Pat Boler has been in Camp Verde since 1956.
She wasn’t that far away before the move.
“I was born just south of Sedona,” Boler said.
Close to where Red Rock State Park is, as a matter of fact.
Her family had moved to the area from Duncan, a town in Greenlee County near the New Mexico border.
Boler said her parents had lived in California for a time before moving to Phoenix.
They didn’t really like it there so they moved up to where the views and the temperatures were a bit cooler.
Last Tuesday, Boler was sitting in the gym at Camp Verde Middle School where an all-day basketball tournament was taking place.
Boler works as a substitute teacher, mostly at Camp Verde High School, and her granddaughter helps coach the JV girl’s team.
This particular day she was volunteering to collect money for tickets for people attending the tournaments.
There’s a discounted fee for students, but one young boy waiting in line actually just started school and missed out on a free show.
He didn’t seem to mind regardless since it wasn’t his three dollars he was spending to get in.
Volunteering for things like school events helps out quite a bit, Boler said.
“When you’re my age it’s great to get out and about and meet different people,” Boler said.
Boler went to school to get a degree in education at Northern Arizona University.
She didn’t become a teacher, however, instead raising her three children.
They still live in the area, now with grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
It helped make Christmas a fun event, especially with the young ones, ages 2 and 4, running around all excited for the holiday, Boler said.
Boler went to college at NAU, but she also went to high school in Flagstaff back in the day, taking the ride from the Sedona area up Oak Creek Canyon.
Boler said there weren’t many issues if the road happened to be closed for some reason.
“We just didn’t go to school those days,” Boler said.
Being a substitute for what Boler said seems like “forever” has been rewarding. Boler said she’s seen lots and lots of faces that became familiar pass through the halls.
The town has grown a bit since she first moved here after getting married to her husband, who is from here.
One of the oldest buildings on Camp Verde’s Main Street still bears the family name, dating back to when her children’s grandfather bought what became Boler’s Bar back in the 1930s.
