Trimble, Marshall

(1939-    )  Singer, historian, author, teacher.

Born in Kyrene (Tempe)

Lived in Lehi, Ashfork, Phoenix; lives in Scottsdale

Attended West Phoenix High School & Phoenix College

Our Official State Historian has published more than a dozen books about--where else--Arizona.  8-02.

One doesn't have to be born in Arizona to write books and sing ballads about Arizona, but it probably helps.  When Marshall was born his family was living on a small livestock ranch south of Tempe.  In 1955 the Trimbles moved to outside of Ash Fork where Marshall, his two brothers and his parents lived in a two room trailer without running water.  Commenting on the cramped quarters he says that he never slept alone--until he got married.

Trimble has been a Marine, a semi-pro baseball player, a folk singer, a banquet speaker, and, since 1972, a teacher of Arizona history at Scottsdale Community College.  At the urging of his students, he wrote his first book, Arizona: A Panoramic History of a Frontier State (1977).  Over a dozen books followed including A Roadside History of Arizona (1986), Arizona A Calvalcade of History (1990--pictured above), It Always Rains After a Dry Spell (1999), and Never Give A Heifer A Bum Steer (1999).

In 1997 Governor Fife Symington appointed Marshall Trimble as Arizona's Official State Historian.  As it turned out, this was one of the governor's last official acts since he was convicted later in the year on seven counts of fraud.