By Alan Levine | Special to the Casa Grande Dispatch
For their first meeting of 2014, leaders of the Western Pinal Republican Club chose to entertain their members with a history lesson, delivered by eight of Pinal County’s most prominent Republicans.
The gathering was on Jan. 11 at Eva’s Fine Mexican Food restaurant in Casa Grande, and among the invited speakers were John Smith, Sharron Gill, Timothy Lee, Bill Bridwell, Harold Vangilder, state Rep. Frank Pratt, Marty Hermanson and Jim Hartdegen, who was a last-minute replacement for the absent Robert Graham, current GOP state chairman.
The attendees were presented with “A History of the Republican Party in Pinal County,” which on the surface would seem to be something of a paradox, considering that until the elections in 2008, the vast majority of Pinal County’s officeholders were Democrats. The members were reminded of the fact that Pinal County was founded in 1875, and for the next 133 years, Democrats occupied all of Pinal’s countywide elected positions.
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