Four honorary inductees have been chosen for the October 18 Annual dinner:Chris Dabovich,Managing Editor of the San Pedro Valley News-Sun. He always gets the school news in the paper weekly. Lois Fischer, taught in the Benson Primary/Middle school for many years, always a strong school supporter, Jomel Jansson, Primary school principal who is fun, enthusiastic and hard-working. (we heard that Willcox wants her high school diploma back) and a staunch Bobcat citizen that is at every game, Audrey Palma, fall, winter, spring sports she is there. Hear even more about these special Bobcat Honorary Alumni on October 18.
Four honorary inductees have been chosen for the October 18 Annual dinner:Chris Dabovich,Managing Editor of the San Pedro Valley News-Sun. He always gets the school news in the paper weekly. Lois Fischer, taught in the Benson Primary/Middle school for many years, always a strong school supporter, Jomel Jansson, Primary school principal who is fun, enthusiastic and hard-working. (we heard that Willcox wants her high school diploma back) and a staunch Bobcat citizen that is at every game, Audrey Palma, fall, winter, spring sports she is there. Hear even more about these special Bobcat Honorary Alumni on October 18.
Bethanne Baker Bledsoe..Class of 1961. Passed away August 30, 2018 in California.
Ed Comaduran..Passed away August 26, 2018. Class of 1966. Ed is the twin brother of BHS retired coach Fred Comaduran and brother of BHS Board Member, Jack Comaduran, He lived in Morenci, AZ
Frank Padia..Passed away April 15, 2018. He was born in Benson and attended Benson Schools from 1st grade through high school. Frank enlisted in the army on September 28, 1944 when he turned 18. He was discharged on November 30, 1946. He came back to Benson to marry his high school sweetheart Beatrice Bernal.
Stewart Blair Mellentine, a 2nd Generation Bobcat, graduated in 1990. During high school, he was active in Band, Drama, FBLA, and played Tennis, and Baseball. He attended Northern Arizona University, where he studied Small Business Management, and Percussion. After graduating in 1995, he moved to Metro Phoenix and started working in Commercial Real Estate.
The family business came calling in 1998, and Stewart became VP of Operations for Echo Trucking Company. In 2003, he started his own boutique logistics company servicing the construction industry around Arizona. After summering in Wolfeboro New Hampshire in 2006, he decided to move to the East Coast, residing in downtown Boston, and Portsmouth New Hampshire. While in New England, he worked as a supply chain analyst, automotive retail store manager, and Business Manager for a CNC machine shop.
In 2017, Stewart was recruited by Honeywell Aerospace Tucson, to become a Senior Integrated Supply Chain Supervisor, where he manages both the OEM and Repair and Overhaul Cabin Pressure manufacturing cell. Valves made under his watch are in aircraft ranging from military applications like the C130 transport, U2, F-15, F-18, and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Commercial applications include all Embraer, Cessna, and Bombardier small jets, the Boeing 777 and 777X, and Airbus A350 wide body aircraft.
Outside of work, Stewart is a professional landscape and motorsports photographer. His photography can be found at http://www.stewartmellentine.com. Be sure to click the link and check it out, particularly the landscapes! Amazingly gorgeous.
He’s also a FAA private pilot. Stewart now lives in Oro Valley Arizona, and frequents Benson every couple of weeks, where his parents Jim and Dell (BUHS Class of 1960) still reside.
FORT HUACHUCA — Lee Ann (Green) Howell, class of 1988, a Col. Smith Middle School seventh-grade science teacher, was named the 2018 Teacher of the Year for Cochise County on Friday night.
With its “Teachers Are Superheroes” theme, 20 teachers were recognized for their contributions to learning and dedication to the students whose lives they help shape.
Howell, who was a People’s Choice nomination, was one of six middle school nominees.
“I love the opportunity of making an impact on students and playing a part in their future,” Howell said during an interview prior to the announcement that she had won the award. “I make myself available to the kids and help them with follow-up they need when it comes to homework questions and projects they’re working on.
“I love seeing their expression change when they suddenly understand a concept that has been especially challenging.”
Eleven new teachers from schools all over the county were also recognized.
Jointly hosted by the Cochise Education Foundation and the Cochise County School Superintendent’s Office, the annual ceremony and banquet was held at Thunder Mountain Activity Center on Fort Huachuca.
Jennifer Truitt-Lewis, Principal of Col Johnson Elementary in Fort Huachuca, says “She was my student teacher in 2010 before I was became a principal,” she said. “Even as a student teacher, you just knew her heart was completely dedicated to teaching. She has a real teacher’s heart.
“She started out as a paraprofessional and is now a teacher. She is a shining star.”
CAR (Conference, Advisory and Reteach) is a Benson High School program that sets the tone for a positive school culture promoting high standards coupled with a personal teacher-student approach to help struggling students achieve. It was presented with an award.
Jacqui Clay, Cochise County superintendent of schools, said the banquet showcases the talented and dedicated teachers throughout the county.
“It’s an honor to work with every single one of them,” she said. “They are positive role models, and every one of them is a superhero.”
Murgatroyd, remember that word? Would you believe the email spell checker did not recognize the word Murgatroyd?
Heavens to Murgatroyd!
Lost Words from our childhood: Words gone as fast as the buggy whip! Sad really!
The other day a not so elderly lady said something to her son about driving a Jalopy and he looked at her quizzically and said “What the heck is a Jalopy?”
OMG (new phrase)!
He never heard of the word jalopy! She knew she was old…. but not that old.
Well, I hope you are Hunky Dory after you read this and chuckle.
About a month ago, I illuminated some old expressions that have become obsolete because of the inexorable march of technology.
These phrases included “Don’t touch that dial,” “Carbon copy,” “You sound like a broken record” and “Hung out to dry.”
Back in the olden days we had a lot of ‘moxie.’ We’d put on our best ‘bib and tucker’ to ‘straighten up and fly right’.
Heavens to Betsy! Gee whillikers! Jumping Jehoshaphat! Holy moley!
We were ‘in like Flynn’ and ‘living the life of Riley’.
Even a regular guy couldn’t accuse us of being a knucklehead, a nincompoop or a pill. Not for all the tea in China!
Back in the olden days, life used to be swell, but when’s the last time anything was swell?
Swell has gone the way of beehives, pageboys and the D.A.… of spats, knickers, fedoras, poodle skirts, saddle shoes, penny loafers, and pedal pushers… AND DON’T FORGET… Saddle Stitched Pants
Oh, my aching back! Kilroy was here, but he isn’t anymore.
We wake up from what surely has been just a short nap, and before we can say, Well, I’ll be ‘a monkey’s uncle!’
Or, This is a ‘fine kettle of fish’!
We discover that the words we grew up with, the words that seemed omnipresent, as oxygen, have vanished with scarcely a notice from our tongues and our pens and our keyboards.
Poof, go the words of our youth, the words we’ve left behind
We blink, and they’re gone. Where have all those great phrases gone?
Long gone: Pshaw, The milkman did it. Hey! It’s your nickel..
Don’t forget to pull the chain. Knee high to a grasshopper. Well, Fiddlesticks! Going like sixty.
I’ll see you in the funny papers. Don’t take any wooden nickels. Wake up and smell the roses.
It turns out there are more of these lost words and expressions than Carter has liver pills.
This can be disturbing stuff! (“Carter’s Little Liver Pills” are gone too!)
We of a certain age have been blessed to live in changeable times. For a child each new word is like a shiny toy, a toy that has no age. We at the other end of the chronological arc have the advantage of remembering there are words that once existed… and there were words that once strutted their hour upon the earthly stage and now are heard no more, except in our collective memory.
It’s one of the greatest advantages of aging.
Leaves us to wonder where Superman will find a phone booth…
See ya later, alligator!
Okidoki
WE ARE THE CHILDREN OF THE FABULOUS 50’S.
NO ONE WILL EVER HAVE THAT OPPORTUNITY AGAIN…
WE WERE GIVEN ONE OF OUR MOST PRECIOUS GIFTS:
OUR MEMORIES!
(Sherri Williams Gobble class of 1966 is the contributor )
Growing up in Benson as a 10 and 11 year old always involved a bike. Sandy Sandoval lived down the block from me and we ran around together a lot. I had a second-hand bike that we rescued from the dump. My older brother, Brian, convinced me that if I painted it black with yellow dots, then it would look to be going really fast! The theory was that the dots would blur at “high speeds”, which my one speed bike was totally incapable of! Anyone who saw me racing was sure to be impressed.
Sandy had a new 3-speed British racing bike with front and rear hand brakes. One day, we were racing on 8th Street (Sandy was always ahead of me, on account of his racing bike… I know that my dots surely were blurred from my speed). I often saw his back! Something caused him to hit the brakes, he hit the front wheels only and became airborne, flying over the handle bars and plowing up the sand on our dirt street! To my young mind, that seemed like sweet revenge for my being forced to ride a hand-me-down bike.
Just 2 or 3 years ago Benson’s oldest country club, Turquoise Hills Golf Course closed after a long struggle. Before it was a golf course it was the Sunset Motel and Trailer Park owned by the Franklin family. During the 1950s the Sunset Motel also provided the only swimming pool open to the public in Be
Remember this face?
nson.
The Sunset Motel was one of the 18 motels in Benson during the 1950s and 1960s until I-10 bypassed Benson and bringing to an end to the thriving tourist period in Benson’s history.
After the 1960s Benson became a winter refuge for the Snowbird population that inhabited Benson during the winter months. The new winter residents demanded a totally different recreation, one compatible with an older retired generation. Thus, the Sunset Motel gave way to the snowbird’s golfing demands and became a country club/golf course named Turquoise Hills Country Club.
The very original name of the Sunset Motel prior to the Franklins acquiring it was Goods Rest Camp and Trailer Court. In the 1930s and 1940s the automobile became more reliable and Highway 80 was the only route going east to New Mexico before Highway 86 was paved in 1941, Goods Rest Camp and Trailer Court was probably the only place in Benson that could provide overnight parking and services for trailers in Benson. After 1941 Parkers Trailer Park was built next to the San Pedro river in East Benson what was then Highway 86, and provided a shorter route to New Mexico, would pretty much take the trailer park business over.
Of course, the Snowbird migration with their monster motor homes and fifth wheel trailers, would end what was known as trailer parks and thus begin the development of RV parks which would also offer many activities for the Snowbird population.
The motel room portion of the Sunset Motel and Trailer park would become short term apartments and the trailer park would disappear altogether due to the many RV parks which would grow to now I believe about 17 in the Benson area.
short term apartments and the trailer park would disappear altogether due to the many RV parks which would grow to now I believe about 17 in the Benson area.