Current print subscribers can create a free account by clicking here
Otherwise, follow the link below to join.
To Our Valued Readers –
Visitors to our website will be limited to five stories per month unless they opt to subscribe. The five stories do not include our exclusive content written by our journalists.
For $6.99, less than 20 cents a day, digital subscribers will receive unlimited access to YourValley.net, including exclusive content from our newsroom and access to our Daily Independent e-edition.
Our commitment to balanced, fair reporting and local coverage provides insight and perspective not found anywhere else.
Your financial commitment will help to preserve the kind of honest journalism produced by our reporters and editors. We trust you agree that independent journalism is an essential component of our democracy. Please click here to subscribe.
Need to set up your free e-Newspaper all-access account? click here.
Non-subscribers
Click here to see your options for becoming a subscriber.
Register to comment
Click here create a free account for posting comments.
Note that free accounts do not include access to premium content on this site.
I am anchor
NEIGHBORHOOD CELEBRATION
Tempe names winners of scholarships honoring civil rights activist
Posted
INDEPENDENT NEWSMEDIA
Two Tempe high school students will receive $1,000 scholarships for their leadership work in the community.
The Dolores Huerta scholarships will go to Rohn Ragland and Katie Ritchie “for their civic engagement, community organizing and leadership,” a city release stated.
The pair will be honored during the Neighborhood Celebration on Saturday, April 1 at Kiwanis Park.
Dolores Huerta, 92, is a civil rights activist and community organizer who has fought for labor rights and social justice for more than 50 years. In 1962, she and Cesar Chavez founded the United Farm Workers union. In 2012, President Barack Obama bestowed her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor given in the United States.
Ragland works to overcome apathy among young voters, according to the release.
As president of Desert Vista High School's Black Student Union, he created a speaker series with prominent African Americans discussing the importance of voting and participating in the political process.
Also a winner of the 2023 MLK Diversity Award, he has served as a volunteer poll monitor, organized rallies and gone door to door to get out the vote.
“Katie Ritchie and her hot pink megaphone can be found amplifying voices at public rallies for women’s rights and other causes,” city officials said in the release.
She serves on the Arizona Governor’s Youth Commission, a group of 50 student leaders throughout Arizona who work to identify and address the challenges facing the state’s young people.
While leading the Education Workgroup, she focused on increasing equity among students and schools, providing materials in English and Spanish, digitally and in print.