Free of charge WEDNESDAY, JULY 20, 2016 Today: High 108, Low 87, Sunny Tomorrow: High 111, Low 88, Sunny
BACK TO SCHOOL
Meet the new Superintendent of Kyrene School District. BTS1
Celebrating 38 years of service
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COVER STORY
New principals take helm at Kyrene’s middle schools here By Coty Dolores Miranda
COMMUNITY:
AFN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Philly bound
(Cheryl Haselhorst/AFN staff photographer)
Ahwatukee Democratic delegates get ready for their convention. p19
GET OUT:
Swingin’ time
Line dancers at Cactus Joe’s kick up a party. p48
Ellen Parker, left, gives a kiss to birth mom Audrey Nichols as they meet for the first time at Sky Harbor airport Monday.
Ahwatukee woman’s search for birth mom ends happily at Sky Harbor By Paul Maryniak AHWATUKEE FOOTHILLS NEWS EDITOR
SPORTS:
Staying put DV’s J.J. Dielman is staying in school, deferring NFL. p38 Neighborhood p3 Community p19 Around AF p22 Opinion p24
Faith p30 GetOut p32 Sports/Rec p37 Classified p41
Nine years ago at her mother’s wake, Ahwatukee resident Ellen Parker learned that the woman she knew as her mom did not give birth to her. The surprising revelation launched her on a mission that ended happily Monday night at Sky Harbor Airport. Parker met her birth mother for the first time. “Hi Mom,” Parker said, her face beaming as her mother, Audrey
Nichols, rolled through the security gate with an attendant pushing her wheelchair. They hugged, and Parker handed her mom a dozen yellow roses and a box of chocolates. Then Nichols shook hands with two grandsons, Robert and Michael, who she also was meeting for the first time. “This is beautiful, wonderful,” the older woman said. “I waited many years for this, but I never thought it would really happen. “It’s all because of her,” she added,
pointing to her newly discovered daughter. “She wouldn’t let it go and just put her mind to finding me.” When Nichols gave up her child for adoption at birth, attendants wouldn’t even let her look at the newborn or tell her the baby’s gender. “I thought it was a girl but never knew,” Nichols, now 73, said. Parker’s quest lasted nearly a decade, beginning in 2007 at her childhood home in Brooklyn. She >> See REUNION on page 8
James Martin and Michelle Anderson are new principals this year at the two Kyrene middle schools in Ahwatukee. Martin takes the helm at Kyrene Altadeña and Anderson at Kyrene Centennial. Both bring rich backgrounds and educational expertise. Martin, raised in Tempe and a McClintock High School graduate, is the great-grandson of Ahwatukee pioneers featured in “Phoenix’s Ahwatukee Foothills/Images of America” by Martin W. Gibson. Anderson, who moves to Centennial after two years as sixthgrade advisor at Aprende Middle School, an Arizona A+ School of Excellence since 2011, is a recordholding, All-American high jumper from New York High School who was a full-scholarship athlete at Arizona State University. Both are becoming principals for the first time. Martin, an Ahwatukee resident who lives with his wife and three daughters, regards residing and working in the same community >> See PRINCIPALS on page 9
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