Obituaries

Tony Franz

Tony Franz

Published: Wednesday, April 28, 2010 10:05 AM CDT
April 24, 2010

Tony Franz was born in Cheboygan, Mich. on Valentines Day, 1961. He graduated from high school in Mackinaw City, Mich. in 1979. In 1981, he moved to Arizona. On June 3, 1989, he married his high school sweetheart, and his life was complete when his daughter Kirsten was born on Aug. 29, 1990. On April 24, after a short battle with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease), he decided to keep his tee time in heaven.

Tony did construction work for a few years before he started his own auto shop in Benson with Jimmy Teague. He then worked at Cochise Auto and Benson Auto for many years before moving his work to Willcox. He was the lead automotive technician at Brewers Truck repair for 14 years.

Tony moved from basketball to softball to golf throughout his life. As it turns out, golf provided the greatest challenges for the competitive Tony, and gave him the greatest memories with his friends. If Tony wasn't at the golf course on a Saturday, it's because he was playing with his toys at the Yuma sand dunes.

He is survived by his wife, Trudi, and daughter, Kirsten, his parents, Skip and Sharon Franz, brother Terry (Jan) Franz, sister Stacy (Steve) Martin, and "Aunt" Donna O'Brien. The family in Michigan includes many aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews and in-laws, as well as many friends all over the country who love him.

Memorial services will be held Saturday afternoon, May 8, at 3 p.m. at Community Presbyterian Church, followed by a reception that will be held at Turquoise Hills Golf & RV.

In lieu of flowers the family requests donations be made to the Muscular Dystrophy Association for ALS research, or the ALS Association of Arizona, to help families fighting this disease.



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