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| Affiliation | Democratic |
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| Name | P. Ben Arredondo |
| Address |
Tempe, Arizona , United States |
| Email | None |
| Website | [Link] |
| Born |
Unknown
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| Contributor | Thomas Walker |
| Last Modifed | Thomas Walker
Nov 17, 2009 02:31pm |
| Tags |
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| Info | Ben’s guiding principles stem from what he learned from his parents, Josefa (Josie) and Alejandro Arredondo. First, his parents left him with an honorable family name. It was his responsibility to live up to and enhance that name. Second, they taught him to work, knowing that a person with a work ethic will find an honest way to support themselves and their family. Third, if you don’t want that work to include hard, physical labor all your life, get an education. Fourth, the gifts we receive in this life are given to be shared with others; we have a responsibility to give back to those around us. Ben uses these ideas to help him remain focused on what’s important in life.
Next, Ben believes in the value of family. He has lived all his life working and living near his extended family. His daily labor is directed toward providing for his family and those surrounding him. He coached his two daughters and one son in their youth sports programs. He entered politics, originally, because we weren’t happy with the direction of instruction in our oldest daughter’s classes. After realizing that PTA was valuable, but not the place to make the policy changes he sought, Ben decided to run for the elementary school board to be part of the solution rather than just complain. He served for ten years on the Tempe Elementary School Board. What started out as a desire to help his own children turned into helping the community’s children.
Ben’s greatest pride at the elementary level was to set standards to lower class sizes at a time when size was being ignored across the country. He also pushed to see that whole language reading was combined with phonetic reading skills when the pendulum was swinging in only one direction. He pioneered, in Tempe, the idea of painting school bus roofs white to make them cooler for students, and saw the current district office built at a reduced cost to education dollars by partnering with a grocery chain. Twenty years ago that was a radical idea in the metro area. Since that time, Ben has been part of several public/private partnerships which have maximized value for taxpayer dollars.
Since the school board does not provide any pay to its members, Ben continued his teaching and coaching career at Mesa High School for 28 years. He achieved many honors while teaching. There are several things which stand out as the most important accomplishments of those years. Certainly his excellence as a motivator was important to his State Wrestling and Runner-up Football Championships. But in Ben’s eye, the help he was able and continues to give to the personal lives of his athletes was the lasting value of his coaching years. He helped guide youngsters toward a better way of life through discipline and hard work and when some of them didn’t listen, he helped give them a hand up as they came out of drug rehabilitation or jail. He is also proud of the successes of his athletes, not just Mickey Hatcher and Vai Sikahema who made successful professional careers as athletes, but the other young men and women who have become local successes like Chris Stanfield in plumbing, Steve Valentine in health care, Rick Brown in imports, politician Matt Salmon, administrative assistant Angela Horton. These are just a few of the many students Ben had, who are now making a positive impact on our surrounding communities.
Ben was fortunate to serve on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors. During the time he was there, he was very proud to see the South Phoenix Health Care Center completed. The project had been approved but not implemented, years before his arrival on the board and would have languished longer without his urging of the board to move it forward.
In Tempe politics, Ben has served for several terms. He loves serving at the local level where his actions really can positively impact people in the community. He is pleased with the shared services he fostered with local schools and the city; programs like police officers on school campuses, family and youth counseling services at the community centers and schools, shared maintenance of city parks and school playgrounds, the building of Escalante, Westside and soon the Northside Intergenerational Centers The completion of sidewalks in North Tempe neighborhoods and the inter-city agreement that allowed Tempe’s mall to be built were also important to Ben. Getting a neighborhood grocery store (Food City) and cleaning up Apache Blvd. have been major objectives. Ben also proud of seeing the building of lighted recreational areas at Guadalupe and Kyrene Roads and at Hardy and Warner Roads. The first skateboard park has also been completed.
Ben is also proud that he has been part of the leaders who have fostered greater appreciation and respect for the diversity of our community. Tempe has received national awards for its diversity programs and has also faced up to its weaknesses in this area and is actively changing practices to bring more equality of opportunity into the City of Tempe. Ben is proud to say that Tempe now has celebrations and memorials which acknowledge the contributions of its many different citizens. Examples are the Tempe Tardeada, Martin Luther King Day, César Chávez Day, Veteran’s Memorial Parkway and a future veteran’s memorial downtown.
Finally, Ben has never forgotten his roots in education. He helped bring the Pappas School for the Homeless to Tempe to serve the special needs of these important children. For the past several years Ben has coordinated the Arredondo Scholarship Golf Tournament which raises funds for working students attending local colleges and universities. The first graduates are now teachers, counselors, and business people in our community.
Ben is still keeping the principles which his parents taught him at the forefront of his actions. He still works hard to maintain his family name and cares well for his grown children, wife and extended family. He is still educating himself to better serve his community and while he still knows how to use a shovel and pick cotton, he’s not shy about using his education to try to keep from having to put those skills to the test any more .
Some of Ben’s major and very much appreciated awards are:
1990 Arizona Coaches Hall of Fame
1993 Arizona State University - Outstanding Achievement Award
1994 Arizona Parks & Recreation - Outstanding Public Official Award
2002 AZ Governor’s Council on Health, Physical Fitness and Sports - Distinguished Service Award
2002 Los Abogados Hispanic Bar Association - Community Service Award for leadership on civil rights and diversity issues.
2003 Chicanos Por La Causa - Civic Award
2003 Mesa Community College Commission on Excellence - Excellence in Education Award for efforts to ensure quality instruction and access to education for all.
2004 League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) - Community Award
Ben was named outstanding football and wrestling coach both regionally and statewide several times (1979, 82, 84, 86, 88, 91),and was nominated nationally in wrestling. He has two nationally published articles on coaching techniques and coached several Arizona All State Player Teams.
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