A friend on the Tempe Governors Board sent me an e-mail mid-afternoon Monday with word that former longtime Tempe City Councilman Carol Smith had died in hospice care at Friendship Village after waging a long battle with cancer. She was 72. I called City Hall, and they hadnt gotten the word yet.Carol Smith communicated contrasts. Her perfectly arranged white cotton hair, long eye lashes, meticulously applied makeup and eye-catching dresses with bows and scarves could stop you in your tracks. But as feminine as Carol presented herself, she was tough. She could be surly, hostile and acerbic. The dirty looks she could give were deadly. But she always had Tempes interests in mind. She was an iron lady, tough and strongly opinionated. Carol, who served from 1986 to 1998 on the council, had been vice mayor 1990 to 1992. I moderated a City Council forum in 1986 when she first ran for the council and was struck by how well-schooled she was. The Arizona native and one-time school teacher had earned her bachelors degree in history and political science from Texas Christian University.Her father had started a family business in waste collection and disposal and landfills in 1926. As a result, Carol was an expert in waste management after having been involved in the family businesses - Waste Control of Arizona, Waste Control of Northern Arizona and Waste Control of New Mexico. Later she served as the chairman of the Maricopa Association of Governors Solid Waste Coordinating Committee and later was chairman of the State of Arizona Recycling Advisory Committee. I remember when Carol received Tempes Don Carlos Humanitarian Award in 1999, much was made about her obsessive habit of picking up aluminum cans wherever she spotted them on the landscape. She carried a sack in her trunk in which she deposited them for recycling. She and one-term Councilman Linda Spears were both unseated in 1998 by Hugh Hallman and Leonard Copple. The women took their losses hard, and it suddenly turned the council back to an all-male group until Barb Carter won a seat on it two years later. Some of what Carol Smith did related to her strong work with and for women. President in 1974-75 of the Las Noches Womans Club in Tempe, Carol went on serve at the highest levels of Womens Clubs, first as president of the Arizona clubs and later as the treasurer and recording secretary on the executive committee of the Greater Federation of Womens Club International. She served as president of Arizona Women in Municipal Government. In 1985, she was recognized as one of Tempes Women of Distinction by Tempe St. Lukes Hospital.Carol served in so many community roles. Almost 35 years ago, she was on the Governors Highway Safety Committee. She was board chairman and past president of the Boys and Girls Club of the East Valley; president of Southwest Center for Education and the Natural Environment (SCENE); and president of the Papago/Salado Association. While on the Tempe City Council, she was chairman of the Finance and Organizational Effectiveness Committee, as well as the Youth and Family Services Committee. She was the citys representative on the Maricopa Association of Governments Regional Policy Development Committee and the Youth Policy Committee. She was also on the Mayors Taskforce on Gangs. Among some of Carols other community involvements were Tempe Rotary Club, Zonta International, a 10-year member of the Tri-City Behavioral Health Services, and The League of Arizona Cities and Towns. She was directly responsible for raising funds for 40 trees to be planted at Tempe Town Lake and raised money for books and equipment at the Tempe Public Library. Since 1995, she had served on the Tempe Governors.Tragically on Oct. 5, 1984, her daughter, Kathleen Marie Smith, 20, was found dead in her Tempe apartment, which had also been set on fire. In the years that followed, there was enormous press and speculation on what happened. Carol, her ex-husband, David Smith, and family appealed for help from the public for clues. They offered a $50,000 reward. Billboards were put up for help. Then in August 2003, evidence led to the indictment of Robert Stanley Ortloff, who was being held in a Texas prison on a 50-year term on a charge of sending a pipe bomb to a serviceman. Ortloff had been a business partner with Kathleen Smith and they eyed opening a sandwich shop. Authorities had found that Ortloff had taken out two life insurance policies, totaling $125,000, on her. He was extradited to Phoenix on a charge of first-degree murder, burglary and arson. He intended to defend himself. The case remains unresolved.There are two surviving sons, Kevin Smith and Kelly Smith, and six grandchildren.Over the years, I had the chance to work with Carol on a number of projects including one of the Tempe Governor Balls. She was enormously astute about the logistics of the annual fund-raiser. She was always a good source for stories I did in Tempe, and we shared winning two of the communitys honors: the Don Carlos Humanitarian Award four years apart, and in 2004, the Tempe Historical Society named us both Tempe Living Legends. Carol Smith will be remembered in services tentatively set for Monday at Tempe Mortuary. Invariably, theyll pack the chapel to pay tribute for the stalwart and elegant woman who devoted her life to Tempe and countless causes of people.

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