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Ahwatukee Foothills News
WEDNESDAY, JULY 6, 2016 Today: High 108, Low, 85 Sunny Tomorrow: High 107, Low, 84 Sunny
MAIN STREET
Ahwatukee Chamber says appearances do matter. P24
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COVER STORY
Child’s Little Free Library stolen from front yard By Paul Maryniak
COMMUNITY:
AHWATUKEE FOOTHILLS NEWS EDITOR
Boomin’ time
Red, White and Boom! Thrills and chills. p8
OPINION:
Lest we forget
What last weekend’s bash was really about. p17
(Steve J. Brown/Special to AFN)
This year’s Ahwatukee All Stars Little League team is hoping to repeat the magical championship run of the Ahwatukee Dawgs in 2006.
Hope for repeat of Dawgs’ championship run burns bright for this year’s Ahwatukee Little Leaguers By Jason P. Skoda AHWATUKEE FOOTHILLS NEWS WRITER
BUSINESS:
Business ‘boom’ Why local businesses set up at celebration. p21
Neighborhood p3 Community p8 Around AF p11 Opinion p17
Faith p25 GetOut p27 Sports/Rec p35 Classified p38
The connection between then and now started last December as the boys listened in awe to the men who made history 10 years ago. The men, members of the 2006 Ahwatukee Little League team – immortalized in the community as the Dawgs – were addressing a camp for all of the Ahwatukee Little League boys. The boys were preparing to practice and play their hearts out for a chance to win a trip to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, for the
Little League World Series – just as the men did when they were 12 years old in 2006. g on every word as the grown-up Dawgs provided baseball tips and regaled them with anecdotes from their championship run. After all, they were the Dawgs, Ahwatukee’s own Boys of Summer who won the Little League West Region in San Bernardino, California, on Aug, 13, 2006, and then played their first World Series game six days later. Only five teams from Arizona had ever done that before them.
(AFN file photo) Ahwatukee Dawg Max Harden, center, is mobbed by teammates after smashing a three-run homer in the fourth inning of a Little League Western regional semifinal baseball game in San Bernardino, Calif. in 2006. >> See DAWGS on page 4
A Little Free Library that a 6-yearold Ahwatukee girl worked on for three months and set up outside her home to dispense and collect books was stolen Saturday. Now Anna Wolcott’s heartbroken mother hopes that whoever took it will return it before the child returns from a San Diego family vacation. “I was in a drug store when my friend called and told me it wasn’t there. My whole body went numb. I just started bawling,” mom Heather Wolcott said after hearing the news Saturday. Anna had just held a grand opening for the library a week before the theft, after spending three months painting and decorating it and collecting hundreds of used books. About half the size of a small refrigerator, Little Free libraries are sold for about $300 by a nonprofit organization to encourage literacy. Owners, mostly children, put together kits built by Amish carpenters, then paint and decorate them before putting them up in a yard or or a public place. The owners store used books in the libraries and encourage passersby to borrow them. There are more than 36,000 little libraries in 70 countries around the world. Wolcott said after reading a June >> See LIBRARY on page 4
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