Before being elected to Congress, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords served in the Arizona State Legislature. Former State Senator Ken Cheuvront and Senator Linda Lopez, who served with Giffords at the State Capitol, talk about their colleague and close friend.
First elected to office in 2001 to serve District 29; House Minority Whip 2003-2004; Assistant Minority Leader 2005-2006; Current committee assignments are Appropriations( B); Health; Rules; Joint Legislative Budget Committee; CPS Oversight; and the Governor’s Commission on Reforming CPS. Linda has and will continue to have a positive impact at the House of Representatives. Linda serves as Community Relations Coordinator for La Frontera Center, Inc., Tucson. She has been employed and worked for the center since 1991 and is responsible for pursuing funding opportunities for programs, collaborating with other agencies and providers to ensure optimum services for children and adults, and for promoting La Frontera Center to the community. Ms. Lopez has also served as a Clinical Supervisor for Child/Family Center, responsible for overseeing all aspects of daily operations of the Child/Family Center to include personnel management, program development and implementation for a variety of children with special needs, provision of counseling services for children and parents/guardians, and review of financial operations. Prior to this she served as Child/Family Specialist which required direct contact with a variety of special needs children, including developmentally delayed and emotionally and behaviorally disturbed. She developed treatment plans, maintained client records, counseled children and parents/guardians, conducted home visits, and collaborated with staff of cooperating agencies. She was a foster parent for 10 years for 44 foster children who had been abused and neglected. Many of the children had special needs, including schizophrenia, learning disabilities, depression, developmental delays and behavior disorders.
Ken Cheuvront is a former Arizona state legislature.
Simons has worked in television and radio in the Phoenix area for more than 20 years, and got his start in TV here at Eight as a public affairs producer/reporter. He most recently hosted the afternoon drive news/talk show on KTAR radio. The long-time Valley journalist previously worked as news director/morning show host for KZON-FM and news/sports anchor/reporter at KPHO-TV. Simons was also sports director/anchor at KOFY-TV in San Francisco, Calif.