New parks, animal services, national recognitions and plenty of new businesses: Regardless of the metrics, Marana is a premier place to live, work and play.

The Marana Town Council once again has seven members after last week’s regular session.

Marana High School’s robotics team is the 10th-best rookie team in the world. Team 7214, AKA Tiger-OPS, won this distinction after competing at Northern Arizona University last month. 

For a tense 70 seconds, Thornydale Elementary was a goner. After a roll call vote on closing the community school, Board President Tom Carlson stated the results: 3-1 in favor of the closure. 

Carol McGorray’s daughter shared memories of fudgesicles at the beach, Sunday donuts after church, reading the newspaper in her childhood living room—or rather squabbling over the comics section with her siblings—and even witnessing the birth of a baby goat.

The Marana Town Council unanimously agreed to changes that make it easier for developers to invest in its future downtown.

Just because they’re number one doesn’t mean they can’t have fun, too. 

Last week, we said goodbye to Councilmember Carol McGorray. Marana said goodbye to a great champion who loved this community. Many of us said goodbye to a dear friend. 

Students from Estes Elementary School joined their parents and teachers to participate in Walk ‘n’ Roll to School Day last Friday, April 6. The event encourages active ways for children to get to school, and to improve air quality and safety around schools and neighborhoods.

The Marana Town Council is accepting applications for the council seat that’s open due to the death of Councilmember Carol McGorray.

Tears and heartfelt pleas dominated the Marana Unified School District Board Meeting last week as over 300 people squeezed into Thornydale Elementary School to discuss its possible closure. Many were wearing shirts that read #SaveThornydale. There was still a line out the door into the parki…

The residents of Marana will once again weigh in on the town’s future by electing several members of the town council. This year, Vice Mayor Jon Post and Councilmembers Herb Kai and Patti Comerford and Jon Post are up for re-election.

The hits kept coming for the Marana Tigers on a toasty Friday afternoon in the shadows of the Tucson Mountains. 

Mountain View High School visited Ironwood Ridge High School last Thursday for girls tennis. Mountain View fell 3-5, with one match called for darkness.

Baseball: 

Carol McGorray was the very foundation of the Community Food Bank in Marana.

Last July, the Town of Marana began providing animal services to the community, and the strategy has proved to be a success. The animal services division has been working with the Marana community for over seven months, providing high levels of customer service.

The Marana Town Council unanimously approved replacing the town’s current public safety communications system with the Pima County Wireless Integrated Network radio system, or PCWIN, joining 34 public safety organizations across the county.

Students from Mountain View High School teamed up to raise money for childhood cancer research at the beginning of the month. 

The Marana Police Department recently presented its first Tri-Star Level 3 certificate of compliance to the El Memorial de Don Frew Apartments and Property Manager Ronnisha Perkins. 

Most people believe bats primarily live in caves, but the concrete crevices under the old Ina Road bridge in Marana have provided thousands of migratory Mexican free-tailed bats with perfect roosting habitats for years.

To help out hopeful candidates and to offer a refresher course for incumbents, the town of Marana is holding a Council Candidate Orientation and Voter Registration seminar in early April, just before the beginning of candidate filings. 

Discover Marana recently announce the launch of its second gastronomy tour, “A Taste of the Wild: The Marana Wild Foods Gastronomy Tour.” The tour explores foraging and wild food flavors with experts Dr. Suzanne Fish, University of Arizona Emerita Professor and Arizona State Museum Curator, …

Marana Unified School District recently announced that its Marana Cares Mobile will operate during spring break, Monday–Friday, March 19–23, at select locations.  

The Marana Police Department held its annual awards ceremony late last month at the Stardance Event Center in Marana.

Every year, the Town of Marana offers its residents the opportunity to learn about the history of the town they love so much at the Founders’ Day festival. This year’s event took place last Saturday, March 10, and the festivities are always kicked off by the ever-popular Founders’ Day Parade…

Last week, the Marana Police Department and the Marana Police Volunteers hosted the first Shop with a Volunteer/Shop with a Cop event. On Saturday, Feb. 25,  more than 30 students from the Marana Unified School District participated in a shopping spree at the Kohl’s in Marana. 

More than 100 desert-adapted and low water-use trees are now casting shade on the Marana Veterans Memorial, courtesy of the local Rotary club and 92 volunteers. 

A Facebook post by local talk show personality Shaun McClusky said Marana was “locked down like Ft Knox” after town staff put padlocks on the gates of fields near schools that were dealing with regular incidents of dogs off leashes and forsaken dog poop. 

An eight-person team of mirthful teens danced their way into the hearts of those in attendance at Tucson’s Sporting Chance Arena last month. 

Marana staff put a lot of thought into planning the town’s road improvements and future developments, most of which is laid out in a five-year plan: the Capital Improvement Program. 

Our plans for 2018 include the same principles that have carried us this far: our caring and friendly culture, our willingness to think out of the box and our continued mission to be the voice of business that works to build economic growth and quality of life in our community.

Starting Monday, March 19, new service changes will begin for several Sun Shuttle routes. The Regional Transportation Authority Board recently approved the proposed changes to increase efficiency and improve on-time performance. Current schedules and routes, set to expire March 6, will remai…

Marana Little League is a non-profit, recreational sports organization that provides baseball and softball to players aged four through 14 at its home field of Ora Mae Harn Park. The league is expecting roughly 450 youth athletes this spring.

Toys such as LEGOs were once excluded during recess and lunch in elementary schools, but now they’re part of the curriculum. Quail Run Elementary students celebrated their robotic skills at the Epic Build Showcase, a day at which faculty and family all gather to see the LEGO machines they st…

Books, poetry and beloved children’s book characters filled the Estes Elementary cafeteria on a rare rainy evening. 

In Marana, we value great roads. The Marana Town Council, officials and staff have always understood that pavement preservation is necessary to keep road quality high and life-cycle costs low, and we have been using pavement preservation techniques for the past 15 years to achieve this quali…

Managing the 54 miles of trails and the wide array of amenities which comprise Marana’s parks and rec system may seem a daunting task, but not when you have over 30 years of recreation experience and have ridden in El Tour de Tucson 22 times.