Sunday, June 16, 2013 THE NEW MEXICAN
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Transit district honored for service
NEIGHBORS
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aving a job in times of high unemployment is great; being able to get to your job is even better. Many Northern New Mexico residents are able to find and keep employment that otherwise would be inaccessible, thanks to the North Central Regional Transit District’s free buses connecting communities and pueblos Gussie in four counties. Fauntleroy The transit district Public Works recently was honored for its service in this respect. The New Mexico Department of Transportation presented the agency with a Job Access and Reverse Commute Transportation System of the Year Award for 2012. In presenting the award, Transit Bureau Chief David Harris commended the transit district for providing “excellent customer service to their passengers and having an ongoing record of success.” For North Central Regional Transit District route and schedule information, call 866-206-0754 or go to ridethebluebus.com.
After years of fun, frightening moments on the job, retired state police chief enjoying time with family
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Two National Nuclear Security Administration Los Alamos Field Office employees have earned awards as top employees for 2012. Cary Bronson of the Field Office Security Operations Team received the Bradley A. Peterson Federal Security Professional of the Year Award from the NNSA’s Office of Defense Nuclear Security. The award recognizes Bronson’s “proactive approach to contractor oversight in security.” Jerry Massee, an information technology specialist with the Los Alamos Field Office’s Jerry Massee cybersecurity team, was selected as New Mexico Federal Employee of the Year by the New Mexico Federal Executive Board. Massee, a Santa Fe resident, oversees two IT and records-management programs for Los Alamos National Laboratory, with a total annual budget of $250 million to $300 million. Spearheading dialogue with the U.S. Department of Energy about proposed IT requirement changes, Massee helped achieve several million dollars in savings for the lab, according to acting Field Office Manager Geoff Beausoleil.
Richard C de Baca in his studio with his artwork in the background. ANA PACHECO/FOR THE NEW MEXICAN
ARRESTING
MEMORIES T
oday, as families around the country honor the Korean War, where he served as a boatswain the men in their lives, Richard C de Baca aboard a ship in the Pacific Ocean. When he thinks back to the positive role models he returned to Santa Fe, he worked for the state had in his father, Ricardo, and grandfather Motor Vehicle Division and took night classes at Andres C de Baca. St. Michael’s College. “I was taught early on in life the importance of “In 1956, I became a commissioned state police hard work as I spent long hours planting and harofficer and my whole life changed,” he recalled. vesting the family farm in La Cienega. For the next 26½ years, C de Baca was That work ethic was something that I stationed in different parts of the state, was able to pass on to my two sons,” where he had memorable experiences, Richard C de Baca said. some pleasant and some he’d like to In 1983, C de Baca retired as the chief forget. He remembers being on duty at of the New Mexico State Police and the New Mexico State Fair and meetbecame the proprietor of Big Jo’s Harding Glen Campbell and Johnny Cash. ware. He ran the business until 1991, “One time during a routine road block when Gov. Bruce King appointed him in Gallup, we stopped Fats Domino’s secretary of the Department of Public limousine and I got to shake his hand,” Ana Pacheco he said. Safety and C de Baca entrusted the A Wonderful Life family business to his two sons. For the But it was the gruesome events past 22 years, Rick, now 54, and Ron, that haunt C de Baca to this day. 52, have grown the business despite the As he recalled: “I was stationed in presence of big-box hardware stores in town. Alamogordo in 1958 when we received a call In addition to helping his sons at the store, about a pair of severed hands found on the side of C de Baca exercises regularly at the Genoveva the road. Later, we found a box containing human Chavez Community Center. He enjoys painting brains. Then we received an all-points bulletin landscape images and spending time with his from the radio dispatcher stating that police wife, Juanita, and their six grandchildren and five in El Paso discovered a suitcase floating in the great-grandchildren. Recently, he completed a Rio Grande that contained body parts. We were family memoir, with the help of David Roybal as pretty sure that both discoveries were connected, his editor, which will be published by Sunstone but we never found the head so we couldn’t conPress this summer. nect the case.” C de Baca was born in La Cienega in 1933, one C de Baca took part in ending the 1967 raid on of eight children born to Ricardo C de Baca and the Tierra Amarilla courthouse, in which two offiAgueda West. His father made a living as a farmer cers were severely wounded. He also witnessed and also as a miner in Madrid and Cerrillos. C de the aftermath of the 1980 state penitentiary riot south of Santa Fe, where 33 inmates died. Baca attended elementary school in La Cienega But for all the crimes that C de Baca investiand graduated from St. Michael’s High School in gated, the one that still grates at him today is the 1952. He was a member of the U.S. Navy during
El mitote Grammy Award-winning Native American musician Robert Mirabal will film a live PBS performance at The Santa Fe Opera on Aug. 30 and 31 with its television debut set for March 2014 on PBS. A DVD and CD containing additional material from the concert will be made available with various levels of donation pledges during fundraising programs throughout the year, as well through retail outlets nationwide and digital downloads. Robert Mirabal
Concerts will begin at 7 p.m. both nights, and tickets can be purchased by calling The Santa Fe Opera Box Office or online by visiting the “Calendar” at www.santafeopera.org. Mirabal’s performance, Music and Myth, will celebrate the history, legends and myths inspired by the people of the Native American Pueblos of the American Southwest, through music, dance and Mirabal’s own storytelling. “I am thrilled to be taping Music and Myth at The Santa Fe Opera,” Mirabal said in a statement. “As a child, we used to travel in buses from the pueblo at the start of each season, and this was where I experienced my first taste of dramatic art. The operas were a part of my life and my musical dreams when I was a young boy living in the Taos Pueblo.” uuu
The video series American Detours (www.AmericanDetoursTV.com) lets the
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A 1956 photo of C de Baca when he joined the state police. COURTESY PHOTO
unsolved murder of the Rev. Reynaldo Rivera in 1982. As C de Baca remembered, “The killer called the Basilica Cathedral of St. Francis of Assisi requesting a priest to perform the last rights for his grandfather. He didn’t ask for Father Rivera by name, so we knew that it was a hate crime against the clergy and Rivera just happened to be on duty that evening. We believe at least two people were involved in the murder. From our investigation, it appeared that Rivera had been in a kneeling position, and the way the bullet pierced his aorta, it would have taken two people to hold him in that position. The caller asked for the priest to meet him at the rest stop at La Bajada hill, so he knew the area. After all these years, it still bothers me that we never apprehended the murderers and the fact that they’re probably still living in the area.” Ana Pacheco’s weekly tribute to our community elders appears every Sunday. She can be reached at 474-2800. Her new book, Legendary Locals of Santa Fe, is available in bookstores and at amazon.com.
public ride in the driver’s seat by letting the audience vote on what roads should appear in Season 2, and one route in the running is the High Road to Taos. Readers can vote on the American Collectors Insurance Facebook page or the American Detours website. Voting ends July 1. uuu
Recently, Giovanni Ribisi of Saving Private Ryan, The Mod Squad and Friends was spotted at the La Montanita Co-op getting a chair massage. uuu Natalie Portman, boyfriend Benjamin Millepied and their son were spotted at the La Posada pool last week.
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Finally, New Mexican Publisher Ginny Sohn
Section editor: Bruce Krasnow, 986-3034, brucek@sfnewmexican.com Design and headlines: Kristina Dunham, kdunham@sfnewmexican.com
The New Mexico Corrections Department has earned federal recognition for providing training, advising and mentoring to international corrections personnel. At a ceremony in mid-May in Washington, D.C., the U.S. Department of State thanked the Corrections Department for its contributions in partnership with the federal agency’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. As part of an effort to “advance U.S. strategic and diplomatic interests” internationally, the state agency has hosted 16 trainings for more than 400 corrections academy instructors and K-9 officers from Mexico and Central America since 2009. Lou Baker has joined the state Land Office as a rights of way/water resource leasing manager in the agency’s Surface Resources Division in Santa Fe. Baker’s previous experience includes senior planning positions for the cities of Santa Fe and Española and the town of Taos. The Española resident holds a master’s degree in city planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. If you have news about a public employee, contact Gussie Fauntleroy at gussie7@fairpoint.net.
reports that former U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman has rented office space at The New Mexican’s Marcy Street offices. “We are very pleased to be the Senator’s choice when he needed office space downtown,” Sohn wrote in an email to employees. “And of course on his first day, first thing, I saw him in his office reading The New Mexican! Welcome Senator.” An expert on energy policy, Jeff Bingaman Bingaman, a Silver City native and Stanford Law graduate, served in the U.S. Senate for 30 years and now has a yearlong distinguished fellowship at Stanford’s Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance. Send your sightings to elmitote@sfnewmexican.com.
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