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© 2024 NEW MEXICO NEWS SERVICES  7/21/25

My 50 years of New Mexico journalism

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

     In July 1975, I was stringing for the Gallup Independent from the Navajo Reservation, when they asked me to work temporarily in Grants. The Independent had acquired a small newspaper there, but their hire for that job didn’t want to live in a uranium boom town and fled. They were desperate. It was a Friday, and deadline was Monday.

     “Go to Grants and get anything you can,” said the assistant editor.

     I’d never heard of the place but figured the best way to fill space was to take pictures. I wound up at Acoma Pueblo on a feast day. As I stood on the edge of the mesa taking pictures, a big plane buzzed the ancient village, which seemed pretty rude. I got off four shots. In the darkroom, the plane’s numbers were discernible in one of my prints.

     The story ran on July 31. It turned into a federal investigation, the pilot of the Navy Jet Crusader got in trouble, and I got a job offer. And that, kids, is how it all started.

     I’m celebrating 50 years of journalism in New Mexico. Come along with me for some memories.

     Grants in 1975 was overrun with miners and drillers. Housing was almost nonexistent, and so was day care. My three-year-old son and I lived in the newspaper office, a trailer, and I took him with me on most stories. He was a great kid, but when his good behavior ran thin the promise of an ice cream cone bought me time.

     For a young reporter, Grants was one busy, happening place. The mines put money in people’s pockets, and those dollars circulated through town. That was my first lesson in economics.

     But the mines wouldn’t let me in to do a story. Miners still believed women underground were bad luck. As a baby feminist I pestered them until I got a tour. I tried not to be a pansy as we dropped deep into the earth, tramped long tunnels and climbed a 50-foot raise (ladder) to the next level. 

     It was the first of many mine stories – uranium, coal, copper and potash, underground and open pit. Potash miners, I learned, didn’t fear lung disease, because they basically work in a salt mine. They joked that the biggest hazard was dry skin.

     Over the years, I worked for large and small newspapers, specializing in business. I preferred heavy industry.

     One editor steered me toward banking, probably because nobody else wanted to cover it. I was schooled by the best. Bank presidents Norm Corzine and George Clark patiently explained their business. Banking, they said, should be boring. When banking became exciting, it was never a good thing.

     This was just before a handful of bank failures in the state. In Hobbs, I was hiding outside a bank with a reporter from the News Sun in 1985when feds raided and closed it down. 

     I embraced another beat nobody wanted – insurance. Wearing that hat I covered the aftermath of the Cerro Grande wildfire in Los Alamos in 2000. In that town people had insurance, and FEMA was responsive and efficient – a far cry from what we see now in Mora and Lincoln counties. I learned that boring, eyeball-glazing insurance can get people back on their feet after a disaster.

     More recently I covered hospitals – specifically hospital mismanagement. I will never forget a Gallup protest by doctors and healthcare professionals against management just as COVID-19 struck hard on the reservations. Because protective gear was scarce, I showed up in a hand-made mask to talk to participants. The story hogged my time and interrupted my sleep for several years.

     On the lighter side, one Roswell story was a real treat. At Mr. Treat Donut Shop in 1985 you could drink coffee (48 cents a cup), eat donuts and enjoy excellent, toe-tapping music all night long from the house band and guest musicians. Owner Mike O’Leary proved that good times don’t require liquor.

     And there was the breathtaking raft trip I took in 1995 with Los Rios River Runners of Taos. Cisco Guevara, a local legend unmatched in his river guiding experience, told me, “The customer is not always right. In a sense their life is in my hands.”

     Another labor of love was writing about ranchers. I cherish my visit to the storied Bell Ranch, a piece of Marlboro country in northeastern New Mexico. Eating lunch with the Bell cowboys was, for this city girl, like meeting Elvis. The late Linda Davis, of the CS Ranch near Cimarron, is still my hero. And I was lucky to meet Giles Lee, still working his Swamp Angel Ranch near Lovington in his 90s.

     I’m not out of memories, but I am out of space. I’m grateful to my employers, column subscribers, and the many people I’ve interviewed. Like Giles Lee, I hope to be in the saddle many more years.   

© 2024 NEW MEXICO NEWS SERVICES 7/14/25

Red tape and indifference slow disaster recovery

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

     Exactly one day before the Rio Ruidoso swelled from 18 inches to 20 feet of death and destruction, Mayor Lynn Crawford told legislators that money they approved for disaster recovery is bottled up.

     “The process is broke,” he said. “What you passed, we don’t have access to.”

     The Village of Ruidoso is still rebuilding from last year’s fires and floods, reported Source New Mexico. Crawford told a July 7 meeting of the interim legislative Economic and Rural Development and Policy Committee that Ruidoso spent $16.8 million on repairs but ran out of money before finishing.

     “Every dime that the village has had access to, that we could spend, we have deployed it,” Crawford said.

     Rep. Harlan Vincent, R-Ruidoso Downs, said the Legislature will need to spend more on disaster recovery. “If this happens in your community, you’re going to go through it,” he said.

     This year legislators allocated $44 million for disaster recovery, but they required FEMA approval before local governments can ask for it. So Ruidoso has requested only $4 million, Crawford said. The state Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management told Crawford that his town is far down the priority list.

     Even as the committee contemplated Ruidoso’s predicament, emergency warnings sounded. Just the day before, the racetrack flooded. Ruidoso Downs Racetrack General Manager Rick Baugh said: “We almost lost the track yesterday. I’m just at the end of my rope.”

     The next day, July 8, rain on last year’s South Fork and Salt burn scars gathered into a 20-foot wall of water that tore through Ruidoso, carrying off vehicles, debris and even a house or two and requiring 63 swift-water rescues. A man and two children died. Damage to homes and infrastructure was extensive, and hundreds of people were displaced.

     So Ruidoso wasn’t in great shape before the latest flood, and as it digs out, again, it’s beset with red tape and indifference. 

     Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham immediately asked the president for a disaster declaration, saying: “New Mexico is mobilizing every resource we have, but Ruidoso needs federal support to recover from this disaster. We’ve watched Texas receive the federal resources they desperately needed, and Ruidoso deserves that same urgent response.”

     What she got was a partial approval for a federal emergency declaration, which covers search and rescue (which has ended) but doesn’t allow FEMA to open the federal government’s checkbook. 

     Next she reached out to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who said federal aid was on its way, including $12 million previously allocated, and, if the president fully approves a disaster declaration, maybe another $3 million. At a news conference July 10 the governor said she was “incredibly confident” that the president would grant full approval. At this writing that hasn’t happened.

      The administration has been clear that it wants to shut down FEMA and shift disaster responsibility to the states. Lately, however, the national media report that the tragedies of the Texas floods have softened the discussion. In Texas Secretary Noem described an emotional visit to the girls’ camp where 27 kids and counselors died. 

     Let’s not forget that with midterm elections coming up, the president is mindful of support in Texas. Disasters shouldn’t be political – a flood or fire doesn’t know your political persuasion – but this year recovery is definitely political. Major media report that California fire victims, whose governor the president dislikes, are getting the federal cold shoulder, as the president warmly reassures Texans, whose governor is a fellow traveler. 

     In that vein, Lincoln County is leaving money on the table. Official Washington may only see a blue state and New Mexico’s Democrats in Congress, but in the last election Lincoln County voters supported the president by a wide margin – 68% to 30%. Residents should make that known with a letter-writing campaign to both the president and Noem. Their red county, they could point out, won’t get back on its feet without state AND federal help.