A visual blog of printed matter produced by students, from 1951 to 1981 in Casa Grande, Arizona, and other related material.
Monday, June 23, 2025
Saturday, June 21, 2025
Alumnus: Gary Wayne Sellers, 1953–2025
Thursday, May 29, 2025
Alumnus: Sandra Faye Alston, 1953–2025
Class of 1971
Dignity Memorial
Sandra Faye Alston
December 30, 1953 – May 16, 2025
Sandra F. Alston, of Casa Grande, entered her final destination with our Lord and Savior on May 16, 2025, after a courageous five-month battle with uterine cancer.
Sandra F. Alston was born in St. Louis, Missouri to her parents Ed and Wanda Alston on December 30, 1953. They moved to Stanfield, Arizona in 1954 when she was just 11 months old, searching for the “white gold” everyone was looking for in those days. When she was just a little girl, her parents bought, and operated Moore’s Grocery store located on Main Street in Casa Grande where she grew up and was instrumental in helping her parents run their business. Although biologically an only child, her parents took in two of her cousins and raised them as their own. She lovingly called them “scuzzins” (sisterly cousins of course).
Sandra was incredibly close to her mother and at age 19 she found herself getting ready to be a mother as well. She devoted herself to her daughter, Melanie, until the day she died. Upon her parents’ retirement (and the sale of Moore’s Grocery) in 1985, Sandra needed to find another occupation, so her father sent her to beauty school. She spent the next 35 years as a Nail Technician, starting out at Deanna’s Shear Radiance and moving to TLC Salon in 1988 where she remained until retirement. Her career led to many wonderful friendships throughout the years, friends that she couldn’t live without, like Stella, Cynthia, Janice, Stacey, Karen, Cheryse, Linda and Madonna to name a few.
There were so many beautiful characteristics that made up Sandra’s DNA. She was devoted to her life partner, Jim Clark, her family and her friends. She was a faithful servant of our Lord, and her heart of gold was something everyone benefited from. Her sense of humor made an entire room erupt in laughter and she possessed a true servant’s heart which came out through her delicious cooking and baking from scratch. Her phenomenal recipes will live on through her grandchildren, but her patience and teaching them to cook will be sorely missed.
The only thing Sandra enjoyed more than motherhood was being a Memaw to her four grandchildren. She had a way of making DJ, Sierra, Sheyne and Savannah feel as though they were each her favorite, spending time with each of them on a one-on-one basis.
Sandra is preceded in death by her parents; sisterly cousins, Mary Burden and Jeanette Alston; and her half-brother, Billy Alston. She is survived by her daughter, Melanie and beloved son-in-law, David; her grandchildren, Darrin (Jessica) Durant, Sierra Durant (Allaina Elliston), Sheyne Bradley (Martii Sullivan) and Savannah Bracken. She is survived by three great-grandchildren as well as her life partner of 20+ years, Jim Clark.
A celebration of Sandra’s life will be held on May 30th, 2025, at 9:30 a.m. at J. Warren Funeral Services, 525 N Peart Road, Casa Grande, Arizona 85122. Sophia Cossins, Sandra’s friend and minister, will officiate. We will escort Sandra to her final resting place at Mountain View Cemetery and a reception for friends and family will follow at Su Casa Grande Mexican Grill & Cantina, 804 Cacheris Court, Casa Grande, Arizona 85122.
Saturday, April 26, 2025
Alumnus: Jed Gould, 1955–2025
With his off-kilter sensibility and deep musical grounding, he brought attention to New Wave and alternative artists at the groundbreaking station KROQ.
Jed Gould, the influential Los Angeles disc jockey known as Jed the Fish, who used his off-kilter sensibility and deep musical knowledge to shine a light on artists like the Cure, Depeche Mode and the Offspring at the groundbreaking New Wave and alternative rock station KROQ-FM in the 1980s and ’90s, died on April 14 at his home in Pasadena, Calif. He was 69.
The cause was an aggressive form of small-cell lung cancer, Rudy Koerner, a close friend, said. Mr. Gould was never a cigarette smoker, he added, and before he was diagnosed last month, he had thought his recent violent coughing fits were related to the Los Angeles wildfires.
For decades, Mr. Gould served as a trusted musical savant — and drive-time friend — to young Angelenos, particularly members of Generation X. He also influenced future broadcasting stars.
In a social media post after Mr. Gould’s death, Jimmy Kimmel, who worked on the morning show at KROQ early in his career, described him as “a legend.” On his podcast, Mr. Kimmel’s old sidekick on “The Man Show,” Adam Carolla, a former host of the relationship show “Loveline” on KROQ, called Mr. Gould “an icon.”
With his boyish energy, free-ranging musical tastes and maniacal cackle, Mr. Gould helped lead a radio revolution at the maverick KROQ, based in Pasadena, starting in the late 1970s.
At a time when FM rock stations were dominated by hyper-produced corporate juggernauts like Styx and Foreigner, KROQ became a sensation for its “Roq of the ’80s” format, which shimmered with fresh sounds from New Wave bands like Talking Heads and Devo, synth-pop groups like the Human League and Spandau Ballet, and local heroes like X and the Go-Go’s.
“Jeddum Fishum,” as he sometimes referred to himself, and his fellow KROQ jocks brought a sense of anarchy to the airwaves, cracking irreverent jokes and dropping in audio snippets — like deadpan Jack Webb lines from “Dragnet” — at well-timed moments in the middle of songs, often with hilarious results.
Mr. Gould and his colleagues were in the “right place at the right time,” he wrote on LinkedIn. “We were leading the way but had no idea.”
Following a broadcasting philosophy that he called “consistent inconsistency,” Mr. Gould manned the afternoon slot at the station. His droll humor and his knack for musical surprises served as a needed tonic for a captive audience creeping along sclerotic freeways for hours that felt more like days.
“It took me years of imitation before I learned the simplicity of being myself on the air,” he wrote. “Turns out this was a wacky position to take, but people seem to like the honesty behind it.”
That prime post-lunch slot gave Mr. Gould a powerful platform for promoting new acts and hotly anticipated releases. “Because Jed was on from 2P to 6P, immediately following our music meeting, he would often do the honors of world-premiering new music,” Andy Schuon, a former KROQ program director, wrote in a tribute on LinkedIn.
In a social media post, Noodles, the guitarist for the Southern California punk-pop band the Offspring, wrote that Jed the Fish was the first D.J. to play the band’s 1994 breakout hit, “Come Out and Play,” “which changed our band’s trajectory in ways we never thought possible.”
With a personality that was “insane in all the best ways,” as Noodles put it, Mr. Gould was all too willing to defy convention. During a recent video tribute by former KROQ colleagues, Mr. Schuon recalled listening to Jed the Fish for more than an hour while driving to the office and noticing that he did not once mention the station’s call letters, a standard practice for D.J.s that was crucial for ratings.
When Mr. Schuon pressed him on the apparent oversight, Mr. Gould responded: “Everyone knows if I’m on the station, it must be KROQ. Who else would hire me?”
Edwin Fish Gould III was born on July 15, 1955, in Los Angeles, to Edwin Fish Gould Jr., a salesman for a valve-and-fittings company, and Joan (Hall) Gould. He grew up in the beach communities of Orange County before his family moved to Casa Grande, Ariz.
In high school, he hosted a local radio program for teenagers until he was fired for reading George Carlin’s famous “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” monologue on the air.
He graduated from high school in 1973 and enrolled at the University of Southern California, where he received a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism. After college, he held a series of jobs at Los Angeles-area radio stations before landing a position at KROQ in 1978. His application consisted of a crude punk-style pink flyer that featured a picture of himself in a white leotard scrunched up in a chair and an offer to work “30 hours per week or less 90 day max FUR FREE!”
It was not long before he was helping to orchestrate the chaos in the studio. In a 2001 oral history of the station, he said that for an outsider to ask about the early history of KROQ would be like saying, “‘Tell me about Vietnam’ or ‘Tell me about the French Revolution.’ No one will ever know all of it.”
As it turned out, there was plenty about Mr. Gould that his listeners did not know. At one point in the mid-1980s, he said in the oral history, he left KROQ after he was kicked out of the Betty Ford Center for stealing a car to buy drugs.
He returned, but he was pulled off the air again when he was arrested on suspicion of possession of heroin and drug paraphernalia in March 1989. After more than two months in a detox center, he once again assumed his spot at the microphone.
“In the old days, I’d just shoot a bunch of dope, go on the air and do anything,” he said in an interview the next year with The Los Angeles Times, while discussing his newfound commitment to sobriety. “I’d developed my crazy style as a result of getting high. But now it comes out of being me. I’m more clearheaded and more focused.”
Mr. Gould worked at KROQ until 2012 and later moved to two other local stations, KCSN-FM and KLOS-FM. In 2019, he joined the “Roq of the ’80s” Sunday night show on KROQ’s HD2 station.
He is survived by a half brother, Tony Chatterton.
Throughout his career, Mr. Gould strove to keep the spirit of the music alive in his work behind the microphone. “When a DJ is playing music we expect you to dance to, I think it’s important for the DJ to dance,” he wrote on his professional site in 2018.
“It’s not that I’m a lithe and dainty dancer,” he added. “No one who incorporates a golf swing into their dance moves should be considered dainty. I just believe anyone in charge of the music should move with it.”
Related Post
Alumnus: Jed Gould (Class of 1973) aka Jed the Fish
Alumnus: Debbie Enke, 1953–2025
April 24, 2025
Debbie Enke Gundry, of Chandler, Arizona passed away suddenly on April 17, 2025 at the age of 71. She was born June 25, 1953 in Tucson, Arizona, daughter of the late Fred and Majorie Enke of Casa Grande.
Debbie was a loving wife to her high school sweetheart, Jeff Gundry, for 47 years and a devoted mother of 3 sons; Bryce (Tonya), Eric (Brenda) and Chad (July 30th–July 31, 1987). She was also the best NayNay there ever was to her 6 grandchildren; Payton, Liam, Brooklyn and Brynlee (Eric/Brenda Gundry Family) Noah and Eli (Bryce/Tonya Gundry Family).
In Debbie’s words, “I Love, Love, LOVE my children and grandchildren!” She never missed an opportunity to show up to their sporting and school events, having sleepovers, or just telling anyone and everyone how amazing they are!
Debbie was such a loving and caring sister to Diana (Jack) Keller, Denise (Greg) Cameron and Freddie W. Enke Jr. and so loving and supportive of her many nieces and nephews and all the family. She stayed connected to all of Jeff’s family in various states, taking road trips to visit many times.
Besides her faith, family was the most important thing to Debbie, always wanting everyone to be together. To know Debbie, was to also know her family, whether you actually knew them personally or not!
She was very proud of her Enke heritage, being the granddaughter of the UA basketball coach, Fred A Enke and daughter of UA “Ring of Honor” recipient and NFL player, Fred W. Enke. However, ASU was the University she loved. Graduating with a Bachelor’s Degree in Education, and Master’s Degree all while working and taking care her boys, she said, “I did it the hard way, but got ’er done!” And she was SO proud.
Debbie became a teacher, as she always wanted to be, first in the Chandler School District and the next 26 years in the Kyrene School District. She taught 2nd and 3rd grade at Monte Vista for 10 years, then realizing the younger kids didn’t understand her silly sarcasm, she moved to middle school at Aprende. She taught Math one year then 6th grade Science for the remaining 16 years of her career. She was loved by all students and colleagues and had so many everlasting friendships. In 2015, she retired from teaching after 28 wonderful years. Although it didn’t actually end there because Debbie continued on as a regular substitute teacher. She truly loved her career.
No one loved retirement more than Debbie. She took every opportunity to travel with Teacher friends and High School friends, as well as a fun “Sister Trip” to Italy, France & Switzerland. A highlight was an incredible trip when she and Jeff traveled to Israel and were baptized in the Jordan. Most favorite were the many trips to Las Vegas to see her “Vegas babies”, often taking Noah & Eli with them so all cousins could be together. That’s how important family was to her.
Debbie loved her busy, fun packed life; taking care of her grandchildren with their events, jumping places, and Phx Science Ctr. She stayed connected to her abundant friends through happy hours and 3-hour long breakfasts! Growing her faith was important to her as she joined a Women’s Bible Study at her church. She loved the teachings and the friendships made and it quickly became one of her favorite places to be.
Debbie loved fiercely, and gave so much of her heart and soul to those who knew her. You could have known her for 5 minutes, yet felt like a lifelong friend. She has impacted so many with her smile and willingness to listen intently. Her compassion, zest, and joy for life and the sincerity in which she lived, were contagious to those around her.
It is hard to imagine life without our Debbie, but as she would say, “It’s an AdvenTURE”!!!
Thank you to all of the heartfelt sentiments and prayers!
Celebration of Debbie’s Life:
May 17, 2025 at 10:00 a.m.
Arizona Community Church.
9325 S. Rural Rd Tempe, Az 85284.
Thank you to The Whitney & Murphy Bueler Mortuary for their great care provided.
In lieu of flowers, donations in Debbie’s honor can be made to the Kyrene School foundation or Arizona Community church.
Wednesday, April 2, 2025
Tuesday, April 1, 2025
Alumnus: Charlene Lee, 1947–2025
The family of Charlene Lee (Shough) Siddens of San Jose is saddened to share news of her passing on January 12th, 2025 at 77 years of age.
Born in Texas, Charlene moved to Casa Grande, Arizona as a young girl. She attended the University of Arizona before earning her Doctor of Medicine from the University of California, San Francisco in 1972.
Dr. Shough practiced pediatrics for over 40 years at Valley Medical Center and in private practice. She formed lifelong friendships with many of the doctors and nurses she worked with. Dr. Shough loved caring for children and gave special support to her diabetic patients.
In her retirement, following her marriage to Tom Siddens, Charlene enjoyed painting, reading, and traveling. She was especially fond of Paris.
Charlene’s children will remember her as a talented and hardworking supermom who was warm, intelligent and creative, instilled in them a lifelong love of learning and literature, and made sure they ate their vegetables.
Predeceased by her husband Tom, parents Charles and Helen Lee, and brother Allen, Charlene is survived by her children Ryan and Maren and their spouses, her four beloved grandchildren, and her dear sister Malynda.
A memorial service will be held at 2pm on Sunday, February 23rd at the San Jose Woman’s Club, 75 South 11th Street, San Jose. Memorial donations may be made to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.