An advocate of women, schoolchildren
LDS ward leader also was president of elementary PTA.

By Jim Steinberg / The Fresno Bee
06/25/08 23:28:44


Patti M. Binford was well-known for her compassion and the ability to translate it into action.
Mrs. Binford, 59, of Fresno had suffered pulmonary fibrosis, and died Friday.

She was active in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and had served as president of her ward's relief society, concentrating on the needs of women.

Earlier, she had been a leader among a small group of parents in Fresno Unified School District who challenged administrators and eventually prevailed on them to find more than $13 million to air-condition district schools. She and the ad-hoc group challenged the status quo that had forced tens of thousands of small children and older students routinely to sit in classrooms with temperatures exceeding 90 degrees for hours each day. They returned home literally red-faced on hot days.

Mrs. Binford was born in Lynwood and moved with her family to Fresno, where her father had found a printing job, said her husband, Tom Binford.

She attended Fresno schools, and worked for a telephone company until she graduated from Fresno High School.

She continued at Fresno City College, married and became increasingly involved in her children's schools, serving with the PTA and as president of the Del Mar Elementary School PTA.

That warmed her to schoolchildren's plight inside hot classrooms, Tom Binford said: "When I got here from the Bay Area, I was just blown away. I thought, 'How could anybody in this Valley not have air conditioning?' Administrators had it in their offices."

Mrs. Binford's work with her LDS church deserves at least as much praise, said her husband, mother, Arba Boggs, and close friend, Ellen Thomas.

"Patti was very organized," her mother said. "She was given basic responsibility from our bishop for the care of women in our ward," a geographic and administrative division of the church. "I guess Patti was called to do this."

Mrs. Binford maintained a notebook of all women in her congregation, or ward, and directions to each woman's home, her mother said. She kept track of the ward's "visiting teachers."

"She was born to it," her mother said. "We believe they come with these gifts. She helped a lot of families."

Thomas called Mrs. Binford "a master of organization," a talent she handled "with such dignity and grace."

Mrs. Binford also was an accomplished musician, particularly on piano and organ, teaching music in her ward along with organizational skills and preparedness.

"The compassionate service is something she did so well," Thomas said.

A memorial "graduation service" was held Wednesday in the LDS church on East Alluvial Avenue.

The reporter can be reached at jsteinberg@fresnobee.com or (559) 441-6311.