In 1977, wrestling coach Ben Arredondo led the Mesa High School Jackrabbits past Sunnyside High School to win the Arizona Interscholastic Association's first bracketed 5A state championship. Arredondo, who went on to spend sixteen years on the Tempe City Council and one term in the Arizona House of Representatives, died July 8, 2026. He was 79.

Arredondo was born July 3, 1947, and built his early career in Mesa classrooms and gyms, teaching and coaching before he ever ran for office. It was at Mesa High School that his wrestling program produced that breakthrough title, and the Arizona High School Athletic Coaches Hall of Fame inducted him in 1990, crediting the 1977 win as the school's title in the sport's first bracketed state tournament.

He carried that same local focus into Tempe city government. Arredondo won a seat on the Tempe City Council in 1994 and, according to City of Tempe historical records, held it without interruption through 2010, serving out his final term alongside members including Mark Mitchell, Onnie Shekerjian and Corey Woods.

In November 2009, still a sitting councilman, Arredondo announced he would run for one of Tempe's two District 17 seats in the state House and switched his registration from Republican to Democrat to do it. He told The State Press that his old party had drifted away from him: "If you're a Republican, you'd better be really to the right. The tent they claim they want to get bigger is really getting smaller." He ran alongside fellow Democrat Ed Ableser, who was seeking the district's other seat and told the paper, "If [politics] was comparable to sports, this would be one of the biggest free agent signings in our history. I am thrilled that Councilman Arredondo will be running alongside me."

Arredondo took his seat representing District 17 in January 2011 and sat on the House Committee on Higher Education, Innovation and Reform. Official minutes from the Arizona House of Representatives, dated February 9, 2011, show him questioning a bill that would grant in-state tuition to honorably discharged military veterans, a measure the committee went on to pass by a vote of eight to zero.

Word of his death reached Tempe quickly. Andy Dzurinko wrote in an online tribute that Arredondo was "a wonderful friend mentor family man and Tempe community servant."

What remains of Arredondo's decades in public life is easy enough to trace: a 1977 state wrestling championship at Mesa High, an induction into the Arizona coaches' hall of fame, and sixteen years of Tempe City Council minutes carrying his name before the single term he spent representing District 17 under the Capitol dome.