Cowboy Santa and his merry elves, sitting tall in their saddles, help ensure that holiday spirit ran high during the Cowboy Christmas fundraiser put on recently by the Apache Junction Horse Rescue. Jim Moyle, president of the group, said that they “absolutely” considered the first-year event successful and are already beginning planning for next year’s annual celebration. Photo by Alex Bartholow.

Presentation of the colors during the recent opening ceremony of the Cowboy Christmas fundraising event for the Apache Junction Horse Rescue was performed by local military veterans accompanied by Civil War reenactors in costume. AJHR President Jim Moyle introduced guest speakers (l to r) Arizona District 23 Rep. Barbara McGuire, Lt. Tami Villar of the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office, Apache Junction Chief of Police Jerald Monahan and Apache Junction Fire District Chief Dan Campbell. It is planned that Cowboy Christmas will become an annual local celebration of the holiday season.

Hospital Preparing To Open
200 employee, 30-bed Arizona Regional Medical Center to be located at 2050 W. Southern Ave.
By Christina Fuoco-Karasinski
The News
Arizona Regional Medical Center, which is opening a location on Southern Avenue in January, has one goal in mind.
   “We just want to be good community partners,” said Brent Cope, chief executive officer of Arizona Regional Medical Center.
   “A successful hospital integrates into the community. We want to be a part of the community and build up the community in any way we can.”
   The 32,000 square-feet Arizona Regional Medical Center is putting its money where its mouth is. It will serve as the major sponsor of the 2010 Lost Dutchman Days.
   “Sponsorships like that are important,” Cope said in touring the facility located in the former Advanced Cardiac Specialists Building at 2050 W. Southern Ave., near Ironwood Drive. “We help each other and that’s what makes the community stronger.”
   Upon its opening, Arizona Regional Medical Center, which also has a location in Mesa, will have 200 employees, and 30 beds: 10 in the intensive care unit and 20 telemetry.
   “The telemetry has reference to the cardiac monitoring patients,” Cope said. “A patient leaves ICU, they just had open heart surgery or a cardiac stent, or they’re here for some complication and they have a heart situation. They just want to keep an eye on their heart. They put a monitoring pack on them and that’s called telemetry.”

See A-1 and see Hospital, A-8

Gold Canyon Business Frustrated With Crime
PCSO: No resources to monitor every building
By Christina Fuoco-Karasinski
The News
Daiton Rutkowski, chief executive officer of Gold Canyon Urgent Care, is frustrated.
   After a break-in and numerous subsequent attempts, thieves were successful Friday, December 18, in stealing a 36-inch flat screen TV from Rutkowski’s lobby at 6:57 a.m.
   “My alarm went off this morning in broad daylight,” Rutkowski said. “They smashed and grabbed the TV out of the front (lobby). We were broken into the first time while we were under construction.” But he isn’t just fed up with the thieves. It’s the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office that is making him angry.
   “We had bicycle tire tracks and perfect tennis shoe prints and they wouldn’t take pictures or anything,” Rutkowski said about the construction break in.
   “The sheriff even said, ‘I have an idea of who kids these might be.’
   I said, ‘Why don’t you take pictures of these tire prints and these shoes and check them out?’ The sheriff said, ‘No, we know who they are.’”
   Within the past five months, Rutkowski’s burglar alarm has gone off three or four times. Because the sheriff’s deputies couldn’t find any trace of burglars, Rutkowski was fined $275.

See A-1 and see Crime, A-9

A.J. Boys Soccer Beats Williams Field, 3-2
By Chuck Baker
The News
After a somewhat lackluster performance in the first half of their match with Williams Field this past Tuesday, and falling behind 2-0 at the break, the Prospector varsity soccer squad came out and played inspired ball the entire second half, perhaps the best forty minutes for an AJHS soccer team in their three-year existence, and rallied for a 3-2 victory at Davis Field.
   Apache Junction owned the second half of the match with an aggressive offense led by the play of Jair Ortiz, who scored the game-winning goal off of a penalty kick at the 13:51 mark of the second half, and fellow Prospectors, Kevin Martinez, Jose Medina, Kevin Angulo, Andrew Gyenizse, and Juan Jesse Gonzalez.
   Medina got the Prospectors on the scoreboard with his own successful penalty kick at 25:46 of the second half and then Angulo tied the match 2-2 after catching an indirect kick and pass from Ortiz in midair and blasting it past the Williams Field keeper.
   Ortiz’ game-winning penalty kick came as a result of a terrific pass from Gyenizse that put Jair in the open out in front of the Williams Field goal. Ortiz was tripped up from behind, leading to the penalty kick.

See B-1 and see Soccer, B-6