A force to reckon with: Disability advocate Terri O'Hare is remembered as fierce, funny and a fighter

Outgoing and personable, colorful and vibrant, a spirited visionary, very funny, very fierce, a fighter, a force to reckon with, a handful and simply irresistible.

Those are the ways people who knew Terri O’Hare — some for many years, others for just a short time — describe a woman best known in Albuquerque as a no-backing-down advocate for the disabled community.

A force to reckon with: Disability advocate Terri O'Hare is remembered as fierce, funny and a fighter

This is the woman who successfully campaigned for a wheelchair-accessible path in Albuquerque’s bosque. It was O’Hare who initiated the removal of the city’s “One Albuquerque” sculpture from a roadway between Civic Plaza and the Convention Center when she protested that its location there posed a hazard for the visually impaired.

I didn’t know O’Hare, who was 65 when she died in August, following surgery for throat cancer last March. But apparently she made an indelible impression on most people she met.

People like Katrina Sanchez, who got to know O’Hare in October 2022 when both were plaintiffs in a lawsuit that stopped the city from constructing an education center at the Cottonwood Springs Trail in the Elena Gallegos Open Space.

“She was really a fighter,” Sanchez wrote in an email in which she suggested to me that O’Hare was more than worthy of a posthumous profile in the Journal. “She really did work to make Albuquerque a better city, and I just think she should be honored for that.”

After talking to six people in five states who knew O’Hare in different stages of her life, I agreed.

Ruffling feathersO’Hare, a talented and successful graphic designer, moved from Vero Beach, Florida, to Santa Fe about 16 years ago and then to Albuquerque a year or two after that.

She was born with a genetic neuromuscular malady — Charcot-Marie-Tooth or CMT disease — that progresses with age. O’Hare was experiencing some mobility issues when she moved to New Mexico, but it was only about a dozen years ago that she started using the manual wheelchair that helped her get around in her remaining years.

She had served as a member of Albuquerque’s Americans with Disabilities Act Advisory Council and was a frequent speaker at Albuquerque City Council meetings.

O’Hare was eloquent. Here, in part of her written statement in support of the “Save the Elena Gallegos” lawsuit, she salutes the peaceful and visually-pleasing aspects of the Cottonwood Springs Trail.

“When I visited the trail I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was right in the foothills, and rose about 60 feet gently upwards, through gorgeous scenery I’d never experienced so close up. The trail includes a pavilion with latilla beams and seating, and at the end, a duck blind for viewing wildlife. I rolled this trail as the sun was becoming golden on the west mesa, and I was thrilled at the close-up mountain views.”

In that statement, O’Hare also pointed out that the Cottonwood Springs Trail and the Bosque Trail were the only wheelchair-accessible trails in Albuquerque — even though the lawsuit was not about disability access. It was about the damage trail users believed the proposed education center would do to the area’s natural bureau.

Sanchez and her neighbor, Viki Teahan, also a plaintiff in the lawsuit, were regular hikers on the trail, but appreciated the perspective O’Hare provided as someone who used a wheelchair.

“We were grateful for what Terri brought to the table,” Teahan said. “She put her heart and soul into her fights for people with disabilities. She was a force to be reckoned with.”

Sanchez said O’Hare was activist-minded.

“Joining in lawsuits was something that was in her blood,” Sanchez said. “She was politically savvy. She understood government, developers, contractors, big money and environmental groups.”

Sanchez said O’Hare loved nature, but butted heads with the Sierra Club when she championed the wheelchair-accessible trail through the bosque.

“She said, ‘I’m the one in the wheelchair and my view is a valid as anyone in the Sierra Club.’ ”

A lover and collector of art as well as an artist in her own right, O’Hare did not worry about upsetting members of Albuquerque’s art community when she challenged the location of the “One Albuquerque” sculpture.

“She was not afraid to make enemies, ruffle feathers, upset the status quo,” Sanchez said.

Strong visionO’Hare was supporting rights for the disabled long before she herself had to use a wheelchair.

David Risinger, an architect in Vero Beach, met O’Hare when she was an “inspirationally talented” graphic designer in that city.

“One of the keys to Terri is that she understood that the American Disabilities Act is a Civil Rights Act, not a building code,” he said. Risinger said she challenged plans for a park in Indian River County, Florida, that was being financed with federal funds but was not ADA compliant.

“She was hardheaded, independent and simply irresistible,” he said.

O’Hare worked for Kimley-Horn, a planning and design-consulting firm with locations across the country. She contracted with freelance photographers to do work for the company.

Two of these were former National Geographic photographers Cameron Davidson, who lives in Alexandria, Virginia, and Steve Uzzell of Lyons, Colorado.

“I was her friend,” Davidson said. “Just about anyone who worked with Terri became her friend. She was very outgoing and personable and had a really strong graphic-design sense, an ability to create a lot of information in an image. She was quality oriented and loyal.”

He said he corresponded occasionally with O'Hare over the years, but lost touch with her last spring, which would have been about the time she underwent surgery for throat cancer.

Uzzell last saw O’Hare when he was in Albuquerque on a speaking engagement.

“She was not in a wheelchair then,” he said. “I never saw her in a wheelchair, although that last time her ambulatory capacity had diminished. I deeply regret I did not get to say goodbye.

“She was one of the strongest visionaries I have had the pleasure to work with. That vision underlay all her success and was the strength of her advocacy, the projects she worked on with various communities in Albuquerque.”

Fire and spunkO’Hare’s nephew, Sandy Campbell, is a music producer who lives in Wilmington, North Carolina. His father is O’Hare’s brother.

Campbell said his father also has CMT and has had surgery on his ankles and feet.

He said he never saw his aunt’s combative side, but he is not surprised by it.

“I knew she had some fire, some spunk,” he said.

Campbell and O’Hare were bonded by the creative nature they shared.

“Growing up, I was very much into art,” he said. “I got that from Terri. She had an aura about here. From the blanket on her wheelchair to the artwork around her apartment, her life was filled with color.”

He said he believes his aunt found a vibe in New Mexico that appealed to her, an almost spiritual feeling.

“I think New Mexico, the nature around her, was a more peaceful place for her. I think she felt connected to the earth. And (in her advocacy work) she found a purpose.”

O’Hare did not fare well after her surgery. She developed pneumonia, and Campbell was alerted to get to New Mexico as soon as he could.

“She was waiting for me to show up,” he said. “Terri had a tracheotomy, her voice was almost completely gone without using the device that helps people in that situation communicate verbally.

“You could make out what she was saying if you listened carefully. For the couple of hours I had with her, she was so full of spirit, laughing. She was joking about having margaritas and tequila shots.”

O’Hare died at 2 a.m. August 14.

“She was drawn to a particular area in Galisteo,” Campbell said. “In October, I will go to New Mexico and put her ashes there.”