Tyler Petcher, a 2009 graduate of Mountain Pointe High School, graduated May 12 from the University of Illinois in Champaign, Ill., with a bachelor’s degree in chemical/biomolecular engineering. He has accepted a position in Illinois as a field service engineer at a wastewater and reuse company.

I’d like to thank Bryan Brinkley (“Richardson’s arguments are absurd,” AFN May 3) for taking the time to respond to the “absurd” arguments in my many gun control articles.

I sympathize with Ben Holt (president of Save The Lakes) and the owners of homes along The Lakes Golf Course, they have been given the “proverbial screw” by the owners. Hopefully, it can be turned into a “park-like” area, then with the money he saves by closing this course, Wilson Gee (golf course owner) can improve the Ahwatukee Country Club course back to what it was when I purchased my home in 1999. Mr. Gee, go take a look at the Whirlwinds just south of Ahwatukee to see what a golf course should look like.

I enjoyed Dennis Tierney’s commentary (“Limiting magazine sizes just a step in trying to reduce gun violence,” AFN, March 31), which responds to my earlier commentary. His arguments appear thoughtful and completely reasonable.

The national law firm of Quarles & Brady LLP announced that 22 of its local attorneys have been named by Southwest Super Lawyers magazine as among the top 5 percent of attorneys in Arizona for 2013. Included among them is Jon E. Pettibone, who is both an Ahwatukee resident and office managing partner for the firm. Pettibone’s practice experience includes advising management on labor and employment strategies and representing it before federal and state courts and agencies, before arbitrators and in collective bargaining.

Registration opens April 27 at 10:30 a.m. for Phoenix Parks and Recreation Department summer programs including full-day supervised recreation programs at 13 sites to keep kids engaged, active and safe over the summer break. The full-day programs will start June 3 and run through the end of July. In addition to the full-day programs, centers also are offering a large selection of general interest classes and sports programs. Many smaller centers also are offering free, drop-in programs during the summer.

Just a few months shy of the nationally ranked charter school’s opening of its newest location in Ahwatukee, BASIS will be offering two informational meetings for parents and the community.

In recent national news, three major car crashes claimed the lives of 15 teenagers in Ohio, Illinois and Texas. Unfortunately, that is more of a common occurrence than we realize, and those are just the ones that made national news. The Governor’s Highway Safety Association (GHSA) recently reported that teenage driver fatalities were up in 2012 from previous years. Until now, the numbers were beginning to trend downwards and many attributed it to Graduated Drivers License (GDL) Laws that were being enacted around the country.

Diane Brown, executive director of the Arizona PIRG Education Fund (formerly New Jersey’s and Illinois’ PIRG executive director), fails to mention (“SRP needs to provide vision, advance energy efficiency,” AFN, March 29) that Salt River Project (SRP) meets and exceeds all FERC, NERC, and EPA (FED government agencies) regulations and SRP provides lower utility rates than “regulated utilities” in Arizona.

"There’s a sucker born every minute” was originally coined by David Hannum, but we all associate it with P.T. Barnum, which proves the point that anyone can be a victim of scams and hoaxes if the line is made believable enough and the person being scammed wants to believe it. Such is the case with a scam currently being run by a group claiming to be from Microsoft but who are, in reality, salespeople.

It took a special meeting but the football schedules are near finalization.

Have a long list of home improvement projects? Don’t know where to start?

Have a long list of home improvement projects? Don’t know where to start?

The final tally is in, and the third annual Indians/Reds Celebrity Golf Classic raised $21,586.40, an increase of about $7,000 over last year, according to tournament officials.

Now that the Chicago Cubs have secured a spring-training home in Mesa well into the future, the East Valley will soon welcome to the area the first of possibly many in a long line of Windy City favorites: Portillo’s Hot Dogs.

Dale M. Knight, 56, financial sales executive from Phoenix, suffered an aortic dissection and stroke on Monday, March 4, and died at 3:55 p.m. on Tuesday, March 5, at Chandler Regional Hospital.

The Mountain Pointe baseball team is hot right about now.