Chapter 8: A Commitment to the Community’s Health
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trained to “run a good hospital. But to run a great hospital, you’ve got to have a foundation. A community foundation ensures that support creates a base for financial stability in the years to come.” The auxiliary, the foundation, and chaplaincy services naturally fit together as support services for hospital programs. In 1954, the hospital appointed The Reverend David Reiter, a member of the board of directors, as the first official chaplain. The Reverend Floyd Sovereign became chaplain in 1963 and is credited with starting the formal chaplaincy program, which continues to offer support for the spiritual, emotional, social, and intellectual dimensions of patient care to people of all faiths and beliefs. Although the foundation started off slowly, it quietly grew, and over the years, contributions from individuals in the Albuquerque community to the Presbyterian Healthcare Foundation have consistently provided a strong base of support for Presbyterian operations.
Above: Auxiliary volunteers serving a patient Presbyterian Healthcare Services Photoarchive
circa 1960
Below: Jim Hall
Ghost Ranch Journal, Winter 1987
The Legend of Jim Hall Presbyterian’s expansion into rural New Mexico was shepherded by the Reverend Jim Hall Sr., the Presbyterian minister who served on the Presbyterian board for many years and chaired the board for ten years in the 1970s. The son of a cowboy missionary, Hall grew up in Albuquerque, went to seminary in Chicago, and served his first pastorate in Alaska during World War II, where he ministered to his parishioners aboard the boats of the fishing fleet. He worked in the shipyards of San Francisco before heeding the call of a parish in the copper fields of Morenci, Arizona. He served in Texas and in Hobbs, New Mexico, where he worked in the oil fields while not preaching.4 Hall was as comfortable dealing with the movers and shakers of commercial Albuquerque as he was having sandwiches with the followers of Reyes Lopez Tijerina, the leader of the 1966 land revolt in the mountains of northern New Mexico. “Jim Hall was legendary,” said Dick Barr. “He was probably the only true renaissance man I’ve
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