Highway named for a native son

By RICHARD HANNERS / Whitefish Pilot

A native son of Whitefish was recently honored by having a highway in Arizona named after him.

Robert Vaughan graduated from Whitefish High School in 1962. He raced on the high school ski team, which won the state championship in his senior year. He also competed in the Junior Nationals twice. He missed the competition one year because of injuries.

After receiving a master's in civil engineering at Montana State University-Bozeman, Vaughan worked for government and business in several states before landing the first job as director of metropolitan planning in Yuma, Ariz., in 1984.

Vaughan actually started the Yuma Metropolitan Planning Organization, his wife Sue points out.

As director, he was responsible for initiating a 911 dispatch system, a Dial-a-Ride system for the elderly and people with disabilities, and a public transit system.

But his last 10 years at YMPO were hampered by a disability of his own. In 1988, Vaughan was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

"The condition progressed, but he didn't retire until 1998," Sue said. "Bob used a cart and a wheelchair and a voice amplifier. The people there worked with him."

With a winning attitude and a smile on his face, people listened to what he said was needed and gave him their support, Sue said.

"It wasn't just me," Vaughan points out. "No matter what we did, there was a can-do attitude."

The Robert A. Vaughan Expressway will be a 26-mile long four-lane limited access highway when completed in fall 2009. The $86.7 million highway is designed to bypass truck traffic around residential areas near Yuma.

Running from the Mexican border through a new port of entry facility to Interstate 8 in Yuma, the new highway will provide a "convenient route for day-laborers' commute and tourists headed to Mexico," according to an Arizona Department of Transportation press release.

"It was his vision that initiated the process for a new border crossing and a highway to connect the border to interstate trucking routes," the press release said.

Arizona Gov. Janet Napoli-tano said the new port of entry and highway will help to create billions of dollars in cross-border trade between the growing economies in Arizona and Sonora.

U.S. Transportation Secre-tary Mary Peters presented Vaughan with a medallion at the groundbreaking ceremony on Feb. 15.

"I've been involved with this project since my days at Arizona Department of Transportation, and in fact worked very closely with Robert on this endeavor," she said at the ceremony. "Without his determined, persistent efforts, this expressway would never have been built."

The Vaughans live in Yuma, but for the past four or five years they have returned to Whitefish for several months each summer.

Mayor Mike Jenson congratulated the city of Yuma on behalf of the city of Whitefish.

"I know that this is Yuma's highway," he wrote. "However, from afar it is with great pride that Whitefish, Montana, congratulates one of her own favorite sons."

Noting that friends in Whitefish had coaxed him back "occasionally for a visit," Jenson recognized Vaughan's ties to Yuma.

"Whitefish's loss is definitely Yuma's gain," he said.