Well, you can be looking for your copy of the new Fountain Hills Residential and Business Directory within a couple of weeks. We sent the page files to the printer last Friday.
My congratulations to those staff members that worked on the book. Our book hit an all-time high in 2008 when it contained 308 pages. This year’s book contains 180 pages. My son, Brent, came to me a year ago and asked whether we could convert the book into a Business Directory.
I replied to him, “No, I think the telephone book has some life left to it.”
He said, “But everywhere I go to sell the book to new advertisers, the owner tells me, ‘Nobody uses phone books any more. Why should I advertise?”
“I still use it and I see lots of other people using it also,” I said in return. “Businesses should be getting as much information about themselves in the ads as possible. And phone book advertising is a good place to do that.”
It turns out we had more advertising in this year’s book than last. We had some advertisers actually go back in the book that had dropped out the previous year. They felt there was a drop in business by not being in the book.
Mmm, it’s funny how that works.
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For those of you who are into baseball, this is your time of year.
The Play Ball section should be right up your alley. It began with last week’s edition that includes the full schedule of games for the 2018 Cactus League Spring Training season. The three-part series was written by freelance baseball writer Charlie Vascellaro. He started covering sports for The Times when he was studying journalism at Arizona State.
We have also shared two seats in the second row behind the Giants dugout at Scottsdale Stadium for many years during Spring Training.
We also shared the seats with Mike Petrone for many years, but he dropped off several years ago after his retirement.
The season tickets are now shared with Joe Olenowski, undoubtedly Fountain Hills’ biggest Giants fan.
Charlie and I will be attending the season opener on Friday, Feb.23, between the Giants and Milwaukee Brewers.
Getting back to the Play Ball section, last week Charlie wrote about the history of the Cactus League Hall of Fame and this year’s two inductees, Frank Robinson and Derrick Moore.
This week, he is providing a brief preview of each team in the league.
The series wraps up next week with an overview of the National League West champs, the Los Angeles Dodgers, and their impact on the westside’s (Phoenix) economy.
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We came back from our
most recent visit to Henderson last Wednesday. Daughter Toni and husband Jason and their son, Camden, drove here on Saturday night and stayed until Wednesday afternoon.
On Sunday evening, Brent, Gina, Diane and I got together with Jason’s parents, brother Blake and grandmother Betty at Euro Pizza to celebrate Camden’s fourth birthday. Camden is our miracle baby, born with Tetralogy of Fallot, a heart disease. He had open heart surgery at four and a half months during which his walnut sized-heart was successfully rebuilt.
You’d never know to see him today, laughing and running everywhere he goes. Happy Birthday, Camden.
