Majestic Living Spring 2014

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contributors DebrA MAyeux, of Farmington, is an awardwinning journalist with recognitions from the Associated Press of New Mexico and Colorado and the New Mexico Press Association and the Colorado broadcast Association. she has covered stories throughout the southwest and in Mexico and Jordan, where she interviewed diplomats and the royal family. After nearly 20 years in the business, she recently opened her own freelance writing and media business. Mayeux enjoys the outdoors, reading and spending time with her family. she is the coordinator of Farmington Walk and roll, a safe routes to school organization. she is married to David Mayeux and they have three children: Nick, Alexander and Peter.

Dorothy Nobis has been a writer and editor for more than 25 years. she authored a travel guide, the insiders Guide to the Four Corners, published by Globe Pequot Press, has been a frequent contributor to New Mexico Magazine.

MArGAret CheAsebro has been a freelance writer for over 30 years. her articles have appeared in many magazines across the country. she was a correspondent for the Albuquerque Journal and worked for several local newspapers. she has four published books of children’s puppet scripts. A former elementary school counselor, she is a reiki Master and practices several alternative healing techniques. she enjoys playing table tennis. she and her husband live near Aztec.

toNy beNNett grew up in Farmington. he received his bachelor’s degree in photography from brooks institute. he owned and operated a commercial photography studio in Dallas for over 20 years. he was also team photographer for the Dallas Cowboys for 10 years.

Now back in Farmington, tony wants to bring his many years of photo experience to photographing families, weddings, events, portraits, and more, to his hometown………and sKi ! he teaches at san Juan College.

Josh bishoP is a recent graduate of san Juan College with an associate degree in Digital Media Arts and Design. he currently works at Majestic Media as a video producer and photographer.

WhitNey hoWle was born and raised in Farmington and is proud to call san Juan County home. the richness of the landscape and the diverse people, culture and traditions are a photographers dream. Whitney has his bA in Visual Communication from Collins College in tempe, Ariz. he is a co-owner of howle Design and Photography—a family owned studio offering graphic design, photography, market research and consulting.

publisher Don Vaughan managing editor Cindy Cowan Thiele designer Suzanne Thurman writers Debra Mayeux, Margaret Cheasebro, Dorothy Nobis, Bill Papich photographers Tony Bennett, Josh Bishop, Whitney Howle sales staff DeYan Valdez, Shelly Acosta, Aimee Velasquez

MAGAZINE Celebrating the lifestyle, Community and Culture of the Four Corners Vol. 6, No. 2 ©2014 by Majestic Media.

Majestic Living is a quarterly publication.

Material herein may not be reprinted without expressed written consent of the publisher. If you receive a copy that is torn or damaged call 505.516.1230.

6 | MAJESTIC LIVING | SPRING 2014

For advertising information Call 505.516.1230

Cover photo Comments Follow us on

lizzie begay photographed by Whitney howle.

Majestic living welcomes story ideas and comments from readers. e-mail story ideas and comments to editor@majesticmediausa.com.

majesticmediaUSA

@MajesticMediaUS

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springfeatures: 10

Colorful Creativity

Lizzy Begay thinks about studying art history in college a bit more than she did before she won a national art contest last year. As a result of that contest, her painting of a colorful bird of paradise flower appears on Torani Sugar Free French Vanilla syrup bottles.

By Margaret Cheasebro

16

Globe Trotting to the Four Corners

As a young college student at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa., Will Gray was hired as a summer intern at National Geographic to write for the prestigious organization.

20

On the Road Again

Jane Voss and Hoyle Osborne looked like they stepped out of a time machine from the 1920s and into the Farmington Starbucks. The only thing they shared with the modern world was the electronic tablets on the table in front of them.

By Dorothy Nobis

By Debra Mayeux

26

Still Going Strong

A visitor to the office of Marlo Webb will find the gentle giant of a man sitting behind his desk, which is piled with papers, magazines, notes and family photos.

By Dorothy Nobis

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Patience and a sense of humor

Mixing business with family takes understanding, patience and a great sense of humor.

By Dorothy Nobis 8 | MAJESTIC LIVING | SPRING 2014

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Words and Music

Music brings joy to Maggie Mathers.

She graduated from Texas University with a music degree. She loves to help with music at Sacred Heart Catholic Church. Music even helps her to master difficult words.

By Margaret Cheasebro Forever Young

“I love a challenge,” said Judy Dette.

“Someone says, ‘Here’s a mountain. You want to climb?’ I say, ‘Sure. Why not? I’ll do it.’ ”

By Margaret Cheasebro

46

Hard work, dedication

The Amazon beauty lifts her right arm and curls it tightly, smiling as her bicep muscle bulges beneath her ivory skin. Her leopard print short-shorts provide the only color in a bold ensemble featuring an ebony body suit and frilly white ribbon, bearing the title of Miss New Mexico U.S.A.

By Debra Mayeux

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A voice for kids in need Little Alysha Shipley was anxiously anticipating the arrival of her baby sister.

The family home had its ups and downs, with her father working long hours in the oil patch and her mother battling mental illness.

By Debra Mayeux

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You Gotta Enjoy Your Work

You never know who you’ll run into at the Dusty Attic in downtown Farmington. Owner Charlene Davis can recall some notables visiting her store during the past 20 years.

By Bill Papich

New Life and Opportunity

A newspaper photograph of impoverished people dying in Africa changed a young girl’s life. Debbie Joslin was in 9th grade when she saw the photograph of dead bodies being piled onto a cart and taken away. She read the story and learned they were poor and starving.

By Debra Mayeux SPRING 2014 | MAJESTIC LIVING | 9

Education and art go hand in hand for Lizzy Begay Story by Margaret Cheasebro | Photos by Whitney Howle Lizzy Begay thinks about studying art history in college a bit more than she did before she won a national art contest last year. As a result of that contest, her painting of a colorful bird of paradise flower appears on Torani Sugar Free French Vanilla syrup bottles.

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Her art work was chosen from hundreds of entries by afterschool youth across the United States in connection with Afterschool Alliance, which helps to keep kids safe and to improve their academic performance, school attendance, behavior and health. The

Farmington Public Library is part of that alliance. About 129 kids participate weekly in the library’s various afterschool programs.

“Lizzy is a very talented young lady,” said Farmington Public Library Youth Services Coordinator Flo Trujillo. “She participates in

a lot of our programs. Her art work is over at Lieutenant Governor John Sanchez’s office in the Round House in Santa Fe now, along with art from our Blended Zine magazine.”

Home schooled Now 12 and a home-schooled sixth grader, Lizzy is shy and quiet and doesn’t think her life has changed much since she won the contest.

However, her Internet presence has grown considerably after the Farmington Public Library and Torani both put her story on their Facebook pages.

“It was interesting for her to Google herself and come up with all kinds of hits,” said her mother, Jenifer Begay.

Lizzy remembers getting more attention than normal after she won the contest.

“People came up to me and congratulated me,” she said.

several relatives who made names for themselves in the art world. Their art hangs in museums, universities, and even at the Smithsonian. Among them are her great grandmother Rosita Tafoya, whose art is collected and has appeared in exhibitions; distant cousin and famous painter Pablita Velarde, who wrote the book Old Father Story Teller, which is filled with art work; her great aunt Flora Naranjo of Santa Clara, whose pottery is in the Smithsonian; and Rosita’s brother, Teofilo Tafoya, who taught at Phoenix Indian School and painted many commissioned works.

Her parents say they don’t have much artistic ability.

“I doodle,” said her father, Michael.

With a laugh, Jenifer added, “I know how to check out library books.”

way she handles the challenge of being Lizzy’s home school teacher.

“You may not be an expert in every subject you teach,” she said, “so you do some learning along with them. A fun part of home schooling is to learn those things.”

Lizzy wasn’t always home schooled. She went to kindergarten in public school, but when Jenifer decided to home school Lizzy’s older sister, Samantha, Lizzy wanted to stay home too.

“I said that sounds fun. I want to do that,” she recalled.

Lizzy is the only family member being home schooled now, because Samantha is attending Piedra Vista High School as a freshman.

“We home school because it gives the kids more flexibility to pursue subjects they really want to study and to develop their talents,” Jenifer said.

Lizzy keeps her mom busy She has talented relatives Lizzy comes by her talent naturally. She has

Jenifer has checked out a lot of books on art and other subjects for Lizzy. It’s part of the

Creates Power Points As part of her home school, Lizzy has

created several Power Point presentations about her favorite artists, including pictures of their artwork that she downloaded from the Internet. Among her favorite artists are Georgia O’Keefe, Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, Jackson Pollock, George Seurat, and René Magritte.

“I’ve taken her down to Santa Fe, and she’s seen some of Georgia O’Keefe’s work in person,” said Jenifer.

Though Michael works with computers in San Juan College’s IT Department, he didn’t teach Lizzy how to use Power Point.

“She played around with Power Point and learned a lot on her own,” he said.

He’s pleased that she is pursuing her interests.

“I think it’s wonderful that she’s exploring art and developing her talents,” he said. “Every opportunity she takes to develop it and enhance it is great, because she loves it.”

Does art on Fridays When Lizzy completes her academic work 12 | MAJESTIC LIVING | SPRING 2014

each week, she enjoys spending Fridays pursuing her art. She began painting with watercolors and has dabbled with pencil etching and charcoals. She looks forward to expanding into oils.

“If you’re painting with watercolor and it’s not totally dried, the paint leaks all over into the other stuff,” Lizzy said. “Sometimes you want it to, though.”

Art is not her only interest. She loves to read, and she’s read her favorite book, Savvy

by Ingrid Law, ten times. She read Scumble, another of Law’s books, four times. She also enjoys doing crafts and playing the piano. She’s been playing the family’s electric piano since she was five, and she takes piano lessons.

“I like playing the piano,” Lizzy said. “I just don’t like having to practice.”

Donates her hair She has already donated her hair three times and plans to donate it again this summer when it’s long enough. “She donates it for people who have cancer,” Jenifer said. “She has really fast growing hair.”

She also plays tennis and competed in two Citizens Bank tennis tournaments as well as a tournament in Durango. She didn’t win any trophies, but she had fun.

“We all like to go out and play tennis together,” Jenifer said.

“My sister is on the PV tennis team,” added Lizzy with a hint of pride.

Lizzy and her friend, Sage Lauderback, a seventh grader who attends public school, sometimes draw together. “We’ve been doing art since we were little,” Sage said.

They’re thinking about entering the Duck Stamp contest and have their eye on other contests as well. Sage enjoys being around Lizzy.

“She’s always happy,” Sage said.

Makes duct tape creations

Lizzy is an observer

Colorful duct tape is another thing that Lizzy likes. She’s created several pieces of jewelry as well as a purse out of duct tape. She uses babysitting money to buy more duct tape, and she sometimes creates duct tape clothes for her American Girl dolls.

“I carry duct tape in my duct tape purse,” Lizzy explained. “I get duct tape at Hobby Lobby, and my sister gave me some duct tape for Christmas.”

Her affiliation with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is important to her. When she goes to college, she has her eye on attending Brigham Young University’s Hawaii campus.

Lizzy described herself as being shy or talkative depending on her mood, where she is and who she’s with. Though often quiet, she is an observer.

“I watch everything,” she said.

“She’s always been very observant of color,” Jenifer added. “She enjoys the colors that surround her.”

Lizzy also enjoys working with children at church and while babysitting. “She’s really talented with kids,” noted Jenifer.

Often at the library She’s around a lot of kids in the Farmington

Public Library’s afterschool program. It was at the library that she saw a flyer advertising the Torani contest.

“I was just going to enter it for fun,” she said.

She decided to draw a flower because she likes them. After looking through drawing books and many pictures on the Internet, she created her own version of a bird of paradise plant with bright red blossoms.

She submitted her work, then forgot about the contest and continued her home school routine of working four days a week on regular subject matter and doing art work on Fridays.

Learns she won at workshop She discovered she’d won the Torani contest last May during a workshop put on by the Farmington Public Library for the home schooled community.

“A lot of her friends were there,” said Jenifer.

“They asked her to come up, and we couldn’t figure out why they asked both her and me to come up.”

Flo had learned a few days before that Lizzy

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won the contest. She took the opportunity to announce the news at the workshop. The official presentation occurred in September at the library when Torani/R. Torre and Company presented Lizzy with a framed keepsake of her bird of paradise drawing and a case of 12 bottles of the syrup.

In a letter to Lizzy, the company’s co-owner, Lisa Lucheta, wrote, “It’s a big deal to win this contest because your art will be seen on thousands of bottles of Torani Sugar Free French Vanilla syrup shipped to all 50 states.”

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$60 cash prize During the September presentation, Lizzy received a $60 check from the Northwest New Mexico Arts Council for winning the Torani contest.

“We do that to encourage kids to participate in art and to recognize them in our community,” said Flo, who is president of the arts council’s board of directors.

After the presentation, the company hosted a pizza and Italian soda party at the library.

It was the ninth year that Torani’s Art for Kids contest has been held in cooperation with the Afterschool Alliance. A Farmington area student has won that contest for three of those nine years. The other winners were Aubrey Maslen in 2009 and Savannah Lesser in 2010.

From September through December 2013 Torani donated five percent of all sales of the syrup bottles containing Lizzy’s art work and of Torani Raspberry syrup to the Afterschool Alliance.

Widens exposure to art Lizzy’s participation in the library’s afterschool program has widened her exposure to art and literature. That’s one of the things Flo loves about the program.

“Lizzy comes to just about everything we have,” Flo said. “She’s very creative.”

Though Lizzy thinks just a little bit more about the future now that she’s won the Torani contest, she spends most of her time enjoying each day.

Her favorite day, of course, is Friday, because that’s when she gets to focus on art.

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GLOBE TROTTING TO THE FOUR CORNERS Will Gray brings writing talent, experience to San Juan College Story by Dorothy Nobis | Photos by Tony Bennett As a young college student at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa., Will Gray was hired as a summer intern at National Geographic to write for the prestigious organization.

During that internship, Gray impressed his supervisors with his writing abilities and, following his graduation in June 1968, was offered a job at the magazine’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. “I enjoyed the hell out of it,” Gray said recently, more than 46 years after accepting the position as writer/photographer. “The first day as an intern, I walked through the hallowed halls of National Geographic, knowing that great writers and photographers had also walked there, including Alexander Graham Bell.”

Bell became the second president of the National Geographic Society, after the death of his father-in-law, Gardiner Greene Hubbard. Bell ultimately hired his son-in-law, Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor, and the two had the

idea of being the first magazine to use photographs to help tell the stories in the magazine.

The young Will Gray appreciated all those who had gone before him with the society, but was not intimidated by them. “I felt comfortable after the first day,” Gray said. “Everyone was friendly and helpful and accepted me right away as a writer.”

Those days in the 1960s and 1970s were exciting for Gray – and those “days” turned into 33 years at the society. Travel and great stories came Gray’s way and he loved it.

“There were a lot of young people in the organization and it was a great group to be with,” he said.

Gray continued to impress his colleagues and his supervisors with his talent and his dedication. When National Geographic decided to start a book department, it was Gray who was tapped to be a major participant.

“My first big assignment was to do a book on the Pacific Crest Trail, which runs from the

Mexican border to the Canadian border,” he said. “I backpacked over a two-year period to write the book. It was a dream come true for me.”

The trail zigzags some 2,650 miles and cuts through seven national parks and 24 national forests. The trail includes some of the highest mountain passes in the west and some of the warmest deserts in the country.

A reader of the book, The Pacific Crest Trail, wrote a review of it on the Vintage Hiking Depot website and stated, “This is a terrific book, well worth hunting down. Gray is a gifted writer, mixing natural history, trail history and a diary style narrative as he and photographer Sam Abell walk the trail. There is a strong focus on the people they meet and their stories.”

Gray wrote many books for National Geographic, but his personal favorite was Voyages to Paradise: Exploring in the Wake of Captain Cook.

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“I came to love and respect (Captain James Cook) and I was able to go everywhere in the world – Yorkshire, England; Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia, and Tasmania – that Cook explored,” Gray said. “I spent 10 months following him around the world.”

In a review of the book for the Captain Cook Society’s website, Ian Boreham wrote, “William Gray’s book has all the hallmarks of the National Geographic magazine: a chatty style of writing and a profusion of illustrations.”

While his writing style and his talent for enticing the reader into his world made Gray a noted and popular writer for National Geographic, his management skills took him away from his travels and his writing full time. “I transitioned into administration and executive positions (at the society) and spent less time writing.”

During Gray’s tenure as an executive, he worked to get National Geographic books and magazines translated into other languages and, in 1990, he was promoted to corporate vice president of all book publishing.

During his stay at National Geographic, Gray said he published from 75 to 100 books annually and helped develop fiction stories for children. He also started distributing books through book stores, in addition to direct mail to society members, which resulted in additional sales and success.

It was on one of his many trips to gather information for his books that brought Gray to New Mexico. “I was doing a book on volcanoes,” Gray remembered, “and I traveled all over the world, including to Shiprock.”

Eventually, Gray and his wife, Margaret, made a trip to the Four Corners – a trip that changed their lives. “We felt the west calling us,” Gray said, “and we began looking at California, Wyoming, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico for a place to live.”

The couple made another trip to the Four Corners that took them through Durango. “We found property and we bought it,” Gray said. In 2001, Gray took an early retirement from the society, and the following year he and his family moved to Colorado.

Gray began teaching at Fort Lewis College in Durango and continued to write books and articles for magazines. Then Gray discovered San Juan

College in Farmington.

“I got involved with San Juan College just as we were beginning to think about developing a creative writing program and certificate,” Gray said.

For San Juan College’s Associate Vice President for Learning, Lisa Wilson, having Gray on the college faculty was a boost for the Humanities Department. “You can imagine how excited we were in the School of Humanities to work with someone with Will’s expertise and experience,” Wilson said. “He not only brought years of writing and publishing experience, he was a gifted teacher.”

“When he and his colleagues proposed developing a certificate in creative writing, it was readily embraced as a wonderful opportunity for our community,” Wilson added. “While Will has taught several classes for the certificate, he brings his life’s passion to the creative nonfiction class.

He has the ability to help writers grow, no matter what their level – from novice to professional.”

Bruce Higgins took several online classes of Gray’s. “I got so involved in Will’s first class that I

went to his office to meet him,” Higgins said.

“Will’s classes were always good online, but I really wanted to experience an ‘in person’ class with him. In the fall term of 2011, I took a class with him on science writing.”

“It was an excellent experience,” Higgins said, “and better than any class in all of my college classes at San Juan College and at UNM (University of New Mexico) in the 1960s. When you have a professor that you really enjoy taking classes with, you tend to really dig in and work harder. Will provided that inspiration to me.”

Morgan Hansen enjoyed a similar experience as a student of Gray’s. “Mr. Gray is a phenomenal teacher,” Hansen said. “He teaches you how to let your voice shine in your paper. He teaches you how to write what you feel about a certain piece of literature; how to agree or disagree. He teaches you to look even deeper into what the author is trying to convey.”

“Mr. Gray taught me how to not be afraid to say what I feel when I am writing,” Hansen said.

“He taught me to be adventurous, ‘take a path less traveled.’ He taught me how to be a better

leader in a classroom. It was a privilege to be a student of such a phenomenal teacher.”

“How did we, as a student body here at San Juan College, get so lucky?” Hansen added. “He isn’t a teacher who got his degree and immediately started teaching. He essentially did what every author of every genre wishes they could do – he lived it. He lived his writings. To me, that is amazing.”

An author, a photographer, an executive and a teacher – Will Gray has done it all. A man who traveled the world in first class, writing for one of the most prestigious magazine/book publishers in the world, has found his home in the Four Corners.

“I haven’t looked back for a minute,” Gray said of his career. “I enjoy teaching and I love the classroom interaction with the students.”

He hasn’t looked back, but Gray does look at something every day that reminds him of his successful past and his equally successful present.

“I look out of the window in my home in Durango and I can see the Shiprock from it,” Gray said. “And it’s lovely.”

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Photo by Tony Bennett

on the road again

After 42 years Hoyle and Jane continue down their path together Story by Debra Mayeux | Photos by Tony Bennett and Josh Bishop Jane Voss and Hoyle Osborne looked like they stepped out of a time machine from the 1920s and into the Farmington Starbucks. The only thing they shared with the modern world was the electronic tablets on the table in front of them. Voss played Solitaire, while munching on an apple and sipping a cappuccino. Osborne searched for information on Wikipedia.

Voss wore strings of purple pearls and amber beads around her neck. Her round baby doll face was topped with short, curly, light brown hair. She drew you in with her smile and exuberant descriptions of life on the road.

Osborne wore orange, plastic round glasses and a herringbone newsboy cap strategically covering the right side of his head. Wisps of cream-colored hair escaped above his left ear. He had a mustached lip, and rested his chin on his left palm as his long, thin, piano-playing fingers tapped the side of his face.

Voss and Osborne have spent a lifetime celebrating

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long-forgotten eras, by performing variations of American Roots music at venues across the world.

The Aztec residents have built a following of friends and fans in this region, as well as across the country, as they appeal to people who love all aspects of history. It has been their life’s work to keep the music of by-gone eras alive and well in the 21st Century.

Voss and Osborne met in January of 1972. She was a traveling folk singer, performing at venues across the country, when she decided it was time to find a place to live in the country. Osborne, also a performer, had lost his roommate and was looking for someone with which he could share rent.

She wrote him a letter asking if he needed a “housemate.” His response came in writing, “I was thinking we could have fun stumbling through fiddle tunes together.” “Do you remember that, Hoyle?” Voss asked, gazing into his eyes. When Voss and Osborne spoke, it was to each other, there was no one else in the room, and the conversation centered on their history as performers.

They didn’t realize it at the time, but his written words marked the beginning of a 42-year

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Jane and Hoyle, 1977.

relationship that has included performing, recording LPs and simply enjoying each other’s company.

It really all started at the Dickens Faire, a celebration that continues to this day in California, where people recreate Victorian England. In 1972, Osborne was a pianist in the British Music Hall, and he managed to secure Voss a job as a singer.

“I worked as a male impersonator,” she said, flashing a wicked smile. “I had a little top hat and tuxedo. It was a riot.”

While they were “housemates,” their schedules did not allow them much time together. Voss was advancing her solo career, while Osborne was a member of the Berkley, Calif.based string band, the Arkansas Sheiks.

“We weren’t both in the house very often,” she said, but their taste in music and their style drew them together. Their first performance as Voss and Osborne was in October 1976.

“We took a month of Sundays, literally, at the Freestone Saloon in Freestone, Calif.,” Voss explained.

They played a few other venues, and Osborne also performed with the Blue Flame Syncopation,

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name he thinks was “ripped off from an antique act.”

Life was going along splendidly, until June 6, 1978, when California voters approved Proposition 13, which decreased property taxes by assessing property values at their 1975 value and restricting annual increases by no more than 2 percent per year.

“Property values skyrocketed, and rent went up,” Osborne said. Their dreams of purchasing the home they were renting went down the tubes, and the couple had to make a change. “We put stuff in a friend’s basement and hit the road. We found ourselves without a permanent home.”

Voss and Osborne became traveling minstrels, who spent most of their time performing and staying with friends who were scattered across the country. This boosted their career and fan base.

“We had our fans clamoring for an album,” Voss said.

“We approached half a dozen record companies, but they wouldn’t take a bite,” Osborne said. “We decided to produce it on our own.”

They asked fans to pay upfront for the upcoming record and they borrowed funds from friends. This afforded Voss and Osborne the ability to record an LP in Alameda, Calif., and then get back on the road.

While traveling, they ended up on a radio station in Philadelphia where a friend, who owned a record label, heard them and wanted to give them an opportunity to secure a recording contract. They traveled to the studio in Connecticut and were put up in a room next to the label’s offices, and were awakened to shrieks of joy from the producer listening to their music.

Voss and Osborne were contracted to record two LPs for Green Linnet Records. They later secured the rights to the recordings, when the company changed hands. These LPs are being re-released this year to celebrate the 42 anniversary of this singing duo.

The original recording in 1982 received accolades from the music industry. “We got a feature review in Stereo Review,” Voss said.

“Then we were named the Record of the Year award winner along with the Berlin Philharmonic

and the Rolling Stones,” Osborne said.

When they first recorded their records, there wasn’t a name for their genre. “That was before Americana became a genre of music,” Osborne said with a smile.

Voss promptly responded that there really was no description for their style, and their repertoire consists of several different genres.

“Right at the heart of what we had in common was the music of Jimmie Rodgers,” Osborne said.

Voss and Osborne were sitting in their living room in 1976 when they realized Jimmie Rodgers was the common thread in their music.

“I started singing Jimmie Rodgers before we got together,” Voss said.

Rodgers was an American country singer who performed in the early 20th century and was best known for rhythmic yodeling. He has been given the titles of “The Singing Brakeman,” “The Blue Yodeler,” and “The Father of Country Music,” according to Wikipedia.

Voss and Osborne enjoy keeping Rodgers’ music alive, along with other historical tunes from America’s musical history. “Americana encompasses all of the aspects of American popular music of the early 20th century,” Osborne explained. Through his work with Voss, the duo has developed historical music presentations through the New Mexico Humanities Department. Those presentations have been performed at schools throughout the state, and have helped them build a following in the Four Corners.

Creating these shows gave the duo a “sense of how people looked at the world” through music, Voss explained.

But how is it that two recording artists from California ended up living in Aztec? It’s simple.

Voss and Osborne were visiting friends in Albuquerque who convinced them to move to the area. They settled in the Duke City, until Osborne was asked to begin performing Ragtime piano at The Diamond Belle Saloon in the Strater Hotel in Durango, where he held a regular gig for 20 years. He became known as a top Ragtime performer in New Mexico and was cast to play piano in a saloon scene of the film Cowboys and Aliens.

And after spending nearly two decades per-

forming almost exclusively on a local basis, Voss and Osborne are reviving their music and hitting the road again. They have performances scheduled in Fresno and Berkley, Calif., where they also will be recording music for their new CDs. They will come home for a few days, then hit the road again.

They have gigs in Ontario and Toronto, Canada.

“The road leads you to where you are going, and then you have to choose the destination,” Osborne said in response to the question of how they ended up in Aztec. They chose Aztec, and the Four Corners welcomed them.

SPRING 2014 | MAJESTIC LIVING | 25

Still going Strong

26 | MAJESTIC LIVING | SPRING 2014

Marlo Webb’s office is filled with 68 years of hard work and dedication to community Story by Dorothy Nobis | Photo by Tony Bennett A visitor to the office of Marlo Webb will find the gentle giant of a man sitting behind his desk, which is piled with papers, magazines, notes and family photos.

His office is upstairs at the Webb Chevrolet/Toyota dealership on East Main Street and it, too, has boxes of files spread across the large room. When the building was recently remodeled, an office for the Chairman of the Board of the Webb Automotive Group, Inc., was included on the main floor of the facility. That office is still empty, but Webb said he’s trying to get organized enough to move.

If the chairman/father/grandfather is a little reluctant to give up his sanctuary at the top of the stairs, it’s understandable. There are 68 years’ worth of memories, plans, hopes and dreams in the boxes and files in that office. Most of the plans and the hopes have been achieved; however, the memories and the dreams remain.

Sitting behind his desk, Webb shared a challenge that became an opportunity and a struggle. “Do you want to talk about The Broken Circle?” he asked. “Everybody always wants to talk about The Broken Circle.”

The Broken Circle was a book, published in 1992, telling the story of three white teenagers who murdered three Navajo men in 1974.

Webb was mayor of Farmington then, and the memories of that difficult time remain.

“Louise and I had a foster daughter who was Native American,” Webb said. “And we had so many good friends who were Native Americans, so that was a hard time for us as a family.”

City officials worked closely with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice to solve the crime and to reinforce Webb’s commitment to racial equality. While the murders divided the community

at the time, Webb believes it was part of the growth of the community.

“It was a learning experience for the town,” he said. “There was a lot of bias towards Native Americans.” That bias was acknowledged and continues to be addressed by community leaders, Webb added.

Webb’s efforts spearheaded the commitment by the city of Farmington to curb discrimination.

“No community can completely eradicate discrimination,” said current Mayor Tommy Roberts, “but the city of Farmington has done much in the way of mitigation. The Community

Relations Commission was established and has been actively engaged in public education and outreach.”

“The concept of inclusiveness has been more aggressively embraced, with renewed focus on appointment of members of minority groups to advisory boards and commissions, and the creation of the Minority Issues Roundtable Discussion Forum – a bi-monthly meeting of representatives of minority groups and the mayor,” Roberts continued. “Obviously there is room for progress, but the improvements that have occurred have been recognized and acknowledged by those most impacted by discrimination.”

While that period in his life was a struggle and a challenge, Marlo Webb isn’t one to dwell on challenges, but to learn from them and move forward.

Long before he became mayor, Webb was a businessman and a community leader. He graduated from Farmington High School and enrolled at the University of New Mexico at the age of 16. When World War II broke out, Webb was commissioned as an ensign in the Navy in February of 1944. He married his college sweetheart, Louise, that same afternoon and, 10 days later, shipped out on the U.S.S. Hailey DD 556. At the end of the war, Webb got orders to Naval Flight Training. In 1946, the Navy cut back on its requirements for naval SPRING 2014 | MAJESTIC LIVING | 27

aviators, and Webb left active service but remained a Navy Reserve. It was then that the young couple returned to Farmington and began to raise a family.

Webb started working for his father at Perry Smoak Chevrolet as a mechanic. The ambitious young man soon became parts manager, accountant and sales manager. In 1951, his father’s health began to fail and, when Perry Smoak died, Webb took over the family business. In the years following, Webb was a member of the Masonic and Shrine orders, the Elks Lodge, VFW, and American Legion. He was a founder and director of both the San Juan College Foundation and the San Juan Medical Foundation. In addition to serving as Farmington’s mayor, Webb also served on the City Council, was chairman of the Utility Commission, chairman of the San Juan Council of Governments, director of the New Mexico Municipal League, chairman and director of the Farmington United Way, director of the Farmington Chamber of Commerce, chairman of the

28 | MAJESTIC LIVING | SPRING 2014

San Juan Boy Scout District and the San Juan County Heart Fund. In addition, Webb served as a director for the Salvation Army and was vice president and director of San Juan Savings & Loan Association, and a member of the Credit Advisory Committee of the San Juan Hospital, the Community Development Committee of the National League of Cities and the Governor’s Advisory Committee for New Mexico’s Environmental Improvement Agency-Water Quality Division. He was also a member of the Manpower Planning Council of the National Indian Youth Council, the Farmington Planning and Zoning Commission, the Advisory Council of Greater Southwest Council of Boy Scouts of America.

Webb also served on the First National Bank Board of Directors and was chairman of the board for the bank and First Place Financial Services, a bank holding company that owned several banks. First National Bank was ultimately sold to Wells Fargo.

It is his dedication and commitment to his

church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints, however, that Webb is most proud.

He is currently Ward Sunday School President and has served in many other capacities, including Stake President, Stake High Council and Stake President’s Counselor for Farmington, High Priest Group leader, Stake Sunday School Superintendent and teacher.

In addition, Webb ran a Stake Cannery for several years. “I still have my (cannery) license and I could go to places like Del Monte to manage one,” Webb said proudly.

While it might be easier to list those organizations with which Webb hasn’t been involved, he believes in doing all he can, with whatever resources he has, to make his community better. His heart, however, will always be in the automobile business.

If the design, technology and prices of automobiles have changed over the years, the family and people who work for Webb have retained the priority of good customer service.

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Traits that make the Freeman family successful at work and at home Story by Dorothy Nobis | Photos by Tom Weaver Mixing business with family takes understanding, patience and a great sense of humor.

It also takes a family with shared values and a common goal of making the business successful. It takes a family like the Freemans.

Cliff, the father, and Clint and Corey, the sons, have worked together for five years and found that each of them has a special niche in Sun Glass that allows them to do what they love in a family environment and create a successful business.

In the late 1990s, Cliff Freeman and his

friend, Morris Newlun, talked about buying a business together.

“We talked about chicken farming in Arkansas, a hardware store in Mancos (Colo.), and a car wash,” Cliff said.

Cliff had been in the hardware business for 25 years and was ready for a change. The constant travel required of his job took him away from his family, and a transfer to Farmington in 1977 offered him and his friend the opportunity to buy a business. When they moved to Farmington, Clint was 2 years old at the time and Corey was still a twinkle in

Cliff’s eye.

They bought Sun Glass on April 1, 1999.

Newlun and Cliff enjoyed working together but in 2008 Newlun decided to retire.

“He bought five acres outside of town and has his chickens and horses,” Cliff said with a smile.

By then, Clint had graduated from college and had a successful career. Clint and his wife, Erica, had children.

“I was the general manager of a new plant in Colorado Springs,” Clint said. “My wife and I adopted a baby girl, and 13 months later SPRING 2014 | MAJESTIC LIVING | 31

received a call about another baby girl we could adopt. We wanted to be closer to family and we prayed about moving to Farmington. We decided to come for one year.”

That one year proved to be a good one, and the family decided to stay. By then, Corey had married his wife, Megan, and he, too, enjoyed a successful career in sales. “We were thinking about having kids and wanted my parents to see the kids grow up,” Corey said.

Each of the Freeman men has different strengths, which has allowed them to do what they do best and to help build the company.

“The boys are very different,” Cliff said.

“So we’ve never had a disagreement about the business. Clint manages the operations and Corey does sales, marketing and promotions.”

As for Cliff – “I do what I like to do,” he said with a laugh. “I’m like the Walmart greeter. I enjoy being at the front counter and interacting with our customers. I do a little paperwork and some collections.”

32 | MAJESTIC LIVING | SPRING 2014

With his sons by his side, Cliff and Sun Glass have grown and prospered. With much prayer, a five-year strategic plan and goals for the next 10 years, the Freemans have moved forward in an economy that sometimes offers

more challenges than opportunities.

On a sales call to Durango Glass in Durango, Corey suggested to the owners that if they ever decided to sell the business, Sun Glass would be interested in talking to them

about purchasing it. That call came and that business was added to the Sun Glass business plan. In addition, Sun Glass has moved beyond the glass business and has become more involved in remodeling jobs.

“Now we’re almost a construction business,” Corey said. “We do remodels and we sell automatic doors all over the state.”

The growth and success has come because of smart business decisions by Cliff, Clint and Corey, and because, as a family, they understand the importance of not being completely involved in each other’s lives.

“We’ve learned our boundaries,” Cliff said.

“We run the business like a corporation and we understand that in addition to our own families, we have 45 other families that depend on us, and we take that seriously.”

Those boundaries also extend to the time spent as a family outside of the work week.

The grandchildren – which now include Rebekah, 9, Hannah, 7, Joanna, 6 and Lydiah, 3, Clint and Erica’s children; and Brody, 5,

and Evan, 2, Corey and Megan’s children – are growing up, which has changed the dynamic of the family unit, making it a little tougher to get the family together.

“Kathie loves to have a party and we still get together,” Cliff said. “We want to keep our family relationship strong.”

That means sharing less time – but better quality time – with each other, Corey said.

And for his own family, working in the family business gives him the freedom to enjoy his wife and sons.

“I have lunch with my family and I have a lot more freedom than I did working for a corporation,” he said. “And we’re making money for the family business and for our employees instead of a corporate machine.”

With great business minds, differing strengths that blend well together and a commitment to make Sun Glass a success for the Freeman families and the families of its employees, it is their faith that makes the biggest difference.

“Our Christian faith is everything,” Corey said. “We have a good reputation and we want to be part of the community and give back to the community.”

“We’re very giving of our time, effort and money and that’s an important part of our ministry,” Clint added.

A family who has ties to Texas and sons who always believed they would raise their families there, has come together in Farmington, New Mexico, and are certain this is where they need to be.

“Kathie and I fell in love with Farmington,” Cliff said. “If we had an opportunity to move back to Amarillo, we’d say no.”

Clint and Erica also found Farmington to be the best place to raise their family and Corey and Megan were delighted to return to Farmington to friends and family.

And with six children bringing in the next generation of Freemans, the tradition of family ownership at Sun Glass may very well continue into the future.

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It’s never too late for Judy Dette to take on a new challenge

By Margaret Cheasebro | Photos by Tom Weaver “I love a challenge,” said Judy Dette. “Someone says, ‘Here’s a mountain. You want to climb?’ I say, ‘Sure. Why not? I’ll do it.’”

She has met many life challenges, and at 76 she’s still going strong.

“I’ve done everything,” she said. “I even drove a tractor, I’ve driven semis. I worked at Domino’s Pizza. I’ve done a lot of things because it was a challenge and I wanted to do it. But once it’s done, it’s done.”

Explores being an artist What she’d like to do now is explore being an artist – until she’s ready to move onto something else. In her Aztec home, Judy has created pen and pencil drawings of cartoon superheroes, people and animals. They look so breathtakingly real and are so filled with emotion that they could hang in 34 | MAJESTIC LIVING | SPRING 2014

galleries, even though some of them are drawn on napkins.

She did an ink drawing of the front of St. Joseph’s Church for the congregation’s golden jubilee cookbook. “The tough thing with pen is you can’t make mistakes,” she said.

Internationally known artist John Cogan of Farmington examined Judy’s art. “One of the most difficult things with animals is to get the eyes,” he said “Most people don’t understand how the light comes down through the iris and exits out the opposite side of the eye, and that’s where it’s going to be brightest. I see that you picked up on that. You have a knack for this.”

Judy had never taken an art class until she enrolled in one at San Juan College. Thanks to the encouraging teacher, she began to believe that she could draw.

“It just came to me easy,” she said.

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Some of her art drawn with ink on poster board is of superheroes that appeared in comic books she began collecting as a teenager in New Jersey. Most of her comics are over 60 years old and still in excellent condition, each one stored in its own plastic sleeve. She keeps them in cardboard boxes, and they evoke another time in history.

They feature superheroes such as Wonder Woman; Firestorm, the Nuclear Man; Green Arrow; Jemm, Son of Saturn; Arac, Son of Thunder; Justice League of America; Dr. Strange; All Star Squadron; Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen; Conan, the King; Son of Satan; and Batman and Adam Strange.

“The stories were about how they solved the problem, and they did it the American way,” she said. “The good guys won, and the bad guys lost.

They would climb that mountain to solve the problem. They never stopped. I love it.”

Comics are history books Her comics are like history books. “The superheroes were fighting a certain thing,” she said. “Wonder Woman is in the German war. Her boyfriend is a major in the Army, and they’re fighting the Germans. That was then. It’s not current now. It’s a history book.”

She has about 3,000 comics, which she stopped collecting after she felt content with what she had. Through the years, she took the comic book collection with her wherever she went. Now she’s ready to sell them to someone who’s willing to buy the full collection.

They represent part of her childhood in which she was the only person who handled and read them. In a family of eight girls and one boy, keeping those comic books private was quite an accomplishment.

Grew up in New Jersey She grew up in Rutherford, New Jersey, and graduated from a private Catholic school in 1960. Her father was a chemical engineer, and her parents sent all their children to Catholic schools. She was one of the middle children and an overachiever. She cherished owning her comics. The only other thing she got new was a pair of shoes once a year. Everything else she shared with her siblings.

Hers was a traditional family with traditional expectations. She followed that traditional path by marrying soon after her high school graduation. She and her husband, Bill, settled in Passaic, New Jersey, and he worked for Flying Tiger Airlines, a freight airline, at Kennedy Airport in New York. "

Traveled frequently “Things came up where we could travel,” she said. “We were fortunate because there wasn’t any cost. I’ve been to Nassau, Bermuda, to Florida a million times.”

In connection with Bill’s airline work, the couple lived in France, Germany and England, each for about a year. That appealed to Judy’s sense of adventure.

“He’d say, ‘Do you want to go here?’ I’d say, ‘Oh, yeah. Let’s pack up. Let’s go. You don’t speak the language, but you go. There are so many wonderful things out there.”

When they weren’t traveling, Judy worked for an insurance agency as a claims manager.

“I wasn’t going to just sit at home,” she said.

Their son, Mike, was born about a year after they were married. He traveled with them almost everywhere they went.

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Move to Aztec In the early 1970s, after Bill had changed careers and worked as a radio station newsman, he received a job offer as news manager at an Aztec radio station. The family left New Jersey and settled in Aztec.

“I noticed there was no humidity here,” Judy said. “I couldn’t believe the atmosphere. It was so free. I went out and got a horse and rode all over the hills. I love to know what’s over the next mountain.”

In the late 1970s, she started taking writing and art classes at San Juan College.

“I wanted to be a student and pay my own bills and work for myself,” she said. “Bill was traditional, so the wife didn’t do that. I tried. Can we come to terms about the fact that I want to be an independent woman? This was not going to work for him. That’s when the marriage dissipated.”

By then Mike was away at college.

Earns AA degree Judy earned an AA degree in communications from San Juan College in 1980 and went on to study toward a bachelor’s degree.

“I had Pell grants and the whole schmear,” she said. “I even had a scholarship. I was an A student. I never would have done this when I was married. I never thought I could.”

She hit a snag when she couldn’t get the math classes in Farmington to complete her degree. To get them, she’d have had to travel to 38 | MAJESTIC LIVING | SPRING 2014

Albuquerque, something that wasn’t feasible for a single woman supporting herself. So she dropped out of school.

Goes into sales Not letting that derail her, she took her mentor’s advice and began working in sales, selling nuts and bolts for Mechanic’s Choice. Then she worked for TCI Cable, selling cable door to door. She eventually became a TCI Cable sales manager, a job she held for almost 20 years until Comcast took over the company and moved it to Texas.

Doug Clow of Aztec met Judy many years ago.

“I got my Dish TV satellite from her,” he said.

“She’s always open to other people’s ideas, and she’s working all the time. She’s a very happy person. She communicates with people very well, and she’s an asset to the community. She drove a yellow Volkswagen for over 30 years until she wore the wheels off of it and the running boards fell off the side. I always knew when she was coming around.”

Trades car for bike When the Volkswagen cratered, Judy needed a different job. At that time, she was in her 60s. She went looking for transportation and found it in a 60-year-old restored Schwinn bicycle.

“I had to get something that was a collector’s item,” she said. “It was a green bike, and it struck my eye. I can’t be conventional.”

She found a job near her home, working as a

carhop at Sonic. “It was fabulous!” she exclaimed. When she’d saved $3,000, she bought a used car.

She changed gears in the early 2000s and worked at Petco for a company called Nutro Natural Choice that sold dog and cat food. Always interested in dogs, Judy answered pet owners’ questions about their animals.

Learns computer skills When the job required her to learn computers, she went to the Farmington Public Library to master that skill. It was scary at first.

“I’m thinking if I touch this button, I’m going to wipe out the whole of New Mexico,” she said.

But she persevered and used her new computer skills at Petco. She loved the work and held that job until 2010 when Nutro Natural Choice pulled out of smaller stores, including Farmington’s Petco, after the economy slumped.

About that same time, she had a therapy dog, a golden lab named Samantha, that she took to hospitals and to nursing homes.

“I did that for about seven years,” she said.

“When Samantha died, I stopped doing it.”

One of her neighbors, Red Reid, helped Judy bury Samantha.

“I’ve known Judy five or six years,” Red said.

“She’s a good lady, a good neighbor.

Sometimes I have to ask her for a jump for the car and visa versa. When I went down to Texas to see my sister last year, I asked Judy if she’d come by and check on my wife. She said, ‘No problem.’”

Writes a novel When Samantha died and the Nutra Natural Choice job at Petco ended, Judy had time on her hands. She used it to write and draw.

“I just wrote a novel,” she said. “It’s about animals in the forest that talk like me and think like me. Then I wrote two short stories about a German Shepherd I met in Germany.”

She’s looking for part time work and would like to do motivational speaking to encourage people to believe in themselves and their abilities.

She’s still trying to sell her comic books,

though it’s hard to part with a collection that’s been with her for more than 60 years.

“When I put my comics up for sale, I never saw anything like the reaction I’m getting,” she said. “A lot of people called me. They can’t imagine that they’re 1950-something, and after I bought them, they weren’t touched by anybody else.”

Feels like a 12-year-old Still healthy and always on the go, she feels like she’s 12.

“I returned back to being a 12-year-old child as an adult,” she said with a laugh. “I didn’t let that go. I don’t think anybody should let that go. Twelve-year-olds believe they can do anything.”

She’s never idle.

“I’m healthy, and I’m going to get out there and find out what’s there for me,” she said.

“It’s there. I know it. I can feel it. I’ll keep feeling that way until they plant me. I’ll go to my grave being me. I’ll say, ‘Wait a minute, God,’ I’ve got to climb that mountain.’”

SPRING 2014 | MAJESTIC LIVING | 39

words and

music

Before you Google it ask Maggie, she’ll probably know the answer Story by Margaret Cheasbro | Photos by Josh Bishop Music brings joy to Maggie Mathers. She graduated from Texas University with a music degree.

She loves to help with music at Sacred Heart Catholic Church. Music even helps her to master difficult words. She learned to spell Rynkiewicz, the last name of her son-in-law, Stan, by singing it. “Margaret is an organist and has played for our parish for many, many years,” said Father Tim Farrell.

“She does a great job. The people love her.

She plays the organ and piano at the 8 a.m. Sunday Mass. She’s also a lector. She’s a great reader of God’s word. She is one of those very special people, very intelligent, kind, thoughtful and straightforward in the best sense. There’s nothing fake about Margaret.”

Carol, and son-in-law, Stan, in Farmington.

“She is my go-to-Google woman,” Carol said.

“If I need to know something, I will ask her first before I Google anything, because she always knows. She’s very easy to get along with. All my friends and Stan’s friends love her, and she’s adopted them. They all call her Mom.” Though she loves music, Maggie has had several jobs that were not in the music field. The one that keeps her busy now is proofreading for Majestic Media.

“She is serious about making sure punctuation and written English is presented properly,” said Cindy Cowan Thiele, editor at Majestic Media.

“It’s her passion. She’s always been my ‘fresh set of eyes’.”

Spry at 85 Still spry at 85, she lives with her daughter,

Lives across the nation Maggie has lived across the nation from Washington D.C. to Santa Monica, California. Her life

40 | MAJESTIC LIVING | SPRING 2014

began in Ada, Oklahoma, when she was born in her grandmother’s house on Feb. 16, 1929. Her grandfather ran the first post office there.

“He was required to give the place a name,” she said, “so he named it Ada for his oldest daughter.”

Maggie and her parents lived with her grandmother, who rented out the upstairs after the rest of the family grew up and left. One renter was a prize fighter. When Maggie was 18 months old, her mother ran off and married him.

“We moved wherever he had a bout,” Maggie recalled.

When he retired from fighting, they settled in the Washington, D.C., area. Maggie was 13 when her mother left the prize fighter.

“After Mom remarried Dad, we moved back to Texas, where he worked for Philips Petroleum in the oil patch,” she noted. “I’ll never forget my

dad saying, ‘She had no more business than a rabbit to leave me. I knew she’d be back.’ He did really adore her.”

Earns college scholarship Maggie graduated from high school in Pasadena, Texas, in 1945. With a $6,000 scholarship from Philips Petroleum, she attended Texas University at Austin.

“I started out thinking I was going to be a doctor,” she said, “but I didn’t know from nothing. I had had such an easy time in school. I’d never had to study to make all A’s, never had to write a paper.”

She had so much fun in college that she didn’t do much studying.

Dancing, not studying “I took up square dancing and folk dancing,” she said, “and I was very involved with the archeologists. I was making C’s and D’s, and every-

body in my family was embarrassed, including me.”

Her eclectic course work, including anthropology, botany, English, and a hodgepodge of other classes including music, made it hard to pinpoint a major. “The only degree we could find that would cover all the weird things I had taken was a bachelor of science in music,” she said.

She graduated in 1950, several months after her only sibling, Robert, was born in December 1949. He was a welcome addition. Her mother had been trying for years to have more children.

Teaches music After she graduated from college, Maggie took education classes at the University of Houston to earn a Texas teacher’s certificate. She taught music to fourth, fifth, and sixth graders in Texas City, Texas.

Until she went to college, Maggie was called Ayline, the name on her birth certificate. Here with her mother Josiephine she is dressed in her Sunday.

“I hated it,” she said. “I could never keep control of my class. They had my number, and they took advantage. I was there for one year.”

Her time in Texas City had a redeeming quality.

SPRING 2014 | MAJESTIC LIVING | 41

Attracted by Gregorian music, she began attending a Catholic church in Pasadena, Texas, though she and her parents were Baptists.

“I got hooked and wound up directing the choir,” she related. “The priest said, ‘If you’re going to do all this, I think you should take (Catholic) instruction.’ So I did. All the things I thought the Catholic Church believed that I couldn’t agree with I found out they didn’t believe.”

Joins Catholic Church She joined the Catholic Church, which upset her father.

“I think he would have rather I became a Communist,” she said. “When Daddy told me, ‘If you do this, you’re no daughter of mine,’ it hurt, but he got over it fairly quickly. We just didn’t talk about it.”

After her year in Texas City, she taught third grade in Burnett, Texas, for one year. “It was a fun class,” she recalled. “We got into square dancing, and the parents got behind that. They made costumes for everybody. My class did square dancing exhibitions at various meetings.

Otherwise it was the same old story. They had my number, so I decided to get out of teaching.”

California in 1955, she followed him and began working for a telephone company.

“I worked in a department with a lot of business and personal accounts,” she said. “I remember one time talking to Ursula Andress. They were going on vacation and wanted their phone put on hold. The same thing happened with Frances Bavier, who played Aunt Bee in the Andy Griffith Show. It was fun talking to those people.”

She married Coleman in 1956.

After her daughter, Carol, was born that year, she became a live-in housekeeper for a woman who headed a huge company. The woman let Maggie bring her daughter to work with her, but the job wasn’t Maggie’s cup of tea.

Maggie with Bert Nagle and Leon McGuffin, at Texas U. Austin, Couple separates performing a Mexican Machete Dance at the Student Union.

Sometime before her younger daughter, Mari-

Her father’s younger sister told her the Army was looking for program directors in service clubs. She applied, got the job and moved to Fort Richardson, Alaska. That’s where she met her first husband, Coleman, the father of her two daughters.

Works for telephone company When Coleman left the Army and moved to

lyn, was born in 1958, the family moved to Durango, Colorado, where Maggie’s parents lived.

Her dad, Bob Erwin (not Bob Erwin the teacher married to Flo), worked in Farmington for Salt Water Control, a company that grew out of an invention of her uncle’s. They stayed with her parents one summer, then returned to California, where the couple separated about 1960.

To make ends meet, Maggie worked at temporary jobs in Santa Monica, including one with System Development Corporation, which had contracts with the Rand Corporation. When that temp job turned into a full time position with Rand, she found her niche.

“I learned how to be a key punch operator back in the days when they had cards for computers,” she said. “I was good at it, and I was fast.”

Works with Strategic Air Command Rand designed training programs for the Strategic Air Command, a U.S. Air Force program that involved Cold War command and control of land-based strategic and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

“I was learning about airway paths all over the United States and all over the world,” she said. “I was very good at it. It was so great to find something that everybody respected me for.”

She held that position for several years.

A friendship with her boss, Boyd Mathers, blossomed into a romance. When he was transferred to Washington, D.C., she moved with him, and they married. Her upper elementary school children came with her. In the late 1960s, Boyd took a two-year position with Rand in Vietnam

42 | MAJESTIC LIVING | SPRING 2014

while Maggie and the girls stayed in the U.S. Maggie had a two-week vacation with him in Saigon and Hong Kong.

“We could hear guns from where he lived in Saigon,” she said. “They sounded like cannons off in the distance.”

Transcribes interviews Back in Washington, D.C., Maggie worked for a transcribing company. “We transcribed for many organization including the Voice of America, Social Security hearings, and for the Smithsonian,” she said.

“The Smithsonian was putting out a set of jazz records, and they had interviewed all these old jazz musicians for the album’s cover. We transcribed those interviews. That was so much fun.”

The marriage came to an end in the late 1970s, after both her daughters were grown.

In 1982, her mother, Josiephine Reed Erwin, called to say Maggie’s father was dying. So she moved back to Farmington, where her parents were living. After her father’s death, she stayed with her mother until she could find a house.

Works for J.A. May Her mother worked for J.A. May Jewelers. When an accounting position opened up, May offered the job to Maggie. She acquired a new vocation, and enjoyed working with her mother,.

“Everyone called her Josie,” Maggie said. “She was a hoot. One year she made a cake out of sponge, put frosting on it, and gave it to Mr. May for his birthday. She was always playing jokes.”

Though Josie was 88 when she passed away in 1998, she was in the yard raking and bagging leaves until the week before she died.

While at May’s, Maggie worked on the weekends as a receptionist at Salmon Ruins. “Part of my job was reading all the books in what was then their little library and learning as much as I could so I could answer questions,” she said. “That was fun. I thought I’d fallen into a vat of honey.”

Directs Catholic Charities When Barbara Cummins, who was on the San Juan Catholic Charities board, asked her to work for Catholic Charities, Maggie became its director and left her other jobs. She worked there for 10 years.

When she saw an ad for a Daily Times proofreader, she applied. She didn’t hear anything, so she began cutting items out of the paper, correcting mistakes, and sending them to the newspaper with the question, “Are you sure you don’t need me?”

Her persistence landed her a part time job.

* Mathers 63

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SPRING 2014 | MAJESTIC LIVING | 43

Webb

continued from 28

While the dealership is now run by his son, Perry, and his grandsons Perry Max Webb and Grant Allred, the family patriarch still puts in a five-day, 40-hour-a-week schedule.

“Customer relations is the most important part of our business,” Webb said. “We stay in contact with our customers and we make sure it’s personal contact.”

“Every six weeks, we have a dinner here at the dealership for our new customers,” Webb said. “We have dinner catered and we show our customers the features of their car and how to take care of it. We open part of the shop for it and we usually have between 4050 people.”

Getting – and keeping – loyal customers is the foundation of having a successful automobile dealership, Webb said. “Customers know more about the vehicle they want and the features they want these days,” he said of today’s car buyers. “They do their research, which

44 | MAJESTIC LIVING | SPRING 2014

makes it easier for our salespeople. It used to be a long, drawn-out process to sell and buy a car, but not anymore. And we have to rely on repeat customers – and that’s why our attitude toward customer service is a priority. Our customers pay our bills and we want to be of service to them.”

Webb still monitors sales and does all the taxes for the business, which doesn’t give him a lot of spare time. He no longer has his beloved Appaloosa horses, his ranch or his airplane. But he finds great pleasure in the people he meets every day when he goes to his office.

“I enjoy the people I work with and my customers,” he said. “And I enjoy my church work, so I don’t have much time to develop hobbies.”

Webb does, however, continue to serve the community. He’s proud of the Farmington Civic Center, which was built while he was mayor, and of the police station and fire station. “We

had the boom years, when the city was in expansion mode,” he explained.

Still active, still involved, still enjoying life, Webb said he has no regrets. “I don’t live in the past,” he said. “It’s wasted energy to live in the past and I try not to live too much in the future. I live in the present and life has been good to me. Charity and service are very important in my life.”

“Life has been good and I’ve been truly blessed,” Webb said. “Farmington has been good to us. It’s been a great place to raise a family and live. It’s close to the outdoors and I don’t know of any place I’d rather be in right now.”

With that, his phone rang. Marlo Webb answered it, shuffled through the stacks of papers on his desk and – quickly – found what he was looking for. It was business as usual for a community leader and businessman who appreciates his past, enjoys his present and doesn’t look too far into his future.

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46 | MAJESTIC LIVING | SPRING 2014

Farmington’s Kamryn Blackwood sets her sights on Miss U.S.A. title Story by Debra Mayeux | Photos by Josh Bishop The Amazon beauty lifts her right arm and curls it tightly, smiling as her bicep muscle bulges beneath her ivory skin.

Her leopard print short-shorts provide the only color in a bold ensemble featuring an ebony body suit and frilly white ribbon, bearing the title of Miss New Mexico U.S.A. Kamryn Blackwood’s smoky eyes sparkle when she tosses her platinum-crowned head and admits to being a jock turned beauty queen.

She joked that her focus has turned from the FBI to the runway, because the criminal justice major from Farmington won the Miss New Mexico U.S.A. Pageant.

Blackwood, a senior at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., decided in 2012 to leave behind her goal of joining the Federal Bureau of Investigation and begin preparing to compete for the Miss U.S.A crown.

“I watched the pageant and thought it was something I wanted to do. It looked fun,” Blackwood said in an interview at Complete Physique gym in Farmington, where she has trained for the past several years as a tennis champion and now as a Miss U.S.A. contestant.

Blackwood, 21, was raised with a competitive spirit. She was an award-

winning gymnast as a child. As a tennis champion, she was the first Farmington High School student to win the doubles individual title two years in a row. She also won two team state titles, then went on to play tennis for Nova Southeastern on a tennis scholarship.

The 2010 Farmington High School graduate was the student class president and the homecoming queen.

While she was intrigued by the Miss U.S.A. title, Blackwood knew it would take a lot of hard work and preparation to get her ready for the pageant.

She began by doing research. She attended the 2013 Miss New Mexico and SPRING 2014 | MAJESTIC LIVING | 47

Miss U.S.A. pageants to gather more information.

Then, she decided to make the committment to compete to win.

“I didn’t want to compete in the Miss New Mexico pageant unless I knew I would win Miss U.S.A., and that is the mindset I went in with,” Blackwood said.

Being an athlete, Blackwood trained to build muscle mass. “For 3 1/2 years I was lifting heavy, heavy, heavy, because you want to explode off of your heels in tennis. You don’t want those muscles in a bikini,” she said.

Blackwood began training in February of 2013 for the 2014 Miss New Mexico pageant. Her trainer Anthony Romero and Blackwood sat in a small kitchenette area behind the front desk at Complete Physique, the gym owned by Romero.

Photographs of muscled men and women adorned the walls, as Blackwood talked about losing her muscle mass. “She is trying to lose muscle,” Romero said with a smile.

Once Blackwood signed the contract with Donald Trump’s Universal, and became an official pageant contestant, Romero had to be approved by the organizaton to train her.

Pageant contestants live under a microscope.

They have to follow a code of high moral conduct and not get in trouble while representing their state.

This comes easy to Blackwood, who was raised in Christian home with the focus of help48 | MAJESTIC LIVING | SPRING 2014

ing others in need. Her family has been involved in mission work, and last summer Blackwood joined the National Day of Care on a trip to Africa.

The National Day of Care was founded by Farmington resident Ronna Jordan, who has a heart for Africa and especially the orphans affected by the AIDS virus. Jordan raises money and regularly takes teams to Africa where they build homes for the impoverished.

Blackwood helped build 10 homes in two weeks. “It was heartbreaking. The people love you for being you. I learned more from them about being grateful for everything you have,” Blackwood said, adding that the people are happy with nothing because they have God in their hearts.

The trip to Africa cut into her training schedule and by the time she returned home, her progress had been interrupted. She had to refocus on the challenge – drop weight, learn to walk the runway and prepare for judges’ interviews.

“I walked like an athlete – a jock,” she laughed. “I had to learn to walk like a girl.”

Romero didn’t help her with that, but he has assisted her in being physically prepared for the competition.

“She wanted to workout every day,” he said.

That was not possible, but she did follow the diets and workout routines he prepared. “This is

“For 3 1/2 years I was lifting heavy, heavy, heavy, because you want to explode off of your heels in tennis. You don’t want those muscles in a bikini,” — Kamryn Blackwood

amazing what Kamryn has done – what she has accomplished in a short period of time.

The girls she went up against had been preparing for this for a long time. I think it’s awesome.”

And Blackwood is a favorite to win the crown, despite the fact that other contestants have been competing their entire lives and have million-dollar sponsors.

Blackwood has run a quasi-grassroots pageant campaign by raising funds in her hometown of Farmington. She visited the community the weekend of Jan. 25, and it seemed like a whirlwind.

She spent a bit of time with her grandparents, Bill and Suzanne Hall and Mary Blackwood, as well as with her parents Tyra Lopez and Lynn Blackwood. Then, she was whisked off to party after party, school assemblies and of course the gym for a workout with Romero.

“She works very, very hard,” he said.

The hard work ethic comes from her parents, Blackwood said. “I really have to thank

them for that mindset.”

The ethics and desire to compete led her to the pageant, which Blackwood hopes will give her an opportunity to inspire other people. “I want to share my story and relate to people. It takes hard work and dedication, and if you set your mind to it, you can accomphish anything.”

Blackwood plans to win the title of Miss U.S.A. and represent Farmington and the entire state on a national level. “I’ll do everything in my power to make this happen, because you only have one shot at this,” she said.

Blackwood is raising money to help cover pageant costs, which include buying an evening gown, bathing suit, training and traveling. She needs the funds to help her win the title of the 63rd Miss U.S.A. There is an account set up at Vectra Bank.

It is the Kamryn Blackwood Pageant Account, and anyone can contribute to her success.

“We all want to see her do good,” Romero said. “She has that fire. She’s ready.”

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SPRING 2014 | MAJESTIC LIVING | 49

A voice for kids in need Shipley turns life lessons into career dedicated to helping children Story by Debra Mayeux | Photos by Whitney Howle Little Alysha Shipley was anxiously anticipating the arrival of her baby sister. The family home had its ups and downs, with her father working long hours in the oil patch and her mother battling mental illness.

“I remember being excited when my dad would come home – then, things were normal,” Shipley said. “I was really close to him.”

Richard Lyle Shipley, however, was facing his own demon – substance abuse – and it claimed his life three days before his baby girl, Riccie Shipley was born. “My mom went off the deep end,” Alysha said. She was only 4 years old when Riccie was born, and she became Riccie’s primary caregiver.

“I remember taking care of her – changing her diapers, feeding her,” Alysha said. She did the best she could, but Children Youth and Family stepped in, removing Alysha and Riccie from their mother’s care and placing them in Childhaven.

“I remember being at Childhaven. I felt safe, but it wasn’t home,” Alysha said. “I was fed, and I got to play.”

Alysha, however, was worried about Riccie. The staff continually reassured the little girl that her sister was being cared for, and the staff were changing her diapers.

This experience led Alysha to a career in social work. It even helped her secure a job with Childhaven as the volunteer supervisor for the Court Appointed Special Advocate, or CASA program.

While at Childhaven, Alysha recalled being released to the care of a maternal aunt, who turned around and gave both girls back to their mother. The pattern of neglect continued, until Alysha and Riccie once again were removed from their mother’s care and placed back at Childhaven, where Alysha remembered being fed soup and having a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toy featuring the character Michelangelo.

“When I left there I didn’t get to take that with me, and I still remember that. If I would 50 | MAJESTIC LIVING | SPRING 2014

SPRING 2014 | MAJESTIC LIVING | 51

Alysha and Amy O’Neil, director of the CASA program.

have had that returned to me, I would have been so happy,” Alysha said.

Returning that toy would have been the job of a CASA volunteer, but the program wasn’t developed in Farmington, when Alysha, now 26, was in the system.

CASA volunteers are assigned to children placed in foster care. There are 40 CASA volunteers, serving 98 children in the San Juan CASA program. Those volunteers make sure the children’s needs are being met, and they become a voice for that child.

“It’s nice to have the advocate hear what the child needs, and see that the child gets his or her belongings from Childhaven or a foster home when they are adopted,” Alysha said.

Her story had somewhat of a happy ending.

She and Riccie were adopted by their paternal uncle and his wife, Danny and Emma. “They took us both in, and they kept us,” Alysha said, adding she still had an opportunity to see her mother for the next couple of years.

The relationship, however, was cut short on Halloween, when Alysha was 6 and Riccie was 52 | MAJESTIC LIVING | SPRING 2014

2. Their mother committed suicide, leaving a note behind that asked Danny and Emma to continue caring for her daughters. They did and the girls, after a difficult start, were raised in a stable home.

This is the ending Alysha would like to see for all children who enter the foster care system. She was an advocate before volunteering with CASA. “I was always concerned about my little sister,” she said. Alysha encouraged Riccie to get an education – graduate from high school and go to college. They both earned bachelor’s degrees, and Riccie moved to Oregon, where she hopes to begin a writing career.

Alysha choked up, while talking about it, expressing how much she loves her sister and worries about her. She was given a maternal instinct at a young age by a mother who didn’t know how to care for her children, and it is something Alysha carried with her and shares in her work.

She matches CASA volunteers with children in need of services.

“Her personal experience has led her to a life of service,” said Amy O’Neill, director of the CASA program. “That’s what drew her first to working at Childhaven, and then as a Childhaven employee, she became interested in advocating for a child.”

Alysha became a CASA volunteer before securing a position with the program. “We always loved having her as a CASA volunteer,” O’Neill said. “When she went off and finished her degree, we welcomed her back and are very lucky to have her as a CASA volunteer supervisor.”

Alysha’s position has allowed her to supervisor of up to 30 CASA volunteers. She also attends court hearings and meetings at Children, Youth and Family with the volunteer.

Her work also includes case supervision and teaching the CASAs how to gather facts and approach the next step in their cases.

She also participates in leading the preservice trainings and monthly in-service trainings.

O’Neill described Alysha as being non-

judgmental and respectful toward others, and this has been because of her personal experience. She knows how important it is to have an advocate for the child, an advocate who can speak to the court system on that child’s behalf.

“Being what I’ve been through helped me growing up,” Alysha said. She knows she was

lucky to find a home where both she and Riccie were accepted and loved.

“The advocacy work that CASA does, allows the volunteer to be that person who stands up in court and says these children should not be separated,” she explained.

Alysha also stated that she recalls her life experience when dealing with children who are placed in Childhaven. “Staff tries to make the children feel at home. They make sure the children are comfortable and they get a stuffed animal when they come in,” she said, but she has been able to relate directly to these children’s experience and help them through it.

“Part of what defines people is the things they go through as children,” Alysha said. “I love my biological parents, and I don’t think they were bad people. They needed some help.”

Alysha has good memories with her biological and adoptive parents. She got to grow up with her sister and with three adopted sisters. “I was very aware that we didn’t look

SPRING 2014 | MAJESTIC LIVING | 53

“Part of what defines people is the things they go through as children. I love my biological parents, and I don’t think they were bad people. They needed some help.”

— Alysha Shipley

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54 | MAJESTIC LIVING | SPRING 2014

like we belonged together, but we did,” she said. She carried this experience into the work she has been doing with children who might be adopted, but who still love their biological parents.

“Their parents made them who they are, and if you say something bad about the parents, you are saying something bad about the child,” she said. “We always focus on the child – not where they have been, but where they are going.”

This has been a philosophy she shares with CASA volunteers and one she will continue to share as new volunteers enter the program.

The CASA program is seeking volunteers.

There are 12 children in need of a CASA at this time, and the number could increase, according to O’Neill, who said there will be a CASA volunteer training in April. The training

begins April 8 and includes 25 hours in the classroom and five hours of court observation.

Volunteers must be 21 years of age or older, and a diverse background is a plus.

Male volunteers, as well as Spanish- and Navajo-speaking volunteers, are needed. The program also would like to welcome members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered and Questioning, or LGBTQ community to join the program.

A one-year commitment to the program needs to be made, and the volunteer must be able to pass a background check, Alysha said, adding that the experience will be rewarding.

“This is the most fulfilling volunteer work anyone could do,” Alysha said. “Even doing the smallest thing in a child’s life is very profound.”

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Charlene Davis says grit and determination creates success Story by Bill Papich You never know who you’ll run into at the Dusty Attic in downtown Farmington.

Owner Charlene Davis can recall some notables visiting her store during the past 20 years.

She rents space in the more than 100-year-old building at 111 W. Main St. to 44 vendors who sell arts, crafts, collectibles and other items.

“It was my husband’s 70th birthday,” Davis said, recalling the day in 1998 when Hollywood film star Demi Moore walked in.

“It looked like her and I asked her.

She spent about $10,000 over four days and I took a check.”

Davis said most of Demi’s purchases were fur stoles and collectible dolls.

56 | MAJESTIC LIVING | SPRING 2014

She was in Farmington visiting relatives.

Before opening the Dusty Attic in 1994, Davis’ background was in the banking business in Texas and New Mexico. Her husband, Bill, was a manager for Gas Company of New Mexico.

During his career they lived in Carlsbad, Artesia, Portales, Santa Fe and finally Farmington, where Bill retired in 1990.

Arriving in Farmington from Santa Fe – where Davis and another woman were the first female bank managers in that city – Davis recalls the “cultural shock” she experienced while looking for a banking job in Farmington.

“I applied for a job and I was offered a teller’s job.”

She did not take the teller’s job

Photo by Bill Papich

Photo by Josh Bishop

and eventually found a better position at a savings and loan bank. Later she became a lending officer for the First National Bank of Santa Fe branch in Farmington.

Davis doesn’t get into discussions about her views on the working world of men and woman.

With a sparkle in her eye, she said she doesn’t feel qualified to talk about it.

“Because I’ve never been a man,” she said.

She and Bill opened the Dusty Attic in 1994. The building was constructed in 1910 as a mercantile store.

“Bill had said, ‘the biggest building in downtown Farmington is empty.’ He came up with the idea and I became a merchant.

“We had to gut the whole thing. We recycled the lumber. We used our five grandsons to get the lumber ready for remodeling. Even the carpet was recycled from a hotel in Durango.”

Bill passed away in 2005.

If Demi Moore was shopping in downtown Farmington to kill some time, she couldn’t have picked a better place than the Dusty Attic.

It takes a long time to see everything in 58 | MAJESTIC LIVING | SPRING 2014

downtown Farmington’s largest historic building.

The vendor spaces display the works of local artists, collectors and crafts people selling paintings, pottery, jewelry, dinnerware and clothing. Antiques and memorabilia are for sale. In addition to the main floor, there’s a downstairs and upstairs.

Davis calls the building’s basement “down the garden path,” named for a huge painting on a wall at the bottom of the stairs, of a garden, painted by one of her grandsons.

“So it doesn’t feel like a basement,” she said.

There are literally thousands of items for sale in the Dusty Attic, each one marked with a price tag and vendor space code. In addition to the rent that vendors pay for their spaces, each vendor agrees to work in the store eight hours a month.

“It creates getting to feel that you’re part of the group, and you are,” Davis said. “Everybody creates their own scheduling except for the cashiers.”

With one cash register for the whole store, customers can buy items from any vendor in the store when a vendor is not there.

This arrangement provides individual vendors an accounting of their sales, as each sale with its corresponding vendor code is entered into the cash register.

“So if folks want to bring their business in here, we take care of the details,” Davis said.

“We make it look easy.”

Davis said the Dusty Attic is a “slick way for a new business person to get started” and maybe someday have their own storefront.

There are plenty of storefronts for rent in downtown Farmington.

She has some advice for people who may be thinking about starting a business.

“It takes a lot of work and a lot of fortitude to open a business and it takes an individual willing to put in 12 to 14 hours a day,” she said.

“If you’re not having a good time, you’re not going to be successful, because you’re not going to put in the hours.”

SPRING 2014 | MAJESTIC LIVING | 59

newandlife opportunity It’s in Debbie Joslin’s DNA to care for mothers in need Story by Debra Mayeux | Photos by Josh Bishop A newspaper photograph of impoverished people dying in Africa changed a young girl’s life. Debbie Joslin was in 9th grade when she saw the photograph of dead bodies being piled onto a cart and taken away. She read the 60 | MAJESTIC LIVING | SPRING 2014

story and learned they were poor and starving.

“My heart was broken for them,” Joslin said.

“I carried that photo with me for months.”

The day she saw the photograph changed her life. It was the day Joslin realized she was called

to serve those in less fortunate circumstances than her own. In school, teachers would ask her what she wanted to be when she grew up, and she would reach for the photograph saying, “I want to help people like these.”

Joslin followed her desire to help and today works as the executive director of Grace Place, a pregnancy center for woman and small children in need.

Grace Place opened April 1, 1990, as Animas Crisis Pregnancy Center in a small A-frame building on North Locke Avenue. In 2009, it moved to the Butler Professional Center on North Butler Avenue, where they provide ultrasound services and assistance to mothers in crisis.

Joslin estimated the program has helped more than 30,000 people in San Juan County since opening its doors, and in her mind that is not enough. She took over Animas Crisis Pregnancy Center in January 2004. Prior to that, she served on the board of directors. By 2010, Joslin convinced the board to change the name of the organization to Grace Place.

“Grace means underserved favor,” she explained. It means a person receives blessings and gifts without having to pay for them. It was in her heart to “lovingly care” for these woman and their children without the expectation of receiving something in return.

Joslin understood what it was like to be an

expectant mother who might not have the resources to care for a child. She was in a similar situation when she was 17 years old. She found herself pregnant, without anyone to help her. She chose to have an abortion, something she later came to regret.

“Women feel trapped and make wrong decisions,” she said. “My job is to come alongside them and help them with support. It’s not enough to say abortion is wrong until we can help them to not feel trapped.”

“Her heart is for people to be healed and be whole.”

— Wendy Curtin Grace Place spokesperson She wants her work at Grace Place to provide a portion of that support, but she knows these women need so much more. While Grace Place provides some prenatal services, parenting classes and baby supplies, it has been Joslin’s vision to give more.

“It is in my DNA. I can’t sit still,” she said

about herself.

Shortly after becoming the director of Grace Place, Joslin began searching for a parenting program. Before it was implemented, young women could walk in, ask for help and receive free clothing and diapers for their babies.

“I wanted to help them, not enable them,” Joslin said. She asked the women to take parenting classes in order to earn “mommy dollars.” The more classes a woman takes the more dollars she can earn to purchase clothing, supplies and diapers.

The class is on DVDs that are watched by the women, who also have homework assignments which must be completed to earn the supplies. They even have the opportunity to earn a brand-new crib in the Mommy Store at Grace Place.

“They deserve the very best we can give,” Joslin said. This attitude led her to seek an ultrasound machine in 2006 for Grace Place.

She was in the process of applying for a grant from Focus on the Family, when a local man walked into the center and presented the staff with a donation to purchase the ultrasound

SPRING 2014 | MAJESTIC LIVING | 61

machine and remodel the old building to allow for an ultrasound screening room.

A second ultrasound machine was donated in December 2013 from a local donation.

“Resources flow to strong vision,” Joslin said, adding her vision for the facility is strong.

She has plans to develop a fatherhood program, focused on training men to be good and productive parents. The classes, set to begin later this year, will be taught to men by men.

“We want our dads to know they are not alone. Becoming a dad is a scary thing,” Joslin said. “If we help to make them better men, better dads, they can provide a stable home life for their families.”

Joslin also would like to offer sexually transmitted disease testing and treatment beginning in 2015.

Another long-term vision would be to set up a satellite office in Kirtland, said Joslin, who insists on dreaming big.

Wendy Curtin, a spokesperson for Grace Place, called Joslin’s work “visionary,” saying she always wants to make things better for the girls and women using the facility. “Her heart is for people to be healed and be whole,” Curtin said.

Joslin fulfilled a dream when she moved to Farmington in June 1982 from South Texas.

She and her husband, Randy Joslin, were 62 | MAJESTIC LIVING | SPRING 2014

brought here to be the youth pastors at Trinity Assembly of God Church. In 1986, they became house parents at Navajo Ministries.

“We have been involved with the youth, and have a heart for the Navajo people and people of the Four Corners. It is a unique area with so many cultures in one melting pot,” she said.

When Randy and Debbie Joslin were house parents, they also had a family of their own.

They are the parents of four children, one of whom died in 2002, when she was 11 years old. It was a “life-altering” event for the Joslin family, but they received a good deal of support. “Farmington is full of compassionate people who surrounded us and loved us,” she said.

“Out of that experience I feel I am more compassionate toward women who are experiencing loss,” Joslin said, and at Grace Place, woman can find compassion and support when they need it most. Joslin even would like to see a shelter for pregnant mothers come out of her work in the future.

She shared the story of a young pregnant woman who walked in the door at Grace Place. The woman was living in a car with her boyfriend. “It’s not fair that women have to choose between a place to live and their children,” Joslin said.

When Joslin began this journey in 2004, she did not plan to be at Grace Place for 10 years. “I stayed and I am so committed and drawn to helping my girls have the best they can from the community. Time just got away from me,” she said.

Finding time to share with her husband, grown children and three grandchildren always can be a challenge, but Joslin makes time. She enjoys turning off her cell phone and heading into the mountains above Silverton.

“I enjoy a hot cup of coffee and a fire in a fire pit outside in the mountains watching the sunrise,” Joslin said. “It represents so many promises of a new day. It speaks to my heart of new life and opportunity.”

It is a representation that has become her life’s purpose – providing new life and opportunity for mothers in need.

Mathers continued from 43 Becomes proofreader First, Maggie proofread only classified ads. Eventually she proofread the entire newspaper and handled the paper’s computer library.

“I worked with her all the years she worked at The Daily Times,” said Cindy. “It was a badge of honor when you got a corrected proof page back after Maggie read it, with just a few or no red marks on it. Usually the pages looked like they were bleeding from red marks.”

Seventeen years later when Maggie was in her late 70s, Cindy asked her to proofread for a new business, Majestic Media. So Maggie did that on her time off.

“I was working from 1 in the afternoon until near midnight at The Daily Times because I was proofreading the next day’s paper,” she said.

It was long hard day’s work and she was getting tired of it, so she left The Daily Times and proofread just for Majestic Media.

It involved fewer hours, and it’s a job she still holds.

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Community minded She remains a staunch Libertarian and has served chairman of the county party and secretary of the state party.

“I’m for individual freedom,” she said. She ran for the state legislature twice, each time getting a small but respectable number of votes for a third party.

She’s always been community minded. She held offices as president, treasurer and secretary of the Council of Community Agencies. As president, she signed the mortgage papers for the PATH building on Piñon Street.

She was involved also with Habitat for Humanity when it first started in the area, and was part of a transportation committee focused on bringing a bare bones bus system to the area.

She’s priceless She loves her music involvement at Sacred Heart, and she remains dedicated to proofreading for Majestic Media, where people appreciate her skills.

“When you read and edit stories for hours at a time, your eyes play tricks on you,” Cindy said.

“After a while you see things that aren’t there and miss things that are. That’s what makes Maggie so priceless. She’s able to look at stories in a way that goes against everything our brains would naturally do. I feel lucky to get to work with her. I learn something every time I talk to her.”

SPRING 2014 | MAJESTIC LIVING | 63

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Coolest Things Man and Machines

The famous American proverb says that necessity is the mother of invention.

Today technology is in everything and everywhere and sometimes more frustration and less necessity.

At one time or another we all wish we could run away from all our technology and just ‘unplug’ for a while.

Today peace and quiet can be a fleeting commodity, but we also have to admit that technology has improved our lives.

If you’re checking out our Coolest Things you’ve already found some time just to sit back and read about the great local people in this community.

We’ve found some items that will help keep you safe, help you have dinner ready when you get home and help you sleep better.

We hope one of these will be the key to helping you find more time to just relax and enjoy life.

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hoMe, hoMe on the ranGe

Bushnell hybrid www.bushnellgolf.com Here you go golf lovers; it’s the first laser rangefinder and GPS in one. This device is perfect for the golfer who can’t commit to either the accuracy of laser rangefinders or the versatility of GPS technology. The hybrid’s laser has Bushnell’s dependable pinseeker technology, and the device is pre-loaded with more than 16,000 courses in the U.S. and Canada. Oh, and it’s perfectly legal in competition. $500

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2

Phony PhotoGraPher

Sony DSc-QX10/B Smartphone attachable Lens-Style camera www.sony.com, Amazon.com and BestBuy.com

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knock, knock – See Who’S there

Goji sends picture alerts www.gojiaccess.com

The Goji Smart Lock takes pictures of who is at your door and automatically Introducing the first-ever zoom lens and sends you picture alerts to your mobile phone, providing you with real-time sensor combo that clips right to your smartphone. Designed for use with most information about who is accessing your home. You can also choose to receive iOS and Android mobile phones, this real-time app and text notifications about Sony DSC-QX10 attachable lens-style camera features 10x optical zoom and a all the activity to your mobile phone.

Easy to install, the device requires the 1/2.3" Exmor R CMOS sensor to enhance effectively the on-the-go cam- same level of expertise required to install any standard deadbolt lock. Three C era capabilities of your phone. batteries, that should last up to one year, power the lock. $250 $235

4

What a crock!

Belkin Smart-enabled WeMo crock-Pot Slow cooker The Wi-Fi enabled cooker looks nearly identical to other similar slow cookers, with controls on the front for toggling warm, low and high settings – but chefs can use the WeMo iOS app to adjust temperatures and set automated on/off timers. Being a smart product and all, you can use the WeMo app for iOS Mac or Android to turn it on or off remotely, adjust the temperature or change the time settings. You can also receive reminders so that you don’t let it sit too long. $99

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haNDs-free tuNes

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Lark, i am your father

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Leather moNey catcher

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No more couNtiNg sheep

runphones® www.runphones.com

Death star Bird house www.thefowndry.com

Vintage Baseball glove Wallets www.werd.com

high-tech sleep solutions www.withings.com

Everyone knows listening to music while exercising outside helps to make working out more enjoyable. However, ear buds can be uncomfortable and can drown out other important sounds such as traffic and other people. RunPhones new washable, comfortable headphones, are designed specifically for exercise and provide the perfect compromise of music, comfort, convenience, and safety.

They are also perfect for listening to music before going to sleep each night. $39

Avian backyard domination!

That’s no moon! It’s a Death Star Birdhouse! Now you can reign supreme over your backyard while feeding your imperial flyers with the most terrifying planet destroying high quality ceramic bird feeder on the block this officially licensed Death Star birdhouse.

Fielders Choice makes wallets with leather recycled from old baseball gloves. No need to break these in or stick them in your mattress; they’re already soft and supple. There’s one model with a zip closure and a simpler pouch style with a flap pocket.

The Withings Aura is a high-tech sleep solution from remote-controlled, dualsided mattresses to fancy alarm clocks that wake you up with soft sounds or lights. Connected to the Aura alarm and a mobile app, you’ll get detailed information about your sleep. The alarm uses various lights to help trigger release of melatonin (the sleep hormone), and changes when it’s wake-up time to wake you up subtly using soft sounds and lights when you are in a light sleep cycle.

$38.88

$120

$299

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ADVERTISERS DIRECTORy Allstate Agents................................22 Viviana Aguirre 900 Sullivan Ave. Farmington 505-327-4888 B J Brown 3030 E Main St., Ste X9 Farmington, NM 505-324-0480 Kelly J. Berhost 1415 W. Aztec Blvd, Ste. 9 Aztec, NM 505-334-6177 Harold Chacon 8205 Spain Rd. NE, Suite 209 C Albuquerque, NM 505-296-2752 Dennis McDaniel 505-328-0486 Matt Lamoreux 4100 E. Main St. Farmington, NM 505-599-9047 Johnnie Pete 817 W. Broadway, Ste. B Farmington 505-325-0297 Silvia Ramos 2400 E. 30th St. 505-327-9667 Animas Credit Union........................24 2101 E. 20th St. 3850 E. Main St. Farmington, N.M. 505-326-7701 405 W. Broadway Inside Farmer’s Market Bloomfield, N.M. www.animascu.com Armstrong Coury Insurance ............58 424 E. Main Farmington, N.M. 505-327-5077 www.armstrongcouryinsurance.com Ashley Furniture HomeStore.............7 5200 E. Main Street Farmington, N.M. 505-516-1030 www.ashleyfurniture.com Beehive Homes...............................15 400 N. Locke 508 N. Airport Farmington, N.M. 505-427-3794

Browns Shoe Fit..............................48 124 Main St. Farmington, N.M. 505-327-9330 Budget Blinds ...................................2 825 N. Sullivan Farmington, N.M. 505-324-2008 Cascade Bottled Water & Coffee Service.....................36 & 59 214 S. Fairview Farmington, N.M. 505-325-1859 Cellular One ......................................5 1-800-730-2350 www.cellularoneonline.com City of Farmington..........................55 Great Lakes Airlines Farmington, N.M. 1-800-554-5111 www.flygreatlakes.com DeNae’s Boutique...........................54 San Juan Plaza Farmington, N.M. 505-326-6025 Desert Hills Dental Care ..................29 2525 E. 30th St. Farmington, N.M. 505-327-4863 866-327-4863 www.deserthillsdental.com The Dusty Attic ...............................43 111 W. Main St. Farmington, N.M. 505-327-7696 First United Methodist Church.........43 808 N. Monterey Farmington, N.M. 505-327-0363 www.fumcfarmington.com The Floor Trader .............................39 5013 E. Main St. Farmington, N.M. 505-325-8800 www.floortraderfarmington.com

Four Corners Orthodontics..............18 3751 N. Butler Ave. Farmington, N.M. 505-564-9000 1-800-4Braces www.herman4braces.com Golf Etc...........................................36 3501 E. Main St., Suite I Farmington, N.M. 505-258-4152 Le Petit Salon..................................42 406 Broadway 5150 College Blvd.

Farmington, N.M. 505-325-1214 Metal Depot....................................32 2001 San Juan Blvd.

Farmington, N.M. 505-564-8077 www.metaldepots.com Natalie’s for Her, Him, Home ...........67 4301 Largo, Suite H Farmington, N.M. www.nataliesonline.com Next Level Home Audio & Video......45 1510 E. 20th St., Suite A Farmington, N.M. 505-327-NEXT www.327NEXT.com Parker’s Inc. Office Products ...........24 714-C W. Main St. Farmington, N.M. 505-325-8852 www.parkersinc.com Partners Assisted Living .................33 313 N. Locke Ave. Farmington, N.M. 505-325-9600 www.partnerassistedliving.com Pinon Hills Community Church 12 & 62 5101 N. Dustin Avenue Farmington, N.M. 505-325-4541 www.PinonHillsChurch.com Quality Appliance............................63 522 E. Broadway Farmington, N.M. 505-327-6271

R.A. Biel Plumbing & Heating ..........28 Farmington, N.M. 505-327-7755 www.rabielplumbing.com Reliance Medical Group...................13 3451 N. Butler Avenue Farmington, N.M. 505-566-1915 1409 West Aztec Blvd.

Aztec, N.M. 505-334-1772 www.reliancemedicalgroup.com ReMax of Farmington........................3 108 N. Orchard Farmington, N.M. 505-327-4777 www.remax.com Royal Floor .....................................23 2021 E. 19th St. Farmington, N.M. 505-327-0476 San Juan Nurseries .........................19 800 E. 20th St. Farmington, N.M. 505-326-0358 www.sanjuannurseries.com Sanchez and Sanchez Real Estate .....4 4301 Largo St. Suite F Farmington, NM 87402 505-327-9039 Sleep-N-Aire...................................14 3650 Iles Avenue Farmington, N.M. 505-327-2811 www.sleepnairemattress.com Southwest Concrete Supply.............18 2420 E. Main Farmington, N.M. 505-325-2333 www.swconcretesupply.com Southwest Obstetrics and Gynecology. .......................................................53 622 W. Maple St., Suite 1 Farmington, N.M. 505-325-4898 Spotless Solutions ..........................37 505-326-4755 www.spotlesssolutions.com

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Sun Glass........................................52 602 W. Main St. 5950 E. Main St. Farmington, N.M. 505-327-9677 www.sunglassfarmington.com Sunray Gaming ...............................25 On Hwy 64.

Farmington, N.M. 505-566-1200 Treadworks.....................................44 4227 E. Main St. Farmington, NM 505-327-0286 4215 Hwy. 64 Kirtland, NM 505-598-1055 www.treadworks.com Webb Toyota...................................68 3911 E. Main Farmington, N.M. 505-325-1911 Ziems Ford .....................................49 5700 E. Main Farmington, N.M. 505-325-8826