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Contact: Estella Zavala or Susan Cergol, 225-6437
Posted on: February 26, 2002

Blenman Elementary School, 1695 N. Country Club, will dedicate its new reading garden at 1:30 p.m. Friday, March 1. The reading garden will be dedicated to Ruth Rogers, a former Blenman employee, PTA president and parent of children who attended the school, who was killed in a car accident last year.

"Ruth’s obituary asked for donations to be sent to the Blenman playground fund," says Principal Bobbe Woods, explaining that Rogers served as a member of the school’s playground renovation committee. "She was loved by all for her sincerity and dedication to the school. As an honor to her, PTA chair Suzanne Schorr and I commissioned the construction of the garden in her memory."

Dr. Mary Belle McCorkle, TUSD Governing Board president, along with Blenman students and teachers, will participate in the dedication ceremony. Also in attendance will be Rogers’ husband, Stead; their children, Sally and Hank; her mother, Rita Jones; brother, Kevin; and sisters Bonnie Lester and Kiley Degreen.

Chandra Lear-Hershey, a Tucson artist, worked with fourth- and fifth-grade students at the school to design a reading mural for the library wall adjacent to the garden. The six-foot panels now hang in the cafeteria awaiting the completion of the garden.