Tradiciones - Unsung Heroes 2019

unsung heroes NINETEENTH ANNUAL

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HONORAR A NUESTROS HÉROES

A R T

A B R E U

J R .

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Tradiciones UNSUNG HEROES

OCT. 10, 2019

CONTENTS

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CITIZEN OF THE YEAR

Couse Leavitt

Art Abreu Jr.

44 Nightingale

unsung heroes 48

Cordova

20 Romero

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24

30

52

Matz

Driskell

Martinez

Nicholson

You are a Superhero!

Thanks for all you do.

¡Gracias a nuestros Héroes Locales!

Zeke’s sINCe 1963

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P A S E O

D E L

P U E B L O

N O R T E ,

T A O S

116 Alexander St. Taos 758-8895 Mon-Fri 7:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Sat 7:30 a.m. - 3 p.m.

OCT. 10, 2019

Tradiciones UNSUNG HEROES

People who work

together will win

whether it be against complex football defenses, or the problems of modern society — VINCE LOMBARDI

Congratulations, Coach Abreu! You’re a true leader of young men and our community.

Wanda Lucero 575-737-5433 wanda@wandalucero.com

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OCT. 10, 2019

H O M E I S W H E R E T H E HEROES A R E Heroism represents the best of human nature no matter the perceived severity of a situation or need.

Acts of kindness and courage are born from reaction and action. Such deeds, however, can often go unnoticed by those not personally affected.

There are caring, unselfish souls in our midst who quietly and consistently go out on a limb to make a difference in others’ lives — regardless of whether their efforts are recognized by those not affected. Often, these people shy away from the limelight, preferring to see the results of their deeds rather than seeking adulation. Some Unsung Heroes have even declined to be interviewed.

For the 19th year, the Taos News honors a group of local citizens for making notable (and noble) contributions to the community and asking nothing in return.

It takes a committee to choose Unsung Heroes. Since the second year of Tradiciones in 2001, the Taos News has called upon a group of community members to nominate people who make a difference. Citizen(s) of the Year and Unsung Heroes continue to be the silent pillars of Taos, oftentimes little known but not taken for granted.

The 2019 selection committee included Mary Bernal, Ernestina Cordova, Marilyn Farrow, Mary Ellen Ferguson, Esther Garcia, David Mapes, Stella Mares-McGinnis, Kathleen Michaels, Elizabeth Crittenden Palacios, Yale Jones, Mike Trujillo and Barb Wiard.

Overseers of the process included Taos News publisher Chris Baker, managing editor Staci Matlock, advertising director Chris Wood and me, special sections editor Scott Gerdes. None of us were involved in the selection process during the focus group confab.

However, the paper’s management staff did make the final selection for Citizen(s) of the Year from a list of nominees presented by the committee.

The Taos News staff sincerely thanks the 2019 Tradiciones Selection Committee for their time and energy in making this annual series possible — and for bringing so many deserving people to light.

SCOTT GERDES, SPECIAL SECTIONS EDITOR

STAFF ROBIN MARTIN, OWNER CHRIS BAKER, PUBLISHER S TA C I M AT LO C K , M A N A G I N G E D I TO R SCOTT GERDES, SPECIAL SECTIONS EDITOR K A R I N E B E R H A R D T, C R E A T I V E D I R E C T O R C H R I S WO O D, A DV E RT I S I N G D I R E C TO R S E A N R A T L I F F, P R O D U C T I O N M A N A G E R R I C K R O M A N C I TO, T E M P O E D I TO R AMY BOAZ, COPY EDITOR MORGAN TIMMS, PHOTOGRAPHER REPORTERS: CODY HOOKS, JOHN MILLER, S H E I L A M I L L E R , J E S S E M O YA

SCOTT GERDES

The 2019 Tradiciones Unsung Heroes selection committee in front from left: Mary Bernal, Ernestina Córdova, Stella Mares-McGinnis and Esther Garcia. In back from left: Yale Jones, Mike Trujillo, Mary Ellen Ferguson, Marilyn Farrow, Elizabeth Crittenden Palacios, Barb Wiard, Kathleen Michaels and David Mapes.

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OCT. 10, 2019

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Tradiciones UNSUNG HEROES

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B Y

S T A C I

M A T L O C K

Carrying a team, a family and a community on his shoulders CITIZEN OF THE YEAR

Art Abreu Jr.

OCT. 10, 2019

Tradiciones UNSUNG HEROES

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MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

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CITIZEN OF THE YEAR

ART ABREU JR.

or two minutes at the end of the 4th quarter on a No vember night last year, much of Taos held i ts collecti ve breath.

The fate of the town’s first state football championship trophy hung in the balance. By the time the clock ran out, the Tigers had clinched the Class 4A title against Bernalillo.

“It was just unbelievable. It was the most beautiful thing, other than giving birth to my two kids,” said Roberta Abreu, mother of the Tiger’s head coach Art Abreu Jr. “It was kind of like reaching the epitome of what I had dealt with and worked with my entire life of being a coach’s wife, a player’s mom, a coach’s mom.”

“It had been forever for it to happen,” said Roberta, who almost never missed a game and sat in the same spot near the 50 yard line underneath the announcer’s stand where her husband, Art Abreu Sr., was offering guidance to his son from the coaching booth. “I’m just so glad that the Taos administration gave my son the years to put a program in place, that would prove our kids could do it, that they can be just as tough and rugged and carry this championship on their shoulders.”

Building a championship team takes time and sacrifice, in ways that people who aren’t students of the game might not fully grasp.

Art Abreu Jr.’s sacrifices and what he accomplished on and off the field are what make him this year’s Citizen of the Year.

Those accomplishments, he said, wouldn’t have been possible without the people who had his back, like his mom.

REBOO TING A few years ago, if you had told Abreu Jr. he would guide the Taos Tigers to their first state football championship, he might have raised his eyebrows and let out one of his belly-deep laughs.

Back then, he had quit college. He was working and putting on some pounds. “We Abreus love to eat,” he said with a grin sitting in the Tiger weight room.

He didn’t think sports would be part of his life again.

It was a time of deep self-doubt — the kind that would later help him understand some of the low points his players feel. It also helped him understand at a bone-deep level what they have to do to rise above and conquer that doubt.

A coach got him back on track. “He looked me up and down, squared me up and said basically I was wasting my life,” Abreu said. “Told me to get back to Las Vegas and play for his son.”

Abreu Jr. quit his job and returned to his Las Vegas hometown to attend New Mexico Highlands University and play football for the Cowboys. Getting back into the gam “was a little difficult. It was so sad to the point I couldn’t even complete a mile jogging,” Abreu Jr. recalled. “You gotta hit rock bottom before you know where you are going to be at.”

He fought his way back and ended up as starting tight end for Highlands for three years. He finished a bachelor’s in physical education and a master’s in sports administration. “Now I’m thinking about going for my Ph.D. at UNM,” Abreu Jr. said.

RESILIENCE His resilience is due in no small part to his family.

Abreu Jr. was steeped in sports from the day he was born — a son, nephew and grandson of coaches. “He has been surrounded by sports, all sports, not just football, from the day he was born,” said Roberta.

His dad was his coach growing up. It wasn’t easy. Even his dad admits he made an example out of his son on the field.

Junior also wasn’t an easy kid, said his parents. He went his own way, butted heads with his dad.

“My son has always gone on his own path,” Roberta said. She worried at one point he wouldn’t land where he did, back in sports with a path forward.

“But you have to let them go, light another candle, say another prayer and hope they find their way,” she reflected.

From his parents and both sets of grandparents, Abreu Jr. learned a kind of code that he strives now to pass on to his players.

He learned, “a man does what he has to do, not what he wants to do. There are those days you don’t want to get out of bed or do this or that, but for the betterment of your team, of your day, of your relationships, you do.”

He developed, he said, “a sense of urgency to get up and get things done, go full on. Don’t live a mediocre life. Live a righteous life.”

WORKING FOR A TITLE Building a championship team was a four-and-a-half-year effort for Abreu Jr., one which required support from his wife, his parents, Taos High School and the Taos community, which is not shy about telling a coach how the game should be played.

“We had to start with a lot of basics, the basics of push-ups, basics of sit-ups,” Abreu Jr. said. “Four-hour sessions of mind, body and soul.”

“What I do isn’t for everyone. You have to be a special person to hang around me,” he said. “I have expectations.

I have standards. Be the best version of yourself that you can be and you’re going to be fine.”

He expects excellence off the field as well — maintaining grades, dressing up on Thursdays before game day, demonstrating good sportsmanship even when they lose.

He had to understand every person on his team to know if they had it in them to be champions.

“You have to know the soul of a team, the soul of an individual, what they are capable of,” he said.

His dad is proud of the man his son has become. “He had the courage to do this because society is very unforgiving,” Abreu Sr. said. “People pushed back at the coaching method — said it was too harsh, too much structure, too many rules.”

But Abreu Sr. believes it paid off in the form of a championship trophy and a group of young players who know what it takes to get there. | continues on p. 10

MORGAN TIMMS/ TAOS NEWS

Head coach Art Abreu Jr. and his father, assistant coach Art Abreu Sr., pose for a celebratory photo after Taos' state championship win against Bloomfield at Anaya Field in Taos on Dec. 1, 2018.

MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

OCT. 10, 2019

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JOHN DENNE

MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

Tigers head coach Art Abreu Jr. and his wife celebrate the announcement of a February birth of a child with this season’s team. Abreu Jr. has spawned a closeknit atmosphere and instilled great community pride in the school’s program.

MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

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HEART House will provide emergency housing for up to 15 women and children experiencing homelessness in Taos. HEART House is a beautiful adobe-style home designed as a shared residence to allow the women and children to be housed with dignity and respect.

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OCT. 10, 2019

CITIZEN OF THE Y E A R A N D TAO S TIGERS FOOTBALL COACH

ART ABREU JR.

continues from p. 8

MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

T

aos High School Athletic Director Nickie McCarty said Abreu Jr., “really transformed the culture, the mindset of the team.”

McCarty said while Taos teams have brought home plenty of other state championships in other sports, this first one in football was particularly special. “It brought the whole community out,” she said. “It put Taos on the map.”

While Abreu Jr. is demanding, “When kids need him, he’s there,” McCarty added. “That says a lot about his character and personality. Kids know he cares about them and that’s why they’re willing to work.”

O VERCOMING AD VERSI T Y Abreu Jr. sees the rough hands some of the kids on his team are dealt — not enough food to eat, absent or troubled parents, traumatic events.

“Some of these kids have to work just to make sure they can pay a bill they shouldn’t have to be paying or figuring out what type of sandwich they can make,” Abreu said. “It hurts.”

But he doesn’t treat them any easier because life won’t off the field. He sees his role as teaching them how to get up and keep going, no matter how many times they get knocked down.

“Hey, if God dealt you a bad hand you develop that into what you can,” Abreu Jr. said. “ You put down a card or two

and see what you get out of that draw. If you have to fold it a couple of times to find the hand you need, do it.”

“What’s worse is you release them to society and think ‘are they going to come back?’ Or is society going to swallow them?”

His dad sees the influence his son has on another generation of young men. “Each generation gets tougher. It’s very sad. It pulls on your heart strings,” “Big” Art Abreu, Sr. said.

“You try to prepare them for this tough sport and for life, because life throws all kinds of stuff at you. But you also have to have a heart for what they are going through.”

“My son is there for them, but he is tough on them,” Abreu, Sr. said.

His son believes the lessons of his past, the lessons drilled into him by generations of a coaching family, led to that moment when they lifted a trophy. “If I weren’t around the boys as much as we have been, if I had a different expectation, I’m not sure we would have won the state championship,” Abreu Jr. said.” There’s a lot of things that the boys, the team that just left, had to get to reach that point.”

SACRIFICES Coach Abreu Jr. expects nothing of his players he doesn’t expect of himself.

He is up at 4 a.m. and at the school by about 6 a.m. He’s often not home until 10 or 11 p.m. at night. His wife, Chloe, pregnant with their first child, bears the brunt of sacrifice.

She is the one who keeps him going, he said. “She has to sacrifice about eight months a year and only has me for four months,” he said.

Abreu Jr. and Chloe carry on a tradition started by his parents — Thursday night dinners for the whole team. “It was to ensure the kid got carbs, at least one meal before the game,” Abreu Jr. said. “It was to fill the tummy. And everyone takes home a plate.”

That’s a lot of mouths to feed once a week on a coach’s salary, but it is another way Abreu Jr. and his family do more than what they have to for their team off the field. And it isn’t the only time they have made sure a player has something to eat.

Abreu Jr. faces a tough season, not just because he’s rebooting his program with a young team.

His mom is battling cancer.

For the first time in years, she missed the opening game of the season and hasn’t been to one since. She is in treatment.

It’s one of those situations that has knocked the whole family to its knees. Her son has to dig deep to concentrate on his players, the baby that’s on the way and help his parents when he can. He’s modeling again for his players the fortitude it takes to handle whatever life throws at them.

Abreu Jr. said it pains him to look up in the stands and not see his mom cheering from her favorite seat and ringing a big cowbell at every touchdown. They keep her seat open in the stands. She intends to be back there soon.

And her son intends to have a team she’ll want to watch. ∞

OCT. 10, 2019

Tradiciones UNSUNG HEROES

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OCT. 10, 2019

PAST CITIZENS OF THE YEAR + UNSUNG HEROES

2001 Citizen of the Year

Victor Chavez

2008 Citizens of the Year

Siena Sanderson

Liz Moya Herrera

LUIS REYES

Ernestina and Francis Córdova

CID AND BETTY BACKER

Mary Alice Winter

Melissa Larson

Unsung Heroes::

Clay Farrell

Unsung Heroes:

Shelley Bahr

Dee Lovato

Crestina Armstrong

2012 Citizens of the Year

Paul Bernal

Jeannie Masters

Mario Barela

Beatríz Gonzáles

JIM AND MARY GILROY

Rosemarie Packard

Art Coca

Unsung Heroes:

Mike Concha

Marilyn Farrow

2016 Citizen of the Year

Rose Cordova

Dennis Hedges

Jeanelle Livingston

Pat Heinen

ELIZABETH CRITTENDEN PALACIOS

Christina Masoliver

Judy Hofer

Jake Mossman Sr.

Phyllis Nichols

Nita Murphy

Loertta Ortiz y Pino

Nancy Jenkins Ida Martinez

2005 Citizen of the Year

Celina Salazar

ART AND SUSAN BACHRACH

Larry Schreiber Stephen Wiard

Unsung Heroes:

Fred Winter

Mardoqueo Chacón

2002 Citizen of the Year

Carmen Lieurance

ELOY JEANTETE Unsung Heroes: Paulie Burt Martha Dick Shawn Duran Lucy Hines Palemón Martinez Theresa and Rúben Martinez Joleen Montoya Mary Olguin

Juan “Johnny” Devargas Ernie and Frutoso López Roy Madrid Betsy Martínez Isabel Rendón Johnny Sisneros Dr. Bud Wilson

2006 Citizen of the Year JENNY VINCENT Unsung Heroes:

John Randall

Francisco Córdova

2003 Citizens of the Year

John Holland

Telesfor González

NICK AND BONNIE BRANCHAL

Vishu Magee

Unsung Heroes:

Luís C. Martínez

Richard Archuleta

Becky Miera

Elizabeth Gilmore

Gabriel Romero

Bruce Gomez

Snider Sloan

Juan Martínez

Jane Mingenbach Patty Mortenson and Terry Badhand

2007 Citizen of the Year

Cynthia Rael-Vigil

JAKE MOSSMAN JR.

Guadalupe Tafoya

Unsung Heroes:

Bernie Torres

Chilton and Judy Anderson

Ted Wiard

Cindy Cross

2004 Citizen of the Year

Shirley and Jerry Lujan Albino Martínez

TONY REYNA

Max Martínez

Unsung Heroes:

Ted Martínez

Charlie Anderson

Irene Párraz

Connie Archuleta

Corina Santisteven

Stephen Cetrulo

Michael and Sylvia Torrez

2009 Citizen of the Year REBECA ROMERO RAINEY

Paul Figueroa Carl Gilmore

Dolly Peralta

Judge Ernest Ortega

Lillian Romero

Ernesto Martinez Medalia Martinez

Billy and Theresa Archuleta

PATRICIA MICHAELS

Carolina Dominguez

Unsung Heroes:

Eddie Grant

Edy Anderson

Mary Trujillo Mascareñas

Cynthia Burt

Connie Ochoa

John Casali

Marie Reyna

Maria Cintas

Lawrence Vargas

Father William Hart McNichols

Frank Wells

Mark Ortega

Unsung Heroes:

Unsung Heroes: Juan Abeyta Claire Cote Brian Greer

JoAnn Ortiz

Max Ortega

Effie Romero

John Romero

Fabi Romero

Jimmy Stadler

Esther García

E R N I E B L A K E FA M I LY

Michael Hensley

Unsung Heroes:

Cherry Montaño

Valorie Archuleta

Mish Rosette

Jane Compton

Patrick Romero

Tina Martinez

Charlene Tamayó

Alex Medina

Feloniz Trujillo

Jean Nichols

Malinda Williams

Lisa O’Brien

Larry Torres Connie Tsosie-Gaussoin

2018 Citizen of the Year FRANCIS CÓRDOVA Unsung Heroes: Jill Cline Francisco Guevara Lucille and George Jaramillo Deacon Donald Martínez

Louise Padilla

Jesse Martínez

Mary Spears

Andrew Montoya

Unsung Heroes:

2015 Citizens of the Year

Benjie Apodaca

R A N D A L L FA M I LY

Patrick Delosier

Unsung Heroes:

Cyndi Howell

Walter Allen

Alipio Mondragón

Mary Ann Boughton

Chavi Petersen

Carl Colonius

A legacy of commitment.

Committed to our customers.

Committed to our families.

Committed to our town.

Becky Torres

KATE O’NEILL

2014 Citizens of the Year

JIM FAMBRO

Sonny Spruce

2017 Citizen of the Year

Candido Domínguez

2011 Citizen of the Year

Thom Wheeler

Benton and Arabella Bond

2013 Citizen of the Year

VISHU MAGEE

Bruce McIntosh

Unsung Heroes:

Unsung Heroes:

2010 Citizen of the Year

Addelina Lucero

Polly Raye Angel Reyes Janet Webb

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Tradiciones UNSUNG HEROES

OCT. 10, 2019

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unsung heroes NINETEENTH ANNUAL

HONORAR A NUESTROS HÉROES

MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

Bennie and Edna Romero stand in front of their beloved church that they have updated so that their successor ‘will find a nice place.’

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Science teacher shows up for the students: ‘That’s why we’re here’

BY CODY HOOKS

Chemistry is hard. But Julianna Matz, a science teacher at Taos High School and University of New Mexico-Taos, won’t let that stop a student from finding out just how capable and powerful they are.

She won’t let the difficulty of all the elements and ions, solutions and formulas overpower her students’ possibilities. She won’t let the challenge, and then the mistakes, drown the drive to reach that ah-ha moment. And she won’t allow a young person’s limited view of their own ability get in the way of taking a chance on themselves.

Before getting into Matz’s intro chemistry class, Adbul Khweis thought about the subject — all the math, all the eraser marks, all of it — with more than a little dread.

“I was like, ‘Man, chemistry seems hard,’ ” he said.

But he showed up for class and tried his best. When he messed up a question, Matz’s door was open, and she was always ready to explain it another way and work with him until it clicked. | continues on p. 18

The hands that shape our past strengthen our future.

The members of the Taos County Chamber of Commerce treasure your contributions.

T

A O S

C

O U N T Y

CHAMBER OF COMMERCE taoschamber.com

OCT. 10, 2019

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julianna matz MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

Chemistry is an intimidating subject for many students. Matz is sure to remind anyone struggling that they can do it.

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JULIANNA MATZ continues from p. 17

Then, another student would come in and Matz, who teaches about 180 students each year, would do it again.

For her unending dedication to show up for her students over a 20-year career at Taos’ largest high school, Matz is a Taos News Unsung Hero for 2019.

Came to play, then decided to stay Matz has long called Taos home, but she had to find her way here first.

The thing that brought her here wasn’t so much of a wagon wheel falling off as it was a putting on a pair of skis.

Matz was born and raised in Nebraska. She made her way to Vermillion, South Dakota, to attend college, where she was an ambitious double major in chemistry and German.

She was eager to go to grad school, but when she and her adviser sat down to look over her transcript, they realized that with a full load of chemistry classes the following year, she was not on track to graduate on time.

Her adviser had an idea. He taught at Die Deutsche Sommerschule von New Mexico, the University of New Mexico’s intensive German session hosted each summer in Taos Ski Valley, where students read, write and speak exclusively in German. He suggested she go there and finish up her degree.

It was 1994 when she stepped foot in the now-demolished Thunderbird Lodge. Matz got her dual-major degree the next spring.

Though she went off to Arizona for a graduate program in chemistry, Math wasn’t done with German. Or Taos. So she came back to the summer school to begin a second graduate degree in the language she always loved.

She came back the summer after that, too.

Matz was 22 at the time and just a couple years away from finishing her Ph.D., but was faced with a crossroad. She was offered a job as a manager at the Thunderbird Lodge.

“I’d never just taken off and … like … played,” Matz said. “So I disappointed my parents and quit grad school in chemistry and stayed and skied for two years.”

In those years, she met her future husband, Manuel “Mano” Esquibel, and got to know the Ernie Blake family (then-owners of Taos Ski Valley). Matz took a Fulbright scholarship to go to Austria for a year and while there, was offered a teaching gig in Taos.

“I didn’t have money, so I was like, ‘Sure, I’ll take the job,’ ” she said.

Matz came back to the Unites States, finished up her master’s work — including exams, all in German, at the Thunderbird — and started teaching at Taos High School.

“Teachers, I believe, are the most responsible and important members of society because their professional efforts affect the fate of the earth”

‘You can be in the worst mood and some kid will do something and you just burst out laughing and it’s like, ‘Okay, that’s why we’re here.’”

MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

OUR HEROES

— HELEN CALDICOTT

Thank You,

J ulianna Matz,

for inspiring me. bro m a F h — Jos

For the second summer in a row the Taos Land Trust was able to give full-time employment to 16 young Taoseños.

Over the course of the summer they assisted in our wetland restoration efforts, removed trash, improved the Vigil y Romo acequia, raised a garden, removed invasive species, constructed a pollinator garden, built a walking path and assisted other Taos-area organizations in their efforts to make our community a better place to live for all Taoseños.

Our community is our strength. taoslandtrust.org

OCT. 10, 2019

Tradiciones UNSUNG HEROES

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‘Nose to the grindstone’ Teachers are notoriously stretched thin on time, resources and the energy to do that one thing they’re being asked to do.

Matz is no different.

“There are days that it’s draining, but most of the time, to walk in and just [see] the different things they’ll do,” she said. “You can be in the worst mood and some kid will do something and you just burst out laughing and it’s like, ‘Okay, that’s why we’re here.’

“And to see their faces light up when they learn something, when they’re challenged and excited …” she tailed off.

Though demands are tough, her students can readily see the effort she makes to be present and really mean it.

“She’s a really dedicated teacher who does all these programs for the betterment of Taos High: chem club, honor society,” said Khweis. “She has all these priorities and she knows how to maintain them.”

But just the list of activities “doesn’t fully capture the way she shows up,” said CJ Grace, principal at Taos High School.

Grace cited her “thoughtfulness and intention” to plan and prepare not just for those hours the students are in the classroom, but also for the untold hours it takes to coordinate the dual-credit program, where Taos High students earn college credit at UNM-Taos.

“The partnership is amazing to see,” said Matz.

Taking college-level classes, she said, saves students time and money. But more than the economic benefit, she want her students to know they can do yet another thing they didn’t think was possible.

“You got to put your nose to the grindstone,” she said.

“They can do it, so … go do it.”

‘Our students want that somebody’ If chemistry is a hard subject, Matz is a hard teacher.

When some kids ganged up on one struggling student who said he couldn’t understand the lesson that day, Matz decided to make a point and proceed to teach the rest of the class in German.

“Math and science in any language is math and science,” she said.

Still, students said that she can find that magic spot between pushing them and making sure they know she has faith in them.

“She knows you can do it, but won’t do it for you,” said Kineo Memmer, who just graduated in May and is attending UNM. Memmer recalls one of the first chemistry tests — it was about ions, and it was her second stab at it — and bringing

MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

Students ‘are searching for that person they can connect with,’ Julianna Matz said of teaching chemistry at Taos High. ‘Our students want that somebody to talk to, to confide in, laugh with, cry with and learn something from them, too.’

Matz what she thought was a finished exam.

Matz looked it over. “There’s a mistake. You need to find it,” Matz told her. So she did.

Even though chemistry is “a terrifying subject” for Memmer, she went on to take another chemistry class and then was a student aide in yet another chemistry class.

“Actually seeing the processes behind the scenes made it make more sense for me,” she said. “It was the opportunity to continuously learn.”

But there’s a lot more to teaching than knowing the content.

You’ve got to have the human elements, Matz maintained.

“They are searching for that person they can connect with,” she said. “Our students want that somebody to talk to, to confide in, laugh with, cry with and learn something from

them, too.”

“After I moved here from California, she was a good person to have right away,” Memmer said. “She could tell I didn’t have very many friends … so she would always talk to me in class. She was the one who encouraged me to do a full honors schedule. That relationship stuck for the three years I was there.”

“I’m just very proud of her as a person,” Memmer said, noting the stresses Matz was under with nonstop demands in the school and the death of her father-in-law last year.

“She managed to be there for her students when they needed it,” she added.

“I think the students at Taos High like to see that teachers are humans, too,” Matz said. “The kids know I’m just … who I am.” ∞

Peak of Excellence Award Honorees Inspiring change and honoring excellence are values Taos Community Foundation celebrates. We are proud to announce our Peak of Excellence Award honorees for 2019.

Kathryn Herman

Wes Patterson

Philanthropic Leader

Philanthropic Visionary

Mountain Home Health Care Non-Profit Excellence

Together, we create lasting positive change!

115 La Posta Rd, Ste A, Taos

•

575-737-9300

•

TaosCF.org

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bennie & edna romero MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

Serving people isn’t just a calling or religious recruitment for Bennie and Edna Romero — it’s truly about reaching out to those in need.

Carlos Cisneros Fought for a better Northern New Mexico “Senator Cisneros was a dedicated public servant whose sincere desire was to improve the condition of the state so all New Mexicans could flourish and thrive.” ~ Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth

CECELIA TORRES, FIESTA QUEEN 1954

Studio 107 B TAOS PLAZA

OCT. 10, 2019

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ANSWERING THE CALL answering OF THOSE IN NEED

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the call of those in need

BY SHEILA MILLER

MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

Bennie Romero was instantly attracted to his future wife, Edna, and her entire family. He observed how different they were from any family he had ever known. ‘They said grace at every meal.’

A WORLD-CLASS REJUVENATION CENTER AT THE HEART OF EL MONTE SAGRADO

317 Kit Carson Rd., Taos| 575.737.9880 ElMonteSagrado.com/Spa

There’s no state or government agency a person can call when they need someone to hold their hand through fear, suffering, pain or loss.

For such intimate and personal support, the mechanisms of the social welfare system have little to offer. A person can, however, call Bennie and Edna Romero.

Answering the call of those in need, no matter who or where they are is, ultimately, what constitutes a life in the ministry.

To minister is to become, as far as possible, the human expression of the Lord’s love. It requires a radical sacrifice of self-interest that most reasonable people are reluctant to make. Bennie Romero was no exception.

“I’ll do it when I’m older,” he told himself. Although leadership of the First Indian Baptist Church was available to him, he wasn’t sure that he was ready. He didn’t yet feel the urge to speak to people about the Lord.

That changed 43 years ago.

Romero and a good friend, Dr. Steve Cetrulo, set out in the predawn light to hunt a bull elk Romero had been scouting for days. He knew just where it should be.

By 10 a.m., the pair hadn’t yet taken the bull, and Romero realized he needed to return to the pueblo to teach a class at the Taos Day School. Rushing home, their Jeep went off the road and rolled three times, eventually settling on the tires. Romero regained consciousness to find he was alone in the Jeep.

He searched, unsuccessfully, for Cetrulo. Unable to start the Jeep, he collected the rifles and crawled to the top of the hill he’d just rolled down. There he found Cetrulo — who’d been thrown from the vehicle — with a broken femur. In spite of his own grave injury, it was Romero that had Cetrulo alarmed. Romero was bleeding from his ears.

| continues on p. 22

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BENNIE & EDNA ROMERO continues from p. 21

he doctor recognized signs of a serious head injury in his friend. The men fired their rifles about 20 times, eventually drawing the attention of the Forest Service, who came and found them. Romero’s head had already been bandaged by Cetrulo.

On the way to the hospital in the Forest Service truck, a bump caused Romero’s head to tap the surface behind him. His next memory is from 23 days later at the St. Joseph Hospital in Albuquerque.

Romero remembers walking down a hallway with his father, asking what happened that put him in the hospital. Gesturing to the hospital gown worn by Romero, his father told him that it was he, Bennie, who was the patient.

Cetrulo had hired a plane to fly Romero to Albuquerque to be seen by a neurosurgeon when it was decided that his injuries were too extensive to be treated at Holy Cross Hospital. His wife, Edna, was there in the plane and there in the hospital when Romero woke from the coma.

His ability to speak, sit and walk returned first, before his memory of himself or his family.

Yet, somewhere inside, that sense of self was present, because it was while in the coma that he surrendered to that self — “to the Lord.” Recognizing the state of his body, he professed, “Lord, I don’t have much to give you except this broken body. But, if you see fit to keep me alive, I will give my life completely into your service.”

When he woke, for the first time in his life Romero felt compelled to speak to the patients on the floor about the Lord. He accepted the role of pastor at the

MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

WE RECOGNIZE THE VALUE OF EDUCATION AND SERVICE TO OUR COMMUNITY

“A house is made of walls and beams; a home is built with love and dreams.”

– Unknown

First Indian Baptist Church, in which he has served ever since.

Romero took over stewardship of the church from Edna’s father, Michael Naranjo, who had moved the family from Santa Clara Pueblo to Taos in 1954, the same time that Edna Naranjo moved to Texas to attend Baylor.

She came home from college for a visit and Romero “saw her laughing inside the parsonage.”

“He was quite athletic,” Edna recalled. It’s no surprise he made such an impression, as Romero was by then a runner of some renown. “My family has always run in footraces,” he said. “My father [Querino Romero] used to take us out for a run every morning,” knowing that running would “develop our power and strength.”

It is perhaps due in part to that physical strength that Romero was able to survive the accident.

Romero was immediately drawn to Edna, and to her whole family. They were “so different. They said grace at every meal.”

In Edna’s family there was “a happiness that I’d never seen,” he said The happiness he witnessed was hard won.

“My mother was the one who was courageous,” Edna said. Led by Edna’s desire and over objections of others outside the family, Edna’s mother, Rose Naranjo, herself a famous potter, invited a woman named Pauline Commack to offer Bible study in their living room to Edna and her younger sister, who had been attending services with Commack in Española.

The other children, eight in all, also began to listen to Commack’s teaching. Eventually, so too did Edna’s father, Michael Naranjo.

Michael had always taken to things quickly. Professionally, he was a carpenter at Los Alamos National Lab during Word War II. He was also a welder and a mechanic and “he could pick up any instrument and play it,” Edna said.

That ability may have come to him through his mother’s blood. Though he was raised in St. Catherine’s orphanage in Santa Fe, Michael shared his mother’s musical abilities. He was well-liked by the nuns, but he didn’t wish for the life of a priest. He ran away from the orphanage so many times he was eventually taken in by a bachelor uncle.

For Michael, the Bible study he heard in his living room was life-changing. The community of listeners outgrew the living room, so he built in their backyard “the first Protestant Church on any of the 19 pueblos,” Edna said.

OCT. 10, 2019

“We, the children, built the church. We built the adobes.”

Eventually, Edna’s father reformed his way of life, became a missionary and accepted the post in Taos as pastor of the First Indian Baptist Church.

Both of Michael’s parents had been teachers and, after college, Edna and Bennie took up the family profession, teaching at Taos Day School. Edna taught there for 25 years and Bennie for 17 before he entered full-time into the ministry.

Teaching at Taos Day School provided the Romeros’ with the chance to integrate into the community “by being there when people needed us,” Edna said.

“We recognize the value of education and service to our community,” said Edna. It shows. All of their children went to college, and several of Edna’s siblings hold advanced degrees.

While most people know that pastors perform marriages, baptisms and funerals, the typical day of a pastor is, in a word from Edna, “unexpected.”

“We might get a call in the middle of the night,” she said.

Their plans are constantly evolving in response to the needs of others. It took many years to build the trust of the community, and having done so is what the Romeros consider their greatest accomplishment.

“We’re there for the people, no matter who they are,” Edna said. The ministry “isn’t just for turning people into Baptists.”

Instead, for the Romeros success is someone coming to their home and asking, “Bennie, can you help me?”

The Romeros do many things for the community they are too humble to mention. Mary Bernal — who nominated the Romeros as Unsung Heroes — told the Taos News about a few of them including distribution of Christmas packages to adults and children at Taos and Picuris pueblos and also Thanksgiving food boxes. Edna gathers and distributes clothes to both pueblos. She collects and distributes school supplies and backpacks to kids around Taos County and at Taos and Picuris pueblos. The Romeros have also organized groups to help families and seniors in need of residential repairs and property cleanup.

“She is the glue” that keeps the church functioning, said Bernal.

Though Bennie officially retired Jan. 1, 2019, the church has yet to find a suitable replacement, and so Bennie and Edna continue their work as before — except without any pay.

The Romeros have poured themselves into preparing the church for their successor. They put on an addition — a fellowship area — behind the kitchen, installed new windows and insulation and made other updates, “so whoever comes will find a nice place,” Edna explained.

In addition to their continued work at First Indian Baptist Church, Bennie leads a Tiwa Bible Study (in English) at the Taos Living Center that is open to “whoever comes through the doors.”

So, too, are Edna and Bennie, who continue to answer calls both locally and from Colorado, Albuquerque, Farmington and beyond.

They continue to go “to whoever is hurting.” ∞

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MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

Edna Romero spreads hope and love to whomever she speaks.

John Rodman

We cherish the lives of our ancestors for their perseverance, Through their valor we, as a people, have a place in this world.

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BY JOHN MILLER

Río Fernando fire chief asks,

‘Who’s next?’

russ driskell MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

Río Fernando Fire Chief Russ Driskell has answered the firefighting call to serve Taos Canyon and beyond for 40 years.

OCT. 10, 2019

Tradiciones UNSUNG HEROES

25

On June 25, Río Fernando Fire Chief Russ Driskell and several of his volunteer firefighters answered a call to assist with a brush fire near the old Stakeout restaurant on State Road 68.

The report of the fire came in the middle of the afternoon, buzzing across radios in the 13 volunteer fire stations that cover Taos County’s 2,200 square miles of high mountain and desert: A driver passing by had seen the smoke. The fire was growing on the east side of the roadway.

By the time the first truck from the Taos Volunteer Fire Department arrived, the flames had spread to cover a sizable field of sagebrush. The wind was also picking up, causing those flames to creep through understory dry enough to flare in spite of an especially wet winter and cool spring.

Taos Fire needed support, so they called on Hondo Seco Fire Department and Río Fernando, where Driskell has served as chief for the past 23 years.

He started volunteering in the late 1970s with Taos Fire.

His uncle worked there as chief. Driskell and his two younger brothers grew up in the fire house, starting out raising the big bay doors for the trucks to roll out on a call, their lights flashing and sirens wailing, and then seeing how quickly they could dress in fire suits, including masks and oxygen tanks.

By the time they were old enough to become volunteers when they turned 18, doing it for real felt second nature, Driskell said.

Now at 60, his body has seen wear and tear from the many calls he’s responded to, but his mind remains one of the sharpest in the county when it comes to knowing fire — how it moves and how to fight it effectively.

When he got the call in June, the wheels started turning immediately.

“I think the biggest difference today after doing it for so many years is my mind — is creating the world’s worst scenario when I’m on the way to the scene,” Driskell said. | continues on p. 26

MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

While the Río Fernando Fire Department’s main territory is Taos Canyon, Fire Chief Russ Driskell and his volunteers answer the call to help all over the county.

Congratulations to the 2019 Citizen of the Year and Unsung Heroes.

CONGRATULATIONS

Your hard work and commitment make Taos the special place it is.

Thank you Taos County for your ongoing support.

If I may assist you please call 575-770-3178.

RUSS DRISKELL! You’ve always been a hero to us.

Roberto “Bobby” J. Gonzales

Thanks for all you do for Taos Canyon.

State Representative District #42 Democrat Paid Political Advertisement Paid for by the Committee to Re-Elect Roberto “Bobby” J. Gonzales, Marcos Gonzales Treasurer

Taos Canyon Neighborhood Association & Rio Fernando Fire Department

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RUSS DRISKELL continues from p. 25

They arrived aboard two brush trucks, which are essentially heavy-duty pickups equipped with custom beds, hoses and tanks that carry several hundred gallons of water or cooling foam. Another squad of volunteers from his department brought a water tender truck, a much larger vehicle fitted with hoses and a tank that can hold thousands of gallons.

The flames had jumped from the brush to a few low trees by the time Driskell arrived — the flames and smoke blowing slantwise in the wind — but the Taos firefighters had control of the situation and were keeping the blaze from spreading.

Driskell and his team helped clean up, dousing the smoky, blackened field, which that day became one of many scars on the Northern New Mexico landscape that marks where a small fire could have become the big one that volunteer firefighters prepare for.

Last year’s drought in New Mexico served as a reminder of just how important that training is.

The Ute Park Fire, which consumed 36,740 acres of forest in Colfax County from May to mid-June 2018, could have spread into Taos County, Driskell said.

The winds could have turned just right, he explained, pushing the flames west through the mountains.

Locally, though, Driskell’s greatest fear is a major fire in the 15-mile stretch of Taos Canyon where his department is headquartered.

“For us in Taos Canyon, a summer like we had last year, there’s no fighting a fire that gets started there,” he said. “It’s going to be strictly evacuation — move people out of the way and make sure they’re safe before it consumes Taos Canyon.”

He said that the roughly 80 permanent residents who live in the canyon also know the risk that almost any small fire could become a big one. Every year they clean up dry brush around their homes to create defensible space.

But whether it’s 10 years away or 100, Driskell said his part of the county, where he also lives, will one day see a major fire that will require a quick response, and the volunteers necessary to carry it out.

Another fear is that those volunteers might not be there.

Today, there are a little over 200 men and women who serve with volunteer fire departments around Taos County. They respond to car accidents. They clean up waste spills. They provide medical support. They recover bodies. And they fight fires.

According to Driskell, there also aren’t nearly enough of them.

Recently, he said there have been between 12 and 13 people who volunteer with Río Fernando Fire Department. The average age is about 55. All of them make sacrifices, halting moments with their families, leaving work early or sacrificing sleep to answer calls that come at inconvenient times.

Ideally, Driskell would like to see 20 or 21 people enrolled at his department who are willing to make those sacrifices.

Just three days of training, he said, make someone useful on a call, and a year’s probation gives a volunteer the time and experience to learn the science of fighting fires and “why they’re doing it.”

Finding people willing to give that time, though, is getting harder and harder, he said.

“The general consensus is that volunteerism is slowing way down,” he said. “We’re on the declining ages of where people really willingly gave to the public.

It’s a dying art. It really is.”

And he understands why.

“Taos being Taos, most people have to work two or three jobs to enjoy our beautiful climate, beautiful weather, beautiful surroundings,” he said. “For those of us who were born and raised here, it’s home. We don’t see it any other way, but spending the time to volunteer, the time to train and willingly give that time is hard to do nowadays.”

Throughout his career, Driskell has always swung a day job while serving as a volunteer. He worked for 26 years at Taos Cycleworks. Since 2007, he has worked as general manager at Randall Lumber and Hardware.

On a week day you can find him behind the counter at the shop, but when the community calls for it, he still dons the red hat, serving alongside other county residents who every year give freely of their time, not knowing who else might be next in line to take their place. ∞

In just three days of training a volunteer firefighter makes someone useful on a call, and a year’s probation gives him or her the time and experience to learn the science of fighting fires and ‘why they’re doing it.’

MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

THANK YOU

Questa New Mexico, rich in history and more.

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OCT. 10, 2019

P R O U D T O C A L L TA O S O U R H O M E

We’re Proud to be a part of the Taos Community and extend our sincere Congratulations to this year’s Citizen of the Year and Unsung Heroes ~The Hacsi Family

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Virginia Couse Leavitt finds respite in the beautiful flower garden at the Couse homestead planted by and tended to by her grandma and namesake, Virginia Couse.

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mary alice martinez MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

‘Our language is the heart of our existence,’ Tiwa teacher Alice Martinez proclaimed.

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BY SHEILA MILLER

language hero:

a dedication to keeping Tiwa alive

MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

Alice Martinez grew up at Taos Pueblo surrounded by love and a sense of responsibility to others. ‘That’s what we teach them in Tiwa class.’ | continues on p. 32

We cherish the lives of our ancestors for their perseverance, Through their valor we, as a people, have a place in this world.

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MARY ALICE MARTINEZ continues from p. 31

When Mary Alice Martinez, who goes by Alice, speaks of growing up in the village of Taos Pueblo, she speaks of love.

In every household — from every auntie, grandfather and grandmother — there was love. Within the village, there was a sense of safety that is difficult for the modern mind to imagine. All children were known and cared for by everyone in the village, and children learned “how to have respect for your elders and how to help anyone who needs help,” said Martinez. If a grandmother needed water from the river, you helped her carry it.

“No one went without food,” she recalled. Being raised by her grandparents in the village through kindergarten (she attended the Taos Day School), instilled in her the fundamental values of village life. She remembers sleeping on summer evenings, listening to the flowing of the river through the screen door and mutual regard.

“That’s what we teach them in Tiwa class,” Martinez said, speaking of her experience growing up surrounded by love and responsibility to others. “Our language is the heart of our existence.”

That language, Tiwa, is in danger of becoming extinct, and Martinez has dedicated herself to protecting it.

Her memories are in Tiwa. Native English speakers often consider the primary role of language as personal expression, but language communicates more than the thoughts of individuals — it carries the values and traditions of cultures.

When Martinez grew up in the village, everyone spoke Tiwa.

Now, many adults in their 30s and 40s are not fluent and thus can’t teach the language to their children.

With the traditional way of learning no longer available, the Red Willow Education Center saw the need to hire two Tiwa teachers.

Those two teachers are Martinez and Antonia Lujan.

‘Just always come home’ – the path to becoming a language protector

MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

Even though she and her parents had moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado, early in grade school, they always came back to the village in summer and for festivals.

“We danced all the corn dances just like my mother and my grandmother,” Martinez said, and the family continues to plant the corn and bean fields as often as they can with seeds saved from her grandfather.

One San Geronimo Day, when she was 14 and he was 16, her future husband, Cameron Martinez Sr., caught her eye. She stood outside of her grandparents second level home, and he and a friend passed by — perhaps even strutted. “We couldn’t stand around talking,” Martinez said of unmarried men and women. Still, she descended the ladder to exchange addresses with the young man, only to be immediately caught by her mother, who shooed the boys away.

“You represented your whole family back then,” said Martinez.

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MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

Alice and Cameron exchanged letters for years, she writing from Colorado Springs and he from Albuquerque. They shared the same goals: to go to school and help their families, and in time they were married.

They both studied at universities in Colorado where their first child, a son, was born in 1983. On August 5 they celebrated their 41st wedding anniversary with their five children.

Alice Martinez began her college studies “as an honor and a tribute” to her grandmother, who didn’t have the same opportunities to pursue her own career interests, but encouraged Martinez to “go and see what’s out there, just always come home.”

She has been faithful to her grandmother’s advice. Her path began and continues in the village.

On learning the importance of political action In 2018, Martinez’s life had reached a point where she might reasonably have chosen to rest, but instead she chose to apply herself to fostering political engagement in those around her and at keeping the Tiwa language alive, “trying to save our culture and our existence.”

Martinez had recently retired from the U.S. Postal Service after 19 years as the Arroyo Seco postmaster and 10 years before that as a postal worker. It was as a postmaster that Martinez’s political leanings first had the chance to be expressed. Because they weren’t unionized like the clerks, the post masters “had to advocate for themselves.”

It was fitting work for one whose courtship with her husband was through the mail, and Martinez enjoyed it.

“I loved taking care of my customers,” she said.

After retiring from the postal service, she remained politically engaged with matters that impact Taos Pueblo and the broader communities of Taos and beyond.

Some of that work takes place through the organization Taos United, “a local grassroots nonprofit organization of social and political activists working for a fair and just democracy, human rights, environmental stewardship and the welfare of our community,” its website describes.

To all the people of Taos County, Martinez said on behalf of herself and the Taos United organization, “If they need help with anything, we’re here.” | continues on p. 34

For your helping hands and caring hearts.

To all the Unsung Heroes from our Communities and the Unsung Heroes in our Association for the countless hours our members give to non-profits in our Communities.

Thank you for all you do!!!

The Taos County Association of REALTORS®

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MARY ALICE MARTINEZ continues from p. 33

Bringing Tiwa education to Enos Garcia Elementary School Martinez and her husband belong to the last generation to grow up speaking Tiwa as their first language. Long concerned about the loss of their native tongue, she accepted the encouragement of Shawn Duran — who works in the Taos Pueblo Tribal Governor’s Office — to come out of her brand-new retirement and apply for the position of Tiwa teacher at the Red Willow Education Center.

“All things come the way Creator gives it to you,” she said.

“You have to follow the path that is chosen for you.”

Hiring Martinez and Lujan was an important step, but there was still a big problem to be solved. As of May 2018, there were two teachers, but no students.

For months, Martinez and Lujan worked to find funding for a program through which they could teach Tiwa to children. While they searched, they learned about the teaching of indigenous languages through the Institute of Indigenous Languages in Santa Fe and the University of New Mexico Native American Language program.

After months of work and initially teaching without grant support for the program, Martinez and Lujan found funding for teaching Tiwa in Enos Garcia Elementary and regularly taught 30 students during the 2018-2019 school year.

At the end of the year, the students received a certificate commending their work. “This was the first time our students ever got recognition for something that was indigenous,” Martinez said.

The goal of the language program is to be in Enos Garcia Elementary permanently, and even to expand into the middle and high schools to support the 30 students who are currently in the Enos Garcia program and their successors as they advance through school.

audio archive documenting the stories and memories of village elders.

“It takes a lot of courage and confidence to do this,” said Kathleen Michaels, who nominated Martinez as an Unsung Hero.

These stories will form part of the Tiwa language curriculum at Enos Garcia, giving young students access to both their language and the values carried in the stories of the elders.

The Digital Storytelling Project

Visitors can help protect Tiwa, too

It’s one thing to learn grammar and vocabulary. For teaching the students about village life, Martinez has another resource: the stories of the elders.

The Tiwa language is not written. Histories are oral and given from person to person. Therefore, it was not without serious reflection and consultation with many elders that she took on the Digital Storytelling Project, creating an

MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

Alice Martinez’s grandparents instilled in her ‘how to have respect for your elders and how to help anyone who needs it.’

In spite of the willingness of Martinez and others to share information, and to perform powwow dances for people and organizations that request them, it is frustrating to encounter misconceptions.

The sense of entitlement exhibited by many visitors to the village, who enter people’s homes in the village without permission and frequently demand explanations for tribal affairs,

such as why the pueblo is closed to visitors during a funeral, is troubling.

“Our world is getting smaller. Everyone wants to see everything,” Martinez observed. “But, some things are to remain untouched.”

Moving forward The Enos Garcia Tiwa language program is already experiencing success, and Martinez and Lujan have plans to expand their program to include the parents of the children and other adult members of the pueblo.

“I still want to contribute a lot of years,” Martinez said, whose energy seems to well up from within. Our people are resilient.”

With the help of Martinez and the Red Willow Education Center, Tiwa will echo off the walls of the village for many years to come. ∞

To Our Community Heroes

THANK YOU Your dedication and commitment to our community makes Taos a better place to live, work, and raise a family.

Today's Dream...

Tomorrows Reality.

Taos Academy Charter School Staff would like to wish all public school’s students, staff and parents in Taos a fantastic 2019-2020 school year.

Let's Dream Together!

Anansi Charter School Arroyos del Norte Elementary School Chrysalis Alternative School Enos Garcia Elementary School Ranchos Elementary School Taos Charter School Taos Cyber Magnet School Taos Day School Taos High School Taos Integrated Arts Charter School Taos International Charter School Taos Middle School Vista Grande Charter School

Since 1969 - Founded Here. Focused Here.

575-758-6700 • 512 Paseo del Pueblo Sur www.centinelbank.com

*Special thanks to our sponsor - Edgenuity!!

OCT. 10, 2019

Tradiciones UNSUNG HEROES

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BY AMY BOAZ

A GRANDDAUGHTER PRESERVES HER FAMILY’S ARTISTIC HERITAGE LIKE A TIME CAPSULE

virginia couse leavitt MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

Virginia Couse Leavitt finds respite in the beautiful flower garden at the Couse homestead planted by and tended to by her grandma and namesake, Virginia Couse.

to all those who have done so much for Our Community

The Taos Art Museum at Fechin House congratulates Ginnie Couse Leavitt and all of Taos’ Unsung Heroes

Please Join Us!

7:20am Every Wednesday at Palettes of Don Fernando, 1005 Paseo del Pueblo Sur, Taos Voted Best Civic Club 2019

227 Paseo del Pueblo Norte / Open Tue-Sun 10-5 taosartmuseum.org

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MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

E.I. Couse co-founded the Taos Society of Artists in 1915, which began the transformation of Taos from a trading post to an art colony. Virginia Couse Leavitt wrote a retrospective of E.I. Couse for the Albuquerque Museum in 1991, and a major biography, ‘Eanger Irving Couse: The Life and Times of an American Artist (1866-1939)’ (University of Oklahoma Press, 2019).

Until she was 6 years old, Virginia Couse Leavitt lived year-round in the sprawling homestead of her famous grandparents on Kit Carson Road. She rode horses with the Randall children (later of Randall Lumber) and played at Taos Pueblo with the numerous children of her grandpa’s favorite model, Ben Lujan —immortalized by I.E. Couse in his sensitive paintings of Native Americans that formed the tone for the Taos Society of Artists, which he co-founded in 1915. | continues on p. 38

TOWN OF TAOS UNSUNG HEROES

The Town of Taos thanks our heroic law enforcement, fire and EMS first responders that keep us safe every day.

“Thanks, Coach Abreu, for Believing in Taos.”

THANK YOU Taos Police Department Taos Volunteer Fire Department Taos Fire Department Taos County Sheriff’s Office Taos County EMS NM State Police USFS and BLM Fire Responders

~Mayor, Dan Barrone

TAOSGOV.COM 400 CAMINO DE LA PLACITA

OCT. 10, 2019

Tradiciones UNSUNG HEROES

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Virginia Couse Leavitt and her late husband, Ernest E. Leavitt. Photo by Lenny Foster

MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

Congratulations to Virginia Couse Leavitt and the other unsung heroes of Taos For all you have done, for all you do, for who you are … you’ll always be our hero, Ginnie. — The Couse Foundation Family

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VIRGINIA COUSE LEAVITT continues from p. 36

I

ndeed, it was a magical time at the Couse homestead in Taos, Couse Leavitt remembers, especially when a secret step-down playroom was added — accessed through the kitchen cupboard à la C.S. Lewis — where today several photos of her in her grandfather’s lap now stand. She was only 4 years old when her grandpa died, but she remembers vividly running into his painting studio to call him to lunch and he would throw her over his shoulders “like a sack of potatoes.”

By the time she was a young teen, she did not come as much to Taos, as her grandmother, her namesake and the fabled gardener of the Couse homestead, had died, as well as her mother. Virginia’s father, Kibbey, remarried, and the family resided in California.

Virginia’s older sister, Elizabeth, was more of an artist than her sister, she says; Virginia was interested in writing and married a museum curator, Ernest Leavitt. The two raised a family in Tucson, where Leavitt was curator at Arizona State Museum and Virginia got a degree in art history when the children were grown — specifically medieval art history, where learning how to research and chronicle archives was mandatory.

The combined talents of a museum curator and an art historian and researcher — was this a marriage made in heaven for the granddaughter of legendary Taos artist E.I. Couse?

“Unknowingly,” Couse Leavitt admits, “I was preparing myself for my life’s work — research into my grandfather and the Taos Society of Artists.”

Kibbey had died in 1978, and Virginia’s younger brother, Irving, was taking care of the property. When Virginia’s husband retired in the late 1980s, the couple began to spend six months of the year in Taos to help her brother with the care of the homestead. The place was like a time capsule, thanks to Kibbey, a mechanical engineer who had not allowed changes to the homestead over the decades — indeed, his machine shop is one of the most riveting parts of the house.

“There was a treasure trove here that we realized had to be preserved,” says Couse Leavitt. And the family agreed that the Leavitts, with their combined professional talents, were the natural ones to do it. “We were trained,” says Virginia. “We knew what had to be done but did not know how to do it.” That would come when a foundation was started in 2001.

The house is nestled next to the land and studio of Henry Sharp, a fellow Taos Society Artist and friend of Couse. The Sharps had no children of their own, and considered the Couse children and grandchildren part of the family; when the artist died in 1953, the property was sold to Kibbey with the condition that he would retain “life estate.” The Sharp site includes the Luna Chapel, which Sharp converted into his first studio, and the larger studio he built in 1915.

Virginia marvels how the whole space exists in its originality: “[My father] loved it here. The main rooms are still furnished as they were.”

Sadly, the great artist Couse was not a writer; he did not keep diaries or letters. His wife, Virginia Walker Couse, provided the material, says the granddaughter and namesake.

“She had 276 letters she wrote to her family back in Washington state [where her family lived],” says Virginia. | continues on p. 40

Thank You Ginnie For preserving your family’s treasures and memories and for your dedication to celebrating all the Taos Society of Artists and their Pueblo friends and models.

CONGRATULATIONS VIRGINIA COUSE LEAVITT AND THE 2019 UNSUNG HEROES

Ginnie with her brother, Irving, and her grandfather, E.I.Couse, 1936

GINNIE’S GRANDPARENTS, E.I. and Virginia, with eightyear-old Kibbey (Ginnie’s father) arrived in Tres Piedras via the single- gauge Chili Line Railroad on May 24, 1902 in a snowstorm. When the skies cleared the following day, Long John Dunn bundled them into his stagecoach for the 6-hour, 30-mile trip to Taos. Virginia wrote, “It was frightfully muddy but aside from that perfectly lovely. We simply sailed along for about 15 miles when suddenly we heard the most awful thunderclap behind us. We looked back and the sky was inky black. . . mind you it was the brightest sunshine ahead.” John Dunn “whipped up the team and at the edge of the gorge, jammed on the brakes, and descended hundreds of feet in a series of switchbacks” to cross the Rio Grande on his bridge. A hailstorm broke out and almost stampeded the horses before the Couses arrived in Taos where Bert and Rose Phillips met them. . . and the seeds of the Taos Society of Artists were sown.

Long John Dunn became friends with the artists who continued to arrive. Over the next 30 years he not only transported them and everyone else who came to Taos but also much of his freight was art supplies coming in and paintings going out.

Today John Dunn’s House on Bent Street centers a neighborhood of more than 40 fine shops, all of whom celebrate Ginnie and Ernie Leavitt for honoring and conserving Taos history.

TAOS ROCKERS

MINERAL & FOSSIL OUTLET 11years of tradition specializing in minerals of New Mexico 229 A Camino de la Placita (OFF DUNN HOUSE PARKING LOT)

OPEN 9AM - 6PM

575-758-2326

OCT. 10, 2019

E.I. Couse found his life’s subject matter in the Taos Pueblo Indians.

Tradiciones UNSUNG HEROES

MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

Thank you! Because of your hard work, we donated more than $50,000 to Taos nonprofits!

The #expLOReTaos GeoTour was a huge success—and we couldn’t have done it without you. At the LOR Foundation, we work to bring communities together in fun, interactive ways while supporting local solutions. And while the GeoTour contest may be over, the adventure continues.

Learn more at TaosGeoTour.com

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A special thanks to our nonprofit partners!

Amigos Bravos Bridges Project for Education Enchanted Circle Trails Association Not Forgotten Outreach Rocky Mountain Youth Corps Taos Community Foundation Taos Land Trust Taos Valley Acequia Association The Paseo Project Twirl Play & Discovery Space

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VIRGINIA COUSE LEAVITT continues from p. 38

The letters are a rich, rare archive of the couple’s early years in Paris together, in the 1880s, where E.I. was studying painting, as well as of their first years in Taos, in the early 1900s. One detail was how miserable Virginia was in 1902, the hottest summer ever recorded in Taos — yet she writes how ecstatic her husband was to find his life’s subject matter in the Taos Pueblo Indians.

W

hat did the Indians think of Couse’s depictions of them? Virginia relays a telling moment when Robert Mirabal (who may or may not be related to Couse’s model Jerry Mirabal) came to the house in the late 1990s and observed Couse’s work for a long while. He then declared: “They showed [the Indians] as they were,” which Virginia understood to mean that her grandfather’s depictions were “close to nature.” Another Native observer of Couse’s rendering of the San Geronimo festival at the Pueblo declared: “He captured the essence of it.”

What Virginia calls the “Couse mojo” — everything happens when it is supposed to happen, even the weather, cast by the Taos Mountain spell — directed the course of Virginia’s career from then on. She wrote a retrospective of E.I. Couse for the Albuquerque Museum in 1991, and a major biography, “Eanger Irving Couse: The Life and Times of an American Artist (1866-1939)” (University of Oklahoma Press, 2019). The Leavitts found help in establishing a foundation in 2001 thanks to a lawyer from Chicago, Al Olson, and things “developed little by little,” intimates Virginia, “now speeding along rapidly” — and she gestures a steep upward ascent.

Virginia Couse Leavitt articulates the Couse-Sharp Foundation mission going forward as incorporating a research center, the Lunder Research Center and Archives of the Taos Society of Artists, which will open in two years and already employs three staff members. Their three-pronged effort, which relies on donations and grants, incorporates a canny scheme of preservation, restoration and renovation.

According to artist and DAFA gallery owner David Mapes, who nominated Virginia Couse Leavitt as an Unsung Hero, Taos is incredibly lucky to have found her. “She has preserved, with the intention to share, her family’s legacy of Taos art history ... for anybody who wants to explore,” he notes.

And her role now?

She laughs, then replies after a thoughtful pause: “Resident historian.” Or perhaps she means, “resident memory,” as she ambles about the efflorescent garden, pointing out her grandmother’s touches — “She used the garden as her palette” — and the quirks of this curious old homestead frozen in time. For only Virginia Couse Leavitt knows just what was what and what once was. ∞

It’s almost like looking into a mirror. Virginia Couse Leavitt peers up at the portrait of her grandma and the woman she is named after, which was painted by her famous grandpa, E.I. Couse.

The painting hangs in the historic Couse home. Her grandma was the fabled gardener of the homestead.

MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

OUR CUSTOMERS ARE OUR HEROES El Pueblito United Methodist Church

Sharing the Love for 25 years Mike Flaherty

RESCUE FOOD COORIDNATOR Mike is the face of Shared Table in the community, picking up donated food from local grocers and food distributors and setting up for distribution.

We thank everyone for their donations of food, toiletries, and homegrown produce and for your financial support which enables us to purchase more canned food and staples. Shared Table operates solely on support from the community and friends of Taos.

Food Distribution 2nd and 4th Wednesdays 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM at El Pueblito Church and 2:00 - 3:00 PM at Talpa Community Center To donate or learn more about Shared Table

www.elpueblitoumc.org 575-758-3166

314 Paseo Del Pueblo Sur, Taos, NM 87571 • (575) 758-1658 • metricmotorstaos.com

OCT. 10, 2019

Tradiciones UNSUNG HEROES

Ranked #1 nursing home in New Mexico according to healthinsight.org qaulity rankings!

Serving the community for over 20 years

1340 Maestas Road, Taos (575) 758-2300

Now Accepting ANVOI Hospice

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Tradiciones UNSUNG HEROES

OCT. 10, 2019

It has been Virginia Couse Leavitt’s lifetime endeavor to keep the significant history of her grandpa’s home and studio alive.

MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

COMMITTED

to Renewable Energy, Committed to Our Members

WE GREATLY VALUE OUR COMMUNITY

partners and the commitment they are making to renewable energy in New Mexico. This solar array at El Rito is an important step in our energy transition efforts.

Kit Carson is continuing to meet our commitment to our members for a more affordable, reliable, renewable and resilient future. These projects will push the co-op to 50% renewables on our system, while integrating the inclusion and partnership of all of our members. We are very pleased with our partnership with Guzman and its commitment to renewable energy, as well as its partnership with our community.

— Luis Reyes, CEO of Kit Carson Electric Cooperative

P OW E R E D BY T H E C O M M U N I T I E S W E S E R V E

unsung heroes NINETEENTH ANNUAL

HONORAR A NUESTROS HÉROES

MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

Dave Cordova is passionate about helping others through the Masons and keeping Taos’ history alive through the Taos Historical Society.

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Tradiciones UNSUNG HEROES

OCT. 10, 2019

BY RICK ROMANCITO

helping the homeless —

‘it can happen to anybody’

rob nightingale MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

Gallery owner and artist Rob Nightingale co-founded and hosts the ‘Hearts and Stars’ event to help Taos’ homeless.

OCT. 10, 2019

Tradiciones UNSUNG HEROES

45

Gallery owner and artist Rob Nightingale puts paint to canvas in his gallery on Kit Carson Road.

He isn’t just an artist and gallery owner who represents many local artists, but a man on a mission to help those less fortunate. When Nightingale began hosting an event to benefit Taos’ homeless, some people asked for his reason. He said, ’It is about getting rid of the stigma [and] the judgment.’ | continues on p. 46

MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

Rob! Congratulations

The Ranch at Taos • 119-A Kit Carson Rd. • 325.647.5736

Thank you for making Taos a better place.

WHEN

AND

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GET YOUR FUN ON TAOSNEWS.COM/CALENDAR

708 Hacienda Way 2 Miles West of the Plaza off Lower Ranchitos Rd. 575.758.1000

Just west of the Plaza 222 Ledoux St. 575.758.0505

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Tradiciones UNSUNG HEROES

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ROB NIGHTINGALE continues from p. 45

Scenic and Mellow Sunset Dinner floats and Native culture feast and floats... Dont worry we have whitewater too!

OCT. 10, 2019

Selflessness isn’t usually something people advertise.

It’s not like people who are generous and compassionate wear their virtue on their sleeves.

MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

“

But these are people we need. They help bolster the belief in a world that can still turn on kindness, humanity and charity. It is for these reasons each year we recognize the Unsung Heroes in our community, and why art gallery owner and artist Rob Nightingale is one of those acknowledged.

Nightingale is owner of Wilder Nightingale Fine Art at 119 Kit Carson Road. If you don’t know him, the assumption that an art gallery owner might not necessarily be known as an unsung hero may cross your mind. But those who do have his acquaintance and who have benefited from his kindness know different.

One of the annual events Nightingale puts together is the “Hearts and Stars” exhibit of small works. The show is one of the best received and hotly anticipated events in Taos. The reason is that it is an opportunity to purchase beautiful works of art — but more importantly it serves as a benefit for the homeless in Taos.

“We had four guys and one of them had been on the streets for a while,” former Taos Men’s Shelter Director Jeff Sattler said in a February 2015 Taos News story about the shelter’s opening night. “I keep a couple of winter coats in the back of my car in case I run into somebody. He put that coat on and you would think he had gotten a bicycle for Christmas. He was the happiest guy alive and probably warm for the first time in a month.”

The “Hearts and Stars” benefit was started by Nightingale seven years ago when the brother of Michelle Chrisman, one of the artists in his gallery, wound up homeless in Denver, freelance writer Nikki Lyn Pugh reported. As Nightingale recalled, that winter was an especially cold one for Taos and a couple of local men died as a result of having no place to go. These factors became the catalyst for Nightingale and Chrisman to organize the first “Hearts and Stars” event.

“A few people in the past have questioned why I was doing it,” Nightingale said at the time about “Hearts and Stars.”

Sports teaches you character, it teaches you to play by the rules, it teaches you to know what it feels like to win and lose-it teaches you about life.

-Billie Jean King

Tradiciones UNSUNG HEROES

47

“[For me], it is about getting rid of the stigma [and] the judgment.”

When told this year he was named an Unsung Hero, Nightingale quipped, “I don’t get it … I thought, ‘Why me?’ ” But, he acknowledged that he thought it “was nice … but, there are just other people that do so much more.”

Doing good in the community isn’t so much a matter of setting out to do something philanthropic. In some ways, Nightingale said it’s just the right thing to do. “If I can help, I’ll help as much as I can,” he said. “I don’t want to tackle something and find something that needs to be done and take over and [say] it’s all about me. But, if there’s ‘Hearts and Stars’ — which is what we did with Michelle Chrisman, we’ll say, ‘Well, let’s try something.’ ” His motivation also comes from something personal that happened some years ago. “In one aspect, I lost my home.

Made a bad investment in a real estate situation in 2008. It was a condo with a lot of assessments and being a self-employed person I did not have a guaranteed income. It all just imploded. And, in a sense, I was homeless, not to the extent of other homeless people. I had a good friend who opened up her home and let me stay with her through the winter so I could get back on my feet and snap out of that experience. I think that happened right around the time the show started. It was a traumatic experience.”

Although it was relatively a minor brush, the idea of homelessness struck home, as it were. “It can happen to anybody.”

That was the thought that stuck with him.

Wilder Nightingale Fine Art is one of the oldest galleries along Kit Carson Road and has regularly placed first or second in the “Best Gallery” category in our Best of Taos Reader’s Survey over the years. The man and his gallery have become Taos fixtures and rightfully so, according to an article written by special sections editor Scott Gerdes.

“I never thought I’d be a business owner,” Nightingale shared, surrounded by all of the colors, shadows, scenes and shapes hanging on the walls. “It just happened. I just kept with it.”

Nightingale penned in his online blog that he studied art at Columbia College in Chicago. After graduating, he said he was thrust into the workforce, but not into the art world. “After several years of discontent I visited a high school friend who had moved to Taos,” he wrote. “I liked it. I liked the variety of art. I liked the whole place. I went home, quit my job, packed up the car and moved to Taos. I got a job at a local gallery and met a new friend and we decided to open our own gallery.

After 15 years I acquired the gallery.”

Wilder Nightingale Fine Art represents over 35 Taos and regional artists. The works are eclectic. From traditional Taos landscapes in oil, pastel and watercolor, the gallery also offers a selection of contemporary and abstract styles. Leading artists such as Peggy Immel, Michelle Chrisman, BJ Briner, Valerie Graves, Jim Barker, Rory Wagner and Stephen Day make this gallery a must see when visiting Taos.

Wilder Nightingale Fine Art has been written up in Art & Antiques, Cowboys and Indians, Southwest Art, Taos Magazine and The Santa Fean. ∞

CONGRATULATIONS! 2018 STATE CHAMPS!

Thanks Coach Abreu for your determination, dedication and sacrifice... ...we are so proud of you.

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BY JESSE MOYA

A LASTING LOVE OF LOCAL HISTORY, CEREMONY AND GIVING BACK dave cordova

Dave Cordova stands among portraits his fellow Mason brothers that came before him at the Bent Lodge in Taos. The focus of the fraternal organ ‘Dave was made to be a Mason and the Masons were made for Dave. He loves ceremony and pageantry but mostly, he has a big heart and loves g

IT’S CHIMNEY SWEEPING TIME

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Our hearts go out to the family and friends of Patrick Larkin. We are forever grateful to Patrick for his contribution to the community and the coffee industry in Taos.

We raise our espresso cups in the memory of you, Patrick.

- The Coffee Apothecary

OCT. 10, 2019

Tradiciones UNSUNG HEROES

49

MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

nization is to help local charities. A fellow Mason told Ernestina Cordova — who nominated him as an Unsung Hero — giving to his community.’ | continues on p. 50

JOHNNY MARTINEZ: COMMUNITY CHAMPION FOR LAND, CULTURE, & PROFESSIONALISM Phoenix Mechanical Employee since 2009 Johnny helps manage the entire Phoenix crew and has been helping it expand its capabilities in home and building management, currently as the assistant manager. He cares for the fleet of 25 cherry-red trucks that can be seen all over Taos on a daily basis, keeping this town running. Johnny’s vast skill set extends to general plumbing, heavy equipment operation, building automation, gas work, welding, and high-voltage electrical controls. He is a master technician, customer service genius, crew manager, and foreman, specializing in controls, HVAC, and electronics.

A Taos native, Johnny was raised in the mountains by his parents and grandparents. The Martinez’s are a ranching and sheep herding family, and Johnny learned well to value things like land and community, and those family ties that anchor everything else. Environmental links with community run deep in the Martinez family. He and his family are active members in their acequia association and passionate about water and soil conservation.

“I have lots of respect for Bob and Phoenix Mechanical...” Johnny says of his boss, founder Bob Draper. “and his efforts over the past 40 years.” Johnny wants to see businesses like Phoenix succeed and “continue to make such a positive impact in the Taos community.

I like being part of the underlying framework that makes people’s lives run well. I love it here and I want Taos to thrive.”

HEATING • PLUMBING • AIR CONDITIONING Phoenix Mechanical (575) 758-3027

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Serving Taos for over 40 years!

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DAVE CORDOVA continues from p. 48

MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

CONGRATULATIONS

TO ALL THE 2019 UNSUNG HEROES

he Bent Lodge was empty and quiet as Dave Cordova was going down the halls replacing the electrical sockets. He began to reminisce about the lodge and its history, and with it the history of Taos.

When he was young, Cordova hit the books, learning about history and culture in school. But he wasn’t passionate about the subjects. It wasn’t until later in life, when he moved away, that he learned to appreciate the history and used it to give back to his community in various ways.

“I kept on running into people who knew a hell of a lot more about Taos than I did,” Cordova said. “They wanted to know about all these different things that I could not say anything about.”

Cordova grew up in Las Cordovas, New Mexico, and then moved to Arizona after school to see a bit more of the world and get out of Dodge for awhile. Working in Phoenix ignited his passion to come back home and he started gathering information about his hometown.

Cordova graduated from Taos High School as a proud Tiger and is a lifelong member of the Los Cordovas neighborhood. After he returned from Arizona, he began working at KKIT radio where he developed a love and passion for music and the airwaves. He was often called upon to emcee various local shows and helped the Taos las Fiestas Reina Pageant with its productions. He spent hours with the candidates to perfect their talents, speeches and overall presentations.

After 20 years, when the station shut down, Cordova continued his love for the graphic arts and picked up a camera to launch another career.

Many in Taos might remember Cordova as their wedding photographer because, chances are, he photographed yours. Behind the lens, Cordova said he was happy to share a couple’s big day through images.

“He’s done a lot,” said Taos Historical Society president Ernestina Cordova. “He does so much for the community and I don’t think he’s ever been recognized.”

Ernestina and Dave are not related, but grew up in the same neighborhood and even rode the same school bus in elementary school. She said he has always been a kind individual who would give the shirt off his back to help someone.

For over five years, Dave Cordova has been on the board for the Taos Historical Society, but for longer than that, Ernestina said his contributions have been incredibly important.

Cordova runs the group’s website but also maintains the Ayer y Hoy newsletter where his historical knowledge is utilized to educate the community. For several years, Cordova has been collecting stories and photographs from community members, and writing some himself, to keep the history of Taos alive as well.

Some of the stories have focus on past events, while some are recollections of local businesses and undeveloped landscapes that are gone now.

His association with advertisers throughout his years in radio also ignited a passion for helping local businesses in their “Shop Taos First” marketing.

Golden Willow Retreat congratulates each Hero for contributing to our community.

Since my office opening 26

26

CELEBRATING

YEARS SERVING TAOS.

years ago, many Financial Advisors have come and gone in our community, yet KNIGHT FINANCIAL LIMITED remains. Meeting face-to-face is meaningful to many investors.

It may be time to consider a committed community member who loves Taos and has no plans to leave.

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“When the foundation of your reality is shattered, there is loss. You must then move through the emotional healing of that reality, and with grace and acceptance, proceed into your new life.”

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For individual counseling, call Golden Willow Counseling 575.770.9513

OCT. 10, 2019

Tradiciones UNSUNG HEROES

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MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

A portrait of Dave Cordova and his fellow Mason brothers hangs at the Bent Lodge in Taos.

In the past, he volunteered at the Taos County Chamber of Commerce where he organized and produced a plethora of local events, including networking breakfasts.

Recently in his life, Cordova decided to take a leap and pursue free masonry. He learned of the Masons over the years and finally met a few members in Taos. Cordova has been in the order since 2008 and became the Master Mason of the Bent Lodge in Taos.

Through his work with the Masons, Cordova has been able to contribute to various charitable organizations in Taos. He has also been able to support the fraternity by holding events and raise funds for those who need it.

Cordova’s work spans so many different fields and disciplines that many people in Taos might know him or his work without even realizing it.

“He’s also a darn good dancer, so a lot of people know him for that, too,” Ernestina said laughing.

Cordova’s parents were nationally renowned folk dancers in Taos and even represented the community in Washington, D.C. He also took up the art but is relatively quiet about his talent.

Taos County can also thank Cordova for getting the Crime Stoppers network started here in the early 2000s after he attended various conferences and brought the tools needed to catch criminals in the area. Until 2012, he ran the website and contributed to the Taos County Crime Stoppers branch.

We Want to Hear From You!

Dave Cordova’s interest in history and charity led him to become a Mason in 2008. He worked his way through the Scottish and York rites, becoming a Knights Templar. Cordova is the Master Mason of the Bent Lodge in Taos.

Cordova said Taos and the surrounding communities are his home, and that even when his younger years told him to leave, he had the drive to come back.

“There are places where you go to where you feel comfortable, you feel connected, you feel grounded and you feel like you belong,” he said. “Taos, to me, is just that.”

Cordova has plans in the future to sit down with community members to gather more stories and history about Taos and hopes to share some of those stories with the younger generations. He has plenty of experience with sound from his days of working in radio, and said once he has time the idea may become a reality.

Of course, no man’s story is complete without the help of their partner, and Cordova said the saying is true of his wife, Lisa. It has been with her help that he has been able to accomplish much of his feats and gives much credit to her time, dedication and patience.

As he sat in the billiards room of the Bent Lodge, Cordova told stories of his travels and his experiences over the years. His decades of interest in various fields have led him to many places and given way to hundreds of experiences he has shared with his community. His accomplishments are often shared with his family and friends. Those around him say he rarely takes credit for the hard work he puts in.

“I’ve had a great life,” he said, smiling. “I’ve had a lot of fun.” ∞

CONGRATULATIONS DAVE CORDOVA AND THE 2019 UNSUNG HEROES

RIO FERNANDO PLATICA: A Community Conversation

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14TH, 2019 5:30-7:30pm Juan I. Gonzales Agricultural Center 202 Chamisa Rd, Taos

C H I L D C A R E AVA I L A B L E , F O O D P R O V I D E D

We want to hear from you. Come join our dynamic collective of individuals, elected leaders, organizations, and government entities working to revitalize the Rio Fernando. Share your concerns and ideas to improve water quality, restore acequia systems, strengthen working lands, and connect people to the river and land they love.

Share your vision for the Rio Fernando and your wish to see this river managed in the best interests of our community.

TAOS ROCKERS

MINERAL & FOSSIL OUTLET 11years of tradition specializing in minerals of New Mexico 229 A Camino de la Placita (OFF DUNN HOUSE PARKING LOT)

Please RSVP BY NOV. 10, 2019 to chyna@taoslandtrust.org HOSTED BY THE RIO FERNANDO DE TAOS REVITALIZATION COLLABORATIVE

OPEN 9AM - 6PM

575-758-2326

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BY STACI MATLOCK

the vitality behind a

community library

sharon nicholson

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MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

Sharon Nicholson knows the importance of the Questa Public Library to the small, rural community. It isn’t just about adding the thousands of books, audio books, research materials and DVDs … it’s a gathering place — a social spot. ‘We’re not a quiet library,’ she said with a laugh. | continues on p. 54

Congratulations for excellent work with Taos Municipal Schools students!

You are loved by all and especially by your students!!

Julianna Matz & Art Abreu Jr.

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SHARON NICHOLSON continues from p. 53

When Sharon Nicholson was a child growing up in Wichita, Kansas, she used to hop on a city bus for a trip to the public library.

“I would spend a Saturday morning exploring the nooks and crannies, then check out my books, get on the bus and go home,” she said.

“It was a lot of fun.”

Nicholson is still having fun in a library – as the head of the Questa Public Library for the last eight years.

Under her direction, the little library has added several thousand books, DVDs and audio books. She’s also helped foster a lot of community programs over the years — from computer literacy for seniors to Friday activities for children since the school district has no classes that day.

Nicholson started at the library as a volunteer. She proved so useful that when then head librarian Carolyn Anderson retired approximately 10 years ago, she urged Nicholson to take the job. “I kept saying ‘No, I’m just having fun,’ ” Nicholson said.

She finally relented and she’s glad she did. “It’s been good,” said Nicholson, 77. “The reason it’s been good is that I have the greatest people behind me to help with programs. I’m not the hero. They’re the heroes.”

Esther García, who nominated Nicholson as an Unsung Hero, said the librarian doesn’t give herself enough credit for all she does. “Sharon goes beyond what she is supposed to do at the library,” said García, a former mayor of Questa. “The kids don’t have school on Fridays. She’s always looking for what she can do to interest them. She gives a lot out of her own time.”

When adults go to the library looking for information, Nicholson helps track down what they need. “She’s always very willing to help,” García said.

The little library stays busy. Nicholson said she’s issued around 1,600 library cards in the last decade. On a typical day, 17-18 people will fill up the seats in the library, working on computers, perusing a book or visiting.

Yes, visiting.

“We are not a quiet library,” Nicholson said with a laugh that comes easily and frequently.

Nicholson moved all over the country when she was married. Later, after raising three children, she migrated to Albuquerque, finished a business degree and moved to Taos in the late ’90s to manage a bed-and-breakfast for a decade. She sang in the Taos Community Choir and settled into the rhythm of Northern New Mexico.

MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

‘I feel like I can make a difference. Whether it is a program or helping someone find a resource they need,’ said Unsung Hero Sharon Nicholson regarding her impassioned efforts at the Questa Public Library.

MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

One of Sharon Nicholson’s pet projects after taking the director’s seat at the Questa Public Library was to create a Friday program for kids since there is no school that day.

OCT. 10, 2019

Tradiciones UNSUNG HEROES

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MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

She had a little cabin for awhile in Red River and finally built a house near the Sunshine Valley near Questa in 2005, where she likes to garden, knit and, of course, read, when she isn’t managing the library.

She hopes to stay at the library as long as she can work.

“I feel like I’m needed, like I can make a difference. Whether it is a program or helping someone find a resource they need.”

Along with the programs that she and the volunteers keep expanding, the library has become a pet rescue and lost pet search center.

Nicholson has two dogs and a cat and she’s passionate about animals. She allows people to post notices of lost pets and helps connect them to resources if they find a stray.

Nicholson also is overseeing the library’s expansion. With the help of García and longtime state Sen. Carlos Cisneros, a Questa native, the village received $580,000 in capitol outlay funds to build a new wing onto the library. Construction is expected to begin in the spring.

Along with a great room that can double for meetings, there’ll be a kids section and Nicholson will finally have an office with a door.

But she won’t be adding automatic checkout. “No. How am I going to get to know you, or know your name or enjoy the fact that you came in the library if there’s auto checkout?” she said.

Libraries, she said, are crucial places for communities to gather.

“A library is a place where anyone can go, it’s free and people accept you for who you are,” Nicholson said. “I think small public libraries are going to become more and more vital because people have fewer places to go and gather.” ∞ MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS

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2019 Taos Pueblo Governor Richard Aspenwind.

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