IT takes a hardy pioneer to carve out a community from a jumble of buildings bounded by concrete and asphalt.

From 130 hardy pioneers less than five years ago, the youngest and smallest of Brazil's 26 state capitals currently counts its swelling population at 85,000.

I was born in California, my father and mother being of the race of hardy pioneers that made the Golden State.

Pioneers were welcomed to sign a '49er's guest book, while waiting for the free three minute presentation in tribute to those hardy 1849 pioneers.

It was early November before those hardy pioneers actually reached California.

What other hardier pioneer would come, hatchet in hand, to cut down the dark copses?

He delighted the hardy pioneers with some fictitious story about lightning-fast snakes in the swamps.

I wondered who might have built a cottage in such a lonely place, so I went to the door to investigate these hardy pioneers.

It was the moment the hardy pioneers had been waiting for.

The monies received were used to purchase much-needed goods by these hardy pioneers.