Fountain Hills Republican Club had two guest speakers at its monthly meeting in July.

Members welcomed a face from the past and for the future, Tom Horne. Additionally, Alex Kolodin spoke.

The future is because Tom Horne is a candidate for Arizona Superintendent for Public Instruction, a position he held for eight years back from 2003 to 2011. He was elected to that position after serving on the Paradise Valley School Board for more than 24 years, with 10 of those years as chairman of the board.

During his tenure as state superintendent, he put on notice districts that were not providing top quality instruction for students.

Horne also encouraged a major increase in the number of charter schools in the state to provide competition to public schools. He felt a ZIP code should not determine whether a child was to be successful at school, therefore, parents were provided with more school choices.

He soon discovered that in Tucson a course of ethnic studies was being taught. Horne had to use legal steps to gain access to the curriculum, which he calls the forerunner of Critical Race Theory.

Horne, who participated in Martin Luther King's 1963 March on Washington was not about to stand silent while this ideology was being taught. According to Horne, after learning the district would lose funding, the school board voted 4-1 to cancel the course.

Horne then introduced Social Studies Standards for all ages. Civics instruction was an essential part of that curriculum along with teaching even the youngest of children about countries from around the world. Horne was also a proponent for all day kindergarten. As a classically trained pianist he was an advocate of increasing arts and music education.

Horne said he achieved many goals in his previous tenure, and he plans to again to improve the quality of education for Arizona’s children.

Kolodin is running for what will be an open seat in the Arizona State House, representing LD 23.

Kolodin’s family moved to Arizona from New York when he was young. He grew up in Scottsdale and Chandler before attending college. On graduating, he took a teaching position instructing junior high school students in the subjects of civics and English.

After a bit he then headed east where he attended law school at the University of Pennsylvania. His conservative values evolved one summer while serving as Reagan Scholar at the Goldwater institute.

After working in someone else’s law firm for a few months he soon decided to strike out on his own. That milestone in his life began in 2008 and since then his firm has grown to where he now has five fellow lawyers onboard to help with the case load.

Kolodin has had political experience on an earlier national campaign before he himself jumped into the ring running for state senate in 2020.

Since then he has beaten Adrian Fontes, former County Recorder in the Arizona Supreme Court and represented both President Trump’s electors and the Arizona Audit as well as assisting the current State Legislature in their attempts to reform our elections systems.

He was insistent on transparency, certifying each time that the wording of the bills was in compliance with the articles of the Arizona State Constitution as well as that of the US Constitution.

Kolodin said he will not shy away from being blunt and straight forward when representing LD 23. As a small business owner himself that area is of great importance to him.

He said he is eager to win a seat in the state house so the state can take advantage of the great potential for strong statewide growth.

Kolodin was said to have given a “very passionate presentation” of why he should be elected and left a good impression with those attending the club meeting.