Category: Legends

Mark Vinson is a Registered Architect and Certified Planner with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in architecture from Arizona State University. Mark was the City of Tempe’s founding Historic Preservation Officer and was instrumental in the creation of Tempe’s first Historic Preservation Ordinance and Plan, while also serving as City Architect and Urban Design Manager. Mark has been a Faculty Associate at ASU and is now engaged in private practice as VinsonStudio PLLC, now celebrating its tenth anniversary with ongoing preservation projects in Tempe, Mesa and Florence.

Mark is the co-author of two award-winning books, Landmark Buildings: Arizona’s Architectural Heritage and And TiKo-Tu?  The Midcentury Architecture of Greater Phoenix’ East Valley. He is currently working on a new book featuring the architecture of Arizona’s state parks.

Mark is a member of the American Institute of Architects’ national College of Fellows and is a recipient of the Arizona Architects Medal, multiple Governor’s Honor Awards for Historic Preservation, the Arizona Preservation Foundation President’s Award and the ASU College of Architecture and Environmental Design Alumni Service Award.  His design for an accessory dwelling unit recently won the Best Small Footprint award in a competition sponsored by AARP and the City of Tempe.

Mark is a native of Arizona’s historic Clifton-Morenci mining district and now resides in a desert home of his own design, together with his wife, Linda, and two corgis.

Susie Isikawa Sato born in 1917, was a long-time staff member of the Arizona Historical Foundation at Arizona State University in Hayden Library. She and many others ran the Arizona Collection helping students and faculty members with their research needs long before the digital era had arrived. After navigating multiple sources of research there was Susie; the woman with a heart of gold and a sharp mind full of knowledge of Arizona history, the history of the Japanese in Arizona and her own family history. Susie had a knowledge of local history, especially the history of Mesa, and that was combined with her own history of struggle and hard work, Susie made others want to learn about the history of Arizona. Numerous students were successful in obtaining their A.A.s., B.A.s,,.M. A.s, and Ph.D’s in history because of Suse. Those same people went on to become seasoned professors and historians, important scholars and writers, teachers and public speakers due to Susie’s encouragement and nurturing. In addition, she was a published author and a long-term proponent of the Mesa Historical Society and the Mesa Public Library History Room.  Susie was Mesa’s first Pride in Mesa recipient in 1998.

The Honorable Cecil B. Patterson Jr. was the first African-American to be appointed a superior court judge in Maricopa County. He was sworn into that role in 1980. Former Arizona Governor J. Fife Symington appointed him to the State Court of Appeals in 1995, again the first Black in that position. The Virginia native graduated in 1963 from Hampton University, served five years in the U.S. Air Force and earned a law degree from Arizona State University. He worked as a public defender with Legal Services and later as chief counsel in the Human Services Division of the Arizona Attorney General’s Office. His judicial roles spanned trial divisions of both juvenile and criminal departments.  Judge Patterson, recipient of many awards, was a faculty associate for ASU’s College of Business Administration. He served as chair of the Valley of the Sun YMCA and chair of the Valley of the Sun United Way, He was a member of area NAACP Civil Rights Committee, and the boards of the Samarian Health Services, Maricopa County Red Cross, Arizona Academy board, Maricopa County Legal Aid Phoenix Urban League and Concerned Black Citizens of Tempe. He was elected moderator for the Presbytery of Grand Canyon. Formerly of Tempe, he lives in Chandler.

Samuel “Sammy” B. Muñoz, long-time educator in Tempe. He made a difference as an elementary school teacher for the Tempe Public Schools for more than 30 years, teaching 5^th and 6^th and middle-school grades. Growing up in Miami, Arizona, and upon graduating from Miami High School as an all-star player on the famed Miami Vandals’ basketball team, he moved to Tempe to attend Arizona State University, graduating with his bachelor’s degree in 1957, going on to earn his master’s degree from ASU at the age of 26. Highlights of his career as an innovative teacher in the Tempe District schools — he was already producing and writing in the school curriculum many musical plays as part of his classroom literature and arts curriculum. He is still remembered with genuine respect by his former students for his musical plays–including Mark Mitchell, former Tempe Mayor — and the son of Arizona Congressman, Harry Mitchell, also the former Tempe mayor! During his retirement years, Sammy returned to his love of basketball by joining the Senior Olympics Basketball team with his colleagues in Tempe, where he continued to be a standout. Sammy also wrote and authored the book, The Summer of 53: The Bullion Plaza Story, which was published in 2005; and its Second Edition was also in great demand. Sammy produced a short documentary film, So Dear to the Miners in 2013 recounting the history of Miami Arizona. He enjoyed being active in his community of Tempe, and he volunteered his teaching talents in both the Tempe and Phoenix area schools over the years. As a teacher, father of two daughters, grandfather to seven grandchildren and seventeen great-grandchildren, he was truly a renaissance man, filled with artistic,athletic, and musical talents.

David “Dave” Merkel was the city attorney for Tempe from 1967 to 1998, a time that spanned decades of robust growth and development. The native of Madison, Wis., would earn a bachelor’s degree in geology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1959. He moved on to legal studies at George Washington University School of Law. He earned his Juris of Law degree from the University of Arizona in 1965. That led to his being hired by Tempe.  He would serve under seven mayors until his retirement in 1998. Dave then became General Counsel for the League of Cities and Towns. His skills were lauded for shaping the legal framework for the unfolding evolution of Tempe and other cities.

David, who was admitted to practice before the United Sates Supreme Court, had membership in the International City’s Attorney’s Association and the Arizona Bar Association.

He freely served in community organizations, including the boards of Tempe Community Council, Tempe Community Action Agency (as general counsel), St. Luke’s Heath Initiative Board of Directors, Tempe Leadership Board, Tempe Governors, Tempe Diplomats and Tempe Chamber of Commerce Military Affairs Committee.

For more than a decade, he battled Parkinson’s Disease before his death on December 4, 2025.