Betty Binner Binner Nash

Elizabeth Montana (Betty) Binner Nash passed away on June 1, 2012; she was born on February 2, 1925 in Northampton, Mass. to Teresa Campanella and Roger Binner. At the time her father was completing his studies at Amherst College, and in the spring of that year they returned to Livingston Montana area where her mother had homestead in the early 1900’s. They establish the Binner Nursery on the outskirts of Livingston as well as an Art and Linoleum store downtown.

Do to her father’s illness (tuberculosis caused by being gassed in World War I) Betty and her “Pappy” (as she affectionately called him) started wintering in Phoenix so he could be in a drier climate. The family purchased 10 acres in what was known as Chandler Heights in 1929, and then settled there full time in the early 1930’s. A few years later they started the Chandler Heights Trading Post (operated it until the early 1950’s) and Binner Ranch Citrus Farm and Grove Service.

Betty learned to ride a horse at an early age and fell in love with the pristine desert area of the San Tan Mountains. During the summer when it was too hot to sleep she often would either hike or ride her horse all over the desert hunting rattlesnakes in the moonlight so she could collect their rattles. She would later recall that she sold her collection of rattles “for a pretty penny” to an ‘eastern gentleman’ who happened to stop by the Trading Post because he had heard they were an aphrodisiac.

Betty achieved her childhood dream of becoming a journalist and newspaper reporter when she started her own newspaper called the Chandler Heights Weekly in June of 1939 when she was fourteen years old. It consisted of two pages of activities, happenings and bits and pieces about the lives of the area’s families. Every Thursday after school, Betty rode her horse bareback from place to place to collect news items. Friday nights she would edit the text, type up her notes, and then run off 100 copies on a mimeograph machine. Saturday mornings she delivered the newspapers on horseback, charging 3 cents per delivered copy and 5 cents per mailed subscription. Later that year she was immortalized in her high school year book (the El Grito del Lobo) as one of the high schools’ “The Three Snoops.”

While still in High School, Betty wrote an editorial complaining about the County Board of Supervisors continued lack of concern for the poor road conditions between Chandler Heights and the surrounding towns. Every time it rained, the area residents were stranded until the water subsided because the area bridges were inadequate. She submitted it to the Phoenix Newspaper along with a photo of the local school bus loaded with students crossing a bridge which displayed a “1 ton only” warning sign. The story and photo were promptly picked up by the UPI (United Press International) and published all over the nation. Within a year of her story being published and ‘all weather road’ had been built by the County providing safe travel for the area residents.

She continued publishing her paper until graduating as Salutatorian from Chandler High School in 1942 and leaving to attend the University of Arizona. Her mother took over her publishing duties in her absence until she returned to Chandler Heights in 1946. She resumed her role as editor and publisher of the “Weekly” and working in the family businesses (the Chandler Heights Trading Post and the Binner Ranch Citrus Farm and Grove Service).

Also upon returning, Betty married Gaudern Fitzgerald and the following year her oldest son, John, was born. That marriage was short lived and she became a single parent in early 1949. Even though Betty’s love was journalism, she returned to school in 1948 attending ASU where she received a degree in elementary education because she knew running the “Weekly” wasn’t going to be enough to “put food on the table and a roof over their heads”.

After receiving her teaching credentials she was immediately hired to teach at the Old Jordan School in Mesa. At the time of her interview with the school superintendent she was asked a number of times how many years of Spanish classes she had taken in both high school and college. It wasn’t until the first day of school that she realized why she had repeatedly been asked that question; all of her students were from the families of the Mexican workers on the farms in the surrounding area. She instantly realized that the Castilian Spanish that she had been taught in high school and college was of little use. She decided the best way to handle the situation was to learn conversational Spanish from her students while at the same time teaching them to speak English. Betty later became the second teacher at the Chandler Heights Elementary School where first and second grades were taught in the same room.

In March of 1950, she married Sgt. Lee K. Nash of Iowa at Williams Air Force Base. Her second son, Roger, was born in 1952 and in the middle of the following year the family began moving around the country as the Air Force required. Early in 1956, Betty and her boys returned to Chandler Heights and were temporarily staying with her mother awaiting the birth of her baby as Lee had received orders for a tour of duty overseas. Lee was killed in an automobile accident in July of 1956, just 50 days before the birth of her third son, Walter.

After the death of her husband, Betty and her three young sons, stayed in Chandler Heights where she once again became active in community affairs throughout the southeast valley. She resumed her teaching career (part-time as a substitute teacher) and joined her mother in the management and operation of the Binner Ranch Citrus Farm and packing house operation in Chandler Heights and Higley. She also worked as an area correspondent for the Phoenix Gazette, The Arizona Republic, the Mesa Tribune, the Gilbert Enterprise, and wrote a weekly column for the Chandler Arizonan.

Then in the early 60’s, Betty with the assistance of her family, once again started editing and publishing the Chandler Heights Weekly Newspaper till the mid-seventies.

Wedding Bells chimed two more times for Betty (Bill Brannen / Dr.C.D.Lake), once in the mid-sixties and again in the mid-seventies, but both with little success.

In 1983, she was bit by the ‘newspaper bug’ once again and became an editor and publisher of the Chandler Heights Monthly Newspaper which covered the ‘San Tan Mountain Communities’ of Higley, Queen Creek, Chandler Heights and San Tan Valley. Betty sold the Chandler Heights Monthly to World Publishing in late 1996 for ten dollars and the promise she could continue to be editor. However less than two years later the publishing rights to her former Newspaper were sold to Gannett (publisher of USA Today and the Arizona Republic) which abruptly ended her 60 year career in the newspaper field.

In February 2010 on her 85th birthday, Betty was honored by her family and the friends of the San Tan Historical Society with a party at which time she was proclaimed by both the mayors of Gilbert and Queen Creek as a ‘Historic Treasure’ for her continued service as a historian, journalist, and community activist in the southeast valley..

Besides being an educator, a journalist, and community activist, she was also an author of several children’s stories along with having stories published in such magazines as Readers Digest, Guidepost, Field and Stream, and the Saturday Evening Post.

She was a life member of the American Legion Auxiliary where she held every elected office. She was a past president of the: Arizona Citrus Exchange Board, Chandler Heights Citrus Growers Association, Chandler Rod & Gun Club, Chandler Heights Citrus Irrigation District Board of Directors, and the Chandler Heights Civic Club. She was also Sunday School teacher, a Republican Precinct Committeeman, a Unit Leader in the Civil Defense Ground Observer Corp., a Cub Scout Den Mother, a founding member of the San Tan Historical Society, a member of the Chandler Woman’s Club, the International Order of the Rainbow for Girls, Arizona Farm Bureau, Desert Diggers Garden Club, the Chandler Heights Community Church Woman’s Guild and a former member of the Chandler Community Action Program Board of Directors.

She is survived by her three sons: John (Joanne), Redlands, CA; Roger (Kimberlee Sossaman), Queen Creek; and Walter (Pat), Chandler Heights; Nine grandchildren: Tammy (Kenny) Naylor, San Tan Valley, Carolyn (Gregory) Williams, WA, Joy Nash, CA, Rebekah Nash, Chandler, Joshua Nash, CA, John Parks, WA, Kenny Nash, San Tan Valley, Cameron Parks, Queen Creek, Tristan Nash, NY. and seven great-grandchildren: Austin Nash, Carmyn Naylor, Jenna Naylor, McKenna Naylor, Kayden Nash, Chloe Nash, Camryn Nash, all of San Tan Valley.

Visitation will be 9:30 am, with services at 10:30 am, Saturday, June 23, 2012 at the Valley of the Sun Mortuary Chapel, 10940 E. Chandler Heights Rd., Chandler, Arizona.

It was Betty’s wish that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the San Tan Historical Society (20425 S. Old Ellsworth Rd., Queen Creek, AZ 85142) to continue the preservation of the history of the San Tan Mountain communities.