Photograph of Irma Connolly

Datec. 1980

ClassificationsDocumentary Artifact

Terms

Catalog number1988.2.122B

DescriptionIrma Connolly and her husband Frank Connolly owned and operated the Tempe Daily News for many years.

Obituary:
Irma L. (Brooks) Connolly, 85, the last publisher of the historic Tempe Daily News before it became part of the Cox Newspapers chain in January 1980, died Sunday at her home in Tempe after a long illness. Funeral services will be at 1 p.m. Thursday at Carr-Tenney Mortuary in Tempe with Rev. Guy Davidson officiating. Burial will follow in Tempe's Double Butte Cemetery. Mrs. Connolly and her husband, Francis N. Connolly, bought the Tempe newspaper, founded in January 1886 initially as The Salt River Valley News, on Labor Day 1944 and had been co-publishers until his death in August 1978. She served as sole publisher from then until the paper was sold to Cox, ending its years as a family-owned community newspaper. Its 100-plus year history as Tempe's hometown newspaper ended when it was merged into the East Valley Tribune several years ago and the Tempe office were closed. Though born in Glendale on November 23, 1917, Mrs. Connolly grew up in Chandler, attending schools there & graduating as valedictorian at
Chandler High School. She was the daughter of Valley pioneers John Preston Brooks, who witnessed the last killing in the infamous Graham-Tewksbury wars in Tempe as a boy, & his wife Irene Estelle Weir. Irma Brooks met Mesa native "Frank" Connolly in Chandler while he was working for the newspaper there and she was employed at the theater. They were married on September 23, 1937. During the Connolly's early years at the Tempe Daily News, the newspaper had one linotype operator & one news carrier and the Connollys ran the rest of the operation. Mrs. Connolly was office manager, bookkeeper, proofreader, took ads & hometown news items and even, she once said, was "the cleaning lady, too." Later she opened the first stationery store in Tempe in the same building as the News and ran it for about 30 years until it was sold to an employee. As the newspaper and its staff grew after World War II, she oversaw its bookkeeping, payroll and billing departments and provided the family atmosphere of the Daily News for employees, many of whom she kept in touch with long after selling the newspaper. Both of the Connolly children worked at the newspaper in its later years. Mrs. Connolly was preceded in death by her daughter Carolyn in 1998. She is survived by her son Bob of Tempe; brother Clinton Weir Brooks of Apache Junction; grandchildren Sean Connolly, his wife Keri and children Ryan, Kyle and Bryce, of Chandler; Scott Connolly and son Robbie of Tempe; Paige Connolly, in California; Lance Connolly, his wife Courtney and son Corbin of Tempe. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Hospice of the Valley, 2222 S. Dobson Road, Suite 401, Mesa 85202.

Published in The Arizona Republic on Apr. 9, 2003.

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