Udall, Stewart

Born in St. Johns

Lived in St. Johns, Tucson, Phoenix

Graduate of University of Arizona

(Stewart Lee Udall 1920.01.31-    )  Secretary of Interior, Congressman, lawyer.

Stewart Udall was born and grew up in St. Johns, a rural Arizona community near the New Mexico border which was founded by a group of Mormons lead by his grandfather.  He attended the University of Arizona but his studies were interrupted for service first as a Mormon missionary in New York and Pennsylvania for two years, and then as a gunner in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. 

Underhill, Don

Lives in Summerhaven

(1941.09.05-    )  Original Mouseketeer, lodge owner.

Don was one of the 39 original Mouseketeers.  The Mouseketeers, you will recall, populated Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Club, which ran on ABC Television from 1955 to 1959.  If you remember the Mouseketeers, you might not remember Don, but surely you remember his lifelong friend from the club, Annette Funicello (1942-    ).

Annette was the stand-out Mouseketeer, and went on to went on to major parts in Disney movies like The Shaggy Dog (1959) and Babes in Toyland (1961) as well as a seemingly endless number of "beach blanket" movies where she was often paired with Frankie Avalon.  In 1987 she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and has since eschewed the spotlight.

Don moved to the village of Summerhaven, on Mt. Lemon in the Catalina Mountains.  The village is 6000 feet above, and 25 miles northeast of Tucson.  There he purchased the Alpine Lodge, which caters to skiers in the winter and those seeking to get away from the desert heat in the summer.  The lodge was built in 1962, and was the largest building in the village of Summerhaven.  In 2003, the community had about 500 homes and cabins, and about 100 year round residents.

On June 22, 2003, half of the village was destroyed by a forest fire in one of the single most destructive days in Arizona history.  Not knowing which structures might have survived, Don and other residents vowed to rebuild.