The Arizona Farm Bureau will be honored for its “Campaign School,” which helps those seeking public office to prepare and execute their campaigns. Farm Bureau trained 18 political candidates, their spouses, managers and volunteers. Topics included candidacy announcement, filing paperwork, public and private funding, budgets and raising money, role of the campaign manager, working with the press, using polls and targeting voters. Of the 11 candidates who took the school, eight won their primaries and six won in the general election. The award is the 2004 Arizona Society of Association Executives Award of Excellence (AzSAE) in the education category. It will be presented at the group’s holiday gala and awards dinner on Dec. 7. The AzSAE is the professional organization for persons engaged in the management of voluntary trade, professional and charitable organizations in Arizona. Founded in 1962, AzSAE represents more than 170 organizations. Membership also includes 130 companies that provide services or products to associations.

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Cynthia Matus-Morriss, immediate past-president of the Arizona School Boards Association, has been elected to the Board of Directors of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund. Ms. Matus-Morrriss has been a member of the Patagonia Elementary Governing Board since 1989, and president of that board since 1990. The NALEO Educational Fund helps Latinos to participate fully in the American political process. It is a national nonprofit, nonpartisan group whose constituency includes the more than 6,000 Latino elected and appointed officials nationwide. The Arizona School Boards Association is a nonprofit group governed by its members. Its mission is to provide leadership and assistance to school district governing boards for the improvement of student achievement and the promotion of locally elected lay control of public education.

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John Henry Smith has been selected as the 2004 State Star of the Arizona Small Business Development Center (SBDC) Network. Mr. Smith is a business analyst at the Maricopa Community Colleges Small Business Development Center in Phoenix. He was chosen for showing a strong commitment to small business in the Valley. In 2003, 3,641 clients were served by the 10 centers, in Casa Grande, Flagstaff, Kingman, Prescott, Show Low, Sierra Vista, Phoenix, Thatcher, Tucson, Payson, and Yuma. The Arizona SBDC is a program of the Academic Affairs Division at the Maricopa Community Colleges. The SBDC Network is the Small Business Administration’s largest partnership program, providing management and technical assistance to help Americans start and operate their own businesses.

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The Pima County Superior Court has been honored by the Volunteer Lawyers Program (VLP) as one of three recipients of the 2004 Streich Lang Award for a project involving child support payments. Also honored at a Nov. 18 lunch were the Pima County Bar Association and the Community Services Administration of the Department of Economic Security. The three groups were selected to receive the award based upon support of the VLP’s Child Support Calculation Clinic. Under the supervision of an attorney, the clinic allows law students to review the pleadings of litigants at domestic default hearings. The students ensure that those persons have calculated their child support accurately. The VLP expects that the project will help nearly 500 clients and their children receive appropriate support in 2004. The Streich Lang Award was named for the law firm of Streich Lang in 1997 after the firm donated funds raised by participants in its casual days tradition to the Volunteer Lawyers Program.