Monthly Archives: February 2017

Arizona Capitol Museum opens exhibit on Gov. Symington

KTVK

Several news outlets are reporting that the Arizona Capitol Museum has launched a new exhibit on former Governor Symington. Thursday, February 9 marked the first day of the exhibit in the museum’s annex located at 1700 W. Washington St. in Phoenix.

3TV KTVK has more information on what the exhibit will include:

The museum says personal mementoes and a trove of family history items that Symington found in a trunk belonging to his mother form the exhibit’s centerpiece.

Other items include political campaign material and Symington’s Bronze Star from his military service during the Vietnam War.

Read the rest of the article here.

Arizona Historian Jack August Passes Away

Arizona Republic, New Times, News

From last month came some sad news: celebrated Arizona historian Jack August Jr. passed away on January 20. August had been working on a biography of former Governor Symington that was apparently nearly two-thirds complete.

From the Arizona Republic article:

He also “pursued” Republican former Gov. Fife Symington for six or seven years in the hope of writing his life story, says Symington, who adds that he initially was not interested in the project.

Then he met Jack.

“I decided I really liked him,” said Symington. The two began working together about three years ago and became good friends.

And from the New Times article:

“He was into every aspect of my life,” Symington explains. “He’s such a unique person. It would be very, very difficult for anyone to kind of pick it up and keep going. I’m really going to miss him.”

[…]

But the good professor — whose death now is mourned by Arizona’s political elite, from Republican Secretary of State Michele Reagan to Phoenix’s Democratic Mayor Greg Stanton — was at heart a Phoenix boy, who never lost the common touch, and was as much at home with paupers as with princes.