100 A Century

News-Bulletin

of News
1910-2010

YEARS

VALENCIA
COUNTY
News-Bulletin
0

Where there’s spirit,

there’s community

When people come together to celebrate shared beliefs, they create an instant
community of the spirit. And before you know it, everyone is participating.

Serving Valencia County from three locations:

Belen • 101 S. Main St. • 505-864-5742

Los Lunas • 1027 Main St. • 505-248-9572
Bosque Farms • 907 Bosque Farms Blvd. • 505-869-2316

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 Albuquerque
1. SANDSTONE TRAILS
Albuquerque Central

AT ANDERSON HEIGHTS
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Los Lunas
lvd.

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(505)565-1745
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33
El Cerro Loop

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Main Street
buying your first home, moving up or
Manzano Expressway

47
4.
3.TOME VISTA
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lvd.

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nd
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From
Fromthe
thelow $100’s
low $100’s looking for an executive home, you’ll
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Congratulations to the Valencia County News-Bulletin
on 100 Years of Serving Valencia County
from The Village of Los Lunas
A COMMUNITY READY TO HELP BUSINESSES GROW
Bring Your Business to Los Lunas and Watch It Grow!

Lots of Recreation
Education from Pre-K to Degree
Easy Transportation
Plenty of Shopping
Choose Your Financial Store
Many Different Styles of Housing
Hungry? We have Restaurants!
Mayor Robert Vialpando
Councilors
Cecilia CC Castillo
Charles Griego
Richard Lovato
Gerard Saiz
Village Administrator
Peter Fernandez
Municipal Judge
Jeff Aragon

www.loslunasnm.gov Police Chief

Roy E. Melnick
Village of Los Lunas Administration Fire Chief
Main Street & Don Pasqual • 505 839-3840 Atiliano “Lito” Chavez
 100
News-Bulletin

Celebrating 100 years of news

1910-2010

YEARS

By Clara Garcia
News-Bulletin Editor
cgarcia@news-bulletin.com

F
or 100 years, the News-
Bulletin has aimed to build a
tradition of excellence, inde-
pendence and fairness. Our duty has
been clear: It is to serve the public
with skill and character, and to exer-
cise First Amendment freedoms with
vigor and responsibility.
In this special section celebrating
our 100th anniversary, we take you
through a century of news and the
people who brought it to you. Within
these pages are stories of the men
and women who have diligently
worked to chronicle the happenings
of the county, of its people and of its
history.
From the beginning when
Saturnino Baca published the first
issue of El Hispano Americano in the
garage of his home on Main Street
and Bernard to today, the News-
Bulletin has been a newspaper that
has been the “heart of the communi-
ty,” a sentiment shared by former
reporter and editor Lil Lou Gillett, The News-Bulletin staff includes, from left, Sandra Nadeau, Jennifer Armijo, Billie Turnbow, Jeana Lucero, Brent
the daughter of Carter Waid, a long- Ruffner, Monica Hicks, Dana Bowley, Tiffini Porter, Jason Brooks, Clara Garcia, Julia Dendinger, Melissa Montoya, Mario
time owner, publisher and editor of Orozco, Dave Puddu, Isaiah Baca, Mike Mendoza, Rita Garcia, Mario Lara, Rick Gonzales, Angela Esquibel, Nicole Lujan,
the paper. Ruben Garcia, Deborah Fox and Darleen Aragon. Not pictured is Angie Zamora.
Inside these pages, readers will
look back to stories about war heros the News-Bulletin to detail the cover- shaped more often by circumstance ly became the News-Bulletin, Baca
who lost their lives in battle, the soci- age of local events, institutions and than by venality. Corruption and con- wrote that the newspaper was not
ety scene in the county, infamous people’s activities. flicts of interest, in most communi- started “to serve any faction; to pun-
criminals and cold cases awaiting Warts and problems are at the core ties, have little to do with the impor- ish enemies nor reward friends to the
solution. There are stories of heart- of news, but they are not all of the tant things that are not working. Most detriment of the people’s interest.”
break and resilience, advertisements news. Even against the tide of mod- of our communities’ failures are root- This philosophy still holds true
of local business trying to sell their ern life, people and institutions make ed in complex problems. today, and we, the News-Bulletin
services or wares. progress. We have been generous in A great newspaper is distinguished staff, are honored to have had a part
Freedom makes a place for excel- coverage of achievement; our pages by the balance, fairness and authority in sharing the news with this commu-
lence and our first priority for the reflect the grit, devotion and durabili- of its reporting. Such a newspaper nity for the past 100 years.
past century and for the future has ty of the human spirit. searches as hard for strengths and Because of limited space, we were
been to present a faithful and accu- While exposure of wrongdoing is a accomplishment as for weakness and not able to fit in all the stories we
rate picture of the life of our commu- proper function and on occasion a failure. developed for this section. Look for
nity and its people. This has required required function of newspapers, it is In the first article printed in El more personal profiles and history in
not the main purpose. Problems are Hispano Americano, which eventual- future editions of the News-Bulletin.

A Century of News 1001910-2010

YEARS 5
 100
News-Bulletin

Our history, our lineage

1910-2010

YEARS

I
n addition to the News-Bulletin Other newspapers published
and its ancestor newspapers,
Valencia County — including the in Valencia County
western portion before it split off to While it is usually fairly easy to
become Cibola County — has been determine the date a newspaper first
home to at least 19 other newspapers began publishing, it is not always so
since 1878, although it appears only easy to determine when it ceased publi-
one called Belen home. cation, thus the ????s.
Below is a timeline tracing the News- 1878-1882: Laguna Indian Pueblo,
Bulletin from its roots, followed by a Laguna (Spanish-language weekly)
list of the known newspapers that have 1883-????: Valencia County
been published in the county. Vindicator, Los Lunas (English and
Spanish)
Valencia County News-Bulletin 1888-????: Valencia County
Tribune, Los Lunas
1910: Saturnino Baca launches El
1888-????: Valencia County
Hispano Americano
Vindicator, Los Lunas (apparently a
1912: Baca launches Belen News
revival of the earlier paper)
1916: El Hispano Americano
1891-1894: Cronica de Valencia, Los
becomes a section within the Belen
Lunas (moved to Albuquerque in 1894
News
and renamed Bandera Americana)
1946: Baca family sells the Belen
1903-????: New Mexico American,
News to Edwin J. Lewis
Los Lunas
1946: George Perkins launches the
1904-1906: Estrella de Nuevo, Los
Belen Bulletin
Lunas (moved to Valencia County from
1947: Lewis and Perkins merge their
Albuquerque, then returned after two
papers to form the Belen News-Bulletin
years)
1954: Perkins partner, Carter Waid,
1908-1912: Belen Tribune, Belen
becomes sole owner of the News-
1929-1937: Grants Review, Grants
Bulletin and de-emphasizes the word
1929-1938: Valencia County Review,
Belen in the nameplate, which becomes
location unknown
just The News-Bulletin.
1936-1938: Fence Lake Promoter,
1976: The News-Bulletin was sold to
Fence Lake
Modern Press of Albuquerque, publish-
1936-????: The Independent of
er of the Valencia County News in Los
Valencia County (later, Valencia
Lunas.
County Independent), site unknown
Modern Press was headed by Edwin
1940-2010: Grants Beacon, Grants
J. Lewis, who had originally purchased
????-1957: Uranium City News,
the Belen News from Elfego Baca in
Grants (absorbed by the Grants Beacon
1946. The News-Bulletin and the
in 1957, which became the Grants
Valencia County News were merged
Daily Beacon, now the Cibola County
Dec. 16, 1976.
Beacon)
1977: The first edition of the year,
1962-1962: Grants-Milan News
Jan. 3, debuts the nameplate Valencia The Valencia County News-Bulletin has evolved from the El 1963-1964: Valencia Valley News,
County News-Bulletin. Hispano Americano, which was first published on June 11, 1910 — 100 location unknown
1993-1994: The Villager, Belen (a years ago. This is a photo of the first edition put out by owner Saturnino 1964-1977: Valencia County News,
brief split of the News-Bulletin into
Baca. The first newspapers were printed in Baca's garage in his Belen Los Lunas
two newspapers, with The Villager
home. Baca's son, Elfego, ran the paper until 1946. 1970-????: Uranium Empire
covering the northern part of the coun-
Reporter, Grants
ty)

6
100 1910-2010

YEARS
A Century of News
Publishers and editors
Publishers
Ed Otero G.E. Gorospe, 1988
Baca and Howland Walt Green, 1989
Saturnino Baca with Keith Green, 1990
son, Herman Baca Sammy Lopez, 1992
Elfego G. Baca, 1920 Alan Turner, 1992 You want better home
George Perkins, 1946 Sammy Lopez, 1992 loan choices.
Carter Waid, 1947 Jim Wood, 1993 We have smart options
Howard Barman, 1961 Molly Dillon, 1994 and money to lend.
William Worley, 1965 Chris Baker, 1995
Carter Waid, 1967 Mike Coggins, 2000
T.E. Lewis, 1979 Dan Simon, 2000 Sandia Laboratory Federal Credit Union
has mortgages designed to fit your needs.
Gary Neal, 1981 David B. Puddu, 2001
Editors A SmartValue™ Mortgage helps you buy more home now.
Get low costs and easy payments in any kind of market. With a 20- or
A.G. Romero, editor Bonnie Gladwell, 1968 30-year term, payments and rates are fixed for five years. Our 40-year

and director, 1916 term offers low, fixed payments for three years.

John Soper, 1970 A SmartARM™ Mortgage gives you more flexibility.

T. Meza y Salinas, This mortgage gives you competitive interest rates with caps, low up-
editor and director, 1916 Lil Lou Waid Gillett, front costs and guaranteed payments for two years, even if rates change.
Choose from 20- or 30-year terms to fit your budget.
Dennis Chavez, 1916 1971
An SLFCU Jumbo Loan helps you cover a major purchase.
Elfego G. Baca, 1920 Sandy Schauer, 1974 Get the same benefits as our SmartValue™ or SmartARM™ loans, all of
which feature a low, flat origination fee to save you money.
Carter Waid, 1946 Craig Watts, 1974
Join one of the top rated credit unions in the country.
George Pittman III Al Faustino, 1976 Put our 62 years of experience to work for you. If you’re not already a
member of SLFCU, talk to us about how you can qualify for membership.
Ruth Lewis, 1947 Don Burge, 1977 When you become a member, you don’t have to leave your bank or
change any other credit union membership you may have.

Manuel Randolph Howard Kercheval, We also offer construction, fixed rate and non-owner occupied loans.
(Randy) Morris, 1954 editor and manager, 1977 Call 505.293.0500 or 800.947.5328 or apply online at www.slfcu.org.
George Dennis, 1956 Janette Baughman, 1981
Charles Mittlestadt, Ellen Syvertson, 1983 Los Lunas Branch
1958 Gary Herron, 1987
2700 Palmilla Road NW
Los Lunas, NM 87103
Milt Loewe, 1959 Darrell J. Pehr, 1989
Darrel Freeman, 1961
Dana L. Bowley, 1992 40 year variable rate of 4.57% would result in a payment of $455 on a $100,000 loan. Payment

Howard Barman does not include property taxes or insurance. Rate and payment may increase after loan

E. David Grenham, 1994

origination. Subject to credit approval. Current as of 7/05/10. See credit union for current rates.

Curt Klein Jr., 1966

Sandy Battin, Nov. 1995 Loans | Checking & Cards | Savings & Investments
Bob Drummond, 1967 Financial Education | Business Services
Clara Garcia, July, 2009
Federally insured by
 100
News-Bulletin

History’s first draft

1910-2010

YEARS

A
wise author once wrote that
“newspapers are the first draft
of history.” Truer words were
never spoken.
Historians use many sources in
researching the past, but they are espe-
cially fortunate if
they have access
to a good, reliable valencia
local newspaper county
that can reveal the historical
past in great
detail from a first-
society
hand, first-person
point of view.
This means that
historians who
write about
Valencia County’s
past are indeed
fortunate to have
the Valencia
County News-
Bulletin as a pri- Richard
mary source of Melzer
information about
events that
occurred in our community over the
last 100 years. Few newspapers in the
state have enjoyed such a successful
run, as described in Sandy Battin’s
June 12th front-page history of the Photo courtesy of the Baca family
News-Bulletin. Elfego Baca, the long-time owner, publisher and editor of The Belen News participated in many community events such
Many members of the Valencia as the ’49ers parade in Belen. The horse-drawn carriage carried Baca and his children through the parade in 1936. The
County Historical Society have con-
Baca family, beginning with Elfego's father, Saturnino, founded El Hispano Americano, which later became The Belen
tributed to La Historia del Rio Abajo
since the News-Bulletin began running News and finally the Valencia County News-Bulletin.
the series about Valencia County histo- hood of spreading the deadly disease. what progress was made on everything CASHIER WANTED
ry in 1998. Without exception, these But little could stop the flu; four times from education to public health? We have a job for a neat, pleasant
authors have relied on old issues of the as many New Mexicans died of the flu On a lighter side, where else can we girl who can count and make change.
News-Bulletin as major sources of the than were killed in World War I, which readily learn what holidays people cel- Experience unnecessary but should be
events they describe. had just ended that fall. ebrated, what teams won state champi- high school graduate. We can’t use a
For example, in reading the newspa- Back issues of the News-Bulletin also onships and what movies people went girl who is not dependable, who chews
per for October and November 1918, tell us a great deal about everyday life to see at local movie theaters? gum or repairs her makeup in public.
we learn that the Spanish flu epidemic in Valencia County from one genera- Even the classified ads can tell us Oñate Theater
was so devastating in Valencia County tion to the next. Where else can we much about what life was like in the
that all public gatherings were banned. learn what businesses were open, what county, as with this rather humorous It’s as though historians paint pic-
Schools, churches, courts and many prices they charged, what issues were help wanted ad that appeared in the
stores were closed to reduce the likeli- debated, what problems we faced and News-Bulletin in the late 1940s: See History, Page 9

8
100 1910-2010

YEARS
A Century of News

This masthead, also known as the publication box, is from July 11, 1960.
Carter Waid and his wife, Martha, are listed as the publishers. Subscriptions for
a year cost $4.50 and a single copy was 10 cents
History: continued from page 8
tures with their words, adding another
colorful detail or dimension with
every fact they learn or story they read
in their local newspaper.
The News-Bulletin has also been
valuable to Valencia County history
through its many efforts to preserve
the past. In some cases history-con-
scious editors such as Carter Waid and
Sandy Battin have helped preserve
valuable old buildings that seemed
doomed to destruction.
In 1983, for example, the newspaper
won a New Mexico Press Association
Public Service Award for its efforts to
successfully save Belen’s Harvey
House, which, coincidentally, shares
the newspaper’s “birth year,” 1910.
The newspaper has run history fea-
tures for years, from the old
“Remember When” photo section to
“Days Gone By,” “La Historia del Rio
Abajo” and the popular new series, “A
Century of News from the News-
Bulletin Archives.”
And the News-Bulletin has helped
preserve history by faithfully announc-
ing and promoting historical events,
be they at the Los Lunas Heritage and
Arts Museum, the Valencia County
Historical Society’s Harvey House
Museum or elsewhere.
The Harvey House’s centennial cel-
ebration is just the most recent exam-
ple. The celebration has been a huge
success, drawing nearly a thousand
visitors in the month of June, largely
News-Bulletin file
because the News-Bulletin has done so
much to publicize the historical soci-
ety’s centennial lecture series and new
Harvey House display.
In 1996, the historical society gave
former editor Sandy Battin the cov-
eted Red Brick Award for the “tremen-
dously positive and accurate press”
she had provided for the society and
its museum over the years.
Several years ago, I was discussing
local history with editor Battin. Of all
the interesting things she said about
local history, the comment I remember
most — and which motivates me to
this day — was that “Valencia County
loves its history.” Its history is the
source of its values, its identity and its
pride.
Appreciating this, the News-Bulletin
has done a remarkable job in provid-
ing what its readers crave. The News-
Bulletin has recorded our history, pre-
served our history, described our his-
tory and announced our historical
events. Our community — and its his-
torians — could not ask for more from
a biweekly local newspaper now cele-
brating its grand 100th anniversary.
(Copies of the Valencia County
News-Bulletin — originally called the
Belen News — dating back to 1913
are available on microfilm at the
University of New Mexico-Valencia
Campus library.)
 100
News-Bulletin
1910-2010
YEARS
By Sandy Battin
Special to the News-Bulletin
T
hey came into this world with
the lullaby of a printing press
sounding in their ears.
The two oldest children of Elfego
and Florela Baca were raised up one
flight of wooden stairs in an apartment
above the family business, El Hispano
Americano and The Belen News. If ink
may be said to flow in the blood of
some families, it certainly did theirs.
Young Elfego George Baca — they
called him Sonny back then, George
now — began his printing career early.
At age 8, he remembers operating the
letter press, creating stationery for this
local business, forms for some other.
He’d also help fold copies of The
Belen News as they came off the press,
getting them ready for delivery to the
post office.
If the other Elfego Baca down in
Socorro — the one they made the
Disney film about — was better
known, George’s father, Elfego, was,
by all accounts, a better man.
A second generation newspaper man,
Elfego had considered going into the
law, but then thought better of it. His
father, Saturnino, had founded El
Hispano Americano in 1910, right
before New Mexico had become a
state.
Belen needed a newspaper with
integrity. Two years later, he had
expanded to publish The Belen News,
printed in English.
Nino, an elegant and educated man,
believed in the power of the written
word. As superintendent of the county
schools, he believed in education, too.
He began his newspaper on a hand-
operated press in his garage; it quickly
became the glue that helped hold the
community together.
Ask George — or his younger sis-
ters, Pauline Baca Garcia and Norena
10
1001910-2010
YEARS
Baca family memories
Saturnino Baca founded El Hispano Americano in 1910, two years before
New Mexico became a state. He started the newspaper in the garage of his
Belen home. Baca later became superintendent of the county schools.
Baca Castillo — how their grandfather
happened to possess a press in his
garage at Main and Bernard or what he
thought about his deliverance of the
news and they can’t tell you.
Their oldest sister, Evangeline Baca
Gallegos of Bosque Farms, is ailing
and was unable to be interviewed.
Saturnino was a formal man in that
more formal day, one of the county’s
foremost men of letters. George and
Pauline say, in those days before a uni-
versity education was common, people
were largely self-educated. And
Saturnino was that.
He was considered a lawyer, with his
library of law books and statutes; he
was regarded as an architect, having
A Century of News
designed several of the buildings in
Belen. And he was an educator, a
hands-on superintendent, traveling by
horse to each little school to visit and
make sure that lessons were being pre-
sented.
Castillo remembers her mother
describing how, as a child, she recalled
those impressive visits.
But he was not a talkative person.
“He was a very quiet individual,”
George remembers. “I don’t remember
interacting with him very much.”
Pauline remembers family gatherings
at the home of Saturnino and his wife,
Dora.
“They had a long porch that had a
big chair at the end. He sat there in that
big chair. I remember that about him,”
she said.
But while the family talked, he main-
ly listened.
Saturnino ran the newspaper for
about a decade before Elfego took it
over in 1920.
To his children, Elfego was every-
thing a father should be; to his commu-
nity, he was what an editor should be.
He was kind, with twinkly eyes and a
keen sense of humor.
“He was very literate,” George
recalls. “He could spell every word in
English or Spanish. We kids would try
to find a word that he couldn’t spell,
but we never could.”
The News office employed “a total of
five or six,” Elfego said. “We had
Florencio Peralta there, … Alfredo
Chavez was the first one who did the
Linotype. … Joe Gabaldon and
Camilio Aragon were also two of the
workers.”
The other one-bedroom apartment
upstairs from the newspaper was usual-
ly occupied by the chef from the
Harvey House, which is also celebrat-
ing its 100th anniversary this year.
See Bacas, Page 11

Saturnino Baca and his wife, Dora, had a total of 19 children — nine lived.
Pictured with Nino and Dora are Herman, Mary, Eddie and Elfego.
Bacas: continued from page 10
For part of Elfego’s tenure, Ignacio
Baca — related to the family through
marriage — was a partner and business
manager of The News. Later, he went
on to other business and Elfego ran the
paper on his own. The workers were a
close-knit group, and they knew every-
one in town.
It was a busy place, with people
coming in and out, bringing in their
news and ordering services from the
print shop they also ran.
The News office was even the place
that Belenites would come to pick up
the license plates for their cars.
In those days, most newspapers took
a political stance with one or the other
party.
“My dad was a staunch Republican,”
Pauline said.
But, still, Elfego believed in being
fair and he covered news about events
involving the local Democratic party,
too. The News was everyone’s home-
town newspaper.
He would chide the “city dads” as he
called town fathers — the town council
— about issues ranging from street-
lights to potholes.
He wrote editorials attempting to
explain to readers why he was obliged
to print the news if one of their rela-
Photos courtesy of the Baca family Elfego Baca wrote editorials in The Belen News about the issues that affect-
ed the citizens. After he sold the newspaper in the ’40s, he became county
sheriff, Belen police chief and was a member of the Belen Board of Education.
tives was arrested; he spoke out on
world events, writing in an elegant and
logical way. He was ahead of his time
in supporting civil rights for all and he
worried, after World War II, about the
effects of what we now call post-trau-
matic stress disorder. Back then, most
people didn’t even acknowledge such a
thing.
The newspaper office, which had
moved a bit north on Main Street by
the mid-1930s, could be a noisy place.
Pauline, who, with Norena, is really
too young to remember the days when
their family ran the newspaper, does
recall the smell of the place, the dis-
tinctive newspaper perfume of paper
and ink.
And George remembers the presses
themselves.
“For pictures, they had these mats
that were made out of cardboard, simi-
lar to the cardboard egg cartons are
made out of, and the picture would be
printed from it,” he said.
“They had this little metal iron press
and you’d put the picture in — the
cardboard — and pieces of metal and
tilt it over and they’d have hot lead and
you’d pour it in. When it hardened,
See Bacas, Page 12
Bacas: continued from page 11
you’d cut one end off of it,” he said.
“We had two Linotypes in case one
broke, you would have the other.”
After the paper was printed, the
workers would break down the metal
pages to melt them back down for re-
use.
“The summer I was 13-years old, I
was breaking the lead up outside and
the head of the sledgehammer flew off
and the handle hit my left knee and
busted some of the ligaments,” he said.
He’d had the misfortune of suffering a
similar injury to his right knee as well,
ending any possibility for a football
career with the Eagles.
George helped in other ways, too.
“When I was a little older, I went
around as the one to solicit ads. I really
did everything but the Linotype,” he
said.
Working with all that heavy equip-
ment can be dangerous. George recalls
“I had fun working there. Besides
doing the job, we had a lot of fun. I
was flying a little paper airplane once
… and my little airplane got caught in
the electrical lines.”
As he prepared to step into the pud- George Baca, along with his sisters, Evangeline Gallegos, Pauline Garcia and Noreena Castillo, the grandchildren of
dle of water on the floor to disengage Saturnino Baca and children of Elfego and Florela Baca, share the stories of how the family founded the century-old
it, Camilio Aragon “pulled me up and newspaper.
saved my life.”
He laughs as he remembered that
having a father who owned the news-
paper meant he could get into just
about any entertainment in town for
free.
“I’d go to the movies and tell them
that I was the son of Elfego Baca, the
newspaper owner, and they’d just let
me in… They’d let me ride any ride.
Circuses, I got in free. I don’t know if
my father paid later or not,” he said.
His sisters express laughing regret
that they hadn’t been around at the
time to also take advantage of the
unexpected perk.
George also recalls a time when his
own actions appeared in the newspa-
per, much to his chagrin.
Kids from his class at school had
decided to take a picnic to the mesa
and someone began lamenting that
there was no dessert. One young
woman volunteered that her father had
a crop of watermelon just ripe for pick-
ing. They jumped in a truck, raided the
garden and went back to the mesa for
what George describes as “a watermel-
on feast.”
“Thursday when the paper came out
… there was a quarter-page ad offering
a $25 reward for any information about
whoever stole this girl’s father’s water-
melons. And I stood there and I had to Elfego Baca, right, stands in front of The Belen News office with two unidentified men. Elfego, the owner of the news-
paper from 1920 to 1947, was an outgoing man who , his children say, was honest and had a strong sense of responsi-
See Bacas, Page 13
bility to his readers.
Bacas: continued from page 12
fold all those newspapers” while look-
ing at the ad, he said, and not being
able to turn himself in not to implicate
the daughter.
As with most newspapermen, his
father had occasional problems, too.
George recalls that a headline reporting
on a local rodeo — a story that his
father didn’t proofread — announced
that a cowboy had won the “raping
contest” rather than the roping one.
“I know he printed a correction on
that one,” George said.
While today’s newspaper reporter
spends a good portion of his time cov-
ering events such as county commis-
sion or city council meetings at night,
that wasn’t the case in those days.
Meetings were held during the day,
George said, so Elfego spent the eve-
nings with his family.
“He talked a lot about politics and
government. He would counsel me,
‘don’t get involved in politics,’”
George recalled. And he didn’t, becom-
ing a social worker instead.
“He felt strong about being honest,
having integrity and being responsi-
ble.”
During some of his years as editor of Photos courtesy of the Baca family
The News, Elfego served as county
Elfego Baca sets off to deliver The Belen News in 1920 in his Model T. He later became county sheriff.
treasurer.
Elfego was much more outgoing liquor director and Belen police chief.
than his father; he was handsome and Elfego Baca wasn’t interested in get-
always nattily dressed, with his trade- ting rich, they said. He was more con-
mark bow tie and Western hat. cerned about honesty, responsibility
As a teenager working on the rail- and integrity. He never once raised the
road one summer, George learned subscription rate for The News in all Protecting and Insuring Valencia
something his father had never told the years he owned it; it was always $2 County For Over 50 Years
him before. a year.
“They told me ‘your dad was the As sheriff and police chief, he tried
best baseball pitcher in New Mexico.’ to solve problems he encountered with
He had a Model T Ford and he’d trav- counseling and reason. Men he arrested
eled around the state … back then, would stop by his home on South
players could play on any team. He’d Third Street and thank him for helping
go to San Antonio and he used to stay them. As sheriff, one man famously bit
in the first Hilton Hotel. … They said him on the little finger, a painful and
he could have made the pros.” dangerous encounter reported in The
George recalls being in and out of News and other media. Even that man
The News office every day. apologized to the dapper Baca, both in
“The telephone we had was in the person and by letter from jail.
printing shop, so we had to make all Today, the Bacas don’t even really
our telephone calls from there,” he have a record of the work their father
said. and grandfather poured so much work
And the location of the shop on Main into for 37 years.
Street proved an additional bonus. “I had copies of the papers from all
“I started, at age 4, every time there the years, in our garage when we lived Roy Culver Grace & Yvonne Sanchez
was a carnival or fiesta … I would sell on Third Street, where there was a stor- of Culver Agency, of Rio Grande Financial
soda pops from the back porch of the age area. When I went away to gradu- Est. 1945 Network
printing shop.” ate school in Nebraska, they were
By the time he graduated high there, but when I returned, they were Health • Commercial auto • home
school, he had a couple of thousand all gone,” George said. Mobile Home life • flood
All that is left is the memories — oh,
circa 1955
dollars saved, enough to get his educa-
tion going. those, and George still has a typewriter
In 1947, Elfego decided to sell the that his father used. It has already done 1052 Main St. • Suite A • 865-3624
newspaper and enter a new phase of
life, working as county sheriff, state
its share of telling many stories under
the skilled hands of a master.
www.riograndefinancial.com
 Elfego Baca was known as a man
of integrity. He owned and operated
The Belen News from 1920 to 1947.
This picture was taken when he was
elected county sheriff.

VCNB’s
Founding
Family
Photos courtesy of the Baca family

Dora Baca sits at her kitchen table with her son, Herman, and husband, Saturnino, reading the newspaper. The photo
was taken in 1918.

During the first year that Elfego Baca took over The Belen News from his Elfego Baca owned and operated The Belen News for 27 years before he sold
father, Saturnino, in 1920, the longtime newspaper man would deliver the news the newspaper to Edwin Lewis. Baca's children remember their father always
from a donkey-drawn cart with help from paperboys. helping the community. They still have the typewriter he wrote many stories on.
 It Began with four...
From four to
four-hundred in
Valencia County
M ary & Mike Merrell, founded Ambercare in 1994. Suzette Pierce and
Edward Candelaria were among the 1st employees at Ambercare 16
years ago. These four grew Ambercare with the help of a dedicated staff to
care and provide services; including Nursing Care, Physical Therapy,
Medical, Social and Home Health Aide Servies.

Although Ambercare has expanded statewide, Valencia County is home,

and home is where Ambercare’s heart is.

Ambercare would like to thank the Valencia County New-Bulletin in part-

nership, assisting with publishing employment and campaign
advertising to hire local staff & further business.

Congratulations
on your 100th Birthday!
420 Main St. Belen
Call 861-0600 for more information
www.ambercare.com
The Footsoldiers of Healthcare ®
 100
News-Bulletin
1910-2010
YEARS
By Clara Garcia
News-Bulletin Editor
cgarcia@news-bulletin.com
W
hen Carter Waid first trav-
eled to Belen more than 60
years ago to look into
investing in a newspaper, he wasn’t
sure the Hub City was where he want-
ed to work, much less live. It wasn’t
love at first sight.
“He told me when he went to look at
the paper, he said there were only two
paved streets in town,” said Lil Lou
Gillett, Waid’s daughter and a former
reporter, photographer and editor of the
News-Bulletin. “He said, ‘This wasn’t
going to work.’ Then, when he saw the
sunset, he changed his mind. That’s
when he decided he was going to stay.”
Carter Waid, a legendary owner and
publisher of the News-Bulletin, moved
to Belen with his wife, Martha, and
two children, Lil Lou and Bill. For
decades, Waid gave his life to the
newspaper and to Belen, serving as
mayor from 1962-68.
Waid’s journalism career began in
Lawton, Okla., where he was a copy
boy at the Lawton Constitution. He had
received an associate’s degree from
Cameron College. Beginning his career
during the The Depression, Waid
worked up to reporter, then city editor
and finally managing editor.
During World War II, Waid worked
with the Office of War Information,
first in Washington D.C., then in New
York City, and finally in Europe —
mostly in Luxembourg and Germany,
his son, Bill, said.
“He went to Germany just after he
and my mother married,” said Bill,
who is a psychologist in Wilmington,
Del. “He served in Europe as an editor
of an Army newspaper. Some of my
favorite possessions are the pictures of
him interviewing famous military offi-
cers and politicos. He was in
Luxembourg until the end of the war.”
When Waid returned home from the
16
100 1910-2010
YEARS
Carter Waid: Newspaperman
Carter Waid bought into the Belen Bulletin in 1947, the same year the newspa-
per merged with The Belen News. In 1954, Waid became the sole owner of the
newspaper that is known today as the Valencia County News-Bulletin.
war, Bill said his father had the oppor-
tunity to either go back to work for the
Lawton Constitution or take a job with
the Baltimore Sun. According to the
newspaperman’s son, he decided to
return home where life was a little
more quiet.
“He told me there was too much traf-
fic and too many people in Baltimore,”
Bill said. “He loved the West.”
Several years after returning to
Oklahoma, Waid wanted to branch out;
he wanted to build some equity in a
newspaper that he could call his own.
Even before the war, Waid had thought
about trying to find a newspaper to
buy, but when he returned, his efforts
became more serious.
Waid found and went into business
with George Perkins, the owner of the
A Century of News
News-Bulletin, a weekly newspaper
that was competing with The Belen
News, which had been sold by Elfego
Baca to Edwin J. Lewis.
By April 1947, Waid, Perkins and
Lewis joined forces and created the
Belen News-Bulletin. Within seven
years, Waid was the sole owner of the
newspaper.
While Bill was only 3-years old
when the Waids moved to New Mexico
in 1947, and only remembers the train
depot in Amarillo, Lil Lou was a little
older — an 8-year-old third-grader.
“Honestly, I don’t remember too
much about the town,” she said. “I do
remember that in Lawton, we had not
started writing in cursive. In New
Mexico, they had started in the second
grade. That was really tough because I
had to develop my own cursive, which
never turned out too good.”
The Waid family first moved into a
small duplex on Dalies Avenue, a block
and a half from the newspaper at 208
N. Second St.
Lil Lou remembers there was no
washing machine and her mother
would take their clothes to the laundry
in a little red wagon.
“Bill would ride on top of the
clothes, and I would walk alongside
my mother,” Lil Lou said.
“We then moved to a house on
Second Street, two blocks north of the
paper,” she remembers. “We lived
there until I was in the seventh grade.
We moved back to Dalies, this time to
a house. We lived there until I was out
of college.”
When the Waid children were young,
they remember their father was very
dedicated to the citizens of Belen and
to the newspaper. Waid never stopped
working. Reporters remember him
returning from lunch with his pockets
full of paper napkins with leads for sto-
ries scrawled on them, complete with
telephone numbers for the people
involved.
See Waid, Page 17
Waid: continued from page 16
His evenings were spent covering
meetings, and he was always on duty,
listening for middle-of-the-night fire
alarms and attending virtually every
civic event in the county.
“He was always covering meetings
— school board or city council. His
life was getting out the newspaper,”
Bill said of his father. “He was very
busy and very devoted. I can remember
wishing he wasn’t going out another
evening because he was out a lot. I just
thought very highly of him. He was a
pillar of the community and showed us
how to live up to a certain standard.”
Described by his children as a gre-
garious and well-dressed man, Waid
was inducted into the New Mexico
Press Association Hall of Fame in
1982. He loved what he did so much
that he would do anything to make sure
he put the paper out — even typing
with only his two index fingers, his son
said.
“One of the funniest memories I
have is the one-page pink extra he pub-
lished in the newspaper,” Bill said. “It
was in the mid-50s and there was a lot
of hullabaloo at the school board about
appointing a superintendent, something
about the best candidate not being
appointed. So my father printed a one-
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(505) 864-4723
page extra on pink paper to make sure
everyone read it.”
While Waid had given so much time
writing, reporting, editing and publish-
ing the News-Bulletin, he also gave
back to his community through a num-
ber of civic organizations and boards.
He was a member of the Belen Rotary
Club, the chamber of commerce, the
State Prison Board, the board of direc-
tors of the Los Lunas Hospital and
Training School, a director of the New
Mexico Press Association and a mem-
ber of the board of directors of the
New Mexico Boys Ranch.
Martha was no different. When she
wasn’t raising her family or keeping
the newspaper's books, she took part in
a number of community activities
including as a member of the Pilot
Club of Belen, the Alkali Anne Garden
Club and as a member of the American
Association of University Women.
In 1963, Waid branched out into
other media as well, founding KARS
radio. Waid sold the News-Bulletin that
same year, but returned to manage it in
1966, purchasing the paper again in
1970 and publishing it until his retire-
ment in 1977. (At the time, he also
owned an interest in the Cibola County
See Waid, Page18
Waid: continued from page 17
Beacon and the Valley News in
Espanola.)
Bill said he wasn’t sure why his
father sold the paper in 1963, saying he
thought it was for financial reasons or
because he was busy with the radio sta-
tion.
“But he regretted having sold it,” Bill
said. “It was a mistake. He would ask
me periodically before he retired if I
wanted to come back and take it over.”
Bill said after his father retired, his
parents moved to Rio Communities
and lived there until 1993, when they
moved to Albuquerque. The couple
lived in the Duke City for one year
before moving back to Oklahoma.
Carter Waid died seven months later;
his wife, Martha passed away in
September 1999.
Even though Waid was a serious
newspaper man and business owner,
his children remember their father as a
very compassionate man who always
extended a helping hand to people. Bill
recalls the time when FBI agents went
to the newspaper looking for one of the
Linotype operators.
“They arrested him for writing bad
checks under an assumed name,” Bill
said. “(The man) served his time and
when he came back to town, my father
hired him back.”
While Carter Waid was known in the
community as the “newspaper man,”
the News-Bulletin was a family busi-
ness. Martha was a part-time book-
keeper, and the children also lent a
helping hand when they could.
Both Lil Lou and Bill started work-
ing at the paper when they were
youngsters in grade school. Bill said
his father thought his children should
learn the business “from the ground
up.”
“I spend my summers working in the
shop,” Bill remembers. “I remember I
melted lead and poured it into molds. I
helped with the Linotype machine. I
had some thoughts about going into
journalism, and when I went to UNM,
I worked at the Daily Lobo during my
sophomore and senior years.
“We thought we knew it all, so I
majored in Engish and got a minor is
Spanish,” he said. “We thought we’d
learn the journalism stuff on the job. I
worked for my dad off and on, but
after college, I went into the Peace
Corps and served two years in Peru,
18
1001910-2010
YEARS
where I met my wife, Anna Magruder,
who was another volunteer.”
The two were married in Lima, Peru.
After their service, the couple moved
to Florida where Bill taught English
and Spanish at a private school, and
Anna got her master’s degree in teach-
ing. Bill wanted a change and decided
to move to the east coast, where he
attended Rutger’s University in New
Jersey and got a degree in psychology.
After working at the Institute of
Pennsylvania Hospital and the
University of Pennsylvania, Bill and
his wife moved to Delaware where he
has been in private practice for more
than 25 years.
While Bill didn’t follow in his
father’s footsteps, his daughter did. Lil
Lou remembers doing a lot of hand
inserting as a young child, cleaning up
the shop after press runs and sweeping
up the office. She said she bought her
first pair of cowboy boots with the
money she earned — a whole 25-cents
an hour.
“When I was able to drive, I was
able to deliver the paper to the houses
that the paper boys neglected,” she
said. “The first story I wrote was about
a professional wrestling (exhibition) at
the high school. I was about 12.”
Lil Lou said she thought it was “pret-
ty neat” having a dad who owned the
newspaper. She thought the whole
town was basically their backyard.
“Everyone knew I was Carter Waid’s
daughter,” she said. “I was very proud
of that, and I still am.”
Lil Lou continued working and writ-
ing for the newspaper while in high
school, but she soon realized that her
first love was sports. Because there
were no organized sports teams for
girls at that time, Lil Lou would partic-
ipate in sport days — days when the
girls were able to play other teams
from around the region. She played
basketball, softball, field hockey and
other sports.
Her love of athletics followed her to
UNM, where she majored in physical
education and minored in journalism.
After she graduated, Lil Lou decided to
take another path and took a job with
the Camp Fire Girls as an assistant
camp director. Her career was stifled
when she was seriously injured in a car
accident.
“I was kind of on hold for a few
years,” she said. “After that, I worked
at the Los Lunas Hospital and Training
School doing public relations and some
social work.”
After political differences with the
management, Lil Lou decided it was
time to go back to the News-Bulletin in
1969 and help her father put out the
news. She said her dad was very influ-
ential in what and how she reported.
“He told me it was very important to
be factual and to report what you actu-
ally saw and what was happening,” she
said. “He taught me that an opinion
only belongs in one place — on the
opinion page.”
Lil Lou, who won many awards for
her writing and reporting much like her
father, said she was very conscientious
in double-checking her facts and get-
ting both sides of the story.
“My dad was a very strong supporter
of the Open Meetings Act, and
believed that government needed to be
honest and open. But he didn’t believe
that the public needed to know every
whimsical detail of a person’s life. He
believed in open government, but not
invading the private lives of everyone
in it.”
Lil Lou said her dad was, and still is,
a mentor.
“I judge a newspaper by what he
would have said about it,” she said.
“He was a very honest person.”
When Lil Lou began reporting full
time, she said some of her favorite sto-
ries to cover were, not surprisingly,
high school sports. But one story she
says she’ll never forget was that of a
3-year-old boy who was kidnapped
from his Belen home.
“The family didn’t live too far from
the railroad, and I think the child was
missing for three days,” she remem-
bers. “All the Albuquerque newspapers
were in town covering the story and I
practically lived in the family’s yard
for three days.
“Apparently, the child had been in
his backyard and was taken by a
hobo,” she said. “They found him in
Clovis, unharmed. That was one of the
more exciting stories that I covered.”
Another story Lil Lou remembers is
a big freeze in the valley. She said Rio
Communities had just gotten started
and a pipeline that carried natural gas
to the east side of the river had frozen
over.
A Century of News
“No one had heat, and those who had
fireplaces would have everyone come
over,” she said. “The people in Belen
would conserve fuel so the people in
Rio Communities would have enough.”
One of the major changes Lil Lou
recalls at the newspaper was when it
stopped using the old Linotype
machine and went to offset printing, a
printing technique where the inked
image is transferred, or offset, from a
plate to a rubber blanket, then to the
newsprint.
“It was a lot easier in terms of run-
ning pictures, and we could do a lot
more action shots,” she said.
While editor, Lil Lou married Les
Gillett, the son of a Farmington doctor,
who worked at First National Bank. In
1977, the same year her father sold the
News-Bulletin for the second and last
time, the couple had a son, Linque,
who was born premature. Lil Lou said
while she worked at the News-Bulletin
on a part-time basis helping out with
special editions, her husband was diag-
nosed with melanoma.
The couple moved to the east moun-
tains and Les died in October 1982. Lil
Lou moved back to Lawton to be clos-
er to family.
“I never went back to work for a
newspaper, but I wish I had,” she said.
“But I had a little boy to raise and he
had just lost his father. He was only 5,
and he had a hard time accepting his
father was gone. I needed to be
around.”
Today, Linque is an attorney in
Oklahoma and has one son, Carter,
named in honor of his grandfather.
Lil Lou hasn’t been back to Belen
for more than 10 years, and said she
hasn’t been able to read the newspaper
that she still holds dear to her heart.
But she did say that she will always
have fond memories of the “little
newspaper.”
“I thought it was the heart of the
community,” she said. “It was there for
everything. I think (the newspaper) was
kind of the nerve center and it kept the
history of the area. Everyone wanted to
be in it.
“I think a small town paper, and it
may still be, recorded history of the
area at the time,” she said. “I think it
was very important to the people.”
 A Little
r H i s t o r y . . .
Auto Repai
e ow ne r of M oto r Ca r M all has been part of Valencia
Th
County for a half century.
counting started out in busin
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Starting out Mike and two
Rick & Marty Pobar had to
out of a hay barn from an
m by go od fri en d an d lan dlord Milledge Powell.
the
Rick & Marty moved on lea
The local people knew an
grown up in Bosque Farm
one around. Back then we
sto me r ca me in for a
cu
air blower to blow off the
right in front of them.
s am az ing tha t we we
It’
people kept coming back
s pu t ou t. To da y
alway
place, now presently locate
evolved into a combinatio
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collision repairs around bu
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mechanical division and ha
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Mike Rouckus
working on office
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1984.
and
Mike Rouckus 48 years old
in
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. It wa sn’t
do his best ever since
at the young age of 21.
e
business partners at the tim
loc ati on
literally build the first
to
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La ter
ving Mike the sole owner.
Mike Rouckus
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d supported Mike since he
ev ery
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s; he knew practically
1984.
na
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 100
News-Bulletin
1910-2010
YEARS
By Dana Bowley
News-Bulletin Staff Writer
dabowley@news-bulletin.com
T
he most reliable records indi-
cate that in its 100-year histo-
ry, the News-Bulletin has oper-
ated out of five locations around Belen,
plus two satellite locations in Los
Lunas.
When Saturnino Baca started pub-
lishing El Hispano Americano in 1910,
he did so from the garage of his home
on the southeast corner at Main and
Bernard streets, where he also ran a
print shop (there is a laundry there
now). In 1912 he added an English-
language companion newspaper, The
Belen News.
Although Baca moved out of the
business in the late 1920s, the newspa-
per operation didn’t move out of his
home until a few years later.
In September 1932, Baca’s son,
Elfego, purchased the Gilbert building
a few blocks away at what is approxi-
mately 115 S. Main St. today, and relo-
cated the newspaper and printing busi-
ness there. Gilbert’s Food Market
before the News moved in, today the
location is the site of several small
businesses, with Elite Muscle at 115 S.
Main. Some sources place the newspa-
per at 107 S. Main St., which would
have been next door to the Becker-
Dalies Store (site of Wells-Fargo Bank
today), but this appears to represent
some confusion with another location
of Gilbert’s Market and the lack or
scarcity of addressing at the time.
In 1946, the Bacas sold the operation
to Edwin J. Lewis. The News remained
on Main Street until early 1947 when it
merged with the year-old Belen
Bulletin to form the News-Bulletin.
The newspapers’ operations were
consolidated at the Bulletin’s office at
208 N. Second St. The print shop was
relocated across the street at 201 N.
20
100 1910-2010
YEARS
Floela Baca and her infant son, George, stand in front of The Belen News,
which was located in 1932 at 115 N. Main Street.
Second St.
Later, publisher Carter Waid started
up KARS Radio in the same building
as the newspaper, and the radio station
Where we’ve been
remains in that location today.
Waid sold the newspaper in 1963,
and in 1965 the owners moved into a
newly constructed building at Sixth
A Century of News
and Baca streets. The building was
owned by Nestor, Ignacio and Manuel
Gallegos, who leased it to the News-
Bulletin.
The move reunited the newspaper
and printing operations under one roof,
with the newspaper entrance facing
Baca Street and the print shop entrance
facing Sixth. The Nov. 4, 1965, edition
of the News-Bulletin featured a two-
page photo spread documenting the
move of the 13,000-pound press, which
required a huge crane to lift onto a flat-
bed truck.
The building now houses a custom
motorcycle operation and auto repair
shop.
By the time Ken and Walt Green,
owners of the Artesia Daily Press, pur-
chased the News-Bulletin in 1988, the
print shop had been sold. In 1989, the
Greens contracted to have a new facili-
ty built for the News-Bulletin at 1837
Sosimo Padilla Blvd., including space
for an offset press to begin printing the
newspaper locally again. The Greens
sold the newspaper to Raljon Corp.,
which completed the construction, and
the new offices opened on Jan. 16,
1990. The News-Bulletin has not
moved since then, but it has changed
addresses — when the street name was
returned to the original name of
Camino del Llano,
Also in 1989, growth in Los Lunas
and Bosque Farms prompted manage-
ment to open a satellite office at the
Valencia “Y” to make it easier for resi-
dents on the north end of the county to
bring in news items, place classified
ads and conduct other business with
the newspaper.
The office was in the strip center on
the east side of N.M. 47, at the end of
the office row opposite Baskin-
Robbins.
The satellite office was relocated to
its present location at 501 Main St. SE
in Los Lunas in June 2004.
El Hispano Americano and The Belen News were published out of the
garage of Saturnino Baca’s house at Main and Bernard until 1932. This laundry
sits on that site now.

The Belen News published from the Gilbert building, 115 S. Main St., from
1932 to 1947. The site of Gilbert’s Food Market prior to the newspaper’s occu-
pancy, the structure has since been divided into several sections.

In 1947, The Belen News and the one-year-old The Belen Bulletin merged to
form the News-Bulletin, and operations were consolidated at the Bulletin’s
office at 208 N. Second St. Years later, owner Carter Waid started KARS Radio
in the same building, and the radio station continues to operate there.

In 1965, the News-Bulletin and its printing operation moved into a new building
at Sixth and Baca owned by Nestor, Ignacio and Manuel Gallegos. The print
shop entrance faced Sixth Street and the newspaper entrance faced Baca. It
was at this site in 1977 that Valencia County was officially added to the News-
Bulletin name. The building now houses a motorcycle shop.
The News-Bulletin moved into its current office at 1837 Camino del Llano
(Sosimo Padilla Boulevard at the time) in 1990, and over the past 20 years has
experienced a lot of growth in several ways.

A Century of News 1001910-2010

YEARS 21
 100 1910 -1919
News-Bulletin
1910-2010
YEARS
By Sandy Battin
Special to the News-Bulletin
W
hile the first issue of El Hispano
Americano rolled off the press in pub-
lisher Saturnino Baca’s garage on June
11, 1910, no actual copy is known to exist.
The only way a physical copy of that historic issue
exists is in a front-page story in the News-Bulletin in
1959, reporting the newspaper’s upcoming 50th anni-
versary. What happened to that copy no one knows.
The print on that issue, although small, is still
mostly legible. Here, probably in the words of Mr.
Baca himself, is a copy of the first story on the front
page of that edition 100 years ago:
GOOD MORNING
With the cheerful salutation, El Hispano Americano
cordially greets all the good people of Belen and
Valencia County. The El Hispano Americano has not
been started to serve any faction; not to punish ene-
mies nor reward friends to the detriment of the peo-
ple’s interests. It is started strictly for (unreadable
word) as a business proposition and will be run on
business principles. We have long believed there was
a fruitful need in Valencia County for a good Spanish
American paper and El Hispano Americano will do
its utmost to supply this field. Therefore, we cordially
invite all, without regard to race, creed or political
affiliation, to become our clients and our friends. We
may not agree with some of you all the time, but El
Hispano Americano will publish something of interest
to you every week. Improvements will be made as
rapidly as business will warrant.
Come in and say “Good morning.”
June 11, 1910
It is a surprisingly modern philosophy; it could be a
greeting made by the publisher today. The News-
Bulletin has always, and will continue, to welcome
the input of all its readers. It has strived to provide
factual, honest and fair reporting all through the
decades. It has always promised to “publish some-
thing of interest to you every week.”
It would be fascinating to be able to share what
those initial issues were like, but the first ragged copy
of The Belen News that exists is dated Feb. 3, 1916.
The Belen News was started in 1912; El Hispano
Americano was printed as part of The News by about
late 1916.
It is a typical paper of its era, with easier-to-read
larger print than that first edition and most headlines
Saturnino Baca
Founding father
22
1001910-2010
YEARS
in all capital letters. The news is set out in six equal
columns, with no story given a banner headline. That
was the way most newspapers of the day were laid
out. The reader scanned each and every column to
find something of interest.
In 1916, before most people had radios and before
libraries had been founded in the county, small towns
were, of necessity, sociable places. People made their
own entertainment. They put on plays, organized
clubs, held game nights in their homes — and they
read newspapers column by column, especially for
coverage of events they’d been involved in them-
selves.
At the same time, their local newspaper could be
their only window into the larger world. The Feb. 3,
1916, edition included news that Gov. McDonald had
commuted the sentence of a man who was to be hung
in Raton to 99 years in prison. The governor said the
facts did not justify the execution in the murder case.
There is also an account of a “tragic railway cross-
ing accident” in which the publisher of the Deming
Headlight lost his three daughters.
In those days before press services, it was common
for newspapers to share stories with one another; that
was one of the ways people in Belen learned about
what was happening to people in Las Cruces or Santa
Fe.
That the governor’s first name wasn’t included was
typical. In early sports stories, for instance, players
were identified by only their last names. It was
assumed that, if you lived in the small town of Belen,
you would know which Romero was a member of the
high school football team.
A modern reader might be a bit confused about the
placement of stories. For instance, the story about the
governor’s commutation of the sentence of the man
charged with murder begins at the bottom of the first
column and continues a bit farther down in the sec-
ond column, with only a line separating it from a
long story about an unnamed individual who found
his own job and made his own way at the University
of New Mexico.
That 1916 edition also shows the first known obitu-
ary published in the News. It reads:
DEATH OF MRS. BEATRIZ B. DE GARCIA
The funeral of Mrs. Beatriz B. de Garcia, respected
wife of Mr. Jose Garcia and daughter of Mr. and Mrs.
Bernardino Baca, and Placida B. Baca, of this city,
See 1910-1919, Page 23
A Century of News
1910-1919: Continued from page 22
was held today from the Catholic Church.
Deceased was 18 years old and was in the
best of health up to the time she was attacked
by Pneumonia.
Mrs. de Garcia’s obituary was run at the top
of the fifth column of the front page.
Newspapers began accepting advertisements
on their front pages — often controversially
— again back in the 1980s and ‘90s.
Reporters and some readers considered that
sacrosanct territory — just the news, please,
on Page 1. But historically, The Belen News,
like most other newspapers of its era, sold
front page ads as a matter of course. A one-
column-by-three-inch ad for McBrayer’s
Whiskey sits at the bottom of the sixth column
in that 1916 edition.
What we now call community newspapers
— smaller publications that concentrate more
on what is happening locally than the big dai-
lies that aspire to cover the entire world —
were immensely popular at the time in which
Mr. Baca founded the Hispano-Americano.
Stories that we wouldn’t expect to read
nowadays were covered. We learn who trav-
eled to Albuquerque — a long journey that
could take most of the day in 1916 — and
who was new in town. On that first available
1916 front page, at the very bottom of the last
column, for instance, we read, with no head-
line, tucked under a report on a cattlemen’s
convention in Albuquerque:
Mr. and Mrs. Robert Ernest was a new
arrival in Belen last Sunday night from
Albuquerque. Mr. Ernest takes position at the
store of Becker Mercantile Co. For the last
two years he was the window decorator and
dress goods salesman at the Golden Rule Dry
Goods company of Albuquerque.
In a day and age when the Becker store was
one of the only places to shop in Belen, just
about all readers would be making the
acquaintance of Mr. Ernest. And they’d
already have something to talk to him about
— window dressing.
A few months later, on Aug. 31, 1916, the
News reports on other activities of local citi-
zens:
LOCAL ITEMS
Mrs. N.E. Woolford left last week for her
home in Virginia, where she will make an
extended visit.
Miss Gertrudes Espinosa, of Albuquerque,
came down Tuesday to arrange for her posi-
tion in the High School. She will teach
Spanish and Domestic Science.
A Century of News
Mr. George Hoffman, our efficient and pop- Although there is no record of it in the exist-
1910 -1919
ular postmaster, is spending a few days in ing editions, The Belen News once had an edi-
Santa Fe, on business. tor who went on to play a much bigger role in
the history of New Mexico and the nation.
Edward LeBrun and Ray Dils were both The only record of his editorship appears in a
hurt Tuesday in an accident, when the Ford small one-paragraph story that appeared in the
they were driving turned over. Luckily the boys Dec. 16, 1937 edition:
were not seriously injured.
FORMER NEWS EDITOR WRITES AGAIN
Church news was also popular in almost Senator Dennis Chavez, former editor of the
every edition; almost 100 percent of the popu- News, has returned to the fold by writing for
lation of Belen attended services at least once the New Mexico Sentinel, a weekly paper pub-
a week. In that first edition, prominently lished in Santa Fe. Senator Chavez aban-
shown are: doned his career as editor of the Belen News
in 1916.
METHODIST CHURCH
NOTES Advertisements in the Belen News didn’t
The attendance at the Methodist church change often; the John Becker Company,
swung back to the high water mark Sunday obviously one of the newspapers biggest
morning and evening. accounts, for months ran an ad for:
With the coming Sunday morning services it
is hoped that there will be an even better
attendance, for various reasons, among them
the increased interest of the older people
increases the interest of the younger people.
Church notes were usually printed as sub-
mitted by members; the more a Methodist or a
Catholic correspondent wrote, the more infor-
mation about their congregation would be
included.
National news was printed without reference
to a news service such as Associated Press.
But Mr. Baca appears to have been a well read
and highly informed man. In the March 2,
1916, edition, he gives the facts about an
apparent attempt by a German general to kill
the kaiser and reports that it was first printed
in a French newspaper “but Not Vouched for
By It.”
Mr. Baca, a superintendent of the Valencia
County schools, made every attempt to try to
uplift and educate his readers. On March 9,
1916, he wrote:
FOR DUMB ANIMALS
You can make kindness a habit — if you
want to.
In human education it is, after all, the child The story of the Belen News is incomplete
that is the first consideration. during that first decade. The bound volumes
To awaken and foster the principles of jus- — huge newspaper-sized books of actual cop-
tice and kindness in the heart of a child is to ies of the newspaper — skips from Dec. 21,
render him a supreme service. The animals’s 1916, to Dec. 25, 1919. That last date also
sphere in this comes as an inevitable conse- tells a story; newspapering is a 24-hour-a-day,
quence. 365-day-a-year job.
We heard the other day of an excellent woman On Christmas Day in that long-ago year, the
who said that if her dog was to have a place in paper came out on its regular schedule.
the future home of the immortals, she didn’t want Saturnino Baca was a hard worker who gave
to go there. Doubtless some animals might feel his readers the newspaper they’d paid for,
the same way about their master. even if he had to deliver his newspaper on
Christmas Day.
100 1910-2010
YEARS 23
 100 1920 - 1929
News-Bulletin
1910-2010
YEARS
By Sandy Battin
Special to the News-Bulletin
T
he ’20s were roaring.
You could tell that with the first edition of
The Belen News on Jan. 8, 1920. A story
announces:
SOCIETY GIRL
AS STOWAWAY
Peoria, Ill. ­— Playing the unique role of society
girl stowaway, Miss Josephine Well, daughter of
Joseph Well, prominent in legal and political circles
here, gave the smart set a distinct shock when she
related her extraordinary experience, following her
arrival home from San Francisco.
Stories of travel among the languorous islands of
the southern Pacific ocean always have an appeal,
but the interpolation of a society girl stowaway is
something so far out of the ordinary that even the
most captious and story surfeited globe trotter will
probably give attention to the remarkable narrative
of the Peoria maiden.
But while runaway society girls, jazz bands and
short skirts might have been making the news across
the country, publisher Saturnino Baca of The Belen
News was offering practical and prescient advice in a
decade that would end in the Great Depression.
THRIFTOGRAMS
Nobody ever got rich tomorrow. Begin saving
today.
Savings crank up the prosperity engine.
All the wealth in the world is what has been saved
by some one.
Savings beget more when they are invested; War
Savings Stamps are the finest investment in the
World.
If the economy was booming in the big cities,
times were still hard for rural New Mexico newspa-
pers. Slowly, The Belen News began offering more
and more legal advertising and fewer stories about
local people and events. There were bankruptcy
notices, probate court accountings, and, a little more
frequently, signs that the times were changing:
PUBLIC NOTICE
Having my wife (a name is given) abandoned her
duties as my wife and refused to live with me without
any reason, I will not be responsible from this date on
Elfego Baca
Longtime publisher
and editor
24
1001910-2010
YEARS
for no account or compromise whatever she may
make in my name.
Signed by her husband
Feb. 8, 1920
There are stories about Armenian girls being saved
from a harem and ads for hunger relief in the Near
East.
Change. It was in the air.
Page after page of notices for delinquent taxes are
printed; local residents who’d lived in the valley for
centuries began losing their land because they hadn’t
enough money to pay taxes. Sales were made from
the courthouse steps.
America’s dancing daughters — “it” girls and flap-
pers — were cutting their hair short and going wild.
At least that’s what their parents thought. And
women were close to getting the vote. The Sept. 20,
1920, edition shows New Mexico among the list of
states that had ratified the amendment for women
suffrage. Some states had rejected it, including
Delaware, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, South
Carolina, Maryland and Louisiana.
Even the ads show the times are changing.
Phonographs, powdered milk, and Jazz bands were
being booked for the fiestas dance at Goebel Hall.
And the movement to make a cleaner, safer nation
is also evident. Mr. Baca prints numerous stories
about efforts of the Red Cross to stamp out disease,
fair deals for farmers and talk of the League of
Nations. Still very much an agricultural community,
Valencia County farmers get quite an education from
The Belen News. They learn about insects and poultry
— the chinch bug and the best breeds of geese in the
Aug. 26, 1922, edition alone.
There’s something for everyone. Mother’s Cook
Book features recipes for sponge cake, nut loaf and
Spanish potatoes, while the kids learn about every-
thing from the principal salt-producing localities to
the definition of liquid air in the “Who, What, How,
Where, When?” feature. Saturnino Baca continues his
efforts to help educate his readership.
And photos begin appearing. On Nov. 4, 1920,
there are photos of the mustachioed Carlos Baca,
elected senator, Valencia County, and M.E. Baca,
elected representative Valencia County.
Comics began to make an appearance in about
1922. One, “R’member” featured images of child-
hood versus those of middle age, while “Fanny’s
Generosity Is Wonderful” featured a bossy woman
See 1920-1929, Page 25
A Century of News
1920-1929: continued from page 24
and her hen-pecked husband who is about
half her height.
Sports also begins to appear in the paper,
although at first it’s about the big-time teams,
such as the Aug. 12, 1922, report that the
manager of the Kansas City Blues, Otto
Knabe, complaining about the “raw deal” he
got his from club in being released from his
contract.
Since the days of Charles Dickens, fiction
had played a role in the success of most
newspapers. Like the movie serials that
would come along during the decade, the sto-
ries would leave readers with cliff-hangers
that would make their minds wander back to
what was happening with the characters dur-
ing the week between chapters. “The
Cultivated Christmas Tree” thrilled in 1922.
In 1923, the News featured “Captain
Sazarac” by Charles Tenney Jackson, which
was about the “picturesque days when young
Creole bloods rallied around the fugitive
pirate, Lafitte — he of Barataria Bay and
Galveston Island — and planned the rescue
of Napoleon, fretting his life away on bleak
St. Helena.”
But Saturnino Baca — or perhaps his son
Elfego — had long wished to provide local
news and he rededicated The Belen News to
that purpose, to going back to his original
mission. He wrote an open letter to his read-
ers on April 21, 1923:
TO THE PEOPLE OF BELEN
AND VALENCIA COUNTY
The Belen News, after a lapse of some
three years — during which time it has been
published strictly as a legal sheet — will
make its bow to the public the coming week
as a local newspaper. It will be the aim of the
publishers to promote the best interests of the
village, as well as the county and, incidental-
ly, the state. Heretofore, its publication day
has been on Saturday, but in order to better
serve its advertisers, it will hereafter appear
on Thursday evening of each week. This
change, we think, will be appreciated by
those who patronize its columns, and we trust
we shall merit their use to a large extent.
Mr. Godfrey A. Bryant, a practical printer
and all-around newspaper man of many
years’ experience, recently from California,
tho formerly of the northwest, has been asso-
ciated with the paper and will lend his efforts
to its development, while Elfego G. Baca,
native born and known by all, will attend to
the Spanish department in a way that will be
pleasing to readers.
We will print an edition of 800 copies —
A Century of News
gratuitously distributed until such time as our
paid-subscription list equals a like number.
The subscription price will be $2.00 a year,
tho in order to build up the list as soon as
possible, we will make a special price of
$1.50 per year for next two months.
Thereafter it will be $2.00 to all.
Here’s hoping your interests will be served,
your patronage merited, and a long-felt want
more than supplied.
Very truly,
BACA & BRYANT
Publishers
Phone 96
Notice the spelling of the word “tho”? That
too was a sign of the journalistic times. The
Chicago Tribune had pioneered the concept
of simplified spelling, encouraging newspa-
pers to spell words as they sounded — simi-
lar to the way words were spelled in Spanish.
That may have been a reason why the Bacas
advocated that effort — it probably simply
made sense to them.
The men were proud of the newspaper they
produced. They wrote on Oct. 4, 1923:
THE LOCAL NEWSPAPER
Stand by your town newspaper. If there is
anything in your town worth talking about,
ten chances to one your little town newspa-
per had a hand in putting it there, and if
there exists any unsightly or unsavory nui-
sance, twenty chances to one it will stay there
until your town editor sees it or smells it and
wipes his pen on the town board’s breeches.
If anybody beyond the walls of your burg
ever learns that there is such a place as
Belen, it will be through the town oracle.
Every town gets its money’s worth through
the village newspaper. It’s the wagon that
carries all your goods to market. It ought to
be kept in good repair. It will pay to grease it,
paint it and keep its running gears in good
shape and shelter.
Stand by your local newspaper. It’s the
guardian and defender of every interest, the
forerunner and pioneer of every advance
movement and the sturdy advocate of law
and order.
Elfego Baca also took to task the local
town council and mayor — whom he often
referred to as the “city dads” — about some
problem, such as the streetlights. On Oct. 25,
1923, he wrote:
AGAIN AND MORE
We wish to again call the attention of our
1920 - 1929
city dads, or whoever else is responsible, to
the condition of our local streets, not that we
expect that it will result in any good, but sim-
ply to be “a-tellin’.” We will not specify any
streets at present, but will take them up in
their turn later. Also it will be well to remem-
ber that any pedestrian crossing the street
should fall into one of the full grown holes, it
would be a matter of some difficulty to extri-
cate him and he might become so peeved and
ungenerous as to bring suit against the city
for maintaining such big game dead falls. A
word to the wise is supposed to be suffi-
cient.”
The Belen News was adamant about fair
treatment. Thoroughly ahead of his time, Mr.
Baca wrote, on Aug. 12, 1926:
The United States is a country wherein all
citizens are supposed to have an equal share
in the government. We are according to the
principles on which this nation was founded,
equal partners in its government affairs. Any
man or group of men who attempt to deny
full civic rights to any citizen on account of
race or creed, is committing a thoroughly un-
American act, one that is subversive of the
ideals of the country.
Times change and so does newspaper per-
sonnel. As the 1920s ended and the nation
faced its biggest crisis, the newspaper owner-
ship was passed along to a new generation,
one that had grown up in a family for whom
education and newspapering seemed more a
calling than a career:
NEWS SELLS
HALF INTEREST
Half interest in the printing press of the
News was sold on Thursday to Ignacio C.
Baca of this place. Mr. Baca is a graduate of
Belen High School and until recently attend-
ed the University of New Mexico. The News
will be edited by Elfego Baca and Ignacio
Baca will be the business manager.
The management intends to make some
improvements in the plant in order to give the
people of this county the best service possi-
ble, and asks the cooperation of the people as
it is a hard task to publish a country paper.
Sept. 15, 1927
Elfego was definitely his father’s son,
raised in a newspaper office, a child of jour-
nalism.
100
1910-2010
YEARS 25
 100 1930-1939
News-Bulletin
1910-2010
YEARS
By Sandy Battin
Special to the News-Bulletin
N
o one was ever bored during the 1930s.
Trouble washed over the country, blown
from west to east with the massive wind
storms of the Great Depression.
The big cities were hurting from the collapse of the
stock market in 1929, some unfortunate speculators
throwing themselves from buildings as their fortunes
evaporated and the man on the street finding himself
selling apples there. Jobs were scarce, money was
nonexistent and hope had flown somewhere else.
The small towns in the nation’s midsection were
drying up in the drought and choking to death on the
dirt that rose from their fields and filtered into their
homes and their lungs, choking off their crops, killing
their cattle and smothering their dreams.
You might be sobbing, you might be desperate, but
you certainly weren’t bored.
Tucked into our little piece of the American conti-
nent, things looked serious, times were hard, but life
went on. Valencia County had never been rich in the
first place, other than one or two figures at the top of
the socioeconomic ladder. We had our “Millionario”
and our wealthy families, but most people here had
always worked hard to keep their heads above water.
The Depression brought nothing new to them.
Crops were smaller in Valencia County, too. The
Dec. 25, 1930, edition reported that the alfalfa hay
crop had been only half what it normally was. But at
least there was a crop, not the case for Dust Bowl
farms.
John Becker’s First National Bank, perhaps
because it was operated in conjunction with his store,
didn’t fail the way so many other banks did. In the
big cities — and in some smaller ones, too — there
were runs on the banks when depositors suspected
they didn’t have enough cash on hand. But people in
Belen knew Mr. Becker and apparently trusted him.
Whatever the case, Valencia County made its way
through the Depression relatively unscathed —
bruised and cautious, yes, but still with food on the
table.
The Belen News was by now a community institu-
tion, one that for $2 a year would tell you about the
latest economic news, examine the big changes on
the horizon with the election of President Franklin
Roosevelt and his ambitious New Deal that struggled
to put people back to work. This small link to the
larger world even described suspicious events hap-
pening in Europe far, far away.
Florela Baca and her son, George
Outside The Belen News office
26
1001910-2010
YEARS
But The News also served a more local function. In
it, the county also laughed about hometown events,
bragged about its baseball and football teams, was
shocked about the crimes committed by the
Depression “hobos” passing through aimlessly, and
found ways to help each other.
And there was crime in those days, make no mis-
take about it.
BECKER HOUSE ROBBED
BY THREE BOYS
Three boys were arrested here last Sunday for
breaking into the house of L.C. Becker Sunday morn-
ing while Mrs. Becker was attending church.
The boys broke in through a back window and stole
a revolver, a pistol and other small articles, which the
boys had in their possession when arrested.
They came from Shawnee, Okla., St. Louis, and
Chickasha, Okla. They stated that they were hungry
and wanted something to eat while traveling through
the country.
Oct. 1, 1931
The big news as the ’30s began was not only the
stock market crash, but the huge social experiment of
Prohibition, the banning of the sale of alcoholic bev-
erages. The nation began dividing itself into “wets”
and “drys” — those who wanted alcohol to slosh
freely and those who wanted the beer steins and wine
glasses to gather dust. Historians say that what the
noble experiment did, in the long run, was create a
new class of criminals — gangsters, who made their
living running rum and organizing gambling dens in
their illegal “speakeasies.”
The Belen News believed that, if laws were on the
books, they should be taken seriously. On Aug. 14,
1930, it observed:
Whether you’re a wet or dry you expect to see
elected officials enforce the laws, or at least refrain
from running booze, gambling or other rackets. State
enforcement officials, regardless of political views,
should make a determined effort to enforce not only
the state prohibition law but all laws.
Elfego Baca continued as editor and Ignacio C.
Baca as general manager of the Belen News and El
Hispano Americano, still printed in a single weekly
edition together. In El Hispano Americano, Elfego is
Redactor and Ignacio is Manejador.
Elfego speculated about the worries of the world,
See 1930-1939, Page 27
A Century of News
1930-1939: continued from page 26
proving just as prescient as his father. He
wrote:
WHAT IS TO BE DONE ABOUT THE
UNEMPLOYMENT PROBLEMS?
What steps should the national government
take to solve the unemployment problem that is
growing more acute every year?
Improved industrial machinery is displacing
human labor. It is certain to continue to do so
as science and invention produce more and
more labor-saving appliances and practices.
What avenue of endeavor will this displaced
human labor enter to secure a livelihood?
They cannot go back into the land for agri-
culture is already overexpanded.
It is idle to imagine that they can be left to
shift for themselves as best they can.
Hunger and poverty will never be long toler-
ated in this great, wealthy nation.
A solution must be found.
What will it be?
Aug. 21, 1930
When he wasn’t worried, Elfego was trying
to do something not only to educate the town
he loved but to help its residents have fun.
NEWS TO SPONSOR
LEARN TO SWIM CONTEST
A “Learn-to-Swim” campaign will be held
under the auspices of the Belen News from
July 20th to 26th at the Mesa View Swimming
Pool. Competent instructors will conduct the
classes which are scheduled for all ages,
instructions being free.
Jeff Smith and Med Sedillo, well known
swimming teachers, will do the instructing.
The course is one that has been effectively
used throughout the United States. Six simple
lessons have been developed.
... Simply register at the swimming pool and
bring your suit and towel.
If you do not have a suit, you can rent one at
the pool.
July 14, 1938
Despite troubles, the Local And Incidental
column continued to report the comings and
goings of home folks, who still managed to
have fun. For instance, on Aug. 28, 1930, the
News reported:
Mrs. Tom Hewett and children returned
home Friday after having spent the summer
months in Ohio and N. Carolina.
Sister Mary Lucia, and Sister Mary Emily,
sisters of Loretto at El Paso, Texas, were in
A Century of News
Belen this week visiting with the Ramon Baca
family. Sister Mary Lucia is the daughter of
Mr. and Mrs. Ramon Baca of this place.
Ernest Baca and Lena Baca returned to
Belen Monday from Las Vegas, where they
attended summer school.
Mr. and Mrs. Pedro Castillo, of
Albuquerque, spent Sunday and Monday visit-
ing with the J. Felipe Castillo family.
Mrs. L.L. Trombley entertained the young set
of Belen with a 7:00 o’clock luncheon bridge
Wednesday evening.
Aug. 28, 1930
Page 2 began featuring News Review of
Current Events, which gave tidbits from
around the nation and world, each beginning
with a single large capital letter rather than a
headline. Photos appeared with them, often of
exotic places and tribal cultures, with heavy
emphasis on dictators, plucky girls, adventur-
ous boys and royal families.
Type was still set by hand and each piece
came as a unit. Sometimes, that meant that a
single line of type would be run upside down
in a piece, such as this filler in the Sept. 4,
1930, edition. Other times, entire pages would
accidentally be run upside down, necessitating
arm action by readers.
Local sports reporting — with a big dose of
rah-rah for the home team — began making an
appearance:
EAGLES MAKE GOOD START
The Belen High School Eagles opened their
1930 football Campaign with an impressive
37-0 win over Hot Springs eleven last
Saturday. The Hot Springs boys were clearly
outclassed in every department of the same,
but not a minute of the game passed that they
were not fighting and were excellent sports in
defeat.
The Eagles offense showed up good at times
and had plenty of power in plays that were
executed properly, but as yet there is a lot of
1930-1939
work to be done and ragged spots to work out
before they can expect to have a strong run-
ning attack against a tight defense.
Jack Jones, at quarter, played an excellent
game. He mixed the plays in a way that the
Hot Springs boys were kept guessing through-
out the fray …
Pablo Soto, the rabbit of the Eagles, skirted
the ends for repeated long gains and turned
many a good tackle for the Hot Springs boys
into long gains for the Eagles.
Fidel Baca, an excellent line smasher,
crashed through tackles in way to make the
defense dread to see him start through. Baca
will also be hard to stop in an open field with
a little more work on side-stepping and twist-
ing. …
Tibo Chavez is another of the Eagles’
Rabbits; he is a little light for a heavy team,
but makes up for light weight in fight and
speed plus a cool head.
Ray Berry has plenty of speed and should
develop into a valuable man before the end of
the season.
Oct. 2, 1930
People in Valencia County believed that
charity started at home. They had their own
way to help their neighbors:
FORMED A RELIEF ORGANIZATION
Representatives from the various charitable
organizations of Belen met Wednesday at the
home of Mrs. John Becker, Jr. The Belen Relief
Organization was organized and the following
officers elected: Rev. U.S. Villars, President;
Rev. Father Michael Scanlon, Vice-President;
Mr. F.B. Calhoun, Secretary; C. Hendren,
Treasurer.
The president appointed E.H. Leupold, Mrs.
John Becker Jr. and Carl Lindberg as a com-
mittee to form rules by which the organization
may be completed to report at the next meeting
of the organization.
Sept. 17, 1931
With so many people wandering the country-
side looking for a job or just food, the people
wanted to help, but they didn’t think a free
hand-out was good for the soul.
TRANSIENTS MUST
WORK TO EAT
The city is posting signs at different places
inviting the transients or knights of the road
that they must work if they expect to eat and
tenders them an invitation to the city hall. The
See 1930-1939, Page 28
100 1910-2010
YEARS 27
1930-1939: Continued from page 27
signs posted read as follows:
“Knights of the road, if you expect to eat
you must work for it. Call at city hall.”
Oct. 29, 1931
The covers of The News became darker
and less appealing to the eye by 1935; there
were no pictures or drawings on the front
pages.
Examinations for postal clerk and civil ser-
vice jobs made front page news because so
many people wanted to take them. Hundreds
applied.
Things didn’t always go perfectly for The
Belen News. Sometimes, apparently, people
complained, and Elfego tried to explain the
newspaper’s function:
THE BAD NEWS
A newspaper contracts to give the readers
the news. Filling the contract is a pleasant
business when the news is pleasant, but a
depressing business when news is bad. The
newspaper does not make the news, however,
and is not responsible for it. To blame the
newspaper for printing bad news is no more
sensible than blaming a mirror for reflecting
ugliness or blaming a physician for the ill-
ness of his patient. If the News reports a
crime committed by some member of your
family, it does not by so doing take sides
against him — any more than a mirror
becomes a partisan when it reflects unpleas-
ant truths. It had much rather report when
some great accomplishment of his or some
conspicuous proof of virtue. But it cannot
manufacture facts. It can only record the
truth. If a man who robs a bank falls out with
us for reporting the incident, he does not
thereby lessen his guilt. He might shoot us as
proof of his resentment, but he would be a
rogue still. The paper is not the one to
blame. Hating the paper won’t change the
facts. The way to keep from being called a
thief in print is to refrain from stealing.
Sept. 17, 1931
Some didn’t like that the News-Bulletin
encouraged readers to express their own
opinions in the newspaper. Elfego wrote that
letters to the editor “are the views of citizens
or readers who send them in, and we publish
them because we are in the publishing busi-
ness, even if they are contrary to our views.”
The News expanded into other activities,
becoming something of a full-service center
for the community:
28
1001910-2010
YEARS
AUTO LICENSE AT
NEWS OFFICE
The 1932 automobile and truck licenses
for Valencia County are being sold at the
Office of The Belen News. Applicants for
license must present their last certificate
before license is issued. No checks will be
accepted in payment for licenses, as you
must have cash when you apply. No exten-
sion of time will be given, the final date
being December 31st. Get your license now
and avoid the rush.
Nov. 5, 1931
That may be why The News began to find
a need for bigger quarters:
NEWS PURCHASES
GILBERT BUILDING
The building formerly occupied by Gilbert
& Sons on Main Street across from the
Halama Enderstein Company has been pur-
chased by The Belen News.
We will move into our new quarters this
week, where we will be more centrally locat-
ed and have larger quarters to accommodate
and give a better service to the public.
Sept. 22, 1932
As with most stories and advertisements
published during the 1930s, there was no
address. Belen was small enough that you
simply knew where every restaurant and
clothing store that advertised was located.
As the 1930s pressed on, The News was
full of information basic to earning a living.
A weekly column gave advice about poultry
raising — and the myriad diseases and other
disasters that could befoul the birds.
It reported on home economics classes
offered to girls and women so that they could
can or dry vegetables from their gardens.
There were agricultural associations and
much reporting on cattle prices.
One of the most talked about subscription
campaigns for The Belen News involved area
youngsters, who were competing for a mini-
car that looked and operated like those of
their parents.
Here’s what happened:
A SUCCESSFUL CAMPAIGN
Last Tuesday afternoon brought to a close
a very successful campaign which put The
Belen News to the front, and it secured what
the publishers were after — circulations —
yes, and a big circulation in Valencia county,
as the News now circulates over the county
like the good, wholesome sunshine of New
Mexico.
1930-1939
First prize in the contest, the Arrow Junior
Auto, was won by Cresencio Pacheco Jr. of
Peralta, N.M. The second highest in the con-
test was Leo Baca, of Belen.
While the circulation of the News has been
constantly increasing for the past months, we
decided to put on this contest so that we
could build up our circulation more rapidly
in order to give our advertisers a medium
that would merit their patronage and show
outstanding results in all cases.
One of the pleasing parts of the campaign
was that there was no unplesantness at the
close of the contest, and all were satisfied
with the fairness in which it was run from
start to finish.
To the winner of the prize and all contes-
tants — congratulations — you were all
splendid workers.
All contestants received a commission.
Dec. 26, 1935
While Valencia County was largely a
Republican stronghold, the voters still went
for Franklin Roosevelt in the presidential
race of 1936. The Democratic president
scored 3,313 votes as opposed to Republican
candidate Alf Landon, who scored 2,911, a
difference of 402 votes, The Belen News
reported on Nov. 12.
By 1937, the look of the Belen News was
lighter, with type that was just a bit larger
and easier to read. It remained a six-column
newspaper, but the headlines had gone from
all capital letters to just capitals on the most
important words. Some of the headlines
were in boldface type and others weren’t,
giving it a more streamlined look. Some
local photos had begun to appear such as the
photo in the Aug. 5, 1937, edition of the new
Belen Women’s Club building where the
Rotary club would also meet.
That same building on Reinken has since
been a community center, the public library
and now the home of Amor Flowers.
By 1937, El Hispano Americano had
become a “Seccion Espanol” with fewer sto-
ries and the ads no longer printed in
Spanish.
Meanwhile, the war had begun in Europe
and even far away from the coasts, people in
Belen were getting that uneasy feeling about
what was to happen next. A cartoon on the
front page of The Belen News on Sept. 28,
1939, showed the big ocean standing
between the war and American farmers busy
at work plowing and picking apples.
Business as Usual was the headline.
A Century of News
 100 1940-1949
News-Bulletin
1910-2010
YEARS
By Sandy Battin
Special to the News-Bulletin
N
ewspapers covered the 1940s with big,
black, frightening headlines: WAR!
Like others across the nation, Valencia
County residents read in their hometown newspapers
about how Germany pushed into Poland and Austria,
how the English tried to contain the Nazis with rea-
sonable talk and wound up with the Blitz.
America was still in a mood to stay on its side of
the Atlantic, safe, secure, watching the world go by.
Some argued that, once Adolf Hitler conquered
Europe, he would turn his eyes toward America. We
need to stop him now, they said.
Readers could probably see the writing on the wall.
The Belen News reported the story as Valencia
County, like other areas across the nation, began to
prepare for a war that seemed almost inevitable.
There were clues here and there:
VALENCIA COUNTY DRAFT BOARD
MAKES FIRST REPORT
The Valencia County Draft Board held its first
meeting last week at the office of the District Judge
at the County Court House in Los Lunas with all the
members present. The members of the board are:
Donasiano D. Romero, Gillie Luna and Waite
Kenney.
List of registrants with serial numbers is posted at
local Post Office.
The serial number is for reference only. The order
numbers will be selected in the National drawing at
Washington, D.C., and will indicate the order in
which persons will be called for selective service and
training.
Serial Nos.
Number 1. Johnny S. Eaves, San Mateo, N.M.
Number 2. Harold C. Gilman, Belen, N.M.
Last Number: Alford Henry Wood, Belen, N.M. No.
2320.
At the last meeting the board appointed M.J.
Johnson (Lefty) as Clerk of the Board and Miss
Dolores Romero as Clerk-Stenographer.
Oct. 24, 1940
Already, local boys were signing on to do their
patriotic duty, some being drafted and others volun-
teering:
Sam Hicks
War hero and
former sports reporter
A Century of News
THREE BELEN BOYS LEFT FOR
TRAINING TUESDAY
Three Belen boys left on the ten o’clock bus,
Tuesday morning, November 19th, for Santa Fe, to
enter the year’s training under the Selective Service
Act. From Santa Fe, the boys will be sent to different
military posts.
Serafin Anaya of Belen was called according to his
order number of 26, and Ernest Sais and Antonio B.
Armijo of Belen both volunteered for their years ser-
vice.
The boys were accompanied to the bus depot in Los
Lunas by the Valencia County Selective Service
Board members.
Nov. 21, 1940
It may have seemed that Belen was a small town
far from the coasts, isolated from any potential ene-
mies. But it was already a major rail center and, if a
Japanese or German bomber could disrupt the
nation’s rail service, it seemed likely they would try.
Belen began taking its preparations seriously:
BELEN IN A BLACKOUT PROGRAM
The date of the state-wide blackout planned in con-
junction with the national defense program has been
set for the night of September 12. In response to a
signal to be announced later all lights in the district
are to be put out or concealed in such a manner that
no gleam is visible.
Airplane spotters will be placed around the area
and will report the approach of enemy planes. The
auxiliary fire and police forces will be on duty as
though conditions called for such action. These actu-
al warfare conditions are a precautionary measure
that may result in great good. If the need ever arises,
each unit in the local defense set-up will know its
place; each airplane spotter will know what is
expected of him and will be familiar with his methods
for reporting untoward incidents. The police and the
fire defense units will be able to prepare for their
work without uncertainty or indecision as to how to
proceed.
Mayor Keeney, Chairman of the local Defense
Committee, said today that the time has come when
the people must realize that an actual danger exists.
This is not a time for scoffing at these efforts to pre-
pare for possible attack, he said, such action in some
of the European countries have resulted in disaster,
we must take this black-out seriously. It is imperative
See 1940-1949, Page 30
1001910-2010
YEARS 29
1940-49: continued from page 29
that every individual in the area be
informed of these plans and that they be
prepared to do their part in blacking out
this district, he concluded.
TIME IS SHORT.
Aug. 21, 1941
BELEN BLACKOUT ENTIRE SUCCESS
The Santa Fe Passenger Train No. 2
came into Belen last Friday night in com-
plete darkness except for a lone blue light
that dimly lighted the dining car. The yard
flood lights were out, lights that would be
at all revealing in the shops had been
doused and, from above, little evidence of
the Belen yard activity was visible. The
town was dark; the few cars passing along
the highway seemed out of place with their
bright lights showing Belen was doing her
part in the statewide blackout.
Sept. 18, 1941
The discussion and the preparation came
to a halt on a December Sunday in 1941
when Japanese bombers crossed the Pacific
and attacked Pearl Harbor. America, too,
ready or not, was at war.
Valencia County residents sat listening to
their radios, shocked with the rest of the
nation, as they heard news from faraway
Pearl Harbor — a place some had never
heard of — about America being attacked.
They listened on the next day as the presi-
dent spoke about “a day that will live in
infamy” and learned that America was in
another world war.
The next edition of The News came out
the following Thursday, Dec. 11, with a
previously planned piece about “150 Voices
in Xmas Pageant’ topping a story about
local response to the attack.
BELEN’S DEFENSES
WELL ORGANIZED
With air raids, bombings and attacks on
the United States, the war that until last
Sunday seemed comfortably far away has
been brought home forcibly to each citizen
of the United States.
Stunned by this sudden attack, the aver-
age citizen, wanting to do all in his power
for his country, turns this way and that not
realizing that in each community in the
United States there already exists a well
developed organization, the National
Council for Defense of their community.
Belen’s committee, headed by Mayor
Waite J. Kenney, has been quietly but effi-
ciently working for months on the emergen-
30
1001910-2010
YEARS
cy that now confronts Belen.
In a practice blackout a few months ago
Belen’s Air Raid Squadron with the co-
operation of the people of Belen received
many plaudits from state officers for its
excellent work. This squadron with Dr. E.G.
Brentari as Chief Air Warden; Ramon
Ortega, Demolition Squad Officer; Mrs.
J.M. Slaten, Red Cross; J.R. Buckland, Fire
Chief; and Louis Chavez, Police
Department, and many volunteer workers
are ready to go into action at a moment’s
notice.
A system of communication for local
police and county officers has been worked
out by Fay Guthrie, State Coordinator.
Belen and surrounding territory has been
into districts making it a simple matter to
call into instant action all law officers.
Mass meetings have been planned by the
local council to make known to the people
of Belen all the facilities available for civil-
ian protection.
Do your part in the Defense of America!
Support and encourage and listen to your
local defense council! Don’t be caught
asleep!
The same issue reports that local farmers
were being urged to sell their scrap iron for
the war effort and that a mass meeting on
the American form of life was to be held,
with Tibo Chavez, local attorney, speaking
on the Bill of Rights; local merchant B.L.
Markus speaking on defense bonds and
stamps; and Filo Sedillo, former attorney
general, on “The Solidarity of Belief That
The Democratic Form of Life Will Prevail.”
Edwin Leupold of the American Legion
was to speak on “Organization vs. War
Hysteria,” and Austin Lovett would talk
about the “war against waste.”
A Navy recruiter was to visit Belen on
Dec. 15, The News said, to sign up volun-
teers. The lighting of the community
Christmas tree was to have the theme
“Patriotic Christmas Spirit.”
The News asked folks to save their old
magazines and newspapers for the Boy
Scouts to pick up, one of the first drives
that would become so familiar to folks on
the home front.
In the very next edition, Dec. 18, 1941,
the first of the stories that would become so
tragically familiar during the war years was
printed:
1940-1949
BELEN BOY KILLED
WHILE IN ACTION
Official notice was received this week by
Mr. and Mrs. W.D. Houston that their son,
William Daniel Houston Jr., died while in
action of the U.S. Navy in the performance
of his duty and in the service of his country.
The official notice to his parents extended
the sympathy of the department by the offi-
cer in charge.
Due to U.S. regulations in preventing
information to the enemy, we are not pub-
lishing the name of his ship or station.
Young Houston was graduated from
Belen high school. He enlisted in the U.S.
Navy on December 7th, 1939, being the
only son of Mr. and Mrs. W.D. Houston.
Beside the parents, two sisters survive, Mrs.
Frank Hilburn of Canadian, Texas, and
Mrs. Joe Davis of Belen.
The News joins the many citizens of
Belen in extending their sincerest sympathy
to Mr. and Mrs. Houston in their great loss.
Further down on that front page is anoth-
er story typical of the time and the good-
byes that were being said:
JOINS U.S. MARINE CORPS
Ted Chavez, son of Mr. and Mrs. Julian
O. Chavez, 1004 South Third, was enter-
tained by his family and friends Sunday
when he passed through Albuquerque
enroute to San Diego to enter the U.S.
Training School.
Mr. Chavez is a brother of Mrs. Arthur
Gilbert.
Chavez enlisted in the Marines Thursday
and was sent to Denver where he passed
entrance examinations. He was graduated
from St. Mary’s high school in 1937 and
was since been employed by the
Albuquerque engineering department.
Dec. 18, 1941
Even children were stricken by the enor-
mity of the events of that month. In her let-
ter to Santa printed on the front page of the
Dec. 18, 1941, edition, Ida Velasquez, age
13, writes poignantly:
“I am very happy to let you know how
sorry I feel for those poor children whose
fathers and mothers were killed in the war.
They are homeless and suffering from hun-
ger. They need you now more than ever. But
I think that you, dear Santa, and all boys
See 1940-1949, Page 31
A Century of News
1940-1949: Continued from page 30
and girls who have a father and mother
will help them with something. I think that
the best Christmas present we ever had was
Christ, he has been so nice to us all this
years and that’s why we should be happy
on Christmas time ...
Dear Santa, please try and help those
poor children and please send me a little
gift.”
The war effort went into overdrive. In the
Aug. 6, 1942, edition, the Belen post of the
American Legion asked for old phonograph
records to be recycled and the News
revealed that:
“Valencia County with a population of
20,245 has been assigned a quota of scrap
steel and metal to be collected from July 1st
to December 31st of 2,024,500 pounds, or
in other words, 100 lbs. per person.
“Citizens of this county are asked to
cooperate with their county conservation
board in this drive, in order to go over the
top. This, we know, is a hard undertaking,
but once we made up our minds to do it, it
can be accomplished without very much
effort.”
Everything was rationed on the home
front. People were encouraged to turn in
their tires to be melted down and remade
for military use. War ration books had been
given and those entering the military were
warned in the Nov. 19, 1942, edition that
they must turn in their ration books when
they left to prevent “improper distribution
of rationed commodities.”
Coffee rationing was announced in the
Nov. 26, 1942, edition, with only those age
15 and up entitled to a share. The first
ration stamp entitled a person to have one
pound of coffee for a period of five weeks.
People were encouraged to volunteer for
the Red Cross, putting together “supply
kits” with soap, cigarettes, razors, tooth-
brushes, playing cards and other items.
They knitted socks and cut bandages.
Christmas mail to those in the military
came with restrictions on items that could
be sent; Oct. 1 was a good time to mail, the
News recommended.
Small towns were no more isolated from
the war than the big cities were. Boys from
Fourth Street in Belen, Los Lentes in Los
Lunas, Jarales Road down south, the Loop
in Bosque Farms, signed up to serve their
country.
Your son, your nephew, your neighbor’s
A Century of News
kid, your classmate, the boy who waited on
you at the grocery store, even that nurse at
the doctor’s office — they all were sud-
denly gone. They were in army khaki or
navy blues the next time you saw them.
The Belen News played its role too. It
was difficult because the news wasn’t
always good. War news meant that one
beloved member of the community had
died in Anzio, another on Midway Island.
Valencia County’s National Guard mem-
bers were caught in the tragedy of the
Bataan Death March; other local boys were
taken prisoner by the Germans.
Little information was available and so
the stories about local men who died in the
war were necessarily brief. Often, the only
source for a story was the families of the
servicemen.
PVT. IGNACIO CASTILLO
IN JAP PRISON
Mrs. Manuelita Castillo from Jarales
received this week a card from her son, Pvt.
Ignacio Castillo, stating he is in Japanese
Prison Camp No. 2, in the Philippine
Islands. He states his health is “good” and
requests her to give his best regards to
“everybody.”
Sept. 16, 1943
The war news hit home for the Bulletin
with this story:
HICKS MISSING
Staff Sgt. Samuel M. Hicks, son of Mrs.
Ruth B. Hicks, 211 San Pasquale,
Albuquerque, is reported missing on a raid
over Europe. He was serving as a radio
gunner on a B17.
Staff Sgt. Hicks is a Belen High School
graduate. While in school he took active
part in school athletics, having starred in
football and basketball. He also was Sports
Reporter for the News for some time.
Oct. 28, 1943
Heroics were often reported:
GETS FIRST GERMAN TANK
Cpl. Patrocinio Gabaldon, Los Lunas,
was credit with knocking out the first
German tank on Sicily in a letter … from
Sgt. Joseph S. Farkas.
The message in a V-mail letter was as
follows:
“It is with greatest pleasure and proud-
ness that I inform you that Cpl. Patrocinio
Gabaldon of Los Lunas was the first gun-
1940-1949
ner of our battalion to knock out the first
German tank on Sicily soil.”
The letter was sent by Sgt. Farkas from
“somewhere in Sicily.”
Cpl. Gabaldon is the son of Mr. and Mrs.
Salomon Gabaldon of Los Chavez and a
brother of Justo Gabaldon of Belen.
Aug. 26, 1943
And then, finally, the end was in sight
and The News helped the city share infor-
mation about how it would celebrate:
TOWN PLANS FOR
V-DAY OBSERVANCE
Whenever the news flash comes that the
military victory in Europe has come, the
fire siren will be sounded, as well as loco-
motive whistles in the Santa Fe yards. Be
ready, two hours after this signal, to come
to the City Park for a Community Service.
Remember, 2 hours after the signal ... If the
signal comes in after six in the afternoon,
the Community Service will be held in the
City Park at 10 the next morning.
Should it come after six on Saturday
night, the community service will be held at
two on Sunday afternoon.
After the Community Service, the people
will immediately go to the various churches
in the town for a special service and a ses-
sion of prayer.
... All veterans of World War I as well as
those who are in the various Armed Forces
of this war — those having been discharged
and those who are on furlough — are kind-
ly requested to join in the procession, which
will be led by the High School Band.
Sept. 21, 1944
And then it was all over. The Aug. 30,
1945, edition shows a photo with the cap-
tion: “President Truman Announcing
Surrender of Japs.”
In the next edition, on Sept. 6, Elfego
Baca, once again looking ahead, wrote:
“Behind us lie 3 1/2 years of deadly
struggle in which, with God’s help, we have
prevailed.
So, today, we celebrate a victory.
After the celebration, what lies ahead?
For most of us, the outlook is a bright
one. If we will simply use the brains, the
will, the energy, the enterprise ... the mate-
rials and resources ... with which we won
our war, we can’t fail to win the peace and
See 1940-1949, Page 32
100
1910-2010
YEARS 31
1940-1949: Continued from page 31
to make this the richest, happiest land the
world has known.
For most of us the years ahead are bright
with promise. But for others of us ... and,
ironically enough, their part in bringing
victory was a major one — the years to
come must bear a different look.
In America today are hundreds of thou-
sands of injured men. Men with neatly
pinned up sleeves and trousers. Blinded
men. Men with clever iron hooks instead of
hands. Worst of all, men with hurt and
darkened minds.
These men need our help. Helping them
can cost a great deal of money. We can help
them best by buying Victory Bonds.
Sept. 4, 1945
Although World War II was the big story
during the 1940s, other stories also were in
the news. The war deaths weren’t the only
ones being reported in The Belen News.
One death was especially sad for the news-
paper to report:
FOUNDER OF NEWS DIES
AFTER LONG ILLNESS
Saturnino Baca, lifelong resident of
Valencia County and founder of The Belen
News and El Hispano Americano, died at
his home here on Thursday, July 18th, after
an illness of two years.
Deceased founded the Belen papers in
1910, starting the first plant in the garage
of his home. He was the first county school
superintendent under statehood, serving in
that capacity for eleven years, having pre-
viously taught in the county schools for sev-
eral years.
Mr. Baca is survived by his wife, six sons
and three daughters. The sons are Major
Herman Baca, Santa Fe; Elfego G., Eddie
and Ernest Baca, Belen; Dennis Baca,
Albuquerque; and Gilbert Baca,
Washington, D.C. The daughters are Mrs.
Joe E. Romero, Las Vegas; Mrs. Alex Read,
Santa Fe; Miss Lena Baca, Belen.
Rosary services were held Friday night at
his home and Saturday night at the Romero
Chapel, funeral services being conducted at
the Catholic Church of Our Lady of Belen
Saturday morning and again Sunday morn-
ing for the funeral. The Alianza Hispano
Americana, of which he was a member, ren-
dered services at the Chapel and grave.
The six sons of deceased were active pall-
bearers with N.C. Romero of Belen Funeral
Home in charge.
July 25, 1940
32
100 1910-2010
YEARS
Six months after its founder’s death,
Elfego Baca was going it alone:
PURCHASE INTEREST
IN BELEN NEWS
Elfego G. Baca, editor and publisher of
the News and El Hispano-Americano for
the past 20 years, has purchased the inter-
est of Ignacio Baca, who has been part
owner for the past 13 years.
Ignacio Baca plans to enter the real
estate and insurance business.
Jan. 2, 1941
The new Cortez Theatre opened in
Belen in August 1946. In those days, the-
aters were often the only air conditioned
buildings; movie-goers often took in a
show just to cool off during the hot sum-
mer days. This ad appeared Aug. 1, 1946.
In many ways, Valencia County had
grown from a rural farming community to
an integral part of New Mexico’s economy.
Many national advertisers began appearing
in local newspapers such as the Bulletin —
Camel cigarettes, Tomlinson hose,
Mentholatum for colds, Sunbeam waffle
irons and mixers, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes.
The modern era suddenly seemed to have
arrived.
Six years later, Elfego Baca had decided
to take a different path. The Belen News, on
Jan. 2, 1947, revealed plans that, for the
first time, would take publication of the
newspaper out of the hands of the Baca
1940-1949
family. Two stories were included:
GOOD-BYE
It is with the greatest of pleasure that I
take this means of introducing to the read-
ers and customers of the Belen News its
new owners, Mr. and Mrs. E.J. Lewis, for-
merly of Emporia, Kansas.
Mr. and Mrs. Lewis see a great future
and rapid growth for Belen and they expect
to have the patent of the News progress
with the town of the Belen and Valencia
County and I recommend them highly to the
citizens of our town and county.
After introducing Mr. and Mrs. Lewis, I
wish to thank the people of Belen and
Valencia County for the splendid support
and cooperation given me during the past
twenty-seven years that I have published
the paper.
I have taken over my new duties as coun-
ty sheriff, and in that capacity, I will try to
serve faithfully and impartially at all times.
Elfego G. Baca
HELLO
To the people of this valley, greetings.
Until we have the opportunity to meet you
all individually, we take this means of say-
ing hello, and of introducing ourselves.
The new publisher and the new editor are
partners in more than the project of getting
out a newspaper. They are also married,
both legally and happily. They are in the
newspaper business because they grew up
in Kansas, where people are born with an
urge to publish a newspaper — an urge
that is second only to their compulsion to
eat, and because they know of no more
interesting way of taking part in the life of
their community.
They did not settle in this valley because
they were offered employment here, nor did
they come here in search of health. Having
seen, visited or lived in the five continents,
Canada, Mexico and all but two of our own
states and territories, they agreed that there
in this valley they would find the greatest
opportunity for living the more abundant
life. The welcome you have already given
them has proved them right.
We believe that a newspaper is a public
trust; that its advertising, news and editori-
al columns should alike serve the best inter-
est of its readers, and that the test of good
See 1940-1949, Page 33
A Century of News
Continued from page 32
journalism is the measure of its public ser-
vice. We believe you want that kind of
newspaper and that’s the kind of paper we
shall try to give you for the next fifty years.
Ruth Lewis
E.J. Lewis
Six months earlier, a new newspaper had
begun publication in town. The Belen
Bulletin published its premier edition on
July 4, 1946. In introducing themselves, the
publishers wrote:
PASS IT ON
We, publishers of the Belen Bulletin, are
doing our best to acquaint our newspaper
with the public. We are delivering the first
issue, as a free sample to homes throughout
the city and due to the newsprint shortage
we find that we are unable to print a paper
to send out to every family in Valencia
County. We ask each of you to pass your
copy on to a friend or neighbor who may
not have received one and enjoy the news
of the week of Belen and the county.
Copies of the Bulletin will be on sale
each week at Buckland Drug Stores and the
Cactus Drug Store.
Within the next year, the owners of The
Belen News and The Belen Bulletin had
joined forces:
NEWSPAPERS TO CONSOLIDATE
Stressing their desire to provide Valencia
County with an outstanding weekly news-
paper, the publishers of the Belen Bulletin
and the Belen News announced Thursday
that their publications would be consolidat-
ed into one weekly newspaper, effective
April 17.
The first issue of the consolidated paper,
to be known as “The News-Bulletin” of
Belen, New Mexico, will appear Thursday,
April 3.
Co-publishers will be George W. Perkins
and Carter M. Waid, present owners of the
Bulletin, and E.J. Lewis, owner of the
News.
“The News-Bulletin” in addition to gen-
eral coverage of local news will carry a
four-page feature section provided by the
Western Newspaper Union...
While published in Belen, it is anticipated
that the News-Bulletin will serve as the
community paper for all of eastern Valencia
county, including Los Lunas, the county
seat, and the other settlements.
The management contemplates providing
local news from all those communities,
A Century of News
including Bosque, Los Lentes, Jarales,
Tome, Peralta, El Cerro, Valencia, Los
Lunas and Bosque Farms.
Circulation lists of both the News and
Bulletin will be consolidated, providing
advertisers with a much broader field of
readers and customers than either paper
has been able to offer heretofore.
Offices will be maintained by the new
publishing firm at both present locations,
the News at 115 South Main and the
Bulletin at 208 North Second.
Equipment of the new newspapers will be
combined into one mechanical plant of the
Bulletin establishment on North Second.
...The new organization will consist of the
following officials:
Editor, Carter M. Waid
Business Manager, E.J. Lewis.
Plant Superintendent, George W. Perkins.
Woman’s Editor, Mrs. Ruth Lewis
... No reduction in either paper’s person-
nel staff will be necessary as a result of the
consolidation, the management pointed out.
March 20, 1947
Buckland Drugs ad from July 4, 1946
The News-Bulletin unveiled a new look
with a story on Oct. 5, 1948. The paper
measured 12 inches in width and 18 inches
in length, compared to the previous 11-by-
15 inches. It became the familiar “little
paper” ­— a tabloid — readers became
familiar with for many years. A press was
installed along with a “power-driven news-
paper folder” and saw, requiring rearrang-
ing of the News-Bulletin shop at 208 N.
Second Street.
The new partnership didn’t go on forever.
1940-1949
The July 24, 1947, edition reported that
George Perkins had sold his interest to
Edwin J. Lewis and Carter M. Waid, who
would continue to print and edit the News-
Bulletin. The business operated as a family,
as it still does. It also had a sense of humor,
even if it meant a delay in the paper:
ADOLFO SANCHEZ QUITS
PRESS TO GREET STORK
For the third time within a year, the
presses could not roll Monday as scheduled
at a Belen newspaper office ... all because
a newcomer was joining the staff.
The latest addition is an 8 pound, 2
ounce son born at 8:22 p.m. Monday to Mr.
and Mrs. Adolfo Sanchez, 724 North Main,
at the Belen hospital.
Mother and son were reported doing
nicely Tuesday while Papa Adolfo was back
on the job feeding the press at the News-
Bulletin.
... Previous press interferences can be
blamed on Tommy Lewis, born last Dec. 31
to Publisher and Mrs. E. J. Lewis, and a
daughter born almost exactly a year ago to
Mr. and Mrs. Alfredo Chavez. Mr. Chavez
was machine operator and general floor
man for the News at the time.
Feb. 24, 1948
The News continued to be a good citizen,
to serve readers of every walk of life. It
proudly announced:
FREE SUBSCRIPTIONS
GIVEN TO NEWLYWEDS
Just as June is the Bride’s own month,
we’ve made the News-Bulletin the Bride’s
own newspaper.
Beginning June 1, the News-Bulletin will
present as a wedding gift a year’s subscrip-
tion free to every newly married couple
who establish their residence in Valencia
County.
Our only requirement is that the newly-
weds turn in a news story of this event to
our news office at 208 North Second Street,
including your mailing address for your
newly founded home.
...Your home life will be made much more
pleasant because the News-Bulletin brings
you all the interesting home news about the
places and the people you know.
And the News-Bulletin can start a young
couple off in a frugal manner because
every week it brings you the money-saving
opportunities our merchants have to offer.
May 28, 1947
100
1910-2010
YEARS 33
 100 1950-1959
News-Bulletin
1910-2010
YEARS
By Sandy Battin
Special to the News-Bulletin
T
he 1950s were a time of optimism and
fear.
Optimism is born of America’s success
in World War II, becoming the greatest
power in the history of the world. But there was fear,
too, that the atomic bomb — exploded first at White
Sands a short distance away — could mean humani-
ty’s end.
The United States had taken upon itself to be what
some called “the policeman of the world,” beginning
the decade with the Korean Conflict and ending it
with the first rumblings of the War in Vietnam.
The News-Bulletin was again working to be a good
journalistic citizen as the decade dawned, trying to
help the members of the tight-knit county community
keep track of the young men who were again march-
ing off to war. On July 21, 1950, it asked for anyone
“with a son, husband, brother, sister or friend in the
armed forces, and particularly in Korea, or in neigh-
boring Japan” to send in information so that the per-
son’s picture and information could be published.
The draft was still a likelihood for many young men.
FIRST DRAFTEES REPORT AUG. 7
The war in Korea and the nation’s limited mobili-
zation program is coming home directly in many
ways to residents of Belen and Valencia county.
Twenty-nine county Selective Service registrants
have been ordered to report Monday, Aug. 7, eight of
them for immediate induction and 21 for preliminary
physical examinations.
Relatives of two Belen families were reported miss-
ing in action in the Korea fighting.
A familiar scene during the World War II years
returned to Belen over the weekend. This was troops
moving over the Santa Fe railway making brief visits
in the Hub City.
Belen’s National Guard unit was not among the
third of the state’s Guard which Sunday was ordered
to active duty effective Aug. 14, but the local
Guardsmen will leave Aug. 12 for two weeks summer
encampment at Fort Bliss. However, it was pointed
out that the local Guard unit, Battery A, 120th Anti-
Aircraft battalion, is the same type as most of those
which were called.
July 25, 1950
Carter Waid It wasn’t long until the News-Bulletin printed the
Longtime owner,
publisher and editor
34
1001910-2010
YEARS
sad story of the first serviceman killed in action.
LOS CHAVEZ BOY DIES IN KOREA
A 17-year-old Los Chavez boy, who only nine
months ago helped his dad on their farm, attended
Belen High School and what he knew about war was
mostly confined to history books today was dead —
Valencia county’s first “supreme sacrifice” casualty
of the Korean war.
Private First Class Perfecto Garcia “died of
wounds in Korea Oct. 11,” the War Department
“regretfully” notified his father, Benjamin Garcia of
Los Chavez, last Tuesday. The fatal wounds occurred
almost exactly a month after he had been wounded
slightly Sept. 12 and was out of action only 11 days.
Details of Perfecto’s death will be contained in a
letter to follow the telegram, the War Department
advised the father. Relatives said most recent letters
indicated that the youth was in North Korea, perhaps
in the area of the North Korean capital.
“He last wrote that there wasn’t much fighting at
that time, just cleaning up,” a sister said. She sur-
mised that he may have been a victim of snipers.
Nov. 3, 1950
Would the war lead to atomic blasts exchanged
with the nation’s enemies? It seemed a distinct possi-
bility.
The News-Bulletin offered front-page advice in
several editions in the summer of 1950 about how to
survive an atomic blast:
“1. Try to get shielded. If you have time, get down
in a basement or subway. Should you unexpectedly be
caught out of doors, seek shelter alongside a building
or jump in any handy ditch or gutter.
2. Drop flat on ground or floor. To keep from being
tossed and to lessen the chances of being struck by
falling and flying objects, flatten out at the base of a
wall, or at the bottom of a bank.
3. Bury your face in your arms. ... Hide you eyes in
the crook of your elbow.”
National politics was as rough and ready as ever.
Ads advocating positions on national issues began
appearing On Oct. 13, 1950, an ad by the American
Medical Association and the National Education
Campaign asked: “Who Runs America? The
Congress? The president? Or You and the Man Next
Door?”
See 1950-1959, Page 35
A Century of News
1950-1959: continued from page 34
It spoke out against compulsory health
insurance.
Other sorts of advertising were changing
as well. For the first time, special advertising
sections began appearing in the News-
Bulletin, the first celebrating the annual fies-
tas at Our Lady of Belen Catholic Church.
Printed on green paper, the ads offered
everything from “fountain treats” at The
Sweet Spot to fiesta clothing at Culp Army
Store to “ladies fall hats” for $3.95 at
Becker-Dalies, which announced that fiestas
was the time of “merriment, fun, gaiety,
chivalry.”
Business boomed in the 1950s. The cham-
ber of commerce sponsored myriad “shop
local” campaigns and many people, appar-
ently, did.
America was in love with the automobile,
gas was 19 cents a gallon and Valencia
County was full of car dealerships. There
were, according to ads in the Bulletin,
Castillo Motors, 401 S. Main, with Pontiacs
that were “more powerful, more economical
and wonderful to drive”; Garrison Motor
Co., 300 N. Main, with “big-truck” rugged
GMCs; Auge Sales & Service, 600 E. River
Road, with its Dodges and their “thrilling
power packed beauties for active
Americans”; Belen Auto Co., 724 Dalies
Ave., which advertised during the 1952 pres-
idential election that “your Ford dealer will
provide transportation to the polls”; Wood
Motor Co., 422 Becker Ave.; H. Caldwell
Motor Co., 322 N. Main., with exclusive
Chevy features such as plate glass safety
windows; Belen Willys Co, 831 N. Main,
which offered Aero Willys with monthly
payments as low as $67; the Fitzpatrick
Motor Co., Dalies and Main, invited drivers
to take a “15-second sit down test” on the
new Ford trucks.
And we loved to eat. Dinner or lunch was
a treat. The Hub Lunch Cafe was open 24
hours a day featuring burgers, tacos and bar-
becue; Gil’s Bakery and Coffee Shop, 239 N.
Main, boasted a birthday club and “special
cakes for all occasions”; Kotch’s Cafe had a
smorgasbord and served Japanese food along
with Spanish; Rainbo Trading Post & Cafe
was located just north of Peralta on N.M. 47,
“if you like good biscuits or cornbread”; The
Sweet Spot, 700 Dalies Ave., sold school
supplies along with sandwiches and fountain
drinks; Jacque’s Cafe, 629 N. Main, adver-
tised “plate lunches” and short orders.
Got indigestion after all that? Well, there
were plenty of places to go. Buckland
Pharmacy, 600 Dalies, would help with
A Century of News
“quick relief of minor throat irritations”;
Seery’s Drug-Sundries, 301 S. Main, offered
guns and rifles for the hunter along with
medications; Silva Drug offered 24-hour
delivery of prescriptions except on Sundays.
TV was still new, but hadn’t killed our
social interaction yet. Wrestling matches,
often promoted by the Belen Lions Club,
were common. The Sept. 2, 1952, edition
showed a tag team match between Al
Williams and Juan Garcia and Nat Murphy
and Elias Garcia. And there was a 10-round
boxing grudge match featuring the Golden
Terror vs. the Black Panther. In September,
1952, the Doc Savage Band was booked to
play at a rodeo dance. There were fairs, fies-
tas, football games and concerts.
By 1950, the subscription rate for the
newspaper had risen to $3 — the first rise
from the $2 a year established in the mid-
1910s by Saturnino Baca, the founder of the
Bulletin. And, rather than receiving their
newspaper through the mail, there were now
going to be “paper boys.” On Saturdays, the
paper boys knocked on doors, hoping that
subscribers had enough change to pay for
that month’s editions. In return for payment,
subscribers received a receipt in the form of
a tiny oblong blue glue-free stamp.
The News-Bulletin was as optimistic about
the future as the community was. The rail-
road expanded its yards in Belen, bringing
more families to town in 1952 and new sub-
divisions such as those along Esperanza west
of the new Jaramillo Elementary School
were built. There was talk about a milk-pro-
cessing plant being erected here in 1951 and,
throughout the decade, national companies
were exploring the back roads, sure there
was oil buried beneath the sand.
The tenor of the newspaper changed, with
more substantive reporting of government,
business and education. Crime was also up.
Police conducted numerous gambling raids,
and there were countless break-ins, many of
them at local stores. And it seemed that there
was more violence.
On Oct. 7, 1952, it was reported that two
State Prison Farm inmates who had escaped
abducted a Los Lunas man, holding the point
of a butcher knife to his throat for a 35-min-
ute ride. He was robbed of his shoes, $10
and his car, although the 19-year-old relief
railroad agent was unharmed except for a
scratch on his throat. The fugitives were cap-
tured in Los Lunas.
The Dec. 2, 1952, edition found four indi-
viduals — “three of them ‘teen-age’ juve-
niles” — charged with the theft of a car, sto-
1950-1959
len from a Belen doctor and crashed into a
home on South Main. About $100 worth of
narcotics and instruments were in the vehi-
cle. On Oct. 16, 1955, police said there had
been a rash of hubcap thefts.
SCHOOL BAND ROOM STRUCK
BY WEEKEND VANDALISM
Vandals broke into the public school band
department here Friday night and did sever-
al hundred dollars worth of damage to vari-
ous department.
... The recently acquired new sousaphones,
large and expensive instruments, were
removed from their stands and jammed on
top of one another on the floor, Bill Jones,
band director, said and these were damaged
extensively.
A french horn was removed from the room
and carried a block west where it was left in
an alley. A drum major’s cap was nearby.
Clarinets were taken from the cases and
strewn over the floor of the band room, some
of these being damaged considerably.
Oct. 31, 1955
On Dec. 21, 1959, a story on the front
page says that a 12-year-old had admitted to
13 break-ins in the last few months, thefts
ranged from 30 cents at the Belen laundry to
a car from Caldwell Motor Co.
On Dec. 28, 1959, two youths, ages 18 and
19, broke into the rectory at Our Lady of
Belen Church and stole $1,000.
“At the Masonic hall, an elaborate
unscheduled party was held by a number of
vandals Christmas night at the Masons’
expense.”
Dishes and glasses were taken from draw-
ers in the kitchen and broken. Linen and sil-
verware, were likewise removed and scat-
tered about. Meat, bread, chili sauce and beer
bottles that had been brought in by the party
celebrants were scattered on the floor ...
“Profane words and phrases were written in
chalk on the walls.”
Teen vandals were again suspected in a
break-in at Belen High School in December,
1955, at which ink was thrown in the hall-
way, acid used to damage facilities in the
chemistry room and student records were
strewn around. Our Lady of Belen Catholic
Church had been burglarized four times since
September, with religious items and money
taken.
The next edition reported that three youths
celebrated their probation by stealing chick-
ens from a local farmer and holding a picnic
See 1950-1959, Page 36
100
1910-2010
YEARS 35
1950-1959: continued from page 35
on the mesa. In the Dec. 23, 1955, edition,
Assistant District Attorney Tibo Chavez said
he would be cracking down on local gangs.
The newspaper worried about these “teen-
agers” and the local town fathers, the cham-
ber of commerce and businessmen worried
in print about juvenile delinquency, the new
catch phrase that was sweeping the nation
along with Elvis and “Blackboard Jungle.”
The latter two could be seen by any high
school student playing at the Oñate or the
Zia.
A youth council was revived, according to
the Oct. 10, 1956, edition, to “conduct
research to develop facts on juvenile delin-
quency.”
There were good kids, too. And the News-
Bulletin reported on their progress on the
football fields, in editions of Who’s Who,
and their careers at universities. Publisher
Carter Waid began another program that he
continued through much of his tenure at the
paper — he began hiring young people as
reporters. Young Oswald Baca helped Waid
take a poll in a political campaign, Gloria
McKenzie wrote about big events at Belen
High School.
TWO BELEN HIGH SENIORS JOIN
STAFF OF NEWS-BULLETIN AT END
OF SCHOOL
Two Belen high school Seniors, who
received their diplomas only last Thursday
night joined the staff of the News-Bulletin on
the following day, Friday.
Miss Doris Mendoza, recipient of the high
school’s award as the outstanding journalism
student, became a member of the News-
Bulletin’s editorial staff. She was serve as a
reporter, handling the Woman’s Page news
and other general duties on the editorial
side. ...
The other high school graduate joining the
News-Bulletin on a fulltime basis is Castulo
Moya Jr., who became a fulltime member of
the printing plant staff. Moya, as a high
school student, has been associated with the
News-Bulletin on a part-time basis for sever-
al years.
May 16, 1950
The ingenuous Waid also began working to
increase circulation in a series of clever cam-
paigns.
NEWS-BULLETIN HAS 2,800
SUBSCRIBERS
A Belen housewife and mother of four chil-
dren, Mrs. Dan Salazar, 818 Gilbert avenue,
today was the owner of a new Ford Custom
36
100 1910-2010
YEARS
Tudor, the grand prize in a six-weeks good-
will subscription campaign sponsored by the
Belen News-Bulletin.
Mrs. Salazar led a large field of contes-
tants in a sales contest which boosted the
News-Bulletin’s circulation list to approxi-
mately 2,800. Almost 1,200 new subscribers
were added to the News-Bulletin’s mailing
list, making the total one of the largest for
any weekly or semi-weekly in New Mexico.
...
The winner spent a rugged six weeks, call-
ing on prospects throughout the Middle Rio
Grande Valley area from Isleta to Socorro.
“It was hard work but worth it,” she
declared. ...
Ignacio Garcia, Los Lunas youth, through
the assistance of his father, Damacio, came
in for second place honors and second prize,
cash amounting to $500.
June 19, 1951
And probably one of the most popular con-
tests ever run in the ’50s.
WHO'S WHO CONTEST IS DUE TO
START FRIDAY, JAN. 16
If you enjoy working with clues and/or get
fun out of getting better acquainted with your
friends and neighbors to say nothing of try-
ing to win some money, the contest which
starts in the News-Bulletin this Friday and
appears each Friday thereafter is just your
dish.
You won’t need a gun or be willing to trav-
el, this is strictly armchair detective work!
In the Jan. 16 issue, there will be a page of
ads under the heading, “Who’s Who in
Valencia County.” If you read these ads
carefully, you will find clues hidden in the
ads — and these clues should be enough to
enable you to identify some area personality.
Any ad with a star in it is your fair warning
that there is another ad of the sponsoring
merchant elsewhere in the same issue of the
paper — and if you want to find all the clues
and thus try for the big jackpot, you’d better
check the ad that the star tells you is there …
because there may be clues hidden in that ad
also!
When you have established the identity of
the Who’s Who and have counted every clue
you can find throughout the paper, take your
entry to the place of business of the merchant
whose ad is featured on the page opposite
the full page of ads. Your entry may be sub-
mitted on any piece of paper. There will be a
contest box for you to drop it in. That’s all
there is to it. If your entry is drawn and you
have correctly identified the Who’s Who, you
will receive $7.50. If your entry lists the cor-
1950-1959
rect number of clues appearing in the paper,
you will receive a bonus of $22.50.
Jan. 14, 1959
The News-Bulletin looked good, perhaps
because it had installed a Goss Automatic
Press in February, 1955.
“The 10-ton press ... is approximately 20
feet long, nine feet wide and six feet high at
the tallest point. It operates automatically
from a 620-pound roll of newsprint.”
Because newsprint had to be ordered, the
only thing available was rolls of yellow, giv-
ing the News-Bulletin an interesting look for
a short while.
Other changes were coming. As of March
28, 1956, the News-Bulletin would begin
offering a TV log in every edition for the
three Albuquerque stations, Channels 4, 7
and 13.
The masthead of the newspaper had
evolved over the years. In its 50th year, it
added drawings, showing everything from a
dairy farm to a railroad locomotive to a
truck, a tractor and a man milking with a
church in the right-hand column. It
announced Belen, with a heart, showing the
paper’s 50th year, founded in 1910.
A new column, “Ramblings Of the Hoods”
— yep, “hoods” was apparently coined right
here in our river city — began in 1950. It
evolved into a number of columns such as
“Along U.S. 15,” “Peralta Postscripts,” and
others. Belenites had the most cosmopolitan
sounding “Around Town,” but the informa-
tion was still the same as ever — who was
visiting whom, who had taken a trip, who
was ailing.
Another gossipy feature — one that can be
seen today as classically ’50s — was “Did
You See?” On Oct. 27, 1950, it asked if
you’d seen “Mrs. O.M. Smith cleaning the
windows of her only daughter, Mrs. Emmitt
McGrath’s apartment in the Santa Fe Courts,
only to find when she got through that she
had been washing the neighbor’s windows ...
Mr. and Mrs. Rodrigo Sanchez proudly
announcing that they are grandparents again
... Harry Culver buying three friends a cold
drink ... Mrs. Fannie Saavedra trying to
serve coffee only to some people who wanted
a full meal.”
Friends and neighbors were sure to report
if you’d done something silly, touching or
unusual.
It was a way of getting as many local
names in the paper as possible.
A Century of News
 100 1960-1969
News-Bulletin
1910-2010
YEARS
By Sandy Battin
Special to the News-Bulletin
I
f America was in a go-go economic phase dur-
ing the 1960s, so was Valencia County.
The population was rising, new communities
were springing up, Los Lunas was growing from a
sleepy little village to an up-and-coming one. It was
all supported by numbers; statistics were everywhere,
from the 1960 census to the surveys that increasingly
were being taken to study everything from the eco-
nomic outlook to crime to which was the sunniest cli-
mate.
CAN LAY CLAIM TO THE
SUNSHINE CAPITAL TITLE
The Mid-Rio Grande Valley can lay rightful claim
to being the Sunshine Capital of the Southwest.
This Fall, the sun has never failed to shine in a
24-hour period in the Belen and Albuquerque area.
A copy of a recent sunshine map published by the
Weather Bureau... for a 12-month period shows the
mean percentage of possible sunshine for selected
locations.
(It) … shows the following percentage of mean per-
centage of possible sunshine:
Albuquerque-Belen, 76 percent
Miami Beach, 67 percent
Los Angeles, 73 percent
Phoenix, 85 percent
Dec. 26, 1963
As the band would sing a couple of decades later,
“the future was so bright, ya had to wear shades.”
Invariably, every report of the growth of Valencia
County was greeted optimistically by the chamber of
commerce, public officials and the newspaper.
Growth would mean jobs, a better life for local chil-
dren, who wouldn’t have to move away to make a
good living, folks said.
RESIDENTIAL AREAS FROM
ALBUQUERQUE TO BELEN
A continuous development of residential areas
reaching from Albuquerque to Belen and through the
Los Lunas community in another ten years is predict-
ed by a Southern Union Gas company division offi-
cial.
“We can see a residential development coming that
JoAnne Chavez will be continuous from Albuquerque to Belen,” said
Former News-Bulletin W.D. James, division manager of Southern Union. …
production manager
A Century of News
He also said that Southern Union has confidence in
the future of Belen, and he observed that the compa-
ny will have spent more than $200,000 in this area in
providing some 300 homes on Highway 47 with natu-
ral gas service this year.
Sept. 30, 1963
Records at the county courthouse and city halls told
the story:
AREA HOME BUILDING BOOM
HITS FAST PACE
A year ago, the construction of new homes in the
Belen and Los Lunas areas was at a leisurely pace.
Today, building of homes in and around Belen and at
several places north of here is at a fast pace.
Next Sunday, Oct. 20, E.W. Freeman is scheduled
to unveil a new subdivision of homes on the north-
west side of Belen. He has 20 homes under construc-
tion. An open house will be held for the public to
view the type of homes he offers to families who want
a home of their own.
West of the E.W. Freeman subdivision, the San Bar
Construction Company is building pre-sold homes in
Barboa Park. San Bar will soon have an open house
to display their style and facilities of modern homes.
Crawford & Thompson, a division of Las Lomas
Corporation, Albuquerque, is shortly starting work
on two houses in Peterbilt Addition, north of Belen
and on U.S. 85. This firm recently built and sold an
authentic adobe construction home of pueblo style in
Peterbilt Park.
… Eleven homes have been built and sold in the
Edith Addition in West Belen by Austin Capps, devel-
oper and contractor. This addition has sidewalks,
paved streets and curbing and all Belen city utilities.
… New houses are going up in the Ben San and
Gabaldon subdivisions on the west side, and where
more than 20 homes have been built and sold.
Oct. 14, 1963
A Welcome to Belen column was begun to let peo-
ple know about the newcomers who were building
homes in areas such as Rio Grande Estates (now Rio
Communities). For instance, in the Oct. 10, 1963,
edition, welcomes were given to:
Mr. and Mrs. Ed Beadle, formerly of Sacramento,
Calif., who are now living at the Douglas Apartments
on Perizzite St. They plan to build a home later at the
See 1960-1969, Page 38
100 1910-2010
YEARS 37
1960-1969: continued from page 37
Rio Grande Estates.
Mrs. Vivian Pate, formerly of Beardstown,
Ill, who is now living at 509 N. 4th St.
Having more people meant more political
clout:
VALENCIA VOTER REGISTRATION
HITS NEW PEAK
The voter registration totals in Valencia
County have reached a new high figure.
The last day to register for the general elec-
tions on Nov. 3 was Monday, Oct. 5, and at the
close of business at 5 p.m., a total of 20,443
voters had been registered, County Clerk Patty
Armijo said today.
Oct. 8, 1964
But, along the edges, you could see that the
increase in population might be bringing atten-
dant problems with it. And as the big city just
north of the county began to grow, Valencia
County began to experience splash-over prob-
lems from it.
Later in the decade, the problem appeared to
be getting worse across America and the News-
Bulletin attempted to survey the situation in its
own backyard:
DOPE IS A MINOR PROBLEM IN BELEN
Every day one reads more stories: a boy who
committed suicide while on an LSD trip; a
young, heroin-addicted mother who killed her
five-month-old baby; children of 12 or 13
years old being arrested for sniffing glue. The
parent of a small town teenager reads these
and other stories in the country’s newspapers
about the wild “hippies” and juvenile delin-
quents who take “dope” for a “high” and
thankfully heave a sigh and are grateful that
they don’t live in one of those cities where drug
addiction is steadily on the rise. These parents
feel safe to believe that their town has no prob-
lem of this sort and the problem belongs to
some far-off mother who one only hears about
on television.
Unfortunately, these unknowing parents
don’t realize that even the smallest of towns
has some sort of drug problem. Consider one
middle sized New Mexico town. In that city, the
local newspaper took a survey among the
junior and senior high school students and
concluded that about 15 percent of the stu-
dents had experimented with drugs, including
LSD.
Can Belen possibly have a problem of this
sort of this proportion? Can our teenagers
possibly get this mystical evil? In setting out to
answer these questions, it is best to go right to
the place where the answer lies — the students
38
1001910-2010
YEARS
and teachers of Belen High School. It seems
that the consensus of a majority of the teachers
and students is that Belen does not have as
large a drug problem as many other schools in
the nation. In fact, a large percentage of the
students interviewed stated that they had never
heard of any drug taking at all and, as one girl
put it, “probably never will because the people
in the group I hang around with don’t do that
sort of thing and we really aren’t interested in
it.”
Almost every teacher stated that they them-
selves had never heard of any such problem,
and, in the words of one teacher, “I don’t
doubt that it is here in some proportion or
another, but I, personally, have never heard
anything about it.”
Dec. 2, 1968
There was other bad news, too, that could be
drawn from statistics:
SURVEY SHOWS BELEN
HAS MORE WRECKS
Do residents of Valencia County lead safer
or more hazardous lives than people in other
localities? Are they more liable or less liable
to meet with an accident of some sort — auto-
mobile or otherwise — in a given year?
According to a government survey, just
released, local people seem to be somewhat
more accident-prone than the average.
The general accident record locally is
viewed alongside that of other communities. It
is based upon data compiled by the U.S.
Public Health Service ...
According to the survey, there were 39 fatal
accidents among Valencia County residents
during the year ending Jan. 1, 1967, with
motor vehicles responsible for 24 of them.
And, for each fatal one, there were nearly
100 others that did not result in loss of life.
Dec. 9, 1968
Even though small-town optimism was per-
haps at its height here in the 1960s, outside
events spread fear across the nation. The
Cuban Missile Crisis threatened to wipe out
the world as we knew it. A standoff between
President Kennedy in Washington and Premier
Khruschev in Moscow over missiles being
installed in Cuba seemed to slow the clock,
ticking the frightening seconds down to a
showdown. And then the Russians blinked; the
missiles were taken away.
The fear was real. People kept talking about
this being the first generation to experience the
possibility of the annihilation of the human
race.
The first fall-out shelter permit for Belen
was issued in September, 1961, to Sam J.
1960-1969
Chavez for his 920 Gilbert Avenue home, the
News-Bulletin reported.
“Know What Kind of Foods You Need in a
Survival Stockpile,” warned the newspaper in
its Nov. 2, 1961, edition. County Home Agent
Aubrey Notman recommended the basics of
the food pyramid, noting that a survival stock-
pile could weigh 40 to 45 pounds per person,
so a family of four would need 160 to 180
pounds of food. “Do you have this much food
on hand all the time?” she asked.
It seems now like just a blink of an eye
between the time of the Cuban crisis and the
one that exploded a couple of years later.
Valencia County residents reacted in shock to
the news about the handsome and popular
young president that came to them just before
the lunch hour on Nov. 23, 1963, from Dallas,
Texas. The News-Bulletin tried to put the
events of the day in local context with several
front-page stories:
BELEN AND LOS LUNAS
HONOR LATE PRESIDENT
Businesses, schools and government officers
were closed in Belen and Los Lunas Monday
in a period of national mourning for the late
President, John F. Kennedy.
The post offices at Belen and Los Lunas
were closed Monday. There was no postal
delivery, Mails will be dispatched as on holi-
days.
The two Belen Banks, the First National and
Ranchers State, will be closed. …
The Belen and Los Lunas Consolidated
Schools were all closed in honor of the memo-
ry of the martyred president.
...All Valencia County offices, except that of
the sheriff’s department, were closed in obser-
vance of the national day of mourning, pro-
claimed by President Lyndon Baines Johnson,
who was administered the oath of office short-
ly after President Kennedy’s death.
Nov. 25, 1963
PRESIDENT’S DEATH ‘GREAT LOSS
TO THE FREE WORLD’
State Senator Tibo Chavez and Chief
Assistant District Attorney Filo Sedillo, both of
Belen, were personally acquainted with the
late President John F. Kennedy.
Senator Chavez had met President Kennedy
and conferred with him on several occasions.
At a State Democratic party convention at
Santa Fe, they took part in discussions with
other state leaders.
When Senator Chavez was a delegate to the
See 1960-1969, Page 39
A Century of News
1960-1969: continued from page 38
party’s national convention in 1960 at Los
Angeles, he and other New Mexico Democrats
met and gave their support to Mr. Kennedy for
the presidential nomination.
The State Senator said, “We in Valencia
County were deeply hurt by the death of
President John F. Kennedy.”
Nov. 25, 1963
The War in Vietnam brought further heart-
break to people in Valencia County. Almost
monthly, it seemed, during those long years,
the death of a young man that most readers
knew and admired was reported. There were
real heroes among those brave warriors.
LOS LUNAS SOLDIER DIES;
HIS ACT SAVES SIX OTHERS
A soldier from Los Lunas died Friday when
he tossed himself over a Viet Cong grenade to
shield six of his fellow GIs from the blast.
For this act, Daniel Fernandez, son of Mr.
and Mrs. Jose I. Fernandez, has been nominat-
ed for the Congressional Medal of Honor, our
nation’s highest tribute to a hero.
Fernandez was on duty with a fire team (a
seven-man unit) guarding the perimeter of an
outpost about 30 miles from Saigon when he
spotted the grenade fall into his position. He
was alive when he was evacuated from the
scene by Army helicopter.
In Los Lunas, Mayor Howard C. Simpson
has proposed that a permanent memorial be
established in honor of the hero. The mayor
pledges his personal efforts toward establish-
ing the memorial.
Fernandez’ s body is to arrive in Los Lunas
Wednesday night or early Thursday with a full
military escort, an Army spokesman said
today.
... Fernandez was on his second stretch of
duty in Viet Nam when he was killed.
He was the recipient of the Purple Heart in
March of 1965 and the Air Medal in May,
1965.
Feb. 22, 1966
The Sept. 1, 1969, edition tells the story of
Capt. John S. Wilson of Belen, who received
six posthumous awards for his bravery in
Vietnam.
As he was about to enter, he saw many civil-
ians without any protective gear and without
any direction, Captain Wilson moved away
from the bunker and began shouting instruc-
tions to the civilians in order to get them into
the bunker in an orderly and expeditious man-
ner. When it became apparent to him that the
bunker could not accommodate everyone, he
A Century of News
decided to stand in front of the entrance to the
bunker in order to provide cover for the unpro-
tected civilians. Only seconds later a rocket
impacted less than ten feet from him. Captain
Wilson was mortally wounded but the civilians
escaped uninjured.
At home, one of the biggest challenges was
the persistent flooding that hit the city of
Belen. The Aug. 14, 1967, edition reported a
flood that washed out a bridge on U.S. 60 and
a four-hour train delay because of flooding
tracks. Then, the big one hit.
WIND DRIVEN RAIN, HAIL
FLOODS BELEN SUNDAY
The bosque drain running through the center
of Belen was reported opened by workmen
about 8:00 o’clock this morning and started
draining two to three feet of flood water from
the south part of Belen. The ditch had filled
with silt early last evening and had been
closed most of the night.
The damaging floods followed three inches
of rain which fell here in about an hour
Sunday afternoon, beginning about 3 o’clock.
No loss of life or injuries was reported, but
damage ran into the thousands perhaps hun-
dreds of thousands of dollars. Farm crops and
gardens were hard hit. Hail and high winds
caused considerable damage. Some streets and
roads were washed out. Telephone service was
interrupted south of Belen, municipal water
service was out most of the night, but was
restored on a restricted basis this morning.
The heaviest flooding occurred south from
Reinken Avenue and west of the Santa Fe rail-
way tracks. Heaviest damage occurred on
Baca, Gilbert, Didier, Dillon, Castillo and
Bernard Avenue.
...Some 15 homes were evacuated. Three
families slept overnight at the National Guard
armory. One Belen man called KARS radio
this morning asking for help in locating his
wife.
The Post office and the News-Bulletin news-
paper corner at Sixth and Baca remained
under two to three feet of water at 8:00 A.M.
today.
June 16, 1969
News-Bulletin staffers worked heroically to
cover the story. The water was at ankle-depth
inside the office and JoAnn Aragon Chavez,
who other than Elfego Baca was the News-
Bulletin’s longest employee, working on new
electronic typesetting equipment, she had to
hold her feet above the water as she worked
because, when she lowered them, she would
experience a nasty electrical shock. The paper
appeared on time, the rotting carpets from the
front office were ripped out and thrown away
1960-1969
and folks with shovels and brooms cleared the
several inches of dirt from the printing shop.
The decade had been one of other excite-
ment for the News-Bulletin. A new printing
process began to update its look. On July 18,
1960, the newspaper was printed on a photo-
offset press, replacing the traditional “hot
metal” or Linotype machines. Publisher Carter
Waid said it would offer sharper pictures and
pages in two or more colors. The installation
was to be the first of its kind in New Mexico
or Arizona, as part of the new Newspaper
Printing Corporation established at 110 Gold
SE in Albuquerque by Waid, publisher Lucien
File of Socorro and Waid’s former News-
Bulletin partner, Edwin J. Lewis.
In the very next edition, the publisher began
experimenting with color, printing the mast-
head — the name of the newspaper on Page 1
— in red.
By Dec. 28 of that year, Carter and Martha
Waid announced they’d sold controlling inter-
est in the News-Bulletin to Howard Barman of
Amita, La. Printing was to be returned to the
local shop, with three former employees —
Alfredo Chavez, Harry Reed and Amarante
Moya — returning to print it.
The Waids were busy establishing “Belen’s
own radio station,” KARS. It went on the air
on Oct. 9, 1961. It offered a program of coun-
try music with two hours of Spanish tunes
daily...transmitted during the day only.
The front page of the News-Bulletin was
gray in 1961, but with a lot to read. There
were 22 stories on the front page of the Aug.
21 edition.
In 1965, Barman sold the paper to Belen
Publishing Co. with William W. (Bill) Worley,
former ad manager of the Grants Daily
Beacon, as vice president. It moved into a new
office at Baca and Sixth in Belen the next year,
with the front door for the newspaper on Baca
and the entrance to the commercial printing
company on Sixth.
Circulation had grown to 2,583 as of the end
of a circulation contest on Aug. 15, 1960.
In Nov. 30, 1964, the News-Bulletin
announced it would give 100 King Korn trad-
ing stamps to every new yearly subscriber.
Books of the stamps, most often given by gro-
cery stores, could be traded in for prizes.
And, during this time, a beloved nameplate
was designed for the newspaper, one that
showed a mountain, a train, a man on a tractor
and a traditional adobe church. Valencia
County — and the News-Bulletin — were
proud of where they’d come from and excited
about where they were going.
100 1910-2010
YEARS 39
 100 1970-1979
News-Bulletin
1910-2010
YEARS
By Sandy Battin
Special to the News-Bulletin
C
hange, change, change. That was the theme
of the 1970s.
Protests against the war in Vietnam, a
president resigning office in shame, heiress Patty
Hearst taken hostage, the oil crisis, the horror of the
suicides in Jonestown, an American embassy being
taken over in Iran. The nation often sat in stunned
silence in front of television sets, trying to digest the
changes.
Valencia County residents were as concerned with
world events as anyone else, but they were also wit-
nessing plenty of changes on the home front. Some,
frankly, were for the better, as folks read on Nov. 26,
1970, in the News-Bulletin:
NUMBER OF VALENCIA CO. FAMILIES IN
UPPER BRACKETS HAS INCREASED
How well are Valencia County residents making
out financially? What proportion of local families are
not to be found in the upper income brackets?
According to a nationwide survey, rising wages and
salaries have carried most families in the area to
higher position on the income ladder.
Just where they stand, currently, is brought out in a
copyrighted report issued by Sales Management, the
marketing publication.
...In Valencia County, it finds, the level of earnings
... are relatively good. Some 64.4 percent of the
households in the local area have disposable cash
incomes, after taxes, of $5,000 or more in the past
year.
...The Valencia County (cash income) breakdown
gives the position of each group of local families on
the income ladder. It lists 26.5 percent of them on the
$5,000 to $8,000 rung, 15.9 percent at the $8,000 to
$10,000 level and 22.0 percent above $10,000. The
remainder are below $5,000.
Despite the oil crisis — with long lines of cars
lined up at gas stations all over the country — the
individual lifestyle in Valencia County was better, if
measured in terms of material gains:
GAINS NOTED IN POPULATION,
UTILITIES, MOTOR VEHICLES
A total of 32,953 motor vehicles were registered to
persons in Valencia county during the 1972 year,
according to the annual business and economic
Lil Lou Waid Gillett
Former editor
40
1001910-2010
YEARS
report of the First New Mexico Bankshare
Corporation entitled “1972 New Mexico Progress.”
A breakdown of the motor vehicle registration
shows 18,567 passenger vehicles; 9,861 trucks; 60
school buses; 12 commercial buses; two taxis; 1,381
travel trailers; 2,242 hauling trailers; and 272
motorcycles. ...
More people were coming to the county:
A percentage population change of plus 3.5 percent
is shown for Valencia County, which is estimated with
40,900 population in 1971 and 41,900 in 1972.
Births from April 1970 to June 1972 are numbered
at 1,979 in Valencia County while deaths are approx-
imately one-third this number at 630.
Growth was still expected:
20,000 VISITORS ANTICIPATED
BY HORIZON CORP.
More than 20,000 visitors are anticipated at the
Rio Communities east of Belen next year by the
owner, Horizon Corporation.
Horizon is projecting a 43 per cent increase in the
number of visitors at the Rio properties next year
over the 1971 total.
.. (Officials) reported more than 7,000 persons vis-
ited the Rio properties the first six months this year.
Aug. 2, 1971
The county also marked its 10,000th telephone
installation. It was installed at the home of Mrs. Mary
D. Kuhn of Belen, as reported in the Aug. 2, 1973,
News-Bulletin.
But our way of life was changing. For centuries,
agriculture had been the mainstay of Valencia
County, with its system of irrigation canals, many
painstakingly dug by hand by earlier settlers. In the
1970s, houses sprouted ristras of red chile every fall,
drying the culinary staple for another winter; it was a
practice that by the 1990s had almost complete disap-
peared other than those hung as a decorator statement
outside front doors. The statistics bore out individual
observations:
FEWER FARMS IN COUNTY
ACCORDING TO LAST CENSUS
Valencia County showed a total of 562 farms in the
1969 Census of Agriculture, according to figures
released by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s
See 1970-1979, Page 41
A Century of News
1970-1979: continued from page 40
Bureau of the Census.
In the last previous Census of Agriculture
(1964), the number of farms reported in the
county was 688.
Of the county’s total farms in 1969, 256 are
reported as selling $2,500 or more of agricul-
tural products in the year, as compared with
222 in 1964.
The report also shows average farm size in
the county was 4,414.8 acres, and average
value of these farms (land and buildings) was
$151,821.
Jan. 20, 1972
The big story of the decade was the growth
of Los Lunas, whose population had hovered
way below the 1,000 mark for decades. The
enrollment at Los Lunas High School had now
exceeded that number. Now, with its location
closer to Albuquerque and its beautiful setting
along the Rio Grande, young families were
beginning to take notice.
Women’s liberation was an important — and
controversial — subject of the day, too.
Margaret Thatcher had become the first female
leader of a major nation and, at home, more
and more women were taking jobs outside
their homes.
MORE WOMEN WORK
IN VALENCIA COUNTY
In Valencia County, women have been enter-
ing the labor force in growing number in the
last few yeas. At the present time, more of them
are holding down jobs than ever before.
According to the latest government figures,
some 4,510 local women, out of approximately
13,820 over age 16, were employed or were
seeking employment in the past year.
The proportion, 32.6 percent, contrasts with
the 20.6 percent that were in the local labor
force back in 1960.
Elsewhere in the United States, the propor-
tion is over 39 percent.
Aug. 9, 1976
Transportation had changed, too, and if that
meant Los Lunas attracted more new residents,
it appeared to have the opposite effect on
Belen. Once upon a time, Belen’s Main Street
was a thriving economic center: Becker-Dalies
and Feil & Ellermeyer had just about anything
you’d want to buy. There were many local
clothing stores and pharmacies. With many
auto dealers, Belen had the reputation as a
place to buy a new car and people regularly
came here from Albuquerque to shop.
But then, it got easier for Belenites to drive
to Albuquerque. It took less time, some said, to
travel from the congested Northeast Heights to
A Century of News
downtown than it did from Los Lunas. On Oct.
29, 1973, the News-Bulletin reported:
ALBUQUERQUE TO BELEN TO TAKE
ONLY 30 MINUTES VIA 1-25
It shouldn’t take you 40 or 45 minutes to
drive into Albuquerque from Belen anymore. If
you travel at speeds near the limit, 30 minutes
will be your usual driving time.
Because this Thursday, Nov. 1, the State
Highway Department has scheduled the open-
ing of the final, uncompleted stretch of I-25
between the two cities.
The final 7.5 smile stretch of the interstate
freeway between Highway 47 and Rio Bravo
Boulevard will open to the public on Thursday.
And drive to Albuquerque people did. More
local residents found jobs there, and they
began shopping there. And, in the end, it was
the straw that broke the camel’s back. Local
businesses began to close. Even the most his-
toric weren’t immune:
BELEN'S OLDEST STORE
CLOSING AFTER A CENTURY
Belen’s oldest commercial business, the
100-year-old plus Becker-Dalies Co. depart-
ment store, is going out of business.
Austin D. Lovett, president of the corpora-
tion announced today that he had sold the
property, consisting of a large 2-story business
building on main Street at the junction of
Becker and Dalies Avenues, and 3.4 acres of
land, to George Gabaldon ... a general con-
tractor and developer, Lovett, now 70...
The store dates back to 1873 when the late
John Becker Sr. came to the Belen community
as a partner with the Huning Bros. Becker-
Dalies and Huning are among the oldest retail
businesses in the state. Mr. Becker bought their
interest four years later and it became the
John Becker Co., then in 1927 the name was
changed to the Becker-Dalies Co....
Most of the merchandise sold to the store
100 years ago was freighted here in oxen-
drawn wagons over the Santa Fe Trail. Belen’s
post office was located in the store for many
years. In the early years, the company had a
wine cellar and sold whiskey, saddle string,
axle grease, kerosene lamps, clothing, hard-
ware and Mother Hubbard dresses. A grocery
department for many, many years was a major
attraction to the general store. A flour mill was
a major part of the company from 1884 until
well into the 1900s. Over the years the compa-
ny had a lumber yard, drug department, wool
department (purchased on consignment for a
Boston firm) and a casket department. ... The
late Paul B. Dalies joined the company in
1889 at the age of 15, moving to Belen from
Ripon, Wis.
Nov. 15, 1976
1970-1979
Change was on the horizon for the News-
Bulletin, too. It was starting to tackle in-depth
reporting, taking on timely issues such as rape
and child abuse. And it was winning awards
from the New Mexico Press Association for its
coverage.
The decade started as Carter and Martha
Waid were honored with a surprise 28th anni-
versary party at the First Baptist Church of
Belen, according to the Nov. 23, 1970, edition.
Carter Waid was a Valencia County phenome-
na. He seemed to be everywhere, he seemed to
know everyone. His writing was no-nonsense,
succinct. He was a facts man.
Waid's daughter, Lil Lou Gillett was a
reporter, photographer and eventually became
editor of the News-Bulletin until 1977 when
she had her son, Linque.
But Waid had a sentimental side, writing ten-
der stories about ailing children, lost history,
including long congratulatory stories about
local students’ achievements, always being
sure to include the names of their proud par-
ents. He saw his newspaper — his lifework —
as the taut fiber that stitched together the crazy
quilt of his community.
Martha Waid, his wife, was a quieter person,
less well known in town. But she’d always
been his partner in the business. She’d kept the
books, managed the office, dealt with employ-
ees. She was the behind-the-scenes safety net
that allowed Carter to perform the high-wire
act in the spotlight of community journalism.
It must have been a tough decision for them
when they announced that, effective Oct. 1,
1976, they’d sold the News-Bulletin to Modern
Press of Albuquerque, publisher of the
Valencia County News in Los Lunas — in
essence, the competition. Waid was to continue
indefinitely as manager of the newspaper.
That announcement came in the Dec. 16,
1976, edition of the News-Bulletin. The merger
would mean that the Belen-oriented News-
Bulletin would begin serving the entire valley
from Isleta to La Joya. And that was when the
paper changed its name again, now officially
becoming the Valencia County News-Bulletin.
In 1977, the Waids announced their retire-
ment. Longtime newsman Howard Kercheval
was named manager of the News-Bulletin.
Waid was to remain involved with the News-
Bulletin on a part-time basis, and he planned
on working on several projects that involved
historical research, his other love.
For the News-Bulletin and its readers, it was
the end of an era.
100 1910-2010
YEARS 41
 100 1980-1989
News-Bulletin
1910-2010
YEARS
By Sandy Battin
Special to the News-Bulletin
D
uring the 1980s, Valencia County began
looking back at its heritage, surprised and
concerned that its rapid growth might lead
to the demise of some of its most cherished institu-
tions, structures and cultural traditions.
The historic and beautiful Our Lady of Belen
Catholic Church was already a memory, having been
torn down to make way for a more modern — more
mundane, some would say — building that would
hold more worshippers. That action seemed to open
the eyes of many people. Nothing is forever —
unless you get up off your comfortable seat and try to
do something about it. Many Valencia County resi-
dents vowed that’s what they would do.
Probably the first real challenge to that new move-
ment was Belen’s Harvey House. The Santa Fe
Railway cut a chugging, beloved track through the
history of the county. Belen had even earned its nick-
name — the Hub City — half because of its location
mid-section in the state and half because of those
train wheels that seemed to define it.
The railroad had provided jobs to local people;
brought movie stars, presidents and royalty to the sta-
tion for all to see; gave its employees tickets to
Albuquerque or Los Angeles or Chicago, places that
opened our eyes to the bigger world. Through it,
we’d played a bigger role in World War II, watching
as the troops rode through to their own destinations
with history. And now there were rumblings that the
Harvey House — a lovely building in its own merit
— with its gentle arches, gorgeous woodwork and
climbing ivy, was going to be demolished.
BATTLE WAGES FOR HARVEY HOUSE
A new battle is being waged to preserve the old
Harvey House building located just north of the rail-
road depot in the Hub City.
Boarded up at the present time, the building is a
constant reminder of times past — times recalling the
glory days of passenger service and stops in Belen
for a delicious meal at the Harvey House.
If the walls could only talk, what stories they would
tell. Inside the old building, constructed sometime
around 1910, one can almost hear the footsteps of
the pretty, nattily-dressed Harvey Girls scurrying
around, carrying large trays bearing meals for 75
cents.
The historic building, termed “the last dinosaur “
Berdie Tuttle
Former reporter who was the by state representative Ron Gentry, is the subject of a
oldest reporter in the country
42
100 1910-2010
YEARS
petition drive in Belen. Some 5,000 names have been
collected in an attempt, possibly in vain, to preserve
the building. The ATSF emphatically states that the
building will be razed.
“Our plans are to tear it down,” said Chuck
Hanan, the Special Assistant in the Santa Fe’s Public
Relations Department.
Aug. 30, 1982
The railroad was adamant, but this time Belenites
— including the News-Bulletin — were determined
they’d put up a good fight. And they won. They con-
tacted their congressmen, they dunned their city gov-
ernment, they petitioned and turned out for meetings.
And they learned the lesson that, if supported by
enough people, you can win. The Valencia County
News-Bulletin, in 1983 won the New Mexico Press
Association’s Public Service Award for its efforts to
forestall demolition.
In Los Lunas, plucky individuals stepped forward
to save two of the most important buildings of the
fast-growing village. And they turned them into res-
taurants with bona fide significance on the National
Register of Historic Places.
THE DOOR IS OPEN
Area residents, who have anxiously awaited the
opening of Luna Mansion in Los Lunas are now
enjoying dinner in the supper club restaurant.
A landmark in the county seat, the mansion was
purchased about a year ago by Earl Whittemore and
three partners, and much of the time since has been
spent in research and work refurbishing the former
home of the Lunas and Oteros.
Open daily at 5 p.m., the restaurant features
shishkabob, steaks, seafood and a salad bar.
Tastefully decorated with accents of paintings,
antiques and large reproductions of family snapshots,
the restaurant has an upstairs bar and a seating
capacity of 120 in the main floor dining rooms.
July 24, 1978
A historical society seemed to be one way to
ensure that Valencia County would save its past.
When the Belen Pilot Club began talking about ways
to preserve the county’s rich history, one of the ways
it came up with was to help establish a historical
society. Late in the 1970s, it announced it would hold
a meeting to which everyone and anyone interested
in history was invited. Those interested could take it
See 1980-1989, Page 43
A Century of News
1980-1989: continued from page 42
from there.
One of the leading lights of that move was
Carter Waid, longtime owner of the News-
Bulletin. A man who loved history, he was a
member of the committee that laid out the
foundations of the society. And, in 1980, after
retiring with a remark about working on a his-
tory project, Waid was set to help make yet
another major contribution to the history of the
county.
Local residents took other actions to make
sure the heroes who once lived among us
would never be forgotten. They didn’t wait for
government to take action; they did it them-
selves.
JARALES MEMORIAL
TO HONOR WAR DEAD
Area residents hope to unveil a memorial to
their war dead and a survivor next year at the
Old Jarales School.
The $20,000 project is being organized by
Sam Cordova, a Jarales native who lives in
Los Angeles; Ruperto Baldonado of Los
Angeles; and his sister, Reina Pino of Jarales.
The Cordova family is underwriting the proj-
ect, which started six months ago at the grass
roots level with a lot of help from friends and
relatives.
Luis Espinoza of Jarales is a Bataan Death
March survivor who was a Prisoner of War
during WWII. A visit with Espinoza, the only
march survivor in Jarales, convinced Cordova
that the servicemen should not be forgotten
...The dedication ceremonies have been set for
May 26, when it is hoped that Lt. Gen. Leo
Marquez, a native of Jarales working at the
Pentagon, will address those in attendance.
Aug. 18, 1985
Every year since, the southern Valencia
County community has held a Memorial Day
ceremony remembering its people’s contribu-
tion to the American cause. They have never
forgotten,
The News-Bulletin, meanwhile, entered the
1980s with a sad loss from its own history.
ELFEGO BACA, NEWSMAN,
FORMER SHERIFF, DIES
Longtime Valencia County Republican lead-
er Elfego Baca died Friday night. He was 81.
Baca’s political career touched the state,
county and city levels. He also served on the
Belen School Board.
His first public job was city treasurer in
Belen. He took that job when he was 24 in
1924. He served in that position until 1934.
He was elected to the Belen Board of educa-
tion in 1938. He sat on that board for 12
A Century of News
years.
Baca served as county treasurer from 1941-
44. He was elected sheriff in 1947 and worked
at that job until 1950.
In 1951, Baca was appointed state liquor
director, a position he held for four years.
...He also served as police chief in Belen for
10 years.
The Baca family founded the first newspaper
in Belen. Elfego’s father, Saturnino, started the
Hispano Americano in 1910. The paper, which
was to become the Belen News, is the forerun-
ner of the News-Bulletin.
Elfego went to work for his father at the
newspaper in 1920. He became publisher of
the News in 1921, a position he held until
1947 when the Baca interest was sold to Ed
Lewis.
July 27, 1981
If the county faced a potential loss of its his-
tory, it was also facing other crises. Some sim-
ply involved coping with growth. Los Lunas,
especially, sometimes seemed to be bursting at
the seams.
Growth came in many forms. The new
Valencia Campus of the University of New
Mexico was opening its Tierra del Sol — Rio
Communities — campus. Enrollment had
grown from 320 students in the fall of 1981 to
938 in the spring of 1983. Located in the VIA
Community Center, it offered a two-year pro-
gram in several subjects.
The News-Bulletin took an active role in
reporting about other problems, many of them
environmental and not as easy to change,
brought by changing times.
And crime too was becoming an issue.
Burglary was on the rise and so was violent
crime. While there were several brutal, tragic
murders reported in the county during the
1980s, perhaps the most widely reported was
the unsettling, unsolved case of Tara Calico, a
pretty young University of New Mexico-
Valencia Campus psychology student who dis-
appeared one September day while riding her
bicycle south of Rio Communities.
It sticks in the mind because, even 20-some
years later, it is still a mystery. No body has
ever been found. No arrest has ever been
made. No real witnesses have ever stepped for-
ward. The added horror of a photograph of a
bound-and-gagged girl who looks much like
the student was found in a Florida parking lot.
It has been the most written-about police case
in News-Bulletin history.
Adding to the mystery is the fact that the
three-foot-high bound volume of the News-
Bulletin that contains the original story of the
disappearance has itself gone missing. This is
the earliest story now available on the case.
1980-1989
With former editor Dana Bowley’s and then
longtime police reporter and current editor
Clara Garcia’s coverage of the case, the News-
Bulletin continued to try to help police find
clues from the general public and to give read-
ers — many of whom had known Calico per-
sonally — updates on the baffling event that
still can send shivers up the spines of local
parents.
The 1980s were bringing many changes to
the News-Bulletin itself as well. They brought
a well-designed lay-out, better coverage and
large, beautiful photographs by Lawrence
Kaneshiro, who often seemed to be a one-man
newspaper, serving not only as shutterbug-in-
chief, but also as printer, office handy man,
circulation manager and sometimes writer.
In 1992, former News-Bulletin owner and
publisher Carter Waid was inducted into the
New Mexico Press Association Hall of Fame.
The News-Bulletin went through a rapid
series of changes in ownership — the most in
any decade — during the ’80s. The Meredith
Corporation — publisher of Better Homes &
Gardens — bought the paper from Modern
Press Inc. of Albuquerque, it was announced
on June 30, 1980. One benefit to readers was a
subscription offered to the home magazine
with every one purchased of the News-
Bulletin.
Gary Neal was named manager and Janette
Baughman became editor and Donald
Sandoval assistant editor later in 1980. Both
had won numerous awards for the newspaper
during their years with it.
The Bulletin was sold to Harte-Hanks and, in
turn to Worrell Enterprises during the middle
of the decade. On April 6, 1988, ownership
came back to New Mexico, when brothers
Walt and Ken Green, owners of County
Newspapers Inc., purchased the paper.
The Greens owned the Deming Headlight
and Ruidoso News and, with their father, Jim,
the Artesia Daily Press. With the unrelated
Keith Green, they also owned El Defensor-
Chieftain in Socorro. The Socorro newspaper
has been a sister to the News-Bulletin, sharing
owners ever since.
Finally, in 1989, the paper again changed
hands, this time to Raljon Publishing Co., a
subsidiary of Cooke Media Group, owned by
Jack Kent Cooke, the storied owner of the
Washington Redskins and the Los Angeles
Daily News, and then known as one of the
wealthiest men in America.
Under the Raljon ownership, the News-
Bulletin built its 9,336-square-foot office
building and printing plant in which it is still
headquartered on Camino del Llano in Belen.
100 1910-2010
YEARS 43
 100 1990-1999
News-Bulletin
1910-2010
YEARS
By Sandy Battin
Special to the News-Bulletin
T
here seemed to be a generational shift in the
1990s in Valencia County.
Some of the county’s most respected lead-
ers passed away. Issues that would be dealt with for
years were raising their heads.
People had really begun to worry about the future
— there was more talk about the trash problem and
the environmental health of the Rio Grande. They
wondered whether there would be enough water for
the people who seemed to be pouring in from every-
where. There were questions about air quality and
musing about whether some system of public trans-
portation — perhaps a train — would help.
There was a drought going on for much of the mid-
1990s; at other times during the decade, there were
problems with floods. Schools were overcrowded.
The local hospital had closed and the county com-
mission had begun talking about how it could bring
health care back.
The News-Bulletin was the meeting place for peo-
ple of all views in the county. It had gone to a total
market coverage plan in 1997, delivering the newspa-
per to almost very home in the county, spiking its cir-
culation from just over 5,000 to 18,000 or more.
There were more Noticias — news of art shows, club
meetings and fundraisers — than ever before. The
newspaper added a Page 2 Databox that provided the
agendas to every governmental meeting scheduled in
the county. It was the go-to source of Valencia
County news and views. Life was booming.
As it had from the beginning, the Bulletin wrote
about individuals who'd made a difference and what
they had meant to local folks. Four of the titans
bowed out during the decade:
FUNERAL FRIDAY FOR TIBO CHAVEZ
District Judge Tibo J. Chavez — former lieutenant
governor, state senator, folklorist and family man —
died unexpectedly of cardiac pulmonary arrest
Thursday in an Albuquerque hospital.
One of the few men in New Mexico’s history who
served in all three branches of state government,
Chavez, 79, was also Belen’s first Eagle Scout.
With a lifelong devotion to education, he served on
the University of New Mexico Board of Regents and
thoroughly enjoyed what son Tibo Chavez Jr. called
the “roadshow” in which he went out to lecture on
herbs and folk medicine ...
A direct descendent of one of New Mexico’s earliest
Chris Baker
Former publisher
44
1001910-2010
YEARS
settlers, Chavez was born in Belen in 1912. His
father, Ignacio Chavez, was a farmer, businessman
and county commissioner.
Nov. 27, 1991
FUNERAL TUESDAY
FOR MAYO BOUCHER
Mayo T. Boucher, whose life took him from the cot-
tonfields of Texas to the Legislature and judicial
bench of New Mexico, died late Saturday in an
Albuquerque hospital.
The 74-year-old district court judge lost a battle
with cancer, which had been diagnosed little more
than a month earlier.
Known among attorneys for his sense of fairness
and knowledge of the law, he served as presiding
judge of the district for 11 of his 12 years on the
bench.
He was elected to the state House of
Representatives in 1957 and served through 1964,
leaving to devote more time to his law practice.
.... In Belen, he became an engineer for the Santa
Fe Railway. But his wife, Mary, said he longed to
return to law school... Transferring to a “hostling”
job on the railroad, scheduling trains and engines, he
worked nights and caught a train to Albuquerque
daily to attend the University of New Mexico Law
School.
“He literally earned his law degree between
trains,” Mary Boucher said.
Oct. 27, 1992
GILLIE SANCEZ — JUDGE, SCHOOL
BOARD MEMBER — DIES AT 82
If you said “Gillie,” everyone in Valencia County
knew who you meant.
Gil Sanchez’s public service spanned decades dur-
ing which Valencia County evolved from a rural-and-
railroad economy into one of the fastest-growing
areas in the state, but he approached public service
with a quiet courtliness that harkened back to anoth-
er era.
... Although he’d been ailing for several years,
undergoing triple heart bypass surgery in 1991, and
suffering a stroke earlier this year during an angio-
plasty operation, few expected the news: Gillie
Sanchez was dead. He passed away quietly at his
home in Belen at about 1 p.m. on a hot summer
Thursday. He was 82.
...Gillie Sanchez had an impressive career from
See 1990-1999, Page 45
A Century of News
1990-1999: continued from page 44
anyone’s viewpoint. He served as a member
of the Belen Board of Education for 30 years,
was a city councilor and became one of the
first magistrates in New Mexico, winning
election upon the creation of the new court in
1969 and continuing in that job for more
than two decades.
... He was a businessman, too, owning and
operating Gil’s Bakery in a red brick building
at Main and Reinken, the busiest intersection
in Belen. It was a gathering place for local
politicos, for visiting candidates running for
governor or U.S. Senator, for businessmen
seeking a mid-afternoon cup of coffee and a
little talk and for families for whom his
doughnuts and pecan crisps were a Sunday-
morning ritual.
July 3-4, 1999
And former mayor and News-Bulletin pub-
lisher Carter Waid died at 83 in Oklahoma, it
was reported in the Sept. 2, 1994, edition.
The county jail was in horrible shape and
officials were concerned that it was only a
matter of time until something truly bad hap-
pened there. The inmates took part in a class
action suit aimed at closing the jail, claiming
the facility had deprived them of the constitu-
tional rights and subjected them to cruel and
unreasonable conditions. Voters weren’t con-
vinced. A jail bond issue failed by 254 votes.
The schools were growing, jobs were tight-
ening up because of the closure of the Los
Lunas Hospital and Training School. The vil-
lage of Los Lunas also faced other challenges
with its population explosion:
MANAGING THE GROWTH
Los Lunas saw a population boom in the
1980s, and now new signs of growth are pop-
ping up everywhere as people and businesses
make Los Lunas their community.
Opportunities abound, but leaders and citi-
zens see the pressures of growth as urbaniza-
tion looms in the distance.
... As of August 1993, building permits
were obtained for 95 residential dwellings,
amongst matching the 1992 total of 100 resi-
dential permits, according to Art Mondragon,
Los Lunas community development director.
Mondragon expects 40 to 50 more residential
permits to come through...
Oct. 7, 1993
And then what may be the most frightening
news event in the history of the county
occurred on a quiet weekend.
A Century of News
PIPELINE EXPLOSION
TERRIFIES NEIGHBORS
Some residents of Jarales thought it was an
earthquake; others feared a jet plane had
crashed in a nearby field.
When a natural gas transmission line over
the Rio Grande exploded Saturday afternoon
sending massive chunks of metal flying on
both sides of the river, many of its neighbors
admitted to being terrified.
Several fled barefoot from their homes;
others stood watching in awe.
Even at midweek, as pipeline crews worked
to repair the line, people were still stopping
to try to catch of glimpse of what Officer
Mike Rowe of the State Police described as a
crater 20 feet deep and 75 to 100 feet across
surrounded by a quarter of a square mile of
burned bosque vegetation.
People were still debating what had hap-
pened and whether someone had been firing
shots in the area of the pipeline Saturday
afternoon. Bernadette Molina of Lopez Road
said she heard shots shortly before the explo-
sion, but no cause has been found yet.
... The pipeline’s neighbors were grateful
that there were no fatalities and few human
injuries.
Aug. 26, 1994
With so many issues needing to be cov-
ered, editors Darrell Pehr, Dana Bowley,
David Grenham and Sandy Battin found
numerous opportunities for in-depth and
investigative reporting. The paper won many
awards.
Locals became a part of the News-
Bulletin’s annual Locals edition on Oct. 28,
1995, naming its first Citizen of the Year.
Because the people of Valencia County
love history, another addition from those
years has proven to be among the most popu-
lar feature ever. Dr. Richard Melzer, a history
professor at the University of New Mexico-
Valencia County, began writing “La Historia
del Rio Abajo,” in 1998. In it, he — and,
occasionally, others wrote. The column has
run monthly, without fail, up through the
present time.
Staff members began writing columns, too.
While reporters wrote about some controver-
sial issues, the two columns that have —
most inexplicably — generated the most
angry responses were one on getting a bad
haircut and another on trying to find a
Mother’s Day card that wasn’t overly senti-
mental.
New faces began appearing during the
1990s in the News-Bulletin’s two offices.
Sammy Lopez, a county native who began
his journalism career on the News-Bulletin,
was in charge and went on to regional man-
1990-1999
agership for Raljon, the newspaper’s owner.
The company purchased land and built its
new plant on Camino del Llano, moving in
early in 1990.
One experiment proved to be particularly
unpopular with readers. The News-Bulletin
became a once-a-week newspaper and its
other edition was renamed Valencia County
Villager. The idea had been to present news
of particular interest to the northern part of
the county. But readers protested that it fur-
ther divided the county at a time when citi-
zens were working hard to unite it. One of
Chris Baker’s first actions when he was hired
as publisher in 1995 was to combine the two
editions into one under the familiar, historic
name of Valencia County News-Bulletin.
A second experiment proved to be among
the most popular ever. In February, 1997, the
News-Bulletin announced it would go to full
market coverage, in essence delivering the
newspaper at no charge to readers.
The paper had by then been purchased by
World West, a chain of newspapers owned by
the Simons family of Lawrence, Kan. The
family, with impeccable journalistic creden-
tials, redesigned the newspaper so it would
look better, introduced color photography on
the Page 1 and trained reporters and editors
so their skills would steadily improve.
While the 1990s went out with worries
about computer meltdown because of a date
glitch — they called it Y2K — the county
looked forward with hope to a new millenni-
um.
The News-Bulletin ended 1999 with a look
to the future in its Locals edition in October
and a nod to its past in its final December
edition. Both were called “Millennium.” The
latter presented a time capsule of life in
Valencia County over the past 100 years.
Timelines presented history both in New
Mexico and around the world, news garnered
from the News-Bulletin and “Voices,” which
featured memories of a local resident who’d
lived through each decade, beginning with
Prospero Jaramillo of Rio Communities who
remembered 1912 when New Mexico
became a state. “I remember being in a big
celebration. People were yelling and ... there
was a lot of people shooting up into the air.”
The last words, recalling the era 1990 to
1999, were from Veronica Benavidez, presi-
dent of the student body at Belen High
School. “From what I’ve heard from my
grandmother, how far we’ve gone in her life-
time ... I just don’t know. It’ll be interesting
to see what’s going to happen.”
100
1910-2010
YEARS 45
 100 2000-2010
News-Bulletin
1910-2010
YEARS
By Sandy Battin
Special to the News-Bulletin
N
ews, news everywhere. The decade of the
2000s was a busy one for the readers and
the reporters of the News-Bulletin.
So many issues, so many features, so much to
report.
The 2000s were, more than probably any decade
since the 1940s, a decade where horrifying news on
the national scene had necessitated extra coverage on
the local level.
The events of Sept. 11, 2001, set the stage for the
manner in which national news would be reported;
Valencia County residents grieved with the rest of the
nation in the days, months and even years after ter-
rorists crashed airliners filled with innocent
Americans into the crowded World Trade Center
buildings and the Pentagon. People wanted to hear
what their neighbors had to say; they wanted to be
heard themselves, and the News-Bulletin was the
go-to place for them.
TERRORIST ATTACKS CAUSE
SHOCK WAVES IN COUNTY
Shock waves from the explosive destruction at the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon Tuesday morn-
ing ripped through the hearts and minds of Valencia
County residents.
Along with the rest of America, Valencia County
residents awoke to reports on their clock radios and
morning television shows about one plane and then
another deliberately flown into the 110-story New
York landmarks.
Then they heard that another aircraft had slammed
into the Pentagon in the Virginia suburbs of
Washington, D.C.
With government offices closing early and parents
taking their children out of school in order to be
close during this time of despair, local residents took
the news with the same grim, despairing disbelief as
the rest of America.
At the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Belen, a few shop-
pers stopped to watch the news reports on television.
“Just like everybody else, I’m in shock,” said
Laura Armstrong of Belen. “They said there were
10,000 people in the World Trade Center Towers.
That’s the entire city of Belen.”
....A woman who asked not to be identified said she
works at Kirtland Air Force Base. “They closed the
base. We checked the buildings for security,” she
Dave Puddu said.
Current publisher
46
1001910-2010
YEARS
... Alone in her car in the store’s parking lot, one
woman sat hunched over, listening to the radio with
her hands held close to her heart, waiting to find out
more.
... Polling places were open for county residents to
vote on whether to approve a proposal to raise the
sales tax by one-eighth of 1 percent, but County
Manager James Fernandez said voting was light.
Sept. 12, 2001
A year later, the News-Bulletin announced it would
open its pages for local residents to write about their
feelings on the first anniversary of the attack. On
Sept. 11, 2002, a Peralta physician told of harvesting
the organs of a person who died, but that they
couldn’t be flown to people who needed them
because all flights had been cancelled. Publisher
Dave Puddu told about an agonizing wait to hear
about the fates of family members who worked in the
financial industry in New York City while, at the
same time, trying to put out a newspaper with such
momentous breaking news.
The son of a local couple talked about working as a
firefighter that day at the Pentagon. Another talked
about being away from home in Las Vegas, Nev.,
when the tragedy occurred. Others spoke about peo-
ple flocking to the blood bank. And they wrote poet-
ry. They turned to the News-Bulletin as their home-
town forum, the spot where they knew their opinions
and thoughts would be welcome and would be read
by others.
And, indeed, the letters to the editor page in the
News-Bulletin had quickly became one of the most
widely read in the state. It was controversial; it was
scintillating. People wrote about everything. Some
were protesting a proposed bridge over the Rio
Grande that would have run straight through some of
the richest agricultural land in the valley and way too
close to the most historic church in the county. Others
were upset that the number of burglaries kept getting
higher. And at least one simply spoke out against a
fashion industry that couldn’t seem to produce a nice
looking dress for women of a certain age. You name
it, people wrote to give their opinion on it.
When the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began, the
News-Bulletin acted as a partner with its community
in supporting the men and women in the military. It
wrote about fathers and sons who’d been called
together, about drives to collect snacks and personal
care items for those on the front. To mark Veterans
See 2000-2010, Page 47
A Century of News
2000-2010: continued from page 46
Day on Nov. 20, 2007, it printed a front page
containing only the photographs of 56 local
men and women serving at that time in Iraq
and Afghanistan. And on July 2, 2008, reporter
Jackie Schlotfeldt wrote “Citizen Soldier: A
Salute to the New Mexico National Guard,” a
two-section series of articles and photos telling
the stories of more locals being deployed.
There were stories about young men and
women who’d grown up in our midst and who
were being laid to rest with military honors in
yet another war. The first death brought local
residents out on the street in front of a pilot’s
parents’ karate studio, not knowing what to do
but somehow wanting to share the sorrow.
RESCUE MISSION TURNS TRAGIC
TAMARA LONG-ARCHULETA
DIES IN AFGHAN COPTER CRASH
The war in the Middle East hit home
Monday. One of Valencia County’s own lost
her life over the weekend, fighting for her
country in the desert of the Middle East.
Tamara Long-Archuleta, a member of the
41st Expeditionary Combat Rescue Squadron,
was killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan
when the HH-600 Pave-Hawk she was flying
went down Sunday. She had been on a medical
mission to pick up two Afghani children when
the helicopter she was co-piloting was
involved in an accident during refueling, her
father, Richard Long, said.
A special ceremony was held Monday after-
noon outside Belen Goju Ruy karate school,
which is owned and operated by Tamara’s
parents, Richard and Cindy Long. Long-
Archuleta, who was the mother of a 3-year-old
son, was 23.
March 26, 2003
And there were too many others — Sgt. Joel
Dahl, who the county grieved for as his wife
waited to give birth to their first child in the
days after his death, and Pvt. Henry Byrd III,
whose father said the Army had never told
him the full story about his death from heat
exhaustion.
The first presidential candidate to ever cam-
paign in the county arrived in 2000 as George
W. Bush visited Bosque Farms Elementary
School. The Nov. 1-2, 2000, edition reported
that “in the computer lab, the candidate and
his wife, Laura, viewed computer presenta-
tions and toured the library.”
The first decade of the 2000s brought many
local issues to the fore. There was health care
and the question about whether a publicly sup-
ported hospital should even be built in the
county. It played out throughout the decade.
It became increasingly controversial, with
A Century of News
signs going up throughout the county both in
support and opposed to the hospital.
The News-Bulletin covered local farmers’
struggle to get water in spite of the silvery
minnow, a small fish being protected for envi-
ronmental reasons. It reported the latest news,
editorialized that farmers were more important
than fish and even wrote humorous columns
about interviewing one of the critters.
More tragic news came in 2005 when
Hurricane Katrina smashed into the Gulf
Coast; Valencia County folks were, typically,
among the first to volunteer to help. Stories in
the newspaper told of their experiences and
traced the journey of at least one New Orleans
resident who relocated here.
And there was no dearth of purely local
news either.
COUNTY HOUSING PRICES UP,
MARKET STEADY
Looking for a home in Valencia County?
You’ll probably be paying more than
$100,000.
According to the Southwest Multiple Listing
Service, there were 748 homes sold in
Valencia County in 2005 at an average sale
price of $154,880. In 2004, 655 homes sold at
an average of $133,504. These figures do not
include new houses being sold by builders or
homes sold directly by homeowners.
There are still bargains available, especially
if you’re willing to live a little farther from the
freeways heading to Albuquerque.
July 19, 2006
SECOND LOS LUNAS
HIGH SCHOOL ON WAY
The options are narrowing. In less than two
weeks, the name of the Los Lunas School
District’s second high school will be selected
from a list of suggestions that is getting small-
er by the day.
Mario Zuniga, who is going to be the new
high school’s principal, said that, after a slew
of community meetings and student polls, the
list of potential high school names is nearly
finalized.
After a final open community meeting on
Monday night, the entire list will be posted on
the school district’s Web site for online voting.
However a high school is more than a name.
Oct. 15, 2005.
The school that would eventually become
Valencia High School had other possible
names: Enchantment, Manzano Vista, Sierra
Vista, Tomé, Villa Linda and Zia.
We had our lighter side, too. The News-
Bulletin even found a way to make the local
high school football rivalry more memorable
2000-2010
every year.
TIGERS CLAIM VCNB CHILE ROASTER
“Where’s that chile roaster?” said Los
Lunas quarterback Mark Delgado in the wan-
ing moments of last Friday night’s “Valencia
Bowl,” the 50th game played between the
Belen and Los Lunas high school football
teams.
The game was well in hand, and the Tigers
were ready to hoist the Valencia County News-
Bulletin Chile Roaster — a traveling trophy
the newspaper put up as a prize to commemo-
rate the long-running series between the coun-
ty’s two public high school football teams.
The trophy lists the results of every previous
game in the series. ... Los Lunas has won the
last five meetings between the two schools —
the Tigers’ longest win streak in the series —
but still has a long way to go to catch up to
the Eagles. Belen leads the series 33-16-1.
The game was billed as the “Valencia
Bowl” for the first time. And an announced
crowd of 3,726, believed to be the largest ever,
came out to see who would claim the chile
roaster trophy.
Sept. 18, 2002
The newspaper itself went through changes
during the decade. It was purchased by Number
Nine Media Inc., a subsidiary of the
Albuquerque Journal in June, 2001.
Current publisher Dave Puddu, a longtime
publisher who spend 14 years publishing com-
munity newspapers in Colorado, has been the
guiding light during most of the decade, and,
after Elfego Baca and Carter Waid, has been
the longest serving publisher in the century of
news.
Puddu has been a leader in campaigning for
more open government on the state level, lead-
ing legislative pushes in Santa Fe as well as on
the national level.
He served as president of the New Mexico
Press Association, brought representatives of
the attorney general’s office to the county for
public forums to help local leaders understand
better the state’s statutes on open meetings and
records.
The decade’s two editors, Sandy Battin and
Clara Garcia, were both Belen High School
University of New Mexico graduates who grew
up in Valencia County and have family here.
And, on the newspaper’s 100th anniversary,
they and Puddu were excited to plan a special
section telling all about the Valencia County
News-Bulletin’s history and the people on the
staff and in the community who have made it
what it is.
100 1910-2010
YEARS 47
 100
News-Bulletin

Blasts from our past

1910-2010

YEARS

Paperboy Libby Baca Publisher Chris Baker

had the choicest route remembers great people
Libby Baca hung around the News- He said he kept the job for so long By Julia M. Dendinger reporter at the time and doing the
Bulletin every day during his formative because he had the sweetest route, area News-Bulletin Staff Writer work of the editor so he quickly pro-
years. businesses, easier than home delivery. jdendinger@news-bulletin.com moted her to editor.
“They didn’t let me in the building, “I only had to go to 10 or 11 stores,” “We had a small budget, so we
but I knew everyone there,” Baca said. he said, recalling trips to Piggly Former News-Bulletin publisher would go to auctions up in
“I would talk to them when they came Wiggly, Jenny’s Drugs, Gil’s Bakery, Chris Baker didn’t exactly mean to Albuquerque to buy office furniture
out to smoke.” Hendry’s No. 1 and No. 2. end up in Belen, but he is glad he did. and came back with these mismatched
Baca moved to Belen with his moth- The route only took an hour — time “I started as a journalist, but went desks and chairs, but it got us
er following is of the essence when paid by the to the dark through,” he said.
the death of his paper, and he didn’t have to fold his side of adver- Mismatched furniture aside, Baker
father. They papers. tising many implemented many of the special sec-
lived in a home “The other guys were still out after moons ago,” tions readers still enjoy today.
next to the old two hours,” he said. Baker said. ”I “I started Locals; we did some
News-Bulletin Baca still owns a copy of the paper was working specialty maps, the Festival of Trees,
office in with his photograph, a tribute to the in Carlsbad the Welcome to Valencia County
Downtown paper boys of Belen. when I talked Visitors’ Guide,” he said. “It got us
Belen. He would eventually leave the paper, to Sammy into the black and we were able to hire
Eventually, spend some time in Vietnam during the Lopez, the an extra reporter. We also brought in
Baca came of Tet Offensive and eventually operate group manag- more printing jobs for other publica-
age, 11, and the Belen Sears store until he retired er for World tions.”
Libby Baca Chris Baker
got a job, Former paperboy after the company pulled his contract. West, and he Former publisher Baker said he thought what really
paperboy. Baca now travels with his wife, said he was helped the News-Bulletin the most
“I did it for Ruth. looking for an was promoting Battin as editor.
five years,” Baca said. Ruth said the two met in the eighth ad director at a number of properties “Everyone in the community loved
He said when he was allowed inside, grade and have been married more than including Ruidoso, and a publisher her. Her patience, warmth and gra-
he loved to watch the press and press- 40 years. They have three kids, all and ad director at the paper in Belen. ciousness was unbelievable,” he said.
man. He recalls the typeface of old, grown. He hired me, and I asked him “She would talk with people for hours
when lead was used to print the paper, The two recently returned from a when I was going to start in Ruidoso about things and I would ask her why.
back before computers and modern cruise through the Panama Canal and as the ad director. Sammy said, ‘No She told me, ‘It’s important to them.’
printing presses with their aluminum are waiting for a new, bigger cruise you’ll be in Belen as the publisher. Any success we did have at that time
plates. ship to be launched. That was my first time as a publish- is because of Sandy — when people
er.” Baker held the position from 1995 found out we had made her editor,
to 2000. their first response was, ‘What took
Describing that experience as you so long?’”
The route only took an hour — time is of the essence when crazy and fun, he said Belen was a He remembers the school boards
paid by the paper, and he didn't have to fold his papers. beautiful place. as always being contentious and the
“The people there, the staff, is one county government having a rough go
"The other guys were still out after two hours." of the best I’ve ever worked with and of it.
still is,” he said. “I loved the opportu- “There was a storm that did heavy
nity at the time to help improve the damage to the east side of the county,
Libby Baca paper. It was great and challenging.” and I remember at a commission
Baker said when he came on board,
Former paperboy
former editor Sandy Battin was a See Baker, Page 49

48
1001910-2010

YEARS
A Century of News
Baker: continued from page 48
meeting this man stood up and said,
‘These people needed help before the
storm,’” Baker said. “They were
having a hard time.”
But there were some good things
too.
“That was a time of lots of growth
in Los Lunas. The Hunings were
rocking and rolling and the Auge
Boys were the talk of the town,” he
said. “That was when the Isleta casi-
no was built, and I remember the
governor standing up and saying the
highway would be ‘out of here
soon.’”
And documenting the ups and
downs of the community is exactly
what a community newspaper does,
Baker said. Something that other
news outlets don’t do very well, he
said.
Giving the example of his own
community, Taos, where he is the
publisher of the Taos News, Baker
said there were two homicides over
the weekend.
“The Albuquerque TV stations
are up here high-fiving each other on
how they’re covering the communi-
ty. The last time they were up here
was the last murder we had,” he said.
“They don’t cover our schools, coun-
cil meetings, daily crime — just the
sensationalized, blood and gore.
“A community newspaper is at
every damn meeting there ever was.
Happy 100tH anniversary
News-Bulletin VALENCIA
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Just ask anybody who’s sat through
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“Without a community newspa-
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nity, no democracy. Community
papers tell people how things work
and how they are put together.”
But no matter how far north he
goes, Baker said he will always
remember the people in Valencia
County as the warmest, kindest most
outgoing people he’s ever met.
“There is a great chemistry
between the different groups of peo-
ple here that really works,” he said.
“The richness of the valley is in the
number of communities. This place
is a great part of New Mexico.”
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 100
News-Bulletin

Blasts from our past

1910-2010

YEARS

JoAnne Chavez called Kandy Cordova left

newspaper home 30+ years
By Brent Ruffner
News-Bulletin Staff Writer
bruffner@news-bulletin.com
Belen
JoAnne Chavez made her home at
the News-Bulletin.
Chavez, a 1967 Belen High School
graduate, went on a job hunt and
didn’t look back after she landed a
job as a type-
setter at the
News-Bulletin
office on Sixth
Street and
Baca Avenue.
“I just went
looking for a
job,” Chavez
said. “But
once I got the
job, I knew I
was going to JoAnne Chavez
Former production
stay.” manager
Chavez
worked at the
paper more than 30 years and retired
in 2000 after working in the business,
circulation and production depart-
ments. She retired as the production
manager of the newspaper.
Chavez worked at the Belen office
when Carter Waid, a former mayor of
Belen, was publisher of the newspa-
per. She described Waid as a “sweet,
kind man who never raised his voice
and was easy to work for.”
The Belen resident said she worked
in a family-type atmosphere at the
paper, and said her time at the paper
was enjoyable.
On a recent visit, she sat in a con-
ference room filled with books of old
newspapers and couldn’t help but
think of old times.
“It brings back memories,” she said
at the time of the visit. “It was a fun
place to be, a fun place to work. We
had a lot of amazing times.”
One of those memorable times was
Father’s Day in the summer of 1969.
She said the newspaper got flooded
after the Highline Canal broke and
most of the staff had to deal with
water issues in order to get the paper
out to production on time.
“The carpet was wet and muddy,”
Chavez said. “I would get shocked
every now and then. I had to pick up
my feet from being in the water.
“But we had to work around it. We
had a paper to get out.”
Chavez said there was a sense of
pride in putting out the newspaper
every week as well as special projects
staffers worked on over the years.
She said she misses putting the
paper together, though technology
has changed since she used a
Linotype to typeset the newspaper’s
copy.
The former longtime employee said
she still enjoys the company of cur-
rent employees, but is enjoying
retirement life. She spends most of
her free time with her four grandchil-
dren.
Chavez said retiring from the paper
was an adjustment, and often said she
wishes she was still a part of the
longtime business.
But she said the News-Bulletin
hasn’t lost its luster over the years.
“I love it,” Chavez said. “I can’t
wait every Wednesday and Saturday
to see what’s in it.”
newspaper for politics
By Deborah Fox
News-Bulletin Staff Writer
dfox@news-bulletin.com
Belen
Former County Clerk and State
Rep. Kandy Cordova launched her
career in politics after working as
the business manager for the News-
Bulletin in
1986.
She started
her career late
in life, she
said, after
raising her
four children,
working for
Beneficial
Finance for
10 years and Kandy Cordova
then starting Former business
her own col- manager
lection agen-
cy, after
which she went to work for the
News-Bulletin.
“I was hired by Gary Neal,”
Cordova said. “He was the publish-
er at that time.”
Cordova did all the accounting for
about two years for the newspaper.
“Of course, we were still at the
old Baca Street building, right
across from the old Post Office,”
Cordova said.
“The newspaper was a big source
of activity and information. They
were good times; I really enjoyed
working there, but I had always
kind of wanted to run for office.”
Cordova planned to run for coun-
ty clerk, but she waited for the right
time.
“Timing is everything in politics,”
Cordova said. “I thought, when
there’s no incumbent, I’ll run then,
when it’s an open field.”
Cordova and former News-
Bulletin staff Sandy Shauer were
friends.
“Sandy was in advertising at the
paper when I came on board. We
palled around quite a bit. We were
real close,” Cordova said, “In fact,
she’s the one who had recommend-
ed me to Gary, so I went in for an
interview.
“We had a lot of good times.
Gary was a fun boss: it was fun to
be around him.” she said.
“After we put the newspaper to
bed, as they say, a bunch of us
would go to the Mesa Motel and
Restaurant for something to eat and
drink and to talk newspaper,”
Cordova said.
She marvels at all the changes the
newspaper has undergone since she
worked here.
“When I worked there, everything
was hand-written and things like
that. There was no Internet,” she
said. “We ran our own printing
press.”
Cordova left the News-Bulletin to
follow her dream to serve the com-
munity in politics, serving four
years as the Valencia County Clerk
and three terms as the District 7
state representative.
Cordova is retired now, traveling
around the states and Europe with
her husband, Ismael “Smiley”
Cordova.

50
1001910-2010

YEARS
A Century of News
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 100
News-Bulletin
1910-2010
YEARS
Jessica Dyer still
reporting on diverse topics
By Jason W. Brooks
News-Bulletin Sports Editor
jbrooks@news-bulletin.com
Within the past few months, Jessica
Dyer has been able to write about a
number of different subject areas at her
current position at the Albuquerque
Journal North.
Recently,
she’s covered a
bear attack at
Philmont Scout
Ranch, a police
seizure of more
than 8,000
marijuana
plants, and
Dennis
Hopper’s Taos
funeral that Jessica Dyer
drew the likes Former reporter
of Jack
Nicholson and Val Kilmer.
That’s the diverse array of topics
Dyer deals with regularly now. Her
time as reporter for the News-Bulletin
helped prepare her for a wide spectrum
of reporting, as she wrote about and
photographed a plethora of features
and hard-news subjects in her stint,
which ran from September 2002 to
December 2006.
“I got there right about the time we
were switching to digital photography,”
says Dyer, who was a sports and gener-
al-assignment reporter. “There was a
real commitment to getting better at
digital photos, an effort to improve our
pictures and take advantage of the
technology, and I got experience with
lots of different elements of the news
business as well.”
52
1001910-2010
YEARS
Dyer aided T.S. Last in producing
the newspaper’s sports section twice a
week, doing everything from shooting
and sorting photos to reporting, writing
stories, computer page layout and copy
editing. It was a time of many new
concepts at the paper, and Dyer
enjoyed being a part of a consistent
editorial staff, which, for a time, expe-
rienced almost no turnover.
“We were like a finely tuned
machine,” says Dyer. “We had a nice
mix of veterans who knew the area and
history and younger reporters who ben-
efited from that. That kind of momen-
tum really helped the paper.”
Using the same work ethic that made
her a three-time Pac-10 All-Academic
selection while a member of the
University of Washington swim team,
Dyer crafted features and sports and
news pieces, and took the digital pho-
tos that went with those stories. This
was a new trick in the digital era for
the News-Bulletin staff.
The staff had begun to create its
annual Locals edition a few years
before Dyer arrived, along with adjust-
ments such as high school football.
Dyer, like many sports reporters, was
able to provide expertise on things she
knew well, such as high school swim-
ming, and occasionally wrote on less-
familiar athletics, such as wrestling.
Dyer won a handful of New Mexico
Press Association awards and one
national accolade, but the memories of
the people she met while at the news-
paper are her lasting memory of her
years here.
With reporters’ words in print so
See Dyer, Page 53
Blasts from our past
Green brothers bought
newspaper as a step up
By Deborah Fox
News-Bulletin Staff Writer
dfox@news-bulletin.com
Former News-Bulletin owner Walt
Green has “ink in his blood.” His
father owned both the Artesia and
Deming newspapers, so Green literally
grew up in the newspaper business.
“I’ve done
every job that
there is at a
newspaper,”
Green said. “I
started in the
hot metal days
when lead was
melted for
headlines.”
Green was
raised in and Walt Green
for the newspa- Former owner
per industry, an
industry he’s been in for more than 30
years.
“It’s pretty much all I’ve ever done,”
Green said. “Back then, we hauled
negatives to the printer.”
The newspaper industry is nothing
like it was; you don’t have the same
kind of profit margin today, Green said.
Walt and his brother, Ken, owned the
News-Bulletin when it was located at
Sixth and Baca in downtown Belen.
“My brother, Ken, and I bought the
News-Bulletin in 1988,” Green said.
“Ken was more ambitious than I was.
He thought buying the News-Bulletin
would be a good idea. I went along
with him because I had enjoyed work-
ing at the Deming Headlight and
thought it would be fun to work at a
newspaper in a larger market.”
A Century of News
Green was brought up on the busi-
ness end of the newspaper industry and
earned his degree in business adminis-
tration.
“I came from a smaller community
and market; I was the publisher in
Deming. Coming to Belen and the
larger Valencia County and selling
advertising in the larger market was
just great,” he said.
At that time, the News-Bulletin had
three reporters, an editor and three
advertising representatives: two sales
people in Belen and one in Los Lunas.
They also sold advertising for the
Kirtland Air Force Base newspaper
called Focus.
“We printed both newspapers in
Albuquerque at Starline Printing,”
Green said. “The editorial content of
the Focus was provided by a guy with
a contract at the base.”
Green used to ride his bicycle to
work before he moved to Rio
Communities.
“Belen was the best town I ever lived
in,” he said. “I liked the people. I was
in the Rotary Club. Everybody was
friendly. I liked living in the country.
Even in Rio Communities I could ride
my bicycle and in five minutes I was
out of town.”
Green had three small children, two
girls and a boy.
“I always took my kids to the mesa
west of Belen,” Green said. “We’d
park somewhere and hike up. I rode a
motorcycle (dirt bike) near the ‘B.’”
He enjoyed being able to go to
Albuquerque and feel anonymous.
“Deming was a small town, and I
See Green, Page 53
 Dave Grenham, the easterner who loved Belen
By Deborah Fox er commissioner during a zoning dis- notebook and began to take notes.” “She wrote in the Neighbors section
News-Bulletin Staff Writer pute, Grenham said. A detective and an under-sheriff and of the News-Bulletin,” Grenham
dfox@news-bulletin.com “They met on the mesa to discuss a few other guys were present as he remembers, “human interest stories
it,” the reporter recalls. “I had to inter- scribbled his notes while the sheriff that were extremely powerful and
On his first day as a reporter for the view both of them. That was my first spoke. liked by the community. Thank God
News-Bulletin in 1991, David introduction to politics in Valencia The sheriff told Grenham it was a for Sandy Battin, she kept me sane,”
Grenham wore a tie to work. County. As a new reporter it was kind very strange case. “The body was Grenham said. “She was like a moth-
“Buddy, you’re going to have to of scarey,” he said. found in a dumpster behind the bank er, sister, friend, confidante; she’s just
lose the tie,” said Editor Dana Bowley. Another story he remembers was and the dumpster was filled with corn- a wonderful person.”
Grenham fondly reminisces of the when the sheriff’s department alleged- flakes,” the sheriff said. As Los Lunas began to grow, ten-
man who hired ly “took over Belen” in a dispute Grenham was scratching notes as he sions arose within the county. People
him. about the appointment of a new fire half-consciously asked the sheriff, who had lived on quiet streets soon
He had just chief. “Cornflakes?” had developers building new homes,
moved to New “It was funny because it made The sheriff gravely answered, “Yes, giving them new neighbors and traffic.
Mexico from CNN,” Grenham said. “Anthony it was a serial killer,” and burst out “There were growing pains,”
New England Ortega was the sheriff and there was laughing. Grenham said. “Suddenly in the fall
after interning some dispute. The lines were drawn, “He got me good,” Grenham said. there was a rash of homes struck by
at various and somehow the sheriff’s department “Hook, line and sinker.” stray bullets. A woman said it was
newspapers in was called to try to settle it. Bowley left the paper and went to hunters down in the bosque. It had
Boston where Everybody was talking about it the Albuquerque Tribune in July 1993. become a big deal, so I went out one
he graduated because it made it on CNN, but CNN A few months later, Grenham was fall morning at 5 a.m. to search for
college. Dave Grenham
exaggerated it.” made editor of the News-Bulletin. hunters. I found a hunter and inter-
“I was Former editor
The young journalist was full of “Sammy Lopez was the publisher at viewed him. I did a couple of stories
dreaming of spunk and gravitated to hard-core the time and he made me the editor,” about it. It was an old tradition hunt-
living in New Mexico, so one day I investigative-type stories, he said. Grenham said. ing down there.”
hopped in a car with my girlfriend and “Every day I would stop in the sher- “We did some exciting things at the The thing the journalist remembers
moved to Socorro,” Grenham says. He iff’s office to view the log and find out paper,” Grenham said. “Sandy (Battin) most about his time at the News-
was 22 years old. what had happened during the night,” was a great balancer, bringing her Bulletin is the people.
“It’s funny; I still have dreams about Grenham said. maturity, compassion and understand- “The people of Valencia County
being on deadline at the News- One day the sheriff confided to ing of people and the local community were incredibly generous,” Grenham
Bulletin,” says Grenham. Grenham. to a young man from the east,” he said.
The first day on the job Grenham “He told me there had been a body said. “I was probably too young to be Grenham works now works in
had to cover a county commissioner found. It was a woman’s body,” the editor. Sandy was the only one Washington D.C. for a lobbying com-
who was kicked in the groin by anoth- Grenham explained. “I got out my really keeping it together.” pany.

Green: continued from page 52 Dyer: from page 52

was there long enough to feel like I was recognized by
somebody anywhere I went.
“It is now the same in Artesia. (Today, Green lives in
Artesia and publishes the Artesia Daily News.) I enjoy it
most of the time, but I still enjoy getting away once in a
while.”
In 1989, the brothers sold the News-Bulletin to Raljon
Publishing.
“Ralph and John (of Raljon Publishing) were the sons
of Jack Kent Cooke, owner of the Los Angeles Daily
News and the Washington Redskins at the time,” Green
said. “I was running both papers (Deming and Belen),
when I was approached by a representative of the Los
Angeles Daily News about selling.”
The Green brothers ended up selling their newspapers
in Belen, Deming, Ruidoso and Socorro.
Also, his brother, who was 19 years older than Green,
was interested in retiring at that time.
“He and I both worked for about a year under the new
owners,” Green said. “Ken was under a contract with
Raljon, and I was considered an employee of the Los
Angeles Daily News.”
Ken Green died a few years ago.
often, along with a mugshot at the top
of each column, News-Bulletin sports
reporters are easily recognized in the
community — even if they’re not car-
rying a large camera. Dyer says being
recognized everywhere had its chal-
lenges, but the rapport she developed
with people made it worth it.
“I miss writing about people,” she
says. “I made a lot of good acquain-
tances in Valencia County, people who
still recognize me.”

JOE'S Congratulations to the

Valencia County News-Bulletin

PHARMACY
Leon Otero,
Owner on 100 years of serving Valencia County.
from Hobbes Accounting
Congratulates the Valencia County Providers of Accounting & Tax Services
News-Bulletin on its 100th Anniversary
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 100
News-Bulletin

Blasts from our past

1910-2010

YEARS

Gary Herron boosted Lawrence Kaneshiro

newspaper’s sports coverage
By Jason W. Brooks
News-Bulletin Sports Editor
jbrooks@news-bulletin.com
The year 1979 was an important
time in the pro careers of several leg-
endary athletes, including Larry Bird,
Joe Montana, John MacEnroe and
Dale Earnhardt. It was also an impor-
tant year for
Gary Herron,
as it’s the year
he began his
career at the
News-Bulletin.
Herron
worked for the
newspaper
from
November
1979 to Gary Herron
September Former sports
1985, and reporter
again from
May 1986 until the summer of 1988.
He covered sports, among many
other things, and played many roles
on a staff that witnessed several
world-changing events.
Through those years, News-Bulletin
staff members had many complicated
and important events to cover locally.
One of the most interesting situations
involved the 1982-83 Belen High
football team, which needed a last-
minute ruling from the state board of
education to get the Eagles into the
playoffs.
Without a thorough tiebreaker rule
to break three-way ties, the Eagles
wound up hosting Carlsbad in a
Sunday afternoon playoff game,
played on the same November after-
noon the NFL ended its hiatus after a
two-month players strike. Though the
Eagles lost to Carlsbad, it was one of
many unique events Herron covered.
“I believe I handled every chal-
lenge admirably,” said Herron, now
the sports editor at the Rio Rancho
Observer and a contributor to
KQTM-FM “The Team.”
Herron has gone from covering
Belen High when it was bigger than
Los Lunas in terms of athletics num-
bers to covering Rio Rancho High, a
school whose 5,000-plus enrollment
led to the construction of Sue
Cleveland High, a new Class 5A
school nearby.
Herron dealt with some of the same
challenges in the 1980s that still exist
today. Many of these issues involve
readers wanting more coverage of
their school, area or part of the coun-
ty.
“I always tried to cover as much as
I could, at least in the world of
sports,” said Herron. “And I still
remember to this day Los Lunas peo-
ple saying I did too much on Belen
sports, and Belen people saying I did
too much on Los Lunas sports.”
Herron is a bit of a traditionalist,
and frequently calls out players and
coaches for breaking old customs or
habits or starting what he considers
frivolous new ones. He has a favorite
Beatles album (Revolver), and he has
seen the importance of staff morale at
a newspaper.
“Possibly the most exciting devel-
opment for the staff and its morale
was hiring of Gary Neal as publisher,
See Herron, Page 55
was jack of all trades
By Brent Ruffner
News-Bulletin Staff Writer
bruffner@news-bulletin.com
Lawrence Kaneshiro jumped into the
newspaper business at a time when the
Valencia County News-Bulletin covered
issues hundreds of miles away in what
is now Cibola County.
Kaneshiro,
who started
with the paper
in 1977, first
worked as a
photographer
for both news
and sports, and
covered events
from Taos to
Silver City.
In the 1980s, Lawrence Kaneshiro
he said he was Former employee
on hand to see
a NASA space shuttle landing at White
Sands, where the program has a testing
facility. White Sands was the pro-
gram’s last alternative for shuttle land-
ings, and the landing was the only one
there.
“We were camped out there for two
days,” Kaneshiro said. “NASA set up
an impromptu camp for the media, but
we were (in an area) far away from the
astronauts.”
But Kaneshiro, who now is the city
of Belen’s technology director, said he
enjoyed covering everything from
baseball to football, including the
University of New Mexico Lobo
games, and remembers when the paper
used Linotype machines at Sixth Street
and Baca Avenue.
It was a time when then U.S. Rep.
Bill Richardson regularly visited the
paper and Street Talk, which has
become a fixture of the newspaper, was
treated as an afterthought.
Kaneshiro also worked in circulation
as well as the production department.
He said the city had four to five car
dealerships and a couple of grocery
stores.
“Working there was great,”
Kaneshiro said of an era without com-
puters. “Things were simpler.”
The Rio Communities resident start-
ed with the News-Bulletin after his
mother put in a call to publisher Carter
Waid on a “whim,” and said he was
intrigued by news ever since the assas-
sination of President Kennedy.
Kaneshiro took the News-Bulletin job
before working for the Valencia
County clerk and the city of Belen. As
technology director for the city, he has
implemented a computer network and
oversees and maintains the city’s web-
site.
He said times were different, with
staffers using film cameras instead of
digital and typewriters instead of com-
puters.
But Kaneshiro said some news ele-
ments remained the same as today. He
still talks about getting the “money”
shot in news photography and said
newspapers can give readers something
other media can’t.
“We got to do stuff that they couldn’t
do in radio and television,” Kaneshiro
said. “We could give details and show
pictures and explain what happened.”
The former News-Bulletin employee
said he tried to use new technology
See Kaneshiro, Page 55

54
1001910-2010

YEARS
A Century of News

Local Sammy Lopez
rose to be publisher
By Brent Ruffner
News-Bulletin Staff Writer
bruffner@news-bulletin.com
Sammy Lopez had an investment in
the Valencia County News-Bulletin.
Lopez, a former Belen resident, start-
ed at the paper during his junior year at
Belen High
School in 1972
and was taken
under the wing
of Carter Waid,
who was both
editor and pub-
lisher of the
newspaper. He
did everything
from advertis-
ing to photog-
raphy. Sammy Lopez
“I learned a Former publisher
lot from him
on many occasions,” Lopez said. “He
taught me about the newspaper busi-
ness, and I picked up lessons along the
way.”
Lopez had stints at newspapers such
as the Deming Headlight and the De
Baca County News in Fort Sumner,
before returning to the News-Bulletin
as regional publisher of eight newspa-
pers in three states that included the
Belen paper in 1990.
That year, the paper moved into its
current location on Camino del Llano.
The new location was secured under
the ownership of Jack Kent Cooke.
Lopez said the paper did well under
a period of change where Sandy Battin
was promoted to editor and the presses
were installed at the paper’s new loca-
tion.
“I was pretty excited to see my
hometown paper move into the new
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exciting to participate in that.”
Lopez went on to become publisher
of the Carlsbad Current-Argus and the
Las Cruces Sun News before taking
over as publisher at the Daily Times in
Farmington.
Lopez is currently a publisher for
Heartland Publications in Ohio. In
2008, he was awarded the William S.
Dixon First Amendment Freedom
Award by the New Mexico Foundation
for Open Government and is a past
president of the New Mexico Press
Association.
The longtime publisher said small
newspapers like the News-Bulletin do
well as long as they concentrate on the
readership they serve.
“Small papers are always concerned
about the quality of copy,” Lopez said.
“But they will be OK as long as there
is plenty of local news and they have
the dedication to get the job done.
“I was fortunate to work with won-
derful staff (at the News-Bulletin).
They did a tremendous job. Over the
years, the team put in the work and
dedication to put out a newspaper
every week. The team met that chal-
lenge.”
He said papers such as the News-
Bulletin are essential to their communi-
ties because they offer an insight that
people might not get if they hadn’t got-
ten that day’s paper.
“There’s no other way that people
would get that information except
maybe from their friends or neigh-
bors,” Lopez said.
“With the newspaper, they get all
that information packaged up and they
can take it with them anywhere. It’s the
best value in town.”
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Herron: continued from page 54
a position he held until, I believe, the
Greens (Ken and Walt) bought the
paper in 1988,” said Herron.
The former reporter and editor won
numerous awards during his time at
the paper. In addition to first- and
second-place awards from the New
Mexico Press Association, he nabbed
the National Federation of Press
Women top news photo award for
1985.
There are a lot of key differences
between the way things ran at the
newspaper in the 1980s and the way
it is today, he said. Technology has
changed so much just in the past 10
years; the News-Bulletin was doing
board paste-up layout as late as 2001,
and had a photography darkroom
until just a few years ago.
“The biggest change had to be
going from developing black and
white film,” said Herron. “And liter-
ally doing paste-up on the pages to
Gary Herron remembers the days
computer technology and digital pho- when the newspaper was doing board
tography.” paste-up layout.
Kaneshiro: continued from page 54
once modems and faxes came into He said his tenure with the News-
play. He said he used fax machines to Bulletin is one of his most memorable.
send advertising logos to clients. “It was probably the best time of
During his stint in circulation, my life, the best job I have had,”
Kaneshiro said he developed software Kaneshiro said. “I got to do a lot of
that helped print labels to ship the things.
News-Bulletin to the paper’s mail sub- “A lot of people do things for
scribers. money, for fame. But I have always
But Kaneshiro said his move from said you should be passionate about
editorial to the News-Bulletin’s pro- what you are doing. You should like
duction manager wasn’t easy. what you do.”
“It was a huge step from doing He said the News-Bulletin regular-
editorial, that’s for sure,” Kaneshiro ly practiced an essential method,
said. “You go from producing copy to which helps all newspapers be suc-
producing a newspaper.” cessful.
In his time with the circulation “We all believed in what we did,”
department, Kaneshiro met his wife, Kaneshiro said. “We did whatever we
Lisa, when she was an inserter for the could to get the product out on time.”
paper.
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 100
News-Bulletin
1910-2010
YEARS
T.S. Last brought county
sports history to reporting
By Jason W. Brooks
News-Bulletin Sports Editor
jbrooks@news-bulletin.com
Brett Favre has quarterbacked 40
come-from-behind wins in his NFL
career. The team Favre played for most
of his career, the Green Bay Packers,
happens to be
the favorite
NFL team of
former News-
Bulletin Sports
Editor T.S.
Last, who had
to engineer a
“fourth-quarter
comeback” of
his own on
many deadline
occasions in his T.S. Last
Former sports editor
11-year stint at
the paper.
After being hired in 1996, initially to
cover news, Last moved over to the
sports desk the following year, where
he remained as sports editor until head-
ing to Socorro in 2007. Now the gener-
al manager of the News-Bulletin’s sister
paper, El Defensor Chieftain, Last
points out some interesting challenges
during his stint here, some of which
were inherited, and others the paper
chose to take on.
“When I stop and think about it, the
News-Bulletin went through a lot of
changes during my 11 years there,”
says Last. “Most of it had to do with
changes in technology, but we also
went through big changes with the
increased circulation and a change in
ownership.”
Last began his career when film
56
1001910-2010
YEARS
cameras and paste-up layout boards
were still being used. However, some
of the challenges he faced in covering
sports are ones that existed long before
his time, and continue to this day.
“The biggest challenge was keeping
up with the kids and coaches,” says
Last. “Even with the two high schools,
before Valencia (High) opened, we
were covering 12 different teams dur-
ing the fall sports season alone. I did it
single-handedly for several years, until
we expanded our sports staff, much to
my relief.”
The schedule as a one-man crew was
very demanding, often eating up many
weeknights and Saturdays during any
given week. Last is responsible for ini-
tiating the practice of getting Friday-
night football photos and stories into
the Saturday’s paper, a first for the
newspaper, along with starting one of
the state’s first high school wrestling
coaches polls.
Those Friday nights involved devel-
oping film until digital cameras
arrived, around 2002. The grind
improved a bit with digital cameras,
but that might have been countered by
computerized page layout. That
allowed Last and other page editors to
control more of the layout, but it
became more time-intensive.
“At least I was doing something I
liked,” says Last, a huge sports fan. “I
used to say I couldn’t believe they paid
me to watch kids play games and write
about them.”
Last has won numerous industry
awards, and part of what may have
aided him in his writing was making
See Last, Page 57
Blasts from our past
Moorman believes in
communities, newspapers
By News-Bulletin Staff Moorman still recognizes the impor-
tance of a local paper.
Jane Moorman did two stints at the “In this day and age, having a local
Valencia County News-Bulletin, once paper is really rare and unique,”
Moorman said. “Even in a city (such
as a sports editor and again writing
as) Albuquerque, they don’t have the
news.
quality of coverage a local paper like
She remembers covering children’s
the News-Bulletin gets. I think some-
sports and never watching pro-sports
times people forget.”
during the sea-
She mentioned high school gradua-
son because
tions as an example. Bigger cities
she didn’t want
won’t put the names of graduates in the
to expect the
paper.
kids to play
A newspaper, along with churches,
like profession-
post office and businesses comprise a
als.
community, she said.
The experi-
“I’ve worked in small towns and
ence helped her
community papers,” she said. “The
appreciate the
News-Bulletin was my third paper. I
value of com-
realized there are certain things that
munity and the Jane Moorman
make a community and having a paper
importance of Former reporter
is one of those things.
a newspaper in
that communi- “When those things are lost, the con-
cept of a community starts deteriorat-
ty.
“I think that the fact this paper has ing. First you lose the paper. Then the
schools get consolidated, you lose the
been around for 100 years says some-
church. It all dwindles away. The
thing about the community.”
newspaper is the key component of
Moorman has seen the changes that
making a town.”
have occurred in Valencia County, the
She said that Valencia County has a
reversal of fortune that has hit Belen
good sense of community. She enjoyed
and Los Lunas.
the rural atmosphere and the fact that
“Belen used to be big,” she said.
neighbors all knew one another. She
“Los Lunas used to be the village.
said that familiarity is important to the
Now it’s turned in the other direction.”
success of a paper; people won’t buy it
She has left the newspaper business
to work at New Mexico State if they don’t already have that sense of
community.
University in the communication and
“There is a strong sense of communi-
marketing department.
ty in the neighborhoods and little com-
“I’ve always been a PR person,” She
munities, Tomé-Adelino, Peralta,
said. “I never liked controversy.”
Though she has pulled up stakes and Bosque Farms. That’s another thing —
moved on to another career field, See Moorman Page 57
A Century of News
Last: continued from page 56
use of the News-Bulletin’s vast archive.
He also created a list of scores and
records for high school teams, begin-
ning in the late 1990s, along with a
separate issue archive for the sports
sections.
“I’ve always been fascinated with
history, so I was interested in what I
found to be a rich history of sports in
Valencia County,” he says. “And sports
are so often framed in the context of
history, so I’d find myself getting lost
in the archives, looking up records and
reading up on what happened in the
past, which was time consuming, but
an awful lot of fun.
“That, and my frustration with not
having easily accessible information on
past records, led me to start document-
ing records for all sports, so my suc-
cessors would have an easier time of
it.”
Last was a major player in most of
the paper’s special projects. This
included not only annual sections such
as the Locals issue and other specials,
along with helping cover breaking
news such as fires, but also sports proj-
ects.
He authored most of a state tourna-
ment program, created for a year when
Moorman: continued from page 56
the paper helps those communities
maintain their identities,” she said.
“That’s what I liked working in
Valencia County, that strong sense of
tradition. There are people living in
those communities since their ances-
tors came to the area. That is some-
thing in this day and age being lost in
our more mobile society. People don’t
stay close to home.”
She said a paper needs the commu-
nity in which it exists.
“A paper can’t exist on it’s own,”
she said. “The community needs to
support it, buy ads and read it.”
The community must support it;
that support in turn is good for busi-
ness.
“I grew up in a small town in
Kansas, and learned the value of sup-
porting your neighbor’s business so
they can have a livelihood; that is
something still there in Valencia
County,” she said. “It might be easier
not to own a business, but they have
made that commitment to stay there
and exist. It’s not easy being a busi-
nessman in a small community. There
is that community pride there, people
making that commitment.”
Her father used to advertise with the
local paper in that small Kansas town
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 100
News-Bulletin

Blasts from our past

1910-2010

YEARS

Darrell Pehr guided paper Editor Ellen Syvertson

through time of change
By News-Bulletin Staff
Darrell Pehr remembers the most
exciting story while he was at the
Valencia County News-Bulletin being
the helicopter prison break.
“They landed in the prison and
picked up three guys and flew off,”
Pehr said. “It generated quite a bit of a
chase and
quite a bit of
drama. The
pilot had been
in one of the
Rambo mov-
ies. That was
something I
hadn’t experi-
enced before
or since.”
Pehr joined Darrell Pehr
the News- Former editor
Bulletin a few
days after that incident and directed
the follow-up coverage. He said the
incident really set the tone for his stay.
Pehr was editor from 1988-1991.
He also remembers the Tara Calico
case. Calico disappeared while riding
her bicycle up N.M. 47. While Pehr
was at the paper, a photograph,
“The paper used to be in this rickety little building.
It was a mess. There were weeds growing inside the
building. The new building was constructed
specifically to be a newspaper.”
thought to be of Calico, showed up in
Port St. Joe, Fla.
“There were a lot more crime stories
than I was used to,” Pehr said.
Pehr said he worked for the paper
during a period of change. The owner-
ship changed hands, and the building
on Camino Del Llano, where the
paper now sits, was constructed.
“The paper used to be in this rickety
little building,” he said. “It was a
mess. There were weeds growing
inside the building. The new building
was constructed specifically to be a
newspaper. Not many buildings are
like that.”
He has since left the newspaper
business to work for New Mexico
State University. He started out as a
science writer, and is now the director
of news and the editor of the NMSU
research magazine.
Pehr would eventually leave Belen
to work at papers in Artesia and
Alamogordo, but he feels a connection
to the town because his daughter was
born here.
“I had a good experience there and
so did my wife. We have some very
good friends there,” he said. “Belen is
an interesting news town.”
Darrel Pehr
Former editor
loved the action
By News-Bulletin Staff interned at the Albuquerque Journal,
writing obituaries, features and news.
Ellen Syvertson was lucky enough to She also worked at the New Mexico
have two dreams come true. Daily Lobo, the student newspaper at
First, she became a journalist. Next, the University of New Mexico.
she took her savings and opened her Syvertson worked in Belen before
own business, Flyer Press in Los everyone had a camera on his or her
Lunas, which is a direct mail advertis- phone, and she took crime scene pho-
ing and printing firm. tos for the Belen Police.
Syvertson Everyone on the editorial staff would
began working meet at the Mesa Bar on Main Street
at the Valencia for drinks following a shift.
County News- “The whole staff was at the bar at 5
Bulletin in the p.m.,” she said.
1970s as a She would leave the News-Bulletin
reporter, back and work for the New Mexico Business
in the day Journal, but come back in the 1980s
when there for a stint as the editor before hanging
were no com- up her notebook for good to open her
puters to lay print shop.
out a paper; Ellen Syvertson Though she is happy with her busi-
everything was Former editor ness, Syvertson said she loved working
done on huge as a journalist, in particular, covering
machines and far more tedious. fires.
Everything was proofed using a blue She remembers a bosque fire where
pen. she went in and gazed in awe at the
“In the ’70s it was pretty primitive,” flames as they encircled her, eventually
Syvertson said. realizing that a quick exit was in order.
She kept a CB radio in her car She admits to being a hyper person,
because cell phones did not yet exist, someone who loves action and hates it
but like reporters in the present, kept when it’s slow.
her ear on the police scanner day and “It was exciting,” she said. “I got to
night. do things a normal person never gets to
Before her first stint here, she do.”
“It was exciting. I got to do things
a normal person never gets to do.”
Ellen Syvertson
Former editor

58
1001910-2010

YEARS
A Century of News
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Also 2 Locations in Albuquerque

Northeast:
2901 Juan Tabo, NE Suite 117 • 275-9602
Westside: Dr. Robert G. Nuttall Doctor of Oriental Medicine
9131 High Assets Way, NW Suite B • 792-4423 Dr. Lorella Tapia-Reyes Clinic Director
Dr. Oona Gonzales Doctor of Oriental Medicine

We accept most insurances Rosalie Leon Business Manager

W W W. A C U A S S O C I AT E S N M . C O M
 We Congratulate
Loan Fu n d
The
VALENCIA
COUNTY
News-Bulletin
for KEEPING VALENCIA COUNTY INFORMED FOR 100 YEARS.

The Loan Fund is

a private, non-profit
alternative lender to
small businesses,
entrepreneurs and
other non-profit
organizations.

We've worked to Belen Apartments

1200 Court Street, Belen
Bosque Mobile Homes
1950 Bosque Farms Blvd., Bosque Farms
improve the economic 864-8477 869-1124

and social conditions

of New Mexicans
since 1989.

We invite you to visit

and learn about some
of our Valencia County
clients ➜
El Sarape Restaurant Mike & Earnest Welding Supplies
325 West Main Street, Los Lunas 1003 South Main Street, Belen
866-0509 861-5473

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE LOAN FUND, CONTACT LEROY PACHECO
AT 243-3196, EXT. 25, OR LEROY@LOANFUND.ORG, OR VISIT WWW.LOANFUND.ORG
As he grows, future generations will benefit.
If you’re pregnant, or could become pregnant, you have a rare opportunity to be part of something
that will affect children’s health for years to come. By participating in the National Children’s
Study, you’ll provide information that just might help find a cure for asthma, diabetes or even
birth defects. The National Children’s Study is the largest research study of children’s health ever
conducted in the United States. The results will affect your future generations, thousands of
children in Valencia County and millions of children nationwide. Please, join us. nationalchildrensstudy.gov
 9
Congratulations VALENCIA
COUNTY
News-Bulletin
on a century of news!

number nine
MEDIA, INC.

SERVING MORIARTY, EDGEWOOD,

El Defensor Chieftain
SERVING SOCORRO & CATRON
ESTANCIA, SANDIA PARK, CEDAR CREST, COUNTIES SINCE 1866
TIJERAS & MOUNTAINAIR www.dchieftain.com
www.mvtelegraph.com
VALENCIA
COUNTY
News-Bulletin
SERVING VALENCIA COUNTY
SINCE 1910
www.news-bulletin.com
 VALENCIA
COUNTY
News-Bulletin

A Century of News

100 1910-2010

YEARS
June 11, 1910-June 11, 2010