Spring sprang, and now summer has set in.

Here is a collection of thoughts and stories from those who've crossed paths (personally or professionally) with former Higley district athletic director Art Wagner, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on May 15.

Here is the 2013 Gilbert All-District boys volleyball team as voted on by the district’s volleyball coaches:

It took awhile, but Valley Christian has hired Jeff Rutledge as its new football coach on Monday.

The 2013 Arizona track and field championships started to resemble 2012 a little too closely for Devon Allen’s liking.

“Mesa judge Markel [Mark] Chiles was issued a citation for shoplifting recently. Will another judge give him the six months in jail and $2,500 fine just to set the punishment at a level others could receive? Watch for a slap on the wrist.”

“Mesa judge Markel [Mark] Chiles was issued a citation for shoplifting recently. Will another judge give him the six months in jail and $2,500 fine just to set the punishment at a level others could receive? Watch for a slap on the wrist.”

2013 Track and Field state Championships

HEALDSBURG, Calif. — Sometimes visitors to MacMurray Ranch, the 1,500-acre (600-hectare) spread owned by movie and TV actor Fred MacMurray for a half-century, want to know: Where's the heliport? Where's the screening room?

As “Opponents of Brewer’s Medicaid plan speak out” it rapidly becomes obvious that they are obsessed with forcing their personal, misguided value systems on we citizens.

In the galaxy of big-screen superheros — a rather glum lot — Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man is the snappy one.

“I don’t know why everyone is complaining that the Gilbert school board cut salaries, eliminated the teachers’ voices from negotiations, and secured all the power of decision making for themselves. After all, this strategy has worked very successfully in Communist Russia, Nazi Germany, and... and... oh wait... maybe there IS a problem here!”

It’s way too early. The National League West is way too talented. Summer in Arizona is way too long.

There's a siege mentality about Michael Bay's movies, as though viewers are the enemy holed up in a bunker and he's the guy ordering heavy-metal music around-the-clock to wear down our morale and force us to surrender.

With only a partial City Council on hand, Mesa Mayor Scott Smith ultimately pulled an agenda item on a proposed Marriott Springhill Suites Hotel — slated for the “Wrigleyville” area between the news Cubs’ baseball stadium and park at Riverview — from the council’s meeting during its study session Monday night.

It's a given at multiplexes these days that despite switch-off-your-cell-phone announcements and the occasional grumbling protest, whatever's onscreen will have to compete with tiny pockets of light from audience members unable to stay off their handhelds. Watching those glow patches come and go during "Disconnect" reinforces the film's position on how desensitized we've become to these technological intrusions. Not that Henry-Alex Rubin's schematic multi-strand drama is at all shy about articulating its themes.