a hospital, so that's not counting like people who were found dead or went missing.

MARK BRODIE: It's very — people who died in a very specific place.

ELLIS PRESTON: Yes, and that's how they are kind of counting whether or not there should be a medical examiner for the Navajo Nation.

MARK BRODIE: Were you able to get a hold of anyone at IHS to ask what's going on?

ELLIS PRESTON: No. I did hear back from them, but they they didn't really respond to my request for comment. They just referred me to a different branch of Navajo Nation.

MARK BRODIE: So does it seem safe to say then that, at least for the immediate future, the status quo will be what happens? Like, there just will not be a medical examiner for the Navajo Nation?

ELLIS PRESTON: Yeah, for the future, and as far as I'm aware, they're going to keep advocating. They're trying to develop a 638 contract with the Indian Health Services. A 638 contract is a contract that allows tribes to operate federally funded programs independently, so they'll get money for a program and then they can operate it however they want.

So they want to create that with the IHS, so the IHS will fund this medical examiner, but Navajo Nation is responsible for like hiring them and actually creating the position. They're trying to work with them to create that, but yeah, no progress has been made, as for the foreseeable future, we don't know yet.

MARK BRODIE: All right. That is Ellis Preston, health disparities reporter with Cronkite News. Ellis, thanks so much.

ELLIS PRESTON: Thank you so much.

MARK BRODIE: And now it's time to hit the road and head out into the wilder parts of the state. We're venturing to the far northern edge of Arizona where it's not exactly cool when things start heating up here in the Valley, but it's certainly a place you can go to explore in the summer when it's 115 degrees down here. My co-host, Lauren Gilger, spoke with longtime Arizona travel writer Roger Naylor a couple of summers ago.

ROGER NAYLOR: It's certainly much cooler than it is in the Valley. And also, never forget that you'll you'll have warm afternoons, but it will cool off dramatically in the evening. So you get the nice cool evenings, cool mornings, and stuff. Maybe not as chilly as when you're at the Flagstaff or Greer or some place like that, but you're down on the water, you're in canyons, you're in shade, you're having all kinds of great fun.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, it sounds beautiful. Okay, so let's start in this region, the Arizona Strip. I've never heard of this, I've lived here most of my life.

ROGER NAYLOR: Oh, my god.

LAUREN GILGER: What does this describe?

ROGER NAYLOR: Well, the Arizona Strip is essentially the part of Arizona that's cut off from the rest of the state by the Colorado River, which is mostly the Grand Canyon, so it's that little section over there that is pretty inaccessible. The actual strip is as large as Massachusetts with a population of 8,000. So, I mean, solitude is a very big thing here. It's really quite the middle of nowhere. So you can explore deep into the strip if you want. One of the things I like to do is kind of combine the eastern edge of the Arizona Strip and around the Navajo Bridge area along with Page, Lake Powell, and the Navajo Nation. So you're all right up along the edge of Utah there, and you're just experiencing some incredible sights on the Colorado Plateau.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, okay. So what are some of your favorite places to explore up there? What do you find?

ROGER NAYLOR: Well, one of the places I really like to get to right away is Lees Ferry, which a lot of people have heard about. It's sort of a famous crossroads of history, but not a lot of people actually visit unless you're taking a rafting trip through the Grand Canyon because that's the put-in place. So you go there, and it's sort of the middle of nowhere, but there's a whole bunch of people down on the ramp loading up their boats and and slathering on the sunscreen and getting ready for their little adventure.

But otherwise, it's deserted, and they've got an incredible trail there called the River Trail. It's just one mile long, and it's perfectly level and just like it promises, it just follows the Colorado River, and these cliffs, and it is so gorgeous. It takes you by some historic buildings. This is an there's an old Mormon fort there that was never attacked, an old post office that never sent a letter. You know, I mean, this is because this was such an outpost, such a such a remote area. A couple of people tried to get rich there with prospecting, nothing ever really panned out. So there's a boiler of an old steamboat that's still in the river there that you can see and stuff. But it's just so incredible, it's so peaceful. The water's flowing by there and you're walking beneath these colorful cliffs, and it's just really spectacular.

Just about a mile away from there, behind that, is the Lonely Dell Ranch, which is where John D. Lee and his family and all the other people who operated the ferry after that, that's where they lived. And again, since this is middle of nowhere, they had to be self-sufficient, so they had a big farm, there's these great old orchards there that are still growing and here, you can walk back there and pick a peach off the tree and eat it. It's all all allowed. Uh, the Paria River comes flowing by there, you can wander up to the river and stuff. I've had, you know, some great summer days back there. So that's an area that I really, really love that I just think a lot of people kind of overlook because, again, if you're not doing a river trip, then that's not a place you you go to very often.

LAUREN GILGER: It sounds beautiful. It is, it is. So tell us about some of the places you can get on the water. Where are your favorite kind of kayaking spots, especially for people who are not going to go all the way through the Grand Canyon? Right, right, right. Well, and I'm not, you know, I'm one of those people because I'm always a little nervous about water, but the best kayaking trip I've ever had in my life, you go to Cliff Dwellers Lodge, which is just about 10 miles west of Navajo Bridge, and they rent and shuttle kayaks, so you can get a nice kayak there. And you tell them how long you want to go out. If you want to kayak for 2 hours, they'll drive you up the river to drop you off for that length. You can go all the way to Glen Canyon Dam, you can do it as an overnight trip and camp along the river if you want. But I think we went out like 6 hours, they dropped us off up the river, and we just floated, drifted down. It's all flat water because you're not in the Grand Canyon yet, so there's no rapids. It's it's just lazy summer days with 1,000-foot cliffs soaring above you, and it's just gorgeous. You're just drifting by. You actually go floating through Horseshoe Bend there, that famous curve in the river. You glance up and you see these little tiny people way up high above you, but then yeah, you you kayak through Horseshoe Bend and down and then you get out at Lees Ferry, and that's where they get the kayaks back there.

LAUREN GILGER: Sounds awesome. It is, it is, 100%.

LAUREN GILGER: Okay, so it's not all water though. You you also get to tour, you talked about some pretty interesting cliff dwellings that I've never heard of up in this very far northern edge part of the state.

ROGER NAYLOR: Yeah, over on the Navajo Nation is Navajo National Monument. They've got three cliff dwellings that they protect. Inscription House has been closed since 1968. Keet Seel is a fantastic cliff dwelling, but it can only be done as a guided overnight hike. But Betatakin, which was one that I visited just last month, they do most weekends up until Labor Day, depending on staff shortage, you know, they've been having some staffing issues. But usually, there's a ranger, it has to be a guided hike, and you'll go out Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. You just need to check with the Navajo National Monument, give them a call, make sure you don't have to do a reservation, doesn't cost anything. But it is a 3-mile or 5-mile, depending on which route they take, but generally, it's a 5-mile round trip hike going down into the canyon, so there is some climbing in and out. But when I went, there is a mom with a couple of kids and they seemed to be doing fine. And it's a gorgeous canyon. I would do the hike just even if there wasn't a cliff dwelling at the end of it because it is a spectacular canyon. But you go down through there into this deep canyon, and there's this huge cliff dwelling that was built by the ancestors of the Hopi back about 1250 and was occupied up until about 1300. Used to be 125 rooms, now there's about 80 still in this huge alcove because of some rock falls that have destroyed some of them. But I mean, you know, they still have windows and ceilings and the original timbers intact, you know, from all these centuries.

LAUREN GILGER: So one of the things I think lots of people will think about, you know, you think about Horseshoe Bend if you're up in this part of the state, you think about the Wave, right, that famous hike that is impossible to get a permit to do, right, everyone wants to go take a picture there. But you're saying there's another one that's almost as good?

ROGER NAYLOR: Well, yeah, I don't want to say almost as good. But it is being called the New Wave Trail. It's actually its official name is the Beehive Trail, and it's right there in Page, just about a half a mile past the Carl Hayden Visitor Center at the dam, and directly across from the Beehive Campground there. It's a 1.5-mile round trip hike, but it's takes you across the same formations, it's slick rock hiking, it's canyon country hiking. Slick rock refers to any expanse of of sandstone that's level enough to walk or ride on. And I always love slick rock hiking, it's just like you're walking on the bones of the land, it's just you feel that hardness and that surface and the tilted and the way it rolls, it's just beautiful. The wind has left its fingerprints all over this with those swirls and curves and swoops, and it's just really elegant, it's very beautiful. You make a nice little loop through there and and it's a great little surprise a lot of people don't know about, I think.

LAUREN GILGER: It sounds beautiful.

ROGER NAYLOR: It is, it is.

LAUREN GILGER: Roger, thanks as always for coming in, I appreciate it very much.

ROGER NAYLOR: Always a delight, great to see you.

MARK BRODIE: Thanks for listening to The Show's podcast. The Show is produced by Sativa Peterson, Nick Sanchez, Amber Victoria Singer, Athena Ankrah, and Ayana Hamilton. The Show was created by Jon Hoban. Our executive producer is Amy Silverman. You can find more of The Show and sign up for our newsletter at theshow.kjzz.org. You can also find us on Instagram at @kjzztheshow.