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Sunday, May 5, 2002
Life Sentences: MIGUEL MARTINEZ, 79, Killed by a drunken driver
By Leslie Linthicum
Journal Staff Writer
Velarde
Miguel Martinez spent his entire life in Velarde, a strip of rich farmland where the Rio Grande spills out of Embudo Canyon and begins to empty into the Española Valley.
Even though he seldom left the snug valley, he was known by people throughout New Mexico. Martinez owned Mike's Cash Store, a grocery store and gas station in Velarde, for most of his life. He squeezed every penny from the business, and he loved to chat with customers from behind the counter.
"The best gift he gave me was the gift of gab and how to sell," said his son, Michael.
Martinez remembered the Great Depression. Even though his business did well, he encouraged his wife to mend his pants and shirts long after his children thought they should go in the rag bag.
Martinez worked until well into his 70s, then closed the store and settled into retirement. He was up with the crows every morning, had breakfast with Sylvia, his wife of 56 years, and then headed out on a three-wheel ATV to feed his pigs and chickens and check on his orchards.
He was riding the ATV to give a message to his son, Michael, on Nov. 19, 1996, when a driver turning off a county road onto N.M. 68 struck his vehicle and knocked him to the ground. Martinez sat on the road and told his son he wanted to be taken home to bed. Instead, he was airlifted to University of New Mexico Hospital where he died the next day.
His family buried him in the best casket they could buy.
"This was the first time he could not come back at us and say we spent too much money," Michael Martinez said.
The man who hit Martinez was charged with drunken driving and vehicular homicide and sentenced to three years in prison.
Less than four years later, and only a mile up the road from where Miguel Martinez was hit, another drunken driver killed another member of the Martinez family.
Janelle Martinez, the 37-year-old wife of Miguel Martinez's son, Joseph, died when a drunk pulled in front of her, causing her truck to roll.
That driver had just come from court, where he had pleaded innocent to his seventh DWI charge.
"He could sell anything. And he saved every penny."