There was another good turnout for the Annual Italian Dinner Fund-raiser this past Saturday night.

While attendance was down a little bit from the past two years, we still had somewhere between 250 and 300 people in attendance. A big thanks to Phil Rodakis of Phil’s Restaurant for donating all the food.

We didn’t have figures as of the writing of my column on how much money we made for the museum, but generally, we were pleased with the entire evening. We thank everyone who attended.

Diane and I were out of town last week and came back in time for the fund-raiser. We were in Las Vegas visiting Diane’s youngest daughter, Toni.

We stayed at the Marriot Grand Chateau Hotel and Timeshare. We had a wonderful visit with Toni. She also stayed in our unit, which was newly redecorated. It is located less than a block from where she works.

We had some wonderful meals, and returned home with $41 less than we took for our gambling fun money. And that included playing the slots for several hours one night. I got lucky, I won $80 on my first spin of the evening the first night. And I won our cab fare back to our hotel on my last spin of the evening on the last night.

The best meal was a dinner we had outside the Paris Hotel. The restaurant is called Mon Ami Gabi.

I had scallops and the girls had filet mignon and Bernaise sauce. We split a chocolate mousse for dessert.

We also saw a visually spectacular show at the MGM Grand hotel. It is called “Ka.” It is one of the many Cirques du Soleil shows in Vegas. The cast performs incredible athletic moves and the sets are spectacular.

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I ran into local Realtor Melinda Stanton on Monday and she just celebrated her 40th anniversary of moving to Fountain Hills.

She moved to Fountain Hills with her family. Her dad, John Basehore, did block work for builders in those early years.

She worked for six years as a bartender at the Silver Stein before getting her real estate license. She, along with Diane Janisch, became one of the top sales teams in the community. They are still working for MCO Realty.

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Another early day face I saw in one of our local restaurants was that of Frank Gray. He told me he is 96. He’s still driving. He doesn’t get out very much, mainly to the grocery store and local restaurants. He and his late wife, Hazel, also moved here in the early 1970s.

Hazel was active with the Women’s Club and served a term as president. She also had a hidden talent that she unveiled to the community in a talent show at the Village Pub. It turned out she was an excellent yodeler.

Frank and Hazel also accompanied a group of residents who went to Kasterlee, Belgium, for the signing ceremony that made the two communities Sister Cities in 2000.

Frank said he looks forward to reading The Times every Wednesday and has never missed an issue.