I’m taking a break from my Fountain Hills history series stories this week, because I lost another set of friends that I felt deserve special mention.

Unlike most newspapers these days, The Times does not charge for obituaries. Being in a small town, we feel the sympathy and have known many of the people when their write-ups have been submitted to us for printing in the following issue of the newspaper. I knew three people in the Jan. 29 edition of The Times.

Lois Grate and her husband, Bill, were two of the town’s true pioneers. She passed away peacefully on Jan. 17 at the age of 93. She attended Alliance High School in Ohio, where she was a cheerleader and she met the love of her life, Bill. They were married in 1945 after Bill completed his tour of duty with the U.S. Navy at the end of World War II.

Entrepreneurial types, they owned United Cleaning Service in Alliance.

They moved to Arizona in 1959 and opened the first of four Mr. G’s Interiors in Scottsdale. The couple opened additional stores in Mesa and Tempe.

In March 1973, they opened a store in Fountain Hills. It was located in a small slump block building behind the U-Tote-M store (later Circle K and now the Fountain Hills Convenience Store).

That’s where I first met Bill and Lois. I called on them to do a story about their new business for the Fountain Hills monthly, which I produced for the original developer, McCulloch Properties. The Grates’ interior decorating store was among the first half-dozen retail businesses to locate in Fountain Hills.

They were the first business in the community to utilize co-op advertising, whereby different suppliers would reimburse them for a portion of their advertising costs. Mohawk Carpets was the first supplier they worked with that gave them the reimbursement.

They later moved into a larger building in the downtown area of Fountain Hills. It had two large showroom areas and an upstairs level that was used by one of their daughters who operated a successful interior design school. The Grates retired on March 15, 2005. They were known throughout the Valley as Mr. and Mrs. G.

Bill and Lois were also active in the community even though they were operating four business locations.

Bill was a charter member of the Noon Kiwanis Club.

They were among the charter members of the Fountain Hills Chamber of Commerce. Lois served on the board of the Chamber, served a term as treasurer and was a member of the Ambassadors for almost 40 years.

Debbie Skehen, a fellow Ambassador, said at a 90th birthday celebration for Lois three years ago, “Bill and Lois understood the importance for the health of this community to have an active and progressive Chamber that would work toward growing and maintaining a vibrant business community and they acted to help make that happen.”

Lois was presented the Lifetime Business Achievement Award by the Chamber in 2016. Few people remember that the Grates funded the purchase of the first children’s playground equipment at Fountain Park.

We also learned that Lois was a real daredevil. For her 57th birthday, she accepted a challenge to go skydiving. Usually people going for the first time are securely connected to an experienced instructor in tandem.

Lois was by herself with what looked like a government-issued military parachute. She made it safely, though she always remembered her landing, which wasn’t exactly perfect.

Talking with Bill as Lois came down, he said, “This is almost as good as the time she fought the bull in Mexico. Entering the arena, she was promised a matador at her side. Somehow that didn’t happen.”

On another birthday she sat on the back of a live alligator in Florida.

By the way, her birthday was April 1. No foolin’!

The next person I’m going to talk about is Dale Mikkelson.

Dale was a member of my cooking team at The Club for many years. He didn’t help with the food preparation, but I could always count on him for the room setup and popcorn duty.

That included seeing that we had enough tables and chairs set up for Monday night dinners and seeing that everyone got a knife, a fork and a spoon along with a cloth napkin. Each table also got salt and pepper shakers, butter and a white table cloth.

But in all the years that Dale was on my team, I didn’t know what he did before he retired. He was busy in the dining room and I was in the kitchen.

After reading his obituary in The Times, I see that he had a career in heavy truck sales. First, he worked for International Harvester. Then he retired after 26 years as the district heavy truck sales manager for Ford Motor Company.

He passed away on Jan. 22. He fought a long battle with cancer. He was 86. My best to his wife, Kay.

Finally, another former member of the Men’s Club passed away on Jan. 10 at the age of 83.

Dave “Kingfish” Rice was a graduate of the University of Detroit. He held various automotive sales positions before starting Amhurst Plastics, a plastic injection molding company in Northville, Mich.

He and his wife, Pat, were the first home buyers in SunRidge Canyon in west-central Fountain Hills.

One day he came in to my office and asked me if I had any delivery routes available. I knew he was well off financially, so I asked him why he wanted to do a delivery route.

I’m going to use it as my golf fund, he smiled.

Do you mean you want to come to work for me, Kingfish? I told him I would check into it for him. I went to talk to Tammie, our circulation manager. She said that the Verde communities route would soon be available.” “That’s perfect,” I said.

He became a celebrity on the route. He would have people make him muffins and other treats. He even had people that would get up just to wave at him each week.

After the River of Time Museum opened, he gave me a call. Could he make a donation of a sculpture to the museum?

Not knowing what it was, I told him we would get together later. It turned out to be a Remington piece that depicts four western riders charging across the prairie on horseback.

Dave died in Simpsonville, S.C., where they moved to in 2018. Our best to you, Pat.