Friday’s celebration of New Mexico’s Centennial — a hundred years of statehood — was a remarkably low-key affair. Six sheet cakes, a vase of roses and a junior-high mariachi band at the State Capitol “birthday party,” plus a Grand Centennial Ball at the state capital’s convention center afterward, in black tie or period dress. Plus, also, a few other similar cake-and-speeches shindigs elsewhere in the state, including Alamogordo, Las Cruces and Silver City.
But no parade, no holiday, no big-tent, state- or even city-wide event that thousands of state residents could attend, maybe even for free. Pretty odd. Austere, even — but admittedly, the style suits the times. For just a moment though, and only for the occasion and not for any other reason, we found ourselves just a little nostalgic for the Bill Richardson days. That gregarious and high-living governor would surely have thrown a real party. Sheet cakes? Richardson surely would have had a giant cake in the shape of New Mexico, all in the yellow and red colors of the state flag with a big Zia sun in the middle, taking up a lot of square footage in the Roundhouse rotunda. As it turns out, however, there is more to the centennial celebrations than just one day of cake and fancy dress. A wide variety of events, scattered throughout the state, are scheduled through at least a half a year. Some highlights: ♦ Tonight, listen to a statewide radio reading of Maxwell Anderson’s historical drama “Night Over Taos,” set in Taos in the turbulent Mexican-American War year of 1847, when Taoseños revolted against the U.S. occupation. KUNM and in Santa Fe KBOM will broadcast at 6-8:30 p.m., followed by a panel discussion. (A staged production of the play takes place in August at the National Hispanic Cultural Center.) ♦ Learn how New Mexico’s “struggle for statehood” has been depicted in political cartoons at a talk by Richard Melzer from noon-12:45 Wednesday at the History Library, 120 Washington Ave. Melzer’s is just one of many lecture series sponsored by state and local museums and historical societies. Friday at St. Francis Auditorium, for example, author Hampton Sides, Paul Hutton and Mark Lee Gardner debate the nature of New Mexico’s 19th century “wild frontier.” Learn about the infamous Thomas B. Catron, of the land-grabbing Santa Fe Ring and the U.S. Senate, on Feb. 23 at El Rancho de Las Golondrinas. Again, these are just the highlights of lecture series that continue through the year. ♦ Down in Hobbs, you can catch a cattle drive re-enactment, complete with chuck wagons and music, May 9-11. If you’re an accomplished wrangler, you can even participate. Then on May 26, at the Western Heritage Museum Complex there, you can see the beginning of the Centennial Pony Express Ride — a 14-day event that commemorates the old frontier mail service. Riders will be picking up mail across the state and then delivering it to Santa Fe. For a full and ongoing list of centennial doings, visit www.nmcentennial.org.
