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Three of its sons passed away in the past four weeks. Three ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥enses who helped make ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ a stronger place by teaching, mentoring and serving. The trio appreciated their tight-knit barrio roots, which grounded them in their love of family and community, dedication to others, and ganas to succeed.

First it was Monsignor Arsenio Carrillo, whom I eulogized in a column early last month, who passed away April 26. He was 87. Eugene Benton, educator and school administrator, came next. He died May 12 at age 75. They were followed by 87-year-old Rudy Castro, a teacher, baseball coach and former ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ city councilman, who passed May 23.

All three attended Davis Elementary School, the barrio’s anchor. Castro went to Roskruge Junior High School and Benton went to John Spring Junior High School, after desegregation. Castro and Benton graduated from ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ High School; Carrillo would have but instead went to an Ohio seminary after one year at Roskruge. The three played baseball at Oury Park, the barrio’s social center, where the Tigers, the neighborhood team, would play against teams from other barrios and from Mexico. They attended Mass and served as altar boys at Holy Family Catholic Church, the barrio’s spiritual center, across the railroad tracks in neighboring Dunbar Spring neighborhood. Their families bought groceries at the Chinese-owned markets and they all knew Loco Chu, a man dressed in rags who roamed Barrio Anita’s streets.

While the three eventually moved out of Barrio Anita, the neighborhood never left them.

“It was always part of his teaching,� Linda Castro-Spencer said of her father, who would point out the homes of family and friends when visiting Barrio Anita. “He held that in high regard and it was important for him to pass it along.�

Benton returned to Barrio Anita every day to visit his 105-year-old mother, Amelia Tellez Benton, who still lives in the family home on Brady Avenue across the street from Davis Elementary.

“Everybody pretty much knew everybody,� said Benton’s elder brother, Robert Benton. “It was a family atmosphere.�

The fact that it is a small barrio bounded by West St. Mary’s Road and West Speedway, and the tracks and the Santa Cruz River (before Interstate 10 took part of the barrio and Castro's family home), helped foment the closeness among the families, some of whom were related. But it was their shared experiences in this working-class, racially mixed barrio that shaped their lives and propelled them to never forget the struggles and successes of their families and neighbors.

“It was a poor but proud barrio,� said Benton, a noted keeper of traditional borderlands songs.

While the barrio was racially mixed, segregation ruled. The black children attended Dunbar School behind Holy Family Church while the Mexican, Chinese and Anglo kids went to Davis and Roskruge. The kids were also segregated at the Oury Park pool; black kids swam on certain days, everyone else on other days. But the acequia that once ran through was not segregated. All the kids could freely take a dip in the irrigation ditch.

At Davis, the mostly Spanish-speaking children were spanked and punished when they spoke their native language at school. It likely was the experience of humiliation and cultural denigration that led Benton and Castro to be dedicated educators who worked hard to help students and especially to motivate Mexican-American youths.

Castro taught at Safford and Roskruge before becoming Cholla High School’s first baseball coach. Benton entered the classroom as a bilingual education teacher and advocated for barrio youths during his years with the ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Unified School District.

Even in retirement, they persevered. There’s a memorable photo of Castro, in 2008, getting in the face of former State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne during a press conference where Horne railed against TUSD’s Mexican American Studies program, which was eventually abolished by the state.

Castro-Spencer remembered her father saying, “I’m so tired of seeing these guys come from Phoenix and telling us how to run our schools.�

In his role as a parish priest, first at Holy Family and later at St. Augustine Cathedral, Carrillo spearheaded efforts to assist families who needed help. In his own quiet way, “Padre Cheno� was critical of a society that ignored the vulnerable.

Carrillo, Castro and Benton possessed values and empathy molded by their humble barrio. They understood its challenges and strengths, its needs and riches, its frustrations and alegria.

Barrio Anita may have lost a priest, a coach and a teacher who motivated students and peers, but the three inspired others, from similar barrio streets, to build and lead. And there are more to come.