The Lower Verde River Valley Hall of Fame induction ceremony is right around the corner, with nine individuals set to be honored this year.

Inductees from Fountain Hills include Alan Magazine, Bill Craig, Cindy Couture, Dennis Brown, Tammy Bell, Vicky Derksen and Jamie Sunshine. Dwayne Abbe is the inductee from Rio Verde. The Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation nominee is yet to be named.

The celebration honoring these men and women is set for Wednesday, March 27, at the Rio Verde Country Club, 18731 E. 4 Peaks Blvd. Tickets for the event can be purchased at riveroftime.center/calendar_event/lower-verde-valley-hall-of-fame-dinner-2024/.

Following are the third and final set of profiles on this year’s inductees.

Jamie Sunshine

Jamie moved to Arizona about two decades ago and has been a part of the teaching staff at Fountain Hills High School for the past 18 years. He is current chair of the English Department and has received many accolades over the years.

Those include Chamber “Teacher of the Year” in 2022, EF Tours Teacher Appreciation 2016, 12 News A+ Teacher Appreciation 2013 and the “Silver Falcon” winner at FHHS 2011, 2016 and 2022. He graduated from Miami University in Ohio with a B.A. in both creative writing and psychology. He went back to get his Master of Arts in Teaching in secondary education.

Jamie has chaperoned student trips through EF Tours for the past seven years to numerous European countries. He has written many short stories, with a few of them winning online contests. He wrote a screenplay that made it to the final round of a film festival.

To him books aren’t just words on a page. They’re snapshots of a time with characters reflecting the people and values as seen through the author’s eyes. He teaches students to see the psychology of humanity in this manner, discussing choices made rather than just dissecting sentence and word choice.

Dwaine Abbe

Dwaine and his wife Mary Jo have been residents of Rio Verde since 2014. He holds an engineering degree from the University of Minnesota. Dwaine retired from the Procter & Gamble Company (corporate and plant engineering) after 37 years of service. They have two married children, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

He is vice president of the church council for Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church in Fountain Hills and holds other volunteer positions there. Since moving to Rio Verde, Dwaine has been involved in numerous community roles, including Reigning Grace Ranch volunteer, Rio Verde HOA board member, treasurer of the tennis committee, summer water volleyball program, founder of the Chess Club, HOA finance committee, HOA construction projects for bocce ball and pickleball courts and Firewise volunteer for Rio Verde and Tonto Verde.

Dwaine also is a cleanup volunteer along McDowell Mountain Road, organizes summer activities for the Rio Verde community and, never one to sit still, he is a regular participant in duplicate bridge, cribbage, ping pong, biking, hiking and travel teams for tennis and pickleball.