Tuesday, November 19, 2024

December Guest Speaker for Holiday Celebration: Pat McMahon

 If you have been in the Valley awhile you know Pat McMahon and how influential he has been. We are delighted to welcome him as the speaker for our Dec. holiday celebration. Over the course of his career, he’s won multiple honors and is an AZ Historymaker. But most of us know him as Gerald, Aunt Maud, Captain Super, Hub Kapp, and a host of other characters from the Wallace & Ladmo Show. To this day, the show remains one of the longest running locally produced children’s shows in America.

Dec. 2, 2024 at AZ Heritage Center, 1300 N. College Ave, Tempe, AZ 85288.
10:00am Historical League business meeting (not open to public)
11:00am Pat McMahon

If you, or others in your party, prefer not to stay for lunch, but want to attend Pat’s presentation, please RSVP to Jolynn Clarke, Jolynn@leaders-view.com with your name, email, and the number in your party. Limited seating.


Pat McMahon's background: Over the course of his career, he's won seven Emmys, is an inductee into several halls of fame, and is a 1993 Arizona Historymaker™. He is the winner of both an International Broadcasting Gold Medal and an Edward R. Murrow Award.

Pat is a longstanding fixture of the Phoenix broadcasting scene, serving as a program director, a disc jockey, and a talk-show host, among other positions. But most of us know him as Gerald, the over-privileged brat; Aunt Maud, the elderly storyteller of dark tales; Captain Super, the phony superhero; Hub Kapp, the rock and roll star; and a host of other characters from the Wallace and Ladmo Show. That show was one of the longest running locally produced children's shows in America. He's proud of that, and we are too.

Pat was born to life-long vaudeville performers Jack and Adelaide McMahon, who performed a variety-dance act that took the three McMahons worldwide. He was home schooled on the road but later attended a private high school and college in the Midwest. After a stint in the Army, Pat made his way to Arizona in May 1960, where he's lived ever since.

Oh, the stories he's able to tell, and we're looking forward to hearing them all. Pat will tell us about his life and how the Wallace and Ladmo shows impacted him and Arizona history.


Monday, November 11, 2024

November meeting

 Planning future events at the November meeting brought out a good crowd of Historical League members. Guest speaker Diane Burke Fessler presented her book and discussed women veterans in WWII.

Thanks to Josie Pete and Katie Tovar for the great photos.









Thanks to Sandy Loeffler for the adorable fall wagon table decorations.


Fabulous lunch presentation from Creations by Sergio at our November meeting. Turkey dinner sandwiches and Pecan pie . . . oh my!





Tuesday, November 5, 2024

November Guest Speaker Diane Burke Fessler "No Time for Fear"

 Honoring our veterans this month, Diane Burke Fessler, author of No Time for Fear: Voices of American Military Nurses of World War II, spoke at our November meeting. Her aunt was an Army nurse who wrote letters every week from her stations overseas and led Fessler to want to write about her. After attending a reunion of the 166th General Hospital in 1989 with "Auntie Raine" (Lorraine Krause Taylor), she interviewed more than 200 nurses whose stories had not been told. Covering all theaters of war, the nurses remembered their overseas assignments, including the first flight nurses, women at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, prisoners of the Japanese in the Philippines, and African-American nurses who served in a segregated U.S. Army.

Diane grew up in Chicago, graduated from Arizona State University with a degree in Journalism, and lives in Phoenix. She also contributed a chapter about women in Arizona during the 1940s to a book titled Arizona Goes to War: The Home Front and Front Lines During World War II, published by University of Arizona press.
Diane Burke Fessler and Jolynn Clarke