My business manager, Kip Kirkendoll, and I were just talking about Fred Luft a few weeks ago.

Most of you probably don’t know of him, but he was a familiar face in the community in the late 1980s. The retired businessman from Minnesota loved to play golf at the Fountain Hills Golf Club, now called the Desert Canyon Golf Club, and that’s usually the place your could find him.

Kip always liked the stories Fred would tell her about different personalities around town.

I don’t think Fred considered himself as a gossiper, he just kept his ears open around the clubhouse.

We got word last Friday that Fred had passed away in Albuquerque, where he and wife Bobbi had lived the past four years. His son, Sam, said his dad had suffered with dementia the past several years.

A few weeks ago, Fred fell and broke his hip and I understand his health failed quite rapidly from that point and he died last Thursday.

In the town’s early years, the Noon Kiwanis Club sponsored an award called the Oliver Johnson Fountain Hills Citizen of the Year Award. It was named in honor of an active early-day volunteer who funded the establishment of the award and chaired the first selection committee.

Fred Luft was the recipient of the award in 1987.

He was credited with obtaining a legal judgment that declared an availability fee that had been instituted by the Fountain Hills Sanitary District Board of Commissioners was illegally imposed. The courts ruled that all fees collected through the fee had to be refunded to lot owners.

Christ’s Church Pastor Don Lawrence was the Kiwanis Club president that year and he announced the award describing Fred as a “quiet man who is enormously interested in the growth and proper development of Fountain Hills. When the Sanitary District board put a tax on all the vacant lots, Mr. Luft protested to the board that the tax was preferential and illegal and tried to persuade board members to drop the plan.

“The board persisted, so Mr. Luft and a concerned friend instituted a lawsuit which they won in the courts with a judgment declaring the tax illegal.”

Fred was a regular at all of the Road and Sanitary District meetings, and he was always in attendance when there was a community meeting on civic affairs.

But as we expected, when the award was announced, Fred said he was humbled by receiving it. He said, “I was only trying to correct what I saw was something that was wrong for the community. I’m convinced that Fountain Hills is the best residential area in the whole valley.”

Fred never said anything negative about the individuals who initiated the tax. It bothered him that some people took different opinions as a personal attack.

He told me, “We have the opportunity to make this community something special. All we have to do is learn to work together to achieve that goal.”

I think Fred is one of those forgotten early–day residents that has been overlooked by the Lower Verde Valley Hall of Fame. I’ll see that he is nominated the next go around.

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Members of The Club helped two of the guys celebrate their 90th birthdays last Monday, April 28, Mo Smith and Tate Senseny were born on the same day, April 28, 1918. Their same-day birthday prompted them to become friends over the years. Mo treated everyone to a free drink at the dinner meeting.

“It’s not often that you can celebrate something special like a 90th birthday,” he said. “Treating everyone to a free drink is the least I can do as a show of appreciation for the good times I have enjoyed as a member of this club over the years.”