As I said in my previous column, the big story of 1983 was the defeat of the community’s initial incorporation effort.

But there were a number of stories in 1983 that also made headlines. They are the subject of this week’s Fountain Hills History Lesson.

The School District hired Dr. Lenora Kleinstiver as principal/administrator and the School Board adopted a new curriculum and the Assertive Discipline Program.

Maureen Kimber was appointed to the School Board in January and became president in April.

Special events proved effective in attracting people from the Valley.

The fifth annual Channel 8’s Great Fair was held on Feb. 26 and 27 in Fountain Park. Some 62,000 people attended the weekend event that featured a hot-air balloon race, an arts and crafts fair and entertainment.

The White Castle phenomenon continued in May with 170,000 of the small burgers sold. It solidified our position in the Guinness Book of World Records for the world’s largest take-out order. Local clubs and organizations sold the burgers individually cooked or frozen in bulk by the box. It was the fourth annual White Castle Celebration which was later sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce as a fundraiser. K. C. Evans and Carol Braithwaite were co-chairpersons of the event.

The Third Annual Fountain Mountain Triathlon was held October 6. This event attracted athletes from all over the Southwest.

The ninth annual Fountain Festival of Arts and Crafts was held Nov. 11-13. An estimated 25,000 people attended this three-day show. Maureen Pignataro chaired the art festival.

The most bizarre story of 1983 was the seven-hour kidnapping of popular and active resident Dick Rairigh in late August.

Rairigh, a retired automobile executive, who moved here from Michigan, had just come out of Jerry’s United Drug pharmacy when a man approached him and forced him to drive behind Bashas’. The supermarket was located in the same shopping center. There, he picked up three more men.

The kidnappers drove Rairigh through the streets of Phoenix for hours before the Fountain Hills man was finally able to escape inside a Valley National Bank branch in downtown Phoenix. “I never knew if I would make it back home safely,” Rairigh said after the ordeal was over. “I prayed a lot.”

In a strange twist of fate, Mr. Rairigh passed away exactly one year later to the day.

Another bizarre story occurred in October when 21-year-old Linda McFarland was visiting the community from Wisconsin when she was struck by lightning during a brief thunderstorm.

The sky did not look threatening with mostly fair skies and just a few puffy white and gray clouds scattered around. The lightning strike occurred on Saguaro Boulevard just north of Grande Boulevard.

The firemen who responded said she did not remember the lightning strike that left an imprint of her flip flop shoes on the pavement where she was standing. There were also two holes in the pavement alongside the shoe imprints.

She had a burn mark on one of her shoulders. That was where the lightning entered her body. She later recovered fully from the accident.

As the year ended, worshippers of the Fountain Hills Presbyterian Church moved into their new building on Fountain Hills Boulevard. Glenn Atchinson held the first Sunday service a week before Christmas.

1983 was also my first of three terms as president of the Chamber of Commerce. Early in 1983, I got the Chamber and the Merchants Association to merge, with the Association becoming a full-fledged committee of the Chamber.

The Merchants Association’s three major events were maintained. They were the Merchants Awareness Day, the Christmas in July promotion, and the Oktoberfest.

I also got the Chamber involved politically in the community. We were the first organization in town to offer a possible solution to the Road District and the MCO impasse. A new economic development committee was formed under the chairmanship of Valley National Bank Manager John Mahoney. Together, we came up with a “Plant a Branch in Fountain Hills” campaign to attract retail and service businesses to the community.

Well, that wraps it up for this week’s Fountain Hills History Lesson. We’ll move on to 1984 next time.