Tag: Local

Numerous local political figures also died this year. Some were citizen activists who challenged the powers that be or lobbied for causes they cared about. Others were former elected officials, including an Española mayor who backed ambitious building projects in the hopes of transforming his city from a pass-through to a destination.

Here are some of their stories.

Current Española Mayor John Ramon Vigil said Lucero, as mayor, sought “to catapult Española into something more than just a pass-through between Taos and Santa Fe,” spearheading public projects like Española’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall and the development of the Plaza de Española.

Ambitious plans like building a new cultural center for the city were a way of inspiring pride in Española, Lucero argued in his political campaigns. After he finished his last term in 2006, the Rio Grande Sun newspaper declared Lucero had “built more buildings, spent more money, made more enemies, done more favors and won more votes than anyone else” in Española.

Born in Oklahoma, Momaday was Kiowa but grew up in Jemez Pueblo. He spent much of his life writing about the Indigenous cultures of the American Southwest and the Bear Clan from which he descended. House Made of Dawn — the story of a young Native man who returns to Jemez Pueblo seeking healing after serving in World War II amid a struggle to reconcile his identity with life in the modern world — has been credited with ushering in a period referred to as the Native American Renaissance.

“He paved the way for all the Native writers of today,” said Institute of American Indian Arts President Robert Martin.

Stanley Crawford, 86, Jan. 25Crawford, the co-founder of El Bosque Garlic Farm in Dixon, sold produce at the Santa Fe Farmers’ Market for decades, served for a time as the market’s president and was the recipient of the Santa Fe Farmers’ Market “Farmer All Star” award in 2009.

In 2014, the gentleman farmer, as he was known to some, started a global garlic war by filing a petition with the U.S. Department of Commerce against the practices of a major Chinese garlic importer and producer.

Besides farming in Northern New Mexico, he wrote voraciously and published several novels and nonfiction books.

Joseph Allocca, 82, Jan. 31Friends and family remembered Allocca as a charismatic and gifted businessman and a champion of Santa Fe’s water conservation efforts, parks and open space while serving on the council.

Allocca served on the City Council in the 1970s, working to increase recreation opportunities in the city, including leading the push to create Casa Solana Park. Former Mayor Sam Pick recalled him once getting Public Service Company of New Mexico to agree to build a tennis court on some property it wanted to develop near what was then St. Vincent Hospital.

“Anytime he could find someone who could do something for the city without the city having to pay for it, he was all for it,” Pick said.

Joe Anna Arnett, 73, Feb. 3Arnett’s body of work mostly consisted of still life paintings and, later, plein air landscapes. A proud and masterful gardener, friends said, Arnett painted roses and other flowers at her home but also toured the world with her husband and fellow painter, James Asher, reproducing scenes like marinas, markets and mountains in Europe, South America, India and across the U.S.

“It was happy paintings; it was happy work,” said Richard Lampert, an owner of the Zaplin Lampert Gallery on Canyon Road. He said Arnett managed to rise to the top with no ego or sense of competitiveness about her work.

“She was loved by the whole artists’ community because she was so generous with her talent,” he said.

Jim McGiffin, 72, Feb. 3Longtime Santa Feans will recall McGiffin as one of several inmates who ran loose in a theatrical asylum called West End Christmas.

Renowned for his many onstage performances over the past 45 years, McGiffin was one of a small coterie of regulars in that annual holiday show, modeled after the old-time British Music Hall revues.

Born in Buffalo, N.Y., he moved to Santa Fe in the mid-1970s and within a few years had made himself a regular presence on the Santa Fe stage scene. Equally able in drama and comedy, he nonetheless veered into comedic territory, especially once he joined the thespian crew of West End Christmas.

Lawrence Baca, 61, Feb. 9Baca, a Santa Fe native, first became interested in making jewelry in the 1980s when his high school sweetheart Maria Goler Baca — who later became his wife and business partner — was managing Ortega’s on the Plaza. His gold, silver and semi-precious stone designs were heavily influenced by Spanish colonial art and Native American “pawn,” and he was known for creating his own silver stamps in addition to using old Navajo stamps.

Sacred hearts were a recurring motif in his pendants, which often hung on strands of silver beads that were given the name “Baca beads” by the owners of the former Packard’s on the Plaza.

“The attention to detail he put into it was so intense,” said Craig Allen, owner of True West, 130 Lincoln Ave. “A lot of jewelers just want to make sure it looks pretty. He wanted to make sure it would last and was easy to identify from someone else’s.

Palemon Martinez, 91, Feb. 10Martinez’s work on behalf of acequias, domestic water associations, remote rural communities, ranchers and farmers was a natural outgrowth of his childhood, which he spent raising sheep with his father in Arroyo Seco and the Carson National Forest.

Martinez co-founded the Taos Valley Acequia Association in 1989 and served as its president until just a few years before his death. His knowledge of local acequias and land, and of the events that led up to the 2006 federal Taos Valley Water Settlement, were major assets to the association.

“He kept everything in his mind,” said Judy Torres, executive director of the Taos Valley Acequia Association. “I mean, he was sharp. I could ask him anything, and he would remember what year it happened.”

Ana Steffan, 60, Feb. 16For Steffen, the most stunning elements of Valles Caldera National Preserve lay beneath the majestic, prehistoric landscape that captivates most visitors.

Obsidian — a black, crystalline rock formed by a series of volcanic eruptions and deposited throughout the caldera — drew her attention, and she was one of the world’s foremost experts in it.

Those close to her say she formed an everlasting bond from the moment she stepped foot in the caldera in 2000, shortly after it became a national preserve. She worked there for the rest of her life.

“Her research and science and inquiries were focused on this place,” said Jorge Silva-Bañuelos, the preserve’s superintendent. “That was developed from a sincere, personal love for Valles Caldera.”

Jim Trujillo, 84, March 3Some of New Mexico’s most prominent political leaders remembered Trujillo, a Santa Fe Democrat who served in the state House of Representatives for 17 years from 2003 to 2020, as a mentor, a “quintessential” lawmaker who fought for fairness and an all-around “good guy.”

“Rep. Trujillo cared deeply about people and always worked to make sure that vulnerable populations were not forgotten in the New Mexico Legislature,” said Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. “As a longtime public servant, Jim made many important contributions to our state, from fighting for our aging population to improving business and tax laws.”

Brett Woods, 75, March 5Woods was a soldier, a Secret Service agent, a deputy U.S. marshal, a horse trader, a teacher, a legislative analyst, a novelist and a state employee who dipped his professional fingers into the workings of four or five New Mexico agencies over the years.

He wrote spy novels. And he loved animals, including “The Tweet,” as he dubbed a small bird that made a nest by the front door of his Santa Fe home. No one could dare trouble The Tweet, said Woods’ wife, Helen Gaussoin.

Woods moved to New Mexico in the late 1980s and quickly got a job in state government. He worked in different capacities for the Human Services Department, the Gaming Control Board and the Energy, Minerals and National Resources Department.

“He was such a colorful, amazing guy,” said former Legislative Finance Committee Deputy Director Cathy Fernandez. She said while Woods could be “gruff,” people knew he had a “soft side because he had a lot of cats and dogs, always rescues.”

Felipe Cabeza de Vaca, 83, March 18Felipe Cabeza de Vaca was many things — artist, muralist, plumber, contractor, political candidate, science nut and, perhaps most importantly, a character.

He was, in fact, according to his nephew John Felix, one of the last great characters of old-time Santa Fe, a man who wore a lot of hats while entertaining folks with sometimes outrageous pranks.

“He was insanely interesting; he didn’t think like other people,” Felix said.

Among other achievements, Cabeza de Vaca ran a long-gone space and science center on St. Francis Drive and helped paint a number of murals in town, including the one still visible on the wall of the former Empire Builders Supply Co. structure on Cerrillos Road.

Jerry Manzagol, 86, March 18Manzagol retired several times. First from the city of Santa Fe, where he served as city manager from 1982 to 1986. Then from state government, where he served as Cabinet secretary for the Health and Environment Department from 1986 to 1987. Then from U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman’s office, where he worked as an administrator from 1986 to 1988.

Despite his long career in public service, he is best remembered for his commitment to his family.

“He was the love of my life,” said his widow, Sheila Manzagol.

The two were married for 42 years and together raised Rick Serna, Sheila’s son from a previous relationship. After Rick died at age 39, the couple adopted his 7-year-old son, Erick. Sheila Manzagol said her husband was devoted to the boy.

The couple also had a coterie of rescue animals over the years, including cats, dogs, a parrot and a cockatoo. Sheila Manzagol said he would even feed the crows and feral cats that hung around outside.

“He loved animals,” she said. “He thought he was St. Francis.”

Phyllis Jennings Kennedy, 67, April 15Jennings Kennedy was a photographer and artist who helped secure millions of dollars for fine arts education at the elementary school level across New Mexico.

Jennings Kennedy loved to photograph New Mexico’s architecture, and much of her work remains in private and public collections, at the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe and in the city of Albuquerque’s public art collection, including a piece at the Albuquerque International Sunport and several at the Albuquerque Convention Center.

Jennings Kennedy later went into teaching and got involved with a coalition that was supporting a statewide measure to give funding to elementary school arts and music programs. The bill passed in 2003 and survived then-Gov. Bill Richardson’s initial plan to repeal it.

“She didn’t win every fight,” said her husband, Roderick Kennedy. “[But] when Phyllis took something on, that was it, she was all in. She didn’t do things in half-measures.”

Duane Anderson, 80, May 8Archaeology and museums were the throughlines of Anderson’s life. He even found love on a dig, said Carol Anderson, his wife of nearly 60 years. Both were archaeology students at the University of Colorado when they were assigned as co-diggers at a Ute excavation site outside Montrose.

In the in the 1970s, Anderson worked as state archaeologist in Iowa, where he pushed for the state’s reburial law, mandating more respectful treatment for Native American remains. He eventually moved to Santa Fe, where he led the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, spearheaded construction of the Museum Hill Cafe and served as vice president of the School for Advanced Research. He also wrote a number of books over the years.

Bill Valdes, 78, June 10It was easy to see Valdes’ passion for St. Michael’s High School and the love he had for Horsemen football, basketball and baseball. He became a fixture at games as the official scorekeeper and, oftentimes, the public address announcer, a familiar voice over the loudspeakers on those Saturday matinee games at the Christian Brothers Athletic Complex. He was, in no uncertain terms, the voice from the press box during football season.

“He bled blue,” said younger brother Tim Valdes. “His son, Randy, would tell stories how his dad would miss his birthday parties because the Horsemen had a game somewhere. I don’t know how much of that was true, but Bill did love his school.”

Antonio ‘Ike’ DeVargas, 77, July 3A Rio Arriba County activist and organizer, DeVargas’ lifelong penchant for prodding public officials and challenging the local power structure gained both scrutiny and acclaim. A native of the tiny village of Guachupangue, he focused his efforts on challenging the Northern New Mexico patrón system. It often put him at odds with people with whom he’d grown up.

“He had a great intellect and sensitivity to what he perceived as injustices and worked hard to try to correct things with no personal or financial benefits to himself,” said Wilfredo Vigil, who along with DeVargas was one of the founders of La Raza Unida in the 1970s.

At an age when many people are long retired, DeVargas was still vigorously working to hold elected officials to account, including pursuing the recall of County Commissioner Alex Naranjo — a onetime friend and political foe — as part of a push to implement what he told the Rio Grande Sun was an eight-point plan to upend the “entire establishment.”

“I was seriously impressed with his organizing ability and his ability to think strategically,” said attorney Richard Rosenstock, who assisted DeVargas at various points in his decades of challenging power.

“He wouldn’t give up,” said his daughter, Sonya Quintana. “We told him, ‘Dad, you’ve done so much, you can stop. You can stop.’ But he wouldn’t give up. He was not going to be held back from recovery work. … He was a fighter to the very end.”

In a 2017 interview, he acknowledged he’d struggled with drug abuse and went to jail.

“I got busted,” he said, “and decided to change my life.”

As he worked to rise from addiction, he realized there was a need for a safe house — he called it a “sober house” — where people could begin to take the first steps toward recovery. There, he helped people with mental health or drug problems find stable housing and consistency. He was known to visit homeless camps and shelters, alleys, arroyos and mental health centers.

Frank Taylor, 77, July 8Gov. Gary Johnson appointed Taylor, a Magdalena native, to lead the New Mexico State Police in 1995, which he did until 2002. Colleagues remembered him as an inspiring family man who cut a fine figure in uniform and was a persuasive advocate for the agency.

“Chief Taylor guided the agency into the 21st century with a vision of modernization and excellence,” wrote state police spokesman Ray Wilson. “Under his leadership, the department saw a substantial increase in the number of officers, enabling a more robust and responsive force to serve and protect the citizens of New Mexico.”

After his term as chief, Taylor went to work for the International Law Enforcement Academy in Roswell. In 2017, Taylor and his wife retired to Santa Fe, where he lived until his death.

Ron Bloomberg, 93, July 13Bloomberg was a playwright, writer, activist and former ad man who lived in Santa Fe for the last two decades of his life. Like any good comedy writer, Bloomberg was a “seriously funny human being,” recalled Barbara Hatch, chairwoman of the theater department at New Mexico School for the Arts and one of Bloomberg’s frequent collaborators.

What set him apart, she said, was his unique and reverent brand of humor, free from mean-spiritedness.

“There was nothing really sacred, but it was also very sacred at the same time,” she said.

In 2004, Ron and his wife Barbara moved to Santa Fe, where he quickly got involved in the local theater scene, penning plays and putting together performances.

“Ron Bloomberg made a major contribution to the Santa Fe theater world,” Robert Benedetti, founder of the New Mexico Actors Lab, wrote in an email.

Priscilla ‘PC’ Ulibarri, 81, July 15Priscilla “PC” Ulibarri was the founder and longtime owner of PC’s Restaurant and Lounge, a New Mexican restaurant on Santa Fe’s south side known for its legendary red chile. The establishment opened in 1986 and soon became synonymous with generous and delectable enchilada plates, a family-oriented atmosphere and a bar where sports reliably played on the television.

“She was loved by the people. She loved people and showed it in her cooking,” said John Paul Ulibarri, who bought the restaurant from his mother in 2008.

Born and raised in Santa Fe, she cooked as a way to “bring people together,” her son said. She was a near-constant presence at the restaurant for years, which helped establish its hyperlocal reputation; customers were more like friends.

“It’s all locals pretty much, very few tourists,” her son said. “And it’s all locals because the chiles are very similar probably to what their grandmother made.”

Mark Dawson, July 16Dawson, the head of the packaging team at Second Street Brewery, was known for his puns, caring nature and prodigious beer knowledge.

In his last few years, Dawson worked at a number of Santa Fe breweries, including Rowley Farmhouse Ales and Duel Brewing, the latter of which closed in March 2019. His job at Duel Brewing — he was general manager and booked bands for the bar — helped make him a known entity in the city’s relatively small brewing scene.

“He [cared] … about everything and everyone and showed that,” said Ben Murdock, a Second Street brewer. “He was a pillar of the community.”

Jose Chavez, 92, June 27, and Mary Chavez, 93, July 28Mary Bernice Chavez and Jose Chavez, both born and raised in Santa Fe, were married in the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi and eventually became docents at the church, roles they cherished.

Mary Bernice Chavez was an artist who painted the stenciling in the cathedral. Members of one of the oldest and best-known families in Santa Fe, the couple was inseparable right up to the end, married for 74 years.

“Even up to the last day of my dad’s life, they held hands. They would hold hands walking down the mall,” daughter Mary Chavez said. “They would hold hands wherever they were. They just truly, truly loved each other.”

Dorothy Krebill Karayanis, 94, Aug. 3A professional opera singer, she spent years on the stage in the U.S. and Europe, playing the lead role in Carmen, Suzuki in Madame Butterfly, Lucretia in The Rape of Lucretia. Even after her retirement from singing, Karayanis was much in the public eye, supporting her husband, Plato Karayanis, during his years as general director of the Dallas Opera.

While she may have accepted the spotlight, Dorothy Karayanis, who moved to Santa Fe with her husband following his retirement in 2000, never demanded it, according to longtime friends.

“She was not a diva,” said Janice Mayer, who for years was executive director of the Santa Fe Desert Chorale. “She could have been, because she sang Carmen in major opera houses. But she was not that. She was just a lovely, lovely person.”

Anselmo Valdez, 89, Aug. 6Longtime residents of Las Vegas, N.M., might remember Valdez from his shop, Gambles Valdez Enterprises, where he spent nearly seven decades selling hardware, appliances and furniture. Some also might remember him as the man in the Santa Claus costume who delivered toys and gifts to the children of regular customers around Christmastime.

Valdez worked his entire life, beginning when he started herding sheep in the mountains of Northern New Mexico around age 9. He just couldn’t bring himself to call it quits, even as his 90th birthday approached.

“He was very social, very people-oriented, very outgoing,” daughter Maxine Valdez Ortiz said, adding he kept working because of “the passion he had for the people, for the customers, the passion of his work ethic.”

Melinne Owen, 78, Aug. 13In her years volunteering for the annual International Folk Art Market, Owen was a crisis averter. As artists arrived for the market — making the pilgrimage to Santa Fe from all corners of the world — Owen was there to solve the problems that sometimes accompanied them, recalled Benita Vassallo, another regular volunteer.

“She just worked miracles. It was incredible to see her in action. … There’s not going to be anybody else quite like her,” Vassallo said.

Owen, who was an artist herself, moved to New Mexico in the late 1970s or early 1980s, said her younger sister Jennifer Rutherford, settling into an old house in Chimayó.

“She was always learning, always learning. … I think that’s part of what drew her to the folk art market: all that wonderful art, just so many exciting techniques and colors,” Rutherford said.

John Fincher, 83, Aug. 15Born in Texas in 1941, Fincher relocated to Santa Fe in the 1970s and began to make a name for himself. As the years went by, Fincher became far more renowned as an artist, said Douglas Atwill, who shared a studio south of the Plaza with him for a time in the 1980s.

With a fondness for still-life paintings and giant canvases, Fincher’s work was precise and realistic — with some unexpected elements and lines of color, Atwill said. Cactuses and knives made regular appearances. Atwill called Fincher’s process unique and utterly unlike his own.

“He could start a painting up in the left corner and work just slowly down to the right bottom and it was done,” Atwill said. “He had it all in his mind. … It was incredible.”

Michael Sperberg-McQueen, 70, Aug. 16Best known in the region for his political activism in Rio Arriba County, Sperberg-McQueen is also credited with being one of the founding fathers of text encoding standards when the internet was in its infancy. In 1986, he became co-editor of the Text Encoding Initiative, developing tools that would ensure the digital preservation of cultural heritage in the humanities.

“We all enjoy the fruits of the World Wide Web, but it’s the work of people like Michael … who are responsible for making it work well when it does work well,” said his wife, Marian Sperberg-McQueen.

State Rep. Susan Herrera, D-Embudo, said he was an enormous resource when it came to legislation. She noted how he helped with a 2022 law that lowered the cap on interest rates charged by so-called storefront lenders.

“He was a true progressive,” Herrera said. “He cared passionately about people’s human rights and just justice issues in general.”

María Benítez, 82, Sept. 3It’s easy to assume the popularity of flamenco in Northern New Mexico is because of Spain’s colonization hundreds of years ago. In fact, its ubiquity in New Mexico is because of one Minnesota-born, Taos-raised woman and her decision in the 1960s to study flamenco in Spain and then share what she learned back home.

Benítez described introducing flamenco and building up audiences in New Mexico as a glacier-slow process. She and her husband worked from 1968 to 1970 at El Nido, a restaurant and bar in Tesuque, where dancer Vicente Romero had set up a summer flamenco season in the 1950s.

In Santa Fe, Benítez founded a school and a young people’s dance company and worked to get younger performers in front of audiences as her own career came to an end around 2005. Her efforts earned her recognition in 2014 as a Santa Fe Living Treasure.

George Frederico Lujan, 90, Sept. 4At the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a tile mural Lujan made depicting the Virgin Mary, gazing down at flowers left in prayer.

Lujan’s work is found across New Mexico, but he was most prolific in his longtime hometown of Santa Fe, where his tiles adorn some of the city’s most frequented monuments and well-known hotels. He also tiled some of the many “Stamm homes” built in and around Santa Fe in the mid to late 20th century.

But his work on Our Lady of Guadalupe might be the most visible and meaningful. Lujan started going there as a child with his family, traveling into town from their farm on the Pajarito Plateau, and when he had children he continued the tradition.

“Every Sunday, we’d go to church, and because there were six of us, we took the whole pew — the same pew,” said daughter Jennifer Lujan. “He would always say, ‘Without God, you’re nothing.’ ”

Charles McMillan, 69, Sept. 6McMillan, who died in a vehicle crash in Los Alamos, was a physicist who became the 10th director of Los Alamos National Laboratory in 2011, retiring in 2017 after six years at the helm. He oversaw the lab during a period of expansion.

“He rightfully deserves a lot of credit for the advancements the lab made during his tenure,” said current lab Director Thom Mason.

In McMillan’s time at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and at the start of his career at LANL, he brought state-of-the-art capabilities to deal with nuclear weapons stockpile challenges, Mason said, pointing to two supercomputers that have McMillan’s “fingerprints” on them. He also worked to develop a vaccine for HIV and on new modeling to better understand climate change.

Charles “Darby” Henry McQuade, 81, Sept. 6McQuade loved travel and lived an adventurous life — including serving a stint in prison for marijuana smuggling — before coming to Santa Fe in the 1970s and opening the store Jackalope on Cerrillos Road.

The store grew into far more than a home decor business, said his ex-wife Elida Saucedo. McQuade, who was involved in helping launch the International Folk Art Market, wanted the shopping experience to be fun and treated the shop more like a venue.

There was a merry-go-round at one point, and a cafe, and he regularly brought in live music and dancing and artists from Mexico to give demonstrations. It even became home to a colony of refugee prairie dogs rescued from a development site. The business expanded over the years and at one point included locations in Texas, Colorado and California, as well as in Albuquerque and Bernalillo.

“It was just a huge, huge community,” Saucedo said

Nicholas Manzanares, 18, Sept. 22Manzanares, a Pojoaque Valley High School senior and basketball player, died in a vehicle crash on Interstate 25 near Algodones.

Manzanares was a two-year varsity player at Pojoaque Valley High and a key player for the Elks during the 2023-24 season. Ryan Cordova, an assistant principal and boys basketball coach, described Manzanares as a “fantastic student, athlete, kid, son, friend.”

“He’s just amazing,” said Cordova, who coached Manzanares as a junior.

Sammy Lopez, 69, Oct. 6Lopez was a media leader in New Mexico who served as publisher for several newspapers across the state including in Las Cruces, Farmington, Carlsbad and Ruidoso. Most recently, he served as executive director of the New Mexico Press Association. Billie Blair, former publisher of The New Mexican, said Lopez had a keen business mind combined with the heart of a true New Mexican.

“His calm and steady demeanor made him a great newspaper partner for many of us for decades,” she said. “He was the kind of man you wanted by your side when deadlines loomed, advertising dropped or storms were on the horizon.”

New Mexican owner Robin Martin said Lopez worked in the newspaper’s darkroom as a teenager. She later hired him as general manager at The Taos News.

“When he came to Taos, he fit in beautifully and worked hard to make the paper integral to the community, continue being profitable and win statewide recognition for excellence,” she said.

Her boss, Principal Georgia Baca, remembered her as a dedicated teacher who had taught all over the world. In their three years working together at Milagro, Baca said Grieg’s passion for helping students better their lives was clear, whether she was stepping in to substitute teach or shifting disciplinary methods away from suspension and toward restorative justice practices.

Monique Maes, 43, Oct. 16Maes was walking with her two children when she was struck and killed by a vehicle in a hit-and-run accident. Her two children were injured.

Close friends of Maes noted her strong ties to the community, her faith and her decades of work for the city of Santa Fe, where she was a contract administrator at Buckman Direct Diversion.

Maes’ mother had been “instrumental” in developing a senior citizen program in Santa Fe, said former city Judge and County Commissioner Virginia Vigil. Maes was an active member at St. Anne Parish and involved in multiple prayer groups in the city.

“They’re such a beautiful family loved by everyone who crossed their path,” Vigil said.

John Kinsel Sr., 107, Oct. 19Kinsel, a Navajo Nation native who grew up near Lukachukai, Ariz., joined the Marines in 1942 shortly after graduating from St. Catherine Indian School in Santa Fe. Kinsel had a special task ahead of him in the Pacific Theater: He would serve as a Navajo Code Talker, one of a select group of Marines who conveyed military orders in the Diné language, bewildering the Japanese forces and helping American troops gain ground.

“Beyond his legacy of a warrior, he was also a proud Navajo man who upheld the values of his heritage while serving this country with distinction,” said Crystalyne Curley, speaker of the 25th Navajo Nation Council.

He served in Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Guam and Bougainville Island from 1943 to 1945, among the second cohort of Navajo Code Talkers sent to the Pacific. After the war, he returned to his home community, where he found work as an instructional aide at a school in nearby Chinley and built a log cabin for his family.

Eva Brann, 92, Oct. 28Brann, the longest-serving tutor in St. John’s College history and former dean of the college’s campus in Annapolis, Md., was remembered by friends and colleagues as an adventurer, someone who found joy in a well-turned phrase, in rereading great books with a new seminar, in supporting the college’s students.

“She’s a pixie-like delight. That is, for a woman with this wisdom of the ages, she has an infectious smile and a laugh and a glimmer in her eyes. … You always see that when you meet her,” said Chris Nelson, the former president of the Annapolis campus.

Born in Berlin to a German Jewish family, Brann struggled in school at first. With the threat of the Nazis looming, her family emigrated to Brooklyn in 1941.

It was there, as a junior at Brooklyn College, that Brann first read Homer’s Iliad. It changed her life, inspiring her to pursue a master’s degree in classics and doctorate in archaeology. She arrived on St. John’s Annapolis campus in 1957, where she remained a fixture for the next six decades, teaching both there and in Santa Fe.

Carla Muth, 82, Oct. 29When Muth told family members stories about her time as a high-ranking state official in the 1980s, she sometimes focused on the cinematic. But it wasn’t all glamor and jet-setting for Muth, a health and environment secretary under Republican then-Gov. Garrey Carruthers.

“I think it was a lot harder for a woman to be a Cabinet secretary [in that era]. I think … some people gave her a pretty hard time,” son Darren Smith said.

Muth, a longtime nurse who moved into prominence in the public sphere under Carruthers, was at the very center of a bare-knuckle, ugly and misogynistic confirmation battle. Smith said he knew his mother felt she had to be strong when dealing with the “boys club” that ruled the Roundhouse in those days.

When she finally retired, she jumped into her passion for art, becoming a juried member of the Santa Fe Society of Artists and the Pastel Society of New Mexico, showing her art both locally and nationally. She also loved to paint landscapes and other representational artwork.

“But she also spent some time doing a series that was kind of more symbolic,” Smith said. “The symbolic stuff had a lot to do with … women’s empowerment.”

Martha Rotunno, 92, Oct. 31She was too humble to take credit for it, but Rotunno was an icon.

Santa Feans might remember Rotunno as a server at Tia Sophia’s, where she worked for more than two decades — and by some accounts, where she coined the now-legendary term “Christmas” to refer to the combination of red and green chile.

“People were hemming and hawing over whether to get red or green — she said ‘get both,’ “ said owner Nick Maryol. “She hit on the phrase ‘Christmas’ because it was red and green, and the rest was history. And now it’s iconic. She was a classic.”

Rotunno, a devout Catholic, was also a valued member and Eucharistic minister for her local parish, where she served on the altar society. For her service to the church and its charitable events, the church’s kitchen was named after Martha, and she became San Isidro’s first parishioner to receive the St. Francis award from former Archbishop Michael Sheehan.

“She depended on God for a lot of things,” said daughter Gilda Montaño. ”Her faith was her strength, and it helped her get through a lot.”

Trent Zelazny, 48, Nov. 28Zelazny, the son of late science fiction writer Roger Zelazny, was known for his literary prowess across genres. But his horror novels received the most recognition, with his 2012 novel Sleep Gently receiving the Nightmare Award, and his 2009 short story The House of Happy Mayhem receiving honorable mention for Ellen Datlow’s “Best Horror of the Year” award.

Zelazny was also a film buff and regularly contributed to the Santa Fe’s Jean Cocteau Theater. It was also at the Jean Cocteau where Zelazny and George R.R. Martin co-produced GODSON, a musical play written by Zelazny’s father, for whom Martin expressed reverence as a writer.

Zelzany went through some rough patches in his life, developing alcoholism after his fiancee died by suicide. He said in a 2012 interview that it was “a lot of hard work and the support of family and friends … and rehab” that helped him through the difficult time.

Nicholas Potter, 73, Dec. 2Potter was exposed to the book business early. His father was a bookseller in Chicago before the family moved to Nambé in 1969. When he wasn’t playing soccer and pursuing degrees in history and English at Princeton University, Potter was working at his father’s Santa Fe bookshop on East Palace Avenue during summers. He took over the shop when his father died in 1975.

“Nick loved books. He loved being in the bookstore. He loved being around books,” said longtime friend Andrew Smith.

Potter renamed the bookstore Nicholas Potter Bookseller and made expansions that included a vast Southwestern book collection and photography exhibitions. The store closed in 2013, but Potter continued selling books, particularly more vintage, distinctive selections. He was also a big supporter of the arts.

“I think he’ll be remembered as a giant figure in the cultural life of Santa Fe,” said George Baker, friend and owner of Santa Fe’s Sawtooth Books.