Roadrunners are sprinting across Christmas trees in Oro Valley. Hummingbirds are sipping, javelina rumbling, coyotes a’ howling and geckos a’ splaying.
These desert creatures are not alive, of course; they’re depicted among 20 locally inspired designs on holiday ornaments created by woods shop students at Canyon del Oro High School. On behalf of the Oro Valley Chamber and the town of Oro Valley, 8,000 of the intricate creations are being given away by 20 Oro Valley businesses as part of the Chamber’s shop local holiday campaign.
The delicate ornaments are a gift to residents and merchants alike.
“We’ve gone to so many places we’ve never even heard of, and we’ve lived here for 11 years,” one ornament hunter told the Chamber. “It’s like trick-or-treating for adults!”
“The ornament hunt campaign has been, simply put, amazing,” said Maxine Yunker, co-chair of the Sun City Oro Valley Gift Shop. “We have had people waiting at the door for us to open to get their ornament. We have had people come to the shop who otherwise would not have known about us.”
That’s the idea of the campaign, said Kristen Sharp, president and CEO of the Oro Valley Chamber, who is “thrilled that people get it.”
“They get the premise behind it,” said Sharp. “The purpose is to change behaviors, and to create awareness” of local shopping and its economic benefits. “I love people seeing beyond the ornament, and to the true purpose of the program.”
Sharp wanted to build upon the success of the Chamber’s recent sticker hunts to promote Oro Valley shopping and dining. “I didn’t want to do stickers again,” she said.
Then, Sharp saw a picture of a wooden ornament, and visions danced in her head. She approached Joshua Ronstadt, a 10-year construction and architecture teacher at CDO, with the idea of a student-created ornament project. In her sleigh, Sharp carried a $5,000 check to the CDO Construction Club, with funds provided by the town to the Chamber for shop-local campaigns.
Ronstadt was in. The project began the first week of September, and consumed class and student time into early November.
The creative and production process
Joey Morrill, a CDO senior, is the class intern for Construction Technologies II. He created the ornament designs using the computer program CorelDRAW. Classmates cut 1/8th-inch birch plywood, chosen for its durability, into 24-by-18-inch sheets taped to the bottom of a laser engraver. Morrill sent one batch at a time, 30 ornaments per plywood sheet, to be cut and etched on the tool. “The laser cutter adds the burnish,” said senior Ezekiel Medina.
Morrill said the students “wanted them to be sturdy, and not breakable.” Yet the tool has the capability to cut to 1/1000th of an inch. “The roadrunners’ feet would break sometimes,” said sophomore Tyler Fay Johnson. “They’re so thin!” Ornament hummingbird beaks are thinner than … a hummingbird’s beak.
Once the ornaments were cut, “the rest of us did the hard labor,” quipped senior Edouard Preciado.
Or, rather, they strung the work along. Up to 40 students at any given time spent hours cutting twine and looping it through each ornament so it could hang on a Christmas tree all across Northwest Tucson.
What they learned
“Teamwork is definitely key,” Medina said. “There were one or two of us tying at all times. The group understood and synched up, that definitely helped us.”
“I learned how to tie a professional knot,” said Johnson, who started as if lacing up a pair of shoes.
“I learned time management,” Preciado said. “You have to print and tie 8,000 ornaments in two months, by a deadline. We would slowly complete more and more and not fall behind. We made it.”
Morrill now understands “the difficulty of scale. Eight thousand is a lot. And managing all the different aspects of it.”
Students learned “manufacturing is a lot more labor-intensive than initially envisioned,” teacher Ronstadt said. “It brought us together to collaborate, and everyone had different parts of the process. They all had a job. Each one had to take ownership.
“I felt like I was baking cookies for months on end,” he added.
Their favorites
Johnson prefers the Oro Valley ornament, created from the town’s official seal, with a big horn ram’s head seemingly wedged into the outline of Pusch Ridge. “I like how detailed it is, and the scenery of it,” she said.
“That was the hardest one to design,” Morrill said. “It took the longest to create,” and two hours to cut a sheet.
“The more detail it takes, the longer it takes” to produce an ornament, Preciado said. “The simpler ones go faster.”
He likes the hummingbird feeding in a flower. “It’s a cutout of an entire scene in Southern Arizona,” Preciado said. “The detail of the bird and the flower, I love it.”
Medina likes the arrowhead, within which a coyote howls at the tiniest saguaro. “It relates to me,” he said, because Medina has Native American heritage.
Morrill prefers the mountain view of Pusch Ridge, created from CDO’s lovely perspective of the mountains. “It matches our view outside,” he said. “That was a fun one to make.”
How it made them feel
“I loved how cool these were going to be, how unique and special,” Preciado said. And, he added, “we’re doing something for the school.”
“To see it at the end, after the work, the physical product, and giving it out to the community,” made Morrill proud.
“I feel a lot of pride,” Johnson agreed. “It can make other people happy. It feels rewarding to make someone happy.”
And their teacher
All four students rave about Ronstadt.
“He teaches us a lot of valuable things, professionalism being the biggest one,” Medina said.
“He’s one of the best,” Morrill agreed. Ronstadt gets to know his students, then develops their skills … and their character, Morrill said.
“It’s been great,” Ronstadt said of the ornament project. “We’ve had cards from business owners, and appreciation from the community. This has brought in more community recognition than anything we’ve ever done.”
“I’m grateful to the community,” the Chamber’s Sharp said. “The fact it is so successful makes me even more excited. I feel like we’re making a difference. If we can help our businesses be successful, we’re helping our community be successful.”