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Reporter John Rawlinson probed crime
John Fredrick Rawlinson, whose former work as a police officer led him to a career reporting on crime and corruption for the Tucson Citizen and the Arizona Daily Star, died yesterday.
He was 53.
Mr. Rawlinson, a reporter for 30 years, had been on medical leave from the Star after suffering congestive heart failure in January.
He was best known for his work as an investigative reporter, including his contributions to the Investigative Reporters and Editors team.
The team wrote a series of stories about crime in Arizona following the car bombing that killed Arizona Republic investigative reporter Don Bolles in 1976.
”That was a very important part of his career,” said Judy Donovan, an editorial writer for the Arizona Daily Star and Mr. Rawlinson’s girlfriend of 20 years.
Mr. Rawlinson wrote in one article that his investigations led him to skid-row bars and Mafia-owned nightclubs, to trips along the border with drug smugglers, to secret meetings with police and to many a late-night rendezvous with informants.
But to his friends, he was almost as well known for his humor and good-hearted practical jokes as he was for his hard-nosed probes.
In 1968, as a joke in keeping with the times, he ran as a vice presidential nominee on the Vegetarian Nudist Party ticket.
Ken Burton, who was a press secretary for former U.S. Congressman Morris K. Udall, was campaign manager for the stunt.
”Not one of us was a practicing vegetarian or a nudist, except, in the first instance, maybe just before payday, and in the second, immediately following a shower,” Burton once wrote about the experience.
Later on, Mr. Rawlinson was involved in an elaborate, long-running prank in which a prized Goofy doll was ”kidnapped” and ransom notes were sent that included photographs of the often blindfolded doll in unlikely spots – including Udall’s office and at various vacation locales.
”He was a real jovial person,” said Tucson Police Sgt. Marty Fuentes, who knew Mr. Rawlinson when he worked as a police reporter. ”He was always a nice guy and always up front.”
”John was a professional. He treated people with respect. He wouldn’t jump to conclusions,” added Tucson Police Detective Sgt. Marty Moreno.
Mr. Rawlinson was well respected among his peers.
”I learned a lot from him as a reporter,” said Mark Kimble, associate editor of the Tucson Citizen. ”He was an excellent reporter, very meticulous.”
”He was very warm and outgoing, and very well liked,” said Donovan.
Mr. Rawlinson attended Catalina High School and studied journalism at the University of Arizona.
He enlisted in the U.S. Army National Guard in 1966 where he served as a military policeman, and went on to become an officer for the Tucson Police Department.
”He was a kind cop, he couldn’t be mean,” said UA associate professor of journalism William Greer, who knew Mr. Rawlinson since their college days. ”Being a cop made him one of the best police reporters around.”
Mr. Rawlinson started working as a reporter for the Arizona Daily Star in 1967. He went to the Tucson Citizen in 1979, but returned to the Star in the mid-1980s.
He also covered politics and City Hall, among other beats.
Mr. Rawlinson was a past president of the Tucson Press Club and a former vice president of the Arizona Press Club.
His survivors include his aunt Jane Adams and cousin Nancy Adams of Florida and his cousin Gary Rawlinson of Oklahoma.
Funeral arrangements are pending.
(Dated Nov 22, 1997)
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Robert Hammond led library board
Funeral services for Robert M. Hammond – a former president of the board of the Tucson Public Library – will be held at 9:30 a.m. Thursday at East Lawn Palm Mortuary, 5801 E. Grant Road.
Mr. Hammond died yesterday. He was 70.
He was a founding member of the Pima Jaycees, and led a petition drive to establish the Pima Community College district in 1966. He served as president of the board of the Tucson Public Library from 1964 to 1976.
In 1975, Mr. Hammond was named general business chairman of the American Heart Association of Southern Arizona.
Mr. Hammond’s son, Paul, said his father frequently was involved in community projects.
He was a private pilot who flew to Mexico with the Flying Samaritans to provide medical care to poor communities.
”Several times a year he would fly the doctors down,” Paul Hammond recalled. ”They would camp out in Baja and then fly to the villages.”
Once Mr. Hammond led a campaign to install seat belts into cars, setting up a free installation service in a parking lot in Tucson. Another time he helped stencil traffic warnings into sidewalks for pedestrians.
Mr. Hammond was an insurance agent with State Farm for 42 years.
He was born in Washington, D.C. As a boy suffering from asthma, he moved to Wickenburg to live with his grandparents.
He graduated from North Phoenix High School in 1944 and entered the Air Corps Enlisted Reserve that year. He served on active duty with the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron in the Azores through 1946.
Mr. Hammond received a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Arizona in 1949. He also earned a degree in foreign trade studies from the Thunderbird School of International Management.
His poetry and photographs were published in the UA literary magazine in 1948. He was editor of the UA yearbook the following year.
”It’s really the way he expressed himself most creatively,” Paul Hammond said of his father’s poetry and photography.
Mr. Hammond is survived by his five children, Paul, Karen Thomas, Marsha Peace, Scott Hammond and Amy Munnell; and six grandchildren.
(Dated Dec 02, 1997)
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Anna Egleston gave land for church, school
Funeral services will be held tomorrow for Anna Egleston, who along with her late husband, Charles, donated the land for Canyon del Oro Baptist Church and Palo Verde Christian School.
She died Friday at age 99.
Mrs. Egleston married Charles in 1919 in Massachusetts. The couple moved to Tucson in 1928.
Mrs. Egleston was an active member of Palo Verde Baptist Church. She also volunteered for the Beacon Foundation and worked as a missionary with Native Americans in Arizona.
”She made little dolls out of remnants, and she would go to the Indian reservations by herself,” her son, Phillip, recalled. ”She didn’t know if they would accept her or where she would sleep, but she had faith in the Lord. She would go there and preach the Gospel.”
Phillip said his parents gave the land for the church, at 9200 N. Oracle Road, as a gesture of their dedication to God.
”They envisioned a Christian school and church there,” he said. ”They lived to serve the Lord, always, from the first day I remember.”
Mrs. Egleston is survived by her children Elizabeth Huls, Phillip Egleston and Ruth West; 15 grandchildren; 23 great-grandchildren and eight great-great-grandchildren.
Funeral services will begin at 11 a.m. at Canyon del Oro Baptist Church. The family requests donations be made to the Beacon Foundation.
(Dated Dec 02, 1997)
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Ex-UA basketball player Leon Goar dies
PARKER – Former University of Arizona basketball player and longtime high school coach Leon Olan Goar died here Nov. 19.
Mr. Goar’s brother, Lionel, a retired athletic director of the Mesa school system, also played at Arizona in the mid-1950s.
”He was really a great guy, a true Wildcat,” said teammate Dean Metz. ”Leon was back in Tucson just a year ago for our basketball homecoming get-together.”
Mr. Goar was 62 when he died after a long battle with cancer.
He was born in Ajo in 1935. Mr. Goar graduated from UA, and received a master’s degree from Northern Arizona University. He began his teaching and coaching career in Parker in 1957, taught in Twenty-nine Palms, Calif., and returned to Parker in 1976.
Mr. Goar led the Parker basketball team to state and conference championships over the years.
Survivors include his wife, Marilyn Goar; sons Leon, Lyne and Lynn; daughters Lois Foreman and Leslie Braun; brother Lionel; sisters Elaine Middaugh and Myrna Udell; 14 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
(Dated Dec 02, 1997)
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Longtime rancher Miguel Amado earned respect of the community
Services will be held tomorrow for Miguel Celaya Amado, a longtime southern Arizona rancher who died Monday at age 92.
Mr. Amado, who suffered a series of minor strokes in August, owned 160 acres of farm and ranch land near Amado, a town about 30 miles south of Tucson named after his family.
”He was old-style – genuine – did his business on a handshake,” said his son, Henry Amado, 62. ”He never cheated anyone and never expected anyone to cheat him.”
Mr. Amado, whose family moved to the Tucson area around 1850, began ranching at age 5. By 13 he managed crews hired by his father and uncle to work on the ranch.
”He was very able. Whatever he wanted to do, whatever needed to be done, he could do it,” Henry Amado said.
Mr. Amado did not stop riding, roping and branding cattle until he was in his late 80s.
”His legacy is this ability to work so hard,” said Laurie Amado, his daughter-in-law, who knew Mr. Amado for 37 years. ”It was a trait every one who knew him admired.”
Mr. Amado’s hard work earned him respect throughout the Hispanic community, she said.
In 1983, he was featured in a publication, ”Images and Conversations – Mexican Americans Recall a Southwestern Past” by Patricia Martin Preciado.
”Mr. Amado’s concern for his children and their education and his pride for his family history emanates to those around him. He personifies the traditional historic Mexican-American family with strong religious and family values,” Irma Amado-Carmona, 57, said about her father in a letter.
Accountant Henry Amado, who was raised on the ranch, said he and his siblings hope to continue his father’s legacy by raising their families with the same values and maintaining the ranch.
Mr. Amado is survived by his sisters Clementina Robles, 94, and Carmen Acevedo, 88; brothers Hector Amado, 86, and Ismael Amado, 90; eight children and their spouses; 23 grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren.
All of his survivors, except one son and his family who live in San Diego, live in Tucson area.
Rosary will be recited at 7 tonight at St. Augustine Cathedral, 192 N. Stone Ave.
Mass will be at 9 a.m. tomorrow at St. Augustine Cathedral.
Burial will be at Holy Hope Cemetery and Mausoleum, 3555 N. Oracle Road.
The family suggests donations be made to the St. Augustine Cathedral Maintenance Fund.
(Dated Dec 03, 1997)
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