Former state Sen. and Pima County Supervisor Ann Day was remembered by heartbroken friends, family and colleagues as a problem-solving conservationist with integrity and “cowgirl common sense” after she was killed Saturday in a car crash.
Day, 77, was the sister of former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and a member of a pioneering Southern Arizona ranching and political family.
A Chevrolet Impala driven by a man suspected of driving under the influence jumped a median on East Ina Road near Westward Look resort shortly before 8 a.m. Saturday and slammed head-on into Day’s Toyota Prius, authorities said. A pickup behind Day’s car was unable to get out of the way and hit her vehicle from behind.
“You just can’t prevent that, there’s nothing she could do,” said Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos, adding, “It’s so sad ... early in the morning, probably just driving home.”
A doctor riding his bicycle nearby, a Northwest Fire battalion chief and a Marine paramedic all saw the crash and tried to help, Nanos said, but could not save Day.
She was pronounced dead at Banner-University Medical Center at 8:37 a.m.
The Impala had been seen “bouncing off of curbs and driving at a high rate of speed in excess of 80 mph” before the crash, Nanos said. Statements later made by the 23-year-old driver led deputies to suspect he was driving under the influence, the sheriff said. A toxicology test was taken.
The man was hospitalized with injuries from the crash and no charges had been filed as of Saturday night. The driver of the pickup was also injured and hospitalized. The injuries of both drivers were considered to be serious but not life-threatening, authorities said.
Day, a Republican, was a state senator for 10 years and a supervisor for District 1, covering the Tucson metro area’s northwest side, for 12. She was known for her love of the environment and her family, and for being “really fierce, and really loyal,” said her granddaughter Caitlin Watters, 24.
“She pushed my siblings and I, her three grandkids. She constantly called me her soulmate and I know that I was,” Watters said, adding that she, her sister Cassandra, 18, and brother Courtland, 22, were Day’s “whole world, and vice versa.” Since she was 5 and Day began teaching her to shake people’s hands and look them in the eye, her grandmother inspired her, Watters said.
“I’m currently in law school at ASU and that’s in huge part from her. She wanted me to go to law school more than anything and it’s always been my dream to run for office. I just wish she’d be here to see me graduate and run one day. She was one of the most incredible women I’ve ever known.”
Day received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Arizona and her master’s degree in education from Arizona State University. She spent time teaching and then as a therapist before entering politics in 1990, said Patrick Cavanaugh, who was Day’s chief of staff from 2004 until she decided not to run for county re-election in 2012.
“Ann was somebody that I had tremendous respect for. We were very close; we worked day in and day out together,” Cavanaugh said. “Sometimes it could be stormy, as things are in politics, but at the end of the day we were tremendous friends. I can’t emphasize enough that she had tremendous integrity, and put policy in front of politics time and time again.”
Pima County Supervisor Sharon Bronson agreed. “She had an ‘R’ after her name and I had a ‘D’ after my name, but we reached across political boundaries and found a way to pursue common goals. She wasn’t an ideologue, she was a problem solver,” said Bronson, a Democrat who knew Day for more than 20 years.
“I most remember her for her cowgirl common sense that she brought to politics, to problem solving, to life in general,” Bronson said.
Mike Boyd, a Republican former county supervisor, reflected, “She believed that Republicans didn’t pave roads any better than Democrats picked up the garbage. Her job was to resolve local issues, even if it took a little horse trading. Pretty ironic for the daughter of a rancher, that ‘horse trading’ is now a dirty word. To a number of hardliners it’s selling out.”
Politics and the environment both had prominent legacies in Day’s family.
In addition to her sister’s groundbreaking role as the nation’s first woman justice on the Supreme Court, their grandfather, H.C. Day, was chairman of the Graham County Board of Supervisors and founded the Lazy B Ranch in 1880. Day, her sister and their brother, Alan Day, spent much of their childhood on that patch of land, 160 miles east of Tucson near the New Mexico border.
“She had tremendous reminiscences from her days on the Lazy B, I think she drew on them often,” said Cavanaugh, recalling a story of Day’s in which a truck tire and the spare both went flat and stranded her on a country road.
“She did everything she could to get herself back home, and she always said that’s what you do. It was a sense of self-reliance, that you shot straight and tried to do the right thing.”
Pima County Supervisor Ray Carroll also remembers “she told great stories of her time growing up on the Lazy B Ranch. Like the time one of her cowboy friends gave himself a root canal with a hot branding iron. She loved that story but she had a million just like it. ...
“She was capable of negotiations as well as standing her ground when she had to. But my appreciation for Ann Day really came in the area of conservation and land use. She gave us a lot of credibility with ranchers in terms of sustainable grazing and property rights,” said Carroll, a fellow Republican.
Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry highlighted that fact, as well. “As a rancher, she had a great respect for the land, and that came through in her support of the (Sonoran Desert) Conservation Plan,” said Huckelberry.
The conservation plan was originally passed in 1999, intended to protect habitat for vulnerable species during development. It grew to include environmentally sensitive road designs, riparian protection and county acquisition of ranches for conservation.
“New development on state land threatens to strain our infrastructure and degrade our environment,” Day wrote in a District 1 newsletter in 2008. “Change is certain, but with careful management our community can be sculpted in a way that reflects and enhances the landscape; where development blends more readily, in form and function, with the natural environment and we create a community where citizens are allowed to prosper.”
Bronson called the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan one of Day’s lifetime achievements, and said Day will be sorely missed at the dedication of the North Oracle Road Wildlife Crossing on Tuesday, May 10.
“I was hoping to see her later this week at the dedication of the wildlife crossing that connects the Catalinas to the Tortolitas. I think a good way to remember her would be to name that crossing after her, and that’s something I’m going to try to pursue,” Bronson said Saturday.
Day was also instrumental in developing Brandi Fenton Memorial Park at 3482 E. River Road, Huckelberry said.
“She knew about the importance of open space and being good stewards of the land,” said Valerie Samoy, an aide for Day for 12 years. “As a Republican she would upset the party with that sometimes, but she was a fierce advocate for the Sonoran Desert.”
It was that fierceness, both in her politics and in her devotion to her friends and family, Samoy said she’ll remember most.
“Ann was not only the epitome of a public servant in every sense of the word, but I got to know the gentler, warmer side of Ann. She was a very caring human being and loved her family and her children, and loved my family and my children fiercely, but also gently,” Samoy said.
“No matter what she did, if she was taking me shopping or we were talking about law school, she did it with intention and heart and passion,” said Day’s granddaughter Watters. “I just hope that I get a little bit of that in my life. She was and will always be a cowgirl.”
Day is survived by her three children, Jill Watters, Barry Simpson and Curtis Simpson, and her three grandchildren.
