Your Story Matters: Campfires, Kazoos, and the Craft of Family History

Arizona Roundup, hosted by Stuart Rosebrook from the Sharlot Hall Museum, welcomes longtime friend and natural-born storyteller Tim Magill for a lively, memory-rich tour through the power of personal stories. From Ohio matriarchs who raised families on grit and grace to Arizona’s own Sharlot Hall blazing a trail in public life, the episode celebrates the people who turned ordinary days into the raw material of history—and why those stories still shape us.

Stuart opens with a tribute to strong women in his own lineage and at the Museum—especially Sharlot Hall, Arizona’s first woman to hold a paid territorial/state-level position—before steering the conversation to Tim’s storytelling work at the Elks Theatre’s “Stories That Matter.” Think *The Moth*, but with Prescott flavor: true stories, as remembered by the teller, honed through workshops that teach structure, arc, and voice.

Tim admits he was self-conscious at first (“Who wants to hear my story?”). But like many of us, he discovered that honest, well-shaped moments—veterans’ memories, awkward camp-counselor mishaps, a family recipe, even a rainstorm that quits mid-shower—carry surprising power. When framed with a beginning, turning point, and landing, those small scenes become the way we pass wisdom forward.

The episode also honors a larger “why” behind storytelling. Stuart recalls a professor who assigned students to write their own family histories so they could understand what it truly took for them to sit in that classroom. The lesson stuck: real history isn’t just headlines and dates; it’s everyday life—favorite cookies, holiday pies, the time the camp director pulled out a kazoo and gave every kid permission to be brave and a little goofy.