The Taos News Tradiciones 2014

Leyendas

2 0 14 T R A D I C I O N E S | T H E TA O S N E W S

2 | Leyendas

Courtesy Carrie Leven

This arborglyph is a little difficult to read, but it appears to be from a Manuel Silva Jr., from El Rito, back in 1945. See page 11 for the story .

Come explore

THE LEYENDAS OF TAOS

W

ith more than 1,000 years of human activity in Taos County, the only challenge we have filling Leyendas, the first in our yearly four-part publication known as Tradiciones, is narrowing down

the list of story ideas.

The term "legends" can take on more than a few meanings, which only makes it more difficult to choose which stories we want to explore each year. Pure legends are, "stories from the past that are believed by many people but cannot be proved true," according to Merriam-Webster.

Such stories include ones like Jim O'Donnell's search for a bar from his past on page 14. Along the way, O'Donnell ran into even more mystery and nostalgia, with stories of bars that could not be verified and tales of ghosts that haunt these old Taos buildings.

The history of the tunnels underneath the town's historic district is also a tough nut to crack. Teresa Dovalpage went in search of these underground passages only to find out that not many folks are willing to discuss them. Is it because they themselves don't know much

about the issue at hand, or is there a deeper secret to the story that nobody is talking about? Find out on page 4.

People can become legendary as well, either for good or bad deeds. Arthur Manby certainly falls into the latter category, as a notorious con-man and land thief.

It ultimately cost him his head, and they wouldn't even bury him inside the gates at Kit Carson Cemetery. That said, his legacy is alive and well at Manby Hot Springs — a refuge for the one-time chief scoundrel of Taos, and for countless others since. Check out Andy Dennison's story about the springs on page 10.

Andrew Oxford explores a group of people, so to speak, who through their legendary deeds in life, have made Sierra Vista Cemetery a legendary last resting place.

Once neglected and somewhat forgotten, recent efforts have made Sierra Vista a place to pay respects to some of Taos' greatest artists and icons. See page 8 for the story.

Certain events can also take on legendary status, like the famous softball games that were played in the 1960s between the Hog Farm commune of hippies and the residents of Picuris Pueblo. Phaedra Greenwood was there, and she brings us the story on page 6. What she didn't know was that the games have continued for years,

with both groups ultimately turning "legit" and joining Taos' recreational softball league.

And finally, here in Taos, everyone knows about our legendary landscape. What a lot of people don't know is that there was a time when some folks, surveyors included, considered our southern sentinel, Jicarita Peak, the tallest mountain in the state. We all know, however, that the tallest peak is to the north of Taos, Wheeler Peak.

Cody Hooks takes a look at the shared history of the two mountains on page 16.

And Andrew Oxford explores our landscape in more detail with a story about arborglyphs — aka tree carvings — on page 11. As it turns out, those messages from the past can tell us a lot about the history of our region.

What's truly exciting about Leyendas as a publication for us at The Taos News is the way these stories germinate from a seedling of an idea, maybe just a rumor or myth, into something more tangible. Just as Greenwood was surprised to learn that those softball games continue, each story is full of surprises and lessons about who we are in Taos County, a place as legendary as they come.

— Andy Jones, special sections editor

Leyendas | 3

Photo by Geraint Smith

CONTENTS 6 4 A cross-cultural

The secret underground of Taos

By Teresa Dovalpage

8

softball tradition: The hippies and the Indians

Bringing life to Sierra Vista Cemetery

By Andrew Oxford

By Phaedra Greenwood

10

Manby Hot Springs: Not quite what the man envisioned, but a legacy nonetheless

By Andy Dennison

11

14

The forest for the trees: Arborglyphs tell stories of a changing forest

The missing and the haunted: The ghost bars of Taos

By Andrew Oxford

By Jim O’Donnell

17

Jicarita and Wheeler Peaks: Sentinels of Northern New Mexico

By Cody Hooks

STAFF Robin Martin, owner • Chris Baker, publisher • Joan Livingston, editor • Chris Wood, advertising manager • Andy Jones, special sections editor • Michelle M. Gutierrez, lead editorial designer Ray Seale, production, technology and digital director • Ayleen Lopez, digital administrator • Tina Larkin and Rick Romancito, photographers • Cody Hooks and Andrew Oxford, staff writers CONTRIBUTORS Steven Bundy, photographer • Andy Dennison,

writer •

ON THE COVER One of the tunnels beneath Doña Luz Lane,

Photo by Tina Larkin

Jim O’Donnell,

writer •

Teresa Dovalpage,

writer •

Gus Foster,

photographer •

Phaedra Greenwood,

writer •

Gak Stonn,

photographer

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4 | Leyendas

The secret underground OF TAOS Tina Larkin

One of the tunnels beneath Do単a Luz Lane.

Leyendas | 5

Historic passages OR OLD TUNNELS?

D

By Teresa Dovalpage

oña Luz Lane is a whimsical street just a few steps off Taos Plaza. Among the many shops that line the street is Red Cat Melissiana, a folk art and antique store housed in an old adobe. The front entrance is decorated with honey cups; an inviting turquoise stable door opens to the main room. Judging by its exterior, nobody would guess that the shop hides a secret inside — or, more appropriately, underneath.

Two tunnels in a cellar

Two tunnels run under Red Cat Melissiana. One is supposed to go to the bandstand in the Plaza — where the town jail used to be — and the other to the house of a friend of Padre Antonio José Martínez.

Store owner Melissa Serfling says she has carefully inspected the space around the tunnels’ entrance.

“I have seen the old pillars, supported on logs and big rocks,” she said. “They look like they are falling down and it’s very likely that the walls have caved in between my shop and the Plaza.”

They don’t seem to be safe to explore so Serfling hasn’t ventured in.

“I am not too good underground,” she admits. “If the tunnel collapses on me, then I would become another one of the many spirits in my cellars.”

The church connection

Next door to her shop is the restaurant El Gamal, which is believed to have another tunnel that goes directly to the place where Our Lady of Guadalupe Church used to be. According to Serfling, the space where El Gamal is now was a speakeasy then.

“Considering that there were also several brothels on this street, one can assume that all sorts of things went on here,” Serfling said.

At the time when the tunnels were in use, Our Lady of

Guadalupe Church was located in what is today a parking lot, across Don Fernando Street from Doña Luz Lane.

“The Church burned down in the ’60s and they paved over the cemetery to build the parking lot,” said Serfling. “I imagine that the spirits of the people who were buried there didn’t like that at all!”

An underground network?

Serfling says there are likely many more tunnels in the area.

“Some old neighbors have told me that all downtown Taos is a catacomb with passages under the streets,” she said.

Benina Roybal is the owner and manager of Bella’s Mexican Grill, also located on Doña Luz Lane.

“I’ve heard that there are tunnels under the restaurant,” she said. “But I haven’t seen them.”

Douglas Patterson, president of Living Designs Group, owns the building where Bella’s is located. He says that he has been in the cellar several times, but has never seen the tunnels either.

Possible origins

The majority of the buildings on Doña Luz Lane were built in the 1880s and the tunnels probably date from around the same time. One of the most prevalent theories is that they were used as shelters to protect Taos residents from Comanche raids.

Serfling, however, doesn’t agree with it.

“I think they were a convenient way to go from one place to another without being seen, whether people were visiting their ‘nighttime friends’ or just going to the Plaza,” she said.

A street with a past

Doña Luz Lane has an interesting and somewhat tarnished history — it was once the red light district of Taos. Doña Luz was the name of a brothel madam. There were also several small shops along the street that sold liquor during Prohibition.

Today, many businesses there are owned by women.

“And so we call ourselves ‘The Ladies of Doña Luz,’” said Serfling.

Spirits in the tunnels

According to Serfling, the tunnels, and other places in the neighborhood, are often visited by spirits and some may even reside here. She also tells says her bloodline leads back to a Salem witch, so she is used to dealing with esoteric presences.

“I greet the spirits in the morning,” she said. “Sometimes they are mischievous and like to tip things over, but in general they keep quiet. However, they let their presence be known: I have been in the cellar at night and heard footsteps above, though there was no one there.”

Fortunately, the spirits don’t bother Red Cat Melissiana’s patrons.

Serfling has owned the store for five years, and says she has never felt apprehensive when she has been alone at night in the shop.

“On the contrary, I get a feeling of acceptance from the spirits,” she said. “But they have been hostile to some men, like a construction worker who found his tools unexplainably moved away from him.”

Serfling believes that some ghosts are the spirits of women who were prostitutes on Doña Luz Lane.

In the cellar

This article wouldn’t be complete without a personal visit to Serfling’s cellar. Dionne de la Cruz, an employee at Red Cat Melissiana, leads me down a wood creaking staircase that ends in front of an enormous Kiva fireplace. Then she shows me the tunnels. The entrances have been blocked and the whole place smells slightly damp. It is 90 degrees outside but down here it feels cold.

I’m happy to go back upstairs.

Kat Pruitt, a writer and retired educator who also works at the store, tells me that she is planning a mystery novel based on the tunnels and their resident ghosts.

“Go for it,” I say. “I bet it will sell well.”

AQUÍ EN TAOS It’s not just a slogan.

It’s a way of life.

It’s not just a slogan.

It’s a way of life.

Since 1971, Taoseños have embraced our family and business. You could say the Mountain has accepted us . . .

Thank you Taos, for 42 years and counting!

CONTINUING OUR COMMITMENT For nearly a century Chevron Questa Mine has been a member of the community. Even though operations have ceased and our focus is on final remediation and reclamation, we will remain a part of the area for at least twenty more years.

We will continue to strive to be a good neighbor, sharing the concerns of our community, upholding safe practices at work and at home, and working to create a viable future. We continue to support local non-profits and fund initiatives that strengthen and invigorate the communities where we work and live.

With the strength of our non-profit partner organizations, we are able to help make a difference. We salute the organizations that represent the traditions that play a role in bettering our community.

6 | Leyendas Courtesy “The Hog Farm and Friends”/Photo by Oxygen

“The Great Softball Game” taken at the Hog Farm in Penasco in 1969.

One-Eyed John is up at bat.

A cross-cultural softball tradition THE HIPPIES AND THE INDIANS

By Phaedra Greenwood

F

or 45 years, in the Peñasco area, the hippies and the Picuris Pueblo Indians have challenged each other to an annual softball game, a cross-cultural tradition that continues to this day.

According to a few elders from each team, this tradition began in the late 1960s. One version involves a traveling commune called The Hog Farm, from California, that settled for a while on a small farm in Peñasco.

The rest is history — or legend — according to who tells it. Fast-forward to 2003 when Nora Connor helped film a documentary about the annual Indian/ Hippie game in La Jolla (a tiny village near Ojo Sarco), tentatively called “Raw Dirt.” Connor says, “What better way for Americans of all cultures to come together than to play an all-American sport like baseball?”

In the “Raw Dirt” trailer, the late La Jolla Bob (Robert McCormick) said, “This is how it began.” The hippies used to wander over to La Jolla, bring some beer and hang out. One day 10 Indians from Picuris showed up. A couple of them started tossing a ball back and forth. “I’ve got a bat – let’s play,” said Bob.

“We figure on losin,’ but hope to stay high,” Wavy writes. “We mix up a punch with the last of the green acid. Then make up the rules.”

Richard Mermejo, the current governor of Picuris Pueblo, said when the Indians first played baseball with the hippies “during the hippie rebellion” the teams didn’t have any names. Mermejo said he was a good catcher back in the day, but they rotated around. If the hippies were short on players, some of the Indians joined the hippie team. “We didn’t have any rules. We had an umpire. That was it. He rotated around, too.

I was on hand to witness this crazy game. To run the bases you had to negotiate a series of obstacles; to get to fourth base you grabbed a rope, swung out the attic window and slid down into a bucket of water. Then you rode piggyback on another player to reach home plate.

“La Jolla Bob spearheaded the games in Ojo Sarco,” he continued. “We drove there in a 17-passenger-van, packed in like sardines. There were no seats and the front windshield was broken out. When we got there, the hippies would call us over to their little camp. They

In his book, “The Hog Farm and Friends,” published in 1974 by Links Books, Wavy Gravy, the commune’s spiritual leader, said neighboring communes challenged the Hogs to a softball game.

would pass the cannabis around and then some wine.

And then someone would say, ‘Okay, it’s game time!

Let’s play ball!’ Naturally, we lost.

“The hippies chose the field,” he says. “They let their goats and horses graze it down so it wouldn’t be so weedy. But when you’re in that state, you don’t really care. We lost some games and we won some games.”

With the backing of the Pueblo, Picuris provided all the equipment: the bats, the balls, the bases and gloves and the catcher’s equipment. “The women from Picuris would bring a little food for after, and the hippies would do likewise,” Mermejo said. “Once the hippies roasted a bunch of chickens on some old bedsprings.

We thought that was pretty funny.”

Sometimes after the game the Indians would visit the local tavern. “People were surprised when the whole softball team swarmed out of the van like ants,” he recalls.

The hippies and the Indians became fast friends.

The hippies drove to Picuris to watch the traditional dances. Late Picuris pottery artist Joseph Duran said, “What the hippies meant to us Indians was to be down to Mother Earth, don’t be too capitalistic, share what you have, and go back to gardening.”

Leyendas | 7

Rick Romancito

I

A scene from a recent Picuris Smokes softball game at Filemon Sanchez Park in Taos.

n “Raw Dirt” the next generation of Picuris softball players, Waylon, Jerome and Kiko, explain that from the time they were knee high they grew up watching their fathers play softball with the hippies. That’s why, as young men, they took up the tradition. Dominic Garcia, a pitcher for their current team, the Picuris Smokes, said, “Now we’re also in the Taos Softball League. I have four kids who

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almost always make it to the games. We have a lot of support from the Pueblo.” (The “Smokes” are sponsored by the Picuris Smoke Shop.) During the Taos Softball League season this past summer, the Smokes played nearly 30 games.

Who is their best hitter?

“I’d love to say it was myself, but I don’t know for sure,” Garcia

said with a grin. “Some years we win and some we lose. It’s really competitive and always a lot of fun.”

On a summer evening at Filemon Sanchez Park in Taos, Garcia is up to bat. He swings. Pops. The ball soars in a high arc out of the park. Someone cries, “Look out!”

Heads up, kids! Here comes an old time tradition.

THEN to NOW

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8 | Leyendas

Bringing life TO SIERRA VISTA CEMETERY

By Andrew Oxford

M

illicent Rogers could have been buried anywhere. She chose Sierra Vista Cemetery.

Nestled behind an Allsups gas station and within earshot of the town’s busiest thoroughfare, the graveyard may seem an incongruously humble resting place for many of the larger-thanlife characters that dominate Taos history.

But, as local artist Thom Wheeler points out, the likes of Rogers and Leon Gaspard are buried there beneath the dusty earth for the very reason they flocked to Northern New Mexico in the first place — they loved it.

It is a similar love that is inspiring Wheeler and a team of volunteers to spruce up the overgrown cemetery.

Nearly a century after the first graves were dug, many lots have been covered with juniper. Several dying cottonwoods have been cut down. The wooden fence that lines Paseo del Pueblo Norte is falling apart.

Thomas “Doc” Martin’s grave is on the corner of one path leading north from the gate, a marker protruding from a mass of local stone. Nearby on the same plot, a large slab is engraved with the words “Grand old grizzly of Tu-A-Ta / also dear Helen of Troy / and then some.”

helped maintain the cemetery. Last year, Tarleton asked Wheeler and volunteers to lend a hand in keeping up with the deteriorating site.

Rogers rests around the corner from Gaspard and Saki Karavas, who was once the proprietor of La Fonda de Taos and is buried alongside family members whose headstones include Greek inscriptions.

There are plans to plant new trees and install benches as well as informational plaques to guide visitors. Wheeler, who is a co-founder of the Taos Lilac Festival, helped plant several new lilac bushes at the cemetery.

A sculpture by Pueblo artist John Suazo of a woman reading sits atop the grave of librarian Mary Kilgore. Her husband, Dr. William Kilgore, was buried earlier this year to the north of her. The cemetery is mere blocks from the small adobe building where he practiced.

The headstones range from extravagant or at least costly monuments, as is the case with Rogers, to handcarved blocks of wood. The federal government’s standard marble headstones mark the graves of more than 100 veterans, including a few who served in World War I. In all, Wheeler says there are 740 people included in the cemetery’s register.

Nonetheless, Wheeler maintains “Sierra Vista is a gem of a cemetery.”

“That’s 740 people who had a life, chose to live here in Taos, were part of Taos,” he says.

Its oldest plots, located on the east end, include the graves of painters who founded the Taos Society of Artists. Bert Phillips and E. Irving Couse are buried there, alongside Victor Higgins whose headstone is covered with a small curved sculpture reminiscent of the sheath he often worked beneath when painting plein aire. The grave of Oscar Berninghaus is to the north and Buck Dunton to the south.

The first plots were purchased in the mid-1910s, Wheeler says. The cemetery was originally predominated by Protestants.

It has since been expanded but, slowly, the demands of maintenance grew too much for its board and families whose loved ones are buried there.

Walking amid the headstones, visitors can find names that should be familiar to anyone who has even passed through Taos.

How the land became a cemetery is not entirely certain.

It was the history, sculpture and flowers that initially intrigued Wheeler.

His interest was not lost on Tom Tarleton, who had long

What has flourished since are countless plans to restore the cemetery to a place of prominence in Taos history.

A group of donors teamed last year to buy a new gateway.

The sign resembles one which graced the cemetery’s entrance for decades before it was knocked down by a truck. The new sign is stronger, though, with a copper cap designed to stop rotting.

There is little budget for such projects. Improvements are paid for as the money flows in, little by little, from a patchwork of donors. The basic work of cleaning up the site continues, too, with volunteers watering new flowers and clearing brush. The whole project is also a learning process, Wheeler says.

Everyday spent working on the site brings forward a forgotten piece of history, he explained. It was a volunteer who, earlier this year uncovered Gaspard’s grave, long covered in juniper.

But too few Taos residents are aware of the cemetery’s existence, much less that it is open to the public. Guides to Sierra Vista can be found on websites devoted to cemeteries such as FindAGrave.com. Intrepid tourists often visit in search of Rogers or other prominent Taoseños. But Wheeler hopes to make the cemetery part of the community — a part of the past connected to and perhaps even lending inspiration for the present.

The Sierra Vista Cemetery is located on Paseo del Pueblo Norte west of the intersection with Sierra Vista Lane. Thom Wheeler can be contacted by calling (575) 758-8870.

Walking amid the headstones, visitors can find names that should be familiar to anyone who has even passed through Taos.

Leyendas | 9

Tina Larkin

Taos artist Thom Wheeler walks last winter with his wife, Lavinia, in the Sierra Vista Cemetery. Wheeler has helped lead a volunteer effort to take care of the long- forgotten cemetery.

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1 0 | Leyendas

Manby Hot Springs NOT QUITE WHAT THE MAN ENVISIONED, BUT A LEGACY NONETHELESS

Gak Stonn

Kids playing at Manby Hot Springs, along the banks of the Río Grande.

A

By Andy Dennison

s many as 100 natural springs dot the walls of the Río Grande Gorge as it slices through Taos County. The vast majority are of the cool-water variety — groundwater flowing from the west that flows out on the steep sides of the gorge.

There is, however, a small cluster of springs with temperatures in the 90 to 100 degree F range that emerge at river’s edge between the John Dunn and Río Grande Gorge bridges. Hydrogeologists pin their origins to deep geothermal aquifers rising through vertical fractures caused by a nearby fault.

It is here that we find the ancient, infamous and invigorating Manby Hot Springs.

A cluster of three pools sits on the river’s eastern edge.

Modern-day naturalists must drive five bumpy miles on Tune Drive to a parking area, and hike down a half-mile of old stagecoach grade to reach the springs. There, they can soak to their hearts content — clothed or au natural — while watching one of the West’s grandest rivers flow by.

If that weren’t enough, add in the long and sometime sordid history of Manby Hot Springs, and you’ve got a true New Mexico adventure.

As Craig Martin writes in “Enchanted Waters: A Guide to New Mexico’s Hot Springs,” “The story of Manby Hot Springs is a compressed view of the history of the state of New Mexico. The springs were used by the Pueblo people long before the Spanish sought to exploit its waters

for the dream of perpetual youth. After a long, pastoral interlude, the final chapter involves an Anglo newcomer who attempted to create a real estate boom by conning the longtime residents out of their rights to the land.”

A pair of concentric-circle petroglyphs, said to signify the Pueblo name Wa-pu-mee, loosely translated “water of long life,” dates centuries of human use. Spanish colonial history tells us that Wa-pu-mee was among many candidates for the apocryphal Aztec fountain of eternal youth. The men and women of Taos were said to use the springs for washing and bathing.

When the Chili Line railroad punched up onto the western edge of the Taos Plateau in the 1880s, the springs became one of Taos’ first tourist attractions. The train brought out-of-town lookie-loos to the area. They could catch the narrow-gauge train in Antonito, Colo., and be in Tres Piedras in about two hours. Or, they rode six hours from Santa Fe. There, they could disembark and, for a charge, board a stagecoach for the trip across the Río Grande and into Taos.

The first Taoseños to exploit this situation were merchants Albert Miller and Gerson Gusdorf, according to Martin’s book. They built a bridge just downstream of the hot springs and cut a road up onto the plateau. They charged tourists and locals alike for crossing their bridge but showed little interest in the springs.

One such traveler was Arthur Manby, an British ne’erdo-well who came West in 1890 to make his fortune. After much chicanery and underhanded dealings, Manby claimed the 66,000-acre Antonio Martínez Land Grant as his own — including the hot springs at the western extreme of the

grant lands.

By the early 1900s, Manby’s problems in town grew and, according to Frank Waters’ biography of Manby, “To Possess the Land,” he escaped more and more to the solitude of the hot springs.

“Next to the Martínez Grant, Manby loved the hot springs named after him,” Waters wrote. “Perhaps he loved the springs more; for if the grant was in reality only a nebulous domain, a projection of his imperialistic dream of empire, there was nothing nebulous about the hot springs.”

As he soaked in the warm waters around 1922, Manby’s conniving mind conjured up another scheme: A world-class tourist resort known as the Lost Springs of the Aztec, with luxury hotel and the hot springs.

“Should it develop, these springs are the long lost springs of the Aztecs, and the fact coupled with history seems to indicate that such a belief is well founded, then these springs … should ultimately develop into one of the world’s greatest resorts,” Manby proselytized in a prospectus sent to potential investors.

No money was forthcoming, and Manby died of beheading among mysterious circumstances in 1929.

The hot springs remain today, attracting tourists, locals and an occasional boater to rejuvenate in the mineral-rich waters. Visitors keep the rock walls intact and generally leave the place clean and welcoming.

As for Manby’s legacy, all that remains are the ruins of an old bathhouse, traces of stagecoach roads and, if you believe in such things, the ghost of a headless, angry and destitute Englishman lurking about.

Sources: “Enchanted Waters: A Guide to New Mexico’s Hot Springs,” by Craig Martin; “To Possess the Land,” by Frank Waters; “Springs of the Río Grande Gorge,” by Paul W. Bauer, Peggy S. Johnson and Stacy Timmons; “The Train Stops Here: New Mexico’s Railway Legacy,” by Marci L. Riskin

As he soaked in the warm waters around 1922, Manby’s conniving mind conjured up another scheme ...

Leyendas | 1 1

Courtesy Carrie Leven

Joe Corriz of Santa Fe marked his name in aspen bark back in 1964.

The forest for the trees ARBORGLYPHS TELL STORIES OF A CHANGING FOREST

I

By Andrew Oxford

nnumerable lovers have proclaimed their passion by carving initials in the aspens of Northern New Mexico.

J and C may have since parted ways but in the woods near García Park, you can still find a memorial to the love that drew them together in 1989. Carving up a tree is not just for lovers, though.

Arborglyphs, as such carvings are known, tell a story of Northern New Mexico’s highlands. The carvings mark the movements of herders and, in some cases, are all that remain of abandoned mining camps. For example, arborglyphs dating from the 1930s and 1940s along Heart Lake Trail mark a path once used by shepherds, according to Carrie Leven, an archaeologist with Carson National Forest.

“They would come season after season. It would be the same teenage boys,” she said.

Marking the trees, the herders in many cases would leave a name, date and hometown. Others carved “verse, a little story,” Leven said. Some arborglyphs are as much displays of calligraphy as anything else, herders having carved inscriptions in intricate cursive script around the trunks of aspens. Some arborglyphs include refrains, or sayings.

Other carvings are illustrative. Arborglyphs have been found in Northern New Mexico depicting animals such as horses, deer, owls and pumas. Images of women are also common, if sometimes crude. Depictions of everyday objects, such as guitars, have been spotted, too.

“If they were out here during the summer season, they have all that time on their hands,” Leven said.

The traces left behind by Northern New Mexico’s early

20th century herders have not only led hikers in their footsteps but also led to a better understanding of the families that grazed here.

Dates reveal what areas might have been used for certain herds. Sheep were more common in the 1930s and 1940s, Leven said. Most permits changed in the 1960s and cattle became more common. Names offer insight into where families were licensed to graze and what paths they used.

Tracking down an arborglyph’s creator can be as easy as asking around town, Leven explained. If a young man herding sheep around Questa in the 1930s or 1940s is not still alive, their grandchildren likely are, she said.

Starting with a name and date on the side of an aspen, researchers or the merely curious can better understand past generations and their relation to the forest.

Tracking down an arborglyph’s creator can be as easy as asking around town, Leven explained.

See ARBORGLYPHS, Page 13

1 2 | Leyendas

Photo courtesy Carrie Leven

This arborglyph dates back to Aug. 28, 1943 and was signed by a Johnny SanchĂŠz.

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Leyendas | 1 3

Archaeologists such as Leven call aspens baring arborglyphs “culturally modified trees,” nature touched by language and reflecting in some way the people who interacted with the land. For Worrell, the markings lend humanity to the forest.

T

From ARBORGLYPHS, Page 11

he woods around Red River abound with arborglyphs from a slightly earlier area, Leven notes.

Prospectors and miners who made camps in the area during the early 1910s left their mark in the aspen trees. Some such arborglyphs led to old mine shafts or cabins. Others are all that mark what might have once been a mining camp.

The carvings are a testament to the changing pathways that run through the forest.

“Anywhere there might have been historic grazing, there are carvings,” Leven said.

Many found in the Carson National Forest predate designated, maintained trails. That they are not far from

contemporary trails underscores the evolution of how Northern New Mexico communities have interacted with the woods.

“It’s the same route that has been there for many years,” Leven said.

Other carvings lead off trail, along paths now forgotten.

Trappers made arborglyphs to mark their way through the wood and surveyors used the soft wood of aspens to mark corners.

“I call it the woodland archive,” said Chris Worrell, an arborglyph researcher.

“It such an untapped source of information,” he added, suggesting arborglyphs are pieces of social history — a people’s history of the forest.

“These weren’t famous people,” Worrell said of the herders, trappers and surveyors who left their marks on America’s woodlands. “These may be the only marks they

Honor.

left behind on Earth.”

Documentation of arborglyphs has taken off with the Internet.

By sharing photographs and locations, online communities have been able to better understand people who were often marginalized in their own times.

“These arborglyphs were often left by underrepresented groups — Hispanic herders, Basque herders, cowboys, Native Americans,” Worrell said. “Now, anybody can get out with a camera and document these things.”

“Take photos, take a location,” he added. “It’s valuable genealogically, culturally and artistically.”

Archaeologists such as Leven call aspens baring arborglyphs “culturally modified trees,” nature touched by language and reflecting in some way the people who interacted with the land. For Worrell, the markings lend humanity to the forest.

“You get to know about these past lives,” he said.

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The missing and the haunted GHOST BARS OF TAOS

By Jim O’Donnell building can be haunted but can a building haunt a person?

Sometime in the early 1990s there was a bar in Taos that served pretty much anyone of any age without any questions. The bar was in a basement with one window at ground level that looked out, through metal bars, onto a road.

It was a dark place full of old men and a musty smell. I never got a welcoming smile but they served my friends and my 18-year-old self without ever asking our ages.

After a 10-year hiatus from Taos, however, I could never find that bar again. I’ve asked numerous people and no one knows of the place. I’ve walked around town looking for it. I’ve searched for it in Ranchos and Seco, never with any luck. I’m not crazy. I went there many times.

Can a bar itself become a ghost?

In Taos it seems possible. The ghosts of many a bar continue to haunt this town. The ghosts of many bar patrons likewise hang around the bars we frequent.

“A basement bar doesn’t ring a bell. But where the Byzantium Restaurant sits now there used to be a watering hole called La Loma Bar,” Taos historian Larry Torres told me when I called to ask about my ghost bar. “Somewhere in the past, two drunken lovers quarreled and the man stabbed the woman there,” he said. “She stumbled out and down along the street towards Ledoux leaving bloody hand prints along the walls and wailing all the way.

“They call her La Llorona of Ledoux,” said Torres. “Some say the bloody hand print reappears briefly along those walls on the day of the dead.”

Now that is a ghost bar. But that wasn’t my bar.

Near where Michael’s Kitchen presently sits, there was long ago a bar infamous for selling liquor to men from Taos Pueblo.

According to Torres, it was really the only establishment that welcomed the original Taoseños.

“There are stories of men coming in wrapped in their blankets and with their hair in ribbons. So I imagine it was quite a sight, especially for visitors,” said Torres. “But the ghosts came when the bar closed and for years drumming was heard coming from the building.

“But why?” Torres wondered. He didn’t know of any specific reason it might be haunted.

Could it have been El Gaucho Bar? That one sat about where the parking lot for Cabot’s Plaza and that of Eske’s Brew Pub and Eatery meet. Or wait. Was it El Gaucho? Yes. But it was also the Miramon at one time and then El Tío Vivo and then The Long Horn Bar and then The White Bar. According to Torres it wasn’t El Gaucho Bar until about 1961. Owned by the Archuleta brothers, the bar wasn’t known for any particular violent occurrence. But after it closed around 1970 people in the area began reporting female laughter and the scent of perfume in the air. This was another “why?” for Torres who has never been able to find pictures of the bar.

“Why would this place be haunted?”

There must be a story we don’t know yet.

In the March 14, 2007 issue of the now defunct Taos Horsefly, in the Truth and Beauty column by Dory Hulburt, there is a reference to a Grace Graham King who came to Taos to study art with Walter Ufer. Apparently, on her first night in town she was sucking on a cigarette outside the Don Fernando Hotel when a man lurched to the ground in front of her, his guts spilling out near her feet. Evidently he’d been cut at El

Gaucho. Given that Doc Martin was the one who stitched the man the knifing had to have taken place sometime before 1930, meaning there was another El Gaucho that pre-dates the one Torres mentioned.

Another ghost bar is the Columbian, formerly situated on the south side of the plaza. In 1880 Aloysius Liebert built the bar and added on a large lobby space that doubled as a dance hall. Twenty years later Robert Pooler purchased the hotel and bar and ran it until a drunk customer shot Pooler to death in 1909.

“Pooler’s ghost seems to be angry,” says local ghost aficionado Melody Elwell-Romancito. “I guess you can’t blame him. I’d be mad too if I got shot.”

According to Torres the actual oldest bar in Taos is the Alley Cantina. Several decades ago it was known as El Patio. Portions of the building might date back 400 years. Buildings that old are bound to be haunted. Sure enough “the kitchen area, which is the oldest might be haunted by Teresina, the daughter of Gov. Bent,” says Torres.

Former owner Ruth Waterhouse told me that during renovations 20-plus years ago some very strange things went on.

“When we started knocking holes in the walls things would mysteriously be moved. There were some brand new candle holders that seemed to light themselves. Later, we also had a number of female customers tell us they felt someone touch them when they were waiting for the restroom — and no one else was around.”

The history of Taos is chock-full of bars that came and went.

The bar I’m looking for seems to have vanished. The fact that no one seems to know anything about that basement cantina gives me the shivers. But not as much as being touched by a ghost would.

The ghosts of many a bar continue to haunt this town.

The ghosts of many bar patrons likewise hang around the bars we frequent.

Leyendas | 1 5

Courtesy of the Palace of the Governors Photo Archives (NMHM/DCA), 104335

Interior of the Miramon Bar, Miramon Opera House, circa 1915. Pictured are bartenders Felix Sandoval and Alfredo Miramon, and standing at bar is Enrique Martínez, third from right, and Donaciano Gallegos far right. The other men are unknown.

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1 6 | Leyendas

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A cemetery in Llano de San Juan, with Jicarita Peak in the background.

Leyendas | 1 7

Jicarita and Wheeler Peaks SENTINELS OF NORTHERN NEW MEXICO

J

By Cody Hooks

fall of the United States’ topography meant the expansion of rails, commerce, and westward-moving Americans.

uan Estevan Arellano, local historian and author from Mora Valley, said that Jicarita Peak, that soft-sloping mountain south of Taos whose name recalls a bowl turned upside down, is the most beautiful mountain he’s ever seen.

“It is the sustenance of life,” Arellano said. With waters flowing both east and west, Jicarita is a place of agriculture and tradition; shared livelihoods and shared histories.

But Jicarita is an anchor, along with its neighbor to the north, Wheeler Peak. Their tops might not reach as high as the shear and jagged peaks of Colorado’s Sawatch or San Juan ranges (or even the Sangre de Cristos as they wind through the southern part of that state) but these two mountains draw together Taos’ history within the American landscape.

After the Civil War, Congress sent four teams of geologists, naturalist, cartographers, and artists into the Western territories to meticulously catalogue and map the lands and people of the newly reunified country. As they traversed mountains and mesas, they inked in cities, rivers, and drainages. Lt. George Wheeler led one of the “Great Surveys” for seven years, from 1872 to 1879, during which he made his way into Northern and central New Mexico.

The surveys, Wheeler’s included, even attempted to find the tallest mountain peaks in each state — America’s reach into the heavens.

Those maps were instruments of industry. Knowing the rise and

All things considered, those late 19th Century scientists could make fairly precise measurements. But their calculations were made from lower elevations and with the standard technology of the time. As accurate as some measurements were, the peaks of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains were still blurry spots on the map.

By 1916, a study of New Mexico place names catalogued some of the mountains of even remote Northern New Mexico. The study recalls the writings of Adolf Bandelier, the archeologist of the Southwest and the namesake of Bandelier National Monument — “the altitude of the Jicarita has not, to my knowledge, been determined; but the impression of those who have ascend to its top is that it exceeds the Truchas in height.”

Bandelier’s “impressions” were contested by reports made by a USGS geographer, R.B. Marshall, who measured the Truchas peaks as the tallest in the state.

Surveying continued in step with new technologies, and the maps of the area between Wheeler and Jicarita were revised many times over. The lives of New Mexicans around the mountains of Taos changed not because of some competition for the tallest mountain title, but because of the inward movement of industry and mobile Americans into the heart of the Land of Enchantment.

Boom-and-bust Twining, a mining town, sprang up in the area that is now the Taos Ski Valley. Sheep, numbering first in the thousands and then the tens of thousands, grazed along the

slopes and fields of the Río Hondo and around Jicarita. The Santa Barbara Tie and Pole Company systematically stripped Jicarita of its timber, floating it down the Río Embudo to be cut and milled into railroad ties.

Everyday Americans, even more than anglo artists, also made their way into this remote mountain terrain. According to Carrie Leven, archeologist for the Questa Ranger District of Carson National Forest, the road into Twining was paved in 1929, and people with cars, money, and spare time came to this part of New Mexico to explore.

New Mexico was a well-known driving destination by the 1930s and 1940s. After World War II, when war-effort jeeps were shipped back to the United States, adventurous Americans penetrated into the forests even further, driving on trails that had once been used mostly by hunters and rangers spotting fires. Those adventurers and car campers looted much of the archeological evidence of Twining — to say nothing of even older archeological sights — erasing the area’s history one valuable antique at a time.

By 1955, Twining was gone, with Taos Ski Valley assuming its place. Wheeler Peak, so named by the United States Geological Survey in 1950, was declared unequivocally the tallest place in all of New Mexico.

See SENTINELS, Page 19

1 8 | Leyendas

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Leyendas | 1 9

...there is an opportunity for renewed commitment to stewardship of this land.

Jicarita and Wheeler, two of Taos’ most storied peaks, sit sentinel to the next 50 years of our relationship to the land.

Gus Foster

A panoramic view of the Sangre de Cristos, taken from Wheeler Peak.

W From SENTINELS, Page 17

ashington again looked west to the Sangres, when in 1964 Congress passed and President Johnson signed into law the sweeping and legacycreating Wilderness Act. Northern New Mexico is home to two of those original, anchoring wilderness areas — the Pecos Wilderness, home to Jicarita, and the Wheeler Peak Wilderness. The creators of the Wilderness Act meant for the legislation to codify an appreciation of the quiet places and preserve for future generations those places in America where “the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man.”

But there were no places in Northern New Mexico without the lasting imprint of human activity. The landscapes of both the Pecos and the Wheeler Wilderness had been heavily manipulated. Jicarita was overgrazed and over-logged, many of its resources depleted. And the area around Wheeler was home to the modern commerce of skiing.

Yet the two anchoring wildernesses were also riddled with the story of dispossession — lands taken, folded into the public domain.

Juan Estevan Arellano laments the changes he’s seen even in his own lifetime. He recalled going camping around Jicarita with his family as a boy, when most everyone they saw was a local.

“We would just find an open spot. We didn’t have tents, so we slept under the open sky.”

But now, he says, “There’s no more open spaces. It’s all tourists and their Winnebagos.”

Wheeler Peak is now one of the most visited places in Taos, and indeed the state. Kevin Lehto, an assistant recreation officer with Carson National Forest, said “when there is a wilderness within spitting distance of a city, there’s going to be a lot foot traffic.” It can be a uphill challenge to manage a popular and people-dense wilderness, where mechanized technology — even a mountain bike — isn’t allowed.

But on the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act, there is an opportunity for renewed commitment to stewardship of this land. Jicarita and Wheeler, two of Northern New Mexico’s most storied peaks, sit sentinel to the next 50 years of our relationship to the land.

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Raices

2 0 14 T R A D I C I O N E S | T H E TA O S N E W S

2 | Raices

Raices THE HISTORY, TRADITIONS AND EVENTS THAT SHAPE WHO WE ARE

Courtesy Red River Historical Society

Mining allowed businesses like the Jayhawk Store to flourish, grow and provide jobs that allowed the community to survive. The store was one of Red River’s first and most successful general stores.

Their unique marketing technique was to advertise with dozens of misspelled signs on the exterior of the building. See the story on page 8.

F

rom Costilla to Peñasco, the roots of Taos County run deep. Whether you are talking about the ancient histories of Picuris and Taos Pueblos, the centuries-old establishment of families who moved to Northern New Mexico when it was Spanish territory, or the longcelebrated art and hippie communities of our area, Taos County is all about roots. It’s a place where the question, “how long have you been in Taos” is more than a question. It’s a measuring stick of what you have endured and seen and how much room you have to comment on those experiences publicly.

People come to Northern New Mexico for a variety of reasons. And if they’ve been here a while, they’ve established some routines and traditions. The Taos News attempts to explore the roots (Raices) of some of these traditions and the history that has helped create them.

Raices is the second publication in a four-part series known as Tradiciones. We’ve been doing this for 14 years, which, depending on who you ask, might be almost long enough to be considered a local tradition of its own.

It’s obviously not as long a tradition as the one that involves local people cooking and sharing food. That’s probably the oldest tradition of all, in its purest form.

Local variations of that theme include the long-standing practice of the matanza. On page 4, J.R. Logan takes us to San Cristóbal for an in-depth look at the work and

respect for tradition that goes into a good matanza. The skill it takes to slaughter, prepare and cook your livestock, be it pig, goat, lamb or cow, involves not only practice, but also a whole lot of reverence for the land, the animals and the people to whom the meat will be fed.

Keeping with the agricultural theme, Logan also has a story about the engineering know-how that went into creating working acequias in the Hondo-Seco Valley.

Precision is one of the words that comes to mind when you are talking about 200-year-old ditches that manage to move water without much help from gravity.

The roots of the Roberts family are also strong, with a family homestead inside Carson National Forest that has been part of the family for four generations. The Taos News photographer Tina Larkin followed brothers Brian and Wade Roberts for a season to glimpse the life of a working ranch and the connection that these two young men have with the land and the livestock. Andrew Oxford provides some information for the photos, which can be seen beginning on page 17.

With history as the great contextualizer that shapes and guides our perceptions of ourselves as a community, we have several stories that look into that always lessthan-crystal ball known as the past. On page 6, Andy Dennison offers a history of rail travel in Taos County with the story of the Chili Line. The engineers could never figure out how to get the narrow-gauge railroad to

cross the Río Grande Gorge, but it did come close, with stops in Tres Piedras, Embudo and at Taos Junction.

On page 8, Yvonne Pesquera looks at the history of Red River as a village founded with one goal in mind: mineral extraction. While the efforts didn’t always pan out, the steady attempts to find gold, silver and copper (you name it) provided enough of a foot hold for the town to grow and prosper until the economy shifted toward tourism in the middle of the last century.

Elizabeth Cleary looks at the history of the San Cristóbal Valley Ranch on page 12. The ranch at one time served as a school, and later became a quaint guest ranch.

The Red Scare came to the ranch in the 1950s when some government officials were worried about proprietors Craig and Jenny Vincent’s involvement in socialist causes.

And on page 14, Jim O’Donnell takes on a far more controversial topic than communism (at least as far as most Taoseños are concerned). His story looks at the life and legend of one Christopher “Kit” Carson, the man whose place in history has recently been hotly debated around Taos. O’Donnell looks at who the man was and how communities can choose to associate with certain aspects of history more than others. Whether you like it or not, this is our Raices.

— Andy Jones, special sections editor

With history as the great contextualizer that shapes and guides our perceptions of ourselves as a community, we have several stories that look into that always-less-than crystal ball known as the past.

Raices | 3

CONTENTS 6 4 The Chili Line:

The matanza: A nourishing tradition for the body and soul

By J.R. Logan

The little engine that, ultimately, couldn’t

Photo by Geraint Smith

8

Mining vein runs deep in Red River’s history

By Yvonne Pesquera

11

Hondo Valley acequias: Engineering marvels

By J.R. Logan

By Andy Dennison

San Cristóbal Valley Ranch’s unique past

12

Kit Carson: A divisive figure long after his time

14

17

By Elizabeth Cleary

By Jim O’Donnell

A photo essay by Tina Larkin with text by Andrew Oxford

STAFF Robin Martin, owner • Chris Baker, publisher • Joan Livingston, editor • Chris Wood, advertising manager • Andy Jones, special sections editor Michelle M. Gutierrez, lead editorial designer • Ray Seale, production, technology and digital director • Ayleen Lopez, digital administrator • Katharine Egli and Tina Larkin, Elizabeth Cleary, Cody Hooks, J.R. Logan and Andrew Oxford, staff writers CONTRIBUTORS Andy Dennison, writer • Jim O’Donnell,

writer •

Yvonne Pesquera,

Meanwhile, back at the ranch: A glimpse into the life of the Roberts brothers

photographers

writer

ON THE COVER Brian Roberts picks up Athena, a goat for his 4-H project, at the Trujillo-Armstrong Ranch in San Cristóbal,

Photo by Tina Larkin

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4 | Raices

Katharine Egli

Top row, from left: Peyton DeVargas, 4, looks on as his grandfather Danny DeVargas, left, Mario Trujillo and Jim Armstrong grab a black sheep from the livestock pen on Aug. 30; Trujillo wheels the black sheep to be slaughtered; and Trujillo, left, and DeVargas slaughter the sheep. Bottom row, from left: Devargas, left, and Trujillo set the recently slain goat on a block to start the butchering process for the big Labor Day barbecue; Blood spurts flecked Delilah the dog’s nose after she stood by during the slaughter of the goat; and Peyton DeVargas mourns the death of the sheep and goat.

The matanza A NOURISHING TRADITION FOR THE BODY AND SOUL

T

By J.R. Logan

he matanza. You know that’s an old tradition. Most people used to slaughter their hogs around Thanksgiving time. So they’d invite the neighborhood over. The neighbors would all show up and they’d help with the peeling and the skinning, the making of the chicharrones. And then they would take certain cuts, after they slaughtered, and the women would make lunch and fix up a feast with the blood sauce, you know, and everything else. Then at the end of the day, the person who had the pig would keep maybe half and the rest was divided up between the people who went to help. And it went from household the household to household. So that by the time it was all said and done, everybody had some pig.” —Crestina Trujillo Armstrong, San Cristóbal Crestina Trujillo Armstrong was eight when her father first asked her to slaughter a lamb. He helped her hang the animal upsidedown from a rack, hind legs bound and front hooves kicking at thin air.

“You stand behind them, and you grab ahold of them by the ears and just, gghhk,” Trujillo Armstrong says, making a motion of a knife across the lamb’s neck. She remembers her father helped her skin the lamb, and he kept time as she butchered the still warm beast into halves. When she finished, she felt proud to have done something she’d seen done her entire life.

Animal slaughter was a typical part of growing up.

Trujillo Armstrong says the family always kept sheep,

cattle, chickens and other animals.

“Whenever we needed a lamb, we just went out and got one,” Trujillo Armstrong says. “People don’t do it that much anymore. It’s an anomaly.”

To kill those animals in order to eat wasn’t shocking or unusual. It was normal. In fact, having the chance to butcher a lamb was a step up.

“Before that, my main job was skinning the heads, and that’s horrible,” she says. “Heads are hard to skin.”

They do, however, offer what she considers some of the best meat.

“The brains are the best part,” she says. “It’s an acquired taste. On tortilla with green chile, ooooh.”

Armstrong Trujillo and her husband, Jim Armstrong, still live on a 50-acre ranch in San Cristóbal that’s been in her family for four generations.

It’s the same piece of land her great-grandfather, José António María Martínez, settled in the 1800s. It’s the same place she grew up with her brothers, raising animals and tending a garden.

The ranch is bisected by a small creek that flows for a narrow canyon above the village, and much of it is irrigated by an acequia that draws from the same stream.

Today, there’s a corral with sheep and goats, and a pond by the creek with ducks and geese.

For more than a decade, the Armstrongs have hosted a Labor Day barbecue. The garden is usually overflowing with vegetables, the weather is normally pleasant, and it’s a chance to get together with friends and family before

the winter sets in.

The centerpiece of the annual event is the meat.

“This has been going on for centuries in the sheep camps,” Trujillo Armstrong says. “When they get to the end of the season and they’re gathering up the sheep and doing a head count, and they take a couple of sheep and slaughter them and put them in the pit so everybody has something to eat.”

This year, the family slaughtered a goat and and lamb Saturday evening. The animals hang the next day while they forage from the garden to make sides like fresh cole slaw, corn and beans. At dawn Monday, Jim Armstrong has a fire of apple and juniper wood burning in a pit beside the house. The lamb and goat meat is slathered with a rub, wrapped in tin foil and stacked on the thick bed of coals.

The meat is then buried and a fire is lit on top of the covered pit to keep it warm overnight.

Twelve hours later, the meat is exhumed. Trujillo Armstrong says the shanks are always pulled out first to make sure everything is ready. By noon, the family is ready to serve the 100 guests who make the Labor Day barbecue a don’t-miss tradition.

While some of the goats and lambs the Armstrongs raise are for their own consumption, many of the animals go to 4-H youth who are learning to raise livestock themselves. Taos has no doubt changed over the years, but supporting young producers is one way to protect long-held traditions.

“The brains are the best part, it’s an acquired taste.

On tortilla with green chile, ooooh.”

Raices | 5

Katharine Egli

Mario Trujillo wheels the large cuts of the sheep and goat from the place of slaughter to the meat house.

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6 | Raices

Courtesy of the Palace of the Governors Photo Archives (NMHM/DCA), 011911.

The Denver and Río Grande Railroad narrow-gauge train at Taos Junction, New Mexico, sometime between 1921 and 1926.

The Chili Line THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT, ULTIMATELY, COULDN’T

F

By Andy Dennison

rom the late 1800s through the early 1900s, railroad surveyors from the Denver & Río Grande tried time and again to find a feasible western route into Taos — all to no avail.

They were thwarted by steep grades, serpentine topography and the gaping Río Grande Gorge that made it impossible for even narrowgauge track to be laid all the way to Taos.

Therefore, local railroad buffs have to be content with the story of the Chili Line.

From 1880 to 1941, a narrow-gauge line named for the local cuisine carried passengers, mail and freight along tracks between Alamosa, Colo., and Española (later to Santa Fe).

Upon arrival at these termini, connections could be made to larger lines — the standard-gauge at Lamy south of Santa Fe or the north-running D&RG to Denver.

The Chili Line did get as close as Embudo and Tres Piedras, some 20 miles away from Taos, but never crossed to the east side of the river. Thus, to meet the train, Taoseños had to be content with riding a horse or wagon down into the gorge to Embudo, or across the Río Grande and out onto the plateau to either Tres Piedras or what was called Taos Junction, about 19 miles south where the road from Carson meets U.S. 285 today.

“When I was old enough to ride a horse, I would make trips to Embudo to meet my father who had been working

in Colorado or Utah,” wrote Antonio Durán of Dixon, in a local history document found in the Embudo Valley Library.

“The train would stop long enough to let passengers off and deliver mail to the different mail carriers who would pick up the mail for the local communities.”

In its heyday, the Chili Line brought fruits to urban markets, cattle to and from summer grazing pastures, sheep to the trading depots and piñon nuts. Lumber cut and milled in La Madera and Petaca, west of Tres Piedras, found a way to market on the Chili Line and, for a brief time, quartzite, lepidolite and mica ore also traveled the route.

The railway’s existence spawned settlement around its stops. For several decades, Embudo had a restaurant to feed passengers while the locomotive loaded up with coal and water. At one time, Taos Junction housed 175 homesteaders, two stores, a hotel and rec hall, and a school. Tres Piedras grew as short spurs into Ponderosa pine forests fostered a brief lumber boom.

Notorious Taos entrepreneurs, like gambler Long John Dunn and land-grabber Arthur Manby, established wagon service to Taos, and many farmers and ranchers hauled produce and livestock to the stations to get them to the more-lucrative urban markets.

The Chili Line was a short but vital link in 19th century railroad magnate Gen. William Palmer’s dream of a Denverto-Mexico rail line. Rebuffed in his attempt to get over Ratón Pass, he turned his attentions westward — over La Veta Pass and into the San Luis Valley. There, he envisioned a southward route that would track the Río Grande all the way to Mexico.

Standard-gauge track ran to Alamosa, whereupon “mixed cars” shifted to 3-foot axles behind narrow gauge locomotives to accommodate the twisting, loopy routes to the south. The station at Antonito sat at the junction of the Chili Line and the west-running D&RG to Chama and Durango.

The Chili Line’s steepest section ran between Barranca and Embudo — a slow, treacherous run down into the Río Grande canyon. With 4 percent grades and sharp, 22-degree turns, the train could go no faster than 15 mph. The sixmile incline took more than one hour to negotiate.

Here’s what U.S. Army John Bourke wrote in his diary in 1881 about the Embudo-Barranca run: “At Embudo begins a canyon of great severity and much majesty. Here the train twists around the sharpest of curves, pushes up the steepest of grades where engineering skill of the highest order has been called into service to fight the obstacles interposed by Nature …”

As was the case with many railroads in the 20th Century, the appearance of the automobile and the truck made the Chili Line obsolete. Paved roads sprung up in Northern New Mexico and, by 1935, the railway was in receivership.

Passenger service virtually dried up, and most foodstuffs got to market via truck. And, the Great Depression ground commerce to a virtual halt in rural New Mexico.

In 1941, about a dozen well-wishers boarded the Chili Line at Union Station in Santa Fe for its final run.

One week later, D&RG crews began digging up the tracks.

Sources: The Train Stops Here: New Mexico’s Railway Legacy, by Marci L. Riskin; The Chili Line and Santa Fe City Different, compiled by Richard L. Dorman; “Interview with Antonio Duran,” Embudo Valley Library; The Chili Line: The Narrow Rail Trail to Santa Fe, by John A Gjevre; New Mexico’s Railroads: A Historical Survey, by David Myrick

The Chili Line was a short but vital link in 19th century railroad magnate Gen. William Palmer’s dream of a Denver-to-Mexico rail line.

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Courtesy of the Palace of the Governors Photo Archives (NMHM/DCA), 044282

Denver and Río Grande engine near Embudo Canyon, New Mexico, sometime between 1908 and 1910. Closed in 1941, the branch of narrow gauge D&RG railway from Antonito, Colorado to Santa Fe, New Mexico, was called the Chili Line.

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“Mortals put an end to the darkness; they search out the farthest recesses for ore in the blackest darkness.

Far from human dwellings they cut a shaft, in places untouched by human feet; far from other people they dangle and sway. and no lion prowls there.

People assault the flinty rock with their hands and lay bare the roots of the mountains.

They tunnel through the rock; their eyes see all its treasures.

They search the sources of the rivers and bring hidden things to light.”

(Job 1:28)

Questa Mine thanks the generations of families in Northern New Mexico who have been a part the mining heritage for nearly a century.

8 | Raices

I

Mining vein runs deep IN RED RIVER’S HISTORY

By Yvonne Pesquera

n the mid 1860s, the country’s attention was rightly focused on the raging battles of the Civil War. Yet that didn’t preclude other historic events from happening elsewhere. In fact, right around the time of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, gold was discovered in locations around Taos County.

“The town of Red River was the last of the four gold camps to be settled –– and the only one to survive,” writes historian J. Rush Pierce in “Red River City.”

Red River is a pine-studded mountain valley enveloped by the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in all four directions. The town limits stretch in a linear fashion to about three miles, and a stroll down Main Street puts a pedestrian at 8,750 feet above sea level.

Although the valley has been a hunting, fishing, and trapping locale for Native Americans for millennia, Red River didn’t get its first road until 1916. Up until then, its relative isolation necessitated a strong, independent spirit among its townspeople; and that legacy continues today.

Different from other towns in Taos County (and indeed, Northern New Mexico), Red River has no architectural or cultural signs of Spanish influence. Even though formally a part of the Spanish empire, the conquistadors circumvented Red River, preferring routes through more accessible mountain passes.

By and large, Red River was just simply left alone –– for centuries. And even after the first wave of gold discoveries (c.

1870s), it took until the gold boom of 1895 for the formal founding of Red River City.

During this second, more successful gold rush, prospectors poured into Red River from all across the country. Generally speaking, these were shopkeepers, farmers, businesspeople, schoolteachers, and even former Union and Confederate soldiers who had lost everything in the U.S. Financial Panic of 1893.

But one thing is certain: These prospectors were not professional miners.

At first, the tools of their trade were rudimentary by way of pick, shovel, and bucket. Over time, as claims became more hyped up and mining companies moved in, then sophisticated equipment –– such as turbines, hydraulics, mills, and explosives –– were introduced.

Nevertheless, Red River itself remained a town of rough mud roads and weathered cabins. That’s because by its nature, prospecting is a short-lived and transitory practice. Prospectors move across mountain ridges from one strike to the next, as is evident by the numerous pocket mines throughout the area.

Yet, it is important to note that around a gold boom, the economic infrastructure for a town quietly grows. Mercantile stores, blacksmiths, livery stables and hotels appeared. Even saloons, gambling halls and dance halls became a vital part of town life. For all of which, a steady customer demand made regular employment possible.

However, compared to other mining camps of the era, there was little in the way of criminal notoriety in Red River. The Taos gambler, John Dunn, was known to be a frequent visitor.

And it is highly probable that other historical characters have traveled through. For example, the Earp brothers stayed in nearby Cimarrón and likely came prospecting through Red River.

“Depending on who you ask: nobody got killed or up to a dozen people got killed,” says former Red River Town Marshal Jerry Hogrefe. “But make no mistake about it, there was no law in this land. And claim jumping was a big problem.”

Following the economic activity, civic interest began to appear. For example, the Mallette family was one of the first mining families in Red River and their name appears throughout town on institutions such as Mallette Canyon, Mallette Park, and Mallette Creek.

“Ultimately, the low-grade ore, the shallow water table, and the lack of milling capabilities resulted in the end of gold mining for Red River,” writes Michael Burney in “An Examination of Taos County Mining Records.”

Men searched for signs of lode gold in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains by prospecting the abundant streambeds for gold nuggets and working the rock outcrops for gold dust flakes.

But there is little to see anymore. Most of the log shafts and tunnel structures have collapsed.

“We are so proud of the history of Red River mining,” says Ron Weathers, former president of the Red River Historical Society. “Around town, all of our streets are named after the old mines.”

See MINING, Page 10

A Taos Tradition of Historic Proportions

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Courtesy Red River Historical Society

The Victoria was one of Red River’s first hotels. It only operated in the early mining era and is no longer in existence.

Photo’s by Sean Kelly Portraits, Taos, NM www.seankellyportraits.com

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1 0 | Raices

Courtesy Red River Historical Society

Counter clockwise, from top right: Hydraulic mining was a cheaper and easier way of moving material quickly. It was limited to areas where gold was not in solid rock and was close to a water source; Main Street in 1900 consisted of hastily built structures and bears little resemblance to the town of Red River today; Starting from scratch, all timber had to be cut and milled (usually on site). All other materials and machinery had to be brought over long distances; The Buffalo Mine was one of the larger mines on Placer Creek and one of the few to turn much of a profit. Evidence of this mine can still be seen in the area.

From MINING, Page 8

their friends and family in a gorgeous, tranquil mountain environment.

“Red River is far from the county seat. But we’ve been showing people a good time for over a hundred years,” says Weathers.

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Photo by Tina Larkin

R

ed River has since grown to become a year-round vacation destination for visitors from all over the country. The Red River Ski Area is the main draw

in the winter, but the other three seasons are just as busy with hiking, camping, biking, fishing, and numerous other outdoor activities.

Today, Red River visitors come here to mine for a different type of “treasure” –– to spend quality time with

Raices | 1 1

Courtesy Taos Soil and Water Conservation District

The Acequia de Atalaya clings to the northern rim of the Hondo Valley in order to irrigate about 300 acres on a mesa perched above the Río Grande Gorge. When it crosses NM 522, the acequia stands about 160 feet above the valley bottom.

Hondo Valley acequias ENGINEERING MARVELS

A

By J.R. Logan

bout 200 years ago, Hispano settlers in the Hondo Valley undertook an impressive feat of engineering: the construction of a miles-long acequia to carry water from the Río Hondo, along a steep hillside, to a series of fields that sit on a shelf of land perched between the valley and the Río Grande Gorge.

Looking north from the edge of the Hondo mesa, the acequia gives the illusion that it’s steadily gaining altitude. In fact, if you trace the path of the Atalaya on a topographic map, it mirrors the same contour line from its diversion point just below the cliffs of Cañoncito until it crosses beneath NM 522 more than two miles away.

According to the topo map, the elevation of the acequia falls only 40 feet while covering that rocky, arroyo-riddled distance. In that same stretch, the Río Hondo falls about 200 feet.

“It’s amazing they could do this at all,” says Richard McCracken, a commissioner on the Atalaya. He points to the spot on a map where the acequia diverts from the Río Hondo and shakes his head. “If this had been two feet higher, they probably couldn’t have done it. They couldn’t have gone any further up the river with the intake because they’re right along a cliff.”

For the first two miles, the acequia clings to the side of a steep slope on the north side of the Hondo valley. The acequia follows the contour of the hill, and in some places, fill was used to build up the mountain to keep the water flowing.

The ingenuity it took to construct the Atalaya is mirrored by the Cuchilla ditch upstream. The Cuchilla

shuttles water from the Río Hondo, along a steep embankment on the south side of the Hondo valley to the flatlands of Des Montes.

While the actual date of construction of these ditches is hotly debated, both were built sometime in the early 1800s with the same rudimentary tools — wood-hardened picks and shovels, and plenty of pure brawn. “It’s really a testament to those early people, to their ingenuity,” says Jai Cross, a commissioner on the Atalaya ditch. “You can imagine they’re out there with horses or oxen, cutting through rock and the vegetation that’s always been there.

My God, what a labor.”

According to historian John Baxter, the growing population of Taos proper led to the establishment of new communities like Arroyo Hondo in around 1815. Settlers immediately got to work digging the ditches that now permeate the valley. Before long, much of the rich valley bottom was put into production. While the fields had poorer soil and would be harder to irrigate, the flatlands of the mesa on the north side of the valley offered more room to expand the agrarian community.

“These are probably the last fields they were going to irrigate because the valley was taken,” McCracken says. “I don’t know why anybody would come up here otherwise.”

Spanish records show that in 1825, 36 settlers asked permission to occupy the mesa irrigated by the Atalaya.

Baxter notes in his book that language in documents from the time suggest the settlers replaced Hispanos that had previously lived on the land and left.

The exact date of construction of the Atalaya has tremendous import to its parciantes today. New Mexico water law gives priority to the oldest water users. With so many acequias tapping the Río Hondo, there has been

plenty of squabbling between residents of Hondo, Valdéz and Des Montes over who has first dibs.

Officially, the Atalaya has a priority date of 1825, which makes it one of the most junior ditches on the Hondo river system. While it’s only 10 years behind other Hondo acequias, it’s an eternity when it comes to water law. The disputed dates were somewhat resolved when the Hondo ditches agreed to a water sharing agreement to ensure no irrigators were left dry.

Questionable priority dates aren’t the only challenge the Atalaya is facing. Dwinding water supply is also a big problem.

Willows, which bound nearly the entire ditch, soak up a lot of the water. Leakage in the sandy soil along the ditch route also contributes to water loss. Even evaporation is a problem since water moves very slowly along the almost level ditch. Sections of the ditch are almost like a lake.

“Combining all of that, there simply isn’t enough water now” McCracken says. “Whether there ever was, I don’t know.”

Also, because the acequia must traverse such challenging terrain, the ditch is constantly being washed out. Fixing the ditch in these spots takes a lot of work. And because the Atalaya irrigates just 300 acres owned by 40 people, there aren’t a lot of parciantes to lend a hand or cover the cost of maintenance.

Cross says things were probably even tougher for those who first used the ditch two centuries ago. “They must have had all kinds of blowouts,” Cross says. “If we’re still having problems, imagine what it was like before the banks were compacted. Every year must have been a series of disasters. And yet they persevered.”

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Courtesy Jenny Vincent

Jenny Vincent playing guitar on the patio at her home, San Cristóbal Valley Ranch in 1949.

The unique past of SAN CRISTÓBAL VALLEY RANCH

T

By Elizabeth Cleary

he property is not open to the public and it doesn’t look like much, but at times during the past 100 years or so the area that was once called the San Cristóbal Valley Ranch has undergone several transformations, had a number of famous visitors and was even at the center of a federal investigation during the Red Scare.

Very little written information exists on the history of the property. Probably one of the most thorough accounts is contained in the book “Sing My Whole Life Long,” a biography of longtime San Cristóbal resident and folk musicologist Jenny Vincent. Craig Smith wrote the book in 2007 after meeting her at his son’s wedding 10 or so years ago. Vincent was there with some of her bandmates to play music at the wedding, and Smith said he became fascinated with her life story and soon got the idea to turn it into a book. Vincent even influenced Smith to learn to play the accordion.

Vincent and Dan Wells (she would later remarry and take the surname Vincent) bought the ranch in San Cristóbal in 1937. They were a young couple from back East that fell in love with the area in Northern New Mexico after paying visits to their friend Freida Lawrence, widow of the famous author D.H. Lawrence. Vincent and Wells cared deeply for their new neighbors and community in San Cristóbal, and soon after buying the ranch the couple decided to start a

school for grades nine through 12 for boarders and daytime students on the property.

The school allowed San Cristóbal Valley residents to attend high school without having to make the 30-mile round trip to Taos every day. The school was such a success that they soon added grades five through eight.

“A lot of it was built around the things kids did together — chores, building, caring for their rooms, outdoor activities,” Vincent told Smith for his book.

In 1943, Vincent became the Taos County representative for the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union, which, according to Smith’s book, was founded in 1908 to help farmers in New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming improve and market products.

“The farmers union was a milestone for Jenny’s personal and political maturation,” Smith wrote. “In this work she found meaningful expression and practical application for her growing political convictions.” That same year, Vincent joined the Communist Party.

Vincent moved to New York for a while during the 1940s and returned to San Cristóbal following a split from Wells.

After returning to New Mexico in 1947, Vincent met and fell in love with Craig Vincent, a man who shared many of her political convictions and worked for a nonprofit dedicated to improving conditions for the underprivileged in Denver. The two married in 1949, and settled down at the San Cristóbal property, where they decided to start a guest ranch. It was

not long after that San Cristóbal caught the attention of the communist-fearing right, during the era of “McCarthyism,” so-called for Wisconsin Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy.

In 1950, a man who went by the name of Harvey Matusow came to stay at the ranch for one week. His real name was Harvey Matt, and he was working undercover as an informant for the FBI. Two years later, Matt testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). According to Smith’s book, many of the accusations, such as Matt’s assertion that Jenny and Craig Vincent went on an “intelligence gathering” mission to Los Alamos, were nonsense.

In 1954, Craig Vincent was subpoenaed to testify at a trial of his friend, Clinton Jencks, who was accused of falsely signing an affidavit that claimed he was not a communist. Craig Vincent refused to hand over the San Cristóbal ranch’s guest list as well as other information concerning the ranch, and was sentenced to five years in prison, although he never served his sentence.

Smith received much of the information for his book from conversations with Jenny Vincent herself.

Now 101 years old, Jenny Vincent spoke with a reporter who came to visit her at the Taos Retirement Village in July of this year. When asked about the FBI investigations at the ranch, Jenny Vincent simply said, “I’m trying to forget.”

Raices | 1 3

“M

y memory is not as good in that area as it is in remembering a song,” she said.

Jenny Vincent still plays folk music at the retirement home every Tuesday, and each week she attracts a sizable audience. Her husband has been dead for more than 30 years.

By the time Craig was subpoenaed to testify, he and Vincent had already sold the ranch. According to Smith’s book, Craig Vincent wrote in a letter to the Taos Chamber of Commerce that he and Jenny Vincent “could no longer in all fairness to our guests and ourselves subject them to the overt danger of being framed in this way, to satisfy the evil political purposes of those who would subvert the Constitution.”

In 1964, however, Jenny and Craig Vincent

decided to buy the ranch back. Five years later, the couple decided to rent the ranch out to Reis Tijerina, who was to use it as an Indo-Hispano cultural center. An announcement was made on the afternoon of Feb. 2, 1969, and by that evening the ranch home and other structures had burned to the ground. Craig Vincent was convinced this was arson. So did Tijerina, who according to Smith’s book, thought of the fire as “further proof of the conspiracy to keep Hispanic peoples from developing their culture, rights and heritage.”

Jenny and Craig Vincent later sold the property, and it became the site of the San Felipe del Río Children’s Home. And later it became a drug and alcohol treatment center. The owners of the treatment center still own the property, although it closed in January, 2013. The property currently houses the domestic water system for San Cristóbal.

An announcement was made on the afternoon of Feb. 2, 1969, and by that evening the ranch home and other structures had burned to the ground.

Courtesy Jenny Vincent

Joe Santistevan, Henry Wallace and Pete Tagger in the summer of 1948 at San Cristóbal Valley Ranch.

Wallace was a former Secretary of Agriculture and Vice President under Franklin D. Roosevelt, was running for president that year on the Progressive Party ticket. Jenny Vincent sang with Pete Seeger at the party’s nominating convention in Philadelphia, and Wallace later visited her in San Cristóbal, when this photo was taken.

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1 4 | Raices

Kit Carson A DIVISIVE FIGURE LONG AFTER HIS TIME

H

By Jim O’Donnell

istory can be uncomfortable. Likewise, the future can be more than a bit nerveracking. It is the future, however, that offers much more opportunity than the past ever will.

Most of us have a vague idea of who Christopher Houston “Kit” Carson (1809-1868) was as a historical figure. An illiterate man who abandoned American society for a life in the wilds of the West. He was at once a trapper, a scout, allegiant soldier, adventurer, loyal husband and father, devoted friend, cold-blooded killer and ultimately a legend whose life defines the America of “Manifest Destiny”.

One of the things that makes Kit Carson the human being so uncomfortable for us in the present is that his life represents the larger forces at play during a very difficult time in our nation’s history and certainly in the history of the Southwest. For some, he is a sort of national hero while for others he is the devil incarnate.

The fact is, he was neither devil nor hero. He was a man of his times and a figure of towering historical significance.

Manifest Destiny was not just an abstract theory that floated loosely through American society. It was rather a very powerful ideology that served as a basis for American imperialist expansion into The West. The idea of Manifest Destiny gifted Euro-Americans a racial superiority and assumed right to expropriate land, water and people.

Carson was of a nation that clung to this deeply-held, and faulted, ideology.

The debate over the name of our town’s most prominent park seems more about how we misunderstand the complexities of history, and particularly the history of the Southwest, than about Kit Carson the man. Sadly, we learn our nation’s history with clean-cut dates, battles

Courtesy Kit Carson Home and Museum

Christopher “Kit” Carson.

and speeches that are taught in a way meant to represent culture-wide and landscape-scale events. What is forgotten is that real live human beings and cultures make up that history, and those human beings and cultures are as complex as we are.

Instead of living in our past, the fierce discussion about the name of our park opens up the opportunity to better understand the complexities of Taos history and to answer, at least in part, the question of how we as a community want to be seen going forward.

The Southwest in those days was messy. The entire West was messy. It was a violent and morally bankrupt time defined by the clash of multiple cultures across an

incredibly diverse landscape. The forces at play in those times were were like nothing we experience today. As Hampton Sides so accurately described in his book “Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West,” low-level warfare reigned king across the Southwest and murder, torture, raiding, stealing, and abducting slaves defined daily existence in the Southwest — and it wasn’t just one group doing it to the rest. It was everyone doing it to each other.

“The Navajo were expert raiders who stole women, children, cattle, and especially sheep in seasonal attacks. In turn, the Spanish and the Pueblo Indians regularly went into Navajo country to retaliate by stealing Navajo women, children, cattle and sheep,” Sides told me.

The icing on the cake was the American juggernaught rolling its way over everything. There is a reason I tell my children that, in reality, the “good old days” were actually the “bad old days.” This was the time in which Kit Carson lived.

“What really motivated Carson was personal loyalty and tribal loyalty. If he was your friend, he was your friend for life,” Sides said. “If he befriended a tribe, that tribe was always an ally. The enemy of his friend was then his enemy.

This gets closer than anything I’ve found to explaining the way Carson operated.

“For example, he was the lifelong friend of the Utes, the Cheyenne, the Arapaho, and many other tribes,” Sides says.

“Later in life he joined another ‘tribe’ — the Spanish. The perennial enemy of the Spanish was the Navajo. So when he went to war against the Navajo, it meshed perfectly with his value system ... The Spanish and the Pueblos were absolutely in favor of Carson’s punitive campaign into Navajo country — and they actively participated in it.”

There is a reason I tell my children that, in reality, the “good old days” were actually the “bad old days.” This was the time in which Kit Carson lived.

See KIT CARSON, Page 16

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Courtesy Kit Carson Home and Museum

Kit Carson Home, sometime in the early 20th Century.

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Courtesy Kit Carson Home and Museum

A group of people in front of the Kit Carson Home and Museum, date unknown.

From KIT CARSON, Page 14

H

istory is complex. And while history is more often than not very instructive, it frequently serves as a Sisyphean weight on the back of the present and the future.

“The renaming of Kit Carson Memorial Park opened the door to the possibility of understanding how our history is remembered, represented and symbolized in Taos today,” says former Taos judge and long-time resident Peggy Nelson. “It has little or nothing to do with whether Kit Carson was a villain

or a hero, or with white washing or rewriting history. It has everything to do with hearing other voices as they interpret our history, coming to some common understanding and deciding as a community what the symbols of our future should be.

Whether you love him or hate him, Kit Carson is a potent symbol of American expansion, imperialism and Manifest Destiny. The deep fissures within our community and the legacies of history that live on, including loss of land, poverty, violence, suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, and cultural conflict tell me that we need a symbol that unites rather than divides the community.”

Sides doesn’t quite see it the same way.

GIVE INSPIRE HISTORY FAMILIES ENCOURAGE LEGACY

“Taos should simply accept that Carson was a substantial and actually quite fascinating figure in the town’s history. Love him or hate him, he’s simply there, an important cornerstone of this community’s past. You can’t sweep him under the rug and pretend he’s didn’t exist.”

Nor should we. But while we acknowledge the massive impact Carson had on the history of our nation, region and town we also have the opportunity to say the past is the past. And while we honor that past we nonetheless have the opportunity to project both to the world and to ourselves that we strive for a future community where all Taoseños have equal opportunity to thrive.

Fourteenth Annual

Tradiciones El camino a través del tiempo

A volunteer descends a ladder at the San Antonio del Rio Colorado church in Questa.

RAICES The families peppered throughout Northern New Mexico are exemplified by their character. They show up without asking. They stay without reward. And they ask for nothing in return. Their footprint is almost invisible yet their impression is long-lasting for years and decades to come....

Raices | 1 7

From left to right: Rancher Crestina Trujillo Armstrong, right, hands Brian Roberts a receipt for goats he and his brother, Wade, purchased for 4-H projects. 4-H is a tradition in the family and Brian formerly served as an ambassador for the state’s 4-H program; Brian and his goat bond in the barn. He understands that giving his livestock names as he and his brother have traditionally done over the years makes it harder when time comes to sell them at auction; At the homestead, Brian places his hands around an inset sketch of Spring Creek on a topographic map of the Carson National Forest.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch A GLIMPSE INTO THE LIFE OF THE ROBERTS BROTHERS

Photos essay by Tina Larkin • Text By Andrew Oxford

T

here may be no better demonstration of how sturdy Northern New Mexico’s agricultural roots really are than the annual Taos County Fair.

Each year’s 4-H exhibitions offer a glimpse at the next generation of farmers and ranchers who will continue a tradition that, in many cases, began with their ancestors centuries ago.

But raising cattle and tending fields is not exactly a young man’s game. The average American farmer is 57 years old and that number is rising. Young people appear to be leaving agriculture.

Who is New Mexico’s agricultural heritage depending on?

Photographer Tina Larkin sought to find out by getting to know two 4-H participants more intimately than a brief march around the auction ring allows.

a season in 4-H for two boys who she found had a close connection to the land.

Brian and Wade Roberts, 18 and 16, respectively, live much of the year with their family on their homestead in the Carson National Forest. The 158 acres known as Spring Creek were claimed by their great-grandfather, John Schofield.

Out at the family’s home, the Roberts brothers live much as the cowboys and farmers who came before them.

In this collection of photographs, Larkin documents

Photos continue on pages 18 and 19.

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1 8 | Raices

Clockwise, from top left: Wade’s hands perfectly frame the prestigious Taos County Fair Champion Exhibitor Analisa Alicia Martínez belt buckle, an award described as a true honor to the family’s agricultural heritage; Brian, left, and Wade walk their goats Athena and Loki to a trailer after they were purchased at the Taos County Fair livestock auction; and Wade says goodbye after selling his reserve champion steer, Buford, at the Taos County Fair livestock auction.

Roberto “Bobby” J. Gonzales

History.

State Representative District #42 Democrat Raices, “Roots” are the Foundation of the Rich Heritage of the People of Northern New Mexico.

State Representative Roberto “Bobby” J. Gonzales District 42, Democrat

Thank you Taos County for your ongoing support. If I may assist you please call 575-770-3178.

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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Raices | 1 9

Tina Larkin

Wade and Brian Roberts walk in the horse pasture at Spring Creek with their dog Ricochet.

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Artes

2 0 14 T R A D I C I O N E S | T H E TA O S N E W S

2 | Artes

Tina Larkin

Artes A CELEBRATION OF TAOS’ CREATIVE SPIRIT

Taos Volunteer, Anthony Martínez, in the room of the Taos Volunteer Fire Department that houses an impressive are collection. See the story on page 14.

P

eople from near and far know of Taos’ reputation as a world-class art destination. Even if they know very little about our corner of the world, the notion of Taos as an art colony is one kernel of knowledge tucked away in their brains.

And while art is not all we should be known for, it’s valid that the connotation exists throughout the planet. After all, we’ve had more than our share of great artists in Taos. Still do. That’s why Artes is one of the four pillars of Tradiciones, The Taos News’ four part series of publications that annually honors our place and history.

And while landscapes that celebrate our natural beauty are a big part of the art world in Taos, it’s also far from being the only thing people do here. Art of all kinds can be found in Taos. From impressionism to surrealism and large installation pieces to small, traditional retablos, the art world of Taos reaches into the past and usually brings those old ideas kicking and screaming into the future.

For instance, the sculpture of John Suazo is at once traditional and abstract, giving new lines to the ancient forms of Taos Pueblo. Teresa Dovalpage profiles Suazo on page 4.

Sometimes the life of the artist is worth as much of a discussion as the art itself. Such is the case of the late Bill Gersh, an idealistic and uncompromising visual artist, commune starter and dreamer. Virginia L. Clark looks back on Gersh’s life and work on page 18.

Other times, we wonder how the art got where it is. That’s why Yvonne Pesquera examines the impressive art collection at, of all places, the Taos Volunteer Fire Department on page 14.

And while visual art is certainly at the fore of Taos’ art colony reputation, as a group we certainly don’t shy away from the written word or the performing arts. The Brodsky Bookshop proprietor has been pushing the former on a mostly receptive populace for two decades. Joan Livingston discusses the so-called glamour of book store life, and the various modern-day pitfalls with Rick Smith on page 8.

Keeping with the written word, author William deBuys has honed his craft over four decades in his El Valle home.

Taking inspiration from the Northern New Mexico landscape, deBuys spoke with J.R. Logan about the author’s role as one of the first writers to tackle what is now known as

environmental history. See the story on page 12.

Speaking of our environment, Taos County would no doubt be a different place if not for the New Deal policies of the Franklin D. Roosevelt-era. Though we often don’t realize it, there are traces of New Deal architecture in our midst, including the Old Taos County Courthouse and its famous murals. Andrew Oxford digs through time on page 16.

And finally, what would we be without great performance art? Sakti Rinek has been blazing her own trail through life as a belly dancer extraordinaire. Her skills have taken her to Cairo and Syria and all over Europe, but her heart always remained close to Taos. Teresa Dovalpage has the story on page 6.

So while our reputation as an art destination is certainly deserved, it could also be argued that it’s also often misunderstood. The true depths of our artistic inclinations as a community can’t be explained easily. That’s why there can be no shortage of opportunities to celebrate the Artes.

— Andy Jones, special sections editor

Art of all kinds can be found in Taos. From impressionism to surrealism, and large installation pieces to small, traditional retablos, the art world of Taos reaches into the past and usually brings those old ideas kicking and screaming into the future.

Artes | 3

Photo by Geraint Smith

CONTENTS 6 4 Sakti Rinek:

Master sculptor John Suazo celebrates 40 years of art

8

Rick Smith: The art of book selling

From Arcadia to Cairo

By Teresa Dovalpage

By Teresa Dovalpage

By Joan Livingston

12

14

William deBuys: Crew chief at the El Valle ‘sentence factory’

Firehouse art: An important collection in the safest of hands

By J.R. Logan

By Yvonne Pesquera

16

18

By Andrew Oxford

By Virginia L. Clark

New Deal Era left more than memories in Taos

STAFF Robin Martin, owner • Chris Baker, publisher • Joan Livingston, editor • Chris Wood, advertising manager • Andy Jones, special sections editor Michelle M. Gutierrez, lead editorial designer • Ray Seale, production, technology and digital director • Ayleen Lopez, digital administrator • Katharine Egli and Tina Larkin, Virginia L. Clark, Joan Livingston, J.R. Logan and Andrew Oxford, staff writers CONTRIBUTORS Teresa Dovalpage,

writer •

Yvonne Pesquera,

‘Outlaw artist’ Bill Gersh: He did what he did to be a free spirit

photographers

writer

ON THE COVER Page 1: John Suazo works with a file to bring a piece of sculpture to life. Page 11: A wall of impressive art pieces at the Taos Volunteer Fire Department. Photos by Tina Larkin

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4 | Artes

Tina Larkin

Artist John Suazo steps back to examine his work.

Master sculptor John Suazo CELEBRATES 40 YEARS OF ART

honor roll three times.”

“It will be quite a sight,” Suazo said.

Though he didn’t pursue a career in education, Suazo is still He also carves ancient villages that have been abandoned interested in teaching and preserving his ancestral culture. for centuries. aos Pueblo sculptor John Suazo has received “I welcome those who want to come to my studio and multiple awards and distinctions. His “I use my intuition and add ghost dancers and other watch me work,” he said. “I have gone to many schools sculpture “Waiting for Grandfather” was figures from the past,” he said. and talked to the students about the art business and the installed at the University of Arizona in Giving voice to stones importance of creativity.”

Tucson in 2013. His work is in numerous For his outdoor pieces, Suazo uses limestone from museums and galleries throughout the The Rockefeller connection country and has also been exhibited in Russia and France.

Colorado, Texas and Kansas. For the indoor ones he prefers Suazo’s great-grandfather, Rafael Gomez, was Taos Pueblo gray, pink and white alabaster from Colorado and orange war chief in 1924 when John D. Rockefeller and his three Art runs in the family alabaster from Utah. sons came to visit the Pueblo during the summer. Gomez and Suazo’s grandfather, Jim Suazo, inspired the novel “The He likes to make knives and swords. The blades are carved other Pueblo men took them to the mountains and they all Man Who Killed the Deer” by Frank Waters. But this isn’t out of Moroccan selenite, a translucent stone that is supposed had a picnic. the only book about the Suazo family. “Pueblo Boy,” a to have healing properties. children’s book by Sylvia Starr and Joseph B. Wertz published “They also sang some Indian songs for them,” said Suazo. in 1938, contains pictures of Suazo’s mother and grandparents “When Rockefeller went back to New York, he wrote a “As a kid, I collected the knives that my father and uncles and details of their everyday lives in the Pueblo. would give me,” he said. “That went along with being a thank-you letter to my great-grandfather and sent him a man. Now they are used mostly for decoration. I have fun turquoise ring and a silk handkerchief in appreciation for “All this is part of my history,” Suazo says. “And what experimenting with them, but I prefer to focus on larger the wonderful time they had had. About five years ago, his motivates me to do my art.” grandson David Rockefeller came to visit Taos and I showed pieces.”

Suazo went to college expecting to become a teacher. He him the letter.

He ended up buying a mountain lion that I had excelled in sports and considered being a coach.

One of his larger sculptures is called “Eagle Shield” and had just carved.” weighs close to 300 pounds. Another, “She Walks Elegantly,” “But I kept changing majors,” he said. “I really didn’t know represents a Navajo woman with her hair done up in a classic what I wanted to do until one day, during my fourth year of Sources of inspiration Navajo bun. college, when I came home on a Christmas break and started Suazo’s inspiration comes from his ancestors’ history, carving. Right then, I knew I had found my true calling. My his personal experiences and surroundings, and his three “It took me about four days and 40 years to make it,” uncle Ralph encouraged me to follow that path. ” grandchildren.

Suazo said. “Forty years to learn how to complete it in four His uncle Ralph Suazo was also a sculptor who had “I see the smiles on their faces and they never fail to inspire days.” promoted the Native American art movement in Taos in the me,” he said. “I love to reveal through my sculptures this He never draws or plans his work in advance. ’50s and ’60s. feeling of security, peace and happiness that my grandkids “The stone talks to me,” he said. “And then we work radiate.”

“Our whole family is artistic,” said Suazo. “Around the together creating a story that fits it.” same time I began carving, first in wood and then in stone, Though Suazo has done many traditional pieces, today he “She Walks Elegantly” is a sheepherder who lived in the my mother, Juanita DuBray, started to do clay figures too.” tends to use a more abstract and experimental approach in his 1800s and is proud of her life and herself. art.

In 1985, DuBray was invited to do a show at the “The beauty of life makes her walk gracefully,” Suazo said.

Smithsonian Museum. She has also exhibited at the Heard “I am giving it a more modern feeling,” he said. “I even Museum in Phoenix, the Museum of New Mexico, the carve aliens now. There is something attractive and mysterious “I reflected that on the sculpture. When you see my pieces, I want you to think of a particular time and place, and how life Wheelwright Museum, and the Institute of American Indian about aliens; most people love them.” was back then.”

Art in Santa Fe. Suazo’s niece, Dawning Pollen Shorty, is also One of Suazo’s collectors just ordered 18 sculptures of known for her micaceous clay creations.

To see Suazo’s pieces in person, call him at (575) 758-1275 aliens, four to five feet high. They will be partially buried into or visit the Taos Pueblo Shops and the Jane Hamilton Fine “My son Warshaw is a great carver too,” said Suazo. “Now the ground to make them look as if they were coming out of he is going to engineering school in Gallup and has made the the hills.

Art Galleries in Tucson and Santa Fe.

T

By Teresa Dovalpage

Artes | 5

Tina Larkin

Clockwise, from top left: John Suazo’s toolbox; Suazo works on a piece in his studio.; Suazo walks out of his studio toward a sculpture; Suazo displays a portrait of a piece of stone; and Suazo chisels a new piece.

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6 | Artes

Tina Larkin

Sakti Rinek teaches belly dancing and still performs at special occasions and other events.

Sakti Rinek FROM ARCADIA TO CAIRO

B

By Teresa Dovalpage

elly dancer Sakti Rinek chose her own first name. It is a Hindu concept that roughly translates to “feminine cosmic energy.” It’s from Sanskrit, and she totally identifies with it.

In spite of the Indian origins of her name, Rinek says she always felt an unexplainable attraction for Egypt.

“I grew up as far from Egypt as you can get, in Arcadia, California, and yet, when I was a little girl, I became fascinated by that country,” she said. “I knew I would travel there someday, maybe as an archeologist, like Indiana Jones, but I ended up going as a belly dancer.”

The path that would take her to Egypt started in 1976 in Lama, New Mexico. Rinek had first moved to a commune in El Rito, and later settled up on the mountain with her two young children, Eli and Adam.

“I was suffering from severe back pain when I found a newspaper ad about belly dancing classes,” she said. “I didn’t know much about the dance then but was inspired to take them. I somehow knew that they would help me heal. It was a godsend.”

Her instructor was Maggie Kress, who used the Jamila Salimpour technique. The discipline of the dance gave Rinek spiritual and physical relief.

“I noticed a difference in my back in less than five

months because belly dancing works on your inner core,” she said. “It also had a therapeutic effect on my emotional health. I feel freer, happier and ready to take on more challenges. I was ready to start a new life.”

As part of her new life, Rinek started performing with Kress’ group, Troupe Sahda. After a year with them, she went solo, traveling to Japan and Taiwan.

“In the early ’80s, I performed in many night clubs and theaters there,” she said. “It was a fantastic experience.”

When she came back, Rinek wanted to stay closer to her teenaged children, so she got into the art business.

“I am a natural sales person and I love art,” she said.

“I worked in galleries here in Taos and in Scottsdale, Arizona, for 11 years. I kept performing, too, but I longed to devote more time and energy to my dance.”

She finally did.

“All good things happen in life if you focus on the positive side if it,” she said.

Dancing in Cairo

In 1991 Rinek moved to Cairo and signed a contract with Casino El-Nahr, where she hired her own band of musicians.

“I also had a great manager, Ahmed Khalil, because in Cairo, impresarios and night club owners don’t like to deal with women,” Rinek said. “Ahmed was like a guardian angel; he accompanied me to my tours and negotiated my contracts wisely.”

Rinek traveled all over the country and performed in different five-star clubs, ships, hotels, and private parties, especially weddings, until 1995.

“I was a headliner,” she said. “I did Egyptian style dancing, the double sword, which was a hit at the officers’ clubs, and my signature candle tray dance.”

Another act, candelabra dance is often performed as part of the bridal reception. Rinek would balance a threetier candelabrum on her head, while all the candles were ablaze.

“It can be a little dangerous,” she admits. “But, just like everything else, practice makes perfect. I never had a problem with it.”

Rinek took lessons from well-known Egyptian teachers like Nadia Hamdy, Mahmoud Reda and Raqia Hassan.

She began to tour Europe while still based in Cairo.

“I went to Germany and was impressed by the great respect they had for belly dancers,” she said. “Here it was just a seductive dance but there, they appreciated its artistic values. The same happened in Switzerland.”

What is belly dancing?

“It is a woman-empowering dance,” Rinek said when I asked her to define it. “It is a body, mind and spirit awareness experience. When you are belly dancing, you are moving energy in your chakras. Some people who come to my classes have energy blocks and dancing helps them to remove the obstacles.”

Artes | 7 “In Egypt, the movements are accompanied by refined music,there is an orchestra with violin, drums, and flutes, and the dance itself is quite intricate. In Turkey, the music and the dance are bouncier, more athletic and playful.” —Sakti Rinek

B

elly dancing is characterized by fluid and sensuous movements that keep the body in continuous motion. It started as women dancing for women, Rinek said, and later evolved as a performance and social art.

“At first, all the movements were symbolic,” she said. “By dancing and seeing others dance, women learned how to give birth, for example, since belly dancing movements require great abdominal muscle control.

When a woman was in labor, the others danced around her, helping her push. Later it became an enticement for men, but that was not what it used to be.”

There are different styles of belly dancing, depending on the region. Rinek favors the Egyptian technique, but has studied many others.

“In Egypt, the movements are accompanied by refined music,” she said. “There is an orchestra with violin, drums, and flutes, and the dance itself is quite intricate. In Turkey, the music and the dance are bouncier, more athletic and playful.”

Still moving

Today Rinek continues dancing but she also wears many different hats. She is the director at Ouray’s Fine Arts gallery and an enthusiastic farmer as well.

“I have a beautiful organic garden,” she said. “Farming has been a very important part of my life.”

She also teaches belly dance classes, workshops and private lessons.

“You have to keep moving in order to stay supple,” she said. “I offer beginner, intermediate and advance classes where students learn everything — finger cymbals, veil work, steps and combinations, and choreographies.”

She has a dancing studio at home and a troupe, Sakti and the A La Nar Dancers, which is available for parties and special occasions.

Rinek has also taught through the Taos Youth Ballet during its summer program, and a series of classes at Taos High School.

“All the girls loved it,” she said.

To find out more about Rinek, visit her at sakti-international.com.

Courtesy Sakti Rinek

Rinek refers to this as her “bliss shot,” taken at Casino El-Nahr in Cairo. While performing for a shiek, this photo was shot by an adoring fan.

We’ve Come a Long Way Baby...

2014 Questa Firemen’s Ball Saturday, October 25 KTAOS Solar Center The Questa Fire Department/Emergency Medical Services employs a small staff and a larger volunteer team of men and women who ensure the safety of the residents, businesses and communities in northern Taos County

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6:00 PM: Cocktails 7:00 PM: Dinner, catered by La Cocina de Taos 8:00 PM – Midnight: Dance to the music of the Dwayne Ortega Band Silent Auction $50.00/ticket Chevron Mining Questa Mine is proud to once again sponsor this important event and urges others to support this vital service by attending the 2014 Questa Fireman’s Ball.

To purchase tickets: 575-586-7616

8 | Artes

Tina Larkin

Rick Smith blows the harp during an informal jam session he hosts for friends at Brodsky Bookshop.

Rick Smith THE ART OF BOOK SELLING

I

By Joan Livingston

n what is a common scenario at Brodsky Bookshop, a customer will walk in requesting a touted mustread.

But then bookseller Rick Smith will talk with the person, learn their tastes and make a recommendation he feels would make for a more rewarding reading experience.

“The fun of this is that people come in with one idea and they leave with a totally different book,” he said.

It’s this sense of discovery that makes small, independent bookstores like Brodsky a personal and — given most of the store’s books are used — a serendipitous experience.

The shop, located at 226 Paseo del Pueblo Norte, is a refuge for book lovers. It is also a visitor center where Smith dispenses directions and local lore. Every other week, it hosts a jam session for local musicians, some of whom are authors.

Smith says a network of readers open to exploration is at the core of the book business. “We’re still discovering new

books. New books are being written,” he said. “I learn from my customers. They learn from me. We share. It’s really kind of perfect.”

Smith and his wife, Morris Witten, and their sons, Ryland Witten-Smith and Kirby Witten-Smith, moved to Taos in 1992 after visiting it numerous times.

At home

Like many Taos transplants, Smith and Witten quit their jobs, sold their home, gathered their assets and moved to Taos.

Smith grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana. He graduated in 1971 from Louisiana State University, where he majored in speech but concentrated on radio and television.

He worked for Louisiana public TV for 20 years as a cameraman, director, editor, and executive producer.

One of his memorable projects was a documentary on the “Louisiana Hayride,” a live radio show based in Shreveport from 1948 to 1960 — when country music exploded in popularity from its hillbilly roots. Many stars such as Hank Williams, Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash got their start on the show.

He worked three years on a documentary about the author Ernest J. Gaines. Smith calls Gaines an outstanding American story — a black man who grew up on a Southern plantation and became a noted writer with such works as “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pitman” and “A Lesson Before Dying.”

“We would come here and feel so much at home without being able to explain it,” Smith said. “ It was just the feel of the place.”

He and Witten bought Brodsky Bookshop, which was for sale following the death of Lee Brodsky, who founded it in 1977. Witten, who has a background in history and worked at Taos museums, is technically the store’s owner.

“It grows out of a love of books,” Smith said. “The reality behind the curtain is that it’s a business. Fortunately my wife is really good at organizing and being able to think things through in a logical way.”

“The fun of this is that people come in with one idea and they leave with a totally different book.” — Rick Smith

See SMITH, Page 10

Artes | 9

Tina Larkin

“The Lost Boys” get together for their jam session that takes place at Brodsky Bookshop every other week. Rick Smith, the store’s proprietor, can be seen playing guitar at the center of the photo.

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They play music and swap stories.

He says they’ll take a song and find another way to play it like a recent bluesy rendition of “Viva Las Vegas.”

“I looked at her and said ‘it would be easier to pay you’.”

From SMITH, Page 8

S

Is Smith cynical? A bit, he admits. He says fortunately his friend, Nichols, keeps steering him a positive direction.

mith says Witten is also well read. Willie, Brodsky’s resident cat, is named for Willie Stark, the protagonist in her favorite novel, “All the King’s Men,” by Robert Penn Warren.

After-hours jam

Smith’s hobby is music. He plays guitar, some mandolin and harmonica. He says he’s a decent blues slide guitar player.

Harsh realities

A map on the front window lists 11 bookstores once open in Taos. Eight are crossed out. It’s a statement about the harsh realities these days for independent bookshops.

When Smith and Witten took over Brodsky, about 80 percent of the books then were bought in independent bookstores. Now, it’s about a quarter of that amount.

Mega-chains and Internet sales, which Smith admits many indie bookstore owners didn’t take seriously, took their toll.

“We didn’t see the train or hear the train,” he said. “A lot of us just got run over.”

The next wave brought electronic books.

But he says people who like bookstores, love them.

Bookshops are refuges, houses of discovery, community centers and more.

“I don’t know how many people over the years have said ‘Oh, you’re living my dream.’ I give them a funny look and say ‘you know I can make dreams come true’,” Smith said.

While Brodsky is a local bookstore, Smith counts on tourists. Many are return customers.

“They remind me of the last time they were in, the book I recommended,” he said. “It is really affirming. They are refreshed by the experience of being here 30 to 40 minutes,

Every other Monday he hosts an after-hours jam at the bookstore with Nichols and author Sean Murphy — both on guitar. Others sit in like author Craig Smith, on accordion and mandolin, and Jim Bradley who plays bass for the band The Rifters.

Tina Larkin

From left, John Nichols, Jimmy Killingsworth, Morten Nilssen and Craig Smith are regulars at the jam session that happens every other week at Brodsky Bookshop.

sometimes longer. They love the cat.”

Most of the shop’s stock is used. The only new books are by regional authors such as John Nichols.

“My chances of having a specific book at a specific time are really small,” he said.

Now another fun part: virtually all the store’s books are from locals. Many are traded for store credit; others are outright donations.

They play music and swap stories. He says they’ll take a song and find another way to play it like a recent bluesy rendition of “Viva Las Vegas.”

“I call it a card game with guitars,” Smith said. “There’s no cigar smoking but there is whiskey drinking and beer drinking. It’s becomes sort of like a men’s group in a way. It’s an interest for me who sells books to listen to writers share ideas, which they inevitably do.”

Smith is a reader but not a writer. He keeps his tastes wide although he likes a good novel. He is a fan of Gaines “People bring them in and literally say this: ‘I want you to and Larry Watson — “Montana 1948” is a favorite. As for local writers, he enjoys the writing of Nichols and Rick have these books. I want you to stay in business’,” he said.

Collignon, whom he says owns a roofing company and He recalls the time a woman brought him a stack of writes half of his book in his truck. books, some valuable. She told him, “I don’t want anything “I really like that sense of discovery,” he said. “When the for them. I want two things. I want you to stay nice and I want you to stay in business.” chips are down, I will read a book about music.”

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2 0 14 T R A D I C I O N E S | T H E TA O S N E W S

Tina Larkin

Over the year, Taos artists have shown their appreciation for the work of The Taos Volunteer Fire Department by donating what they have, art.

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William deBuys CREW CHIEF AT THE EL VALLE ‘SENTENCE FACTORY’

By J.R. Logan

W

hen you ask author William deBuys why he’s spent four decades holed up in the tiny village of El Valle just south of Peñasco, his first inclination is to start talking about geese.

In the 1930s, Austrian ethologist Konrad Lorenz discovered that newly hatched goslings will “imprint” on the first large animal they see, forming an inviolable bond with what it perceives to be its natural caregiver. DeBuys, a Maryland native, says it’s a phenomenon to which he

can relate.

“I feel as though I came out here and I finally hatched,” says deBuys, now 64. He cradles a cup of black tea and stares out his dining room window, across a pasture of waist high grass, past yellow-tipped cottonwoods that line the river, toward the gray peaks in the distance. “I finally grew up. It took me longer than it should have. But when I did, I imprinted on this. On Northern New Mexico.”

DeBuys first took in that view in the early 1970s when he talked himself into a research assistant gig with Harvard professor Robert Coles. DeBuys was tasked with observing and writing about the people he met in the

J.R. Logan

William deBuys on his porch.

ancient hamlets there. His first assignment was the rough and tumble village of Truchas. But to an East Coaster still wet behind the ears, the place and the people were too alien to pretend to comprehend.

“I was so stunned by this landscape. By these mountains,” deBuys remembers. “I had never been west before, and Truchas is a pretty exposed location. You feel the power of the mountains everyday. I came to believe that it was absurd for me, as green as I was, to try to write about people here because I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t understand the land. And I had an intuition that I couldn’t write about the people until I understood something about the land.”

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Artes | 1 3 “My rule of thumb is that I have to make a good sentence before 8:30 in the morning.

If I do that, then I’ll have a productive day.”

—William deBuys

T

hat intuition was something of an epiphany that directed much of the work deBuys has done since — dissecting the relationship between man and place. In fact, his first book, “Enchantment and Exploitation: The Life and Hard Times of a New Mexico Mountain Range,” was meant to give him the foundation he needed to get his bearings in this strange new world. “‘Enchantment and Exploitation’ was trying to understand the land, and through that, to understand the cultures that are here,” deBuys says. “I needed the whole thing to answer my question, which was: ‘Where am I?’” The book is a comprehensive look at the human and natural history of Northern New Mexico, and the connection between the two. Today, the book is considered a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the region. But deBuys says it almost wasn’t published.

“I was fortunate that the book saw the light of day because it was a little bit too different for the tastes of senior people in the history profession back then,” deBuys says. While he realized people were inextricably linked to the land, scholars asked to peer review drafts of the book were left confused. DeBuys says many of them couldn’t figure out why a history writer spent so much time writing about the land.

“At the time, the phrase ‘environmental history’ was pretty much brand new,” deBuys says. “And the book came out and not many people paid attention to it, but slowly it became recognized as a significant work in environmental history, and it just built a readership over time.”

Now, for the book’s 30th anniversary, deBuys has been asked by the publisher to do a revised edition.

DeBuys is currently re-editing parts of the book, and he has added a chapter and a half to the book, primarily addressing the effects of climate change on the region. It’s an entertaining exercise — the seasoned writer in his 60s revising the work of (he jokes) a “brash, inappropriately self-confident young man.”

“It’s not that I reject the fellow that wrote that book,” deBuys says, careful to point out he’s proud of the work.

“But every chapter or so, there’s a place where I want to take him aside and say ‘You know, kid, we can do this a little better.’”

After completing his self-imposed study of Northern New Mexico 30 years ago, deBuys says he was much better qualified to tackle his next book. “River of Traps: A Village Life” is something of a memoir that began as a memorial to deBuy’s friend and teacher, Jacobo Romero.

“I had known Jacobo about as well as I had known anybody who was not blood kin to me,” deBuys says.

“We just spent an awful lot of time together.”

Romero introduced deBuys to life in the mountains when he first arrived. He taught him the art of irrigating by acequia, and spent hours telling stories and describing life as it was before the modern world crept into the isolated valley. In the winter, they would pass the time chatting at the kitchen table while Romero kept a fire burning hot in the wood stove.

“River of Traps”included many photographs by Alex Harris, who came to New Mexico and El Valle as another assitant to Coles. The book was well received and was a finalist for the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction.

(The award that year instead went to a massive work by

E. O. Wilson and Bert Hölldobler — “The Ants”).

More recently, deBuys has broadened the scope of his efforts beyond the narrow valley he calls home. His most recent published book, “A Great Aridness,” is a series of vignettes that describe the current and predicted effects of climate change on the American Southwest (spoiler alert — the outlook isn’t good).

His next project is entitled “The Last Unicorn: A Search for One of Earth’s Rarest Creatures.” The book, scheduled to be published next March, recounts a 2011 expedition into the jungles of Laos to search out an animal called a saola — an incredibly rare creature whose closest relative is wild cattle, but which looks more like a stocky deer with long, straight horns. DeBuys spent three weeks in the deep bush searching out the animal, and testing himself in some demanding conditions. DeBuys says the trip was challenging, but it paid off.

“It is the best work I’ve ever done,” deBuys says of “The Last Unicorn.” “It’s the best writing. It’s the best story. So I’m kind of eager.”

As he gets older, deBuys says it’s getting easier to finish a book. He refers to his office casita as the “sentence factory,” and he’s developed a strict routine to ensure he’s productive.

“My rule of thumb is that I have to make a good sentence before 8:30 in the morning. If I do that, then I’ll have a productive day,” deBuys says. “You learn how you operate as a writer and what it takes to get the words to flow. A lot of that is just what disciplines you need to follow to be in the right place so that you’re not sitting around waiting for the muse to tap you on the shoulder.

But you can sit down and summon the muse and say, ‘OK. Let’s get to work.’”

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Tina Larkin

Taos Volunteer, Anthony Martinez, in the room that houses the collection.

Katharine Egli

The Taos Volunteer Fire Department poses with the art collection inside the station.

Tina Larkin

The New Deal-era firehouse is a nice setting for such an impressive art collection.

Firehouse art AN IMPORTANT COLLECTION IN THE SAFEST OF HANDS

S

By Yvonne Pesquera

tate-of-the-art Pierce fire engines line the station bays of the Taos Volunteer Fire Department on Camino de la Placita. A 75-foot ladder truck, a 2,500-gallon tanker, 4-by-4 brush truck, engine, and even a highly compartmentalized heavy rescue truck are among the immaculately maintained vehicles that stand ready to be deployed at a moment’s notice.

And behind the gleaming firefighting apparatus, in the 1,200-square-foot Ross Hall, the Taos Volunteer Fire Department houses a uniquely Taos art collection.

Ever since the Fire Department was established in 1933, Taos artists have dropped by to donate a piece of artwork or two. The result? Hundreds of locally inspired paintings, photographs and sketches cover the walls from ceiling to floor.

The artwork is done in all styles and across time periods, with media ranging from oils to watercolors to pastels. There are additional pieces of sculpture and hand-carved dioramas in the collection.

“I am very proud of this unique art collection in our firehouse,” says Eddie Joe Abeyta, president of the board of directors. “We have all of these different people who come by and look at the art.”

At the turn of the last century (when no fire department existed), there was no viable option for saving burning houses.

Volunteers would show up and form a bucket brigade.

Taos artist Blanche C. Grant (1874-1948) was personally moved by these community tragedies. In her self-styled history book, “When Old Trails Were New: The Story of Taos,” Grant writes about the great fire which “swept away the whole north side of the plaza” on May 9, 1932. In fact, it was after this particular fire that she pushed to establish a volunteer fire department.

With the creation of the Taos Volunteer Fire Department, this showed a need for a unified water system –– which led to the creation of the municipality we know as the town of Taos (1934).

Grant’s peer set included the Taos Society of Artists, so she likely encouraged them to donate. Among the collection in the firehouse, one can find many of the same names found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Blumenschein, Berninghaus, Gaspard and Phillips. And more modern celebrities also grace the walls, including R.C. Gorman and Ray Vinella.

“The nature of the collection is amazing,” says Jina Brenneman, curator of exhibitions at the Harwood Museum of Art. “That’s because artists are often terrible editors. They give away pieces they don’t think will sell. But what they give away are ‘uniques’; pieces that are so different from their whole body

of work. Some of that you see at the firehouse.”

Today, the Taos Volunteer Fire Department has a long tradition of honor and pride serving the community. The team is made up of 32 firefighters; eight of whom are paid staff during business hours. But even for those salaried individuals –– after five o’clock, any time they serve on fires is all volunteer.

The Taos Volunteer Fire Department only holds one fundraising event a year: The Annual Fire Drive, which takes place on Oct. 10 this year. Known informally as “the boot drive” (because of the dollar bills motorists stuff into a fireman’s boot), this single annual drive raises enough funds to cover expenses for the whole year.

Capt. Brian Levine acknowledges, “The community really takes care of us, and shows us a lot of love.”

And the donations go right back into the community. For example, call volumes are going up. The Fire Department responds to structure, grass and vehicle fires, as well as medical assist, rescue and hazmat situations.

In addition, they test the 400 fire hydrants within town limits. They teach a fire safety program to over 1,200 Taos schoolchildren a year; seeing some of the same kids come back every year as they advance from grade to grade.

“We are on call all the time,” says Levine. “We have walked away from holiday meals and have spent time away from our families. But we take a lot of pride and honor in what we do.”

The artwork is done in all styles and across time periods, with media ranging from oils to watercolors to pastels. There are additional pieces of sculpture and hand-carved dioramas in the collection.

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Tina Larkin

The Taos Volunteer Fire Department boasts a serious art collection.

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Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Collection, LC-DIG-fsa-8b27337

New Deal era LEFT MORE THAN MEMORIES IN TAOS

An Arroyo Seco farmer participating in an agricultural rehabilitation program, as photographed by Arthur Rothstein in April 1936.

By Andrew Oxford

W

hen a writer working on a guidebook to New Mexico traveled through Taos in the 1930s, they described their emergence from the high road’s canyon in romantic terms:

“...the ascent is almost as thrilling as Prometheus’ cerulean adventure must have been to him when he climbed up into the land of the gods. The freshness and purity of the rarified atmosphere, the clearness of the light, making all colors pure and luminous, and the quietness, with the little villages lying peacefully, seeming asleep, the tall, blue mountains, screen-like, behind them.”

As beautiful as the trip may have been, it came during an ugly time in American history.

The Great Depression left rural communities in particularly poor economic shape.

The author was among many “on relief,” one of approximately 60 out-of-work writers dispatched across New Mexico by the Federal Writers Project to create a guidebook that would — it was hoped — entice tourists and boost local economies.

Their work, published in 1940 as “A Guide to the Colorful State,” endures as a nifty guide to local history and an interesting snapshot of the community approximately 70 years ago.

It is also a reminder of the New Deal’s legacy in New Mexico which, like a yellowing Social Security card, is easy to overlook.

But New Deal projects such as the Works Progress Administration, in many respects, shaped Taos and its surrounding communities.

As part of relief efforts during the Depression, the federal government paid for buildings that have now become familiar to local residents, blending in with newer and older styles of architecture.

Building for the future

Perhaps the most prominent example of the New Deal’s impact on Taos architecture is the Old County Courthouse, completed in 1934 with partial funding from the federal government. Ten frescoes in what was once the courtroom exemplify public artwork of the era.

The tempura-on-plaster works were created by the Taos Fresco Quartet comprised of Emil Bisttram, Ward Lockwood, Victor Higgins and Bert Phillips. With sand from Rinconada, work began in the fall of 1933 and concluded in the summer of 1934.

Each piece keeps to the theme of law and justice, the influence of the era’s politics evidenced by titles such as “Avarice Begets Crime,” “Justice Begets Content” and “Obedience Casts Out Fear.”

The largest fresco, created by Higgins and titled “Moses, the Law Giver,” was positioned over the judge’s bench.

Each painter went on to fame for other works but the Public Works of Art Project job, which paid $56 a month, was an economic lifeline for artists who were fortunate to have a job when few were buying their work.

In addition to the courthouse, the federal government funded a slew of building projects throughout Taos and communities around the county during the New Deal era.

New Deal programs built schools in Arroyo Hondo, Arroyo Seco, Cañon, El Prado, Llano Quemado, Questa, San Cristóbal and Talpa. Some, such as the schoolhouse in Talpa, have since become community centers. Others, such as parts of the Enos García Elementary campus, continue to serve as schools.

New Deal-era buildings still line what is now known as Civic Plaza Drive. The UNM-Taos building at the corner of Hinde Street, for example, was built in 1937 with $22,406 of Works Progress Administration money to serve as headquarters of the Carson National Forest.

Recognize granddad?

Approximately 175,000 images from the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information can be viewed online by visiting loc.gov/pictures/collection/fsa. Try searching the collection with terms such as “Taos” or “Questa.”

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Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Collection, LC-USW3-018760-C

A school in Questa, as photographed by John Collier in February 1943.

Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Collection, LC-USW3-015256-C

Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Collection, LC-USW3-014456-C

School children find Trampas on a globe. Photographed by John Collier in January 1943.

Dedication of a clinic in Peñasco, as photographed by John Collier in January 1943.

In Taos County, the photographers captured not only images of Northern New Mexico’s villages and towns but slices of their residents’ lives.

Roberto “Bobby” J. Gonzales

State Representative District #42 Democrat The Light, the Land and the People of our Community Make Taos a World-Class Arts Destination State Representative Roberto “Bobby” J. Gonzales District 42, Democrat

Several series of photographs follow the work of the Taos County Cooperative Health Association, including the trials and tribulations of serving patients in rural New Mexico.

Capturing “problem” photographs of challenges facing rural communities and “solution” photographs depicting the New Deal’s work, the unit’s work is part anthropological study and part propoganda.

Today, removed from the political context of Rooseveltera politics, the approximately 175,000 images depict a nation in transition. In the pictures of local school children standing outside new schools and nurses tending to patients at a clinic in Peñasco, you could see where Northern New Mexico was coming from and where it is going.

Quick Draw

The New Deal did not just leave a legacy of bricks in Taos, though. There is lots of film, too.

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, communities throughout Taos County were the subject of close study by photographers from the federal government.

A unit of photographers fanned out across the country during that time to document life in rural America for an agency founded as the Resettlement Administration in 1935, renamed the Farm Security Administration in 1937

the duties of its priest.

John Fullbright

Images of the past and future

and known as the Office of War Information in 1941 and 1942.

Some of the unit’s photographers, such as Dorothea Lange, created iconic images of the Great Depression.

While Lange worked in Río Arriba, Santa Fe and Harding counties, she did not visit Taos.

John Collier, who went on to become a prominent anthropologist, did. Arthur Rothstein and Russell Lee, who became well-known photographers in their own right, did as well.

In Taos County, the photographers captured not only images of Northern New Mexico’s villages and towns but slices of their residents’ lives.

One series of images, for example, documents a day in the home of Trampas’ majordomo.

Another series depicts services in the village’s church and

Geraint Smith

T

he Forest Service has since moved to Paseo Cruz Alta. Around the corner on Camino de la Placitas, however, another New Deal project — the Taos Volunteer Fire Department’s first station — continues to serve its original purpose.

Taos, where art is everywhere Indoor, outdoor, counter-culture, high-brow, on the walls, off-the-wall, on stage, in the parks, in your ears, projected on the sidewalks.

Thank you Taos County for your ongoing support. If I may assist you please call 575-770-3178.

Paid Political Advertisement

Quick Draw

Quick Draw

Quick Draw

Geraint Smith

Paid for by the Committee to Re-Elect Roberto “Bobby” J. Gonzales, Marcos Gonzales Treasurer

For a list of events and happenings, visit TAOS.org/fall2014

1 8 | Artes

‘Outlaw Artist’ Bill Gersh HE DID WHAT HE DID TO BE A FREE SPIRIT

Taos News File Photo

Bill Gersh in 1980.

T

By Virginia L. Clark

aos doesn’t cater to cowards. That’s Georgia Gersh’s peremptory summation of her famous, and rather infamous father, “Wild” Bill Gersh and his contemporaries.

Though “ferocious” (his own preferred descriptor), “outlaw artist” Gersh was widely appreciated for an unmistakable gentleness and compassion, as noted by Stephen Parks, commenting after Gersh’s sudden death in 1994, at the golden age 50.

“As ferocious as he could seem on the surface, he was the most lovable person I ever knew,” Parks told Tempo, upon Gersh’s death May 1994. “Gersh is a symbol of a way of life for artists that prevailed in Taos in the ’70s and ’80s. There was an idealism and devotion to his work. I will mourn the passing of that kind of commitment.”

If the ’60s were the heyday of free love in the world, the ’70s and ’80s was a bonfire of the vanities in the Taos art scene, which toasted the talents of Larry Bell, Ron Cooper, Ted Egri, Gus Foster, R.C. Gorman, Paul Pascarella, Ken Price and Jim Wagner, to name just a few among many, many more.

“There was tons of art, tons of openings and it was so fun,” daughter Georgia Gersh recalls fondly, noting too, unmitigated joy and freedom growing up on Magic Tortoise commune in Lama, some 20 miles north of Taos. Last April, Georgia Gersh opened Magpie, an artisan store and quasi gallery in Overland Ranch, four miles north of Taos Plaza.

“Granted, my sister Rachel has a different opinion about it, but I think growing up here gave me a really unique perspective,” Gersh says about her take on Taos, both culturally and as an art colony.

Though he dedicated himself to the art of living for the

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first two decades of his life and finally established himself as a consummate artist by his late 30s, Gersh lived the artist’s way early on.

Raised in Kerhonkson, N.Y, he earned an art education degree from State University of New York at New Paltz and parlayed that into teaching high school art in upstate New York, before characteristically throwing caution to the wind in 1968 and moving to Berkeley, Calif., freedom-central of hippiedom. But the chaos of the flower children took its toll in short order.

Painting and unloading bags of cement, and packaging factory salad dressing wasn’t even close to the ideal of artful living Gersh sought. After a short stint as an art therapist in a mental hospital he hurried off to Taos in 1970, where he co-founded the Reality Construction Company commune in Arroyo Hondo, later moving up to Lama, co-founding and building the Magic Tortoise Foundation with like-minded idealists.

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“W

e had four households living there on 40 acres that backed up to national forest, a communal garden, communal larder; we shopped at the old Amigos Co-op,” Georgia Gersh recalls. She and her older half-sister Rachel would leave the house after breakfast and come back at dinner. “It was a really wonderful, free, imaginative upbringing.”

And all the while Bill Gersh was building and adding on to the communal space, he was also avidly sculpting and painting and writing. His sketchbooks and journals have multiple entries daily — poetry and imagery, architectonics, ideas and found objects, all lying about in both psychic and physical creative tension. “I consider Bill the most dedicated all-around artist I know,” photographer and gallerist Chuck Henningsen is quoted in Tempo’s life review at Gersh’s death. “He was a poet and kept a journal.

His life was dedicated to art. Bill worked every day of his life. Better than anyone, he knew how to get in touch with creativity and knew what it means to inspire constant creativity.”

Taos News File Photo

“Native Fears,” an installation from Bill Gersh in 1991.

Taos News File Photo

Bill Gersh mingling with his art. Date unknown.

Painter, poet, parent and performance artist, Bill Gersh was an artists’ artist, dedicated to all aspects of creativity. Yet despite, or perhaps because of his rigorous standards, he did not enjoy widespread recognition or financial security from his art. Nonetheless, he worked his inner and outer lands of being-Bill, honestly and with integrity, in whatever mood or mind that suited him. He defined himself to Parks in a mid-’80s Artlines interview (artlinesarchive.blogspot.com/2011/07/bill-

Healt hy

gersh-outlaw-artist-goes-legit.html): “I want to make people more aware. Some people can deal with it, and we have a dialogue, others just call me crazy.

But I can’t categorize myself. If somebody wants to, fine. I build houses, I irrigate the alfalfa fields, I paint. I do whatever needs to be done so that I can be a free spirit.”

And Gersh’s legacy grows with each passing year, keeping Taos a cantankerous colony of creatives and other unfathomable dreamers.

A

Beaut iful

Smile is a

Smile

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2014 Taos Pueblo Governor, Clyde M. Romero Sr.

“Great Spirit, grant that I may not Criticize my neighbor until I have walked a mile in his moccasins.”

- Native American Proverb

Taos Mountain Casino is proud to honor those who both exemplify the best of the past and who help us weave it into the future. These people are our own links in what continues to be an unbroken circle of tradition at Taos Pueblo.

Photo: Rick Romancito

Citizens of the Year AND UNSUNG HEROES 2 0 14 T R A D I C I O N E S | T H E TA O S N E W S

2 0 14 T R A D I C I O N E S | T H E TA O S N E W S SECTION 1

Citizens of the Year: The Blake Family

SECTION 2 Louise Padilla Mary Spears Jean Nichols

SECTION 3 Lisa O’Brien Alex Medina Valorie Archuleta

SECTION 4 Jane Compton Tina Martinez

2 | Heroes

ONE FAMILY. 58 YEARS OF MEMORIES.

Thank you, Ernie, Rhoda and the Blake family.

www.skitaos.org

COMMITTEE INVOLVEMENT MAKES HEROES POSSIBLE

E

very year since 2001, The Taos News has honored a group of citizens for making notable contributions to the community.

As one might imagine, it takes some effort to seek out individuals who seek no attention. That’s why The Taos News employs another group of citizens for our annual Tradiciones focus group.

The 2014 committee included Eloy Jeantete, Esther García, Gordon Briner, Kathleen Michaels, Amanda Bissell, Gabriel Romero, Stella Mares McGinnis, Marilyn Farrow, Dolly Peralta, Elizabeth Crittenden Palacios and Joleen Montoya.

Congratulations on A JOB WELL DONE

In addition to myself, publisher Chris Baker, editor Joan Livingston and advertising manager Chris Wood were members of The Taos News staff in attendance. None of the paper’s staff members were involved in the selection process during the focus group.

The Blake Family

That said, the newspaper’s management team was responsible for the final selection of the Citizens of the Year, which were selected from nominees presented by the focus group.

and

The staff of The Taos News wants to thank the 2014 Tradiciones focus group for helping make this entire series possible.

— Andy Jones, special sections editor

Citizens of the Year Unsung Heroes of Taos!

Your commitment, hard work and perseverance have built a legacy for Taos’ future.

Photo by Geraint Smith

STAFF Robin Martin, owner • Chris Baker, publisher • Joan Livingston, editor • Chris Wood, advertising manager • Andy Jones, special sections editor • Michelle M. Gutierrez, lead editorial designer Ray Seale, production, technology and digital director • Ayleen Lopez, digital administrator • Tina Larkin and Rick Romancito, photographers • Elizabeth Cleary, Cody Hooks, Andy Jones, J.R. Logan, Robin Martin, Cody Olivas, Andrew Oxford and Rick Romancito,, staff writers CONTRIBUTORS Yvonne Pesquera,

“People’s Choice Award”

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writer

ON THE COVER Top: Peter Blake, Rhoda Blake, Wendy Stagg and Mickey Blake, photo by Tina Larkin.

Bottom, from left: Ernie, Rhoda, Mickey, and Peter and Wendy. Courtesy Taos Ski Valley

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Remember – “Hero” is a verb.

Please take one simple step now to support Taos County’s only domestic and sexual violence service provider and shelter.

Please support our Radiothon sponsors and contributors who support our services.

There is still time to give… at www.taoscav.org Send your check to CAV 945 Salazar Road Taos, NM 87571 Call 758-8082 to set up a recurring donation on your credit card.

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4 | Heroes

REDISCOVER TAOS THIS YEAR

We’ve had a busy summer here at Taos Ski Valley.

From breaking ground on new construction in our base area, to opening incredible lift-served mountain biking trails, expanding our hike-to terrain with the Wild West Glades, and building the all-new Kachina Peak Lift, it’s been a very exciting time for our resort and our community. And as the 2014 -15 winter season approaches, we’re finalizing plans for a year like no other. World-class terrain, events for all ages, ski school and guiding programs, and plenty more — all without the long lift lines and trappings of run-of-the-mill corporate resorts. We look forward to seeing you this year... It’s sure to be a season to remember!

AREA IMPROVEMENT HIGHLIGHTS: • New Kachina Peak Lift: - 1100 ft. lift (5 minute ride), topping out at 12,450 feet - Doubles TSV’s lift-accessed inbounds advanced terrain - One of the ski industry’s biggest developments of the year • Expanded hike-to terrain: Wild West Glades via West Basin Ridge • Improved, energy-efficient snowmaking upgrade: Will allow more open terrain earlier in the season • Remodeled favorites: Tenderfoot Katies, Rhoda’s and the Martini Tree • First phase of Base Area redevelopment: Includes improved parking-to-lift access with pedestrian-friendly streetcape, including shops and services

Heroes | 5

EARLY SEASON EVENTS CALENDAR 11/27

Opening Weekend Celebration

12/13

Get the Girls Out Day

Don’t miss the kick-off of the 2014 -15 winter season, as this will be a season to remember. Join us for a weekend full of fun and entertainment!

Calling girls of all ages! Grab those skis or boards and come celebrate K2’s International Women’s Ski Day — filled with friends, fun and plenty of activities. Cap the night off with the inspirational and action -packed ski film “Pretty Faces” by SheJumps.

12/20

19th Annual Brew Master’s Festival: Reward yourself after a big day on the slopes and indulge in regional beers and food from NM and beyond, while checking out the hottest 2014 -15 ski & snowboard lines.

12/20 12/21

Consumer Demo Days Dreaming of a new snowboard or skis for this season? Or curious about the latest gear design and technology? Come test the newest skis and snowboards from industry leaders — at no cost!

12 /24

Christmas Eve Torchlight Parade A true Taos tradition. There’s no better way to enjoy the cheer of the holiday season than with beautiful torchlights illuminating the Ski Valley!

12 / 31

New Years Eve Celebration Say farewell to 2014 and hello to 2015 with a spectacular torchlight parade and fireworks. Then dance into the New Year southwestern style with nationally acclaimed Radio La Chusma in the newly remodeled Martini Tree Bar!

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NEW THIS SEASON – START ‘EM YOUNG ( FOR FREE!) This year we’re trying out a fun way to introduce our amazing mountain to the kids. 4th, 5th, and 6th graders are invited to come to TSV December 13 -14 & 20 -21 for a day of lessons and skiing or snowboarding — on us! Offer includes lesson, ticket and rental. Don’t miss this awesome opportunity to kick off a lifelong love of winter sports. Register for free online at skitaos.org, or call 1- 800 -776 -1111 for more details.

6 | Heroes

Citizens of

HONORING THE BLAKE FAMILY’S CONTR

Heroes | 7

f the Year

Photos by Tina Larkin unless unless otherwise noted

Clockwise, from top left: Ernie Blake, date unknown (courtesy photo); Rhoda Blake, date unknown (Courtesy photo); Rhoda Blake, present-day; Mickey Blake, present-day; Peter Blake, present day; Wendy Blake, present-day; Peter and Wendy Blake playing on the mountain as youngsters (courtesy photo); and a young Mickey Blake displaying a perfectly formed snowball (courtesy photo).

RIBUTIONS TO NORTHERN NEW MEXICO

A

By Robin Martin

t peak season, Taos Ski Valley employs almost 650 people, including full- and parttimers and holiday staff. TSV records show the payroll is about $5.5 million a year.

It is an area famous worldwide for its steep slopes, fluffy powder and excellent ski school. The resort is known world-wide, yet it was started with the dreams, hard work and perseverance of one family — the Blakes.

Ernie and Rhoda Blake started the ski area in 1955. Son Mickey Blake said his parents were in love with New Mexico, and wanted to move here from the East Coast. They were looking for any kind of business: “My father knew how to ski, and that’s how it started.” Ernie began by managing Santa Fe Ski basin, then developed TSV.

See BLAKES, Page 8

8 | Heroes

Courtesy Photo

Three generations of Blakes celebrate the arrival of snowboarding at TSV on March 18, 2008.

In the early days, Ernie, Rhoda and their children did all the jobs that needed doing. Ernie sometimes answered the phone, saying “this is the janitor.”

Once there, skiers had to ride a steep surface lift up the mountain.

This first lift, built in 1955, was a T-bar. A wooden flange t’s not true that Ernie founded Taos Ski Valley. held behind skiers’ legs pulled them across the surface of the No, my mother did. He just took the credit,” snow. It was like riding an upside-down “T.” joked daughter Wendy Stagg.

There was so much untracked snow in those days that Ernie was the promoter. Rhoda was the people had to make very few turns, even on the steepest slopes. mechanical one, making sure lifts, rental skis The next year, a longer lift came from the Taos Winter and all other vital equipment worked. She laid Sports Club at Tres Ritos, east of what is now Sipapu Ski area. out the easier trails. Ernie laid out the steeper ones.

One of Mickey’s favorite memories is how generous the people In the early days the couple and their three children, of Taos were in helping the Blakes move it.

Mickey, Wendy and Peter, lived in a 14-foot travel trailer at the Ernie Santistevan of Kit Carson Electric Co-op helped reel base of the lift. The trailer had a table that turned into beds for up cable as the lift was dismantled for transportation; Ernie the two younger children and Mickey, the oldest, slept on a Martínez of the town of Taos water department cut bolts and bunk. Visitors slept on cots in the “hall.” took apart the towers; the Gonzáles family of Taos Gravel That first summer, when Mickey was 11, Wendy was 7, hauled the lift from the Peñasco Valley. Many other Taoseños and Peter was 4, their parents paid Mickey 50 cents an hour pitched in, directed by local doctor Al Rosen. to help clear a meadow where the base of the lift would be. He Helping Ernie assemble the lift were 16 men from subcontracted with his younger sister and brother at five or ten Taos Pueblo. In the snow, they carried the pieces on their cents an hour to help with the work. backs up what is now Al’s Run. Mickey said the crew tried Mickey remembers how the area was heavily wooded, with unsuccessfully to use a mule belonging to the Valencia family. many remains of the copper mining operations at Twining.

“But it was way smarter than the rest of us,” he said. Rhoda At that time, the Hondo Lodge and Taos Ski Valley remembers how it refused to work were synonymous, says Mickey. Rhoda remembers how she In those years “Taos died during the winter,” Mickey could see daylight through chinks in the lodge’s walls. Peter remembers. Locals were anxious to help build a business that remembers that the building was a log shell with a large and would provide jobs. He says that in subsequent years, the magnificent stone fireplace. The bricks in the building were family tried to repay the community for its help. made for the mines at Taos East, on the road to Twining.

A road was built to the top of the mountain in 1957. It It had been built as a hunting lodge, and never finished. In climbed up what is now White Feather, and then zigzagged its 1955 it was turned into a hotel by the Blakes and Twining Ski way down Al’s and Inferno runs.

Corporation.

Next, the Blakes bought another lift, this time from France.

Skiers would buy tickets at the Hondo Lodge and on Mickey remembers how the manufacturer, Jean Pomagalski, powder days, all ski valley personnel rushed out on the slopes. came across the Atlantic to supervise. It was to be the steepest Customers raised a flag at the Hondo, and the first person Poma lift ever built, and he was worried about the grade. down the mountain was obligated to stop and sell lift tickets.

Mickey remembers how, although he was older than 65, It took perseverance to get to the ski area. The road was unpaved until the early 1970s. In the early days it was winding Pomagalski shimmied up lift towers, without ladders or ropes.

Directed by Chilton Anderson, who was in later years a ski and either snowy, muddy or dusty. It crossed the river several instructor, they laid out all pieces of the lift in the parking lot. times. In some places it split into two tracks to go around a Then, in early October, it snowed three feet. The Blakes got tree.

From BLAKES, Page 7

“I

the lift running, but Wendy remembers how all winter, people kept coming in bringing pieces of the lift from the parking lot, asking “what’s this?”

In the early days, Anderson was not a good skier, but he was tall enough to reach up and replace the lift cable on the towers when it became dislodged. The Poma lift had a disk that skiers held between their legs, but didn’t sit down — it was supposed to pull them along the snow to the top. Rhoda is a small person, and remembers that because the lift was so steep and fast, it sometimes pulled her into the air. Each of the children had a special technique to keep from falling off.

Trail grooming then consisted of occasionally foot-packing the steeper slopes — skiers would ride the lift to the top and step down the hills sideways.

In the early days, Ernie, Rhoda and their children did all the jobs that needed doing. Ernie sometimes answered the phone, saying “this is the janitor.”

“Both my parents were ski instructors. One was a good one and it was not my father,” said Peter, who teaches skiing at the area today. The family has even produced a couple of thirdgeneration ski instructors.

In 1961 Taos Ski Valley built a Swiss Staedli chairlift to the top of Al’s Run and hired a full-time ski patrolman. They bought a Thiokol trail-grooming machine.

By the 1970s, the area had ski runs for all abilities, professional instructors and patrolmen, trail grooming equipment, hotels, and — during school vacations — lift lines. The road was finally paved in 1971.

The Blake family has grown. Mickey has four children and two grandchildren. Wendy has two children. Peter has seven children and six grandchildren.

The ski area has also grown. Today, it has 11 lifts — 12 beginning this winter with the addition of a new one to the top of Kachina Peak.

Hedge fund manager and conservationist Louis Bacon now owns TSV. But it was one family — with all odds stacked against them — that made the Ski Valley a success. Their efforts have made the entire region a better place. For that, the Blake family are this year’s Citizens of the Year.

Heroes | 9

The Blake family reflects ON THEIR LIVES AT TAOS SKI VALLEY

I

By Robin Martin

n August, I interviewed four of the five Blakes who were present at the founding of Taos Ski Valley. Only Ernie was not present. He died in 1989.

We met at the adobe home near Arroyo Seco belonging to Mickey Blake and his wife Ann. Rhoda’s house is farther north, in Des Montes. Peter lives near his mother, and maintains a stable of horses. Wendy and her husband Chris Stagg live at Taos Ski Valley.

Rhoda explained that she is “definitely retired,” for nine years now. She said she stopped skiing 12 years ago. Her children pointed out that she is 96 and has been smoking for 78 years.

Wendy said she is also retired, although her husband Chris is vice president for the new owners of the area, working with community relations and in the ski school. Wendy hikes, knits, reads and travels to see their children.

Mickey still works part-time at the ski area, “wrapping up things.” He is also researching old trails that lead into Taos.

Peter teaches skiing at TSV in the winter, and riding in the summer. In addition, he sells real estate.

I asked them all the same questions: Robin Martin: What is your earliest memory of the ski valley?

Rhoda Blake: The children trying to clear the field by the Hondo Lodge before anything else was built.

Wendy Stagg: Hanging out in summer: fishing, playing in the river. My early memories are not of winter.

Peter Blake: How the Hondo Lodge looked before the ski

area. It was a log shell. The area was very wooded.

PB: Porcupine.

Mickey: Driving up to the valley with my dad in his open Jeep on a very primitive, one-lane road that crossed the Río Hondo many times. Not all of the crossings boasted bridges.

But it was great fun ... in the summer. But in winter, the road was rarely plowed. Sometimes the Jeep would make it only as far as the Forest Service cabin near Taos East. We had to haul our supplies from there. My dad would lead the way and break track in the snow for the family.

RM: What is your least favorite run?

RM: What is your fondest memory of the ski valley?

RB: The early years, because it was very higgledy piggeldy.

MB: I have wonderful memories of my summers from about 1956-58. I was 12-14. My parents were in Santa Fe quite a bit, and they allowed me to stay on my own in the ski valley where I was free to explore as I wished. My horse, Velvet, and I knew practically every old mining trail and mine site.

WS: Summers as a kid.

PB: Summers riding in the valley, to Williams Lake and Bull of the Woods. Skiing during Christmas and spring break when I was a teenager.

They also recounted some sad times at the ski valley, such as the weeks at the end of Ernie’s life.

Mickey remembers climbing chair lift towers to chip off rime ice so the wheels would turn, being out in the bitter cold of early mornings with the wind blowing.

RM: What is your favorite ski run at Taos?

RB: Al’s, except you had to get out of the way of people coming up (on the surface lift).

WS: Porcupine, and the middle of Al’s.

MB: Porcupine.

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RB: The top of Al’s. I liked to ski around it. (Her detour through the woods was nicknamed Rhoda’s Revenge).

WS: North American.

MB: I’m not keen on Psychopath.

PB: I don’t have one. I like all the Ski Valley.

RM: Did Ernie ask the family to help name the ski trails?

All: No. RM: Who of her children is most like Rhoda?

All: Peter.

RM: Who is most like Ernie?

All: Mickey.

RM: What is the most important thing you would like your descendants to remember about the Ski Valley?

RB: That Ernie had a vision to do Taos.

PB: That both Ernie and Rhoda started TSV, and it took both of them to make it work. They did what they did because they loved it. They never saw that it would be a major ski resort, but built it because they loved what they were doing and the skiing. No one in the mid ’50s thought skiing would be big.

WS: I expect that at least through my grandchildren TSV will always be part of their lives, summer and winter ... It is really about a value system you share, the quiet joy of being on a mountain, summer or winter, as an integral part of life.

MB: That my parents built it from scratch when there was nothing.

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2 0 14 T R A D I C I O N E S | T H E TA O S N E W S

Tina Larkin

Taos High School family and consumer sciences, and culinary arts instructor Mary Spears laughs with Manage First students Jesus Perrez, 16 and Karina Acosta, 15 earlier this year. Manage First is a duel-credit course that was introduced last school year.

1 2 | Heroes

Tina Larkin

Louise Padilla inside San Antonio de Padua Catholic Church in Questa.

Louise Padilla A PROFILE OF FAITH AND SERVICE TO THE COMMUNITY

L

By Yvonne Pesquera

ouise Padilla is a lifelong Questa resident.

Married to George Padilla, she is the mother of two adult children, Dean Max Martínez and Kari Martínez. She is the daughter of Adonario and the late Petronila Gallegos.

She looks back on what inspired her to run for a seat on the Questa Village Council and says, “After 20 years of sitting around the kitchen table and complaining, I decided to put my words into action.”

In March 2000, Padilla became the first woman elected for

the village Council in Questa’s history.

She has always felt a passion for helping others. She lets her heart –– and her strong faith in God –– lead her to various causes where she can lend her wisdom and her skills.

Padilla’s first lead role in volunteerism began with Community Against Violence in 2000. She was grateful for this organization’s help at a time in her life when she needed it. And she felt compelled to give back to them. So Padilla became an annual speaker on their annual radiothon and she has helped organize fundraising teams.

“Abuse is abuse. We have to put an end to the violence,” says Padilla. “Any $5 donation goes a long way.”

Around the same time, Padilla became involved with Taos Feeds Taos. She began as the northern representative for distribution (for the communities of Questa, Cerro, Costilla and Amalia) and was eventually nominated to become a board member. Padilla is still involved in the annual distribution of donated food. But her role has now expanded to include taking applications.

“People need to eat and especially at Christmas time, we help them so that maybe they can put one extra present under the tree. You should see the appreciation of the people and the light in their eyes,” says Padilla.

When Padilla was a councilor, she was a strong supporter of the Questa Fire Department and Questa Police Department.

Heroes | 1 3

“I live my life giving back to God. Without Him, we are nothing; we have nothing.

I ask Him to remind me of that everyday.”

—Louise Padilla

“P

ublic safety is important. And I saw that the ambulance service was in financial trouble. We needed to keep it alive and still need to here in Questa,” she says.

In 2010, Padilla worked with former mayor, Esther García, and fellow councilor, Evelyn OrtegaCoggins, to launch “The Questa Mayor’s Charity Ball.”

“The first recipient of those financial donations was the medical services,” says Padilla. The annual event has since been renamed The Questa Firemen’s Charity Ball, with funds directed to the ambulance services that are very badly needed.

Padilla is also a member of the San Antonio del Rio Colorado Historical Preservation Group (S.A.R.C.H.P.).

Padilla helps with feeding of workers (on the restoration of San Antonio de Padua Church in Questa) as well as taking a lead in fundraising.

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For example she helped organize “The Have a Heart Charity Ball,” which takes place on Valentine’s Day every year, with the first one taking place in 2013 to fundraise for San Antonio de Padua Church’s restoration.

She is also vice president of the Friends of the Questa Public Library. She started out on the advisory board for the library and was grateful for the opportunity to provide input and support.

Padilla then left the advisory board of the library and moved over to the nonprofit Friends of the Questa Public Library because, she says, “We have already outgrown our current location and see the need for expansion.”

She also has a passion for the annual Veteran’s Healing Field of Honor, which is held every Memorial Day Weekend. This past year marked the 10th year. For the event, they fly 1,000 flags in a local pasture to honor veterans, past and present.

“As a Questa Village Councilor, I was involved for the first

five years in small ways, but for the past five years, I have taken a lead role in organizing the event,” says Padilla. “For veterans, I can’t say enough of the sacrifices they make for our freedom.

I’m speechless about it. And it’s not just for the soldier –– but the family left behind too.”

She explains that military service runs in her family of four brothers and five sisters. Her father, Adonario Gallegos, was a Marine who fought in World War II. He fought in Iwo Jima, the bloodiest battle in the Pacific theater. Padilla has three brothers who also answered the call to military duty and one brother who has answered the call of public servant.

“I don’t do any of these things by myself. I know I can pick up the phone and get the help that I need,” says Padilla.

“People are so giving and ready to help in any way they can.”

She explains, “I live my life giving back to God. Without Him, we are nothing; we have nothing. I ask Him to remind me of that everyday.”

THEN to NOW

Kit Carson Electric continues to keep the lights on.

575.758.2258 • 1.800.688.6780 • 118 Cruz Alta Rd., Taos • Mon.-Fri. • 8:00am - 4:30pm

1 4 | Heroes

Congratulations to the Blake Family and the Unsung Heroes

A great event inspires more than just the attendees.

It inspires the entire community.

At U.S. Bank, we are committed to making the communities in which we work and live a better place. Our commitment means supporting the programs and organizations that enrich the quality of life for our neighbors.

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Heroes | 1 5

Mary Spears OFFERING PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE

By Andy Jones | Photos by Tina Larkin

A

sk any student who’s taken one of Mary Spears’ independent living courses at Taos High School about the difference she has made in their lives, and you’ll likely receive an enthusiastically positive response.

But even though teaching was her first love, and something she’s obviously very good at, it took her a while to get into the classroom. That said, she’s been at it long enough to make more than a few positive impacts in the lives of her students, mostly through her efforts teaching practical life skills at the high school.

Spears and her husband, Bobby Joe, moved to Taos in 1979 and since then she has filled numerous roles in the community.

She worked in the tourism industry and served as the nutritionist for the WIC program, among other jobs, but fate wouldn’t allow her to stay away from the classroom.

After graduating from Bowling Green State University in Ohio (Spears’ home state), she was certified as a teacher. She soon took a job in Lubbock, Texas working in administrative roles at Texas Tech University. It was in Lubbock where she met Bobby Joe, who was working with his uncle in the construction field helping that city rebuild after a devastating tornado in the mid-’70s.

When the young couple moved to Taos (where Bobby Joe’s father and step-mom lived), Spears found out she’d have to take a test to become a teacher in New Mexico.

“I was too chicken to take the test,” she says. “I worked downtown for a while and cleaned houses at the Ski Valley, all the normal stuff you have to do.”

Finally though, after seven years with WIC and numerous other years answering questions from tourists, Spears did take the test. It turns out there was nothing to worry about after all.

“I did fine, and I got my license,” she says. After that, she served as a full-time substitute teacher for almost two years before the GRADS (Graduation, Reality and Dual-Role Skills) program position at Taos High School became available in 1997. The program, part of a state-wide initiative, features curriculum that focuses on the needs of pregnant and/or parenting teens.

“They hired me the night before my first day of work. I showed up and there were six girls who had 4- to 6-month-old babies and five of the girls were breast feeding,” Spears recalls. “It was a learning experience for all of us, but it was wonderful.”

Spears says that when budget cuts took a toll on the program the community stepped up, with groups such as First Steps and and MEN Inc.’s Young Fathers Group offering services. Overall, the program has been a success.

“We’re all connected now, so we know we’re catching most of them,” Spears says. “Luckily, we don’t have the high numbers that we used to have.”

After three years of running that program, Spears moved into the family and consumer science position. Nowadays, she teaches child development and independent living classes, which include personal finance, food and relationships. Her role also includes THS’ successful culinary arts program, which she heads with 2011 Unsung Hero Benjie Apodaca.

See SPEARS, Page 16

Mary Spears with students from the THS Culinary Arts Program.

2011 Unsung Hero, Benjie Apodaca

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Mary Spears at her summer job, working as an interagency dispatcher with the National Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Indian Affairs.

From SPEARS, Page 15

“M

rs. Spears has been a great mentor to me and the program,” Apodaca says.

“She’s always thinking about the kids and their safety, education and home values.”

“We’re proud of the culinary team,” Spears says. “Benjie and I make a great team. He’s the chef part and I’m the other part, and it’s fun.”

This year, Spears has begun another new program: Academic and Career Exploration (or ACE).

“It’s an internship program,” Spears says. “The kids in the gifted and talented programs have opportunities to gain work experience but up until now there hasn’t been anything for the rest of the kids.”

To develop the program, she got some help from a

teacher at Atrisco Heritage High School in Albuquerque, where one of her daughters taught for the last several years.

“I try to facilitate knowledge instead of just teaching,” Spears says. “One of the cool things about what I teach is that you can adjust based on what the kids need.”

Over the years, Spears has consistently adjusted based on the needs of not only her students, but the needs of her own children as well. She served as a Girl Scout troop leader when her oldest daughter, Jamie Huss, was a child and was involved in youth soccer and hockey when her other daughter, Rachel Clevenger, was taking part in youth athletics. In fact, when Clevenger was among the first Taos High School girls to take part in the school’s soccer program, Spears signed on as an assistant coach so the team would have a full staff.

“She’s a team player at the school,” Apodaca says. “She’s awesome.”

Spears extends that team attitude over to her summertime position as an interagency dispatcher for the Bureau of

Land Management, National Forest Service and Bureau of Indian Affairs. Bobby Joe was with the Taos Volunteer Fire Department for two decades and the family lived in the apartment above the downtown fire department for 19 years.

If asked about what gives her the most pride, she will cite the accomplishments of the two children who she and her husband raised in that firehouse. Huss and Clevenger are both biology teachers at Sandia Prep in Albuquerque and between the two of them, and their husbands, they have given Mary and Bobby Joe three grandchildren.

When she’s not teaching, dispatching or spending time with her grandchildren, Spears enjoys reading, gardening and the solitude of her and her husband’s home near Fred Baca Park.

“That’s pretty much me I guess,” she says in her humble Midwestern style. “Now that I’m getting older, I take it as it goes. I try to keep my personal integrity but also enjoy life a little bit.”

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Heroes | 1 7

Jean Nichols ‘UPCYCLING’ HER LIFE AND THE LIVES OF THOSE AROUND HER

J

By Elizabeth Cleary | Photos by Tina Larkin

ean Nichols wishes she could stop having so many ideas, because she’s having trouble finding time to turn them all into reality.

I met up with Nichols at the Peñasco headquarters of Art for the Heart, the art therapy organization she founded in 1996, where she talked about all of the projects with which she is involved. There is of course Art for the Heart, an 18-year-old entity that hosts events like Hersday, a weekly meeting where women get together and work on art projects, and the Glam Trash Fashion Show, an annual event where folks can showcase outfits made from discarded items.

See NICHOLS, Page 18

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1 8 | Heroes

Jean Nichols at this year’s Glam Trash in the John Dunn House Shops.

D

From NICHOLS, Page 17

ay to day, Art for the Heart operates as a gallery and consignment boutique of upcycled fashions. The organization also hosts inexpensive and free art classes, and encourages anyone to come in and give basket-weaving, ceramics, or any of the other classes a try. Art for the Heart aims to bring out the inner artist in people, and artists can use their newfound talents to create art to sell in the gallery.

Nichols also manages La Comunidad, an organization dedicated to serving the general needs of the Peñasco community. La Comunidad acts as the fiscal agent for the Picuris-Peñasco Community Coalition, which manages the food bank. Since La Comunidad took PPCC under its wing, Nichols has become much more involved in helping with the food bank.

Nichols recently bought an old van that she plans to fix up so she can sell art and clothing at events around the state. The Peñasco gallery doesn’t see much foot traffic, and she used to

have a little gallery space at the Old County Courthouse on Taos Plaza, but it became too expensive to maintain. The van would be a way to give members’ art work and fashions more exposure and potentially put more money into artists’ pockets, Nichols says.

Nichols also uses her collection of clothing and odds and ends to provide costume supplies to local theater companies.

Nichols is also working on introducing more locally farmed products into the boxes at the food bank.

“When I see a need, I just want to help,” she said.

Nichols has lived in Northern New Mexico since 1968. Like many who visit the area, Nichols fell in love with it as soon as she got here, and bought land and settled down here soon after. Nichols kept busy protesting the war and even attended Woodstock in 1969. But unlike her peers, Nichols wasn’t there to enjoy the music and everything else the festival had to offer — she was there working security with Wavy Gravy’s Hog Farm collective, and says she worked harder during those few days than she ever has in her life.

Before she founded Art for the Heart, Nichols was working

in Santa Fe at a publishing company. She then founded Art for the Heart under the sentiment that art is healing, and her aim was to bring art as therapy to the Peñasco community.

Every so often it becomes evident that Nichols has achieved what she set out to accomplish – to heal people by bringing out their inner artist – and Nichols says this is the most rewarding part of what she does. A woman came in having recently left a high-stress job and was weary and convinced she had no artistic abilities. Now, Nichols says, the woman is a skilled quilt maker and finds joy and peace in what she does.

At the gallery on the day I visit, mannequins sport partially finished “glam trash” outfits as Nichols gets ready for the annual fashion show, which started in 2001. One mannequin has on a skirt made from Lay’s potato chip bags. Another has a halter top made from a sheet of tiles Nichols says she found at the dump.

Another has on a neon yellow sack with the CBS News logo on it, and Nichols says she plans to make a shirt or a dress out of it.

Nichols says she feels “blessed” to live in a place as beautiful as Taos County, and feels the need to give back.

“I try to live with a sense of gratitude,” she says.

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Heroes | 1 9

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2 2 | Heroes

Lisa O’Brien LISTENING, LEARNING AND GETTING THINGS DONE

F

Story and photos by Rick Romancito

rom an early age, Lisa O’Brien learned an important lesson. By helping other people, you help yourself. That lesson has been woven through her life and it is why she was chosen to be one of this year’s Unsung Heroes.

“I was very excited and surprised,” O’Brien said about learning of the honor, bestowed by a committee of community representatives who have taken note of her efforts.

These efforts have involved her work with Child-Rite, the free adoption agency for special needs children and youth; the Taos Community Foundation, for which

she manages grant programs; Tri-County Children’s Advocates, for which she coordinated volunteer advocates; Taos Community Against Violence, and others going back to completion of her masters degree in social work from New Mexico Highlands University.

“It was definitely my family, my upbringing,” she said about the roots of her life in public service. “I’m from the Detroit area and my parents were very civicminded people, kind of hippie-radicals almost. So, local campaigns, school board elections, League of Women Voters, that all happened out of my house. That’s what I grew up around.”

This was in the 1970s, and for O’Brien, it was simply “what you did.”

Lisa O’Brien outside the Taos Community Foundation offices.

She said in elementary school she had a teacher who made a significant impact on how her life would turn out. “He encouraged me to organize a protest about something I was upset about at school. So, activism and social justice issues — I use that word now, but I didn’t know what that meant then — but there’s always been that piece in my family.”

That protest in the fourth grade revealed to her the cause and effect experience, that activism can result in change. And, for her, it all centers on the core value of “fairness.” As she entered the professional world, O’Brien said she sought out work that was “always around the under-served populations.” High school and college established that foundation and put her on the path of social work.

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Heroes | 2 3

O

Lisa O’Brien at her desk at the Taos Community Foundation.

’Brien admits that this is likely tied to her own personality traits. “I can remember when my son was 7 or 8 and we were walking into a school meeting and he said, ‘You know, mom, you don’t always have to raise your hand.’ And, I still remember that, because he was a good teacher for me at that time.” She said she learned from him that she doesn’t always have to coordinate the bake sale or become the chair of this committee or that.

“On the other hand, the work that I’ve done and the outreach that I’ve had in community has fed me. I love it,” she said. “I love working in groups, being in situations that sometimes can be challenging and take you out of your comfort zone.”

One of the tools she has become adept at using when

dealing with groups grappling with complicated issues, is an ability to find common ground.

“I think you find a place of being human with one another, that’s the first thing. Whether or not I’m in agreement with something that’s happening politically or in the community meeting or discussion, I — we’re all there for the right reasons, but we may have different ways of how to move something forward — but, it’s always passion and love and intent that brings people to the table.”

A lot of times, she said she relies on just sitting back and listening, following her intuition about when to push and times when letting go is more important. Last May, when PFLAG-Taos was having its second-annual award ceremony, O’Brien (an active member) was recognized for her “expertise, support, and open heart.”

“Lisa gave personal time in guiding the board of directors during the challenging transition in 2013 when Annouk (Ellis) was no longer able to lead,” according to PFLAG-Taos Board President Barbara J. Sheppard. “She is one of our strongest straight allies.”

Ellis passed away in December 2013. PFLAG is a national organization made up of “parents, families, friends, and straight allies united with people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered.”

O’Brien works in a variety of other groups in Taos, including Los Jardineros Garden Club and with a local quilting group. Along the way, she makes a lot of friends.

And, that, for anybody wondering how to get along in Taos, is how things get done here. This is a lesson O’Brien has taken to heart.

Photo’s by Sean Kelly Portraits, Taos, NM www.seankellyportraits.com

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2 4 | Heroes

Alex Medina FINDING WAYS TO HELP

By J.R. Logan | Photos by Tina Larkin

W

hen Alex Medina walked out of a movie a six years ago and saw a pile of unused popcorn in the movie theater popcorn machine, the first thing he thought of was finding someone who could use it.

“What do you do with that?” Medina asked the theater employee at the counter. “Would you consider giving it to the senior citizens?”

The theater said yes. And every week since, Medina has volunteered his time to pick up popcorn from Storyteller Cinemas and haul it over to the Ancianos building.

It’s a small gesture. But it means a lot to the seniors.

“It’s important to them to know there are people in the community that care for them, that they’re interested in what’s happening with them, and want to make their life a little more pleasant,” Medina says.

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“We knew what we had to do, in a certain time frame, and what milestones had to be met. And, hey, we did it.”

—Alex Medina

M

edina, 83, grew up in Des Montes but left Taos when he was 16 to join the Army Air Corps. He wound up working at the Army Depot in Pueblo, Colo. While there, he befriended an influential neighbor — Friedrich Duerr, a German-born NASA engineer who convinced Medina to move to Hunstville, Alab. and earn a degree in engineering. Medina ended up working with Duerr at NASA and was part of the team that developed rocket technology for the Saturn V rocket, which eventually delivered astronauts to the moon.

In the heat of the space race with the Russians, Medina says he was inspired by the brilliant people who’d been

assembled to get the job done. “There really wasn’t a lot of so-called pressure,” Medina says. “We knew what we had to do, in a certain time frame, and what milestones had to be met. And, hey, we did it.”

While Medina enjoyed his work, he said it was incredibly demanding. His seven-day-a-week schedule took away from time with his family.

That’s why, in 1976, at age 42, Medina moved back to Taos to build a house on some property he’d bought 20 years earlier. He’s dabbled in a few business ventures, but since coming home, Medina joined the Kiwanis Club, served on the Taos Municipal School Board, and has dedicated much of his time to finding ways he can help.

Jeanette García, a longtime Kiwanis member, says Medina stands out from the already big-hearted Kiwanis crowd. “He’s a really exceptional person. He’s done so much for the club and the community.” García says. “He always has ideas, he’s always thinking about ways to help somebody who might need help.”

For example, before hauling popcorn for the seniors, Medina spent eight years going to grocery store bakeries at the crack of dawn to pick up day-old pastries. He’d then take the treats to the Community Against Violence shelter bright and early.

See MEDINA, Page 26

Alex Medina in his corn field.

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2 6 | Heroes

Page Title

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With the the support support of of the the Jesuits, Jesuits, With McNichols worked worked with with the the AIDS AIDS Hospice Hospice McNichols team of of St. St. Vincent’s Vincent’s Hospital Hospital in in Manhattan.

Manhattan. team received aa master master of of fine fine arts arts from from Pratt Pratt received Institute in in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, N.Y. N.Y. Institute

Working with with Working AIDS patients AIDS patients McNichols said said about about the the time time he he gradugraduMcNichols ated from Pratt, AIDS — then called GRID ated from Pratt, AIDS — then called GRID for Gay-Related Gay-Related Immune Immune Deficiency Deficiency — — was was for in the news. in the news.

He received received aa call call from from Dignity, Dignity, aa Catholic Catholic He gay organization, organization, requesting requesting he he say say Mass Mass for for gay people with AIDS. He had just finished readpeople with AIDS. He had just finished reading aa book book about about Father Father Damien, Damien, who who worked worked ing with lepers in Hawaii, and given the hysteria with lepers in Hawaii, and given the hysteria then surrounding surrounding AIDS, AIDS, he he saw saw aa connection. connection. then “I knew when I got the call, this was not not “I knew when I got the call, this was Nichols blessing at at aa ichols aa blessing just aa Mass,” Mass,” he he said. said. just l in in Arroyo Arroyo Seco.

Seco.

Afterward, McNichols McNichols was was approached approached by by Afterward, od at it because he is “dyslexic people who asked that he help people they od at it because he is “dyslexic people who asked that he help people they ns.” knew who who had had AIDS. AIDS. The The first first man man he he visited visited s.” knew her dissuaded him from going was so weak his caregiver fed him drops of her dissuaded him from going was so weak his caregiver fed him drops of ary, McNichols went to college orange juice juice from from aa straw. straw. ary, McNichols went to college orange gain he heard the message to With the support of the the Jesuits, Jesuits, McNichols McNichols gain he heard the message to With the support of ile he he was was painting. painting. The The next next worked worked with with the the AIDS AIDS Hospice Hospice team team of of St. St. ile to the seminary in Florissant, Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan.

He met with to the seminary in Florissant, Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan. He met with people of of all all faiths faiths and and learned learned about about their their people dained as a Roman Catholic beliefs. dained as a Roman Catholic beliefs. ishop James Casey, in Denver, Sometimes he he saw saw patients patients for for only only one one ishop James Casey, in Denver, Sometimes visit, sometimes sometimes aa week week or or aa year. year. “I“I wanted wanted visit, studied philosophy, theology to talk with them,” he said.

“This was the very From MEDINA,theology Page 25 tudied philosophy, to talk with them,” he said. “This was the very ouis University, Boston College, end of of their their lives.” lives.” ouis University, Boston College, end sity, and Weston School of sity, and Weston School ofedina says many of the women and ambridge, Mass. In In 1983 1983 he he Father Bill continues onin page 14 14 ambridge, Mass.

Father continues on page families there hadBill spent the night terrible anguish and fear. Someone like Medina coming by with a box of donuts was often a welcome surprise.

M

Alex Medina, pictured with his Kiwanis club certificate of achievement and a framed picture and article of himself that appeared in an issue of Kiwanis magazine.

“At that point there’s so much tension in their life. So much uncertainty. They didn’t know what they were going to do,” Medina says. “I could see the appreciation in their faces — the realization that there’s a community out there that is thinking about them. That somebody cares.”

García says in all the years she’s known Medina, he’s always been humble about his efforts. “He’s never looking for any recognition,” García says. “He never thinks that

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he’s done anything big. But he has. When it comes to volunteering, he’s there and ready to go.”

Eloy Jeantete, another Kiwanian, says the time Medina puts into delivering popcorn week after week is an example of his dedication to service. “It shows a lot about Alex, the way he cares for elderly people and takes the time to do such a thing,” Jeantete says. “He’s a very generous guy.”

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San Antonio de Rio Church Historical Restoration Taos Feeds Taos Questa Citizens Ditch Association J.D. Powers Powers says says J.D.

“Chevrolet wins wins “Chevrolet the most most of of any any the manufacturer.” manufacturer.”

Community Against Violence Questa Public Library Village of Questa Councilor (12 years) Questa Fire Department Support Group Questa Senior Center UNM-Taos student “When in doubt, ask Louise to help”

says says says

2014 2014 Silverado Silverado 2014 Silverado "Best "Best Truck Truck Ever” Ever” "Best Truck Ever”

Heroes | 2 7 TONY JOJOLA’S BEAR FETISHES ARE SYNONYMOUS WITH THE UNSUNG HERO

F

or the 14th year, as long as Tradiciones has been an annual publication put out by The Taos News, our Citizens of the Year and Unsung Heroes will be honored with a special award.

And just as it was in 2001, the honorees in 2014 will receive a one-of-a-kind glass bear fetish, courtesy of Isleta Pueblo artist, Tony Jojola. The bears are symbolic of the passion and wisdom that is reflected in the honorees each year.

"To a lot of American Indians [the bear] has a lot of meaning, about strength and courage, power and wisdom — a lot of attributes of the hero," Jojola has said about the significance of the award.

Bear fetishes are unique in the culture of New Mexico's Pueblos, and according to Zuni legend, the bear fetish is the guardian of the West, with power to heal and

“I like the Shared Table, because you might not think you need anything, but you just might.”

-- Taos 4th grader

transform human passions into wisdom.

Jojola has been making the bear fetishes since 1986, 15 years before they would become the symbol of the Unsung Hero.

The artist has worked in his field since 1975, when he was a student at the Institute of American Indian Arts of Santa Fe. Jojola also studied at Haystack Mt. School of Crafts in Maine, on a scholarship as an artist-inresidency.

He went on to an internship with the famous glass artist, Dale Chihuly (he later joined Chihuly's team of artists full time). Jojola came to Taos in 1996 to teach at the Taos Glass Arts studio at Taos

Economic Development Corp. He was also an instructor at Chihuly's Hilltop Artists program in Tacoma, Wash.

Chris Baker, publisher of The Taos News, and creator of the Tradiciones series, says it's always a pleasure to see the bears in homes and on desks around town.

“The recipients always tell me the same thing. ‘I have received a lot of awards and honors, but being named a hero is on the top of that list.’ This is a special award,” Baker says.

Jojola's work can be found in the permanent collections at the Denver Art Museum and the Heard Museum in Arizona.

Make the Commitment to Help

T he Shared Table’s

20 FOR 20 CAMPAIGN In Celebration of 20 Years of Giving, we’re asking you to help by donating: $20 for 20 years $50 for 20 years $100 for 20 years $200 for 20 years

Whatever you can spare -- Thank You!!

Checks payable to: Shared Table, PO Box 895, Ranchos de Taos, NM 87557

T he Shared Table

Providing food, health-care items, school supplies and good-will (2nd and 4th Wednesdays, every month, all year long @ El Pueblito Methodist Church and Ranchos Presbyterian Church)

Steve Wiard, Director,

BE A HERO Celebrate Diversity

575-758-3166

stevewiard@q.com

Taos Lions Club congratulates

Jane Compton, O.D.

for her efforts in directing & helping to make the Lions KidSight & Adult Vision Programs a Taos Success Story...

KidSight Program

Annually 85% of all students, PreK through 3rd grade, from 23 schools are screened, with hundreds of children being referred for treatment

Adult Vision Program in 2014 18 eye exams/glasses 1 cataract surgery

BE WHO YOU ARE. LOVE WHO YOU LOVE.

Together as a community we work toward full inclusion and acceptance of our rich diversity.

• Supporting ALL Families • Educating our Community through our Speakers Bureau, Scholarship Program & Monthly Meetings • Advocating Equality & Acceptance for ALL • BECOME A MEMBER TODAY!

Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender People Visit our website: pflagtaos.org or email us at: pflagtaos@gmail.com

We are looking for people just like you to join our Lions Club organization, to help in our ongoing efforts in making Taos a great place to live. For more info contact Andy Johnson, Membership Director at 575-776-1957 or email alfordjohnson@taosnet.com Funded in part by:

2 8 | Heroes

Valorie Archuleta PAYING BACK THE COMMUNITY BY HELPING EVERY ONE SHE CAN

By Cody Olivas | Photos by Tina Larkin

F

or the last four years, one day the week before school starts, Valorie Archuleta has given free haircuts to kids at her salon, It’s a Small World.

The first couple of years she said between 30 and 40 kids came in and got a hair cut. Then 50 kids came. This year 70 kids came in and got a free hair cut from her and Katrina Rivera. It’s mostly for elementary kids, but she hasn’t turned any older kids down who needed a haircut either. With so many people coming in, she gives them hot dogs and bottled water while they wait.

“I was a single parent,” Archuleta said. “If I wasn’t a hair dresser, haircuts would have been one of the last things to get — after clothes and supplies — and the last thing is one of the hardest to come up with.”

Helping people is something that she likes to do; it makes her happy. It’s also her way of thanking everybody who has helped her when she needed it.

“When my daughter got ill, the community helped me out a bunch,” Archuleta said.

Her daughter Arianna needed her first spine surgery six years ago. Archuleta had to quit her job to take care of her because Arianna needed 24-hour care for three months.

A LEGACY OF SERVICE AFTER 20 YEARS OF SERVICE, ROCKY MOUNTAIN YOUTH CORPS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR CARL COLONIUS IS NGING HANGING UP HIS WORK BOOTS.

Photo by Tina Larkin

Carl’s passion for service built the Corps from the ground up, inspiring over 2,000 youth through his years of connecting community with youth.

A true success story of a corps member who has worked his way up, Ben Thomas is taking over Taos’ largest service organization.

As the faces change, RMYC’s mission remains steadfast: inspiring young adults to make a difference in their community.

1203 King Drive #3, Taos | 575.751.1420 | www.youthcorps.org

Heroes | 2 9

S

ince she had to quit her job at a different salon, Archuleta had a bake sale to raise some money. She also had a benefit dance — and one of her daughter’s favorite bands, Albuquerque’s Sorela, came up and played for free to help them out. People she didn’t even know also dropped off checks to help her out after reading about it in the dance in The Taos News.

“Without that help, I wouldn’t have been able to survive,” Archuleta said. “There’s no way I could go around thanking everybody so it’s my way of giving back.”

Giving away free haircuts is just one way Archuleta has tried to give back.

Archuleta has let many people hold bake sales in front of her salon for causes she felt have been worthy. Local dance teams have raised money there so they could travel to competitions.

People needing help with medical bills have done the same, like when her cousin was in a bad motorcycle accident.

Archuleta has often donated her day’s wages to help them out too.

Archuleta was born in Covina, California. She moved to Taos 20 years ago when she was 16. Her great grandparents lived in

for the past 19 years, she said her clientele has become almost like her family.

“It’s not like a real job,” she said. “I come in and chit chat all day, make someone happy and then it’s time to go home.”

Valorie Archuleta gives a young customer a trim as more filter into her salon, It’s a Small World Salon & Boutique, to receive free back-to-school haircuts.

Arroyo Hondo and her mom brought her here every summer to visit. When Archuleta moved to Taos, however, she was all by herself.

She stayed with cousins. At first, she attended high school, but then left and studied at beauty school instead, at Parks College in Albuquerque. After graduating, she got a job working in Chris Medina’s salon. Years later, Medina came and worked at her salon. He passed away in March, but Archuleta isn’t ready to rent out his space just yet.

When a client is struggling with something financially, she’s often given them a free haircut so they have one less thing to worry about.

“Anything I do for someone else, in my eyes it’s not a big deal,” Archuleta said. “I think we should all help each other.

There are so many people in this community who struggle.”

She described Taos as a “different world” where she’ll often meet someone new and by the end of the conversation they’re hugging.

Sometimes she has even given away her kids’ lunches to homeless people, and then told her kids she’d get them Her salon is a place where she’s part hair stylist, part nail artist, something else later. Her generosity sometimes causes her mom to caution her. “You’re too nice,” her mom says. part permanent-cosmetic tattooist and part psychiatrist.

“I get to hear all kinds of stuff,” she said. Letting her clients relax while she listens to their stories and cuts their hair usually brightens their days. After cutting many of the same people’s hair

For Archuleta, however, giving is a reward.

“I just want to do it,” Archuleta said. “My favorite part is doing something for someone else and making them happy.”

For Archuleta, however, giving is a reward.

3 0 | Heroes PAST CITIZENS OF THE YEAR AND UNSUNG HEROES 2001 Citizen of the Year: Luis Reyes Unsung Heroes: Shelley Bahr Paul Bernal Beatríz Gonzáles Nancy Jenkins Ida Martínez Celina Salazar Larry Schreiber Stephen Wiard Fred Winter

2002 Citizen of the Year: Eloy Jeantete Unsung Heroes: Paulie Burt Martha Dick Shawn Duran Lucy Hines Palemón Martínez Theresa and Rúben Martínez Joleen Montoya Mary Olguin John Randall 2003 Citizen of the Year: Nick and Bonnie Branchal Unsung Heroes: Richard Archuleta Elizabeth Gilmore Bruce Gomez Jane Mingenbach Patty Mortenson and Terry Badhand Cynthia Rael-Vigil Guadalupe Tafoya Bernie Torres Ted Wiard

2004 Citizen of the Year: Tony Reyna Unsung Heroes: Charlie Anderson Connie Archuleta Stephen Cetrulo Victor Chavez Ernestine and Francis Córdova Clay Farrell Dee Lovato Jeannie Masters Rosemarie Packard 2005 Citizen of the Year: Art and Susan Bachrach Unsung Heroes: Mardoqueo Chacón Juan “Johnny” Devargas Carmen Lieurance Ernie and Frutoso López Roy Madrid Betsy Martínez Isabel Rendón Johnny Sisneros Dr. Bud Wilson

2006 Citizen of the Year: Jenny Vincent Unsung Heroes: Francisco Córdova Telesfor González John Holland Vishu Magee Juan Martínez Luís C. Martínez Becky Miera Gabriel Romero Snider Sloan 2007 Citizen of the Year: Jake Mossman Jr. Unsung Heroes: Chilton and Judy Anderson Cindy Cross Shirley and Jerry Lujan Albino Martínez Max Martínez Ted Martínez Irene Párraz Corina Santisteven Michael and Sylvia Torrez

2008 Citizen of the Year: Cid and Betty Backer Unsung Heroes: Crestina Armstrong Trujillo Mario Barela Art Coca Mike Concha Rose Cordova Jeanelle Livingston Christina Masoliver Jake Mossman Sr. Nita Murphy 2009 Citizen of the Year: Rebeca Romero Rainey Unsung Heroes: Billy and Theresa Archuleta Carolina Domínguez Eddie Grant Mary Trujillo Mascareñas Connie Ochoa Marie Reyna Lawrence Vargas Frank Wells

2010 Citizen of the Year: Vishu Magee Unsung Heroes: Candido Domínguez Esther García Michael Hensley Cherry Montaño Mish Rosette Patrick Romero Charlene Tamayó Feloniz Trujillo Malinda Williams 2011 Citizen of the Year: Jim Fambro Unsung Heroes: Benjie Apodaca Patrick Delosier Cyndi Howell Chavi Petersen Mary Alice Winter Siena Sanderson Alipio Mondragón

2012 Citizens of the Year: Mary and Jim Gilroy Unsung Heroes: Marilyn Farrow Dennis Hedges Pat Heinen Judy Hofer Phyllis Nichols Loretta Ortiz y Pino Dolly Peralta Lillian Romero 2013 Citizen of the Year: Patricia Michaels Unsung Heroes: Edy Anderson Cynthia Burt Josh Casali and Mark Ortega Maria Cintas Father William Hart McNichols JoAnn Ortiz Effie Romero Fabi Romero

Roberto “Bobby” J. Gonzales

State Representative District #42 Democrat Congratulations to the 2014 Citizens of the Year and Unsung Heroes Your hard work and commitment make Taos the special place it is.

State Representative Roberto “Bobby” J. Gonzales District 42, Democrat

Thank you Taos County for your ongoing support. If I may assist you please call 575-770-3178.

Paid Political Advertisement

Paid for by the Committee to Re-Elect Roberto “Bobby” J. Gonzales, Marcos Gonzales Treasurer

You Can Be A Hero Too Bring your own bags when you shop at Cid’s and we contribute 10 cents for each bag to a non-profit in our community. Through your participation we donated over $20,000 last year to help them with their valuable work.

623 Paseo del Pueblo Norte • Taos www.cidsfoodmarket.com • 575-758-1148

VOTE

Saving the Day, One Car at a Time.

From emergency repairs to our Women’s Car Care Clinics, we’re always here to keep you informed, safe and on the road.

RONALD G. MONTEZ ON TIME. RELIABLE. TRUSTWORTHY.

Using only original equipment manufacturer parts, all of our maintenance services meet or exceed warranty requirements.

575.758.1658 1314 Paseo del Pueblo Sur

FOR TAOS COUNTY SHERIFF

I am humbly asking for your vote on Nov. 4th 2014.

I am a proud Taoseño who will continue to serve our community with the utmost integrity and unbiased leadership.

Humildemente pido su voto el 4 de noviembre de 2014.

Soy un Taoseño orgulloso que continuara sirviendo a nuestra comunidad con la mayor integridad y liderazgo Imparcial • NEW MEXICO LAW ENFORMCEMENT ACADEMY CERTIFIED: LAW ENFORCEMENT (25 Years) E911 TELECOMMUNICATION OPERATOR (Valedictorian) • RETIRED POLICE CAPTAIN ASSIST ANT CHIEF • SERGEANT TAOS POLICE DEPARTMENT • FBI NATIONAL ACADEMY GRADUATE • RECEIPITANT OF TOWN OF TAOS MEDAL OF VALOR • VETERAN OF THE US AlR FORCE • TAOS HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATE

Serving Taos since 1974 Paid for by the Committee to Elect Ronald G. Montez Taos County Sheriff

Heroes

Heroes | 3 1

2 0 14 T R A D I C I O N E S | T H E TA O S N E W S

Tina Larkin

Jane Compton in her office.

3 2 | Heroes

Jane Compton ‘NOT JUST EYE CARE’

E

By Andrew Oxford | Photos by Tina Larkin

ven as an optometrist, much of Jane Compton’s work concerns the ears.

Talking, listening and building a rapport with the community she has called home since 1984 are part of what endear her to the job.

“There are so many interesting people here, whether it is people whose families have been here 400 years or people who moved here last week,” Compton says.

And many of them pass through the doors of her office on Paseo del Pueblo Sur. Chosen as one of this year’s Unsung Heroes, Compton can’t turn a blind eye to the reality that many local residents continue to live without health care. She has partnered with optometrists throughout the community, as well as the Taos Lions Club, to make its eye screening program a success.

See COMPTON, Page 35

“Heroes are never perfect, but they’re brave, they’re authentic, they’re courageous, determined, discreet, and they’ve got grit.”

- Wade Davis

I’m honored to serve Taos County’s community of heroes.

Your dedication and tireless work inspires my service.

Jim Fambro

Taos County Commissioner District #1 “Still Serving You”

PAID FOR BY COMMITTEE TO ELECT JIM FAMBRO -MARIETTA FAMBRO TREASURER

W

Heroes Our Community’s Humble Hero

hen, I first heard about a little town of no more than 6,000 people in the Northern tip of New Mexico, I hesitated as the image of a single stop light, and a silent, tumbleweed dancing through the empty streets flashed before my eyes.

It took me one visit to realize that Taos was nothing like the picture I had created. It doesn’t take long for one to discover that Taos is truly unique. The eclectic community of artist, educators, authors, crafts men and women, poets, musicians, business people and renegades bring their unique gifts to the community.

Taos’ beauty is encompassed in its rich history and pueblo architecture, set against an amazing backdrop of Taos Mountains. The soul of New Mexico is said to be found here.

Inevitably captivated by the myriad of outdoor activities such as the Rio Grande Gorge, the Enchanted Circle, and Taos Ski Valley, I soon called this home.

Dyke, contributing to carton series, such as; Journey to the Center of Earth, Aquaman, Batman, and Spiderman, and being showcased by American Express, Ray Vinella is an incredibly humble man who is extraordinarily rich with love. I was intrigued by his description of Disney as a vain man, and Dick Van Dyke, who he described as a “great guy.” It was clear to me that all that mattered to Ray was the naked truth of one’s character.

Not the glitz or glam he called, “a bunch of bologna.”

I discretely find, every day, I am living next to artists of one form or another, and I am blown away. I will be forever indebted to each of the residents that I am blessed to be acquainted with.

Each of them, become a part of me; their history embedded and their stories carried on as a tremendous testament to life at its fullest.

being a bum.” He told me how he feels free to design the lifestyle he so chooses, with the support of our staff. One of the most touching things Ray shared with me, “I sold my house at a loss to come here to Taos Retirement Village. My life was much more important.”

Echoing the sentiments of many, another resident once told me, “I didn’t start living until I moved to Taos Retirement Village.”

I have learned that retirement should be embraced as a liberation and an entitlement to a life well lived. It should be celebrated as the

| 33

commitment of responsibilities of living day to day are fulfilled, and we are freed from our obligation to enjoy what matters the most to us individually; quality of time with a renewed passion and an excitement for life.

Our mission at Taos Retirement Village is to provide the means and support for our residents to achieve the lifestyle they choose.

Ray, and so many of the like are the true unsung heroes of Taos New Mexico, and to them, I express my deepest gratitude and respect.

“I didn’t start living until I moved to Taos Retirement Village.”

A truly hidden treasure, Taos reaches into the depths of one’s being and pulls those who it desires into its magnetic charisma, engaging one’s intimate passions and curiosity, while offering a subtle peacefulness.

I came to accept a job offer at Taos Retirement Village. True to Taos lifestyle, the environment that has been created is inviting and colored with a rich tapestry of experience.

The delicate approach that the staff holds true is simple: treat others as you would want to be treated. I am in the business of taking care of people. Today, a cynical undertone of the societal perceptions of the elderly, ring loudly, but hardly true. Our approach couldn’t be farther from the mainstream, and the vast background of the residents and their happiness, are an accurate reflection.

It has been my honor to meet and be challenged on a daily basis by amazing characters, who just so happen to be two, sometimes three times my junior years. One of which is Ray Vinella. A part from being one of the original Taos 6 a group accredited for the revitalization of artistry in Taos, working for Disney, working with Dick Van

Ray sweetly invited me into his home, and described his passions of painting that was none compared to the love of his life, his wife, who he faithfully stayed loyal to for 24 years. He shared with me the secret to a happy marriage: “Wake up every morning with the purpose of making your spouse happy.

Love each other.” In addition, he shared the love and pride he had for his three boys and the fondness of his first wife, who he shared 15 years with.

He took the time to go page by page with me through his book, self-titled, “Vinella.”

He pointed out his favorite works of art, the story behind each, and the personal meaning underlining each brush stroke. He shared with me his intimate family pictures that his sister had sent him on his birthday. He had a large Italian family, and seemed to be close to them all. He told me about his humbling beginnings in New York that inspired him to broaden his perspective and his desire for greatness.

Ray said to me, “I live in the now. I don’t care about yesterday or tomorrow. I live for today.” He showed a comfort in our services and that we support a carefree lifestyle.

When I asked him if he still paints he said, “I’m burnt out. I’ve been painting since I was 14 years old. I’m a bum now. I love

Ray Vinella

The Trusty SIDEKICKS, Support Behind the Scenes Within walking distance of Taos Retirement Village you will find the colorful artistry and blend of characters that make the Plaza so vibrant. The many museums, galleries, and unique boutiques make for an exciting shopping experience.

DH Lawrence and Georgia O’Keeffe are just a sample of the many influential artists that have been inspired by Taos living.

Spectacular showcasing of music and the-

atre come alive in this art mecca.

lifestyle in a family setting.

If that is not enough, tantalize your taste buds with an array of exquisite dining experiences. With a global perspective, join us as we celebrate an encounter with the true culinary arts.

One resident exclaimed that, “This is much more like a resort!” In addition, several residents share that their every growing circle of friends has never been so dynamic. Whether you enjoy a social atmosphere or solitude, you will find serenity in your decision to move here.

Taos Retirement Village is a reflection of Taos’ diversity, forward-thinking, environmentally conscious, and adventurous

Our staff recognizes aging as a vivacious

phase of discovery, peace, joy, and freedom! You are beautifully unique and our staff will go out of their way to recognize you as such in our personalized approach.

Join us on this intimate journey, as we promise a fulfilling lifestyle. No matter what our residents need, our commitment to caring is at the heart of everything we do!

TA O S

Retirement Village

To set up your customized tour, please contact Katrina Bryant; 575-758-8248.

We are located at 414 Camino de la Placita.

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3 4 | Heroes

Jane Compton at work with a patient.

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Heroes | 3 5 Compton said she “got all fired up,” noting the importance of vision to a child’s education, especially as elementary students go from learning to read to reading to learn.

T

From COMPTON, Page 32

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he partnership began when Compton heard a presentation about the initiative, which provides free eye exams to students and refers children to optometrists who might not otherwise receive eye care.

Compton said she “got all fired up,” noting the importance of vision to a child’s education, especially as elementary students go from learning to read to reading to learn.

“I said we ought to do something for the heck of it to see how big an issue this is,” she said. Compton agreed to accept referrals from the Lions’ KidSight program, which expanded to Taos in 2007, and provide free and affordable eye care to students who exhibit challenges during screening.

Forty-five second-graders participated in the first round of screening, Compton recalls, noting 13 needed glasses and only three had third-party health insurance.

The program has since broadened to provide approximately 1,700 local children with free vision screenings each year.

Compton says each pair of glasses can make a big difference.

“So much of our lives is visual. In school, you’re

watching the teacher, you’re reading the board,” she says.

“It is too easy for children with visual impairments to fall behind in school as they go from learning to read to reading to learn,” Compton said.

Yet 86 percent of New Mexicans entering the first grade have not had an eye exam and 70 percent of school-age children in the state have some form of visual impairment, according to the Lions Club.

“We can at least make sure kids have what they’ve got to have. We can actually make that happen,” she said.

And there’s no shrinking from that duty, according to Compton.

That Taos can be, at least in some respects, a tightknight community suits her.

“People who don’t want to feel connected to their community don’t stay here,” she says.

But she takes a blasé tone in discussing her own path to Northern New Mexico.

“It wasn’t like I woke up one morning with a passion for optometry,” Compton says.

A native of Galveston, Texas, Compton jokes she “was probably a little clumsy to be a dentist.”

She obtained a doctorate of optometry from the University of Houston and worked for approximately 2 ½ years in Santa Fe before buying a practice in Taos.

It may seem a jump to go from the City of Energy to the Land of Enchantment. Compton, though, suggests Taos has the best of both worlds.

“I believe we have unbelievable health care for the size of the community, but because it’s a small community, you get to know people,” she says.

More succinctly, Compton says working as an optometrist in Taos is “not a cattle call.”

Instead, it means building relationships and occasionally adjusting glasses for patients she comes across at the grocery store.

But passion returns to Compton’s voice whenever conversation turns to those who go without.

Lately, Compton says she has been seeing Taoseños who have never shadowed her door before.

Since Medicaid was expanded in 2013, for example, she says she has served patients in their late 50s and early 60s who had never had an eye exam.

“They fell through the cracks,” she says.

Compton may not have foreseen her role in patching those cracks, but, just as she can’t disengage from the community, she can’t turn a blind eye to the community’s needs.

“Accessibility — not just eye care — that seems a no-brainer,” she says.

Congratulations to Lisa O’Brien 2014 Unsung Hero

Just a few of her Accomplishments...

CASA (Court appointed advocates for children) PLAG Hospice Garden Club Past Taos Milagro Rotary President Paul Harris Recipient

Taos Milagro Rotary is dedicated to supporting Education, Literacy, Community Projects in Taos County, and International Community Projects

www.taosrotary.org Please Join Us! 7:20am Every Wednesday at Quality Inn

3 6 | Heroes

Tina Larkin

From left, Santiago “Mulu” Martinez, Tina Martinez, Nicolette Martinez and Haleigh Concha.

LEADER TIMELESS EMPATHIC PERSEVERANCE CONFIDENT EXTRAORDINARY Fourteenth Annual

Tradiciones El camino a través del tiempo

Former Taos Pueblo Governor, Tony Reyna, The Taos News’ Citizen of the Year, 2004

Tradiciones Our most important issue of the year, focusing on the positive contributions and progress made by individuals, volunteers, nonprofit and community organizations.

Heroes | 3 7

Tina Martinez SHOWING RESPECT FOR THE DANCE OF LIFE places,” Martinez said, recalling that he once met Walt Disney.

Martinez, though young, once met Elizabeth Taylor in Santa Fe. When she was a young girl, Martinez “had to dance what he erhaps it was an auspicious occasion, that New taught us. I did the rabbit dance, the Apache girl dance, and of York City performance by a group of Taos dancers course the war dances,” she said. many years ago. It was Tina Martinez’s first birthday, but also her “debut.” Wearing a small Together with her grandfather and brother, Martinez dress and beating on tiny drums, Martinez gave performed across Taos County, in front of the Taos Inn, the old her first performance as a Taos dancer. That day Jack Denver’s — with its wagons and classic cars — and in the augured well for the years ahead. town of Red River.

Martinez is a teacher at Taos Pueblo Day School. While she “We’ve danced in Red River every summer for over 30 years,” finds herself filling in here and helping out there, covering this she said. “I used to love to dance with my grandfather — that class and that, she is well known for the nexus of art and heritage was our time together.” that has been so central to her life — dancing.

Martinez danced until she was 17. She married two years Martinez comes from a family of dancers, her grandfather later and for six years, life took her away from her home at Taos the original driving force of their renown performances. He Pueblo. But when she herself had children and settled back into shared the Taos Pueblo dances and dancers with communities, the familiar contours of New Mexico, she found dancing anew dignitaries and Hollywood stars around the county. “It took him as a teacher.

P

By Cody Hooks

Martinez teaches traditional dances to students at Taos Pueblo, mostly for the annual Christmas play.

“Some of our dances are private. But dance should stay alive whether in a play or in the village,” she said.

Depending on the theme of the Christmas play, with the stock of Bible stories as well as local tales and flair, teachers help make elaborate outfits and show kids how to create costumes of their own. And they dance.

Martinez is a wealth of history, experience and know-how about the Taos Pueblo dances, and she said that she has always found joy in passing those customs on to her students. “All the kids benefit from my talent, from what I’ve learned,” she said.

“I’d rather them know more than me, do better than me and be out there in the world.”

“Some of our dances are private. But dance should stay alive whether in a play or in the village.” — Tina Martinez

See MARTINEZ, Page 38

3 8 | Heroes

Courtesy Photo

Tina Martinez’ students perform for Christmas at Taos Pueblo Day School.

“S

From MARTINEZ, Page 37

ometimes, kids don’t want to dance.

They don’t want to express themselves because they’re afraid, but I know they have it in them. Dancing is a part of us at Taos Pueblo and it’s a part of our ways. To dance, they have to put their heart into it — they have to know why they dance,” she said.

“You have to know where you’re from. You have to respect who you are.”

Dancing isn’t just a legacy Martinez shares with her students, but a love she’s gifted to her own children. Martinez took over those familial shows every summer at Red River, ensuring the future of the legacy her grandfather started.

One of her sons still dances, both as a public performer and as a member of the echelon of sacred dancers. “My grandpa loved him,” Martinez said. “Because he had the same love for dancing too. He would get down and do what my grandpa told him,” she said.

Her son doesn’t dance only for Taos Pueblo. Martinez’s father was Hopi, and now her son is exploring his own Hopi heritage by dancing in what she calls “that beautiful and amazing county.”

“It’s a part of him and his life,” Martinez said. She paused and wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “I never ever expected my kids to say this, but one day they thanked me for being part Hopi. They thanked me. I can’t describe how honored I am.”

Martinez said the past year was a trying time for her family, with personal matters diverting her attention away from dancing. But with the San Geronimo feast days and the

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Christmas season, Martinez is ready for another cycle of teaching — and not just dance.

“We also have to get the language back,” she said, speaking of the Taos Pueblo language revitalization efforts. “And that starts with our young adults and very young kids. It took me a long time to speak our language fluently. I was like the kids now who understand what their family says, but can’t converse back.”

All the while, Martinez is still working on pursuits of her own. She’s finishing her bachelors degree at UNM-Taos, working toward becoming a full-fledged middle school math teacher.

The wholesale curiosity about life her grandfather instilled early on — the awed respect for music and culture, other people and other ways — feeds her still. “I want to travel,” she said. “I want to see what’s out there. I’ve seen a lot, but there’s always more.”

Heroes | 3 9

CAPTURING THE FACES OF THE UNSUNG

F Tina Larkin

or six years of Tradiciones' 14-year run, the woman behind the camera has been none other than Tina Larkin.

Her work has complimented the stories about the people, places and traditions that make Taos County such a unique place. And in most cases, the photos have added more depth and variety to the work of our writers at The Taos News.

Managing to make her subjects feel completely

her the best in her future endeavors. As one of her last cluster of assignments, the work she has done in this year's Tradiciones is among her finest as a photo journalist.

But while this publication marks the end of an era, it also ushers in the beginning of a new chapter at our photo desk. Taking on her first Tradiciones assignments this year is new Taos News Katharine Egli photographer Katharine Egli. at ease, while shooting an Egli is a native New exhaustive number of shots, Mexican who graduated Larkin's work has made the from Ohio University last six years of our special with a degree in sections increasingly more photojournalism in 2013. poignant and relevant.

In the past she was Her tireless commitment a photo intern at our over this time has been sister paper, The Santa appreciated by not only Fe New Mexican plus everyone here at The The Jersey Journal. Most Taos News, but also the recently she was the course countless community coordinator at The Santa Fe members who she has Photographic Workshops. come in contact with on her assignments.

We have every reason This fall, Larkin stepped to believe that Egli will continue the tradition of down as photographer photographic excellence from the newspaper to that was Larkin's calling pursue a career in the card. medical field. We all wish

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Photo: Tina Larkin