It was a rough year for me personally due to deaths of some prominent Fountain Hills residents who also were good friends of mine.

You all saw what I wrote recently about our first woman mayor, Sharon Morgan. I still can’t believe she left us so quickly.

Her husband, Jim, was a funny guy. He had a dry wit about him. My wife, Diane, always enjoyed sitting with him because of his sense of humor when we would sit together at some local function. Since he was married to the mayor, did that make him “the First Man of Fountain Hills?” he would joke.

Another friend I lost in recent weeks was Dick Sear. He moved here from Ohio with his wife, Joanne, who later went to work at The Times as a graphic artist.

Dick also was a very funny guy. He could tell a funny story like nobody else I’ve ever known. Dick was a member of Sunset Kiwanis and was one of the original town leprechauns who would paint green shamrocks on streets all over town and were the first to turn the fountain green on St. Patrick’s Day back in the 1980s.

Dick was an excellent cabinetmaker. He owned and operated Cabinet World on Enterprise Drive for many years.

Another individual we lost in 2019 was David Rau, or as he was more commonly known, “Crazy Dave.” It was Dave who started the first “newspaper” in Fountain Hills. It was called The Yellow Pages.

He came to Fountain Hills to do landscaping work and started his own company called Sage Landscape Contractors in the early 1970s. He did the landscaping on many of the community’s early homes.

Dave started distributing his “newspaper,” which was usually four pages of rumors about people and the developer that started the community, McCulloch Properties. It was run off on a copy machine.

The first time I met him, he was operating a backhoe in Fountain Park. The last time I saw him was several years ago when he was on a backhoe adding plants to the amphitheater area of Fountain Park. He had been hired by the Town for the greening project.

Incidentally, the second newspaper was Free Notes, written by insurance man Larry Ryerson. It had news of upcoming events and meetings in the community. It was also run off on a copy machine. My partners and I bought Free Notes and continued it as a column once a month for about a year.

Our town’s first judge was Stuart Shoob, who passed away in October. I wasn’t real close to Stuart, but I never had to go before him for any traffic speeding tickets. I drove a 300 ZX turbo Nissan sports car in those days, so I always put the cruise control on in town to avoid the embarrassment of having to go before him.

Many of you have probably never heard of Cliff Johnson, but he retired in Fountain Hills in the 1980s after a 37-year career with Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. When he retired, he was the CEO.

In Fountain Hills he was president of the Noon Kiwanis Club and The Club.

It was his business background, integrity and leadership that enabled The Club to obtain financing at below-market rates and let the members purchase the building.

Walt Dunne was another friend we lost in 2019. He was the long-time superintendent of the Fountain Hills Unified School District during its biggest period of growth.

Involved in the community, he served on the boards of Senior Services and the River of Time Museum.

He always had that smile ready to flash at people he talked to. We were the same age and exchanged birthday cards each year.

Finally, my good buddy Mike Petrone. We were also the same age. We met when our daughters became best friends in kindergarten. He became involved in the community.

Under his leadership, The Sunridge Foundation (now the Fountain Hills Community Foundation) raised over $1 million dollars that was distributed to local clubs and organizations.

He was also president of the Fountain Hills Civic Association.

And he will always be my second baseman on the Tri-City Appliance team in the Fountain Hills Softball League. We made a pretty good double play combination with me playing first base.

And, oh yes, we shared a lot of laughs together over the years.

It’s tough growing old and losing such good friends as these. But I still have the memories, which I will always cherish.