Celebrating The New Year The Arizona Way

With parties:

A north Phoenix family struggled in vain Wednesday night to rescue a relative who fell into a backyard fire pit.

The man had been roasting a pig in the 3-foot deep pit, apparently for a large block party to celebrate the New Year. Somehow the man fell in about 8:15 p.m.; the house is in the area of Union Hills Drive and Seventh Street.

Family and friends had been trying to put out the fire with a garden hose and had pulled him out when firefighters arrived, Dorian Jackson, a Phoenix Fire spokesperson said.

Fire crews pronounced the man dead shortly after.

With games:

MESA, AZ -- Police have identified a 17-year-old boy who was killed Saturday when his teenaged sister accidentally ran over him with her car.

Mesa Police spokesman, Ed Wessing, said Dwight J. Brock, Jr. was dropped off at Superstition Springs mall by his 16-year-old sister, Nicole, Saturday evening.

According to Wessing, the two were playing around, with Dwight jumping in front of the car and Nicole slamming on the brakes.

The last time that happened Nicole was reportedly unable to stop and ran over her brother.

Dwight was taken to a local hospital in extremely critical condition and was later pronounced dead.

Grabbing money, wherever it can be found:

Asta Forrest, a Danish immigrant who fell in love with Arizona after moving to Fountain Hills with her husband, left nearly $250,000 to the Arizona State Parks Board when she died of cancer at age 82.

When parks officials received the money in 2003, it was the largest private donation the parks system had ever received. They were unprepared for such a large gift, said Ken Travous, who served as state-parks director for 23 years before retiring in June.

"We had never received anything of that magnitude before," he said, adding that he began "looking for something that was big enough to really make her proud."

While parks officials considered what to do with the money, Arizona's budget deficit ballooned into the billions. Last month, when the Republican-led Legislature met in special session to cut $140 million from the budget, it swept up half the money in the parks system's donations fund, which included most of Forrest's donation.

"It was like they had kicked me in the stomach," Travous said. "Surely, I thought, they have some shame. But they're shameless."

...Forrest's friends said she would have been devastated to learn that her donation will not go to support the parks system, but instead to pay for operating expenses, such as building maintenance and electric bills.

"She would have been totally nauseated," said Roger Essenburg, a close friend and the executor of Forrest's estate. "She would have never have given the money if she had known the state was going to take it way from the parks board."

...Friends say she called Arizona her "Garden of Eden."

"She just loved everything about Arizona - its beauty and all the natural scenery," Essenburg said.

Reese Woodling, chairman of the state-parks board, said officials now are reconsidering the way they solicit donations. Woodling wants to make sure money donated to parks stays there, particularly given that budget cuts could close up to half the state's parks in the next six months.

"We'll do whatever we can to keep those donations flowing in," he said.

"For our Legislature to take that money and not give it a second thought is unconscionable."