10 Who Made a Difference

30 years of 10

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EDITORIAL magazine editor Bruce Krasnow magazine design Deborah Villa photography Clyde Mueller, Luis Sánchez Saturno copy editors Patricia West-Barker, Peg Goldstein ADVERTISING DEPARTMENT advertising director Bernie Schutz creative and marketing manager Kathryn Lopez designers Elspeth Hilbert, Joan Scholl, Rick Artiaga web designer Michael Harrison ADVERTISING SALES retail sales manager Wendy Ortega, 505-995-3852 Mike Flores

30 years of 10

WHO MADE A DIFFERENCE 7 Introduction

Chris Alexander Dana Teton Deb Meyers

8 30 Years of 10 Who Made a Difference

Edwin Rosario Ben Santana TECHNOLOGY

12 Mary Chavez

technology director Michael Campbell PRODUCTION operations director Tim Cramer prepress manager Dan Gomez press coordinator George Gamboa packaging coordinator Brenda Shaffer DISTRIBUTION circulation director Michael Reichard

14 Steve LaRance 16 Miranda Viscoli 18 Ben Martinez

distribution coordinator Reggie Perez WEB digital enterprise editor Henry Lopez

20 Douglass Schocke

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22 Rick Martinez 24 Michele Herling 26 Esequiel Marquez 28 Donald “Wiz” Allred

PUBLISHER Tom Cross EDITOR

30 Roxanne Swentzell

Ray Rivera

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recognized by

for

GENERAL EXCELLENCE and multiple other awards in 2016

COLUMNS WINNER Milan Simonich for “There’s no place like daddy’s district to call home” RUNNERUP Steve Terrell for “Gov.’s response: Who ratted?”

EDUCATION WRITING WINNER Chris Quintana for “Teacher bonuses: A study in disparity” BUSINESS WRITING WINNER Bruce Krasnow for “Intel cuts expected to ripple through economy” ENVIRONMENTAL AND AGRICULTURE WRITING WINNER Justin Horwath for “Accidents waiting to happen?”

RUNNERUP Rebecca Moss for “Two hydrologists blame toxin used to kill fish for Parkinson’s diagnoses” REVIEW WINNER Michael Abatemarco for “From fanboys to filmmakers”

2 0 1 6 A DV E RT I S I N G GU I D E

BEST RATE CARD OR MARKETING KIT WINNER Elspeth Hilbert, Kat Lopez for “Santa Fe New Mexican Advertising Guide/Media Kit” RUNNERUP Joan Scholl, Wayne Barnard, Kat Lopez for “Pet Calendar Sponsorship Packages”

C.A .R .E.

CANCER AWARENESS RESOURCE & EDUCATION GUIDE

LIFE with Cancer Family & Spousal Dynamics Winning in the Workplace Therapeutic Activities

ALSO Caring for the Caregiver How to Support a Friend Surviving & Thriving

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Provided by the

Santa Fe New Mexican

DESIGN & TYPOGRAPHY WINNER Staff for editions published Sept. 16, 2015, Feb. 19, 2016, July 12, 2015 PUBLIC SERVICE RUNNERUP Phaedra Haywood, Justin Horwath, Inez Russell Gomez, Dan Schwartz, Henry Lopez, Ray Rivera, Brian Barker, Kristina Dunham for “Suspect Care: A crisis in inmate health services” BREAKING NEWS STORY RUNNERUP Uriel Garcia, Milan Simonich for “Governor’s pizza party draws national attention” SERIES OR CONTINUING COVERAGE RUNNERUP Steve Terrell for coverage of the state Public Regulation Commission and the San Juan Generating Station INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING RUNNERUP Justin Horwath, Milan Simonich, for “McCleskey’s ghost firms” BEST NEWS COVERAGE RUNNERUP Santa Fe New Mexican

PET

CALENDAR

2016

INFORMATION GRAPHIC WINNER Brian Barker, Luis Sánchez Saturno, Clyde Mueller, Will Webber, James Barron for “North Stars Honor Roll”

2016

FOR DAILY CLA LASS A I NEWSPAPERS IN NEW MEXICO!

Tips and Testimonies from those who know!

SUPPLEMENTS & SPECIAL EDITIONS WINNER Kat Lopez, Joan Scholl, Heidi Melendrez for “2016 C.A.R.E. Cancer Awareness Resource & Education Guide”

BEST REVENUE IDEA OR MARKETING IDEA WINNER Wayne Barnard, Joan Scholl, Kat Lopez, Sandra Jaramillo, Elspeth Hilbert, Heidi Melendrez for “2016 Pet Calendar & Promotion”

REAL ESTATE ADVERTISEMENT WINNER Rick Artiaga for “Dijanni Custom Homes” RUNNERUP Elspeth Hilbert for “Grand Hacienda Winners” SHARED/SIGNATURE PAGE WINNER Wayne Barnard, Sandra Jaramillo, Elspeth Hilbert for “Building Santa Fe”

RUNNERUP Wayne Barnard, Rick Artiaga, Sandra Jaramillo, Mike Martinez for “REduce, REuse, REcycle…REsell!”

BEST CIRCULATION CAMPAIGN WINNER Mike Reichard for “Animal Shelter Partnership” BEST WEB SITE WINNER Kat Lopez, Henry Lopez for “C.A.R.E. Site” BEST MOBILE APP WINNER Henry Lopez, Michael Campbell, Staci Matlock, Dan Schwartz RETAIL ADVERTISEMENT RUNNERUP Joan Scholl, Elspeth Hilbert for “Ajiaco Colombian Bistro”

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CLYDE MUELLER

10 Who Made a Difference 2016 recipient Steve LaRance (center), with his student hoop dancers at the Pueblo of Pojoaque.

30 years of 10 WHO MADE A DIFFERENCE For three decades The Santa Fe New Mexican has been writing about people whose volunteer work has made a difference in their communities.

This year’s 10 Who Made a Difference honorees were selected from a long list of Northern New Mexico residents nominated by our readers. They include people who live Taos, Pojoaque, Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo and Santa Fe. Some are members of families who have been here for many generations; others are more recent transplants. All have given of themselves to help others live safer, healthier, more productive and satisfying lives.

Their efforts have touched Native cultures, assisted those trying to recover from addiction, reduced hunger, supported individuals and families dealing with mental illness and helped the poor access the internet.

We publish their stories around the holidays to inspire others to step outside themselves and give something back to Northern New Mexico and those who call it home.

“The volunteers we have honored over the years have devoted time to causes as diverse as helping people who are hungry, working in schools, organizing kids’ sports, running programs for the elderly and beautifying our surroundings. Because of them, Northern New Mexico is a better place to live,” said Robin Martin, a resident of Nambé whose family has owned The New Mexican since 1949.

This year, the newspaper is also hosting a reception for the honorees on Dec. 8 at La Fonda on the Plaza. Sponsors of that event are First National Santa Fe, Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center, Nusenda Credit Union, Buddy Roybal of Coronado Paint and Decorating, Ned Jacobs of Quezada Jacobs Family Agency — Allstate and Bonnie French.

The New Mexican also thanks those who served on this year’s 10 Who Made a Difference steering committee: Susan Cahoon, Elspeth Hilbert, Kat Lopez, Michael Harrison, Henry Lopez, Wayne Barnard, Bernie Schutz, Wendy Ortega, Bonnie French, David Markwardt, Ned Jacobs, Deborah Simon and Deborah Villa.

This publication is dedicated to all those who give a little bit of themselves. Or, in the words of President Barack Obama, “Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.”

Go to The New Mexican website for video profiles of the honorees — www.santafenewmexican.com — The Santa Fe New Mexican 30 Y EA RS OF 10 WH O MA D E A D IF F E R E N C E

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30 years of 1985

1989

The Rev. Jim Brown, First Presbyterian Church The Honorable Petra Maes, First Judicial District judge Sisters Patrick Marie and Shirley Le Blanc, Villa Therese Clinic Margo Brace, Rape Crisis Center Gary Bequette, law enforcement Rep. Nick Salazar, state lawmaker Al Sanchez, DeVargas Savings Dan Namingha, Native American (Hopi) painter Don Chunestudey, sculptor, teacher

Molly Whitted, former director of Santa Fe Beautiful Gloria Sawtell, Santa Fe Community Foundation Hilbert Sabin, Inter-faith Council, Peace Alliance Arturo Gonzales, La Familia Medical Center, director Michael Riccards, St. John’s College president Paquita Hernandez, founder of Celebrate Youth!

Larry Bandfield, founder, Santa Fe Desert Chorale Albert Ortega, Alvord Elementary School principal Ellen Biderman, Ellyn Feldman, Susan McIntosh and Londi Carbajal, Santa Fe Children’s Museum co-founders Anita Shields and Tina Lopez-Snideman, SFCC Women in Transitions program

1986 The Rev. George Salazar and Dan Padilla, St. John the Baptist Church Jane and E.B. Hall, P’OAE PI Gallery Hoyt Mutz, high school coach and counselor David Gurulé, Santa Fe Group Homes Darby McQuade, owner, Jackalope Pottery Rain Parrish, Wheelwright Museum Ramona Chavez and Marie Roark, Los Amigos del Valle

1987 Sister Shirley Le Blanc, Catholic Sisters of Charity Mary Lou Cook, founder of Santa Fe Living Treasures Rena Paradis, Literacy Volunteers Joe Schepps, developer and philanthropist Arturo Gonzales, La Familia Medical Center Jacquie Stevens, potter Elaine Juarros, teacher Sarah Grace, New Mexico AIDS Services Orlando Hernandez, animal shelter Dorothy Wade, volunteer

1988 Sam Arquero, Cochiti Pueblo Ann Dasburg, community and international justice activist Alfonso Garcia, teacher and principal Lynn Kelly, New Vistas Andrew Shea, founder, New Mexico Repertory Theater West Side Residents, United Farrocarril Neighborhood Douglas Schwartz, president, School of American Research Gilberto Romero, mental health advocate Joe C’de Baca, district attorney’s office Don Schmidt, AIDS Services

1990 The Rev. Shirley Greene, United Church of Christ, Habitat for Humanity Julie Padilla, Santa Fe animal shelter Leslie Nordby, Acequia Madre principal State Rep. Roman Maes, D-Santa Fe, for landfill legislation Silver Ortega, city recreation department, involved in local sports Chris Wells, environmental education, All Species Project Edward Ortiz, Santa Fe Schools superintendent Connie Trujillo, founder and director, Esperanza Shelter for Battered Families Michael Hamilton, El Parian gallery owner Thomas Reed, founder Vivigen genetic-testing laboratory

1991 Carol Decker, Spanish teacher and Vincenes neighborhood program Dan Padilla, St. John the Baptist Soup Kitchen Lenny Roybal, basketball coach Suzanne H. Garcia, Maternal Child and Health Clinic Linda Espinosa, Santa Fe High security guard Michael Hice, AID & Comfort board, community foundation Sam Hitt, forest preservation Geraldine Salazar, Santa Fe Rape Crisis Center Robert B. Gaylor and Linda Klosky, founders, Center for Contemporary Arts Paula Devitt and Alice Sisneros, nurses, designed “Heartsaver” CPR program

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10 WHO MADE A DIFFERENCE 1992

1996

Lorraine Goldman, executive director, Partners in Education Katherine Kagel, owner of Pasqual’s Café and Food Depot organizer Skip Helms, stock broker, United Way fundraising Mike Bachicha, tennis professional and fundraiser Kenneth Siciliano, AIDS activist Jacob Viarrial, Pojoaque Pueblo governor Stuart Stein, land-use and water rights attorney in La Cienega James Rutherford, director of the Governor’s Gallery Gerald Chacon, Rio Arriba agricultural extension agent, ranchers’ rights Francella Perea, teacher, teen parent center

Judith Scarvie, Food Depot Ross Martinez, Española literacy volunteer Paul Margetson, part owner Hotel Santa Fe, youth soccer, United Way Beatrice Nevares, Bienvenidos Outreach Program Alfredo Ortiz, Boys State volunteer Ernesto Ramos, New Mexico Senior Olympics Herb Kincey, St. John’s College Search and Rescue Linda Craig, Pojoaque Valley Soccer League Felix Trujillo, Taos Feeds Taos Palemon Martinez, Rio Arriba Cooperative Extension agent

1993

1997

Jóse Rámon López, award-winning santero Ana Gallegos y Reinhardt, founder, Santa Fe Teen Center, later Warehouse 21 John Stephenson, founder, Santa Fe Community Garden Art Sanchez, city councilor, advocate for purchase of water system Diane Reyna, Taos Indian, videographer, Surviving Columbus Al Wadle, gallery owner and fundraiser for Santa Fe Community Foundation Carol Miller, public health advocate and administrator Dottie Montoya, Española High School nurse Richard Lucero, Española mayor for downtown plaza Stephen Chambers and Marcy Grace, founders, Hope House residence for people with AIDS

Charles Maxwell, scholarship fund Barbara Gonzales, San Ildefonso Pueblo potter Chris Abeyta, community educator Al Padilla, Boys & Girls Clubs of Santa Fe Dr. Irving Bunkin, Friends of the Library Phil Bové, Acequia Madre preservation Isidora Rael, nursing home volunteer Sarah Atencio, Embudo-Dixon area recycling Antonio Martinez, Upper Rociado church restoration Anthony Trujillo, Our Lady of Guadalupe deacon and youth group leader

1994

Chuck Montaño, Citizens for LANL Rights Kevin Bellinger, founder, Harambe youth center Georgia Salazar Martinez, artist, community development, Medanales Bruce and Ellen Kaiper, Española teachers Zane Fischer, co-founder, Plan B Dr. Larry Schreiber, Child-Rite Criselda Dominguez, Abiquiú resident Alfonso “Trompo” Trujillo, La Union Protectiva Mary Venable, White Rock Senior Center Catherine Oppenheimer, executive director, Santa Fe National Dance Institute

Juan Vigil, owner Stables art space on Canyon Road Nancy Porter, Santa Fe Food Brigade Peter Chapin, president, Santa Fe Habitat for Humanity Rebekah Bloom Wolf, middle school student and La Residencia volunteer Florian Artie Garcia, president, Santa Fe CARES Jewel Cabeza de Vaca, Mana del Norte, Hispanic women’s organization Mary Karshis, nurse and patients’ advocate, St. Vincent Hospital José Villegas, La Cienega neighborhood organizer Endelecia Prince, Española ballet teacher John Cammarata, academic counselor, Santa Fe Indian School

1995 Donald Christy, Santa Fe police sergeant, school resource officer Jody Ellis, founder Santa Fe Community Orchestra Albert Gallegos, Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish Robert Guidice, volunteer, Hope House, AIDS housing Ernest Gonzales, Kaune Elementary School mariachis Annabelle Montoya, People of Color AIDS Foundation Nellwyn Trujillo, Literacy Volunteers of America Koie McCauley, Salvation Army, United Way, St. Elizabeth Shelter volunteer Karen Walker, Realtor, city home-rule movement Carol Vigil, domestic violence commissioner, district court

1998

1999 Cookie Jordan, theater residency project Tony Suazo, Española Santa Claus Fabian Garcia, El Rito deacon Nancy Zeckendorf, Lensic restoration Michael Siegle, Crisis Response volunteer Cervantes “Buddy” Roybal, Santa Fe community service John and Emily Drabanski, Pecos teachers and Big Brothers, Big Sisters program Don and Nancy Dayton, Santa Fe Search and Rescue, Eldorado community involvement Dr. Trevor Hawkins, HIV/AIDS treatment Ernie Lopez, Taos teacher

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30 years of 2000

2004

Doug McDonald and Los Alamos firefighters Roger Montoya, Velarde painter, dancer, choreographer Fred Nathan, Think New Mexico, for all-day kindergarten campaign Tom Mills and Bob Skyler, Santa Fe Schools management audit Julia Hudson, missionary teacher at John Hyson School in Chimayó Nichoe Lichen, Ann Lacy and Carolyn Cook for preserving county open space John Aquino of Ohkay Owingeh, health care and nutrition work with tribes Kyra Kerr, St. Bede’s-Ortiz Middle School Partnership Freddy Martinez, Little League baseball, World War II hero Christiana Torricelli, Food Depot and Cerro Grande Fire relief

Arlene Einwalter, Gerard’s House Bob Pierce, computer fixer Mike Naranjo, Rock Christian Outreach Church Wes Studi, actor Apryl Miller, JoAnn Sartorius, Suicide Intervention Project Griff Dodge, cross-country coach Scott Abbott, teacher, church volunteer, Habitat for Humanity Robin Reindle, Pecos Schools PTA Jacqueline Rae Gomez, Pojoaque High student Alia Munn, Second Street Experience

2001

2005

Dale Ball, conservation and public trails Glenn Burttram, Montezuma Lodge Maryana Eames, cancer survivors work Dani Frye and Neva Van Peski, League of Women Voters Betty Kersting, Habitat for Humanity Jose C. Martinez, youth sports Tessie Naranjo, Native language preservation Sylvia Ornelas, La Familia, teen parent and pregnancy issues Bruce Richardson, Chimayó Crime Prevention Mary Williams, foster parent

Judy Espinar, International Folk Art Market Salome DeAguero, retired educator, senior-service advocate Stewart Youngblood, Assistance Dogs of the West Thomas Romero, El Museo Cultural Sara Melton, land-use planning, preservation Clark Case, community radio station, co-op in Dixon Yolanda Colorado, Pat Greathouse and Eddie Hernandez, Little Mozart and Mariachi program, youth symphony and music programs Connie Tsosie, Pueblo Opera Program Diane Granito, adoption, Heart Gallery Rebecca Donohue, school counselor

2002

2006

Diane Albert, LANL science-education specialist Los Alamos County Council Bill and Georgia Carson, Salazar Elementary School volunteers Aaron Griego, youth recreation programs in Dixon Guy Monroe, El Dorado Fire and Rescue Dave Neal, Pojoaque Schools Capital Committee J. Patrick Lannan, Lannan Foundation Gene Valdes, United Way, St. Elizabeth Shelter, church volunteer work Maria Cristina Lopez and other founders of Somos Un Pueblo Unido Kathy Sanchez, Tewa Women United Daniel Lehman, St. Michael’s student/El Castillo volunteer

Carlos Martinez Sr., preservation of cultural and historical traditions Joe Maestas, Santa Cruz Irrigation, and Ray Romero, La Cienega, for acequia advocacy Shirl Abbey, care of elderly Maynard Chapman, Food for Santa Fe Anne McCormick, Many Mothers Sarah Rochester, visiting nurses Peter Doniger, tax assistant Rosemary Crawford, children’s theater Valdez Abeyta y Valdez, youth advocate, community activist

2003

2007

Jose Benito “Ben” Garcia, scholarship fund for Pojoaque students Charlene Teters (Spokane), IAIA artist who led charge against Indian sports team insignia Dick Roth, lobbied for ignition interlock Arthur Hemmendinger, repairs cassette players for the blind Doris Krause, cares for Alzheimer’s patients David Ortiz, active in Pojoaque regional water planning, acequia issues Chris Pederson, Capital High teacher and mentor Ilean Martinez, organized for clean drinking water in Chimayó Dr. Murray Ryan, physician, raised awareness about heroin overdoses in Rio Arriba County Susan Rojas, Kaune Elementary volunteer, retired teacher

Monica Lovato, boxer Mary Louise and Gordon Betancourt, youth sports, delinquency, at-risk teens Fred Bender, education reform, Boys & Girls Clubs Julia Abeyta, Indian education Dianne Baros, Pojoaque youth sports Donald Stout, gay rights Barbara Wolff, medical disaster assistance Marcella Ortiz Gonzales, St. Anne Parish Friends of the Library, new Southside Branch Library Virginia Wilson, National Alliance for Mental Illness

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10 WHO MADE A DIFFERENCE 2008

2012

Santa Fe Indian School Spoken Word Team Christopher Willett, animal rescue Juanita Manzanares, helping students into college Tessie Lopez, the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church Mario Montoya and Denise Nava, Guitars Not Guns Melynn Schuyler, ¡YouthWorks!

Jim Black, St. John’s Soup Kitchen Santa Fe Railyard Community Corp.

Roland Trujillo, parish and family volunteer Connie Axton, ARTsmart

Rob Krumholz, Cross of the Martyrs volunteer Joe Zebrowski, Sheridan, N.M., water relief Beverley Weller, Big Sister, Treehouse Camp, hospice, special ed Annette Vigil Hayden, Truchas church preservation Bill Baxter, Santa Fe County open space Bobbi Hall, Santa Fe Food Depot Craig Barnes, civil rights, progressive politics Robert Eisenstein, Santa Fe Alliance for Science Santa Fe Striders, running and physical exercise advocates

2009 James Gallegos, veteran funeral honors Manny Ortiz, Boy Scouts Ernestine Hagman, student guidance Dorothy Massey, Collected Works Bookstore owner Desiree Romero, nursing home volunteer Al Lucero, Maria’s New Mexican Kitchen Dave McQuarie, disability advocate Johnny Micou, Galisteo Basin preservation Lou Finley, tutoring Jose and Clare Villa, Northern Rio Grande Heritage

2010

2013 Narcisco Quintana, Nambe community Irene Padilla, quilter Will Channing, Wings of America Elmer Leslie, Habitat for Humanity Kenneth Mayers, Veterans for Peace Cesar Bernal, community soccer Mel Gallegos, musician, coach, teacher Mara Taub, prisoner and immigrant rights Notah Begay III, professional golfer, youth advocate Norma McCallan, hiking, outdoors volunteer

2014

Interfaith Community Shelter Mary Helen Romero Kelty, mariachi conquistador Clayton Lewis, teen volunteer teacher Capital High, SFCC Consuelo Hernandez, Old Santa Fe Trail Gift Shop Ray Valdez, Zozobra Alice Temple, Girls on the Run The Rev. Talitha Arnold, faith and human rights Herb Lotz, photographer, gay rights, veterans’ volunteer Elizabeth Guss, math volunteer Lydia Pendley, social justice

George Rivera, Pojoaque Pueblo Bette Booth, parks, youth and neighborhood advocate Robert Ortiz, prison volunteer Christine Johnson, St. Bede’s community Anna Cardenas, town of Galisteo preservation Sarah Rochester, nursing care Katherine Wells, Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Project Kathy Olshefsky, mounted search and rescue John Berkenfield, SWAIA, Spanish Colonial Arts Society, El Rancho de las Golondrinas Socorro Aragón, Northern New Mexico culture

2011

2015

William Martin and Lorencita Taylor, language preservation Napoleon Garcia, Abiquiú Kassandra Rosales, school waste Kathryn Flynn, New Deal Preservation Jenny Mier, Bienvenidos Outreach Shelley Oram, Rowe Volunteer Fire Department Gaile Herling, Adelante Delma DeLora, union leader for nurses Marcos Garcia, coach and El Rito community volunteer Willard Chilcott, Santa Fe Century

Enrique M. Montoya, for work as a church deacon Jane Buchsbaum, for promoting Native American arts Eleanor Ortiz, for education and community involvement Meredith Meachen, for civic engagement Cheryl Brown, for suicide prevention Joseph Eigner, for Eldorado sustainability Raymond Bal, for preservation in Chimayó Ray Lopez, for crisis intervention Daniel Coriz, open space and trails work Deborah Simon, community development work with Rotary International

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10 WHO MADE A DIFFERENCE MARY CHAVEZ

Helping nonprofits improve the quality of life STORY BY ANNE CONSTABLE | PHOTO BY LUIS SÁNCHEZ SATURNO Mary Chavez had the good fortune to be born into one of the oldest and best-known families in Santa Fe. She’s the 16th generation of her clan to live in New Mexico. Among her five siblings are at least two others well known in the community: Fabian Chavez III was the longtime head of the city’s Parks Division and Joey Chavez, an actor and playwright, is currently the chair of the drama department at the New Mexico School for the Arts.

Mary Chavez, like her brothers and sister, was raised to serve the city of her birth. Currently the senior vice president and manager at First National Santa Fe Bank on the Plaza, she has spent decades as a member of various nonprofit boards, helping them to raise money for programs and secure capital outlay funds from the state legislature.

It is for that service to Santa Fe and its robust nonprofit community that Chavez has been chosen as one of the 10 Who Made a Difference in 2016.

Not too long ago she joined the board of Farm to Table, a local nonprofit that promotes sustainable agriculture and access to nutritious and affordable food. Although her plate was already pretty full, Chavez said, “[Executive director and co-founder] Pam Roy asked me and I can’t say no.” As have other nonprofits over the years, Farm to Table looks to her for her financial expertise. She’s currently treasurer of the board.

In addition to Farm to Table, Chavez has served on the boards of the American Cancer Society, Esperanza Shelter for Battered Families, the Santa Fe Vo-Tech Building Trades Advisory Board, Villa Therese Catholic Clinic, Santa Fe Mountain Center, St. Elizabeth Shelter, the Historic Design Review Board and SER-Jobs for Progress, Inc. She believes that the most critical need in Santa Fe is addressing issues faced by those she calls “at risk” children and adults. Counseling, health and jobs are among her concerns. “I’m not really into the arts part of the nonprofit [world],” she said. “What I’m interested in are nonprofits that actually help to improve the quality of life.”

Chavez said, she has “a passion for the community and the organizations [she joins]. I want to make a difference, helping them in a monetary way and helping them facilitate and get [state] money” — a role that inevitably involves numerous pleas for financial assistance. “That’s a lot of work calling people and asking them for money,” she admitted.

She is both familiar with the lengthy legislative process, and well connected. She personally knows many of the key legislators.

Chavez, now 62, led the drive by Esperanza Shelter to get a $1.8 million capital outlay appropriation for a new counseling office. At the time, she said, the counselors were working out of a rented, two-bedroom house and she convince the legislature of the need for better and more private accommodations for clients. The county owns the new building and the shelter pays just a small rent.

She also helped the Santa Fe Mountain Center obtain an $800,000 appropriation for a new indoor facility.

Although she now serves in an advisory capacity, Chavez spent 27 years on the Vo-Tech Building Trades Advisory Board, during which time it raised funds for Santa Fe High School students in construction trades to build more than 10 homes on property belonging to the school district.

Starting with borrowed funds, the board put the revenue from each sale back into the next house.

Chavez, who is the daughter of Jose and Bernice Chavez, graduated from Santa Fe High School and became a bank teller, working her way up to more responsible positions and earning, at night, an associate’s degree in banking from Santa Fe Community College. She became vice president and branch manager at Capital Bank, later Sunwest Bank. As marketing director she oversaw a $200,000 budget for supporting local nonprofits.

“Mary truly enjoyed this role, as she learned about the important work of service-oriented organizations that were addressing various needs that existed in the Santa Fe community,” said Alex Martinez, executive director and CEO of SER-Jobs for Progress, Inc. In her nonprofit work, he added, she “led important organizational functions such as strategic planning, fund development and financial accountability.” Chavez, he said, is a “very humble person who shies from any personal recognition.”

In addition to serving the community, Chavez likes building complicated jigsaw puzzles, reading — mainly history — and her rose garden. She has at least 20 different varieties in her yard and enjoys taking care of them, even pruning. And this year, perhaps as payback for her hard work for the people of Santa Fe, she had no aphids. “I was so happy,” she said.

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30 Y EA RS OF 10 WH O MA D E A D IF F E R E N C E

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10 WHO MADE A DIFFERENCE STEVE LA RANCE

Contributing to the community through art and dance

BY ROBERT NOTT | CLYDE MUELLER As a child growing up in the rural Hopi village of Moenkopi — also known as Munquapi — Arizona, Steve LaRance accompanied his grandfather Steve Albert, who served as the kachina priest for the village, to traditional Hopi ceremonies.

There, LaRance learned about the importance of preserving cultural identify and the significance of ancient songs and dances.

His grandfather also ran the community grocery store, extending both credit and free food to those in need — a constant act of generosity that stuck with the young boy. “I was very lucky to have him as a grandfather,” LaRance said. “He was very traditional, and I learned my community service from him. I saw his giving and how it impacted our village.”

Today, LaRance, 57, gives back by teaching his nation’s traditional Hoop Dance to youngsters at Pojoaque Pueblo, imbuing them with self-esteem, confidence and an understanding of their people and their culture. It is that commitment to the community that earned LaRance a 10 Who Made a Difference honor in 2016.

“In this modern world it can be tough for them to keep that cultural connection,” he said during a recent rehearsal held at the Pueblo of Pojoaque Pueblo Wellness and Healing Center.

As he spoke, his son Nakotah LaRance — a World Hoop Dance Champion — watched as students age 5 to 17 used the hoops to transform themselves into flowers and eagles and butterflies as they moved about the dance floor.

“It is a young person’s dance, as you can see,” Steve LaRance said.

“Originally the Hoop Dance was a healing ceremony. Today, the modern Hoop Dance is more a celebration of the cycle of life.”

As Jordan and Mina Harvier sit on the sidelines and watch their son Jai P’o work on his dance, they see LaRance’s impact on their child as a blessing. LaRance’s teaching of the ancient art form, Jordan Harvier said, “represents what it means to be a giving person, sharing with others, which is what we are taught. But not many people seem to do that anymore.”

LaRance has been running the program since 2013. He said research indicates that the Hoop Dance originated in the pueblos of New Mexico centuries ago. “Unfortunately, over the years it has been kind of lost,” he said. “We wanted to regift this dance to the pueblo because we feel it is part of their heritage. I always felt that it was something that was kind of like their birthright.”

Josiah Enriquez, a 13-year-old Pojoaque Pueblo youth who takes part in LaRance’s program, gets that. As a child, he liked to dance and his

grandmother encouraged him to pursue that passion. Echoing the Harviers, Enriquez said the Hoop Dance, for him, “means to have compassion… endurance, courage, compassion.”

As a child, Steve LaRance always felt in touch with his culture, in part because of the influence of his parents and grandparents. But he wanted to be a doctor, and went off to study medicine at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.

But once he met his wife, Marian Denipah, a Native American attending the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe who visited his campus for a powwow, he switched gears to be closer to her and study sculpture at IAIA. That was in the mid-1980s. Over time, he segued into making jewelry, an art form he still practices, taking part in Santa Fe’s annual Indian Market every year.

LaRance’s passion for community involvement led him to serve on the board of the Desert Chorale and the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts. As a cultural ambassador for the U.S. State Department, he and his son have visited various cities and countries overseas to showcase Native American culture. Last summer — on Independence Day, in fact — they brought the Pojoaque Pueblo youth hoop dancers with them to perform at the U.S. embassy in Geneva, Switzerland, at the request of ambassador Keith Harper.

“Being the first Americans, the Native American people have had a historically bad relationship with the U.S. government,” Steve LaRance said. “So this is, in a sense, a type of healing where they invite us to represent the United States at these foreign missions. We’re Native Americans, which means we’re showcasing the art and music of the first Americans, which is interesting for the people there who see us.”

His Hoop Dance group is raising money to perform in Japan, perhaps as soon as next year.

LaRance said he has never lost sight of his cultural identity. “It’s always been an anchor for me,” he said. The Hoop Dance, he said, can serve as a similar anchor for the Pojoaque Pueblo youth.

“When I look at the youth I work with, and they give performances and my kids come up and give me a big hug and are so happy to be doing what they are doing — and educating others about their world and their tribal heritage and sharing that through performances with other people — to me that’s the payoff,” he said. “To make that contribution to the community through my art, through working with youth, is enough for me.”

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10 WHO MADE A DIFFERENCE MIRANDA VISCOLI

Making communities safer, one gun at a time

BY ANNE CONSTABLE | PHOTO BY LUIS SÁNCHEZ SATURNO Miranda Viscoli, a third-generation Santa Fean, was angry when she heard that 20 children and six adults had been fatally shot at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012, but was “beyond frustrated that so little was done afterward,” to address gun violence in the U.S. So she decided to act herself. With other like-minded people she started an organization called New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence, which has grown to a membership of over 2,000.

Viscoli put work on her Ph.D. in Mexican modernism on hold and now spends 40 or 50 hours a week — at no salary — as co-president of the group.

The Rev. Harry Eberts is the other co-president.

The nonprofit sponsors vigils to bring people together after incidents of gun violence, such as the nightclub shooting in Orlando in which 49 people were killed. The event drew over 1,000 people to the Plaza to grieve together.

It distributes trigger locks, stages firearms buybacks and has gotten thousands of students in Santa Fe, Española, Pojoaque and Ojo Caliente to take the Student Pledge Against Gun Violence. It also lobbies for legislation to close gun show loopholes.

It is for her work to prevent gun violence that Viscoli is being honored with one of the 10 Who Made a Difference awards in 2016.

The corporate gun lobby, Viscoli said, has “weakened our laws and saturated our country with guns.”

According to Viscoli, seven children a day are shot and killed in the U.S. and the problem “is only getting worse.” Gun violence increases every year in New Mexico, she said. Last year, for example, there was a 16.4 percent spike in gun deaths over 2014 — 405 people were shot and killed in the state in 2015. That figure does not include deaths by suicide.

“I am tired of people getting shot and it is frustrating to see how slowly we have moved forward in this state,” she said.

Viscoli called New Mexico’s open-carry law “crazy.” Under it, guns are not allowed in establishments that serve alcohol, but grocery stores and pharmacies that sell alcohol permit people to shop while armed.

Her organization is working on a gun-free business program. Currently, she said, “You can’t do anything to stop them [from entering a business establishment] unless you have a sign that says, ‘No guns.’”

Besides closing gun loopholes, New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence is also supporting a bill in the upcoming session that would take guns away from people who have a protective order against them related to domestic violence.

On Nov. 12 it sponsored a gun buyback with the police department.

The surrendered firearms will be turned into garden implements and even belt buckles and bolos. The program targets “unwanted” guns, not those owned by hunters, which are considered the least safe because they are often not locked up.

New Mexico, Viscoli said, is the fourth-highest state for gun ownership.

New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence has won many supporters since it started. But at the beginning it was tough going. “Every door was being slammed in our faces,” Viscoli said.

But she and other members built trust slowly, focusing on making the community safer, something many people could get on board with. Doors started opening up.

But she recognizes that there are some Second Amendment gun enthusiasts whose minds they will never change. “They can be extremely mean, but we just ignore it,” she said.

A few months ago, for example, New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence was handing out trigger locks at a health fair on the Jicarilla Apache Reservation. The man in a booth next door tried to get them to leave and “ kept on us all day about how we were the anti-Christ for handing out gun locks.”

Valerie Plame Wilson, an author and former CIA officer who endorsed Viscoli’s nomination for the 10 Who Made a Difference award, wrote, “Guns of course are a flash point in our society but Miranda has navigated these troubled waters with dignity and respect for others with differing opinions in order to make our communities safer.”

Jenny Parks, another nominator and CEO of the LANL Foundation, said, “She is giving back and has truly made a difference in Santa Fe, Northern New Mexico and our entire state.”

And James Webster, a professor of medicine emeritus at Northwestern University, said, “With her stewardship NMPGV has grown exponentially in size and especially in its effectiveness to improve the environment and enhance the lives and safety of all of us who live in New Mexico.”

Viscoli grew up in Santa Fe, attended Wood Gormley Elementary School, Santa Fe Prep and then the Interlochen Arts Academy. She graduated from New York University and has a master’s degree from California State University, Long Beach. Viscoli, who moved back to Santa Fe from Los Angeles about five years ago, was an actor before turning to Mexican modernism and is the mother of two children, 12 and 15.

Not surprisingly for a young mother, her organization focuses on children and youth because, “Their voices are crucial to stopping the trajectory of gun violence in our country.”

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10 WHO MADE A DIFFERENCE BEN MARTINEZ

Enriching the lives of senior citizens

BY DENNIS CARROLL | PHOTO BY CLYDE MUELLER Ben Martinez figures that, all things considered, he’s got it pretty good.

Never mind the 82-year-old veteran’s battle with bone cancer, which he attributes at least in part to his exposure to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, and the memories of the 1980 New Mexico prison riot and his role in cleaning up the horrible aftermath that still haunt him.

Based in Lai Khê, in what was then east-central South Vietnam, Martinez was a staff sergeant responsible for loading Agent Orange defoliant into tanks on Huey helicopters to be sprayed over the forests and crop fields to rout Viet Cong insurgents. “It splashed in your face and your mouth and everywhere.”

Three days a week he also flew in the copters as a gunner or crew chief on missions carrying fellow solders to or from battle sites. “It never stopped,” Martinez said. “It was day after day after day.”

It was while he was stationed in Germany during the Cold War of the 1960s and ’70s that Martinez mastered what later became a significant addition to his life’s work — creating jewelry and fashioning leather and ceramics into fine artwork.

After retiring from the Army in 1975, Martinez returned to Santa Fe and began 20 years of work with the New Mexico Corrections Department, teaching leatherwork and building trades at the state prison in Santa Fe. One of his most harrowing experiences while working at the prison, Martinez said, was when he got a call about 5 a.m. on Feb. 2, 1980, to report to the prison immediately. Prisoners had taken control of the institution and were holding hostages and killing other inmates, especially those thought to be snitches. Before the riot ended about 40 hours later, an estimated 33 inmates had been killed; other prisoners and guards had been tortured and the facility burned and gutted.

Martinez said Deputy Warden Robert Montoya “told me, ‘Ben I want you to get a car, get a driver, get a rifle.’” He was instructed to patrol the perimeter and areas near the prison looking for escapees. “After we got in,” he said, “all the teachers were in charge of cleaning up.”

For the past 14 years, Martinez has been teaching crafts three days a week at the Mary Esther Gonzalez Senior Center on Alto Street — and it is for this work that he is being honored as one of the 10 Who Made a Difference in 2016.

“It is truly astounding what his class [at the senior center] has accomplished,” wrote Robert Roybal, one of Martinez’s two sons-in-law, in his nominating letter. “Mr. Martinez has surely made a difference in the lives of many, many senior citizens.”

Lugi Gonzales, a center program manager with the city’s Division of Senior Services, described Martinez as “a talented and giving man” who helps seniors create their ceramic and jewelry projects every Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. “They all like him a lot and work well together.”

She said several of his students often accompany him to Española or Albuquerque art supply stores whenever it’s necessary to pick up ceramic art materials. “I don’t think that without him we’d have a jewelry class. We are very fortunate that he has volunteered his time to make that possible for the seniors.”

At the senior center on a recent morning, Peggy Long, the newest member of the class, was making Christmas presents for her family. “This is the first time I have done ceramics,” said Long, who is still recovering from spinal surgery. “Ben is such an excellent teacher. He is such a sweetheart of a man. I just appreciate him so much.”

At 93, Edith Tichonchik is Martinez’s oldest student. “He’s taught me a lot of things and we have always been close friends,” she said. “He’s the one who has kept pushing me along. Everything I see and want, I try,” she added with a chuckle.

Of his work at the center, Martinez observed: “It’s as much a therapy for me as it is for my [students]. I feel like it keeps me busy. If I wasn’t doing this, what would I be doing? I’d be at home just sitting in front of the TV. This gives me something to do three days a week.”

Roybal said Martinez was a three-time state boxing champion at St. Michael’s High School and is the school’s biggest supporter — so much so he named one of his daughters (now Roybal’s wife) Roberta Michael Martinez — although he was eventually persuaded to add an “Ann” after the Michael.

Martinez still lives with his wife in a modest adobe home he and his father built on Camino Sierra Vista.

Looking back on his life as he grudgingly accepts and continues to battle the cancer, Martinez has few regrets. “I’ve had a good ride,” he said.

“Mr. Martinez has surely made a difference in the lives of many, many senior citizens.”

— ROBERT ROYBAL 30 Y EA RS OF 10 WH O MA D E A D IF F E R E N C E

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10 WHO MADE A DIFFERENCE DOUGLASS SCHOCKE

Giving new life to old tools

BY BRUCE KRASNOW | PHOTO BY LUIS SÁNCHEZ SATURNO Douglass Schocke’s retirement hobby started at a small kiosk inside La Montañita Co-op, where he helped shoppers with small computer repairs and took in old equipment with the hope it could be updated, recycled or donated.

Now, as technology has begun reaching obsolescence ever faster, Schocke’s hobby has expanded into the not-for-profit Computer Charity NM, located in a four-room office park on Rosina Street.

On a recent visit, Schocke had towers of old personal computers stashed in corners and bursting from storage shelves. Wires and cables were stuffed into boxes and drawers, and a back loading dock had just received 100 bulky old television sets from the Angel Fire Resort for recycling. The nonprofit also has a half dozen employees who take in old equipment, strip out the metal, copper and other parts, then reuse what is possible.

Some days the 76-year-old former college professor is surprised about what has become of his retirement. “I think I’m doing something useful,” he said. “I could sit on my ass all day and watch TV, but I’d probably go nutty.”

Schocke is one of this year’s 10 Who Made a Difference honorees for his decades-long work with Computer Charity NM, an organization that has given some 600 computers to low-income families and made affordable reused units available to all who need them.

People who come in for assistance are asked to show proof they are lowincome in order to receive a free computer. “He charges if you can pay for it, and if you can’t pay he doesn’t charge,” said Mari Grana, an 80-year-old writer who stumbled upon the shop more than three years ago and became a regular customer. “I think he’s doing something worthwhile. He’s giving children the opportunity to have a machine.”

Mike Harcharik, office manager for the organization, said they can’t refurbish everything that comes in the door. “We get computers that are 10 or 12 years old — that’s like having a car that goes 25 miles per hour on the interstate.”

The recycling portion of the organization was established to support the nonprofit work — and is a large reason Schocke can pay his seven employees. Some months he also pitches in money from his own funds — a

college pension, military disability and Social Security — to cover expenses.

The organization takes pride in the fact that every item they accept is reprocessed for use or recycled, with even cables and connectors — and who doesn’t have a box of those stashed in a closet — shipped out to be melted away so the copper can be tapped.

Many old PC units come in from the State of New Mexico, where agencies often switch out desktop computers every three years. Most systems need upgrading after just 18 months, said Schocke.

Computer Charity NM helps clients at The Life Link, a nonprofit focusing on substance abuse, mental health and housing, get a computer and get online. For many people, Schocke said, having internet access is the only way they can apply for a job.

The organization also works with residents at St. Elizabeth Shelter; has set up computers at schools, senior centers and the Democratic Party headquarters; and has worked with tribal communities in Arizona and New Mexico.

Schocke was raised in Oxford, Ohio. He enlisted in the U.S. Army at age 18, serving both in Alaska and as part of a Special Forces unit in Central America from 1961 to 1965. He returned opposed to the war and became active in Vietnam Veterans Against the War, a group started by Secretary of State John Kerry and other vets who saw combat.

But Schocke’s main calling was teaching on the college level. When he pursued a master’s degree in the social sciences at Florida State University, he tinkered with computers and became the person many in the department sought out for help. The same thing happened during his 32-year teaching stint at Northern Virginia Community College, which has several campuses in suburban Washington, D.C. In New Mexico, he has taught part-time for the University of New Mexico Los Alamos branch and for Highlands University. But it’s no surprise that he spends most days fiddling with and cobbling away on outdated technology to try to give it new life.

As a sign above his desk reads, “How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.”

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10 WHO MADE A DIFFERENCE RICK MARTINEZ

Protecting the future by remembering the past

BY CYNTHIA MILLER | PHOTO BY CLYDE MUELLER Rick Martinez was born on the night of the Zozobra burning in 1954. “It means I was born with no evil,” the native Santa Fean says with a chuckle.

Now 62, he’s rarely missed a show.

After the smoke clears at the Fort Marcy Ballpark and the Zozobra crowd disperses, he often works late into the night with other members of Keep Santa Fe Beautiful to clean up the park and surrounding streets. It’s just one of the many ways Martinez, a longtime community activist, pitches in to preserve his hometown’s special places and traditions.

Martinez is probably best known around the city for helping residents preserve the character of their neighborhoods, fighting off developments that he says just don’t fit. He also helped organize a protest that prevented Ski Santa Fe from expanding into the beloved Big Tesuque area in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. And in recent years, he led a successful effort to purchase and spruce up an iconic, decades-old caboose and keep it parked in the Railyard — a reminder of the district’s past.

“My passion’s for Santa Fe,” Martinez said in a recent interview, “for getting things cleaned up, looking good, helping neighborhoods.”

His decades of fighting for the city’s neighborhoods and protecting its open spaces are some of the reasons Martinez is being honored as one of the 10 Who Made a Difference for 2016. Friends who nominated him for the recognition cite his service on a wide range of public and private committees to further these goals, as well as his efforts to help residents organize for a cause.

“He is the local go-to for community action and reform,” Jean Green said in a nominating letter. “They say, ‘You can’t fight city hall.’ Well, Rick has time and again, with grace and tenacity. And the City Different is all the better for it,” added Green, a resident at The Montecito retirement and assisted living community, where Martinez is a familiar face. He spends most of his days there now, aiding his mother, 87-year-old Tessie Martinez, who is in hospice care.

Rick Martinez and his mother have always been close. “She’s given me a lot of inspiration,” he said during an interview in her apartment at The Montecito.

He inspires her, too. “I’m very proud of the fact that you were picked as one of the top 10,” she told him.

Asked why he spends so much of his time on his unpaid efforts in neighborhoods across Santa Fe, Martinez, a longtime painting contractor who now works as a handyman, just shrugged. “It’s the city I grew up in,” he said, “the city I love.”

“If you have a passion for something, you have to make time,” he added.

Martinez and his four siblings grew up on the city’s east side, in a home next to Acequia Madre Elementary School. “I always tell everybody I was the only kid in school who could watch the cartoons to the end every morning and then jump the fence and get to school,” he said. He graduated from Santa Fe High: “I was a Demon from the City of Holy Faith.”

Now, he bedevils developers.

One of his earliest projects, with his brother Victor Martinez Jr., was blocking Ski Santa Fe’s bid to build a new chairlift in the Big Tesuque basin in the mountains east of the city in the early 1990s. When he was a child, Rick Martinez would hike with his grandfather on the popular Big Tesuque Trail, and it was one of his favorite places.

The area also was sacred to nearby tribes.

He and his brother “really got the pueblos together and city council and all the county … and put up a big fight for it,” Martinez said of the ski-area development. “We stopped them, hopefully from now on.”

He’s also proud of one of his first neighborhood projects — closing down an unofficial Santa Fe River crossing in the La Joya Road area a couple of decades ago. On a dry day, he said, traffic would flow across the riverbed as if it were a paved roadway. And that’s not all. “People were dumping their trash in the riverbed. People were changing their cars’ oil in the riverbed.” continued on page 32

“He is the local go-to for community action and reform.

“They say, ‘You can’t fight city hall.’ Well, Rick has time and again, with grace and tenacity. And the City Different is all the better for it.”

— JEAN GREEN

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10 WHO MADE A DIFFERENCE MICHELE HERLING

Helping the mentally ill tell their stories

BY JAN SCHLAIN | PHOTO BY CLYDE MUELLER Michele Herling can still remember the screech.

She was 7 years old, playing down the street with a friend. Her younger brother, Bruce, 6, was playing stoop ball in their front yard. The ball got away from him and rolled in the street. When he went to retrieve it, a car struck and dragged him before coming to a halt.

“I remember the screech vividly,” said Herling. Bruce Herling suffered a massive concussion and a traumatic brain injury, and many years later was diagnosed with mental illness.

“The words ‘mental illness’ weren’t around then,” said Herling. Her brother didn’t get the help he needed. She was the only person her brother turned to, the only person to whom he gave access to his inner thoughts.

“That informed the rest of my life,” she said.

It is for her work with the mentally ill in Santa Fe that Herling is among the 10 Who Made a Difference honorees in 2016.

“Michele doesn’t want any family member to have to go through what her family went through,” said Rosemary Zibart, one of her nominators.

Herling left home in 1965 to attend Boston University, and received a degree in English. She worked in Washington, D.C., before moving to a farm near Peñasco in 1975. Eventually, she moved to Santa Fe and enrolled in massage school. As a massage therapist, she specialized in helping people recovering from serious accidents or injury.

The concept for Herling’s nonprofit, Compassionate Touch Network, was born in 1995 when she traveled to Hungary and Bosnia y Herzegovina to work with traumatized youth. The 501 (c) 3 was formed in 2011. She returned 13 times, until 2002, the year her mother passed away, when she was needed back home to care for her brother.

By 2007, her younger sister, Gaile, and brother, Bruce, had relocated to New Mexico. That same year, Gaile Herling suggested she and Michele attend a class offered by the National Alliance on Mental Illnesses called Family-to-Family. There Herling met Rosemary Zibart, a writer and editor

who had taken the course and was serving as assistant to the group leader.

“That’s when Minds Interrupted began,” said Herling, referring to a program where real people affected by mental illness tell their stories, in a theater rather than a lecture hall, to a paying audience.

Herling asked her NAMI group if they would be willing to participate.

One woman said, “I feel like I’ve been waiting my whole life to tell my story.” That’s when she knew she was on to something.

The first production of Minds Interrupted: Stories of People Impacted by Mental Illness, sponsored by the Santa Fe NAMI affiliate, was held at the Santa Fe Armory for the Arts. “It seated 330 people — not only did we fill the theater, it was so quiet you could hear a service dog breathing.”

In the past nine years, there have been 15 Minds Interrupted presentations in theaters throughout New Mexico and the country. When they presented the program at the Lensic Performing Arts Center, it sold out. In 2009, Herling took the program to Baltimore’s Center Stage, in her hometown, and it sold out, too.

Herling focuses on diversity, making sure the voices telling their stories are of different genders, cultures, illnesses and ages, because mental illness touches all of us. According to NAMI, approximately one in five adults in the U.S. — 43.8 million people — experiences mental illness. And each year approximately one in 25 adults experiences a serious mental illness in a given year that substantially interferes with his or her life. This includes anxiety disorders, depression, attention-deficit syndrome, autism, bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder.

Herling “is relentless in her dedication to removing the stigma around mental illness,” wrote Zibert in her nomination letter. Herling’s sister Gaile also nominated her for this award.

“Compassionate Touch Network is at the heart of all of it,” Michele Herling explained. There are three core programs: Minds Interrupted (the monologues); Breaking the Silence (the educational piece for high schoolers) continued on page 33

Compassionate Touch Network is at the heart of all of it.

There are three core programs: Minds Interrupted (the monologues); Breaking the Silence (the educational piece for high schoolers) and Inside Out Arts, for those challenged who prefer telling their stories through art. All focus on mental health literacy for youth, teens and adults. And all have the component of storytelling and touch.

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10 WHO MADE A DIFFERENCE ESEQUIEL MARQUEZ

Feeding the hungry with grace

BY DENNIS CARROLL | PHOTO BY LUIS SÁNCHEZ SATURNO Feeding the hungry is not always easy — though it’s unlikely that Esequiel Marquez would ever complain.

Every Wednesday and Thursday — come rain, sleet, snow or shine — Marquez, 52, climbs out of bed at about 4:30 a.m. and heads out to the Feed Santa Fe warehouse on Siler Road, where the organization rents about 1,300 square feet from Kitchen Angels.

On Wednesdays, he and other volunteers fill 800 to 900 grocery bags with bread, produce, eggs, canned vegetables and any other essentials that are available that day. He returns at 5:30 a.m. the next morning to distribute the groceries as cars, trucks, motorcycles — even the occasional tractor — line up to drive by the facility’s open bay.

Feed Santa Fe, an all-volunteer nonprofit that some describe as a drivethrough food pantry, also packs food for other aid groups that distribute the groceries to Head Start programs, senior living centers, disabled military veterans and others.

It is for his dedication feeding the hungry that Marquez is being honored as one of the 10 Who Made a Difference in 2016.

“Have a good day,” Marquez called out to a couple in a pickup truck as he leaned into the vehicle’s open window and handed the woman a filled grocery sack. “Unfortunately, we don’t have any bread today,” he said, almost apologetically.

Feed Santa Fe does not solicit donations, instead relying on the Santa Fe Food Depot for its weekly food supply. “Sometimes we just don’t get something,” Marquez said. “We don’t always know why.” The volunteers also hand cartons of milk and a healthy snack to any children in the vehicles.

In a letter nominating Marquez, Lynne Rauch, who also volunteers with Feed Santa Fe, wrote: “Here’s what distinguishes Esequiel: He is never absent and always on time and stays until finished. Clients simply love him.

In fact, we often have two lines of cars and many clients, no matter how they are directed, pull into his line. I know why. He is so cheerful, kind and

caring. … [He] has a way of making people feel good about themselves in spite of the fact that they depend upon donated food.”

Marquez said that even though the volunteering isn’t always easy, “there are a lot of people in need so I don’t like to deny people food.” He also said he enjoys the company of the other volunteers, all doing what they can to help others, as well as the gratitude he feels from those who receive the food each Thursday morning.

His family, which includes his 13 brothers and sisters, has a long tradition of trying to help struggling families — especially when it comes to food and nutrition. His mother, Carmen Marquez, now almost 90, began volunteering at Feed Santa Fe when it started up nearly 25 years ago.

“When we were growing up,” he said, “I remember we always planted a big field of food and when my cousins or whoever would come over we would load them up with pumpkins or whatever we had. We never sold anything so I guess we just gave stuff away. We’ve always been that way.”

Friends also noted that Marquez does more than his share of giving at his home as well, first volunteering at Feed Santa Fe with his mother over the years and now caring for her as she battles dementia. “I know there is never a Sunday Mass [his mother] misses because he gets her there,” Rauch wrote. Marquez also helps a niece, driving her to and from Special Olympics practices and events among other things.

Susan Odiseos, president of Feed Santa Fe, praised Marquez as someone whose absence, as rare as it is, “is always noted. … He does our heavy lifting for us,” she said. She also noted his quick wit and said that despite much humor-laden camaraderie among the volunteers — or possibly because of it — “he always gets the job done. … He’s Mr. Reliable.

We can always count on him.”

“I am so blessed to have stood next to a man who every week gives his time and talents,” Rauch concluded in her nominating letter: “Esequiel is a treasure and represents what is good about living in Santa Fe.”

Clients simply love him. In fact, we often have two lines of cars and many clients, no matter how they are directed, pull into his line. I know why.

He is so cheerful, kind and caring. … [He] has a way of making people feel good about themselves in spite of the fact that they depend upon donated food.”

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10 WHO MADE A DIFFERENCE DONALD “WIZ” ALLRED

Helping young people recover from addiction

BY ANDREW OXFORD | PHOTO BY LUIS SÁNCHEZ SATURNO Donald “Wiz” Allred doesn’t sleep much.

His kids tend to call at all hours — and he has a lot of them.

Allred, 56, has devoted much of the last two decades to mentoring young people trying to recover from drug and alcohol addiction. Now president of the board of Youth Heartline, a nonprofit based in Taos that provides court-appointed advocates as well as a range of other services for young offenders in northeastern New Mexico, Allred is carrying on the heart-rending work of helping Taos-area youngsters get clean and sober.

He has worked with more than 350 mentees. Some have been referred by counselors; some he met through drug court or at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Others were brought to him by parents or grandparents looking for someone who could help the family break the cycle of addiction. “[Allred] has worked with hundreds of young men and boys who had no other support, guidance or people willing to put these young men back on a good road to becoming contributing members of society,” wrote Maggie Hanley-Welles, an arts program coordinator for the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs who nominated him for the honor. “His empathy, sense of wonder, openness and acceptance has made an enormous impact in Northern New Mexico. There seems to be nothing he won’t do for troubled youth to ensure their success as they go towards the future.”

It is for that work that Allred is being honored as one of the 10 Who Made a Difference in 2016.

A graphic designer and stonemason by trade, Allred said it all started when he sat in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in Taos and felt as if the room were split in two. There were the old-timers — the regulars — and the young people who were ordered to attend by a judge.

One night about 10 years ago, Allred recalls, an older member of the group questioned whether the court-ordered participants were really serious about cleaning up. The next week, he helped some young people form their own meeting, which he then led for about seven years.

Allred no longer leads AA meetings, but continues with his volunteer mentoring, motivated by what he sees as a dysfunctional criminal-justice system that locks up drug users instead of helping them find treatment. He was involved with the youth drug court in Taos for 15 years, an effort he saw as helping young people get help rather than just punishment. Drug use is often the cry for help from those trying to numb pain that might stem from a sense of abandonment in a broken home or from the trauma of sexual abuse, Allred said. “Until you treat the reason they’re doing this, they just get worse. It doesn’t change.”

The letter nominating Allred cites some people he has helped, including a Taos Pueblo drummer who detoxed to become a thriving musician; a man addicted to cocaine who is now drug-free and pursuing an acting career; and two siblings who lost their father and began abusing alcohol at a young age.

Everyone Allred mentors must eventually sponsor or mentor someone else — take on responsibility for someone else’s sobriety and success.

“To witness the love and devotion Wiz has inspired in his mentees, one need look no further than Wiz Allred’s Facebook page on Father’s Day. Hundreds of messages and testimonials, a groundswell of gratitude rolls out all through the day, evidence of this massive positive effect on the countless lives of kids at risk. It will bring you to tears,” Welles-Hanley wrote.

“I think these kids really respond to the fact he does this just because he cares,” said Po Chen, executive director of Youth Heartline.

Allred moved to Taos in 1987 as cocaine and HIV took their toll on many friends in Dallas, where he had been living. Growing up in North Texas, Allred said, alcoholism was common but rarely discussed.

He wants to be clear that not all those he mentors are substance abusers.

“They have a myriad of issues,” he said, “from learning to the simple act of being born in a single-parent household. They range from those in recovery to those that just need to learn how to drive a standard transmission or run a chainsaw. Sometimes they just need an adult male to relate to and to learn a skill or trade.”

As part of his day job, Allred has designed art reference books, catalogues raisonné and show publications for artists like Gene Kloss, Walt Gonske and John Suazo. He has also helped steer Youth Heartline as it has grown to include neighborhood art programs and other initiatives.

On a recent morning, he was preparing to take in a young person grappling with methamphetamine addiction. The teen had lost a sibling to an overdose and their parents feared drugs might claim another child. So they called Allred.

But he’s always ready to drop everything for a phone call.

And kids call all the time. Many who have left Taos, traveled the world and started families of their own still keep in touch. Others are becoming parents. Swiping through pictures on his cell phone is like looking through a large family photo album. There’s a rock climber, an actor, a skier.

Not everyone he has helped has been so lucky; he has been to 38 funerals.

“Stabbings. Shootings. Shoved out cars. Wrecked cars. Thrown off a bridge. Jumped off a bridge,” Allred said. “But I get up and do this every day because 90 percent of them live.”

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10 WHO MADE A DIFFERENCE ROXANNE SWENTZELL

Reclaiming her native culture with ancestral foods

BY INEZ RUSSELL GOMEZ | PHOTO BY LUIS SÁNCHEZ SATURNO In Roxanne Swentzell’s kitchen, rows of glass jars, filled with beans and various flours, corn, cactus and whatever she feels like grinding, sit on shelves. Bowls of spices — salt, dried parsley and chile powder — are set out. Ristras of fresh red chile hang, ready for use in cooking. There’s a sink, of course, and a small table for preparing food. A grinder is in place, hooked up to a bicycle as a power source to make the work go faster.

What is not in Roxanne Swentzell’s kitchen is a refrigerator.

She doesn’t use one.

After all, when you are eating fresh foods gathered from the half-acre plot nearby, or greens or plums brought in from the wild, and in the winter, feasting on provisions put up for the cold months — again, all grown or captured nearby — there is little need to keep things cold. Eggs, she said, don’t need refrigeration if they are gathered fresh and their coating not washed away. She doesn’t eat dairy, so there’s no reason to keep milk, yogurt or butter chilled.

No, there is no refrigerator, which is just the way Swentzell’s ancestors at Santa Clara Pueblo lived. They ate off the land — growing some crops, gathering others, hunting for game. They stored the bounty of the growing season for those months when the ground is frozen and animals are scarce. It’s sustainability, updated for the modern age, with a freezer to put away elk, deer or buffalo.

It is a way of life that Swentzell has made her own. An artist by trade, she is known around the world for her sculptures, their shapes, faces and rounded bodies infused with life and spirit. Her work is in the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., and the Heard Museum in Phoenix among others, as well as in the homes of private collectors around the globe and in her Tower Gallery in Pojoaque. It is no exaggeration to say that she is one of the more renowned artists of her generation.

She lives in an adobe home she built herself. “As a young, poor, single mother, to know how to do things myself was empowering. If I depended on income, I was screwed,” she said. “I built it when I was 23 years old. It’s called desperation. It’s called feeling like my babies needed a home.”

Her creativity carries over to food, whether in growing crops, storing the harvest or cooking and eating in a way that pleases both body and spirit. Her passion for food and sustainability and her desire to share what she has learned are all reasons that Roxanne Swentzell is one of the 10 Who Made a Difference in 2016.

It all started with a question: “Can we eat like our ancestors in today’s time?”

Four years ago, Swentzell and friends and family began talking about the many health problems they and other loved ones faced. She had high cholesterol; her son, Porter Swentzell, was overweight and facing heart trouble. Others in the group had diabetes, battled obesity and struggled with other diet-related ills. Headaches, autoimmune diseases and chronic fatigue were among their complaints. Porter Swentzell, a historian, wondered if they would be healthier if they ate the way their ancestors did before Europeans came to this place.

First, they had to figure out what those ancestors did eat. There was meat, yes, but not beef or pork. Before the Spanish came, Indians ate game — wild birds, elk, deer and buffalo. They caught fish. But much of their food came from the land — whether wild spinach, the small, sweet strawberries found in the mountains, or those staples of Pueblo life, beans, corn and squash.

What they didn’t eat was white sugar, white flour and the processed foods now so readily available. There was no drive-through at Santa Clara Pueblo circa 1590, complete with supersized sodas and heaping helpings of French fries. “Our bodies can’t handle that processed food very well,” Swentzell said.

To satisfy their curiosity, she and 13 friends and family members decided to change how they ate. To add a scientific touch, the group had their blood tested; they obtained cholesterol readings, learned their blood sugar numbers and checked their weight. Then they changed their eating habits.

“We didn’t know if it would work. We were guinea pigs,” she said.

Four months later, every member of the group had lost weight. continued on page 32

Before the Spanish came, Indians ate game — wild birds, elk, deer and buffalo. They caught fish. But much of their food came from the land — whether wild spinach, the small, sweet strawberries found in the mountains, or those staples of Pueblo life, beans, corn and squash.

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Rick Martinez continued

Roxanne Swentzell continued

Martinez rallied his neighbors together on the river’s south side to find a way to stop people from using the river as a shortcut and a dumping ground. “I brought each councilor in one by one and showed them what was happening,” he said. The effort faced some pushback, he added, but eventually the city closed the crossing.

He turned his attention to the river again during the construction of the Santa Fe River Trail. “I really worked hard to make sure it was a trail and not a highway,” he said. Developers initially were bulldozing through the bosque, clear-cutting cottonwoods and elms, he said, so he and other neighbors met with the contractors and convinced them to tread more lightly.

Martinez also fought development in the northwest quadrant of the city — “That is the last piece of open space the city has,” he said — and battled to alter zoning in the Juanita Street neighborhood, near the Railyard, to prevent high-density, three-story buildings. Residents there requested his help. “A lot of people got mad at me,” he said. But “you don’t just go into someone’s backyard and say, ‘I’m going to do highdensity. The law’s on my side.’ ” “I get criticized by people saying I’m a no-growth person,” Martinez said. “But I don’t want to be a no-growth person. … I just want to make sure that projects that come through have some kind of negotiation and some compatibility with what the existing neighborhood is.”

It’s important for neighborhoods to hold onto their roots, he said, and cities must remember their history.

That was part of his reason for raising funds to save the caboose, parked at the busy intersection of St. Francis Drive and Cerrillos Road.

When he found out Santa Fe Southern Railway was planning to sell that piece of the Railyard’s past, he launched a campaign to keep it there. His effort drew support from private donors and a key contribution of $8,500 from the Texas Historical Foundation. The campaign raised $21,000, enough to pay the railway $14,000 for the caboose and have funds left over for maintenance.

One of Martinez’s current projects also is centered at the Railyard — a proposal to create and install storyboards that describe the district’s history, with seven train lines passing through it. He has potential funding lined up, he said, and he’s been working with the nonprofit Voces de Santa Fé to build a vision for the project.

“We rely on our history for the tourists to come,” he said. “I would hate to see it change so that we forget our history.” He cites Winston Churchill: “A nation that forgets its past has no future.” He’s used a similar line in his storyboard battle: “A Railyard that forgets its past has no future.”

“Santa Fe is growing,” Martinez said. “Let’s grow it up smart. Let’s grow it up to where neighbors are happy where they live, the streets are clean, the recycling is picked up, the trash is not in their neighborhood … all those things that would make you proud of where you live.”

Swentzell dropped 15 pounds and improved her cholesterol readings, something doctors told her wouldn’t happen without medicine. Her son lost 50 pounds; he has since kept off 90. Others reported similar successes. Their blood — tested before and after — was more sprightly and alive when viewed under a microscope.

“The little cells were running around,” she said. “They acted completely different. The first ones, the cells were all clumped up. After three months of eating the origins diet, they were moving around. They looked happy.” She stopped for a moment, laughing a bit, adding, “if you can say that blood cells look happy.”

Now, several years later, this kind of eating has become a way of life, and the lessons learned from this experiment have been gathered into a book, a way to share what they had learned. The Pueblo Food Experience Cookbook: Whole Foods of Our Ancestors is a guide to eating healthfully and holistically for people who have lived in this area for hundreds of years — which includes both Puebloans and descendants of the original Spanish settlers in many cases. Part of the proceeds from the cookbook, co-edited with Patricia M. Perea, are dedicated to building a kitchen at Santa Clara Pueblo where people can learn traditional ways of cooking. That, she said, “will be another part of reclaiming our culture.”

Her experiment worked, Swentzell believes, in part because the group members helped each other. For those who aren’t part of a community but who want to try a different way of eating, the cookbook can serve as a guide. “I wanted to put out the cookbook as a way to say, ‘You’re not left on your own. You have help,’” she said. “Not everyone is a historian. Not everyone knows what the food is.”

Adjustments can be difficult, as in finding a substitute for coffee. Some people drank cota, or Indian tea, while others used a sort of chocolate-y drink, not a sweet hot chocolate. For flour, Swentzell grew amaranth, or gathered different types of cactus, and of course, used ground corn. Plums could be used to sweeten prune pie, a traditional Pueblo feast-day dessert.

Breakfast might be atole, a cornmeal mush, or eggs, or leftover stew. The group pitched in to buy a buffalo and shared meat from successful hunts.

Buffalo burgers, on corn tortillas, were a big hit.

The transition from modern to ancestral foods was swift. “We went cold turkey,” she said. For each member of the group, the weaning process was different — quitting coffee and sugar, for example, caused withdrawal pains. “There were stages of detox,” she said. “Then a week later, we went through another detox. Then we’d feel really, really good.

It got better.” Eventually, she said, changing their diet “changed us so far that we forgot what it felt like to be sick all the time.”

As the experiment continued, Swentzell said, she discovered other indigenous people trying to do the same thing. “There is a definite movement to try and bring back traditional food. It’s part of trying not to lose who we are as a Native people.”

Giving up modern convenience foods does not have to be viewed as a sacrifice, she said. “I’m not on it 100 percent of the time. I switched so our main food is Pueblo food. These [modern foods] are once-in-a-while things, instead of the other way around. … It’s not a minus; it’s a plus.

You’re gaining your culture back. You’re gaining your heritage. You’re not losing. We’re gaining back who we were as a people. This is how Pueblo people should eat.”

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LUIS SÁNCHEZ SATURNO

Donald “Wiz” Allred, right, with his mentee William Canning, Santa Fe.

Michele Herling continued and Inside Out Arts, for those challenged who prefer telling their stories through art. All focus on mental health literacy for youth, teens and adults.

And all have the component of storytelling and touch.

“Not physical touch,” Herling clarified, as in her bodywork practice, “but the way we touch one another through our stories.”

Breaking the Silence has reached several thousand high school students in over a hundred classrooms throughout Santa Fe and Albuquerque.

The program opens with a PowerPoint presentation showing the faces of 20 to 25 celebrities who have suffered from mental illness — Jim Carey, Michael Phelps and Lady Gaga among them. It’s a “stigma-busting curriculum,” offering information to adolescents about mental illness, again through storytelling.

Inside Out: The Art of Mental Illness, gives writers and artists challenged with mental illness the opportunity to create, exhibit and sell their work. Participants receive 50 percent of the sale and Compassionate Touch Network gets the other half to cover expenses.

Recently Herling initiated Untold Mind, another art program adapted from PhotoVoice, designed to help empower people to use photography and narratives to affect public policy. Here, she gives highly sensitive artists

living with mental illness an opportunity to show us, through their lenses — their eyes, hearts, hands — what living with mental illness is like. “I found Photo Voice [on the internet], and a woman who was willing to give me $500 to buy a bunch of cameras,” she said.

Hanging on the wall at the 2016 Inside Out art exhibition, held in the James Kelly Contemporary Gallery (which has since closed), were Bruce Herling’s two 12-by-12-inch tiles — one a beautiful photograph of Our Lady of Guadalupe taken in front of the church, the other with his words: “Living with brain injury and mental illness is a process. Much of the time it has been isolating. Myself was really insecure growing up. … But when I walk to the church and pray outside with Guadalupe, she gives me positive answers.”

“Many don’t understand mental illness,” said Michele Herling. “They believe people can just get over it. They don’t realize that mental illness requires medical support, just like diabetes, cancer or any other illness.”

“I think Michele is a rare gem walking through this life, and I feel very fortunate that I get to walk by her side,” said Gaile Herling. “She really does walk the talk. Anyone would want her as their advocate and friend.

And sister.”

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Congratulations Mary Chavez and the 2016 10 Who Made a Difference honorees Thank you to all those who nominated local individuals who use their time, talents and passions to give back to the Santa Fe community.

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