Moving to Arizona

DON DENNIS AND ANN (MILLER) DENNIS FAMILY WEBSITE

1. HOME (The early years)	2. Pueblo, Gr Junction	3. Fairbanks 1				4. Fairbanks 2
5. Arizona	Dupree Ranch	Denver		Ann's Pottery/Art		Articles 1 2 3 4
Calendars 56-61	La Veta, CO	Stories		50's Song Hits		Lefse		Sports
click for: Sturgis (100 + pages of Sturgis material)		click for: Fowler (100 + pages of Fowler material)
Pueblo Junior College	Don's College and Jobs	Ancestors		"It All Began"		"....And an Electric Chair"
Army & Yearbooks	USS Dennis	USS Fogg	James Turner		USS St. Lo	Delbert Miller	POW WWII
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Moving from Fairbanks to Arizona
Moving from Fairbanks to Tempe, AZ 1982

With three of the kids either in or ready to go to College, it was a good time to move to a city with a great college. In 1982 Don, who was then working for Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, took a leave of absence and the family went to Tempe, Arizona and bought a house. They'd left Fairbanks on January 2nd with the temperature at 49 below zero, and arrived in Tempe where it was 75 degrees above zero. Heaven!

Todd Donald Dennis

Todd making a "grass angel".

Todd had never lived where there was darkness and warmth at the same time and was astounded. He had been born in Fairbanks where it is basically dark all winter and light all summer.

The older boys had stayed in Alaska to complete the school year, but eventually joined the family. Don continued to work in Fairbanks, commuting back and forth winters and the family would go back to Fairbanks in the summers to work for the baseball team.
Wherever Don worked, he would come home on the weekends. When the family moved to Arizona he worked two weeks in Alaska and came Outside for two weeks. Sometimes he'd have a month at a time in Arizona. His job was to keep the businesses running smoothly, and with good employees, he could do it from either end. He must have logged a million miles on airplanes, but it gave him more quality time with the family than a lot of fathers had.

Steve, Ann and Scott; front: Teena and Todd

Back: Florence and Jim Turner, Steve: Front - Teena, Todd, Scott

The family lived in AZ, from March 17, 1982 until July 1990. They added three more bedrooms to accommodate all the kid's friends who lived with them while going to college....and a few grownups who stayed a year or two. Extremely fun years!!

Left: Jim Turner, Teena and Leroy the Dog

You couldn't get a serious photograph from this silly bunch!
Steve, Don and Todd

In 1982, Ed Merdes, who had been World President of the JC's, invited Don and Ann to go to Taiwan for the JC's World Convention. Ann wanted to meet with jewelry wholesalers for her business, Don set up meetings with Olympic and baseball officials, a Juneau man joined the party to buy merchandise for his businesses, and they spent two weeks in Tokyo, Taipei and Hong Kong.

B.J. Hall, who was living with them in Tempe to work in the sports insurance business, agreed to oversee Teena and Todd, who didn't really need a babysitter, just a responsible adult in the house. BJ was a bachelor who'd never had children, and even though the kids were eleven and seventeen, he was pretty nervous.

The airplane had barely cleared the runway with his parents aboard, when Todd got a brilliant idea to whip up some excitement. He cut some little holes in his jeans, poured ketchup on the spots, laid in the hall outside BJ's room, and moaned loudly. Pranks were common and any of the family would have looked at him and gone "Right"!!! But, BJ opened his door and in his mind saw a kid with at least two bullet holes. He grabbed his pistol, leapt over Todd's body and went hunting for Teena, positive someone had grabbed her..... on his watch!

Todd, laying in the hall, was horrified realizing BJ was running through the house with a loaded gun, and BJ when he found Teena studying outside, was furious at the kid for scaring him out of his wits.

BJ had no more trouble... Todd knew he'd used up all his chits and laid low for two weeks!

B.J. Hall

Todd Dennis

Todd became a Pastor after
completing Bible College.

Don's father passed away in 1975.
A few years later his mom
Florence married Jim Turner.
Florence's mother, Grandma Mary Wright,
came to live with them in the 80's.

L to R: Mary, Florence and Teena.

Because they traveled so much and left the house vacant, they decided to put bars on some of the most vulnerable windows. The company installed them without enough cross bars for strength, and argued they were perfectly safe, when asked to take them down and reinforce them. Mom (Ann) told them that if she could get through one within 5 minutes, then the job was free.... there would be no payment. The company's owner looked at 110 lbs of determination climbing between the bars and ordered his men to remove and reinforce them. sdd

Don, Teena, Steve & Deb with Baby Donald	Steve, Florence holding Donald, Deb, Don and Jim Turner
	Left: Todd's Youth Group adopted the kids who lived at a garbage dump in Mexico. They would gather clothing and food and go down about once a month for the weekend. They had such adventures!
Karen, Steve and Sheri came to Tempe and all went to the Rose Bowl Parade.	Marlene, Casey, Steve & Sheri Kuiken
Lots of Mexico trips.	Trip to Tokyo, Taiwan, Hong Kong 1983
New Member of Family.
Teena and Todd	Rob Rohlof and Todd
Disneyland	Gram Florence and James Turner visit Heard Museum.
Steve moves to AZ.	Reconnecting with Sherrol Ellefson Barbour from Sturgis High School.
Steve and Leroy, new dog joining the family.	Scott and dog Leroy who ended up being a girl and became LeeLee thereafter.
Ann & Steve	Scott in boy's store, their ASU years job..
Christmas in AZ.	Todd's Youth Group
Teena bathing Tom T.
Running the Food Service at the ballpark, summers.	Steve planting Apple trees in AZ.
The kids start getting married. Todd was first.	Scott was second to get married.
	Steve and Deb were third to get married. The dogs wouldn't sit nicely and he had to hold them during the ceremony!! Note the dog tails thru his elbows, above!
No such thing as TOO HOT for a bunch from Fairbanks. 110 degrees!	Teena, back in ASU for her Masters.
Scott	Todd
Casey	Jeslie & Julia Kaleak ASRC
Teena, Ann	Deb & Teena

A favorite pastime in Phoenix during the kid's high school years, was the Dennis version of a "progressive dinner".

This "progressive dinner" usually included appetizers at Don Jose Restaurant on Guadalupe for their very special green chili quesadilla. The next stop was Grandy's Restaurant for what would pass as a salad before moving onto Bill Austin's BBQ for the main course. Dinner was topped off with a stop at the old-style Dairy Queen on Country Club Drive or Bill Johnson's on Apache Trail for deep dish apple pie ala-mode. Sometimes Don would do them backwards....dessert first....

Don pulled a variation of this on the kids. On a very hot day in Phoenix the family was returning home from a long drive, and the kids were grousing that they were hungry. Don pulled into the first drive-in he saw and ordered ONE burger, and passed it to the back seat. Then he pulled into the next drive-in and ordered one more thing... this continued for miles, one thing at a time, as they drove across town, and soon the back seat was full of food and the kids were begging for mercy. Thank goodness for freezers!

Casey and Gen Miller, Marlene Kundel, Karen Kuiken, Ann Miller Dennis
Karen, Ann, Casey, Gen and Marlene

- Happy moments, praise God.
- Difficult moments, seek God.
- Quiet moments, worship God.
- Painful moments, trust God.
- Every moment, thank God.

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DON DENNIS AND ANN (MILLER) DENNIS FAMILY WEBSITE

NEW on the site

1. HOME (The early years)	2. Pueblo, Gr Junction	3. Fairbanks 1				4. Fairbanks 2
5. Arizona	Dupree Ranch	Denver		Ann's Pottery/Art		Articles 1 2 3 4
Calendars 56-61	La Veta, CO	Stories		50's Song Hits		Lefse		Sports
click for: Sturgis (100 + pages of Sturgis material)		click for: Fowler (100 + pages of Fowler material)
Pueblo Junior College	Don's College and Jobs	Ancestors		"It All Began"		"....And an Electric Chair"
Army & Yearbooks	USS Dennis	USS Fogg	James Turner		USS St. Lo	Delbert Miller	POW WWII
Copyright law precludes use of others work without explicit permission. Web pages, by law, are protected as soon as created. www.dondennisfamily.com reserves the right to pursue unauthorized users of any image, clip or text from this website. If you violate our intellectual property you may be liable to pay compensation, and where appropriate, the costs of collection and/or statutory damages. Material is watermarked with transparent overlay or marked, and our presentation of this material is copyrighted. No part of this website or the related files may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission. (THIS MEANS: DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT USING ANY OF OUR SCANS!)

Moving from Fairbanks to Tempe, AZ 1982