Southwest Flavor Ep. 184 - Chris King, Tracy Beaudry, Luke Arenas

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

The following content provided in this show belongs solely to the host and guests and does not represent the opinions of Live The Dream Media. The content provided in Southwest Flavor is for educational and entertainment purposes only.

Out here in the Southwest, every person has a story, and every story has a little flavor. It's time to tune in now with host Ron Arenas as he sits down with the business owners, community leaders, local change makers, and everyday people making a difference across Morana, Oro Valley, Tucson, and beyond. This is Southwest Flavor, live, exclusively on the Live The Dream Media stream verse network.

Ron Arenas (0:47)

Hey, good morning, everyone. Welcome to Southwest Flavor. I am your host, Ron Arenas, and happy Thursday to everyone. We have a fantastic show for you today.

We have a bunch of different guests on today, and our first guest is our good friend, Chris, how are you doing?

Chris King (1:08)

Good morning, Ron. How are you today?

Ron Arenas (1:09)

I'm doing good. I'm doing good. Another beautiful day in Southern Arizona.

Chris King (1:14)

Right. At home today, I had knee surgery last week, so I got my foot up and trying to make sure that we can still be out talking to people as much as we can.

Ron Arenas (1:24)

Okay. Did you have a...

Chris King (1:26)

That's why I didn't make it into the trip this morning.

Ron Arenas (1:28)

I understand. I understand. Did you have a replacement or did they just clean it up in there?

Chris King (1:33)

This was the replacement. So they did the cleanup the last time.

Ron Arenas (1:37)

Oh, okay. All right. I understand. I understand. Knees are a tricky thing.

Chris King (1:44)

They are. They are. You know, it kind of goes with the dad joke. You know, you're born with four kidneys, and then as you grow up, you only have two kidneys, because the other two become adult knees.

Ron Arenas (1:57)

I haven't heard that one before, but that's good.

Chris King (2:00)

I know. See, I see you posting dad jokes as well. So that kind of goes in line with my dad joke book.

Ron Arenas (2:06)

Yeah. Yeah, that's perfect. That's perfect. We will have to steal that one and use it one of these weeks.

Chris King (2:12)

Go for it, sir.

Ron Arenas (2:13)

All right. Hey, so it's campaign season, of course, as we know, and you're running for LD17.

So tell us a little bit about yourself and about what you want to do for the people of Southern Arizona.

Chris King (2:28)

Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. So, Chris King, I lived here in Arizona now for a little over 25 years, lived in the district for almost 22 years, which separates me from everybody else. So I retired from the military. I became a contract instructor after I retired. Then while I was doing that, I was finishing up my undergraduate degree, and that's how I got involved in the internal side of politics. I worked various level campaigns, everything from school board to president.

I've been fairly heavily involved in the political arena, but also in the business community, in everywhere I can be, I've been involved. It's one of those things that you pick up in the military is like, before you're told to volunteer, you volunteer and you make a part. Going back to the Boy Scouts, you always want to leave the place better than what you found it.

Ron Arenas (3:27)

That's right.

Chris King (3:27)

And my wife and I, we've been married a little over 22 years, and we've lived in the district almost 22 years.

So it'll be 22 years. We closed on our house 22 years ago next month.

Ron Arenas (3:45)

Okay. All right.

Chris King (3:47)

We still live here. My kids graduated from Vail Schools. So I live on the southeast portion of the district. So the way the district runs, it actually runs from the north side of I-10 in Benson, north to the Pinal County Line. So the Cochise County Line, Pinal County Line, and then runs north of I-10, all the way over to the Harrison Corridor, taking out a small section of Vail with the Del Lago neighborhood and Colossal Cave Road. But it continues over to Harrison Road and then runs fully north all the way to Pinal County Line. Once you hit sunrise, skylines depends upon where you're at. Sometimes it's Ina, sometimes it's other areas. But it runs all the way over to Marana, Picture Rocks area, takes a little detour jog into Pinal County, picks up Saddlebrook, Saddlebrook Ranch, Eagle Crest, just north of Oracle Junction. Rather large district prior to knee surgery. We were traveling the district and we put a little over 30,000 miles on the cars, going all over the district. So whether it's putting up signs or talking to people, knocking on doors, going to places where we can talk to as many people as possible.