Three women, each from a different era in Arizona history, sit around a table playing cards and swapping stories.

The last steam locomotive built for Union Pacific will chug through the Valley this weekend to help Arizona celebrate its centennial with a piece of Western history.

Arizona became a state on Feb. 14, 1912, and on Valentine’s Day 2011, Arizonans began a festive countdown to the state’s 100th birthday. Special events are ringing in our centennial from canyons to pine forests, mountaintops to grasslands. The fun continues — some of it right here in the East Valley — throughout 2012.

When I was a boy, too many adults in Arizona were possessed by the idea that they were the last people to move here. Even an 11-year-old like me had a hard time believing that, as this Valley would be doing some fantastic growing during my lifetime.

PHOENIX – Stepping off stage after a 9/11 memorial at the State Capitol, Arizona’s official historian is just setting down his guitar when two fifth–graders approach him with questions about their history projects.

PRESCOTT – Lorencita Saufkie dips her right hand into a bowl of blue cornmeal batter and quickly brushes it across the flat surface of a black, rectangular stone, heated by a small fire below.

PHOENIX – Images of Sedona’s Cathedral Rock will grace letters across the country in February as a first-class stamp allows Americans to help celebrate Arizona’s centennial.

PHOENIX – Gov. Jan Brewer dropped by the Herberger Theater recently to admire oil paintings and watercolors in which five women artists depict Arizona around the time of statehood.

PHOENIX – With just five months left until the state’s 100th birthday, organizers have no idea where 75 percent of their budget will come from but remain hopeful that private donors will cover the gap.