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TheMesaTribune.com |
THE MESA TRIBUNE | JANUARY 16, 2022
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EV female mountain bikers group rolling on BY MELODY BIRKETT Tribune Contributor
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few years ago, Tiana Riccardi and Robin Lamb saw a need for a mountain biker group for girls and women only. The Mesa women already belonged to Hawesaholics, a group with more than 3,000 male and female mountain bikers of all ages and experience levels that Shawn Stenmark started in the name of Hawes Mountain, a popular haunt. So it was only logical to Riccardi and Lamb to start a spin-off group, Hawesaholics Babes Ride On so that girls and women would feel more comfortable in what has been a male-dominated activity. “I started riding 2 1/2 years ago and that’s when I met Tiana who was looking for other women to ride with more frequently,” said Lamb. “We went on a ride
Among the leaders of Hawesaholics Babes Ride On are, from left, co-founder Robin Lamb, beginners’ class instructor Gina Dwyer and co-founder Tiana Ricciardi , all of Mesa. (Special
to the Tribune)
with four girls,” added Lamb. “Afterwards, Tiana said, ‘We should start a Facebook
messenger group’ on the Hawesaholics Facebook page, people would post rides
such as, ‘I’m going to ride at this trail, at this pace, on this day. Let us know if anyone wants to come.’” “We had 50-100 members right away,” Lamb said, adding that HBRO now has almost 500 members. “It’s not meant to take away from Hawesaholics. They do a ton of stuff every year such as group rides, rides for beginners, kids and families.” Like the larger group, HBRO started posting events with the first one being a ladies’ night. “It was so much fun,” explained Lamb. “And it was crazy. Crazy in the sense that beginners showed up along with other girls who were total rock stars. People who can throw 50-foot jumps off of things that are fast and aggressive – really talented riders who’ve been doing it for a lot longer. All of them were having a good
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ASU awards special MLK honor to professor BY PAUL MARYNIAK Tribune Executive Editor
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t’s been 53 years since the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and the societal change he fought and prayed for seems as much a dream now as it did in 1969. But as his birthday is commemorated Monday, the countless individuals who have continued his legacy haven’t given up his fight – people like Dr. Neal Lester. Lester, Foundation Professor of English at Arizona State University and founder director of its Project Humanities, will be recognized for his work Jan. 20 as the first recipient of ASU’s new MLK Jr. Faculty Servant-Leadership Award. As ASU noted in announcing the award, “Lester’s work not only connects communities, but gives a voice to those who feel marginalized.” He told ASU he was gratified and humbled by the award, which was an-
nounced late last year in what was a big 10th anniversary year for his Project Humanities, whose mission is to “bring together individuals and communities, within and around Arizona State University, to instill passion and knowledge of humanities study, research, and humanist thought. “By exploring shared ideas and experiences, Project Humanities facilitates conversations across diverse communities to build understanding through talking, listening, and connecting.” In 2021, Project Humanities received the MLK Diversity Award in Education from the City of Tempe in January and the ASU Committee for Campus Inclusion Catalyst Award for “inspiring and igniting transformation and inclusion.” The culminating anniversary event was a conversation between Lester and King’s daughter, Dr. Bernice A. King, about her family’s legacy and her and the King Center’s global effort for non-
violent social change. “This all feels cosmically connected,” Lester told ASU. Lester has been as busy as the cosmos in making connections as he strives to apply the principles that Project Humanities terms “Humanity 101”: compassion, integrity, respect, kindness, forgiveness, empathy and self-reflection. Those principles, he said, “challenge us to do better and be better people.” Lester has built a wide variety of programs and activities around his conviction that “culture and difference must be acknowledged, valued and celebrated as elements of our shared humanity.” “While I get great joy witnessing my students’ “aha!” moments in class…I experience another level of joy when – sometimes years later – they express to me that they see connections between
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Dr. Neal Lester will receive Arizona State University’s inaugural Martin Luther King Jr. Faculty Servant-Leadership Award as part of the annual MLK Jr. celebration by the university, where he has been Foundation Professor of English since 1997. (Courtesy ASU)
