years to become certified. The numbering is used to separate the items and is not meant to be a ranking of them.

13. Aside from starting this newspaper, the realization of the River of Time Museum and library building was my biggest contribution to the community:

Our story begins when Dr. Paul Kolwaite, a local dentist, and I had a meeting at Mary Wood’s house one evening in 1988.

Paul had the idea to form the Fountain Hills Historical Society. He met many hours with retired attorney Harlan Collins, who incorporated the group and prepared paperwork to obtain the coveted IRS 501(c)(3) designation which permitted the organization to seek tax-deductible donations.

Paul became the first president of the organization, and the first dinner meeting was held on Sept. 21, 1989, at the Little Café.

In that first meeting at Wood’s house, I suggested we could open a museum. The first museum was located in half of a prefab building that the Chamber of Commerce used as its office and Visitor’s Center at Fountain Park. It was opened in 1991.

When the Chamber moved into its new building on Verde River Drive, the Historical Society took over the entire building. The museum was expanded with the additional space.

About a year later, the Historical Society received word that the building being used for the museum was scheduled to be bulldozed to make way for a new retail complex.

A committee was formed to study options for relocating the museum. We had $30,000 in the bank, mainly raised from a series of spaghetti dinners put on by an active community volunteer named Bruce Hansen.

We used that money to hire Phoenix architect Don Ryden, who had a background in designing museums and other historical projects. He conceived the River of Time theme and the layout of the museum. He made us a scale model of the proposed museum. It was used for fund-raising, efforts and presentations to local clubs and organizations.

Michael Carmine, executive director of the Capitol Museum, suggested we form an alliance with our town library.

“President Bill Clinton is talking about creating a program that would provide funding for joint library and museum projects. It’s in the budget for the next fiscal year.” Carmine said.

We applied for and were approved for a grant, but the county librarian nixed the deal. I never understood why he did that.

We did form an alliance with the Fountain Hills Library Association and that led to funding possibilities.

Roy Porterfield, treasurer of the Library Association, and I went before the town council during a summer planning retreat and asked for a bond issue totaling $3.7 million to build a joint library/museum building on town center property, south of the Community Center. The bond issue was passed by town voters by a 2-to-1 margin.

The society had approximately $100,000 allocated to build the museum’s displays, but it was soon evident that amount was insufficient. The bids we received from a variety of design-build firms ranged anywhere from $570,000 to $1.2 million.

Since there was no funding in the bond issue for displays, the society approached the Town Council for $210,000 for exhibit design and construction. Council member Sharon Hutchinson played a major role in securing Town Council support for this request. Another $50,000 was pledged by the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation. An additional $160,000 was raised at a testimonial dinner held in my honor on April 20, 2002. The event was put together by a committee consisting of Fountain Hills Mayors John Cutillo, Jerry Miles and Sharon Morgan.

With sufficient funds on hand, the contract was awarded to Sunbelt Scenic Studios.

The design of the museum exhibits was the result of the work of a committee including Bonnie Kline, Paul Kolwaite, Judy Confer, who had been hired as the museum’s executive director and myself.

Also providing input was Richard Siegle, who was the facilities director for the Smithsonian Institute before retiring in Fountain Hills.

The committee spent many an afternoon at Sunbelt’s building in Tempe supplying input to help their design team in creating the displays.

The library opened in September 2001 and the museum opened during the weekend of Feb. 28 through March 2, 2003.

I served as president of the Historical Society for 11 years and had to step down in 2009 due to having Parkinson’s Disease. In May 2008, the board of directors voted to change the name of the museum to the L. Alan Cruikshank River of Time Museum. It’s an honor I will always cherish.