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An edition of the East Valley Tribune
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7 residents seek seats on MPS Governing Board
INSIDE
This Week
BY PAUL MARYNIAK Tribune Executive Editor
S
even local residents are seeking election to one of three seats up for grabs in November on the Mesa Public Schools Governing Board, although a judge has been asked to knock one of them off the ballot. The Nov. 4 election will see at least two new board members getting elected since incumbent President Elaine Miner and Steven Peterson are not seeking new terms in the nonpartisan race.
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COMMUNITY ......... 14 Pandemic shatters kids' theaters.
SPORTS ................. 27 Requiem for a beloved EV coach.
COMMUNITY ............................... 14 BUSINESS ..................................... 25 OPINION ....................................... 26 SPORTS......................................... 27 PUZZLES ...................................... 29 CLASSIFIED ................................. 30 1
As of now, those who are headed for the November ballot are incumbent board member Kiana Maria Sears and Richard Crandall, Lara Ellingson, Vikki Johnson, Joseph O’Reilly and Cara Lee Schnepf Steiner. On July 20 – the last day to �ile challenges to school board candidates’ petitions – Tahiliani was challenged by Brian Brewer. Superior Court Judge Scott McCoy has scheduled a hearing on his challenge for July 30. Brewer is challenging 129 signatures – leaving Tahiliani 79 short of the required 400 to make the ballot. Most of his challenges allege
Turning 100, Mesa native feels blessed
BY PAUL MARYNIAK Tribune Executive Editor
Zone
Sunday, July 26, 2020
W
hen as many as 400 relatives gather next weekend in Utah to celebrate Oakley Ray’s birthday, they won’t just be honoring someone who turns 100 tomorrow, July 27. They’ll be celebrating a legacy that the Mesa man and his extended family created in the East Valley and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Ray’s childhood dates back to a long-gone time in Mesa when orange trees and farms outnumbered people and neighborhoods, where he and his �ive siblings rode horses on dirt roads and where the core of family values comprised daily family dinners and weekly Sunday church. He and his two sisters, Myrle Ray Hatch, 88, and Maxine Steiner,
94, still marvel at the transformation they’ve seen in Mesa, as Steiner put it, “from a close-knit community to an enormous city.” Their maternal grandfathers, John Oakley and Edmond Ellsworth, were personal friends of Joseph Smith, the First Prophet and founder of the Mormon Church, Ellsworth married the oldest daughter of Brigham Young, who succeeded Smith as the church’s Second Prophet and founded Salt Lake City. Some of the region’s thoroughfares – Ray Road and Ellsworth Road – were named after their ancestors, who included James Wilford Ray, an early settler in Chandler. All three siblings and their three other brothers were raised by Nellie Ellsworth, a nurse, and Sims
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the signatures are from people not registered to vote while a few are being challenged as illegible and therefore in violation of state election law. Tahiliani garnered the fewest number of petition signatures – 430 – among the seven board hopefuls while Ellingson’s 925 signatures comprised the highest. Sears got 485 signatures; O’Reilly, 716; Crandall, 711; Steiner, 708; and Johnson, 630; Miner’s decision not to seek a second consec-
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Oakley Ray of Mesa, flanked by his sisters, Maxine Steiner, left, and Myrle Ray Hatch, will be the guest of honor next weekend for a big celebration as he turns 100 tomorrow. (Special to the Tribune)