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NM Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum Proudly Employs ENMU Graduates

By Craig Massey

ive alumni from Eastern New Mexico University are currently working together at the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum in Las Cruces.

Connie Anaya and Craig Massey are fulltime staff members at the state’s 47-acre agricultural museum, while Mary Kay McDonald-Shelton and her sister, Karen McDonald Stith, work as volunteer docents and demonstrators at the museum. Joe Long works at the museum while serving as a military museum consultant, overseeing the creation of the New Mexico Veteran’s Museum.

Stith and McDonald-Shelton are natives of Clovis. Stith became a junior high English teacher. Her husband, Ron, was in the Air Force and she enjoyed living in Europe and around the U.S. before retiring in Las Cruces. She is a 14-year volunteer at the museum.

Left to right Craig Massey (BS87), Karen McDonald Stith (BA62), Mary Kay McDonald-Shelton (AS65), Joe Long (BFA72), kneeling, and Connie Anaya (BFA92)

After graduating from ENMU in 1965 with an associate’s degree in drafting and design technology, McDonald-Shelton also earned degrees at New Mexico State University, the University of Houston and Seattle Pacific University. She worked in the engineering field at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico as well as Aruba, The Netherlands, Antilles, New South Wales, Australia, Houston and Seattle. Her fields of work included aerospace, petrochemical refining, industrial waste water purification, and interstate traffic control.

Stith and McDonald-Shelton work as actors in the museum’s living history programs, and also lead livestock tours and demonstrate sewing and weaving.

Anaya grew up in southeastern New Mexico and graduated from New Mexico Junior College in Hobbs before attending ENMU. She currently serves as the Farm & Ranch Museum’s graphic designer for exhibits and marketing.

Massey, a native of Rogers, N.M., graduated from ENMU with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. After working as a writer and editor at the Las Cruces Sun-News for almost 12 years, he joined the museum staff in 1999 and serves as the facility’s communications manager.

Long, who was born in Elida, graduated from Roswell High School, and left ENMU in 1972 with a bachelor’s degree after studying music. He served for 37 years in the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves, and was a music minister for 20 years. Long, who now lives in Albuquerque, works several days a month at the Farm & Ranch Museum while serving as the state’s consultant for the Veteran’s Museum. He also was a consultant for the National Museum of the U.S. Army and the National Purple Heart Hall of Honor. His travels have taken him to all 50 states and 20 foreign countries.

The New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum is under the state’s Department of Cultural Affairs and has welcomed visitors from all over the world since it opened in 1998. The museum tells the story of 3,000 years of farming and ranching in New Mexico through exhibits, demonstrations and special programs.

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