Phoenix Police are investigating the possible theft of thousands of dollars from the parent-teacher organization at Monte Vista Elementary School in Ahwatukee.
Although some media reports put the loss at $20,000, Phoenix Police spokesman Luis Samudio said the department won’t comment on the extent of the alleged theft.
“There is an investigation that was initiated but it’s still an ongoing investigation,” Samudio said. “Based on what I read on the report, it’s allegations only at this point. Detectives will have to conduct an investigation.”
BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
As the nation this Saturday marks the 50th anniversary of man’s first lunar walk, one group of people will have a unique reason to celebrate – and Jack Armstrong of Ahwatukee will be among them.
Those people are members of the Armstrong Clan, from which the late astronaut Neil Armstrong is among its most famous descendants.
Jack can tell you all about that clan.
He’s spent eight years so far researching the Armstrong Clan, tracing its centuries-old roots and collecting enough books, old photos, maps and other memorabilia that his house is home to what may be Arizona’s largest Scottish-Irish museum.
Though he is not related to Neil Armstrong –
“People ask me that all the time,” he said –Jack does share the pride in and fascination with the clan that was the astronaut’s heritage.
With only a reported $2,000 in its bank account and $11,000 in unpaid bills, the PTO is unable to give teachers the customary $300 to $500 grants the group usually gives to help them set up their classrooms, the new board said in a joint letter to Monte Vista parents on June 26.
The board was just elected and took office in mid-May, and soon thereafter discovered the financial irregularities.
Co-vice president Robin Barrett told AFN, “Ultimately, children are the victims when financial integrity is in question. Now more than ever we need the support of our parents, community and local businesses.”
“We will not be able to discuss anything that relates to the investigation. We can tell
you where we are right now and the efforts we are making to replenish missing funds,” she added.
The new PTO board’s letter to parents said a number of changes were being made in the way the group’s finances are handled.
“We hope to restore these activities by next year and provide the level of support that our students and teachers deserve,” their letter stated.
The letter also said that soon after the new board took office, “we learned that there was a material discrepancy between the account balances reported on the PTO budget and the actual funds in the PTO bank accounts.”
Jack Armstrong has amassed a collection of memorabilia, some dating back to the 1600s, that reflect his family’s history and that of the broader Armstrong Clan. To mark the 50th anniversary of Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon, he’s opening his micro-museum to the public. (Kimberly Carrillo/AFN Staff Photographer)
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Though 2019 was supposed to be a quiet year for election politics, the battle for light rail has made it anything but in Phoenix.
Last week two opposing views from Ahwatukee residents illustrated how the campaign for and against Proposition 105, the so-called “Building a Better Phoenix” prop, has heated up with the Aug. 27 election just weeks away.
Proposition 105 would stop all light-rail project expansion plans and not allocate funds for light rail or fixed rail line transit systems after Aug. 27.
It would redistribute revenue designated for lightrail extensions to other infrastructure projects, primarily street improvements.
City Councilman Sal DiCiccio, a proponent of the antilight-rail measure, fired off a blistering tirade on social media after Scot Mussi, president of the Arizona Free Enterprise Club charged that “rampant cost overruns” had nearly doubled the total cost for the South Phoenix light rail spur to $1.35 billion – which he calculated at $245 million a mile.
“The scariest part for taxpayers is that they haven’t even broke ground on the project, so the price tag will likely go even higher before they are finished,” said Mussi, whose release followed several releases by Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego and other City Council members heralding the award of $100 million for the line by the federal government.
“$245 million per mile for light rail. Seriously, how can anyone support this waste?” DiCiccio said.
“They did not disclose to taxpayers that the projected cost to build the line has nearly doubled,” he added, calling the South Phoenix spur “one of the most expensive light rail extensions in the country.”
Mussi said, “Neither Phoenix or Valley Metro have explained how they are going to pay for this, or what happens when the cost goes even higher. Taxpayers have a right to know what roadway projects will be cancelled to fund this boondoggle.”
“This isn’t the first time Valley Metro has been forced to revise the projected cost for the South Phoenix extension. In November of 2015, Valley Metro estimated the capitol cost for the project to be no more than $530 million,” Mussi added, urging voters to “be wise” and “stop the bleeding before it is too late.”
Voicing its opposition to the proposition along with the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce is the Arizona Citizens for the Arts, which said “light rail will play an increasingly important role in the quality of life in our community by providing reliable, efficient and cost-effective transportation to diverse opportunities across the Valley, including many of our vibrant arts and cultural offerings.”
Seconding that opinion is Bob Altizer, president/CEO of Ahwatukee-based MusicaNova Orchestra, who said the prop “would do severe — if not irreparable — harm to arts organizations in Phoenix, with shockwaves felt in adjoining cities.”
Calling the light rail and another proposition curbing city spending “unwise and shortsighted,” Altzier said:
“Phoenix is the fifth-largest city in the nation but didn’t even make the Top 20 in a recently published list of arts-vibrant large communities in the US.”
He was particularly concerned about Prop 106, saying it “will ensure we stay off that list”
“A 2017 study by Americans for the Arts reported, ‘Not-for-profit arts and culture organizations and their audiences in Phoenix contribute nearly $402 million in direct economic activity to the city.’”
He said Prop 106 would eliminate grants that partially underwrite MusicaNova Orchestra’s performance and education programs, “including professional orchestra concerts at the Musical Instrument Museum in North Phoenix, young artist concerts at AZ Piano in South Phoenix, and educational and per-
formance collaboration with Harmony Project in South and West Phoenix.”
As for the light-rail prop, Altizer said, “The Phoenix arts community would suffer.”
“It kills extension of light rail service – forever – and cuts off significant areas of the Valley, including underserved communities in south, west, and east Phoenix from easy access to the downtown arts venues,” he said, adding:
Light rail stops near Phoenix Symphony Hall and the Orpheum Theatre, at Roosevelt Row, and in the Central Arts District (near the Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix Theatre, Arizona Opera, the Heard Museum, and more), serve venues responsible for much of the nearly half-billion dollars in economic impact. Do we really want to limit growth of these organizations and the economic benefit that goes with it?”
He ripped the two “dangerous propositions” and said a vote against them would be in favor of the arts.
GOT NEWS?
Contact Paul Maryniak at 480-898-5647 or pmaryniak@timespublications.com
First degree murder verdict in Ahwatukee slaying
AMaricopa County Superior Court jury on Monday returned a first-degree murder verdict against a jilted husband who killed his Ahwatukee wife 12 years ago during a fight.
Avtar Grewal, 44, faces a sentence of life
with no parole after he was convicted in the killing of Navneet Kaur, 30, on March 29, 2007, at her home in the 4200 block of East Redwood Lane.
Grewal never denied killing the victim after she asked for a divorce but said it was a crime of passion and not the pre-
AFN NEWS STAFF
Avtar Grewal was convicted Monday of first-degree murder in the 2007 brutal slaying of his wife, Navneet Kaur. Both are pictured here in one of the couple’s few happy moments. (Special to AFN)
meditated slaying that the prosecution had alleged.
Grewal was arrested two days after the killing at Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi.
Kaur was strangled before her head was submerged in a bathtub, according to court records.
The couple had a long-distance relationship, with Grewal living in Vancouver, Canada, and Kaur living in Ahwatukee. Kaur had retained ownership of the house after a divorce settlement with her previous husband, the court records said.
Grewal would fly into Phoenix and visit Kaur, but the two “never lived together for any significant period of time,” prosecutors said in court papers.
Prosecutor Juan Martinez said during opening arguments that Kaur’s murder was intentional and described how Grewal was a controlling husband who called the victim repeatedly.
He said Grewal dragged Kaur’s body from another room to the bathroom, leaving a trail of blood. Her head was found under water in the bathtub.
Grewal’s lawyer said after the victim asked for a divorced, “they started slapping each other. They lost themselves in that moment. He didn’t plan this. He didn’t will this to happen.’’
The case was delayed by several factors, including a long extradition fight that ended when India turned over Grewal to the FBI on Sept. 13, 2011, after he had spent more than four years in a jail in his native country.
Counting his incarceration in India and the U.S, Grewal has already spent the 12 years in jail since the killing.
“He flew to Phoenix the next day and killed Ms. Kaur. Immediately after the murder, the defendant took a flight from Phoenix to Newark, New Jersey. He then purchased a one-way ticket to India and fled the U.S,’’ the prosecution document said.
many valuable life skills such as perseverance and self-motivation, as well as practical knowledge; the leadership and confidence he gained from teaching at the Dojo have made instructing classes in graduate school much less intimidating.
Tempe police satisfied with Starbucks’ apology
BY JIM WALSH AFN Staff Writer
It was insulting and embarrassing when a Starbucks barista on July 4 asked a group of six Tempe police officers to leave or stay out of sight of a customer who complained that they made him feel unsafe.
But when Rob Ferraro, president of the Tempe Officer’s Association, spotlighted the incident through a series of tweets, the officers received a groundswell of support and a personal apology from a Starbuck’s vice president.
In the end, the incident ignited a healthy dialogue about how cops wanted to be treated like human beings and evaluated as individuals, not scapegoated as a group based upon the actions of a few “bad actors,’’ Ferrero said.
“We’re human beings and members of the community like any other community,’’ Ferraro said.
He said it’s not fair to judge anyone as part of a group based upon broad generalities, and that everyone deserves to be judged as individuals based upon their
own merits.
“To make sweeping generalities about law enforcement because of there might be some bad actors is totally unacceptable,’’ Ferraro said.
For decades, “minority groups have been fighting for just being equal,’’ Ferrero said. “Any member of our department would be appalled if a minority group was asked to leave.’’
Once the incident was disclosed, Starbucks shifted immediately into damage control mode, dispatching Rossann Williams, executive vice president and president of U.S. retail, to Tempe to issue an apology in person during meetings with Tempe Police Chief Sylvia Moir and with the six officers who were asked to leave the Starbucks at Scottsdale and McKellips roads in Tempe.
The tweets from the Tempe Officers Association said the officers were in uniform and having coffee together before the start of a long shift when they were approached by the barista, who was polite, but still out of line, when she asked them to leave.
“This treatment of public safety work-
ers could not be more disheartening. While the barista was polite, making such a request at all was offensive,’’ the officers association said. “Unfortunately, such treatment has become all too common in 2019.’’
The officers chose to leave the coffee shop, feeling “disappointed,’’ according to the association.
But the incident did not appear to impact business at the north Tempe Starbucks. Cars were still lined up at the drive-thru window in late morning on Monday – the first business day after the holiday weekend – and employees seemed especially friendly in welcoming customers.
In its letter of apology, Starbucks essentially agreed with the association and said police are welcome like any other customer. It vowed to take unspecified steps to prevent any further disrespectful incidents.
“When those officers entered the store and a customer raised a concern over their presence, they should have been welcomed and treated with dignity and the utmost respect by our partners
(employees.) Instead, they were made to feel unwelcome and disrespected, which is completely unacceptable,’’ the letter said.
“Our partners rely on your service and welcome your presence, which keeps our stores and the community a safe and welcoming place,’’ the statement continued in part.
The association issued a statement saying police appreciated the apology, saying the six officers “came away from the meeting feeling heard and respected.’’
In the end, the association said it hopes the incident “re-affirms the important and strong partnership between our officer and our community.’’
Ferraro said he is glad he publicized the incident and believes it started an important dialogue about not scapegoating police. He said he feels no ill-will toward the barista. It was unclear what action, if any, was taken by Starbucks toward the barista.
“It’s part of a culture where we are trying to appease people because they might be offended,’’ Ferraro said.
“There is even an outstanding bill we cannot pay at this time,” it continued, adding that the new board then met with school and district officials before contacting police.
Like other districts throughout Arizona, Kyrene has no oversight authority over PTOs, which are nonprofit organizations set up by parents themselves.
“PTOs operate as a separate entity,” Superintendent Jan Vesely told AFN. “We do not manage or oversee their fundraising or expenditures. Annually, we do offer financial training as a courtesy for all PTO officers.”
Vesely also noted that principals have no formal relationship with PTOs.
“Principals have no authority, nor oversight of PTO funds. They attend the monthly meetings along with parents and listen as the treasurer presents the profit/expenditure statement. Principals do not have access to the bank statements, nor financial records,” Vesely said.
Vesely also said, “Monte Vista families and staff all have the full support of the District. We know it’s a strong community that will rally around its students and teachers.”
District spokeswoman Erin Helm added that because “school districts and
parent organizations are entirely separate when it comes to finance and governance,” she could not comment on the Monte Vista situation except to say “the district shares the community’s shock and disappointment.”
“When a parent organization’s financial integrity is questioned, it is students and teachers who pay the price,” Helm said. “Kyrene School District will do all it can to support Monte Vista students, families, staff, administration, and its brand-new PTO board in the coming year. We hope the community will do the same.”
Helm also said that because of the wall between parent groups and the district, “There are limitations to what the district can do. For example, Kyrene cannot provide legal counsel to the PTO on this situation.
“However, Kyrene will continue to support the Monte Vista community in any way it can,” Helm added.
The PTO board told parents it was taking a number of measures “to ensure financial accountability and transparency.”
“All PTO supporters should have full confidence that contributions are being used to enhance students’ and teachers’ experiences at Monte Vista,” it said.
As a result of the district training Vesely
MONTE from page 7
and Helm cited, the new board said it is “making amendments to our PTO’s bylaws to formalize the checks and balances necessary to ensure that our PTO will never be in this situation again.
“Despite the tremendous challenges that we face this year, our PTO board for the 2019-2020 school year is a united team, and we have already been hard at work developing ideas about how to replenish missing funds.
“We look forward to working with our families and teachers to make this a memorable and rewarding school year for our children.”
Board members also said, “We have inherited this PTO and are frustrated and upset with these findings.
“We even considered resigning in light of the discoveries, but each of us has volunteered at this school to raise money for teacher grants, school beautification projects, reading wall, scholastic book fairs, annual events loved most of all by our children and realize that the PTO plays an integral role in making these events and activities happen.
“We volunteer because we want our students to thrive and have a positive experience at Monte Vista.”
There has been no reported theft of this
magnitude in Kyrene since 2010, when a former principal was arrested on multiple felony charges from embezzling or misusing nearly $55,000 from Cerritos and Cielo elementary schools.
Janet Thor ultimately pleaded guilty to diverting donations made to Cerritos and Kyrene del Cielo to unauthorized bank accounts and embezzling $33,000 of that money for her own use, according to the Arizona Auditor General’s Office.
Thor resigned from the district in April 2009 after an internal investigation by Kyrene found she had misused money at Cielo, and she voluntarily surrendered her teaching credentials that October. The scheme started in July 2004, when Thor was principal at Cerritos, according to the auditor general’s report.
Thor deposited donations from a parent group, companies, foundations and other sources into a bank account, then took $18,207 for her own use, usually by writing herself checks that were deposited into a personal account, by the time her tenure at Cerritos ended in 2007. At that time, the principal who took over at Cerritos asked the district office about the account.
Thor had misled the district into thinking the money was a PTO account, thereby avoiding any oversight for several years.
PTOs help schools in many ways, including helping out on giving kids some fun times as this photo from the Monte Vista PTO’s Facebook page shows. (Facebook)
Monte Vista PTO leaders buoyed by community response
BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
They signed up to lead Monte Vista Elementary Parent Teachers Organization because they believe in the kids, the parents and the school staff.
What the seven women who took over as the new board members of the Monte Vista PTO didn’t believe was that they’d be walking into a nightmare.
Yet, as they scramble to fill a huge financial hole left by apparent financial irregularities that occurred before they took office, the moms also have discovered that what drew them to help in the first place hasn’t changed one bit.
“The support of the parents, the community and the district has been unbelievably positive,” said co-vice president Robin Barrett.
Positive experiences they and their children have had at Monte Vista inspired Barrett, co-presidents Jessica Hawkes and Cayden Martin, Co-VP Hilary Burt, co-secretaries Sandra Stone and Usha Horvat and treasurer Amanda Garbade to run for the board in the first place.
Barrett’s own experience with the
Monte Vista community is illustrative.
When she broke her femur in January, parents and even now-retired Principal Suzanne Ramundo rallied to help the mother of twins now entering first grade: They took turns making dinners for Barrett’s family for a month.
That kind of spirit makes Monte Vista more than a school. It’s a community.
And the board members are finding the same loving spirit dominates the response to their pleas for help.
Businesses have rallied to their aid.
Some, like Peter Piper’s Pizza, upped the percentage of food sales it donates to the PTO.
Others have pledged to do what they can to help the group with fundraisers. Parents also have come forward to offer their support.
The reaction has been a salve to the gaping wound that opened when the board members discovered the big budget hole, which could be close to $20,000.
“We were so discouraged,” Barrett recalled. “We talked about what we should do and wondered if we should just walk away.”
In the long run, they dug in, their commitment fueled by a camaraderie that
keeps them looking out for each other and covering for one another when personal and family demands take one of them away from PTO business.
“A lot of times you have PTO officers who barely know each other get elected, but we’re a tight-knit group,” Barrett said.
Four of the current officers knew each other and jointly decided to run because they felt the group lacked leadership and wanted to fill the void. They then recruited the three others.
In the wake of their shocking discovery, Barrett said, leading the PTO has involved “a tremendous amount of work.”
“It’s been like a full-time job,” she said. “But we’ve been really good at communicating with each other and working very closely together.”
And, of course, they are energized by the support they’re receiving – not only within the Monte Vista community but throughout the district and Ahwatukee.
“The new principal and the assistant principal have been very supportive. The district has been supportive. The parents have been great and the businesses have been supportive,” Barrett said.
“They’ve all been very sympathetic.”
How EV prosecutor got justice for rape victims
BY JIM WALSH AFN Staff Writer
Desert Village - Mesa
McCormick Ranch
Sexual assault victims from the East Valley and throughout the nation are finally getting justice – even though they had to wait far too long.
In Maricopa County alone, an exhaustive quest to test a backlog of more than 4,500 sexual assault examination kits dating back 27 years is finally winding toward an end early next year with about 200 kits to go.
In Phoenix, the person who spearheaded this four-year campaign to right a wrong was Gilbert’s Jon Eliason, a former Mesa city prosecutor who served as division chief of the Special Victims Bureau at the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office at the time the campaign began.
Canyon Estates
“You have all these women who went through an exam fully believing that the police would analyze it,’’ Eliason said. “I can’t imagine there was a victim who went through the examination who expected it would not be tested.
“It’s doing the right thing, bringing closure to victims and arresting bad guys for violent, intimate crimes,’’ Eliason said.
Defendants who might have thought they got away with felonies a decade or more ago are going to prison instead, thanks to the inexorable trail of DNA evidence and a more enlightened approach by police and prosecutors.
These criminals include Michael Joseph Paladino, 30, who was linked to sexual assaults that involving six victims about 15 years ago, when he was a minor, in Chan-
dler, Gilbert and Mesa. One victim was 13. Paladino was indicted in December 2017 on six counts of sexual assault and was sentenced in June to five years in prison and lifetime supervised probation as part of a plea bargain that spared the victims from testifying.
Another man who had skated was Nur Muktar. He was linked by DNA from an untested kit to a sexual assault inside a vacant Tempe apartment in 2002. Eventually, he was sentenced to seven years in prison.
With the approval of County Attorney Bill Montgomery, it was Eliason who saw a moral imperative for his office to participate when one of his prosecutors came back from a conference in 2015 and told him about an exciting – and generous –project launched by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.
Vance, the son of a noted U.S. diplomat, launched a national campaign to eliminate the backlog by passing out $38 million in grants to police and prosecutors, including $1.9 million to Maricopa County in October 2015.
Vance’s grants came from forfeiture funds seized from banks accused of violating U.S sanctions. It was enough money to test 3,100 out of the 4,530 rape examination kits that had accumulated in Maricopa County since 1989.
Tempe police, one of the first Phoenix metro law enforcement agencies to embrace the program, obtained a $369,000 grant independently from Vance’s office and tested 546 kits that had accumulated
Multi Family Property
Cesar Tirado, left, coordinated the processing of thousands of old rape kits while Maricopa County prosecutor Jon Eliason led the effort on behalf of County Attorney Bill Montgomery. (Pablo Robles/ AFN Staff Photographer)
WAREHOUSE Blowout
since 1993.
At a New York press conference in March attended by a Tempe victim, Vance said he had obtained a promise from the U.S. Department of Justice to match his “investment’’ in testing the grants – greatly expanding his program’s impact in eliminating an alarming backlog of rape examination kits.
Eliason said this teamwork paid off in Maricopa County, with his office receiving a $1.2 million federal grant in 2016 and $1.7 million in 2017. That money went toward finishing the testing and hiring two detectives to assist in the project.
Among the detectives’ duties was combing through old police reports to prepare the kits for testing to determine which evidence would be most likely to return a “hit,’’ a DNA sample matching one already in the federal system.
Eliason said about 230 kits still need to be tested by two labs approved nationally to handle the testing, Sorenson Forensics in Utah and Bode Technologies in Virginia.
“With our $38 million investment, we have begun to rectify what has been a tragic failure of government and law enforcement at all levels – a decades-long, systemic denial of equal rights for women
in the justice system,’’ Vance said.
Since Vance’s attack on the backlog started in September 2015, more than 55,000 kits have been tested in 32 jurisdictions in 20 states, with 18,803 new DNA profiles developed.
As of March, there had been 186 arrests nationwide and 64 convictions, including 47 for sexual assault.
Murder cases may be solved
The efforts have paid off in Maricopa County as well, with 12 arrests and seven convictions on Tempe cases. Eliason said more than 800 kits were tested from the
East Valley cities of Mesa, Chandler and Gilbert, generating 172 hits.
The majority of those were in Mesa, where 602 kits were tested, which generated 134 hits, Mesa police Sgt. Matt Lawes said.
Sgt. Dan Mejia, a Chandler police spokesman, said 120 Chandler kits were tested. He said 80 cases were reviewed and closed, while 40 are pending review.
Chandler police re-evaluated three cases for potential charges.
Eliason, now division chief of the Major Offenders Bureau, said the 14 convictions stemming from testing the kits so far have been on relatively obvious cases and that the DNA information obtained from other kits may eventually lead to additional arrests years into the future.
He said he anticipates that the DNA trail from the kits will eventually lead to arrests in two homicides.
“I am confident in the next 12 months,
we will be talking about a murder case,’’ Eliason said.
He said that overlooking the unexamined kits – a potential source of incriminating evidence – makes no sense from a prosecutor’s point of view.
“Here’s a way to develop cases,’’ he said. “It’s a lot like, you go to an old gold mine, the first place you look is the tailings.’’
In several incidents, the old rape examination kits helped police establish a pattern of behavior, identifying a serial rapist, Eliason said.
“If you have three of them, they become a lot more powerful than one by itself,’’ he said.
While police and prosecutors dug into the backlog, they also sought to make sure the same mistake was never repeated by establishing the Maricopa County Sexual Assault Kit Protocol Work Group.
Future better for victims
The study group included police, prosecutors and victims’ rights advocates who established protocols for investigating sexual assault cases.
“Every victim counts,’’ Eliason said. “It was setting standards. We want to make sure this never happens again.’’
see RAPE KITS page 14
RAPEKITS
of Chandler
could do.’’
‘The power of DNA’
Tasha Menaker, co-CEO of the Arizona Coalition to End Sexual and Domestic Violence, praised Eliason’s efforts, but she said more work needs to be done for the legal system to treat victims with respect.
“I think it’s a positive thing,’’ Menaker said. “I’m pleased the kits are being tested now and I’m glad we have protocols in place.’’
But she said the backlog also demonstrates why many victims – an estimated 70 percent to 80 percent – don’t report sexual assaults to police, believing that the criminal justice system will ignore them.
“If you went through the effort to go through the exam and nothing happens, you feel your voice wasn’t heard,’’ Menaker said. “It’s a bigger issue than just the kits. At the end of the day, we still blame and stigmatize sexual assault victims.’’
While a sexual assault leaves an indelible scar on a women’s psyche, undergoing the 13-step rape kit examination can also be humiliating.
Throughout the metro area, victims are brought to facilities such as the Mesa Family Advocacy Center, where they can be interviewed by a detective and examined by a forensic nurse, who administers the sexual assault examination kit.
“If they have the courage to come forward, it’s a one-stop shop. You can tell the story once,’’ Lawes said.
For many years in Mesa, the sexual assaults kits had been sent to the Mesa Crime Lab the next day, with results generally coming back in about two weeks, he said.
“The backlog is not recent cases. It’s older cases when DNA testing was expensive. They were very judicious about which kits they tested,’’ Lawes said.
Many of these untested kits were on “he said-she said’’ cases in which the victim identified her attacker and consent was the key issue, Lawes said.
In some cases, DNA might tend to confirm a victim’s identification of a suspect, but it might not necessarily lead to an arrest because of the consent issue, he said.
“Evolution of DNA is part of the puzzle. Then, you have to overcome customs,’’ he said. “It was not possible to test everything back then. It was cost prohibitive.’’
Police understand DNA evidence much better today and take a broader approach, realizing it can not only identify suspects, but also link them to more than one incident, including cases in other states, through use of a federal databank, Tempe Detective Greg Bacon said.
“It’s something that will never happen again,’’ he said. “When you look back at the grand scheme of DNA, there may have been a disconnect on what DNA
Paladino’s case seems like a classic example. In a sentencing memorandum, Jesus Acosta, his defense attorney, outlined a series of allegations that never resulted in sexual assault charges.
Gilbert police referred Paladino to juvenile authorities. He was placed on intensive probation for three years and received mental health treatment, according to a pre-sentence report.
But testing the old rape kits, dating back to 2003, linked Paladino to the series of assaults in which the victims told similar stories. The victims included a 13-yearold girl and a 14-year-old girl.
A 17-year-old victim said Paladino dropped out of high school at the time because his nickname was “The Rapist,’’ according to a pre-sentence report. In Arizona, the age of consent is 18.
In the report, Paladino claimed that he had sex with more than 200 women and had difficulty recalling details.
“He commented that his sex drive was ‘pretty high’ when he was younger and he was ‘a little rough,’ but he denied intending to hurt the women,’’ the report said.
Paladino generally claimed the sex acts were consensual, even though any sex act with an underage victim in Arizona is considered a sex crime.
“The defendant commented that when girls get upset, they accuse you of raping them,’’ the pre-sentence report said.
Acosta argued for leniency, saying that Paladino had given up drinking and had become a family man running his own landscaping and auto repair businesses.
“The defendant is deeply and sincerely sorry for his actions,’’ Acosta wrote. “Mr. Paladino has a conscience and he knows there is no excuse for his actions.’’
But a probation officer viewed Paladino much differently after reviewing reports of how his victims were traumatized, with one reporting anxiety, depression and a hospitalization.
“The defendant’s actions demonstrated he was more concerned with fulfilling his own personal sexual interests and desires than for any negative long term emotional or psychological impacts his actions could potentially have on his victims,’’ the probation officer wrote.
In the end, Paladino pleaded guilty on June 12 to one count of sexual assault and one count of attempted sexual assault. He was sentenced by Superior Court Judge Warren Granville to 5.25 years in prison and lifetime supervised probation. He also must register as a sex offender.
“Now, we understand the power of DNA,’’ Bacon said.
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The cash from a jumbo reverse loan can be used for almost any purpose. Common uses include making home improvements, paying off medical bills or helping other family members. Some people simply need the extra cash for everyday expenses while others are now using it as a “safety net” for financial emergencies
If you’re a homeowner age 62 or older, you owe it to yourself to learn more so that you can make an informed decision.
Homeowners who are interested in learning more can request a FREE 2019 Reverse Mortgage Information Kit and DVD by calling toll-free at 1-855-219-6878
American Advisors Group (AAG) has recently introduced a new Jumbo Reverse Mortgage loan that allows homeowners with high-value homes to borrow as much as $4 million of their home equity. Unlike a standard reverse mortgage, AAG’s Jumbo Reverse Mortgage loan has much higher loan limits, which gives those homeowners who qualify access to even more cash—for many, that means a better retirement.
However, today, there are still millions of eligible homeowners who may simply not be aware of this “retirement secret. ”Some homeowners think these loans sound “too good to be true.” while others don’t know how a reverse mortgage works or understand the process of extracting equity from their home. You get the cash you need out of your home but you have no more monthly mortgage payments.
It’s a fact: “no monthly mortgage payments” are required with a reverse jumbo mortgage; however, homeowners are still responsible for paying for the maintenance of their home, property taxes, homeowner’s insurance and, if required, their HOA fees.
Our new Reverse Mortgage information guides & DVD are now available featuring award-winning actor and paid AAG spokesman, Tom Selleck
Reverse mortgage loan terms include occupying the home as your primary residence, maintaining the home, paying property taxes and homeowners insurance. Although these costs may be substantial, AAG does not establish an escrow account for these payments. However, a set-aside account can be set up for taxes and insurance, and in some cases may be required. Not all interest on a reverse mortgage is tax-deductible and to the extent that it is, such deduction is not available until the loan is partially or fully repaid AAG charges an origination fee, mortgage insurance premium (where required by HUD), closing costs and servicing fees, rolled into the balance of the loan. AAG charges interest on the balance, which grows over time. When the last borrower or eligible non-borrowing spouse dies, sells the home, permanently moves out, or fails to comply with the loan terms, the loan becomes due and payable (and the property may become subject to foreclosure). When this happens, some or all of the equity in the property no longer belongs to the borrowers, who may need to sell the home or otherwise repay the loan balance.V2019.04.17 NMLS# 9392 (www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org). American Advisors Group (AAG) is headquartered at 3800 W. Chapman Ave., 3rd & 7th Floors, Orange CA, 92868. BK_0911141
“Laura and I have dealt with 10+ REALTORS® in our married life. Mary Jo and Mike are the best we have met and we make sure everyone knows that.” – Greg Mo tt
LIVING - We have lived in Ahwatukee since 1997 and raised two wonderful boys here. We love the community feel of Ahwatukee as well as its beauty. Anytime we have contemplated moving, the minute we drive up over the hill and see the majestic views, we know we are home.
WORKING - Top 25 Team Ranking in Maricopa County and Ranked 59 out of 43,000 Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Agents Nationally #1 Team overall for Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Arizona Properties.
167 Homes Sold in 2017 Over 1000 Arizona residents have bought or sold a home with Team Santistevan!
LOVING AHWATUKEE - We enjoy showing o the beauty of our Ahwatukee community to our clients! One of our favorite things we do with our out of state clients is to take them on a tour of the town. We show them the local YMCA, community services, schools, nature trails, and usually stop o at a local restaurant/co ee shop. We love to support our local businesses and are regular participants in community events.
So, to mark Neil Armstrong’s historic walk, Jack is holding an open house for interested people to look at his collection and hear his stories about the Armstrong Clan. Interested people can email him for details at armstrongjack123@gmail.com.
Jack has collected enough artifacts to create a micro-museum in his Ahwatukee home that traces the migration of his clan from a no-man’s land on the coast of Scotland called the “Debatable Lands” – a name reflecting the early inhabitants’ refusal to submit to either the king of England or the royal family of Scotland.
From there, clan members moved to Northern Ireland, where they became part of the Ulster Scots, and eventually to upstate New York.
And from there, the clan’s roots took hold in various parts of the country over 200 years, producing famous families like the Kennedys of JFK and Bobby fame.
Jack’s collection includes memorabilia dating back more than 300 years – and he’s eager to finally offer the general public a rare view of an intimate history of his clan and his family.
“We are hoping to connect with more people in the local Scots-Irish community,” said Armstrong.
His eight-year journey in time has yielded innumerable surprises.
“When I started eight years ago, I didn’t know anything,” he recalled. “I had no history. My father knew nothing.”
And what he has learned through visits to different places and a relentless search on the internet is something that he thinks anyone can do regardless of their ancestry: “There’s so much history out there and people would be amazed if they just peeled it back and started looking.”
Armstrong’s peeling-back began in Iowa, where he literally stumbled on the farm that his great-great-grandfather settled on in the late mid-1800s.
He recalled how he and his wife drove
out to an area where he thought the Armstrong farm might have once been located, “thinking we’re just going to find a field.”
“We pulled up to a house and there’s a guy leaving and I said, ‘I’m looking for the Armstrong farm.’ And he says, ‘This is it.’”
“It was like a time capsule,” Armstrong said. “The whole world of my great, great grandfather opened up.”
The man, Fred Henry, turned out to be a distant cousin of Armstrong whose father had lived in the house until he died in 1992.
Though uninhabited since then, the house retained a lived-in look with food in the pantry and items dating back to the 1800s simply stacked in the basement.
For example, he found a pair of tiny baby shoes that he now enshrines in his micro-museum.
“They were stuck in an old box,” he said. “So was a lot of this stuff. It was just forgotten. The cellar has stuff in there from the beginning. It blew me away. It still blows my mind.”
Between those items and Henry’s stories, Armstrong began piecing together the history of his family and the broader
Armstrong clan.
He began making connections with distant cousins he never knew he had as he put together a continually deepening and broadening genealogical story.
“When I started putting it all together, I just found out this amazing history,” he said.
For example, he discovered the story of Thomas Armstrong, who became the youngest combat veteran of the Civil War after enlisting at age 13.
“A lot of the Armstrongs signed up for the Union army,” he said. “Some of our family were at Appomattox when Lee surrendered.”
Even more remarkable about Thomas is that his father enlisted at the same time, leaving Kate, the elder Thomas’ wife, worrying for several years about the fate of both her baby and her husband.
“They both made it out, but both were wounded,” Armstrong said.
Armstrong located Thomas’ farm, where the owner gave him permission to search the land with a metal detector. That search turned up a blacksmith chisel – Thomas was a blacksmith after he got out of the Army – and other artifacts that
are now part of Jack’s museum.
He also learned that his grandfather served in World War I and was a machine gunner in one of its bloodiest battles, eventually forced to join a different division because his was decimated.
Jack’s own father also became a machine gunner, riding in the tail of a B24 Bomber in the Pacific Theater.
“These veterans didn’t talk much about their service,” Jack said. “But what I saw here in all this history was just an amazing amount of sacrifice – and not just the Armstrongs but all these border clans.”
Among his memorabilia is a letter written by Confederate General Stonewall Jackson on his death bed and instructing that his saber be given to General Robert Armstrong “to show my gratitude for his service and our friendship.”
Jack also has acquired a small library of books about the Armstrong Clan, some dating back 200 years. Some were written by Armstrongs while others were written about them by unrelated authors.
Jack continues his unrelenting search for artifacts and written works – he already has more than 120 gigabytes of digital records – as well as look for people.
His dream is to one day start a foundation and use his collection as the seeds for a far bigger and more comprehensive Scots-Irish museum.
“This is a huge part of American history and nobody’s doing anything on it,” he noted.
But in the meantime, Jack Armstrong’s micro-museum serves another compelling purpose in his mind.
“I have my own grandchildren and I want them to know this story, but I realized it’s hard to educate them just with stories. But if they see things, they touch things, then it goes into them. So, every time they visit, I want them to soak up this history – the history I never had growing up.
“I want other people who come in here to think, ‘Wow, what are we missing?’”
The Armstrong Clan has made a huge impact on American hstory and among its famous descendents is Neil Armstrong, who became the first man to walk on the moon 50 years ago this Saturday, July 20. (Special to AFN)
Jack Armstrong’s micro=museum contains maps, letters, even baby shoes belonging to his ancestors as well as reflecting the history of the Armstrong Clan as it made its way from Scotland to the United States. The map on the right was made in the mid-1600s and shows in detail the Deplorable Lands, a coastal region in Scotland where the Armstrong Clan first lived. (Kimberly Carrillo/AFN Staff Photographer)
Community
www.ahwatukee.com
Ahwatukee aquarist on mission to save coral
BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
Most people head to the Caribbean for a vacation. Skylar Snowden went there to help save the planet.
The Ahwatukee resident is an aquarist – defined by environmental groups as someone who cares for marine life in aquariums by maintaining their habitats and having hands-on interactions with the creatures.
That pretty much describes her job as the curator at SEA LIFE Arizona, at Arizona Mills in Tempe, but it also applies to her sense of purpose where ocean life is concerned.
And not just any ocean life. She specifically cares for coral – a lot.
“I gravitate toward invertebrates and for sure. Coral is my specialty,” she said, quickly adding, “but I’ve done a lot of work with sharks, too.”
As home to more than a million differ-
ent types of aquatic life, coral is a vital link in the world’s food chain.
For people living on small islands, it’s
both food and a source of food. And coral reefs provide natural barriers for coastal cities and beaches.
For Snowden, though, coral also holds a sublime fascination, part of her lifelong love affair with the sea.
A Virginia Beach native and daughter of a career Navy officer, Snowden explained, “I grew up at the beach, too, so I grew up surfing my whole life. I was at the beach anytime I wasn’t in school, which means I was at the beach a lot. So, I guess just my whole life’s been the ocean.”
Indeed, when she first got out of high school, she went to college for a little while but dropped out so she could surf “for I don’t know how many years.”
Then she joined the Coast Guard, and was stationed in Los Angeles, which enabled her to keep on surfing in her down time.
And when she returned to college and got her degree in biology, specializing in sea creatures.
Which brings us to her current job – in
see SKYLAR page 22
Thunder alumna giving audition lessons here
BY COTY DOLORES MIRANDA AFN Contributor
When Kelly May attended Desert Vista High School, she was active.
She competed with the speech-anddebate team at nationals with fellow student and close friend Max Crumm, starred in high school and community theater productions and worked as a videographer in the school’s video club. It was that background that took her to Los Angeles.
After attending Arizona State University for a year, she applied and was accepted to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, a performing arts conservatory in L.A.
She and Crumm have remained close friends and communicate daily while he remains in New York City after garnering the role of Danny Zuko in the reality competition “Grease - You’re the One That We Want,” and performing this month in “Broadway Sings Arianna Grande.”
On July 27, May is hosting two workshops on how to audition – an art she says is essential to anyone interested in
theater or film, locally or in Hollywood or on Broadway.
“I used to go out on auditions and no
one really prepared you for what it’s like: How do you present yourself? Who do you look at when you’re there?” May explained, noting:
“There are certain subtleties; they have to be so slight. You have to learn to micromanage your expression, how to move your face, how to show what’s unique about you. Auditioning can be really scary and overwhelming.”
Held at Dance Studio 111 in Ahwatukee, May will conduct a 90-minute workshop for kids ages 6-10 at 10 a.m. That will be followed by a 2½-hour workshop for ages 11 to 18 at 1 p.m.
Both workshops have limited enrollment – 15 and 20, respectively. Reservations can be made at 480-706-6040.
A newly minted member of the Producers Guild of America, May is now a television and film actress, director and writer who has opted to spend more time back home in Ahwatukee to focus on her screenwriting. @AhwatukeeFN
Aquarist Skylar Snowden of Ahwatukee watches over a huge vat of coral that is kept in a room at SEA LIFE Arizona in Arizona Mills, where Snowden is the curator of all the marine life. (Pablo Robles/AFN Staff Photographer)
Desert Vista High School graduate Kelly May will give two workshops for children on how to audition for live productions. The workshops will be held July 27 at Dance Studio 111 in Ahwatukee. (Special to AFN)
Ahwatukee’s Katrina Shawver named Road Scholar
AFN NEWS STAFF
Ahwatukee journalist and author Katrina Shawver has racked up another honor in the wake of her book about an Ahwatukee man who escaped two Nazi death camps and made his way to America.
Shawver has been dubbed a Road Scholar by Arizona Humanities for its AZ Speaks program for 2019-2021.
“It’s a really big deal and huge honor as they are highly selective and reduced the number of speakers in this new program cycle,” she said, adding it may well be that she is the first presenter on the topic of Poland.
Shawver is the author of “Henry: A Polish Swimmer’s True Story of Friendship from Auschwitz to America.”
It tells the story Henry Zguda, whom she met and befriended until his death in 2003. Zguda survived both Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps as a Polish Catholic political prisoner from 1942-1945.
Shawver spent 15 years researching Poland under the Nazis’ thumb during World War II.
The Polish American Congress of Arizona awarded her its 2018 Polish Heritage Award and the Arizona Authors Association named “Henry” the best nonfiction book of 2018.
Earlier this year she served as Writer in
Residence at the Glendale Public Library, where she presented multiple writing workshops.
AZ Speaks is the longest-running and most popular program of Arizona Humanities, which charges organizations across the state a nominal fee to hear its Road Scholars’ presentations.
The program offers nonprofits, libraries, educational institutions, governmental and tribal entities engaging humanities-based programs.
Shawver will join a group of presenters with a diverse range of expertise from a variety of professional backgrounds, including history, cultural and gender studies.
“Speakers are selected based on their expertise and ability to offer content and insight that inspires discussion with audiences of all ages and backgrounds,” Arizona Humanities states on its websites.
AZ Speaks is a program that funds hundreds of presentations each year in towns from Bisbee to Yuma, Springerville to Kingman, and Shawver can be enlisted to speak on one of two topics.
One is titled “Poland Under Hitler and Stalin During World War II” and offers
an overview of Polish history presented through Polish eyes.
The country was divided in two by Hitler and Stalin, the Polish government was exiled to England, and all Poles were targeted for slave labor, imprisonment or execution.
More than 6 million Poles were killed, and more than 2 million deported for slave labor in Russia and Germany.
“This presentation goes beyond the history of the German occupation and Holocaust to include the devastating impact of the Russian occupation and ultimate betrayal by the U.S. and Britain that paved the way for three generations of Russian communist rule in Poland,” Arizona Humanities said.
Shawver’s other topic, titled “Polish Christians, Political Prisoners and Martyrs in Auschwitz and Buchenwald” focuses on two specific camps on Auschwitz in Oświęcim, Poland, and Buchenwald in Weimar, Germany, with a focus on the non-Jews who were targeted for extermination by the Nazis.
The Road Scholars program brings the best in humanities scholarship to virtually every corner of Arizona.
Ahwatukee journalist Katrina Shawver can now add a new job to her resume: An Arizona Road Scholar. (Special to AFN)
the middle of the desert, no less – and the reason for her trip to the Caribbean.
As curator the last couple of years at SEA LIFE Arizona, Snowden said, “My biggest responsibility is just making sure that all of our animals have a safe, peaceful existence, with the animals’ welfare at the forefront of all our decision-making.
“So, my biggest job is probably just making sure that not only the animals, but the staff have everything that they need to be the champions to those animals because they care very much about the animals. It’s important to me to make sure that I make sure that they have everything they need to be able to do their job safely and efficiently.”
She doesn’t necessarily miss living near the ocean.
“Honestly, the desert’s grown on me,” she said. “I had my reservations at first, but then after I was here for three or four months, I started kind of noticing the beauty and the desert. So, I had been doing a lot of hiking with my dogs and stuff like that. A lot of camping and I’ve enjoyed the heck out of that.”
And she’s never far from coral.
In a large room set away from the dimly lit corridors of SEA LIFE Arizona, where
sea creatures live in sparkling aquariums, Snowden also oversees a huge vat where dozens of different kinds of coral grow, though she leaves the actual work to her “coral man,” Brett.
“If I went in and just did all the work, it would be totally fun for me, but wouldn’t be a good learning experience for him,”
she explained.
“It’s more important to me to sort of bring up that next generation of people who are going to care and take care of them like I did.”
But in the Caribbean last month, she had a chance to care for the coral directly, continuing an effort on her part that since
2010 has helped to reproduce millions of coral.
She had persuaded SEA LIFE to send her and its other aquarists from SEA LIFE sites across the country to spend nearly a month on a boat off the island of Curacao to study butterfly fish, and determine whether they are the “bees of coral reefs” by aiding coral’s expansion and cross-breeding.
The team also collected fertilized coral eggs, called gametes, raised them in labs until they became larvae, then put them carefully on small rocks amid broken reefs so they could grow.
While the aquarists didn’t prove their theory, Snowden said, the conservation side of their mission “worked out perfectly.”
“In the end, we raised over 200,00 baby coral larvae and of those we got 42,500 or so to settle on the reef,” she said, explaining that this technique eventually fills gaps in the coral reef and helps it to replenish itself on its own.
The technique helps repair the damage done to reefs by the natural aging process as well as by the external ravages of pollution.
That pollution comes from a high-nutri-
page 23
ent environment created by runoff as far away as Africa.
“Let’s say there’s a farm that’s inland and they use tons of fertilizer on farms,” Snowden explained. “They’ve taken all the trees off the land, so when it rains, all that runoff runs back into the river with all of the fertilizer and all the mud and the scum and everything else right out into the ocean, right on under the roof. So, what happens is you get these high-nutrient environments and algae just blooms like crazy and the corals can’t grow fast enough to compete with the algae.
“All these techniques and all this stuff that we’re doing are super-important for our understanding of corals,” Snowden said.
“The more we understand them, the better we’re going to be able to take care of them, the better we’re going to be able to conserve them. Every time we do this, we learn something new about these animals,” she continued.
“And that is inherently important because the future may be the only corals left might be in aquariums and if people don’t know how to reproduce them in aquariums. Then, we’re dead in the water.”
Small wonders: Miniature books on display at Ironwood Library
A collection of rare artist-made miniature books will be on display August and September at Ironwood Library, 4333 E. Chandler Blvd., Ahwatukee.
The collection is open to all ages. Admission is free and no registration is required.
Ironwood Library seeks writers now for Author Fair in November
Arizona author with a published book can apply throughout August to participate in Phoenix Public Library’s 2019 Local Author Fair,
Application and rules are at phxlib.org.
The fair will be held Nov. 2 at Burton Barr Central Library.
Special volleyball program training kids is coming to Ahwatukee
A new volleyball program is coming to Ahwatukee. BYOP volleyball – an acronym for “Bring Your Own Parent” – is an eight-week program for aspiring volleyball players ages 5-10, no matter what skill or ability level, to learn fundamental volleybal skills alongside their parent.
Each one-hour training session builds on fundamental skills needed to play volleyball.
Sessions will take place each Wednesday from 6:30-7:30 p.m. at Kyrene Centennial Middle School Aug. 14-Oct. 2.
Children and parents are invited to learn more about the program 2-3 p.m. July 23 at Ironwood Library in Ahwatukee.
Information: 480-580-4393 or byopphoenix@gmail.com. Registration: byopphoenix.weebly.com
Cooking classes offered in Ahwatukee home focus on varied cuisine
Phoenician Oasis, located in a private Ahwatukee home, is offering cooking classes focusing on low-fat, low-sodium, low-sugar dishes that include vegan, French and international cuisines while students enjoy gourmet hors d’oeuvres and sipping wine or cold drinks.
Summer classes include: July 27, bread making; July 28, vegan; Aug. 4, French Cooking in French language; Aug. 10 and 31, bread making; and Aug. 11 and Sept. 1, vegan cooking.
Details: Phoenicianoasis.com or 480-888-5521 .
Ahwatukee chapter of Moms in Prayer can help in many ways
People who would like some prayer power on behalf of their children can contact the Ahwatukee chapter of the national group Moms in Prayer.
The group meets once a week for an hour, praying for children and their school. Grandmothers are welcome to come and pray for their grandchildren.
Information: MomsInPrayer.org or azcarolina7@gmail.com.
CLEANING
“This last year I was doing a show for NBC, and directing every Monday and putting out a new episode every Thursday and working on a screenplay with Max,” she said.
“After finishing that job (NBC), I said I need to focus on my writing. And I wanted to spend time with my family, so half the month I’m here and the other half in L.A.”
She said being taught how to audition is important to anyone wishing to act whether on stage or in film.
May will begin with the younger students, with lessons such as “How to Transition From Leaving Parents’ Side to Entering Audition” and “How to Show Off Your Personality.”
A former student at Kimberly Lewis’ Dance Studio 111, May said she will emphasize advanced auditioning skills with her afternoon workshop students.
Those topics include “Cold Reading on Camera,” “Techniques to Ensure Callbacks” and “Thinking on Your Feet and Finding Your Voice in the Room.”
munity theater and worked with pals Emily (Emma) Stone and Jordin Sparks at Valley Youth Theatre.
After her year at ASU, she and Crumm moved together to L.A. to attend the American Academy of Dramatic Arts where she was cast in a live sketch comedy show, “The Soldiers of Comedy,” later known as Sketch Camp.
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Because of her work with Disney, the older students will also be able work on current Disney scripts while strengthening on-camera presence.
“I’ve worked with so many kids in the beginning of their careers, and I feel I know what it takes,” said May, who was writer/co-director of the Disney Channel’s “The Coppertop Flop Show,” a sketch comedy series.
“There are a lot of children in my life. I have 10 nieces and nephews ages 10 and under, and I love working with kids. I’m genuinely excited about this project,” she enthused.
Growing up with an older brother and twin younger brothers, May said she developed a gift for comedy early in her life.
“My brothers were all about wrestling and stuff and all I had was my wit,” she laughed. “Comedy came easily for me.”
May and her family moved from Mesa, where she was born, to Ahwatukee when she was in fifth grade. She attended Kyrene de los Cerritos Elementary, Altadena Middle School and Desert Vista, graduating in 2003.
She recalls launching her career at age 10, using her father’s VHS camera and two VCRs to cut her films.
“It wasn’t until I was at Desert Vista that I had any professional equipment to use,” she recalled.
She and Crumm were active in com-
While creating shorts for brands and networks, May developed two comedy series that were selected as finalists at the New York Television Festival.
She has written and produced for Pepsi, Mattel, A&E, Sony Television, Disney, DreamWorks, NBCUniversal and others. She has written, produced and directed more than 20 shorts for DreamWorks, including animated series for characters Shrek and Puss in Boots.
She said her years at Dance Studio 111, where she was especially drawn to tap dancing, were a great foundation for her career.
“It got me comfortable performing and comfortable with my body. That’s especially important in comedy, where you’re often very physical,” she said For Dance Studio 111 owner/operator Kimberly Lewis, having May conduct the audition workshops is a sweet tribute to the time they spent together.
“I love that she grew up at the studio and will now be teaching where she grew up,” said Lewis. “It makes me happy.” For more information on the workshop or other Dance Studio 111 that Lewis says is now “a full performing arts center,” see DanceStudio111.com or find them on Facebook and Instagram.
Celebrating more than 25 years in Ahwatukee, Dance Studio 111 is located at 4910 E. Chandler Blvd., Suite 111. The studio is renowned for their annual holiday stage extravaganza, “Ahwatukee Nutcracker.”
MAX CRUMM
CALENDAR
WEDNESDAY, JULY 17
Today’s the last day
Today’s the last day for women to get their reservation in for the July 22 Ahwatukee Foothills Friends and Neighbors luncheon.
DETAILS>> The luncheon will be at 11:30 a.m. at Biscuits, 4623
E Elliott Road, Ahwatukee, and feature Joan Campbell from the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office talking about “Trending Scams. Information/reservations: affanwomensgroup@ gmail.com
Arizona Rick
Enjoy delightful storytelling with balloon-twisting extraordinaire Arizona Rick, who uses fantastical balloon creations and volunteers from the audience to tell stories, play games, and do a bit of magic. Program sponsored by the Friends of the Phoenix Public Library as part of Maricopa County Reads, the summer reading program at the library.
DETAILS>> 2-3 p.m., Ironwood Library, 4333 E. Chandler Blvd. Ages 5-12 years. Free. Tickets are required and available in the library 30 minutes before program start time.
Family Reading Camp
Wear your pajamas; bring your teddy bears, flashlights, pillows and blankets; and snuggle up in tents for this all-ages family read-together “indoor camping” adventure. #IronwoodLibrary
DETAILS>> 6:30-7:30 p.m., Ironwood Library, 4333 E. Chandler Blvd. All Ages. Free. No registration required.
Two open studios
Art in the Garden has two open studios and a class today, but it also is offering two specials. One is $120 for four classes within a calendar month and the other is a group party for five for $150, with each additional person another $30. The studio bills the latter as a “great idea for birthdays, girls day/ night out, family art class, a small office team building, and more.” There’s also special pricing for events of over 12 people.
DETAILS>> Open studios today are 10 a.m.-noon and 1-6 p.m. Cost is $10 without materials and $20 with materials provided. Watercolor cards is 7-9 p.m. Information: artinthegardenstudio.com. Information on specials: 480-302-1304.
THURSDAY, JULY 18
Open studio set
Art in the Garden Studio will have an open session and a class. DETAILS>> Open studio is 10 a.m.-6 p.m. and freestyle acrylic floral painting is 7-9 p.m. Information: artinthegardenstudio.com
FRIDAY, JULY 19
Painting classes
Art in the Garden Studio in Ahwatukee is holding two painting classes.
DETAILS>> Painting with string, 10 a.m.-noon.; acrylic painting “Hawaiian Evening,” 7-9 p.m. Reservations: artinthegardenstudio.com or (480)302-1304.
SATURDAY, JULY 20
Workshops at Hawthorne Hawthorne Court of Ahwatukee is holding a workshop on veterans benefits.
DETAILS>> 11 a.m., 13822 S. 46th Place, Ahwatukee. Information/RSVP: 480-598-1224.
Studio classes
Art in the Garden has three classes scheduled. DETAILS>> 10 a.m.-noon., DIY natural sunscreen and deodor-
ant; 1-3 p.m., desert landscapes in acrylic; 7-9 p.m., alcohol ink on ceramic coasters. Reservations: artinthegardenstudio. com or 480-02-1304.
MONDAY, JULY 22
Watercolor class
Art in the Garden has a watercolor and other classes.
DETAILS>> 10 a.m.-noon., watercolor florals; 1-3 pm., DIY natural laundry detergent and household cleaners; 7-9 pm., acrylic painting and the “Classic Wave.”
Reservations: artinthegardenstudio.com or 480-302-1304.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 24
Reptile Fun
Snakes in the library! Learn about reptiles and meet some slinky species up close. Program sponsored by the Friends of the Phoenix Public Library as part of Maricopa County Reads, the summer reading program at the library.
DETAILS>> 2-3 p.m., Ironwood Library, 4333 E. Chandler Blvd. Ages 5-12 years. Free. Tickets are required and available in the library 30 minutes before program start time.
Studio classes
Art in the Garden Studio in Ahwatukee has two classes.
DETAILS>> 1-3 p.m., paint with string; 7-9 p.m., acrylic painting of Van Gogh’s “Vase of Flowers,” Reservations: artinthegardenstudio.com or 480-302-1304.
THURSDAY, JULY 25
Two classes offered
Art in the Garden Studio has scheduled two classes. DETAILS>> 10 a.m.-noon., ZenDeZignZ. Find your Zen with patterns you design; and 7-9 p.m., watercolor notecards. Reservations: artinthegardenstudio.com or 480-302-1304.
TUESDAY, July 30
French Talk Time
Brush up on your high school, college, or tourist French speaking and listening skills in this French conversation group. Participants should already speak some French to benefit from this program. First, third and fifth Tuesdays of this month are informal, unstructured and participant-driven experiences. Second and fourth Tuesdays of this month are guided conversation groups.
DETAILS>> 6:30-7:30 p.m., Ironwood Library, 4333 E. Chandler Blvd. Ages: Adults. Free. No registration required.
SUNDAYS
TinkerTime
Explore hands-on creative ways to design, experiment and invent while learning about Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math (STEAM) through tinkering
DETAILS>> 2-4 p.m., Ironwood Library, 4333 E. Chandler Blvd. Ages 6-11. Free. No registration required.
Learn gardening from pros
Learn desert gardening by getting your hands dirty with the Ahwatukee Community Gardening Project. Share in the knowledge, the produce and the smiles. All ages welcome Bring sun protection and water, tools optional.
DETAILS>> 8-9:15 a.m. in the northwest corner of the park at 4700 E. Warner Road, Ahwatukee, behind the guitar player at the Ahwatukee Farmers Market, which is open 9a.m.-1 p.m. Information: acgarden.org or 480-759-5338.
Chess, knitters clubs
Two clubs meet in Ahwatukee every Sunday the chess club for players at all skill levels and Knitters Anonymous for all levels of knitters and people who crochet.
DETAILS>> The Chess Club meets at 11 a.m. and Knitters Anonymous meets at 2 p.m. For either club, call 480-246-1912 for more information.
Bible Study
A journey through Leviticus that is biblically accurate and understandable for everyone. Learn the historical perspective which reveals the love of God for all His people. Technology and questions are both encouraged.
Ahwatukee Foothills Friends and Neighbors (AFFAN) is an organization of women who meet regularly to socialize through groups/activities and provides educational and cultural information for its members. General luncheon meetings are the fourth Monday of every month.
DETAILS>> For more info: affanwomensgroup@gmail.com.
Power Partners meet
The Ahwatukee Foothills Chamber of Commerce’s Power Partners meets. It’s a category-specific networking and leads group. Non-Chamber members can attend one event to “check it out.”
DETAILS>> noon-1 p.m. at Native Grill and Wings 5030 E. Ray Road, Ahwatukee. Information: 480-753-7676.
LD 18 Dems meet monthly
Legislative District 18 Democrats gather monthly, usually the second Monday, to share news, opportunities, food and laughter. Meetings include guest speakers, legislative updates, how-to sessions and Q&A. Volunteer or just enjoy an evening with like-minded folks.
DETAILS>> For times and places: ld18democrats.org/calendar.
Babytime for walkers
Babies up to 23 months who are walking and are accompanied by a favorite adult enjoy Babytime with American Sign Language for Walkers, with songs, activities to promote movement, rhymes, books and playtime in each lively session.
DETAILS>> 9:30-10 a.m., Ironwood Library, 4333 E. Chandler Blvd. Ages walking to 23 months. Free. Tickets are limited & available in the library 30 minutes before program start time.
Babytime for crawlers
Accompanied by a favorite adult, babies birth to crawling can enjoy songs, music, rhymes, books, interactive stories, simple American Sign Language words, activities to promote movement, and playtime.
DETAILS>> 10:30-11 a.m. Ironwood Library, 4333 E Chandler Blvd. Ages birth to crawling. Free. Tickets are limited & available in the library 30 minutes before program start time.
Digital City Essentials
Through fun hands-on projects, games and crafts, children can develop coding, 3D modeling, and circuitry skills, plus sequential and computational thinking, in this “tech playground.” Co-presented by Lakewood Learning.
DETAILS>> 3:30-4:45 p.m.,. Ironwood Library, 4333 E. Chandler Blvd. Ages 5-12. Free. No registration required.
Desert Pointe gardeners meet
Desert Pointe Garden Club meets on the first Monday of the month with special programs.
DETAILS>> 9 a.m., Ahwatukee Rec Center, 5001 E. Cheyenne Drive, Ahwatukee. Information: 602 478 6732 or dpgc.org.
TUESDAYS
Get ready for kindergarten
Three- to 5-year-olds and their adult caregivers learn through stories, games and structured activities designed to nourish the skills that lead to success in school: persistence, flexibility and problem-solving.
DETAILS>> Tuesdays June 4 – July 23, 10:30-11:15 a.m., Ironwood Library, 4333 E Chandler Blvd. Ages: 3-5 years. Free. Tickets are limited & available 30 minutes before program start time on the day of the program.
Patriotic playgroup
Parents looking for playtime for their kids and, for themselves, stimulating conversations rooted in family, faith and conservatism can gather ever second Tuesday of the month.
DETAILS>> 9-11 a.m. Pecos Park playground. 17010 S. 48th St., Phoenix. Check ld18gop.com for more details or contact: ld18gop@gmail.com
Estrangement support
Although rarely discussed, family estrangement is far more common than most people realize. The estranged suffer from loneliness, lack of self-esteem, guilt, anger and depression. Desert Foothills United Methodist Church provides a support group that meets the first Tuesday of every month. The public is invited to the “Living Loss” sessions. No questions asked, and anonymity will be respected.
DETAILS>> 7 p.m., first Tuesday of every month; 2156 E. Liberty Lane, Ahwatukee. Use Entry B. Free. Information: 480-460-
1025 and office@desertfoothills.org.
Prayer night offered
Ahwatukee Health and Recovery holds a weekly prayer night. The public is invited.
DETAILS>> noon-1:30 p.m., 16515 S. 40th Street #119, Ahwatukee. Free.
Chair yoga featured
Inner Vision Yoga Studio offers chair yoga to help seniors and people recovering from injuries to stay fit.
DETAILS>> 1:30-2:30 p.m., 4025 E. Chandler Blvd., Ahwatukee. $6 per class. Information: 480-330-2015 or donna@innervisionyoga.com.
Toastmasters sharpen skills
Improve your speaking skills and meet interesting people at Ahwatukee Toastmasters meetings
DETAILS>> 6:45-8 a.m at the Dignity Health Community Room, 4545 E. Chandler Blvd., Ahwatukee.
WEDNESDAYS
Summer STEM Fun
Children can create pulley rockets, comets-on-a-stick, alien spaceships, sun catchers, and more in these fun, hands-on STEM-based sessions.
DETAILS>> On July 2, 16 and 23, 4-5 p.m., Ironwood Library, 4333 E. Chandler Blvd. Ages: 6-11. Free. No registration required.
ToddlerTime
Toddlers 24-47 months-old, accompanied by a favorite adult, enjoy interactive activities that encourage emerging language skills such as stories, songs, games and playtime. Children and see CALENDAR page 27
Kyrene to unveil several major initiatives, programs
BY DR. JAN VESELY Kyrene Schools Superintendent
“We are born makers. We move what we’re learning from our heads to our hearts through our hands.” – Brené Brown
A new year is about to begin. All Kyrene students start school on Aug. 1, and families are encouraged to join us for Meet the Teacher nights on July 29 (elementary schools) and July 30 (middle schools). Over the summer, I have been reading the works of researcher and storyteller Brené Brown, and I came across the quote above.
Brown says we are born makers, moving what we learn from our heads to our hearts and, finally, through our hands. I see this in action every day in Kyrene schools.
At its best, the process of teaching and learning is an art. We in Kyrene are very fortunate to have many master artists in our classrooms.
You only have to walk through any one of our schools to see kids working together to solve a problem, or hear a poem a student crafted on their own, to know that we are truly making a difference in the lives of children.
Social-emotional learning
The year ahead welcomes several exciting initiatives across Kyrene. This year, we are expanding our efforts to provide students with social-emotional learning and supports.
We began this work two years ago with
the middle school design, and are in the process of extending social-emotional learning into our elementary schools.
This work will include the addition of school counselors to our elementary campuses, as well as the implementation of a comprehensive social-emotional curriculum.
If we are truly committed to making a difference in the lives of children, the addition of counselors is a key piece in achieving that goal.
We know that providing support beyond academic interventions to all students is critical to their ability to perform at their full potential, as it helps them to develop resiliency and strategies for
coping with risk factors and provides an additional layer of protective factors that will improve the overall social-emotional wellness of our students.
Equity impact
Equity is also a key focus this year, as we work with expert partner Corwin to build systems of support that identify and eliminate bias.
This will include professional development for staff, support for culturally relevant teaching strategies and the development of practices for attracting job applicants from diverse backgrounds.
We have already begun the work of focusing on restorative justice opportunities
to close discipline gaps and ensure all students are treated fairly.
In addition to our work with Corwin, we have engaged with the University of Virginia, Partnership for Leaders in Education to prioritize a set of schools who have historically had achievement, behavior and opportunity gaps.
The purpose of this initiative is to empower district and school leaders to create an equitable, inclusive and just system for every student by relentlessly pursuing transformational leadership, teaching and learning in our RISE UP schools.
Our commitment is that every child in Kyrene feels like they belong and can thrive regardless of their race, gender, income or ability.
New beginnings
2019-20 sees two long-sought efforts come to fruition in Kyrene. After two years as a candidate school, Kyrene Middle School has been named an official International Baccalaureate school.
The I.B. Middle Years Programme will put a global lens on all education at KMS, to help prepare students for future career and college opportunities. We have also spent the past two years “Imagining the Possibilities,” and will be welcoming the first cohort of students to a new educational model within Kyrene de las Manitas this year.
Facilities staff have been busy creating a learning studio that will include state-ofthe-art technology and areas where students can build, perform and experiment with hands-on activities.
The teaching team, under the direction
see VESELY page 3
Kyrene Superintendent Jan Vesely confers regular with several advisory councils, one of which consists of a student or two from each of the district's 25 campuses. (Special to AFN)
God’s Garden Preschool and Child Development Center nurtures your child’s love of learning, citizenship, and spirituality. We provide the building blocks for
Offering 2, 3, 4 and 5 day class schedules, as well as extended day and enrichment schedules for children ages 2 through 5, we have space for everyone!
It is our mission to enrich the lives of every child we are blessed to teach; COME GROW WITH US!
“ We wanted a preschool where our kids could learn and grow in a positive, loving and safe environment, and we found it in the God’s Garden Preschool. From the first day, the teachers warmly welcomed our son into their classroom and showed him God’s love in every moment. I’m convinced there is a special place in heaven for teachers who work with preschoolers, and the teachers at God’s Garden are all exceptional! He came out of class that first morning with an enormous smile on his face and couldn’t wait to go back. In the 2’s class last year, he did countless creative crafts and science experiments, learned new songs, played games, went on “bear hunts,” and made wonderful new friends. We’ve seen his creativity, his confidence, his intellect, and his love of books and Bible stories grow over the past year. In addition, we have been personally blessed by Michelle Rhodes and the staff as they have shared their advice and suggestions on how to parent challenging toddlers. They support not just the students but their families as well. We are so thankful to have an extended family through God’s Garden and Horizon Church!”
~ Bristol Family
Bradley Rasmussen, MD
Cheatham,
Sarah Neumann, MMS, PA-C
Carrie Klosowski,
Brittany Kasprzyk, MPAS, PA-C
April Allen, MSN, FNP-C
of a certified teacher executive designer, has been working on developing experiential/project-based lessons in preparation for the first day of school. We anticipate great work to emerge from this unique approach to learning.
Balanced budget
We are starting the new school year with a balanced budget while honoring strategic initiatives and salary increases for teachers and staff, which, in today’s education landscape, is not an easy task.
Kyrene has always had the support of its community for our bonds and overrides, which allow us to minimize severe budget deficits that other districts face.
Even so, our margin is very small, and each year, we must identify opportunities for efficiencies, that do not impact our effectiveness, so that we may continue to fund new and innovative programs that allow us to prepare our kids for the future.
This year, we invited the community to work with us in identifying budget priorities. We asked our parents, community members, teachers and site leaders to review and prioritize areas of budget reductions as well as new initiatives. This feedback informed the final budget for the 2019-20 school year.
Strategic Plan 2022
Throughout the coming year, we will continue to measure our progress against the goals set forth in the Kyrene Strategic Plan 2022.
As I reflect on our work in recent years, I appreciate the progress we’ve made toward those goals of high-performing students, high-quality talent, collective governance, inclusive culture and creating a responsive organization.
This progress can be attributed to the hard work of our amazing school leaders, teachers and staff, the leadership and support of our Governing Board, and a highly engaged parent community. We will continue to report our progress to the Governing Board and to our community so that we remain true to the vision for Kyrene, that all students achieve at their maximum potential to become problem-solvers, creators and visionaries of tomorrow.
I believe that each child has his or her own special gifts and talents waiting to be discovered. I look forward to seeing those gifts emerge as we progress through another exciting year.
My wish for the 2019-20 school year is that we can move learning from our students’ heads, to their hearts and through their hands, to make learning come alive for them in ways they never imagined.
Kyrene has some familiar faces in new places
AFN NEWS STAFF
Kyrene School District is welcoming new principals to several schools this year, but while some of them may be new to the position, they are not new to Kyrene leadership roles.
Eight Kyrene schools will begin the 2019-20 school year with new principals, and every one of those leaders is either a current principal moving to a new school or an assistant principal earning a promotion.
Monte Vista – Principal Garth Cupp
In Ahwatukee, Kyrene Monte Vista Elementary School will be under the leadership of Dr. Garth Cupp. Cupp most recently served as assistant principal of Kyrene Altadeña Middle School. Prior to that, his 14-year history in Kyrene includes roles as science teacher, coach and dean of students.
He has worked extensively with elementary schools to provide support for students transitioning to middle school and has strengthened partnerships across campuses to support students from Kindergarten to 8th grade.
Niños – Principal Lisa Connor Kyrene de los Niños Elementary School is excited to welcome longtime Kyrene leader Lisa Connor to the principal role. Connor has been a member of the Kyrene School District team for 24 years, first as an instructional assistant, then as a teacher for more than a decade, before moving into an assistant principal position. Connor most recently served as principal of Kyrene de la Sierra Elementary School in Ahwatukee, where she led the school to an AEF A+ School of Excellence designation last year.
Another Kyrene veteran, Principal Brian Gibson, will join the Kyrene de la Sierra team this fall. Like Connor, Gibson has served Kyrene for 24 years, most recently as principal of Kyrene de las Lomas Elementary School, which he led for the last decade.
Prior to that, Gibson held the roles of teacher, middle school advisor and assistant principal. Gibson’s wife also works in the district, and he attended Kyrene Mid-
Sierra – Principal Brian Gibson
GARTH CUPP BRIAN GIBSON RENEE KORY
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Lomas – Principal Tika DeGraffenreid New to the principal position, but not new to Kyrene, is Kyrene de las Lomas leader Tika DeGraffenreid. DeGraffenreid has worked in education for 20 years – all in Kyrene School District – most recently serving as the assistant principal of Kyrene de las Manitas.
Prior to that, she held assistant principal positions at two other schools and was a teacher and math coach.
DeGraffenreid said, “I am passionate about my students, teachers and the community in which I serve, and I’m committed to making decisions that put students first. It’s an honor to share these values with the Lomas community.”
Kyrene Middle School – Principal Scott Maxwell
In Tempe, Kyrene Middle School (KMS) will be under the leadership of Principal Scott Maxwell. Maxwell joins KMS from the district office, where his role as a director of school effectiveness saw him already working closely with all middle schools. Maxwell helped manage and support a variety of initiatives, including KMS
efforts to become an International Baccalaureate school. He has served as a high school principal, social studies teacher and researcher in organizations as far away as China and South Africa. Maxwell will draw on these global professional experiences to lead dynamic programming at KMS.
C.I. Waggoner – Principal Marcie Romero
Long-time educator and Kyrene leader Marcie Romero is stepping up to the principal position at C.I. Waggoner, beginning in the 2019-20 school year.
Cerritos – Acting Principal Amy Gingell
Acting Principal Amy Gingell will guide students at Kyrene de los Cerritos Leadership Academy into the new school year. Gingell stepped up to lead Cerritos at the end of the 2018-19 school year and will continue as acting principal while Principal Darcy DiCosmo is on leave. Gingell previously served as assistant principal at Cerritos and knows the programs, students, staff and community well.
Centennial – Principal Renee Kory
Another Kyrene leader stepping up to ensure a strong start to the school year is Principal Renee Kory. Kory was principal
at Aprende Middle School.
“With a strong team in place at Aprende and two assistant principals serving Centennial this year, Kyrene School District is confident Ms. Kory can oversee both schools until a permanent Centennial principal is in place,” district spokeswoman Erin Helm said. “Principal Kory brings to Centennial a passion for middle school education and a mission to promote responsibility, integrity, critical thinking and citizenship among students.”
Also joining the Centennial team this year are Dr. Randall Hoggard and Kristin Morocco to CMS. Hoggard has served as a principal, assistant principal, guidance counselor and teacher.
Morocco has experience as both an assistant principal and a teacher leader. “Both Morocco and Hoggard bring with them a focus on data-driven instruction, community engagement and college-and-career readiness,” Helm said.
New department heads
Former C.I. Waggoner Principal Lisa Gibson has accepted a position as a director of school effectiveness. Gibson’s experience includes working as an elementary school teacher and a literacy specialist. Gibson is excited to expand her impact on student learning. “It is a joy to come to work each day and to know that I can positively change a child’s life,” she said. Also new to the District office, Dr. Barbara Remondini has joined Kyrene as the director of human resource services. Remondini’s has been a principal and an assistant superintendent. She joined Kyrene in the spring to help support hiring for the 2019-20 school year.
Free Teeth Whitening for LIFE*
Beyond the classroom, Kyrene offers enrichment
BY ERIN HELM Guest Writer
TMark your calendar
Monday, July 29 5:30-7 p.m.
Meet the Teacher Night in all elementary schools.
Tuesday, July 30, 5-7 p.m.
he start of the school year always draws an intense focus on the classroom, as a new season of learning begins, but Kyrene School District has much to offer students beyond the strong academics and high achievement at its core.
Meet the Teacher Night in all middle schools.
Kyrene’s before- and after-school programming has exploded from a handful of offerings in the late 1990s to hundreds of options today.
Josh Glider, director of Community Education for Kyrene School District, has watched the programming grow over the years.
“There was a high demand in the community for extracurricular options,” Glider explained. “Kyrene responded to that demand and is proud to have an exemplary, award-winning program today.”
Youth Enrichment classes are available for children from kindergarten through 8th grade and include art, chess, critical thinking, dance, foreign language, mathematics, music and drama, physical education, science and academic assistance.
These tuition-based enrichment courses are offered on campuses throughout the district and are not limited to Kyrene students but open to children across the valley.
Select enrichment courses are taught by certified Kyrene teachers, and all classes are taught by qualified, experienced professionals within the after-school environment.
In addition to Youth Enrichment courses, Kyrene’s Community Education offerings include intramural sports, theater, fine arts and competitive STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) programs.
Additionally, Kyrene offers educational
Thursday, Aug. 1 First Day of School Kyrene School District calendars can be found atkyrene.org/calendar. Individual school calendars can be found on the new home page of every Kyrene school website.
options during breaks and holidays as well as Friday night fun with special evening activities planned throughout the year. There are even opportunities for “grown-ups” with online adult enrichment programming.
At the heart of these extracurricular options are the Kids Club programs offered before and after school on every elementary campus and the After-Hours programs on all middle school campuses. Financial assistance and flexible scheduling make participation easy for families with time or budget constraints.
“Our goal is to make before- and after-school options accessible to all families,” Glider says.
Registration for the 2019-20 school year is now open, and Community Education courses are filling up fast. Register today at kyrene.org/eservices or call 480-541-1500 for more information.
Erin Helm is director of communications and marketing for Kyrene School District.
Magical Journey augments focus
on little ones
BY SUZANNE JAMISON AFN Guest Writer
Magical Journey Learning Center, an Ahwatukee preschool, is teaming up with Future Kiddie to offer tech classes for little ones, and is creating smaller class sizes to create an individual-
ized learning experience for students. Families are invited to stop by to meet the staff and take tours July 22-26, 8:3010:30 a.m. at the school, 1241 E. Chandler Blvd.
“We’re so excited to offer tech training!
ENRICHMENTS INCLUDE:
• Music and Movement, Physical Education, Spanish and Growth Mindset Classes.
• Computer Classes for Pre-Kindergarten students
• Classes offered for children 1 years old through Pre-Kindergarten
• Flexible schedules for toddlers and preschool classrooms.
• Before & After School Care Available
• Low Student-to-Teacher Ratios
• Open all year round
• Sibling discounts available
By partnering with a technology curriculum provider, we’re able to give students access to this innovative and fun program that teaches basic computer skills – something they will use all their lives," said owner Jessica Spada.
“We’re also changing the age range of students to 12 months through age 5 in order to provide smaller class sizes and better student-teacher ratios for children in their formative years. Our goal is to provide engaging early education programs that give more attention to the individual needs of the child.”
Future Kiddie, owned by Ken Chan and his sister Linda Chan, is based in Chandler and teaches keyboarding and basic computer skills, along with giving an introduction to S.T.E.M. (science, technology, engineering and math) principles, to kids at 20 Valley preschools.
The Chans have been teaching the Future Kiddie class biweekly at Magical Journey since August of 2018. The two will take a brief break in the summer and resume classes in September.
“Our classes teach children from an early age to feel more comfortable with using technology,” Ken Chan said. “Most public and charter schools are moving to online
standardized tests in the third grade.
“Knowing how to type and navigate a computer early on prepares them for testing once they get to elementary school –and kids love the classes.”
Spada, with over 20 years of experience in early education, took ownership of Magical Journey a year and a half ago.
The preschool offers a curriculum designed to match the needs and developmental skill level of students.
The school, which had offered programs for ages 2 through second grade, is
changing the age range of students to offer more oneon-one attention to little ones.
“Early childhood is the most valuable time in a child’s life, when they are growing and developing so quickly,” Spada said. “While there are a number of great programs for kids 5 through 7, more programs are needed for younger children who benefit from this lower ratio.”
The teacher-student ratio will be 1:5 for 1-year-olds; 1:6 for 2-year-olds; 1:9 for 3-year-olds; and for ages 4-5, the ratio will be 1:11, according to Spada.
Magical Journey offers a year-round program with flexible scheduling to accommodate working parents, and offers a curriculum that includes Music and
Movement, Spanish, Growth Mindset, P.E. and engaging experiences and activities to create well-rounded, confident, lifelong learners.
The school also offers special events, including a recent petting zoo and reptile exhibit, and weekly summer camps.
Spada said they are also creating an indoor movement center that will include a rock-climbing wall, basketball hoops, parachute play, a slide and also tricycles to allow students to keep their bodies moving when it is too hot to go outside.
“As educators, we need to harness the energy of curious young minds and develop thought-provoking, open-ended programming with a balance of a teacher/child-directed curriculum. At Magical Journey, our goal is to grasp onto each teachable moment, whether it is learning to clean up after exploratory time, sharing, learning about how to be a good friend, lending a hand or even resolving conflicts effectively with their words,” said Spada.
“Here at MJLC we value and support the teachers’ vision for their curriculum, their classroom, and truly enjoy being involved in every aspect of our program.”
“Information: magicaljourneylc.org or 480-699-6552. Futurekiddie.com.
Future Kiddie co-woener Ken Chan and Magical Journey Center owner Jessica Spade have teamed up to give students at the Ahwatukee pre-school some technical know-how. (Special to AFN)
High school students must now learn financial literacy
BY DEENA LAGER Tribune Guest Writer
As students head back to school in the coming weeks, they will be getting a new opportunity to learn the skills they need for the future.
This spring, Senate Bill 1184, also known as the financial literacy bill, passed in Arizona’s Legislature and was signed by Gov. Doug Ducey.
The bill, which had strong bipartisan support along with support from the business community, makes it mandatory for all high school students to take a financial literacy class as part of their general education requirements.
The move couldn’t come at a better time for our students and the state as a whole. Indicators are found everywhere showing the struggles Americans have with their finances, and it’s clear our youth have a great deal to learn about money management.
By the end of 2018, American consumers were looking at $67 billion in new credit card debt, while total credit debt had grown to more than a trillion dollars.
letHub survey for financial literacy. But we can do better and that’s what this bill is all about.
In my role as director of the Arizona 529 Family College Savings Plan (AZ 529), I spend a great deal of time talking to families and individuals about the importance of financial literacy. I want to help more students have the opportunity to attend college without taking on massive debt.
AZ 529 plans are designed to help families put money aside while earning important tax breaks. A little savings now can make a big difference in the future. Each dollar saved today for college can prevent two dollars in student loan repayment in the future.
For many families, the savings process starts with simple choices. Do I bring lunch or eat out? Can I make coffee a few times a week instead of stopping at the coffee shop? Should I put that vacation on the credit card or save for it in advance?
The more tools people have for their financial lives, the easier these choices become. And that’s precisely what this bill is trying to provide – tools for soonto-be adults.
In fact, one out of every eight millennials has a debt in collections. Student loan debt is at an all-time high, more than $1.46 trillion as of 2018.
There are many reasons this is occurring, but most indicators point to a lack of basic financial literacy, or the skills and knowledge needed to make informed and effective decisions with all financial resources.
For example, a 2018 Harris Poll showed that only two out of every five adults has a household budget.
Likewise, the same percentage of Americans do not pay their bills on time, subjecting them to late fees and other penalty charges, which will inevitably have a negative effect on their credit scores.
For Arizona, the news is not all bad. The state ranks 19th nationally by a Wal-
Researchers working on a study for the Federal Reserve found a direct link between financial education in school with higher credit scores and lower debt. In a different study, the same authors found that students who participated in Financial Literacy classes made decisions that led to lower student loan debt by the time they graduated from college.
While this may not be a solution for all of our financial concerns, it is certainly a step in the right direction – a step that is extremely important for the state and our future.
- Deena Lager is director of the Arizona 529 Family College Savings Program administered by the Arizona Commission for Postsecondary Education. Information: AZ529.gov.
Rashmi Bhatnagar, DMD
Dallin Birch, DMD
caregivers also practice Baby American Sign Language, a great way to help young children develop communication skills, in this active session.
DETAILS>> Wednesdays, 10:30-11 a.m., Ironwood Library, 4333 E. Chandler Blvd. Ages 24-47 months. Free. Tickets are limited and availabley 30 minutes before program start time.
Sit, Stay, Read!
Emerging readers of all ages can sign up for reading time with a registered therapy animal & human team. Read to Truffles on Wednesdays.
DETAILS>> Wednesdays, 4-5 p.m., July 10 and July 24. Ironwood Library, 4333 E. Chandler Blvd. All Ages. Free. No registration required.
Fun with watercolors
People can get step-by-step instruction in water-coloring whether they are beginners or intermediates.
DETAILS>> 2-4:30 p.m. in instructor’s home studio off Ranch Circle North in Ahwatukee. Four classes for $90. To register: Judy Lokits 480-471-8505, or jlokits@yahoo
Celebrate Recovery
Celebrate Recovery is a Biblical 12-step program that helps you find hope and healing from all of life’s hurts, habits, and hang-ups. Whether it’s addiction, loss, anger, or stress, you can find the freedom you’re looking for.
Parents are invited to join a drop-in group to ask questions,
share ideas or just listen to what’s going on with today’s teenagers.
DETAILS>> 5:30-7 p.m. second Wednesday of each month. Maricopa Cooperative Extension, 4341 E. Broadway Road, Phoenix. Free. RSVP at 602-827-8200, ext. 348, or rcarter@ cals.arizona.edu.
‘Dems and Donuts’ set
Legislative District 18 Democrats gather for an informal chat.
DETAILS>> Free and open to the public 7:30-9 a.m. the third Wednesday of the month at Denny’s, 7400 W. Chandler Blvd., Chandler. RSVP: marie9@q.com or 480-592-0052.
Grief support
Hospice of the Valley holds a grief support group for adults on alternating Wednesdays.
DETAILS>> 6-7:30 p.m. at Pecos Community Center, 1710 S. 48th S. The assigned classroom varies signs will be on premises. It is a drop-in group and there is no need to call or register. Meeting dates this year: Jan. 23; Feb. 6 and 20; March 6 and 20; May 1, 15 and 29; June 12 and 26; July 10 and 24; Aug. 7 and 21; Sept. 4 and 18; Oct. 2, 16 and 20; Nov. 13 and 27; and Dec. 11.
THURSDAYS
MOPS – Mothers of
Preschoolers
This group is designed for moms whose kids are aged birth to kindergarten. They meet in a safe place “to navigate the world of motherhood, faith and life together.” Free child care for ages 0 to 5.
DETAILS>> 9-11 a.m. every other Thursday starting Aug. 23. Foothills Baptist Church, 15450 S. 21st St., Ahwatukee. Information: 480-759-2218 or foothillsbaptist.org/mops.
Networking group meets
ACT Networking Group, standing for Ahwatukee, Chandler
The Ahwatukee Kiwanis Club meets weekly and welcomes newcomers. Here is the speaker schedule: June 13, Nicole Wolf, Save Our Schools; June 27, Connie Perez, president/CEO of East Valley Boys& Girls Club; July 25, State Sen. Sean Bowie; and Aug. 29. Steve Kelley of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
DETAILS>> 9 a.m. second and fourth Thursday, Foothills Baptist Church, 15450 S. 21st St. Call Kim at 480-759-2118, ext. 218.
Teen Thursdays @ the Library
We provide the snacks and fun; you just bring yourself and a friend for gaming, karaoke, crafting, snacks, and more.
DETAILS>> Thursdays, except July 4, 4-5:30 p.m., Ironwood Library, 4333 E. Chandler Blvd. Ages 12-18. Free. No registration required.
FRIDAYS
Financial peace
Financial Peace University is a nine-week video and small group class that teaches God’s plan for handling money. It will help you: pay off debt, save for the future and give like never before!
DETAILS>> 6:30 p.m. Mountain View Lutheran Church. 11002 S. 48th St., Ahwatukee 480-893-2579. mvlutheran.org/classes or fpu.com/1070125
Toastmasters meet
The Ahwatukee Foothills Chamber of Commerce has a weekly Toastmasters meeting.
DETAILS>> 8-9 a.m., First American Title conference room, 4435 E. Chandler Blvd. #100, Ahwatukee. Information: Tessy Bryan 480-330-6528 or vppr-1811442@toastmastersclubs.org
SATURDAYS
DIY Board Games
Kids can learn about the design process while developing their very own board games.
DETAILS>> Saturdays June 1-29, 2-4 p.m., Ironwood Library, 4333 E. Chandler Blvd. Ages: 6-11. Free. No registration required.
Sit, Stay, Read!
Young readers & listeners can sign up for reading time with a registered therapy animal & human team. First and third Saturdays: Read with Raven and Cassie. Second & Fourth Saturdays: Read with JoJo.
DETAILS>> 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m., Ironwood Library, 4333 E. Chandler Blvd. Ages 5-10. Free. No registration required.
Fun with watercolors
People can get step-by-step instruction in water-coloring whether they are beginners and intermediates.
DETAILS>> 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m. in instructor’s home studio off Ranch Circle North, Ahwatukee. Four classes for $90. To register: Judy Lokits 480-471-8505, or jlokits@yahoo.com.
Auschwitz visit becomes more than a history lesson
BY GARY NELSON AFN Contributor
We should be finished with Auschwitz by now.
After three-quarters of a century, the subject should be closed. It shouldn’t be necessary to write about the place.
It shouldn’t be necessary to go there. And it wouldn’t be, if “never again” were true.
But something deep and dark and evil roils beneath our facades, and new Auschwitzes erupt, time and again.
Sometimes the scale approaches that of the original, as in Rwanda, 1994, or the concentration camps currently being built by China for ethnic minorities. And sometimes it’s the work of a single warped mind – slaughter at a Pittsburgh synagogue, at a Charleston church, at a New Zealand mosque.
Too many such occurrences have been the stuff of recent headlines, too much political rhetoric is steeped in hatred to sustain any hope that this is a thing of the past.
So, you go to Auschwitz – the real one, the vast murder factory in southern Poland – on a stormy summer day because, ironically enough, it is not a dead place. It exists as a living symbol of something that still is very, very wrong.
One should not expect that an Auschwitz tour is designed to be pleasant.
For one thing, the number of visitors has soared to more than 2.2 million annually, more than 6,000 for each day of the year – meaning you have little elbow room and little time at many of the exhibits.
For another, security is super-tight, a reminder that the hatreds that spawned this place have not died. Indeed, in 1992 neo-Nazis tried to burn down a Jewish museum at the Sachsenhausen camp in Germany, seeking to erase physical evidence of their spiritual forebears’ crimes.
But then, why should a visit to Auschwitz be pleasant on any level?
If the tour guide rushes you at forcedmarch pace through the rain and thunder, remember those for whom every day here was a forced march to and from 11
hours of hard labor on starvation rations.
If the basement in Barracks 11 is musty and dark and crowded, remember that this is where the first successful experiment with mass gassing took place, and remember the hundreds who died in this little space before the Nazis moved on to larger venues for their depredations.
If the security seems irksome, if you’re peeved because you have to stow your backpack before your tour, remember that at the end of the day you’ll get it back – unlike those who left their suitcases beside the rail line as they were led away to death.
Auschwitz was by no means the oldest Nazi camp, but after the Germans conquered Poland in 1939, it quickly metastasized into the largest because of its excellent railroad connections. It was a staggeringly vast complex so huge that its major portions are designated Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II-Birkenau and Auschwitz III-Monowitz.
The latter is of note because it was built by a German corporation, IG Farben, which found the use of slave labor an excellent way to reduce payroll expenses.
A typical tour will take you only to the first two Auschwitzes. Frankly, that’s enough.
The original portion, Auschwitz I, could pass as a college campus with a little spiffing up. The Nazis found the former Polish
army barracks a handy ready-made prison, but too small for their ultimate aim to rid Europe of non-Aryan undesirables.
It is here that you’ll find some of Auschwitz’s most compelling and damning exhibits.
In one room, off-limits to photography out of deference for the dead, mounds of human hair lie moldering behind glass walls.
In others, a mountain of suitcases, piles of combs and brushes, truckloads of shoes and cooking utensils. Long walls bear large portraits of victims, complete with dates of arrival and death. The Nazis did like to keep records.
One display notes the color-coded symbols used to differentiate various classes of prisoners. Yellow, of course, for the Jews. Red for political prisoners. Pink for homosexuals. Purple triangles for Jehovah’s Witnesses.
The latter, by the way, presented a special problem for the Nazis. Unwilling because of their Christian beliefs to worship Hitler or the symbols of his state, and unwilling to take up the arms of warfare, the Witnesses stood alone among Germany’s religious groups as perceived enemies of the Reich.
The Witnesses could have left Auschwitz and other camps simply by renouncing their faith, but by far the majority chose martyrdom over compromise.
This suggests that history might be different had Germany been suffused with believers of similar backbone.
Incredibly, despite the preservation of Auschwitz and other camps and despite irrefutable reams of documentary evidence, there exist individuals who insist on denying the Nazis were bent on genocide.
In answer, an easy-to-overlook exhibit is on display in Auschwitz I.
It’s a portion of the memoir penned in prison by Rudolf Hoess, who was the camp’s longest-serving commandant.
Hoess recalled being summoned to Berlin in 1941, there to be told by Heinrich Himmler: “The Fuhrer has ordered that the Jewish question be solved … the existing extermination centers in the East are not in position to carry out the large actions which are anticipated. I have therefore earmarked Auschwitz for this purpose.”
Auschwitz served the purpose well. Historians have settled on numbers to the effect that 1.3 million people – Jews, Poles, Russians and others – were sent there. Of these, 1.1 million died.
The Nazis tried to cover this up in the last days of the war by blowing up the gas chambers and crematoria in Auschwiz II, but even here their memoirs damn them. Hoess writes that the large number of murders required a more efficient means than bullets, and that only gassing would do. Besides, he notes with no apparent sense of irony, the gassing served the purpose of sparing the tender feelings of SS troops who otherwise would have had to look women and children in the eye while shooting them.
The tour of Auschwitz I and II requires some four hours of fast-paced walking, a bus ride between the facilities and the ability to absorb a torrent of narration from a guide whose face and voice can barely conceal her anger over what went on here.
One wishes it were only history rather than a living indictment of the human capacity for blind allegiance to rulers who set themselves up as little tin gods, fanning the flames of racial and nationalistic hatred for their own selfish ends.
Never again?
Think again.
The Nazis tried to hide their atrocities by demolishing this crematorium at Auschwitz, but Allied Forces got there before they could finish. (Special to the AFN)
When it comes to water, it all adds up. This is why, living in a desert city, we spend considerable time and energy protecting water and finding ways to save more of it. There is always a potential for water shortage here, so we’ve been planning ahead and banking water for years. Being prepared. It’s what happens when you SEE WATER DIFFERENTLY.
High-tech swim school eyes Ahwatukee
BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
Chris DeJong may have missed the qualifying for the U.S. swim team in the 2004 and 2008 Olympics by a few seconds, but so far, he’s not missing out on business.
The Michigan native started a swim school concept in the Midwest that not only is unique in its target market but also for what it does for dying strip malls.
Now, he’s bringing his franchise to Arizona – with an eye on Ahwatukee as one of the ideal sites for his Big Blue Swim School. With a meeting for investors scheduled in Phoenix on July 23, DeJong has identified about a dozen Valley communities for his franchise, which started in 2012 and has recently opened its fifth Illinois location.
As a student at the University of Michigan, DeJong, now 35, was a competitive swimmer, ranking among the top five in the world along with Olympian Michael Phelps. In fact, he and Phelps had the same coach.
While he lost to Phelps for a qualifying spot on the 2008 U.S. team by a mere 3/10ths of a second, he couldn’t stay out of the water.
“After that, my swimming career was over and I just started teaching,” said DeJong, who describes himself as someone who was always around water because his dad ran a marina on the shores of Lake Michigan.
“It was just kind of a reflex and a way to make ends meet when I realized that it was a really rewarding way to make a living,” he said.
So out of a rented commercial pool in 2009, he started offering swimming lessons, targeting only children 6 months old to age 12.
“I loved it and got to share my passion with young kids,” said the father of two, 10 months and 3 years old.
And so Big Blue Swim School was born, first at a commercial pool he rented until he got together the money he needed to gut an abandoned supermarket and cre-
CBD Emporium sees big growth by year’s end
BY COTY DOLORES MIRANDA AFN Contributor
John Flanders and Mike Forakis, owners/partners of nine CBD Emporiums throughout the Valley – including one Ahwatukee – see no end in sight to growing.
They predict there will be 20 CBD Emporiums throughout the Valley by year’s end.
CBD – short for cannabidiol – is becoming a more accepted remedy for various common ailments in households across the country where once it would have been frowned upon.
And that, the men say, is because there remains widely held misconceptions that CBD is another term for marijuana.
“Yes, it’s one of a 100 identified compounds in the cannabis plant but unlike THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), CBD is not psychoactive. It’s about health and wellness. It doesn’t give you the sensation of getting ‘high’ and it’s not addictive,” explained Flanders.
And therein lies the confusion for many, including one Ahwatukee woman who be-
rated the owners for bringing “the devil’s weed’ into her neighborhood.
“In the three months we’ve been open, 99 percent of the people walking through the doors are open and curious and welcoming,” said Flanders. “She was the 1 percent, and she said she was offended we were located near her church. She didn’t want to hear the difference.”
The lack of discernment between hemp-derived CBD and marijuana isn’t unique to Ahwatukee.
When the duo opened their CBD Emporium near the food court at Paradise Valley Mall in May, Flanders was there when a mall shopper stood at their door shouting, “Marijuana, marijuana” over and over.
“Being a CBD store, you get mixed responses from people who don’t understand,” said Flanders. “And the negative responses are usually due to lack of education. To compare us to marijuana is like confusing a human being and a whale. Yes, we’re both mammals, but that’s the one connection.”
Explaining the difference between CBD and THC necessitated Flanders to begin the discussion at home.
“My mother is a conservative East Coast Catholic, and to her, CBD meant marijuana, so when we decided to open our stores, that took some educating,” he said.
It was his mother who was behind the design that Flanders and Forakis, a Mesa resident, came up with when opening their chain of CBD Emporium stores beginning with the first two that opened on the same day in October 2018: Lake Havasu and Surprise.
“We designed the store for my mother,” said Flanders. “It feels more like a Revlon counter, and we have consultants, not salespeople.”
There is an airiness and lightness to Ahwatukee’s CBD Emporium. With the ash wood flooring and the spare and well-ordered display cabinets of the same shade, it offers a com-
Chris DeJong was a competitive swimmer in college but now he’s competing in a different kind of pool with his high-tech swimming club franchise, focusing on lessons for kids 6 months to 12 years. (Special to AFN)
Linda Meyer is the general manager of the Ahwatukee CBD Emporium store. (Pablo Robles/AFN Staff Photographer)
Zzeeks Pizza slates fundraisers for 2 needy families
AFN NEWS STAFF
Zzeeks Pizza owners Mark and Jody Pectol never shy from using their business to help others.
And in the next two weeks, they’re doing just that for two hard-pressed families – the family of a beloved Ahwatukee coach who died suddenly in February and the Chandler mother of a 3-year-old recently diagnosed with a life-threatening cancer.
Zzeeks’ pizzeria at the corner of McQueen and Warner roads in Chandler will host a fundraiser all day July 24 for benefit the family of little Abby Deal, who is starting costly chemotherapy treatments after being diagnosed with T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma cancer.
A coworker of her mom, Jazmin Deal, started a Gofundme.com page to raise money for the family, saying that the girl’s
fortable appearance and atmosphere.
Showcased are the various varieties of CBD products available at this storefront, and others available through their CBD Emporium website.
Ahwatukee’s CBD Emporium store manager and main wellness consultant is Ahwatukee resident Linda Meyer.
“Everyone that walks into our Ahwatukee location is pleasantly surprised. They love the clean, bright look of the store and are happy to see so many quality products to choose from,” said Meyer.
“We also have many customers that are happy to have a place right in the neighborhood,” she added. “So many people already use CBD and want a place to purchase products that they can trust.”
Meyer said many customers tell her they prefer the storefront to buying blindly online.
“Another advantage of having a storefront as opposed to purchasing online is that you can ask questions and really become informed about how CBD works and how it can help improve one’s quality of life, and that of our pets as well,” she said. And, yes, there is CBD available for pets. Products like Kurativ CBD Juicy Chicken Jerky Dog Treats that “reduces stress and anxiety” and assists overall health.
Kurativ is just one of the curated brands CBD Emporium owners hand-selected for their Arizona stores. And their Select CBD Salmon Pet Drops can be applied over food or added to water and contain natural vegan ingredients.
All products at CBD Emporiums are made from high-grade hemp plants
mother would be taking a two-year leave from work to care for her daugh ter.
Jody Pectol said that McMahon’s Ice Cream, has teamed up with Zzeeks for the fundraiser and that the pizzeria is currently selling raffle tickets for 25 different prizes. In ad dition, a portion of pro ceeds all day July 24 will go to Abby’s family.
Raffle winners do not have to be present to win when tickets are drawn at 8 p.m. July 24 and tickets can be bought at both Chandler and Ahwatukee Zzeeks lo-
“Abby’s mother is just overwhelmed with all the medical bills and is in need of help,” Jody said.
A similar fundraiser will be held all day July 31 at Zzeeks at 48th Street and Warner Road, Ahwatukee, for the family of the late James Rubio, whose death at 46 in February from complications of the flu left his widow to raise their five children, ages 2 to 14.
“I want to do a fundraiser to get them some money for school clothes and school supplies,” Jody said.
She said the owner of a costume store has loaned the use of a Spider-Man outfit because the little girl likes the cartoon character.
“Abby adores Spider-Man so Spider-Man will be making an appearance,” Jody said. “It’s just wonderful to see businesses and people come together to help a complete stranger in need.”
Mr. Rubio was a beloved coach with East Valley Baseball for 10 years, and also coached teams for Horizon Honors and St. John Bosco. He volunteered with the Boy Scouts, Team in Training for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and was an active member of the Corpus Christi Catholic Church.
“Coach gave unconditionally to his family and his community,” said one of the
see ZZEEKS page 32
hemp-derived CBD products. Others were quoted as saying they estimated it to be a $3 billion market by 2021.
CBD oils are among the more popular items sold. CBD oil is made by extracting CBD from the cannabis plant and infused with herbal blends and naturally-extracted essential oils like coconut or hemp seed. Their CBD Emporium products are produced from non-GMO plants.
No medical marijuana card is required to purchase CBD products, most of which contain the disclaimer, “These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.”
CBD Emporium is passionate about their desire to improve health and wellness, and are upfront in stating the products sold “may or may not help with your injury or illness. However, we can make no claims for curing anything. CBD is well recognized for benefiting health and wellness. CBD may also assist with symptoms related to many ailments and injuries”.
grown in the U.S., not low grade ‘industrial hemp’ plants that may include harmful toxins and generally result in a poorer quality CBD.
Nestled inside the display cases at the Ahwatukee CBD Emporium are CBD tinctures, capsules, gummies, edibles, bath bombs, sprays, lotions, salves and vape pens.
“Personally, I don’t like vaping because I don’t believe in inhaling anything into your lungs, but if you have strong anxiety or strong pain, vaping works much faster,” said Flanders, who recently left for Africa to climb Mount Kilimanjaro – his second mountain scaling in his quest to climb the World’s Seven Summits.
Describing the CBD Emporium as “family-friendly,” Frakus said all sales are to customers age 18 or older.
“It’s our mission to provide the best information and education to assist our clients to live a better life, and improve their health and wellness through CBD,” said Frakus, reciting the business’s mission statement.
It doesn’t dissuade these two entrepreneurs that the CBD market nationwide is booming.
Forbes reported that the CBD market was expected to be a $2.1 billion market in consumer sales by 2020.
The magazine reported that was a 700 percent increase from 2016 for the
For many, their own experience keeps them coming back to purchase CBD for a range of health and wellness issues.
“At our Ahwatukee CBD Emporium, already 30 percent of our customers are repeats,” said Flanders.
Forakis noted: “We’re often asked why brick and mortar. There’s a lot of misunderstanding and in our stores, we’re consultants, educators and coaches, we’re able to help explain the best application and dosage. And we feel we’re catering to people who don’t want to go to a smoke shop or dispensary for CBD.”
CBD Emporium is located at 12020 S. Warner Elliot Loop. Information: 480590-1559 or CBDEmporiumAZ.com.
CBD from page 31
A wide variety of lotions and other products are available at the Ahwatukee CBD Emporium store and many customers prefer the idea of buying the helpful products at a brick-and-morter establishment rather than online.
(Pablo Robles/AFN Staff Photographer)
ate his first official School.
Big Blue’s business model offers new life for dying strip malls abandoned by a big-box anchor, DeJong said.
Though he stressed that “our primary focus as a brand is to be in the path of least resistance for the consumer.”
That means being located in a community with families with young children “who know the importance of learning how to swim” and operating in a building “where it’s easiest for them to come and have some lessons.”
“Institutional landlords or the big landlords that own a lot of these shopping centers love our concept,” he said. “We’re bringing families to the shopping center to do their swim lessons. And then ultimately after their swim lesson, they’re hungry. So, they’ll go grab lunch and then usually run another errand within that same shopping center.
“Hard-goods retail is getting hit the hardest with Amazon and the like and so we’re able to backfill those spaces and landlords really get excited about us because we bring 1,700 to 2,000 families a week to the shopping center.”
“That being said, we do have standalone locations,” he added, noting one
school is located in an old car dealership.
As far as teaching is concerned, Big Blue’s concept aims to fill what DeJong sees as a hole in the billion-dollar swim-lesson industry.
With 4-foot-deep pools where the water is kept at 90 degrees, Big Blue relies on technology and full-time teachers to ensure that students learn to swim – and that their parents can see their progress.
Open only in the evenings and weekends, Big Blue offers continuous weekly lessons that give parents the flexibility to start and stop lessons whenever they choose.
“We track each child’s progress every time they swim with us, so you’ll see new skills gained at every lesson,” he said, explaining how the company developed a software platform, called Lesson Buddy, that virtually manages the entire operation and provides a mobile app so parents can chart their child’s progress at will and schedule or cancel a lesson.
By employing only full-time instructors – and giving them a career path aimed at keeping them – DeJong said Big Blue also benefits from his own love affair with swimming.
“I bring a lot of high-level swimming knowledge to a curriculum that is designed to help kids learn how to swim fast-
er,” he said. I don’t mean that they learn how to swim across the pol faster. I mean they learn to swim in a shorter amount of time because we think our curriculum is the best out there. It touches on all different learning styles, so whether you’re an auditory or visual or kinesthetic learner, we make sure that every little skill that we teach addresses the needs of those different learning styles.
“And then we require mastery of every step in our curriculum before kids move on to the next. What that means is you’re not going to have an instructor just reciting a tired curriculum and hoping that some of it is absorbed by the kid. We actually call our instructors teachers because they’re trying to get mastery of the skill before they have that kid move on to the next skill. Then we track that progress on a daily basis and, and return that data back to parents on the phone.”
DeJong said he is optimistic about the prospects offered in Arizona – and Ahwatukee, one of his company’s top-five targets in the Valley.
He declined to discuss potential sites, but said he is looking forward to talking with investors in Phoenix next week.
Information: bigblueswimmingschool.com
many tributes paid him at the time of his death.
“He wasn’t just teaching them baseball, he was teaching them how to become better men and women. Coach never wanted a child to not play or practice because of transportation or finances,” the commenter said.
Jody said the Rubios are neighbors and that his widow “needed some help with the kids for school clothes and supplies.” She noted that with five young children, “that’s a lot of clothing and a lot of school supplies were needed.”
This isn’t the first time that the Pectols have staged fundraisers for families in njeed and Jody explained their philosophy:
“We are very blessed. Zzeek (Mark) and I enjoy helping out others in need. When the community all comes together to help another family, it’s just incredible to see the turnout. It’s very overwhelming for us and the family.”
100+ Women Who Care
Valley of the Sun
100wwcvalleyofthesun.org
602-705-2689
A local philanthropic group of fabulous women who are capable of doing great things in our community. The Valley of the Sun chapter of this international organization is run by an executive committee of big-hearted volunteers along with the assistance of some very generous sponsors. One hundred percent of our members’ donations go directly to local charities.
AZ Xtreme Glass & Mirror
ahwatukeeglass.com
480-278-1274
500 N. 56th St.
Chandler
AZ Xtreme Glass and Mirror offers expert installation and repairs for all of your glass, specialty glass, sun screens, mirrors, and shower enclosures. Located in Ahwatukee and servicing the greater Valley. We are family-owned and have operated since 2009 with over 20 years of experience. We are your one-stop glass shop.
Ra Sushi Bar Restaurant
rasushi.com/locations/ahwatukee
480-940-1111
Ahwatukee Foothills Towne Center
4921 E. Ray Road
Ahwatukee
RA Sushi Ahwatukee is located next to the AMC Movie Theatre. Join us for lunch or dinner and enjoy outstanding sushi, signature rolls and innovative Japanese fusion cuisine. Sip on sake and exotic cocktails in the bar, or simply relax on the patio with some of the best Happy Hour specials in town.
Angela Peacock
peacocklaw.net
480-207-5923
3100 W. Ray Road
Chandler
We understand that at the center of all family matters is a family, and we know that maintaining the integrity of your family is important to you. This is why we focus our practice solely on divorce and family law matters. We are committed to protecting what our clients value most.
Bella Wigs
bellawigsaz.com
480-268-9447
4855 E. Warner Road
Ahwatukee
Phoenix’s best wig shop. We pride ourselves on giving you the best customer experience around. We take the time to show how to fit a wig, style a wig and take care of a wig. We have many styles to choose from in many colors. Come visit our Phoenix location, located in the heart of Ahwatukee.
Main Street Ahwatukee
Brought to you by the Ahwatukee Foothills Chamber of Commerce
Chamder Executive
NEW MEMBERS
Armer Air AC LLC
RENEWING MEMBERS
Formoreinfoontheseandotherupcomingevents,visitahwatukeechamber.com. July
Thunderbirds Branch Ra Sushi Bar Restaurant
CHICK-fil-A
Foothills Pet Resort
HomeSmart Elite GroupChristie Ellis
Landings Credit Union
Marketplace Square, LLC
Spooner Physical Therapy. Ahwatukee
Chamber Foundation accepting scholarship applications
BY ANDREW HAYES AFN Guest Writer
The Ahwatukee Foothills Chamber of Commerce understands that excellent education supports our future workforce, including entrepreneurs and small and large businesses.
In 2010, the Chamber established Ahwatukee Chamber Community Foundation “to strengthen our community by investing in educational excellence and collaborative partnerships” by funding scholarship and educational programs.
The foundation is pleased to announce that scholarship applications are now being accepted through Sept. 6.
The Chamber seeks to support higher education by awarding scholarships to the Ahwatukee men, women and graduating high school seniors who have demonstrated a commitment to both
academic success and community involvement.
Any resident or business of Ahwatukee as well as Ahwatukee Foothills Chamber members may apply. Up to $5,000 in scholarships will be awarded in three categories:
• Women who are furthering their education, whether in college, trade school or continuing education classes. There is no age restriction.
• Men and women as well as family members of active duty or a veteran of the United States military as well as first responders (fire fighters, police officers, EMTs, paramedics) who are furthering their education. There is no age restriction.
• Graduating Ahwatukee high school seniors with plans to enroll in an accredited university, college or trade school.
The Ahwatukee Foothills Chamber of Commerce is honored to give back to our community through educational programs and scholarships.
With the wonderful generosity of our community partners and fundraising efforts, the
Ahwatukee chamber is able to award local men, women and high school seniors with scholarships to further their education.
The scholarships directly benefit members of the Chamber, a nearly 300-member business association committed to strengthening the local economy by promoting commerce, advancing business, building community, providing networking opportunities and representing the interest of business.
The need for the Ahwatukee Chamber educational scholarship funds continues to grow.
Please consider making a tax-deductible donation in support of the Chamber Foundation’s educational scholarship fund.
To donate, visit Ahwatukeechamber.com or call our office at 480-753-7676.
If you are not a member of the Chamber and want to get involved in “building business and building community,” we invite you to join us. If you are already a member, please take full
advantage of your membership investment and get involved.
Participation is important. Participating is the true key to receiving the benefits of the Chamber.
There are opportunities for all types of needs, interests, and schedules including our board of directors, ambassadors, Educational Foundation, business mentors, Power Partners, community committees and many more. Please contact the Chamber staff and they will help customize your membership needs.
If you don’t have time to attend meetings and events, know that we are here for you and your business and will continue to be your resource for information and assistance. We are only a step, click or call away with information and support to help your business grow.
-Andrew Hayes is executive director of the
Chamber of Commerce.
Director Andrew Hayes participated in the Mountain Park Ranch HOA’s annual Fourth of July Parade. (Special to AFN)
Celebrating the ribbon cutting for Art in the Garden Studio are, from left, Gina Finical, Andrea DiPrima, Maureen Kartchner and artist Tish D’Antoni. (Special to AFN)
Ahwatukee Foothills
Aloha-tukee: Hawaiian restaurant draws fans
BY COTY DOLORES MIRANDA AFN Contributor
Atouch of Hawaii came to Ahwatukee a little over a month ago with the opening of Moku Hawaiian Grill, and the community has responded in a rush of business that has gobsmacked the four owners/partners.
Among them is Keith Lawler, an amiable 42-year-old Hawaiian native whose Hawaiian/Chinese ancestors have called Oahu home for generations.
“We’ve been open since June 14, but it seems like forever. We’ve been so busy,” smiled Lawther, evincing his usual good humor.
“But there’s no complaining,” he added. “I’m happy. We’ve got problems, but they’re good problems.”
In other words, it’s “No Worries.” The phrase graced the “opening soon” banner over their door while Lawther and his partners, New Zealander Graeme Flexman and sons Joseph and Mike Flexman, put in the months of work to get the Ha-
waiian eatery ready to greet locals. Getting the casual eatery ready to open
took nearly a year after the partners signed the lease agreement on the storefront at 4302 E. Ray Road in the summer of 2018.
“We were looking for a great location, and this came available and we loved it. But we had to wait on the former tenants to leave, and then we had lots of work to do,” said Lawther, grinning at what he admitted was an understatement.
Anyone who’s enjoyed plate meals in Hawaii knows there is a heaping helping of mouthwatering goodness served with various meats like kalua pork or the dryrubbed pulehu chicken, white or brown rice and scoops of sides like macaroni salad or kimchee salad.
But if you’re looking for the Ono Grindz – well-touted on their webpage or social media – don’t be looking for a sandwich or meal. In Hawaiian, that stands for “good food.”
The Payson Book Festival hosts area authors
BY MARIE A. FASANO Guest Writer
Area authors will be among some 90 Arizona writers who will be featured at the fifth annual Payson Book Festival.
The festival — 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m. July 20 at the Mazatzal Hotel and Casino on Highway in Payson — is sponsored by the Rim County Chapter of the Arizona Professional Writers.
The free, family-friendly celebration of books and literacy offers something for all ages.
Youngsters can have fun in the Kids’ Zone with story times, activities and a puppet show produced by children. Workshops run all day with favorite authors and Western singers.
Three Chandler authors are among the writers who will be at the book fest: Marc David is a veteran journalist whose writing career spans four decades, during which time he has covered the sports spectrum, from world boxing champions to the Olympics. He has writ-
ten for lifestyle and health magazines.
The Pennsylvania native, who now resides in Chandler, writes books, contributes articles to newspapers and is available for speaking engagements.
He is an everyday runner who enjoys travel. He has written three nonfiction books: “The Addicted Runner,” “Available Male Tale” and “1,001 Things You Didn’t Want to Know.”
First-time novelist Howard Gershkoitz’s work has appeared in print and online, in such prestigious publications as Michigan State University’s quarterly and the Arizona Consortium of the Art’s Blue Guitar. An avid science fiction fan and history buff, he’s studied at Arizona State University’s Piper Creative Writing Center in Tempe.
He writes both poetry and fiction, and has won several awards for his work, including first prize in the 2018 Tempe Creative Writing contest for his poem, “Window on the Square,” judged by ASU faculty and students.
At a time of life when most people begin to slow down, Kathy Peach decided
to head for the Southwest to live near family after being in Tennessee her entire life.
She followed her dream of earning a college degree and writing a children’s book. Peach graduated from Arizona State University in December 2014, with
a degree in early childhood/early childhood special education. It was during the children’s literature class where she was introduced to a method of writing quality children’s literature. In developing “The Tiniest Tumbleweed,” she tries to convince readers they can believe in a life filled with limitless possibilities.
Another festival author will be Nan C. Cataldi of Ahwatukee. Born and raised in a small town in western Pennsylvania, she raised her two children in Richmond, Virginia, and ultimately retired from the medical profes-
Moku Hawaiian Grill owners Keith Lawlther, left, and Joe Flexman are thrilled with the response their new restaurant is getting. Not pictured are two other owners, Joe’s father Graeme and brother Mike Flexman.(Kimberly Carrillo/AFN Staff Photographer)
Book lovers last year flocked to the fourth annual Payson Book Festival. This year, the fest promises to be even bigger. (Marie Fasano/Guest Writer)
Cage the Elephant guitarist talks new tour
BY TAYLOR O’CONNOR Get Out Contributor
Alternative rockers Cage the Elephant strive to remove their facades. Through grief and loss, Cage the Elephant released its latest album, “Social Cues.”
The album reflects on lead singer Matt Shultz’s divorce.
“There is a theme of some of the struggles he was going through with his divorce,” said his brother, rhythm guitarist Brad Schultz.
“But there was so much loss we were all going through. Family members and very close friends of ours passed away. It was a brutal couple of years.”
“It’s a record of loss and its different forms. There’s an undertone that there is hope through all that and there is a light at the end of the tunnel.”
IF YOU GO
What: Beck with Cage the Elephant. Where: Ak-Chin Pavilion, 2121 N. 83rd Ave., Phoenix.
When: 6 p.m. Sunday, July 21 Tickets: Start at $29.50. Info: livenation.com.
The title track refers to the different phases of life.
“There are times when things aren’t OK, and we need to realize that’s fine,” he said.
Cage the Elephant is playing those songs while on tour with Beck, who appears on the band’s song “Night Running.” The
track happened on a whim and the fans of the “Loser” singer sent him the song. They didn’t expect to hear back.
“Within a couple days, he sent back the two verses he has on the track and four more verses,” he said. “Out of that, it was just brainstorming and thinking of doing something special, we came up with the ‘Night Running’ tour.”
Cage the Elephant and Beck are stopping at Phoenix’s Ak-Chin Pavilion at 6 p.m. Sunday, July 21.
Cage the Elephant formed in 2006 and released its self-titled debut three years later.
The band now holds the record for the most No. 1 alternative songs of any artist in the decade—seven Billboard No. 1 singles, 11 singles landing in the Billboard top 10 and more than 1.5 billion streams worldwide.
“Social Cues” was produced by John Hill, who has worked with artists like Florence and the Machine, Santigold and Portugal. The Man.
“John really pushed us to not put any unnecessary parts into songs,” he said. “It’s easy to get really excited about making music and put so much stuff into it because you are really inspired. We have been focusing on putting our parts underneath the microscope in order to be intentional for setting the mood for lyrical content.”
Although this album helped band mem-
Uno Mas Cantina
HAPPY HOUR!
Cage the Elephant worked with John Hill on its latest album, “Social Cues.” (Courtesy Cage the Elephant)
“Some people do get confused at that,” laughed Lawther, the eldest of four brothers, one of whom works alongside him. “It’s Hawaiian pidgin, like, ‘You wanna get some good grindz?’ Our answer is, ‘Yeah, and come get it at Moku Hawaiian Grill.’”
Most of the recipes, including that of the mochiko wings, are from Lawther’s family, handed down through generations. Like their mochiko wings, a Japanese-style fried chicken marinated in Asian spices and dredged with mochiko, a glutinous rice flour.
Mochiko wings are a popular dish in Hawaii, and proving to be so in Ahwatukee.
“I grew up in Honolulu restaurants beside my mother, Haunani Lawther,” said Keith, who returns annually to visit his parents and extended family, who remain on the island of Oahu.
“I learned a lot from my mother. And we had all these great family recipes, and we thought Ahwatukee people would enjoy it, and it’s been great. Ahwatukee people are just amazing, and that’s led to our rapid growth.”
“They make us want to move here,” said Lawther, who, along with his partners, currently lives in Gilbert.
Lawther isn’t new to the Hawaiian
restaurant scene. He said he helped open and then run one with a brother in Las Vegas. The men have an older sister living in Hawaii. His youngest brother, Kimo, works with him at the Ahwatukee restaurant.
Island visitors also are familiar with poke – a fresh ahi tuna salad that in recent years has become more popular on the mainland.
But as with sushi, knowing where to glean the freshest of fresh sushi-grade fish is of paramount importance to creating a successful offering.
“It’s not easy sourcing good fish, but we
bring it in through a really good fish distributor. Before, you couldn’t get really good fish here, but that’s changed,” he said. “The ahi tuna used in our poke is top grade.”
A much-anticipated but late-arrival to the restaurant menu is Dole Whip, a pineapple-flavored soft serve frozen dessert that’s perfect for summer.
“Dole Whip used to be sold only at Disneyland, and now it’s available in Vegas and here,” said Lawther. “It’s non-dairy, non-GMO, vegan and very popular. We have the traditional pineapple flavor and will be showcasing the other flavors as we go along.”
There’s a wealth of choices at Moku Hawaiian Grill. Order up two meats and two sides for $8.49, and be prepared for leftovers. The $11.49 large plate meal allows you to select three meats and two sides. Teriyaki chicken, pulehu chicken, katsu chicken and kalua pork are the choices with these meals.
Choice of sides are garlic or green edamame, macaroni salad, kimchee slaw, sweet corn or green salad.
Teriyaki steak, pulehu steak, ahi tuna poke and mochiko wings are premium meats and run a bit more. All can be ordered a la carte.
And there’s the one meat/one side kid’s meal for $5.49.
Everything is scooped up for you as you order, and all are served in foil takeout dishes – even if you plan to eat it in their casual dining area, with its continuous loop of Hawaiian music adding ambience.
Catering already has proved popular with the summer crowds. There’s no delivery; it’s all order-and-go.
“We’ve done really well with the catering menu. People like to get them to serve at office meetings, or families just grab it and take home to eat family-style,” he said.
Meat and sides are all available to-go in small, medium or large quantities. Lawther explained small orders feed three to six, medium six to 12 and large 12 to 22. All are ample servings.
Poke salad made fresh ahi tuna is available at market price, but according to Lawther, market price is pretty stable at $13.99 a pound.
Moku Hawaiian Grill is available at MokuHawaiianGrill.com as well as on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Information: 4302 E. Ray Road, Suite 114, 480-704-0108.
Generous portions are a hallmark of Hawaiian plates, and Moku makes sure diners will have their fill. (Kimberly Carrillo/AFN Staff Photographer)
PAYSON from page 35
sion and moved out west.
Since she was youngster, she has had a talent for storytelling and a great imagination. Her first book, “Rafie the Rattlesnake, Come Home!” is a children’s
bers get through their difficult times, it wasn’t necessarily a therapy session, Shultz said.
“It’s refreshing if you’re having fun and sometimes it feels like a personal hell, that’s all with making records. If you put your heart into it and pushing to further yourself and trying to be as honest as you can sometimes that’s painful as well. You have to look at things about yourself that you don’t necessarily like.”
“On the other end of things, I think it has been therapeutic because it forced Matt to say some things. Even though we all aren’t writing the lyrics, we are right there in the trenches with him. These lyrics hit home in a different way with us.”
“Goodbye,” is a song on the album where
picture book that recently received a fivestar review from Readers’ Favorite. She is currently finishing the third book of the “Keys of Being” trilogy and will have a new picture book, “Silver Light and the Red Canyon,” coming in 2020.
fans can experience Matt’s raw emotion. “Matt was in such a spot he had to lay on the floor because he had so much anxiety and laid on the floor through the entire song. He had to leave the studio that day and no one talked to him for two days after that.”
Matt’s voice in the song portray the exact emotion they were looking for and ended up using that take for the album, Shultz said.
“We’ve grown immensely in our musical encyclopedia from our time in our first record and I think that’s important because your searching and growing allows you to avoid becoming stale and repetitive,” he said.
“We are constantly pushing to be as honest as we possibly can, we come from this honest place and try to make art.”
GOT NEWS?
Sports & Recreation
Esports making a splash in East Valley schools
BY SELINA CHEVALIER
AFN Contributor
Esports, or competitive gaming, continues to grow in popularity and scale, with the industry generating $900 million in revenue and an audience of 395 million in 2018, according to gaming analytics firm Newzoo.
The Overwatch League’s Grand Finals even received coverage on ESPN last summer.
In Arizona, the Arizona Interscholastic Association, the governing body of high school sports in the state, will offer esports as an activity starting this month, with state titles in two games.
The first will be in Overwatch, a first-person shooter (FPS) game from Blizzard, in which two teams of six play-
ers each take control of characters with diverse abilities and strategize to control or complete objectives.
The second will be in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the most recent iteration of Nintendo’s fighting game series.
East Valley high schools could field teams starting in the fall. Horizon Honors High School in Ahwatukee currently has a Gamers Club that includes video games alongside card and tabletop games as its focus of interest.
At the collegiate level in the East Valley, the future of competitive gaming is still taking shape.
The Arizona Interscholastic Association will begin hosting esports as a sanctioned sport during the fall semester. (Selena Chevalier/AFN Contributor) see ESPORTS page 41
More high school games being broadcast online
BY JOSEPH CAULO Cronkite News
College and professional sporting events aren’t the only games fans can enjoy from the comfort of their homes. Websites now livestream multiple high school games a week. All you need is a Wi-Fi connection.
This gives Arizonans the option of watching on a laptop or tablet instead of from the grandstands.
Live online content became easily accessible about six years ago when the National Federation of High Schools Network offered subscriptions to livestreams of high school sporting events across the nation.
A subscription to NFHS costs $9.95 per month, and this allows you to watch any game any time, live or replay
Due to the local demand in Arizona, websites such as AZPreps365 and PrepSpotlight.TV have also worked to bring fans even more livestreams of Arizona high school sports.
The demand for these online streams
is “definitely increasing each and every year,” said Mark Koski, CEO of NFHS. “The NFHS Network has 1.1 million monthly subscribers. That subscriber base started very low, but we’ve had an average growth rate of 52.5 percent each and every year on average.”
A subscription to NFHS gives people access to every stream across the nation. This number has especially increased within the past couple of years as demand for streams continues to grow.
Koski said the NFHS Network had about 40,000 events last year but expects to have 100,000 events this year. “It’s really increasing the overall number of events because the demand is so great,” he said.
From high school football to water polo and everything in between, the NFHS Network is expanding to more livestreams, giving local high schools a platform to broadcast any of NFHS’ 27 recognized events.
This rise in demand for more livestreams will likely continue as the quality and availability of streams improve. Better technology and equipment being used
to film the games mean a better viewing experience for fans.
“The quality (of the streams) has definitely gotten better over the last few years,” said Tyler Cerimeli,a Phoenix resident who enjoys livestreams of high school football games on the AZPreps365 website. “I remember when I first started watching the streams (in 2015), they were grainy. You couldn’t really tell what was going on, but now they’re pretty sharp.”
Cerimeli travels often for his job with U-Haul and therefore the online streams are a practical way for him to stay connected with Arizona high school football.
“I’m usually out of town on the weekends,” Cerimeli said. “I sit in my hotel room and can watch Arizona football if I’m in New York, or LA. It’s pretty cool.”
Seth Polansky, sports information coordinator with the Arizona Interscholastic Association, manages the content for the AZPreps365 website and has noticed an uptick in people viewing their high school football “Game of the Week.”
“Our highest viewed Game of the Week broadcast was the Centennial at Casteel
(football) game,” said Polansky about the weekly subscription-free broadcast. When combining the number of live-views and replays of the game, the contest has been viewed over 2,100 times on the website.
The game featured two defending state champions in football opening the 2018 season against one another, which led to high interest and viewership among Arizonans. Nearly 1,700 people tuned in live to watch the action, the highest number of live viewers for any game streamed by AZPreps365.
That is an exceptionally high number of live views considering that the 2018 5A state semifinal game between Notre Dame Prep and Williams Field had the second-highest rating with 590 live views. The other 12 high school football games that were streamed live on AZPreps365 as the “Game of the Week” averaged about 210 live-views per game.
Sports such as high school men’s and women’s basketball are also broadcast live on AZPreps365, and Polansky believes the
ASU lacks a formal esports program, but it is not a wasteland in regard to the activity. In 2016, a team of six ASU students dubbed the “Real Dream Team” won “Heroes of the Dorm,” a national collegiate esports tournament in Seattle, and walked away with some hefty scholarships.
Last year, the university hosted the sold-out Fiesta Bowl Overwatch Collegiate National Championship in its Sun Devil Fitness Complex.
The Arizona State University Esports Association, a student-run esports club, continues to meet on the Tempe campus. Student-led collegiate esports organizations are still the norm in the Valley. Chandler-Gilbert Community College has one, and Mesa and Scottsdale community colleges have in the past.
Park University launched a program under its athletics department on its Parkville, Miss., campus this year. While the Gilbert campus does not currently offer esports, it is something Park Gilbert is keeping an eye on for the future.
Benedictine University in Mesa has taken that leap, launching an esports program administered by its athletic department last fall.
The decision to “treat (esports) like an athletic sport” at BenU is an acknowl-
edgement of its potential, according to Frank Woodford, director of the esports program at the university.
“We know this is going to be a very, very strong intercollegiate sport in the next five or six years, meaning every school is going to have it and it’s going to be organized by the school (with) official, appointed coaches and training sessions and locations on campus,” he said.
The term “esports” encompasses a multitude of video games, each with its own distinct mechanics and goals. Comparing Overwatch to Super Smash Bros. can be like comparing football to wrestling.
Given this, Woodford said, it would not make sense “to have one person managing the Overwatch team and the League of Legends team and Rocket League” once the program is fielding “10-15 different teams” in various games – the kind of growth they are anticipating.
“We really envision there being a director of the program and then those teams each having their own leadership, whether that be a coach (or) if we have quality student leaders,” he added.
For its inaugural season, BenU’s focus has “almost entirely been Overwatch and League of Legends,” Woodford said.
He stressed that esports “is very much like any other traditional sport.”
“We’ll have the kids meet up twice a
week,” Woodford said. “It’s almost entirely together.”
Calling team work “very, very important,” Woodford said, “It’s good to have everybody in the same room where they can talk and it’s not over the mic or over a computer screen…. They can be right there
to talk about things when they happen.”
Another similarity Woodford sees between esports and conventional sports lies in the various roles that players assume in a game like Overwatch.
Whereas football has positions like quarterback and running back that are essential to a team, Overwatch has different classes that are just as vital.
They can include “damage,” characters built toward dealing damage to the opposing team; “tanks,” characters that can take a beating and protect more vulnerable teammates; and “support,” which can heal and enhance teammates’ performance.
“We need certain people playing that role in that game,” Woodford said, “So we’ll talk about the strategy for that specific game in terms of game strategy and individual player strategy.”
The team can then coordinate which players are best suited in which role.
“The dynamics are really important,” Woodford added.
One advantage Woodford and the coaches and players in BenU’s esports program have over traditional sports is the instant gratification of data.
“A lot of these games nowadays are very analytics- and statistics-based, so we’ll have those immediate results, you know, percentages, rates, averages,” Woodford said.
For its collegiate competitions, BenU’s esports program has made use of Pure Esports, a Gilbert-based gaming facility that Woodford said “has been phenomenal.”
On campus, Benedictine has hosted events to engage the student body with the program, including “little random tournaments… just for the novice student,” Woodford said.
The reception has been positive, and Woodford said he has “to find a place for people to sit and watch” the gamers as friends and family want to engage more with the sport, with some parents expressing disbelief that they’re visiting a college for esports.
Ultimately, this bewilderment may lessen as esports merges more into the mainstream, a movement Benedictine intends to be on the frontier of. And the university isn’t afraid to put money toward that goal.
“We are the only institution in Arizona that does offer competitive scholarships for our esports students,” Woodford said.
“They’ve invested a lot of time and effort and energy into what they do, so we feel like we should invest into them, and that’s no different than a baseball, or a soccer or a women’s basketball player on our campus…. We feel that they have earned that.”
Esports has grown in popularity over the years, with major broadcast companies such as ESPN now covering competitions and championship matches on several of its network television stations. (Selena Chevalier/AFN Contributor)
website’s live sports coverage and subsequent audience as a whole will grow “as the Valley continues to expand and grow.”
Amy Faucher, executive producer for PrepSpotlight.TV and Operations Manager at School Space Media, also believes the interest in live streams isn’t receding anytime soon.
“Many people have kids and have easy access, and as technology continues to provide more and more opportunities, people will become more interested,” Faucher said. “School Space Media as a company produces over 400 games a year, and that’s continuing to grow.”
Faucher believes live streams will continue to rise in popularity in Arizona and other states.
“As sports fans become more savvy, they realize these kids are going to be professionals,” she said. “As scouting and everything continues to grow, this is just one more way for exposure for the high school kids.”
Teruo Chenin was a master martial artist
BY RICK SAVAGIAN AFN Guest Writer
One of the modern martial arts masters was Okinawan Goju Ryu’s Teruo Chenin. He was born in 1941 in Japan to a family with deep martial arts roots. His parents, grandfather and uncles were all martial arts practitioners.
At a young age, Teruo and his family moved back to Naha in Okinawa and after the death of his father. It was here that he began his life long journey in the martial arts.
Chenin was fortunate to have lived extremely close to a famous karate master’s dojo named Chojun Miyagi, the founder of Goju Ryu karate.
It was at this dojo he began his training. Through training for a short time with Master Miyagi, before his death, Chinen primary instructor became one of Miyagi’s senior students, Eichi Miyazato. After six years of training, he was promoted to Shodan.
had a strong influence on a young Chenin was Morio Higaonna. The two were friends and soon teamed up to open their own dojo and teach in Tokyo. Hiagaonna was said to have had a strong influence on Chenin’s karate.
Chenin gives him credit for teaching the technique side of Goju Ryu Karate and physical conditioning within his martial arts training.
Sensei Chenin, soon became quite in demand world wide as a technical advisor and instructor of the Goju Ryu system.
He served as a technical advisor at a school and also became the International Okinawan Goju Ryu Karate Do Federation adviser. In 1984, he went on to open his own organization, known as the Jundokan.
To date, the Jundokan is a highly respected organization for Okinawan Goju Ryu practitioners to be part of. It serves as the head to thousands of members worldwide.
great shape, focusing on the technical side of the art and helped to develop many techniques that can be used in self-defense and fighting situations.
He was a well-rounded martial artist strong in his knowledge of both the technical and philosophical side of his art.
Teruo Chinen was a modern day master who continues to gain the respect and following of people from us.
On a personal note, I was fortunate to have the tremendous opportunities to train with Master Chenin.
He visited Arizona quite frequently and put on some of the greatest seminars I had ever attended. In 1997 Mountainside Martial Arts hosted one of Master Chenin’s seminars.
It was a tremendous complement to our student base and it was feeling of outmost respect from a great master and someone I truly considered a wonderful friend.
follow him on Twitter @ZachAlvira.
Chenin would achieve all the way to 9th Dan before his death in 2015.
Another prominent martial artist who
Teruo Chenin’s legacy lives on in the thousands of students he has taught all over. His knowledge and technical skill level is something that kept bringing students back to learn from him throughout the years.
He believed in training hard, being in
Thank you, Sensei Chenin for enriching my life with your martial art skill set your philosophy of traditional martial arts.
-Rick Savagian is founder and owner of Mountainside Martial Arts Center in Ahwatukee. Information: mountainsidemartialarts.com or 480-759-4540
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