2026-09-12 Volunteer Appreciation Award - Denee Rodriguez
Denee Rodriguez - September 2026
It takes quite a variety of talents to keep WVGS running, and we’ve long been privileged to have volunteers with those talents. This month’s award goes to someone who has a lot of talent and, in addition, the willingness to take on a project no one at WVGS had ever done before.As WVGS has tiptoed into social media we realized we needed to tell our story differently if we were going to attract a larger, more far flung and diverse membership. One of the new tools we needed was a video – something short but which distilled what WVGS provided to those interested in genealogy.
Denee stepped up to take on the challenge. Over a three month period, from finding a producer willing to give us a 95% discount on the filming and editing, recruiting and managing a group of extras in three shifts, recruiting her husband Carlos to reward volunteers with a wonderful lunch, the project culminated in “filming day” when she showed up before 5am with flowers from her garden for the opening shot at sunrise and responded to requests from producers, crew and volunteers for the next 14 hours. Denee managed it all with a smile and positive attitude. By the last shot, done with the homeward commute rushing by on 111th Avenue, she still had the energy to keep the volunteers going through what seemed like interminable retakes of the final waves.
Then she went back to her Hispanic Genealogy SIG, her classes on Hispanic records, and her shifts as an Aide. Multiple talents indeed!
Denee’s father was a contract engineer for nuclear power plants so she moved around a lot growing up but always returning to Phoenix as a home base. She went to high school in California and college (the first one) in South Carolina but moved permanently to Arizona in 1998 to marry Carlos (“the love of my life”).
How did she get interested in genealogy? Her Dad gave Denee a book “The Hathaways of America” when she was 8. She helped him complete the paperwork to be included in its1980 supplement. Her Mother introduced her to another ancestor, Pauline Cushman, an actress and a spy for the Union Army who also helped found Casa Grande. With those ancestors, Denee was hooked and she has since spent untold hours in research libraries and archives in multiple states to build a family tree around her parents’ 10 collective marriages which resulted in 29 full, half and step siblings for Denee.
Thank you, Denee.
2026-OCT-25 WVGS Open House
WVGS Open House 2026
The 2026 Open House will be held on Sunday, Oct 25th. We will be honoring the veteran members of WVGS. Pam LaFond is in charge of the display honoring our vets and their family members who served. She can be reached via email on the website under Library Admin regarding how to submit your photos and information. Thank you for participating.2026 Scanning Fundraiser
Members, Cathy & Bob Gallagher, are Offering to Scan your Photos and Documents
This is a WVGS fundraiser offered anytime during the rest of 2026. See details here.