Chapter 8: A Commitment to the Community’s Health
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When the agreement for Presbyterian to purchase and manage Española Hospital was announced in 1974, Montoya recalled a weight being lifted off his shoulders. “The whole board was relieved that now we had somebody with some expertise and some financial capabilities of running a hospital,” he said. “I think there was some apprehension among some people about a big city hospital taking over. That was natural, and I think it’s in every community.” Later, when a mil levy to fund an expansion of Española Hospital was up for election, Montoya crisscrossed Rio Arriba County urging his neighbors to vote for improved health care for the community. “The two things that saved us as a community,” Montoya said, “and I call them our salvation and our blessing, is Presbyterian and the fact that we were able in Española to pass the mil levy.” Montoya capped his thirty-plus-year exposure to healthcare service in rural New Mexico in 1999 when he was named to the Presbyterian system’s board of directors. Along the way, he watched Española Hospital evolve from “a Band-Aid station to a viable hospital with a good medical staff, good equipment, good technology.”
Above: Dan C. Trigg’s hospital board
member Grant J. Morper, served the Tucumcari community for nineteen years and was vice chair of the system board during the mid-1990s. Grant credits Tucumcari’s partnership with Presbyterian for keeping hospital services in his home town. Presbyterian Healthcare Services Photoarchive
circa 1996
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