It was a packed house Feb. 11 for the State of the Town, held at the Queen Creek Community Chambers, 20727 E. Civic Parkway.
Six of the council members were on the dais, with Councilmember Dawn Oliphant appearing via a previously taped video. The others, including Mayor Gail Barney, took turns speaking to the audience as slides or videos were shown.
Not everyone in attendance was a resident of Queen Creek.
“The expansion and the growth that is happening here is amazing,” Chandler resident Monique Lurry, representing Visit Mesa, said.
“Queen Creek is partners with my destination-marketing organization, Visit Mesa, and so we always want to support our partners,” she said.
The mission of Visit Mesa is to promote, market and sell the Mesa area --- including the Town of Queen Creek and the City of Apache Junction --- as a year-round, premiere business and leisure travel destination, according to visitmesa.com.
“I haven’t been out here to visit in quite awhile and just all of the expansion that’s happened is just absolutely amazing. So that’s good to see,” Ms. Lurry said.
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I recently attended an out-of-state conference hosted by civilian ex-POWs --- people who as youngsters endured atrocities while being interned in the Philippines by the Japanese as prisoners of World War II.
What brought them together for the Feb. 7-9 conference was the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the camps.
It was a chance to retell how U.S. armed forces parachuted behind enemy lines or pushed through with tank columns and infantry to free them.
Survivors described what happened at the camps, such as at Santo Tomas, where more than 3,000 men, women and children were imprisoned January 1942-February 1945.
Those who didn’t die from starvation, beatings or illness --- and who have lived to 2020 --- were joined at the conference by their descendants, from children and spouses to grandchildren.
Nearly as heart-breaking as the stories of survival and loss were reports that Americans --- young and old --- were either never told that civilians were imprisoned in the Philippines or that they had forgotten what they learned in school about World War II.
We must never forget the sacrifices made by the U.S. and its allies, whether as members of the armed forces or as civilians.
Richard Dyer
Editor
Queen Creek Independent
Richard Dyer Managing Editor | East Valley @RHDyer
Richard Dyer has worked at Independent Newsmedia, Inc.. USA, since 1987.
Since 2009, he has worked as a volunteer to design The Blue Guitar Magazine, Blue Guitar Jr. magazine and Unstrung magazine, which are projects of The Arizona Consortium for the Arts; and since 2014, has been overseeing the art submissions.
He also is an artist of welded-steel sculptures, selling his artwork at juried and non-juried art shows
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