It was called Morning Call.

Between the Senior Center, the many classes that are held in the community and the various clubs and organizations that are active, there are plenty of ways to meet other people in the community.

But that wasn’t the case in the early days of the community. People who retired here in the early 1980s, after buying their lots from the developer in the 1970s, were eager to make new friends. The Fountain Hills Civic Association came up with the idea of holding “Morning Call” every Friday at the Community Center.

Anywhere from 40 to 80 people would congregate at Morning Call every Friday during the winter months. Each week there was a different host who supplied danishes, coffee cake or donuts to go along with the free coffee and tea supplied by the Civic Association. The host was either a local organization, a business or one of those attending the event each week. Tables and chairs were set up around the room for people to gather, munch and converse.

In a front-page story in The Fountain Hills Times on April 10, 1986, on the Morning Call activity, one of the organizers, Ed Didjurgis, said, “It brings out the best in everyone, as conversation usually is dominated by joke telling, other anecdotes, tales from the latest vacation or trip and possibly the latest on what the children and grandchildren were up to.

“Local politics even managed every so often to slip into the conversations.”

The community’s demographics changed dramatically in the late 1980s as more families began moving here. Interest in the Morning Call activity began to drop off and it was discontinued by the 1990s.

-------

The Verde Communities and I lost a good friend on March 25 with the passing of Bob Mason. A talented individual, hehad two careers during his lifetime. He worked 34 years for the Cargill Corporation in Minnesota. He was vice president of the feed division when he retired.

In 1983, he and his wife, Dorothy, moved to Rio Verde.

Bob had a thirst for reading about the history of his new desert home. He began speaking to various groups on the history of the area, finding much of his material for the talks at the Arizona State University library.

I attended one of his talks and was very impressed by the amount of history he had learned in the short time he had lived here. I approached him after the meeting, and he came to my office the next day. We hit it off and I talked him into writing a column for The Times on the history of this area before it was developed.

He wrote four books and numerous columns during his writing career. He always thanked me whenever he saw me for starting his writing career. Be sure to read Bob Burns’ tribute to Bob Mason on the Rio Verde page this week. (See Page 11A.)

-------

I hear that there was a certain amount of panic buying going on in Fountain Hills just as there was in Las Vegas.

The COVID-19 virus has affected the page count of The Times and most other newspapers, both dailies and weeklies.

We had 16 pages last week. Normally, we have 24 to 28 pages in two sections this time of year. COVID-19 has affected nearly every aspect of the community. There are few stories about schools, clubs, religion, arts and entertainment and business. We can keep everything in one section.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal normally has an average of 66 pages in its Thursday edition. The same edition this year was 36 pages.

My good friend, Jerry Tidwell, who owns The Hood County News, (about an hour south of Ft. Worth) had to lay off seven of his last 14 people at the twice-weekly newspaper. He at one time employed 36 people.

Let’s all hope things get back to normal as soon as possible.

In the meantime, keep washing your hands and reading your hometown newspaper.