In 1981, Sheriff Sheahan, his wife Jo and family moved to Arizona and he began his career with the Mohave County Sheriffs Office. Sheriff Sheahan rose through the ranks as a deputy, detective, corporal, sergeant, lieutenant, captain and was appointed Chief Deputy Sheriff in 1990. Upon the announced retirement of the late sheriff, Joe Cook, Sheriff Sheahan ran for sheriff in 1996. He was elected to his first term in November 1996, re-elected to a second term in 2000, re-elected to a third term in 2004, and again re-elected to a fourth term in 2008.

Our luncheon will take place on August 9th at noon with a social hour starting at 11:30. The price for lunch is $15 and reservations can be made through Julie Panter at rundukerun@yahoo.com or at 208-2146. We hope to see you there!

Margaret Dugan received her Bachelor of Arts in Education from the University of Arizona and her Master of Arts in Secondary Education from Arizona State University. She taught English at Glendale High School for 12 years where she received the Achievement Above All Award in 1986, the highest award presented by the Governing Board to outstanding teachers. In 1992, she returned to Glendale High School where she was principal for ten years. In 2002-2003, she served at the district office level as administrator for curriculum and instruction. In January 2003, she was appointed to the position of Advisor to the Arizona Superintendent of Public Education, and in 2005 she was appointed Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Tom Horne is currently Arizona’s Superintendent of Public Schools. With a background in the school system, he also has a background in law as well. Tom has served as a lawyer for over thirty years. He has also served as Judge Pro Tem for Superior Court and Judge Pro Tem for Court of Appeals. He is a Member of Judiciary Committee for the Arizona Legislature and author of legal text published by State Bar of Arizona. He also is a Former Teacher of Legal Writing at ASU law school. He has also served on the School Board member for Arizona’s third largest district for 24 years where 10 years of that was served as its president. Tom received his undergraduate degree magna cum laude from Harvard College and his J.D. with honors from the Harvard Law School.

Our luncheon will take place on June 14th at noon with a social hour starting at 11:30. The price for lunch is $15 and reservations can be made through Julie Panter at rundukerun@yahoo.com or at 208-2146. We hope to see you there!
Start Time: 11:30
Date: 2010-06-14
End Time: 13:00

In the next two months we will be having the candidates who are running for Attorney General and Superintendent of Public Instruction speak to us. Andrew Thomas, who is running for Attorney General and John Huppenthal, who is running for Superintendent of Public Instruction will be speaking at our May meeting. In June we will be hearing from Tom Horne who is running for Attorney General and Margaret Dugan, who is running for Superintendent of Public Instruction. Please invite your friends and bring them with you to these informative meetings.

Andrew Thomas graduated from Harvard Law School in 1991 and moved that year to Phoenix. He has served as an assistant attorney general for Arizona, a prosecutor for the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, criminal-justice advisor to the governor of Arizona, and chief attorney at the Arizona Department of Corrections. He helped draft and campaigned for the Stop Juvenile Crime Initiative, which was approved by Arizona voters in 1996. In 2002, Andrew was the Republican nominee for attorney general of Arizona. In that year’s primary election, he won all 15 counties. In 2004, Andrew ran successfully for Maricopa County Attorney. He was re-elected in 2008. Andrew also has been a national leader in the fight against illegal immigration. Elected on a platform of stopping illegal immigration, Andrew helped draft new state laws combating human smuggling, identity theft and other criminal aspects of the state’s border crisis.
Andrew is married to Ann Estrada Thomas and they have four children.

Contact Info
Email:Contact@ThomasForArizona.com
Website: http://thomasforarizona.com/

Senator John Huppenthal has been a leader in expanding school choice in Arizona. In 1995, as Senate Education Committee Chairman, his legislation took the caps off charter school enrollment. This legislation moved Arizona to first in the nation in school choice (ALEC rankings).
Senator Huppenthal helped establish performance pay for teachers at Chandler, Kyrene and Tempe schools. Through the Career Ladder program and Proposition 301, each teacher in the Tempe Union and Kyrene districts receives as much as $8,000 additional pay tied by measured performance. Senator Huppenthal removed 47 unfunded mandates from state law, returning control of the schools to local school boards. He also changed state law to allow schools with money unspent at the end of the year to move that money to the next year’s budget. Under Senator Huppenthal’s leadership and legislation, Arizona became the first state in the nation to measure school district results, not just school by school results.
John is married to Jennifer Huppenthal and they have two daughters.

Contact Info
Email: jhuppent@hotmail.com
Website: http://www.huppenthal2010.com/index.htm

The menu for our May meeting is chicken teriyaki rice and veggies or choice of grilled chicken on salad. If you haven’t been contacted yet, please email Julie Panter at rundukerun@yahoo.com or call her at 208-2146.
Start Time: 11:00
Date: 2010-05-10
End Time: 13:00

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The health care bill passed yesterday with a 219-212 vote in
the House.  All Republicans were smart
and voted no along with 34 Democrats.
The bill is now on its way to the President to be signed.

Let me guess – you re-read that paragraph about two times
making sure you read it correct didn’t you?
We all took civics in school, watched those silly school house rock
videos, and we all are smart enough to understand how a bill becomes a law.  It goes through the House for approval,
through the Senate and if approved through both goes to the President for a
signature.  So how can this health care
bill pass through the House, skip the Senate and go to the President for a
signature?  Well it’s called: The
Democrats pulled a fast ball on the American people.

What was passed yesterday was called a reconciliation
bill.  What ended up happening was the
House and Senate passed two different Health Care Reform bills.  In order for a bill to become a law it must
get passed through the House and Senate in the same form.  At the time neither the House nor Senate
wanted to take up each other’s form of the bill.  So what should have happened at this point in
time was that everyone should have gone back to the drawing board and come up
with something else.  That happened for
about a day.  Obama got together with
Republicans and Democrats and made it seem like they were trying to work out a
compromise to this Healthcare Reform Bill.
I’m not sure though if any of you watched the actual debate, but I did
and it was not a bipartisan meeting at all.
Nothing of what the Republicans said was heard.  So after that meeting, several deal makings
later, and arm twisting by the Obama Administration, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi
- the Democrats in the House got together and decided they would take up the
Senate’s version of the healthcare bill.

The only problem was they didn’t have enough votes to do
it.  One thing stopping the House
Democrats from passing the bill was the provisions on abortion.  The White House though announced President
Obama would issue an executive order pledging that no federal funds would be
used for elective abortion. Well I don’t know about you but I don’t trust one
word that comes out of Obama’s mouth and that promise to me means nothing. So
this bill was passed with pro-abortion provisions meaning our tax dollars are
going to support abortion.   But either
way, the House Democrats not in favor of the pro-abortion provisions believed
Obama and now had enough votes to pass the Health Care Reform, and because they
passed the Senate’s version of the bill under “reconciliation” it now goes
straight to the President for his signature.
The fixes that were made to the bill will go back to the Senate for
approval; however under reconciliation all they need is a 51 vote majority to
pass it.  Under normal circumstances it
would take 60 votes to pass a bill through the Senate.  Democrats control 59 of the Senate’s 100
seats, one vote shy of the number needed to overcome bill-killing filibusters
from a united GOP.   One other reason the
Democrats wanted to pass this bill using reconciliation.  They knew they didn’t have the votes in the
Senate to pass it normally, but they do have the 51 needed to pass it now.

So whether we like it or not, it looks like this Health Care
Reform is going to be passed and put into law.
It’s going to cost over $900 billion dollars over ten years, bankrupt
our state, bankrupt our entire economy, and not to mention my child who isn’t
even born yet is going to get the bill footed to him or her.  I love though how the Democrats will tell you
this bill is saving us $138 billion dollars.
I seriously do question if Reid, Pelosi and others got a legit education
in their youth or maybe they just forgot over the years how to do simple
math.  This bill is going to cost $900
billion + over the next ten years and we’re going to save $138 billion over the
next ten years according to the Democrats.
900 – 138 = 762!  So our deficit
is still going to go up $762 billion over ten years.  If you believe that is all this bill is going
to cost.  I for one believe it’ll cost
way more than $900 billion over ten years.

So with all that aside, what exactly is IN this health care
bill?

Well along with the hefty price tag this bill comes with it
also comes with a lot of rules and regulations. Under this bill I for one will
be required to get health care, the 18 year old just out of high school who
holds a part time job will be required, and the 30 year old who just got laid
off and has no source of income will also be required.  Oh and if you don’t purchase health care by
2014 you will be penalized! Oh but don’t worry the government will offer you a
subsidy. Oh how nice (that was meant to be sarcastic people).

Businesses that have fewer than 50 employees will not be
required to cover their employees under the health care bill, but those with
over 50 will be.  If they do not cover
them, the company will face a $750 dollar fine per person. In some cases
(depending on how large the company is) paying that $750 fine might be cheaper
than offering health care.  The bottom
line though is that this health care reform will hurt businesses.  I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have a
job and some income coming in them no job and health care.  Companies will hire less people.  That’s the simple truth.  If you think unemployment is high in the year
2010.  You just wait till 2014 rolls
around.

Now here’s what SEEMS like the good parts of the bill (hence
the word seems)

From a news article on MSNBC.com: “The insurance industry,
which spent millions on advertising trying to block the bill, would come under
new federal regulation. They would be forbidden from placing lifetime dollar
limits on policies, from denying coverage to children because of pre-existing
conditions and from canceling policies when a policyholder becomes ill. Parents
would be able to keep children up to age 26 on their family insurance plans,
three years longer than is now the case. A new high-risk pool would offer
coverage to uninsured people with medical problems until 2014, when the
coverage expansion would go into high gear.”

Sounds good huh? People can no longer be denied based on
pre-existing conditions, insurance companies can’t cancel your policy if you
become sick and hey I could still be on Dad’s health insurance till I’m
26.  HOWEVER – hence the word seems –
remember?  Those requirements and rules
are going to raise the cost of premiums, medicine, and medical practices. So
yes sounds nice on paper but in reality – covering those people are going to
cost a lot more money.

So this health care bill DOES NOT lower the cost of health
care in America. It’ll raise taxes by half a trillion dollars and the other
half trillion to pay for this bill will be taken out of Medicare.  I’ll remember when my son (or daughter) turns
18 and realizes how much he has to pay for a health care bill he wasn’t even
alive to know about when it passed – that it was the Obama Administration and
those 219 Democrats that handed my son (or daughter) the bill they and their
kids will be paying off for the rest of their lives.

Oh and just so you all know, on the November ballot in
Arizona there is going to be an initiative called the Arizona Health Care
Freedom Act. If passed, it will allow residents to opt out of any federally
mandated health insurance program or plan. So I urge you all to VOTE YES in
November on that initiative!

Sarah Markham

John Munger has served previously as Chairman of the Arizona Republican Party, Chairman of the Pima County Republican Party and was selected as a delegate to the 1984 Republican National Convention, where he cast all 32 votes for President Ronald Reagan. He has served as president and member of the Arizona Board of Regents, managing billions of dollars and thousands of employees in the university system. He was also Chairman of the Board of the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce where he helped to spearhead local business development. John is also a partner in the law firm of Munger Chadwick, P.L.C., where he has been variously listed among the best lawyers in the country, and as co-founder and vice-chairman of Commerce Bank of Arizona. He holds a B.A. from Stanford University and a J.D. and L.L.M. in international trade and business law from The University of Arizona College of Law, where he served as editor of the law review and graduated with distinction. He is also a proud military veteran.

Buz Mills started serving our country when he was seventeen years old. At the age of 17, he spent six years serving in the United States Marine Corps and Marine Corps Reserve. Following his service to our country, Buz became an ironworker. He built bridges, got his hands dirty, and earned an honest living. Buz learned much about the value of hard work and sweat equity and decided to go to work for himself. In the years to follow, Buz became a successful communications entrepreneur developing public emergency communications systems. He helped design and build 911 emergency operations centers and Emergency Medical Communications Systems. In 1999, Buz bought Gunsite Academy, a firearms and self-defense training facility in Paulden, AZ. He has since trained thousands of our country’s law enforcement officers, members of our nation’s military, and citizens from all over the world.

Our luncheon will be on April 12th
Social time is at 11:30 a.m.
Lunch to follow at 12:00 p.m.
Please email Julie Panter at rundukerun@yahoo.com or call her at 208-2146 to make a reservation.

Start Time: 11:30
Date: 2010-04-12
End Time: 13:00

Hugh Kealer(Challenger):
Hugh was born at Luke Air Force Base in Glendale, Arizona in 1967. Right out of High School, he started playing for a newly formed Arena Football League where he was a member of the Arizona Renegades as a free safety, slot back and kicker. He obtained a Bachelors in Accounting from ASU West. He worked as a Corporate Accountant after obtaining his degree where he was responsible for budgeting and forecasting for companies with revenues up to $200 Million.

Dean Martin(Challenger):
Dean is currently the State Treasurer for Arizona. entered the political arena in 1999 with a primary challenge to an incumbent State Representative who was running for the Senate. Martin determined he could better represent the conservative majority of his home Legislative District 24. Martin easily won that election and in 2000 entered the Arizona Senate as a freshman legislator. Statewide redistricting in ‗02 resulted in LD-24 becoming reconfigured as LD-6. Martin was reelected LD-6 State Senator in 2002 and again in 2004. Although eligible to run for a fourth term in ‗06, Martin opted to run for State Treasurer — a race he won by a thirty percent + margin of victory.

The menu for our March meeting is lasagna or grilled chicken salad. If you haven‘t been contacted yet, please email Julie Panter at rundukerun@yahoo.com or call her at 208-2146.
Social time is at 11:30 a.m.
Lunch to follow at 12:00 p.m.

Start Time: 11:30
Date: 2010-03-08
End Time: 13:00

If you have any items you would like to donate, please drop them off at 2840 Indian Springs between March 8th and 17th

If you are interesting in volunteering at the garage sale event please contact Sarah Markham at 928-208-9460 or Sarah@SarahMarkham.com
Start Date: 2010-03-19
Start Time: 07:00
End Date: 2010-03-20
End Time: 16:00

This month’s meeting is sure to be very informative. Noreen Thomas, our regional director of the AZFRW will be talking about volunteering, Dodie London, NFRW, becoming a precinct committee-man, etc.

Noreen has been active in Arizona and Washington politics for longer than she probably wants to admit. We have a lot to learn from her. We all need to get active in politics, sitting on our couches doesn’t help get the right candidates elected. Noreen will help point us in the right direction.

We will also be having a straw poll to see where our club’s interest in candidates are at this time. Maybe we can have another one a little closer to the primary to see if there have been any changes.

The menu for our February meeting is: chicken cordon bleu, rice, veggies, roll and dessert. You may also order a Chef Salad. If you haven’t been contacted yet, please email Julie Panter at
rundukerun@yahoo.com or call her at 208-2146.