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AHWATUKEE FOOTHILLS NEWS Wednesday, January 11, 2017
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Ahwatukee professor honored for his work on behalf of diversity
BEST AHWATUKEE FOOTHILLS NEWS of
2016 Ahwatukee Foothills News
st COVER STORY 1 PLACE
BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN EXECUTIVE EDITOR
BEST of eal Lester became more politically aware of 2016 the reality of being an African‑American
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Ahwatukee
long Foothills after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. News
died. It was 1981 and the Ahwatukee man, a Georgia native, was studying for his doctorate at largely white Vanderbilt University. “I saw an entitlement I had not seen before,” the Arizona State University English and Humanities professor recalled. “There was something going on with race and class.” It wasn’t just the fact he was to become the first African‑American to earn a doctorate in English from Vanderbilt. Or the fact that the female faculty members who helped him get that degree could not get tenure. Or even that a professor asked him to recite the words to “Dixie.” Those and other factors led him to dedicate his life to trying to change people’s unconscious as well as conscious attitudes toward race and class by looking inward and discovering how a sense of privilege “may inform our decisions and control our actions.” Lester’s work in class, eight books, lectures and the community earned him the 2017 MLK Diversity Award from the Tempe Human Relations Commission. It will be awarded at 8 a.m. Monday
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Arizona State University humanities professor Neal Lester of Ahwatukee will be honored by the Tempe Human Relations Commission for his work in and out of the classroom on behalf of diversity. The “mini me” doll by artist Rebecca Akins was given to him in appreciation for his six years of service on the board of Arizona Humanities, which he chaired for two years.
at a breakfast ceremony and his portrait will hang permanently in the Tempe Historical Museum. “Dr. Lester’s work in race relations,
empathy and workplace training creates a more welcoming and inclusive See
PROFESSOR on page 12
3 HOA boards join fray over Ahwatukee Farms, open space BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS Ahwatukee Chamber raising young CEOs
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he fight over whether Ahwatukee Farms threatens Ahwatukee’s open space intensified last week as representatives of three homeowners association boards condemned the plan and the developer said it “subscribes to their vision” for the community. “We oppose the current development plan
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for the Lakes. We believe the homeowners immediately surrounding the Lakes, who are members of the Save the Lakes organization, have a right to preserve their open space,” the three HOA board members said in a letter. Stating they represent 35,000 citizens and that “we are committed to preserving our high‑quality lifestyle,” the letter is signed by Michael Hinz, Foothills Club West HOA board secretary and a member of
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the Ahwatukee Foothills Village Planning Committee; Bill Faustch, president of The Foothills HOA board; and Galen Schliem, president of the Foothills Reserve Master HOA board. Meanwhile Aidan Barry, senior vice president of development for The True Life Companies said the three HOA officials’ vision “values preserving open space, See
FRAY on page 11
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