Young
Steve Young’s journey took him from an orphanage in New York City to a magic club in Los Angeles to a life on the road with a band and then to the high desert of Albuquerque.
Young, a photographer who worked for the Journal and The Associated Press in New Mexico, died last week at age 81.
His wife of more than 40 years, Glenda Young, said she met her husband in the summer of 1969 when she was a waitress at The Sundowner Lounge on East Central and he was playing bass in a touring band.
“I was a teacher wanting to do something different for the summer so I got a job as a waitress. He started on Monday night playing there for three weeks and I began working there on Tuesday night,” she said. “I was totally scared and stressed out in a place like that. And on his break, he was sitting down close to where I was sitting and he said, ‘Don’t look so scared.’ We started talking and then we started dating.”
When Young left town three weeks later, he asked her to marry him, but told her not to answer until the next time he was in town.
“So we had lots of phone calls and a couple of weekends that we saw each other. He came back in September and I said, ‘yes,’ ” Glenda Young said.
She said he was raised in an orphanage on Long Island and studied music at City University of New York and Columbia University until he decided to change paths.
“He realized he was not going to be the ‘great American composer,’ ” she said.
Young moved to Los Angeles and pursued his music there, however, joining a traveling act that included a band and two comedians. While he lived in Los Angeles, he also studied magic and became a performer at the Magic Castle in Hollywood.
After getting engaged to Glenda Young, the two settled in Albuquerque, and it was here he took up photography in earnest, covering events for The Associated Press for many years before joining the Journal in 1992 as a photo technician.
Some of his favorite work was covering the Balloon Fiesta and sporting events, Glenda Young said.
Journal photographer Richard Pipes remembered Young as a good worker who enjoyed teasing new photographers about how they never experienced the good old days of photojournalism.
“He got the job done,” Pipes said.
Beverly Key, a friend from Del Norte Baptist Church, where Steve and Glenda Young went to church, said he was a nice guy who loved kids and helping other people.
“If you were in a mess, he was there to help you out,” Key said.
She said she thought he had an exceptionally close relationship with his wife.
“They were such a good couple together. He was definitely devoted to Glenda. They had a great, strong marriage,” Key said.
Young worked at the Journal until 1999, when he retired, and he and his wife moved to her hometown in Georgia.
Once there, Young started up a club for photographers and began teaching Bible school.
Glenda Young said her husband “never met a stranger” and was just a good guy.
“He was a sweetheart and my best friend,” she said.
— This article appeared on page C3 of the Albuquerque Journal
Reprint story -- Email the reporter at jrodriguez@abqjournal.com.
