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Journal North: Home | Sports | Opinion | Obits | Entertainment
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Schoolhouse Has Been Saved; Now What?
By Raam Wong
Journal Staff Writer
Gloria Gonzales has a dream of traditional artistry, job-training and mariachi one day filling the old schoolhouse in Ribera.
But for now, she's focused on more pressing needs, like a new roof, running water and ensuring the walls don't fall down.
After nearly ten years of trying, not to mention some browbeating by a big-name talk show host, Gonzales appears to have the financial and political support to begin preservation work on the 8,000-square-foot stone schoolhouse in San Miguel County.
What all will go inside, however, remains an open question.
"The details are really not worked out," said Stuart Ashman, secretary of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs, which will soon assume ownership of the school.
Nearly ten years ago, Gonzales began work to obtain the deed to the school, abandoned some 30 years ago, in hopes of creating a community center for youth in the rural Pecos River Valley.
Initially, it seemed ownership of the property reverted to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management when the school was closed. BLM indicated it would raze the building, Gonzales said.
"I had to throw my body in front of the building and say it was historic," the single mother of four said in a recent interview. Eventually, though, Gonzales' nonprofit, Los Pueblos de San Miguel del Vado Community Council, was able to obtain ownership of the property.
All that's left to do is purchase an additional acre from BLM where the schoolhouse encroaches on the bureau's property.
A "commitment ceremony" — meaning backers are pledged to seeing the project to fruition — is scheduled for Aug. 12, with a chief support of the effort, Republican U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, scheduled to attend.
<b>Celebrity help</b>
The project got a boost when talk show host and part-time Ribera-area resident Don Imus made a $25,000 contribution. And, in February 2007, Imus used his radio show to attack Gov. Bill Richardson when he felt the governor was giving Gonzales the runaround in her requests for help.
"If he wants to run for president, he's got to get his act together, stop being a fat baby about all of this," Imus said at the time. Imus and Richardson have since buried the hatchet after the legislature appropriated $600,000 for the project at the governor's request.
Gonzales said in the interview last week that Imus was sticking up for her after she was ignored by the Richardson administration.
"It brought attention to something that happens all the time to the little guy," Gonzales said.
Still, Gonzales said most of Imus' hectoring was aimed at the governor's staff, not Richardson himself. "He never said anything bad about the governor except the teasing," she said.
The nonprofit has also raised about $7,500 during a couple fundraisers, while Domenici helped secure $232,000 in federal funds. The senator has included an additional $900,000 to a spending bill now moving through the Senate for fiscal year 2009.
The capital money is all going to the state Cultural Affairs Department, the fiscal agent, which will be given the deed to the property once the BLM land deal is completed. Los Pueblos will likely then enter into a contract with Cultural Affairs to run the center and provide programming.
"There's precedent for those kinds of relationships," said Secretary Ashman, noting that a foundation runs the DynaTheater, planetarium and gift shop at the department's New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science in Albuquerque.
Ashman said the details of the center's offerings have not yet been worked out, but one idea is to have educators from the state museums lead classes in papermaking and the like. The center could also house offices for state workers who live in the area, saving them a commute to Santa Fe.
Gonzales suggested Luna Community College could offer classes in subjects like wood-working and computers, while the 400-square-foot multi-use space could be used for receptions and assemblies — public space currently lacking in the village. Gonzales also pictures after-school programs, job preparation and classes in traditional vocations like adobe making.
"We have nothing for the youth, and that's the motivation for this whole thing," said Gonzales, adding that the community center will be used by some 13 villages in the valley — a total population of about 4,000.
All the money that's been earmarked so far is for construction. There are no plans yet for how to fund its operation, though Gonzales said there's plenty of grant money available once the building phase is over.
The three construction phases of the project are expected to cost about $600,000 each, with the preservation of the building followed by renovation and then the construction of a new recreation center and a park.
"Gloria is really to be commended for being persistent for so many years," Ashman said. "She's very passionate about saving this beautiful building."