Log in

Rio Verde adjusting to younger residents

Posted 2/6/14

(Editor’s Note: This week we start a three-week series looking at the community of Rio Verde to the north of Fountain Hills. Much has changed over the years, but a true sense of community still …

You must be a member to read this story.

Join our family of readers for as little as $5 per month and support local, unbiased journalism.


Already have an account? Log in to continue.

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.

Sincerely,
Charlene Bisson, Publisher, Independent Newsmedia

Please log in to continue

Log in
I am anchor

Rio Verde adjusting to younger residents

Posted

(Editor’s Note: This week we start a three-week series looking at the community of Rio Verde to the north of Fountain Hills. Much has changed over the years, but a true sense of community still resonates in Rio Verde.)

Walk into the library at the Rio Verde Community Center and immediately to the right there is a museum display case that includes a diorama and artifacts dating back 1,000 years.

The artifacts were excavated in 1991 prior to the construction of Rio Verde’s sister community, Tonto Verde. These pieces of history and the diorama provide a glimpse of how people lived at this same location along the Verde River 10 centuries ago.

An area designated as the Aztlan Historic Site lies between the eastern boundary of Rio Verde and the Verde River. It was home to a fairly large community of native people.

They lived off the land and even enjoyed their own leisure activities; witness a ball court just north of the boundary of the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation. That ball court could translate to the modern day Rio Verde Tennis Club or the bocce ball courts that are springing up in back yards in present day Rio Verde.

Those ancient people came here for the proximity to water and reasonably good land to grow food. They enjoyed the same scenic vistas that drew many current Verde residents to the area.

In fact, except for the occasional ranch site, the entire landscape of the area was much the same in the late 1960s when Rio Verde investors first arrived as it was for that ancient community.

Rio Verde resident, author and historian Bob Mason knows well the story of the area and the bond with those early inhabitants.

“This is a grand and wonderful place,” Mason said. “We first saw it in 1975, and there has been nothing to change our minds since.”

Mason and his wife Dorothy are among the handful still remaining in the community after 35-40 years.

Much has changed.

People moving in now are the same age as the Masons’ children. In fact, Jan Stegmann who lives next door to the Masons, discovered that Bob and her father had graduated from the same class at Kansas State University, although they did not know one another.

One generation to the next, one millennium to the next, does not seem to change the spirit in Rio Verde.

Mason has high praise for his younger neighbors.

“We have always felt there were wonderful people here,” Mason said. “We see the younger people as the same type of folks.

“They are cut out of the same cloth, and that speaks well for the community.”

No matter the generation, the acclamation for the neighborly spirit is nearly unanimous.

Mike and Kathy Neuhengen moved to Rio Verde about a year ago from Madison, Wis. and were quick to recognize the Midwest hospitality with which they are familiar.

“I was impressed,” Kathy Neuhengen said. “You would just walk down the street and people walking, even driving by, would stop to say hello and welcome you.”

Tom Stegmann relates similar experiences.

He and Jan took their time deciding on how to refurbish their home. He said they would often be passing by a house and see an idea they wanted to know more about.

“You could just knock on the door and people would show you around,” Tom said.

That would not happen in San Jose, where they moved from. He said neighbors there do not interact much.

The Stegmanns were splitting time between San Jose and Rio Verde until it got to the point they asked themselves, “Why are we doing this?”

“When it got harder and harder to leave and go back (to San Jose) we knew it was time to move here permanently.”

The Neuhengens are avid golfers, and when they decided to retire they began looking at a lot of places.

They came here on a “stay and play” golf vacation and knew they wanted to retire in Arizona. As they met people while looking at potential homes, their ultimate destination became clear to them.

“It was amazing how quickly we were welcomed into the community,” Kathy said. “People are just so gosh darn nice.

“We were introduced at an annual meeting as new members, and when we left the meeting there was literally a line outside waiting to welcome us.”

In the 1980s and ‘90s there was an annual tradition of a tour coming to Rio Verde with visitors from Minnesota and other Midwest locales.

The tours were hosted by Jane Mooty, the wife of the development’s founder John Mooty.

The “Mooty Group” tours were put together with friends inviting friends for a week of fun and golf in the Arizona sun.

While the tradition of the Mooty Group has passed, word-of-mouth discovery continues to be a mainstay of marketing for Rio Verde.

Michelle Holcomb, owner and Broker for Fore Peaks Realty, came here at the invitation of her sister Darlene Dailey and her husband, Roger.

When Michelle and Gary Holcomb eventually settled in Rio Verde they invited Gary’s brother, Arillus, and his wife, Cindy, and they eventually settled down in Rio Verde.

Over the past four decades the faces are changing and getting younger. The homes they are moving into are in need of updates to adjust to younger lifestyles and modern amenities.

Next week we learn more about the lengths some residents, like the Stegmanns, have gone to make their new house their home.