THE VOICE OF THE EAST VALLEY SINCE 1891 AND WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR LOCAL REPORTING
Taco fest could draw thousands
THE SUNDAY
Tribune
PAGE 22
INSIDE
This Week
ELECTIONS ................. 2 2 of four Mesa City Council races heading to November ballot.
NEWS ............................. 6 East Valley parks get high marks in survey.
EAST VALLEY
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Chandler/Tempe Edition
Perry staying good at badminton PAGE 20 Sunday, September 9, 2018
Hundreds heed EV moms’ campaign to curb kids on social media BY JIM WALSH Tribune Staff Writer
W
hat started as a Thanksgiving hike became a movement to help parents push back against the digital tide of social media and learn how to control it so that it does not damage their children or their families. Two East Valley women casually discussing social media last year during a family hike at Usery Pass in northeast Mesa decided their children were too young for smartphones. Hillary Whalen of Gilbert and Jesika Harmon, then of Mesa, did more than just talk. They researched how obsessive use of social
media can isolate teens, expose them to bullying and lead to depression. “We couldn’t sit back and do nothing. We had to do something about it,’’ Whalen said. Whalen and Harmon founded The New Norm, a nonprofit corporation that has put on two workshops in Gilbert. The heavy turnout at the workshops indicates that The New Norm is reaching parents who feel overwhelmed by their children’s use of social media as society changes with the evolution of technology. Some 600 parents turned out in May for the first gathering at a charter school and 760 children and their parents attended a session last month at Gilbert’s Mesquite High School.
Word about the latest event spread like wildfire on the internet, including the Gilbert Public Schools and Mesa Public Schools websites, proving that social media can be used for constructive purposes. The New Norm collaborated with Katie McPherson, a Chandler education consultant who long has lectured parents about the dangers of social media and the need to achieve balance through a contract that doesn’t cut off kids from social media but does limit its use through a consistent plan. “People are more depressed, more anxious, more tired and less happy,’’ Whalen said. See
SOCIA MEDIA on page 6
Gateway Airport now a pilot training hot spot BY JIM WALSH Tribune Staff Writer
BUSINESS . ................16 Mesa furniture store aims to give back.
DINING
24
Jan D’Atri combines two classic dishes into one yummy treat.
COMMUNITY........... 13 BUSINESS ...................16 OPINION .................... 18 SPORTS ....................... 20 CLASSIFIEDS ............. 28
S
teve Armour always knew he wanted to fly, but it was hard to shell out thousands of dollars for flight training when the market for pilots crashed during the Great Recession. Armour, 43, went on with his life, managing a business until the high demand for pilots motivated him to take to the skies again. Now, Armour is one of hundreds of wouldbe pilots from around the nation and world drawn by ideal conditions to flight training schools at Phoenix Mesa Gateway Airport. While the average person might look at Gateway, on the eastern fringe of Mesa, as a satellite airport with just one full-time carrier, the aviation industry looks at it as a hot spot for pilot training, with its long runways, 320 clear days a year for training flights and outstanding airspace. Seventy-seven years after it opened in 1941 as an Army Air Corps training base during World War II, Gateway remains true to its
Kimberly Carrillo/ Tribune Staff Photographer)
Student pilots Dakota Lawry, left, and Collin Landwehr, sit in a cockpit simulator to get the feel of what it’s like to operate a commercial airplane and learn the complex control panel.
original purpose and its legacy as Williams Air Force Base, which closed in 1993. Students come from all around the country and even from China for training, lured
by astronomical job growth forecasts such as those recently projected by Boeing. See
GATEWAY on page 8