105-Year-Old Scottsdale Woman Honored By The City On Her Birthday

PHOENIX — A Scottsdale woman celebrating her 105th birthday Tuesday will be honored with a drive-by celebration by the city.

Athena Wright will be celebrated Tuesday morning with a drive-by birthday parade. Members of the Scottsdale fire, library, police, solid waste and water departments will sing "Happy Birthday" to the 105-year-old at the Pueblo Norte assisted living facility as she sits outside at 9 a.m. Additionally, Scottsdale Mayor Jim Lane has declared Tuesday "Athena Wright Day."

Wright was born on Aug. 25, 1915, just three years before the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, making the coronavirus the second pandemic she has lived through.

Wright became a registered nurse right out of high school and eventually joined the U.S. Army in 1941, prior to Pearl Harbor.

"I asked why [she enlisted] and she said that all the boys were joining up and since she was single she decided to do the same," her daughter, Diane Wright, said in a statement.

She worked as a nurse at several station hospitals in Australia and in the jungles of New Guinea. There, she met her husband, a major in the medical corps, and became pregnant with Diane. She returned to the U.S. and was relieved from active duty in December 1944. She was awarded Bronze Stars for her service.

The Wright family eventually settled in the Washington, D.C. area where Wright's husband helped set up the Veterans Administration. Wright worked at the Mt. Alto Veterans Hospital before transferring to the National Institutes for Health, where she worked until retirement. She moved to Scottsdale in 2000.

A spokesman for the city said the drive-by is only for the groups it has arranged to participate.