RANCHO CORDOVA, CA (MPG) - Many women have had a part in the growth and development of Rancho Cordova, some of whom are widely known and others who have done what was needed and faded out of public view. Here is a brief look at the lives of three Rancho Cordova women:  Mary L. Dayo Hagan, Amy Hiramoto, and Linda Budge, all three of whom have had their own role, connected by their love of Rancho Cordova, and their joy in seeing the city evolve.

Mary L. Dayo Hagan was born on October 20, 1920, and died April 27, 2015, at the age of 94. She married Paul Hagan and the family came to Rancho Cordova in 1960. She was employed by Loomis Chamber of Commerce, and later Cordova Realty. In 1968 she was appointed to the California State Republican Central Committee and was a delegate at the Republican National Convention in 1968. “She was ahead of her time,” said Dayo’s younger daughter, Brenda Deckwa.  “Dad always said even when she was a young woman in high school, she was very outgoing. She always worked. I can’t ever remember her not working.”  In 1969, Dayo was appointed administrative assistant to Henry Kloss, 5^th District Supervisor of Sacramento County. When he retired, Dayo ran for the office, accomplishing the most votes in the primary, but not making it at the end. Dayo’s affiliations are too many to mention, but she was a member of the Rancho Chamber of Commerce, Cordova Community Council, Rotary Club of Rancho Cordova, American River Grange, Cordova High Sports Club, Sutter Hospital Cornerstone Club, as well as Sacramento Traditional Jazz Society, Order of the Eastern Star, and Republican National Committee.

City councilmember and former Mayor Linda Budge said, “Dayo was always there, as friend, mentor, mom, grandma, sister, aunt . . . for many people. We made her Rancho Cordovan of the year at the Chamber in ’97 or ’98 . . . Dayo is the true mother of Rancho Cordova. She always supported cityhood.”

Dayo’s granddaughter Julie Hagan-Belka, daughter of Dayo’s son Steve Hagan, said her first significant memory of her grandmother was when she was 7 years old, and Dayo was running for Sacramento County Supervisor against Toby Johnson. It was Dayo’s “absolute passion” for wanting to serve that Julie noticed. “It never occurred to me that that was not common for a woman to do during the 70s . . . she was just truly way ahead of her time.”

Amy Hiramoto, who was Rancho Cordovan of the Year in 2015, is a practical and unassuming woman, doing things because the need is there, and so is she. “My mom has always taught us . . . Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today, because you don’t know what might happen tomorrow,” said Hiramoto’s daughter, Kathy Hiramoto-Chlubna.

Amy spent the first three years of her life at the Poston, Arizona, internment camp during World War II. “What she remembered is the dust,” Kathy said, “and how dirty it was.”  Hiramoto and her family – husband Edward and three daughters – moved to Rancho Cordova in 1971. Because her children were in school, she worked with the PTA, was a classroom mom, and drove band members where they needed to go. “After she got involved in the schools . . . she got a job with the school,” Kathy said. The school would call Hiramota and ask if she would do certain things.

“So I just went, all the time,” Amy said. It was what she liked most, “Helping people that really don’t know what they can do, and where.”  Parents came to her at school to ask how to get services from various agencies for their children. Hiramoto wanted to make it simple:  have a day that the agencies would all come out together, and the parents could go to all the different agencies at once. They wouldn’t have to make all those different appointments. With that in mind, she organized the first Rancho Cordova Kids Day.

“When Cordova Community Council saw her organization skills and how she could pull something together like that,” Kathy said, “they said, ‘Hey, Amy, you could do this for us.’  That’s basically how she really got roped into the Council.”  Today, though, Kids Day is huge with carnival and face painting and attractions, it still has that important component.

“I have never worked directly with Amy on Kids Day at the Park,” said Linda Budge. “But we have been Community Council members together for decades. And Amy has been very courteous in putting my campaign sign in her front yard during elections.”

Linda grew up with a tradition of service, her father being in the Air Force and her mother involved in Officer’s Wives Club, PTA, Brownies and Girl Scouts. In 1967, Linda married Steve Budge and came to Rancho Cordova. She did volunteer work with Channel 6 in the early 70s, was appointed to CORPAC (Cordova Community Planning Advisory Council) to have a say in the planning processes in the County, and served for 5 years, chairing the Council many, if not all of those years.

In the early 80s Linda decided she could make a living with what she was doing as a volunteer. She started out doing use permits and rezones, added land use research, what was necessary to get buildings for different retailers on the ground and open. She managed the process from the architect all the way to where the contractor was able to pull a building permit, doing this all over the United States by mail and FedEx.

In 2003 cityhood was finally achieved, for which Linda and many others had worked assiduously. Five of 21 candidates for city council were chosen and Linda received the second-most votes, Dave Roberts being first. Since then, she has continued on the City Council as member, vice-mayor, and mayor. When asked for her accomplishments during this time, this is a little of what she said (edited and occasionally paraphrased for brevity):

“There are things that we have done as a city, it would be very difficult to say that any one person is responsible for them . . . All those people who started modern day Rancho Cordova in the late 40s and 50s and early 60s, all those people who gave us the foundation, some of them were Air Force, some were Aerojet and some were the people who came to provide services, but they gave us the foundation that we built on . . . and everyone who lives here, whether they grew up here or have come here recently to live are part of the process.

“What was done is to try to create a city that is a wonderful, fun place to live. We will probably never have all the retail places like Roseville or Folsom or Elk Grove had, but we will always have more fun in Rancho Cordova than anybody else . . . We empowered the Chamber of Commerce, we empowered the Cordova Community Council, and then, thank God for our voters in Rancho Cordova who have voted twice now for our Community Enhancement and Investment Fund . . . They felt that it was important to be able to enhance the quality of life here in Rancho Cordova, and we’ve used it to do that: to support our kids, whether it was in the actual school learning or things like the arts, and sports, ensuring that people get a well-rounded education when they’re in school and that they have opportunities to participate in community life.”

“The only thing I can say about my role truly is the fact that I have always been a planner and encouraged and pushed and urged both staff and my colleagues to always be on top of the latest developments in planning. And it’s an evolving process.”