School takes home three gold medals, team championship

See A-1 and see Math Contest, A-10

AJ Man Named ASU Professor Of The Year
James Elser awarded $20,000 prize
By Christina Fuoco-Karasinski
The News
Apache Junction resident James Elser was honored as Arizona State University’s 2009 Professor of the Year Thursday, April 16, for his work teaching biology to undergraduates.
   Elser was given the award at the Celebration of Teaching and Learning Excellence event in front of more than 250 ASU faculty, students, staff, administrators, parents and friends who gathered in the Memorial Union’s Arizona Ballroom.
   “It means I’m very lucky bebecause it’s hard to understand how they single someone out,” Elser said in an interview with The Apache Junction/Gold Canyon News.
   “There’s a lot of good professors at ASU.”
  An ASU professor since 1990, he was chosen from 39 colleagues as a true element of change—dedicated to solving the challenges of our time and inspiring his students to do the same. “When I look out into my classroom to a group a little bit bigger than this one, I start to think about who’s behind those students—the parents behind those students and my obligation to them,” Elser said in accepting the award. “And my obligation is to give them everything I have. What I especially have is a love of science and doors that science has opened for me over the years. I’d like to open the same doors for them.”
   Professor of the Year is funded through an endowment via the ASU Parents Association. In addition to the prestigious designations, the Professor of the Year receives $20,000— $10,000 of which funds undergraduate student assistance and is distributed over two years.
   Elser—who earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame, a master’s degree from University of Tennessee and a Ph.D. from University of California- Davis—said the $10,000 will “more than make up” for his furlough.

See A-1 and see Professor, A-9

Man Sought In School Burglary
Second man arrested in crimes at high school
By Christina Fuoco-Karasinski
The News
The Apache Junction Police Department is seeking the public’s help in locating a suspect in an April 11 burglary at Apache Junction High School during which numerous items were stolen including a school district vehicle.
   Andrew Stoliker is identified old, 200 pounds, with blue eyes and short grayish hair. He is wanted for investigation of auto theft, burglary, criminal damage to property and theft.
   Twenty-five-year-old Joshua Lee Larson of Apache Junction was arrested and charged with burglary, criminal damage to property and theft. He has been transferred to the Pinal County Detention Center in Florence where he is being held in lieu of $10,000 bond.
   According to police, Larson as a white male, 35 years old and Stoliker forcibly entered the school maintenance area and stole numerous items including a vehicle. The vehicle was later recovered and found to be partially stripped for parts. The initial estimate for the loss and damages to the school district was more than $30,000.
   Anyone that has any information regarding the whereabouts of Stoliker is requested to contact the Apache Junction Criminal Investigation Division at (480) 982-8260 or the Crime Stoppers Hotline at (480) 474-8585.

Prospectors Baseball Hits The ‘Bigs’
By Chuck Baker
The News
There’s an old saying in sports that playing to a tie is like kissing your sister. Unless, perhaps, that tie took place inside Chase Field, the home of the Arizona Diamondbacks.
   Approximately 45 minutes after the Diamondbacks defeated the Colorado Rockies 2-0 last Wednesday to win their first series of the MLB season, the Apache Junction Prospectors and Glendale Independence Patriots took to the diamond inside Chase Field, and with the roof closed, played the final game of an eight-game DBacks promotion where 16 Arizona high schools were given the thrill of a lifetime by playing a game on the same field as the pros.
   Independence struck first on Wednesday, scoring a run in the bottom of the second inning but the Prospectors bounced back with three runs in the top half of the third inning, the key hit a triple to the wall in center field by the Prospectors Josh Mullenix.
   Apache Junction then stretched its lead to 5-1 with two more runs in the fourth inning on a run-scoring single by Mike Caruana to score Gabe Weaver and a sacrifice fly off the bat of Nathan Higginbottom to score Caruana.
   Independence came back with two runs in both the fourth and fifth innings to tie the game and had two runners aboard with two outs in the bottom of the sixth inning when AJHS catcher Ryan Howard made a diving catch of a towering pop fly behind home plate while falling backward to end the game in a 5-5 tie.

See B-1 and see Chase, B-6

Your For-Sale-By-Owner Auto Plaza! Where the customer sells for more and buys for less.