Sentinel’s Dylan Smith among community members honored as ‘Civic Champions’

Tucson Sentinel Editor and Co-Publisher Dylan Smith was named a Civic Champion by a pair of organizations on Tuesday night.

Smith joined six other Southern Arizonans who were honored for their work in the community by the Arizona Democracy Resilience Network and Mormon Women for Ethical Government.

Smith won the Community Media Award for his work in founding and sustaining the Sentinel.

Don Henninger, a former managing editor of the Arizona Republic and publisher of the Phoenix Business Journal who co-chairs the ADRN alongside former Tucson congressman Ron Barber, recounted how Smith had found the Sentinel after he lost his job of the afternoon newspaper Tucson Citizen when the paper was shuttered by Gannett in 2009.

Henninger told the guests gathered for a dinner at Hacienda del Sol that Smith is a pioneer in local journalism who has a long pedigree in the news business.

“His great grandfather began work as a reporter from high school in the year 1900,” Henninger said. “His family published the Wheaton, Illinois, Daily Journal for nearly 50 years. His grandfather was also an editor and a publisher. His grandmother was a copy editor and a typesetter, and his parents published an alternative newspaper in the 1960s.”

“Like me, he doesn’t bleed blood,” Henninger continued. “He bleeds ink.”

Smith credited community support for sustaining the nonprofit Sentinel’s work.

“The Sentinel was founded to be a different sort of news organization,” Smith said. “We’re resolutely local and independent. We’re nonprofit, one of the very first ones in the country. We’re not owned and controlled by billionaires. We’re not owned by giant chains that ship millions of dollars out of town. I’m not a creature of any political party. Nobody has got these watchdogs on a leash, and we’re still here 16 years later because of the support this community has provided for us.”

Smith noted he’d watched thousands of newspapers across the country— including those here in Tucson — shut down their presses or lay off so many reporters that they struggle to tell stories about their communities. At the same time, fabricated stories and propaganda, now sometimes created by AI, flood social media platforms, he said.

“Since this evening is dedicated to democracy in action, I don’t need to tell you just how bad things are and just how much worse they seem to be getting,” Smith said. “The very idea of democracy is under attack, and our free press right along with it. Consider this: Our free press is in the Constitution. It’s guaranteed in the Constitution because the founders knew that an informed citizenry is vital to keeping our republic.”

Election worker David Greenwood won the Election Integrity Award for his work at the Pima County Recorder’s Office.

Barber noted that election workers face a new kind of pressure these days.

“We’ve lost a lot of election workers over the last four or five years,” Barber said. “We have to let that sink in, but we also have to support our election workers, because they do a fantastic job under great pressure, and they are our window into the truth about elections.”

Pima County Recorder Gabriella Cazares-Kelly said Greenwood “is so committed to the work and committed to our community and that everyone’s voice is heard. He lectures about it, he jokes about it, he talks about it. He is the epitome of an election hero.”

Greenwood said he started working at the Recorder’s Office in 2012 after his sister told him he should look into a job there.

“Elections have gotten more difficult and challenging recently,” he said. “I won’t go into the whys tonight. But Arizona is by far the most difficult state for voters to register in on paper, and it is by far the most difficult state to be an election officer or an election worker.”

United Way of Santa Cruz County Executive Director Marcela Chavez won the Nonprofit Impact Award for her work in the Nogales area, including launching programs to repair homes and establishing a diaper bank.

“Go out there,” Chavez said. “Help out people. Volunteer. You’re going to make a difference. You have to make a difference in your community. And if you do it from your heart, it’s not work at all.”

Lorena Parra Howard won the Unsung Hero Award for her work with community groups such as LULAC and Derechos Humanos as well as establishing a space in South Tucson where people could learn English and attend workshops to better understand their rights. She has also been an advocate for environmental justice.

Howard said she had been proud of working “with a community of women (who) have come together to promote change in the community in different ways – working with sexual assault survivors, domestic violence survivors, working in the political field. But also just supporting each other with the work that we’re doing, by being there for each other and knowing that by giving each one of us that empowerment, it allows us to go out there and make change in the world.”

Desiree Cook, the founder and CEO of nonprofit organization I Am You 360, was named Civic Innovator Award for her work with foster kids and unhoused youth, including creating customized hygiene kits according to age, gender and ethnicity. She also recently led the effort to build Tucson’s first energy-efficient tiny home community for kids who age out of foster care.

“I like to say this with a humble heart,” Cook said. “I have removed my own handcuffs to become free, and I really suggest that you, as well. remove your handcuffs. Fall in love with who you are. Heal. … When we speak life, we become a healthier community, but we rise up, right? And so, especially the climate that we’re in, we need to rise up.”

Monsignor Raul Trevino of St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church won the Faith in Action Award for his work on behalf of his South Side community, including migrants and refugees.

“Our community is very frightened,” Trevino said. “What drove us and what has driven me has been the passion that those who don’t have a voice need to be given an opportunity to organize and to have a voice.”

Doug Levy was given the Business Leadership Award for his charitable efforts through his Midtown restaurant Feast. Levy and his clientele provided meals for hospital workers and first responders during the COVID-19 outbreak and continue to support Primavera Men’s Shelter and Sister Jose’s Women’s Shelter.

Levy thanked his customers for their support in providing the meals.

“This community is amazing,” he said. “We are really lucky to live in Tucson with so many kind, thoughtful, generous people who understand the spirit of community and are willing to contribute to help people who don’t have it as well as they do.”

The Arizona Democracy Resilience Network is a statewide organization dedicated to providing accurate information about elections and combating political violence. The group’s work is partially supported by the Carter Center.

“We’re working to make anti-democratic and violent behavior less acceptable,” Barber said. “The reason we do this work is because our country’s in trouble and we need people with integrity. We need to support people who are fighting the good fight. We need to defend our democracy. We need to make sure that facts are heard as facts.”

The Mormon Women for Ethical Government grew from a Facebook group in 2017 to a national organization boasting more than 9,000 members nationwide, according to Jane Andersen, the Arizona director of MWEG.

“The taglines we like to use are faith, nonpartisan, proactive and peaceful,” Andersen said. “We talk a lot about peacemaking. Peacemaking does not look like agreeing to disagree, it means leaning into the disagreement and having hard conversations. We try to partner with wonderful people like Ron and Don and figure out how we have those hard conversations, how we sustain our democratic norms.”