Scott Thybony Commentaries

Most roads take you somewhere. But the Southwest is filled with a lot of roads that lead nowhere in particular. Commentator Scott Thybony has acquired a taste for them and recounts a recent road trip to one of his favorite destinations on the Colorado Plateau…nowhere.

Driving on Highway 89 across the Navajo Nation, you're likely to see the giant art installations of Chip Thomas painted on abandoned water tanks and trading posts. Thomas, a physician, has lived and worked on the Reservation for more than 30 years. Under his street artist name, Jetsonorama, he creates large scale murals that tell stories of Indigenous people. In KNAU's latest Canyon Commentary, writer Scott Thybony shares the experience of introducing his son to Thomas' work on a recent road trip; in particular, to a m ural called 'The Green Room.'

This week, the nation is honoring military veterans with a federal holiday and countless stories of courage and bravery. Commentator Scott Thybony has his own story to mark the occasion. It took place more than a century ago and has slipped through the cracks of history until now. In his latest Canyon Commentary, Scott brings us the tale of Bernard Taylor, a soldier from the Winslow area, who earned the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1874 for bravery under fire.

A stand of bear-clawed aspen trees on the San Francisco Peaks is the jumping off point for this month’s Canyon Commentary by Scott Thybony. It was the base camp of naturalist C. Hart Merriam in the late 1800’s. He was working on a groundbreaking project: studying the distribution patterns of plants and animals from the bottom of the Grand Canyon to the top of Humphrey’s Peak. Merriam called them ‘Life Zones’, the boundaries which reflect climate and ecological variation in mountains, deserts, rivers and canyons. They are still used today to assess how ecosystems respond to a changing climate.