Qué Pasa with Dolores; Episode Segments 2

The latest facts on hearing loss and author that believes in ghosts and simple but beautiful Easter decorations. We have it all next on K-Pasa with the Lord. Welcome to K-Pasa, K-R-WG's weekly community event show celebrating 20 years of bringing you the sights, the sounds and the people of New Mexico. And now, here's the host of K-Pasa, Dolores Lenco. When most of you think about hearing loss, we think only of age. Not completely true according to our first guest, audiologist John Zatarski, and I welcome you to our K-Pasa. Thank you. You are with

us. The information we have says that one in 1,000 newborn babies are born deaf. That's correct. In the world you test that. Well, it used to be much more difficult, but in the last couple of years there have been some advances in technology that have made it much easier, much more reliable and much faster. In fact, now in many states it's actually mandatory legally for newborns to be tested before they leave the hospital. Oh, that's wonderful. Now speaking of testing, I don't remember a time when my boys came home from school and said, well, we were tested for hearing. Does that go on in school? It does. It goes on very regularly. Children are usually screened at least every other year in their school system. It's frequently done by the school nurse, and you usually only hear about it when they don't pass. Okay, John, what do they do for children?

To me, well, in fact, you and I were talking earlier. Things change so fast. Children grow. So when we're using a hearing aid, does a child use a hearing aid? Children can be fit with hearing aids just like adults. When they're extremely young under the age of five, they're usually fit with a different style of hearing aid where the piece that actually fits in the ear is separate from the piece that goes behind the ear that has the electronics, because the piece that goes into the ear or fits into the ear can be changed more regularly at a more affordable cost to keep the fit accurate. All right. Now, there are so many new things that are happening. There's as far as hearing aids are concerned. We have, in fact, we have a picture of a hearing aid in 1940 and a hearing aid today. And one is probably one of the largest. I never dawned on me that I don't know if my dad had one like this or not, but this is attached to the belt or was attached

and then the cord. And then there is an electronic cord to a receiver, which is kind of like a big button that is then attached to a custom-made mall that fits into the ear. That must have been terrible. And the earlier ones were even much larger than that. Our office in El Paso has a collection of some of the earlier things where they actually even used ear trumpets or ear horns to help hear better. Oh my goodness. Tell me, what is this super power sensor hearing aid? What is it? How does it work? What you're holding here is the newest and most advanced size of hearing aid. This is what's called a complete in the canal hearing aid. It is the least conspicuous, most cosmetic product that we have. The sensor that you're talking about is a one of the newer family of hearing aids, what we call the digital hearing aids. The technology inside the hearing aid

is advanced as well as the outside or the physical size. The digital mean will adapt by itself. What digital means is there is actually a computer chip in the hearing aid. And the sound waves when they are received by the microphone are then actually translated or changed into the digital signal. The pluses and minuses are the ones and zeros that the digital chips use to process information. Okay. I come to an audiologist and say I'm having problem with hearing. I want a naturally the smallest, I want the best, the easiest, whatever. Are you going to fit me like people fit glasses? It's even more difficult than that. Most of the time with glasses you're primarily concerned with getting the prescription of the lens correct, the actual physical fit of the

eye glasses is not that much of a problem. But with hearing aids we're concerned with both the physical fit of the device into the ear and the electronic performance of the device to match the patient's individual hearing loss. Now is the hearing loss that occur at different places in the ear? Most of there are basically two types of hearing loss that we encounter. Only 5% of the problems are what we call conductive problems which is the type that a child might get from an ear ache or an ear infection and which is the type that is treatable medically or surgically. But approximately 95% of the type of hearing loss that we encounter is permanent irreversible damage to the end organ of hearing or the cochlea or the inner ear and that usually is a combination of factors. It can be age, it can be hereditary factors, it can be a history of noise, exposure on the job or a combination of all three. Okay so you're fitting this to my ear. Are you measuring?

Is this going to be made to order it's custom made for the size and shape of your ear? Just like if you were to have a denture made, the dentist will usually take the impression of your mouth or your gum line. We do the same with the ear. We put a small piece of foam or cotton attached to a cord down into the ear canal to protect the ear drum and then we put a material that's kind of like bubble gum, soft and squishy into the ear either with a syringe or something that looks like a caulking gun and then in about three to five minutes that becomes a hard material usually rubbery in nature that we then take out of the ear and then that is what's sent off to the manufacturer. Okay now people that have these say you know I had to go back and go back, it was never, it wasn't quite right. We had to go back for fitting. What's that all about? Any person that purchases a hearing aid has to understand that it's still an art,

it's not a science and I usually request that my patients return to see me for a minimum of four visits once a week every week for four weeks. That gives me an opportunity to work on the physical fit of the device in the ear that gives me an opportunity to fine tune the electronic performance of the hearing aid based on the feedback that the patient gives me. I obviously don't know what they're hearing with that hearing aid. They have to go out and wear it and use it in the everyday world and then come back and tell me as much as they can what they like, what they don't like and I have to figure out based on their feedback and information what I can do to improve the situation. Okay people have said well we turned the hearing aid off, we turned it up, we adjusted it for the phone. When I look at this digital I don't see any place to adjust anything. The hearing aids that I've sold for the last five years don't have a volume

control, they don't have an off and on switch, they don't have an up and down adjustment. The chip inside the hearing aid will do all of that based on what I tell it to do. Now I do usually give the patient one control and that's usually just a small button built into the hearing aid that they can press to change from one program to another based on their environment. Say about 80% of the time they'll wear it in the program for maximum clarity and quiet but if they go into a restaurant at five or six o'clock and there's a lot of background noise then they simply press the button, change the program and try and minimize although you can't eliminate background noise but try and make it at least a little more acceptable. Wonderful, they've come a long ways. Oh yes. A long ways. You need more information, look on the screen now. Last Groose's Hearing Center and the number 505-521-1416 and you can talk to a nice gentleman just like this about your problems. I thank you so much my friend. Thank you for your time. You've really been delightful

having you. Stay right where you are and we'll be right back. Our next guest is an author that believes in ghosts and their shenanigans and it's probably a good thing because he's just finished his six book of ghost stories. The first five, very popular, ghosts of Santa Fe, of Albuquerque, of Las Cruces and southern New Mexico, the ghosts in O'Keefe County and Arizona ghost stories. I welcome Antonio Garza's. Thank you. You are something else. It's lovely to see you again and now the latest and I think probably after reading it the most intriguing American Indian ghost stories of the Southwest. It's the first ever book written on directly interviewing American Indians and getting their perspective of ghost stories.

I think too that it's interesting to first ever book of Indian ghost stories told by American Indians and written by an American Indian because from what I read you are descended from a muscular Apache grandfather and an otomy grandmother, OTOMI. It's a group of American Indian native people from old Mexico. It's interesting if you look at their history the otomy people were vegetarians primarily. There's a lot of information and history that people don't know about American Indians. When I think of Native Americans and their stories I'm more convinced I guess the one at least the people I've been close to, a Navajo gentleman, a muscular Apache. They speak more in terms of spirits whether it's people or animals or any living thing. They feel the spirit in a tree,

anything that is alive. I don't think of them as using the word ghosts. I know that for the sake of the books maybe. But did you feel that? It's true. You hit it on the head when you spoke of spirits instead of calling them ghosts. There's also words that denote a life force within a plant or rock. An energy of course human beings. Yes. They always fascinate me. They're stories because of the way they treat things like the coyote. For one, it's a dog. And being a helper, etc. It's not a god or anything like that necessarily. But it's more of a helper as to use your word. It's a helper and a tool for direction. The stories are not secondhand accounts. But they're told to you by the person they experienced. That surprised me. That surprised me

because usually Native Americans are more with John. They don't share their personal experiences. Right. That tends to be the overall thought about American Indians. They're mysterious. They're stoic. They hold back. Yeah. They do. But like other cultures, American Indians are just people like you and myself, like anyone. And they have a tendency to keep certain things to themselves. Absolutely. In fact, I appreciate that about them. Sure. And it doesn't make them any more unique than anyone other culture in the world. But given the history of Native peoples, not just in the Americas, but in elsewhere where other cultures have taken advantage of them, of course, they're going to be reserved in some aspects. And if that means, yeah, leaves me right into my next thought. It was interesting. You caution non-Indians regarding the use of feathers and smudge bots and address the trying to be a shaman, a doctor. Exactly.

I dress that remark in your feelings. Well, you know, I think, and I've been on programs with American Indian programs, radio programs, as well, that are broadcasted throughout the nation, where this topic tends to inevitably come up of self-proclaimed shamans, spirit talkers. What did that happen with you? It's apparently, when people decided that American Indians had something as far as herbology or anything that had to do where it became more of a trend. Yes, it is true. American Indian. Dolores, I cannot tell you how many blue-eyed blonde hair Cherokees I've met. When it comes to their feathers and this much of the smudge bots, it's interesting. And you feel? I feel that every culture has its uniqueness, the Norwegians, the English, the East Indians, the Native Americans, the Polynesians,

every culture has its own uniqueness. We should all look into our own personal histories and really revel in that, what we have, what we have as far as our heritage, each unique. And there's no need to really go and address American Indian culture as your own, and put a feather in your hat or in your hair, wear beads, and a Navajo hoop skirts, and a Velveteen blouse, and say, well, now I'm Indian, or I feel your pain, you know, it's true. I feel your pain. Tell me, is there any story that really, you know, you've gone through so many and I said to myself the other night when I was reading this, well, I couldn't read this, and I'm going to be anything too spooky in that. Oh, no. Oh, no. And then the refrigerator turned on. I almost left the room. Can I tell you, is there any story that surprised you? Surprised me? Yes. I would have to say there's one individual story there. Again, I interviewed

people for the newest book, American Indian Ghost Stories of the Southwest, where I actually, as with my other books, I've done a first-person interview with these folks. And one in particular, the Hualapai Indian people, a lot of Arizona, I interviewed an individual, a man and his son, on their experience that happened in an isolated canyon. They went deer hunting, and in the winter, and apparently came across some very horrific things that were following them, and it wasn't just the two of them, it was with three other men. So it's a total of five people who encountered this, and it was during the day. They came across this canyon that after these horrific things happened to them, as they were climbing out of the canyon, they found these very bizarre and weird petroglyphs, which are stone carvings or paintings, pictographs, on the canyon walls, which showed not the usual star patterns and celestial kind of things,

or cocoa pelly, but these were decapitated people, or petroglyphs of human beings, stick figures, with animal heads, and things like that. Now, they told me that that denotes medicine, bad medicine, that there were some Indian shamans, so to speak, who at that time centuries ago were delving into things that were not positive. Almost like a witchcraft. Something like that, yeah, and so in that canyon, they said they would never go back there. There was an undercurrent of, well, to use a Western idea, our term evil. Bad medicine. Yeah, I've several other stories that I read. One were a woman, in fact, a muscularo patchy, bought a home, and they said they, you know, it was a wonderful house, and then all these things started happening, and they got

to the place where they said, no more. No more. We cannot have this figure standing in front of the window. Oh, they were finding all kinds of things appearing to them. They would be out in the hot tub, and looking up into the balcony. There would be a person standing there looking at them. Things would be, they would see shadows of people moving. It turns out not to give away the whole story, but an individual had died there, and they found the creamings. Right, and this was under, under the area, and under the floor, or whatever. And they finally sold, but the thing that I remember is that they said, we will not go back there anymore. Not at all. We will not return. Indian people are pretty intelligent in that area. If they know that there's a haunting or a ghost there, they're out of there. No point going down. Let's not talk about exorcisms. They're out of there. In one half minute, can you honestly tell me, do you believe in ghosts? Oh, sure. I definitely do. I've seen enough with now six of books that I've written to know that there's definitely more

than a creaky floor and a window shutter that just keeps hitting the side of the... Have you had an experience? I've had numerous experiences. Have you? Oh, yeah. Have you ever write about those? Uh, eventually, yeah, but believe me, Dolores, there's so much out there for me to write about that my own personal stuff will have to wait till I come back on this show. Great. I can't wait. Antonio Garzist, 505894, 4100, Peelbox, 968, T or C, New Mexico, 8701. Look in the bookstores, if not, call that number. And believe me, you're going to have a wonderful, wonderful week, weeks and weeks of good reading. Now, here's Albuquerque master floor, Sue Sauer, to help us decorate for Easter. And we'll see you next week. Thanks again, my friend. You're welcome. This week on Capacitor with Dolores, we'll speak with audiologist John Zazotarski

about the Las Cruces Hearing Center and find out the latest findings on hearing loss for all ages. Author Antonio Garzist reviews his latest book of ghost stories told by Native Americans to a Native American. All this plus Albuquerque master floors, Sue Sauer, she decorate for Easter. Interesting guests or to join us. New Mexico crosses next on Capacitor with Dolores. Welcome to Capacitor, KRWG's weekly community event show celebrating 20 years of bringing you the sights, the sounds and the people of New Mexico. And now, here's the host of Capacitor, the

Dolores Langco. Easter is the time of the cross, a time of hope, a new beginning. Mike Rodriguez, former location producer for Capacitor, brings us a unique story of the cross, descansos, the roadside crosses in New Mexico and the people who maintain them. This week on Capacitor, we'll celebrate Easter with a special show, descansos, the roadside crosses of New Mexico. Guests will include Santa Fe historians and photographers, highway patrolmen with words of wisdom and warning, the victim's families who tell us why the crosses at the no tragedy bring a strange form of comfort to those who can struct, decorate and maintain

them. Descansos, I hope you'll join us. A visit to Albuquerque's Indian Pueblo

Cultural Center and Dows for Big Girls. We have it all next on Capacitor with Dolores. Welcome to Capacitor, KRWG's weekly community event show celebrating 20 years of bringing you the sights, the sounds and the people of New Mexico. And now, here's the host of Capacitor, Dolores Lenco. The Donyan Adalto of the sponsoring Adal show, Saturday May 5th, Marker Calendar,

from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Hilton Hotel in Las Cruces. Please meet the past president of the club, Gail Savage, and next to her, a member in good standing, Nancy Mackie. And I welcome you ladies, thanks for coming by. Let me tell you, I went to that show last year. No one prepared me. I thought, you know, I'd go in for an hour or so, and that would be it. I went in about 10 o'clock, and I think they locked the doors by the time I never, I didn't get through the whole show. And I've realized now that your members do more than collect dolls, they actually create dolls, don't they? Oh, that's wonderful. Tell me, is there a place in this club for someone like myself that says, I would love to be able to learn more about this or to try to create them, but I don't know how artistic I am. Do people join the club that need help? Help with the creation? Well, we don't really do anything as a club to create, but there are places to go out, you know,

to do, especially with Porcelain, there are a few women who do teach classes. And they, and so you find out about them through your club. What are you doing at club meeting? Oh, we usually first have to discuss business. And then we usually have a program, sometimes we have some of the women who have made dolls have brought their dolls in, and showed, you know, showed us like we have one of them. One past member who had a women of the West in which she brought in, she did a program on that. And then we've done, you know, and we've watched videos about how to like make shoes or, or else maybe we'll do a little project like make a doll pin, we did one time, and we do, you know, all kinds of things. So you meet once a month? Once a month, the second Sunday. Second Sunday, during the day? Yes, from two to usually four, usually two hours. Okay, so if you have a desire to create, and you might learn more there, at least you'll run into people that do this sort of thing,

and you get the chance to talk about, and talk about collecting. Nancy, when I went to the show last year, one of the things that amazed me, and I'm sure it's been going on for a while, I just wasn't aware of it, was that I thought all dolls were going to have porcelain faces, all dolls were going to have wings, and then I ran into something that was called soft sculpture. In fact, it was a big ticket item at the show. That's right. A lot of us do not have the facility to make porcelain-headed dolls or porcelain dolls, but we do have hands, we have needles, we have fabric, we have sewing machines, and a lot of them, I hope that I can learn from it, are creative, and we make dolls and try to make them not only like a ragged Ian would have had a flat face, and it's painted, but also those that are sculpted with a needle. That's why I found sculpted faces. Then I thought, well you know if I wanted to collect, what am I looking

for? What you like. And as far as details are concerned, you were telling me that there are some that have glass eyes rather than painted eyes. Those are the really ultimate of the sculptured dolls, where the eyes are glass eyes that are actually sewn in or glued into the fabric. Some dolls have embroidered eyes, some have painted eyes. And then I noticed on the one that you brought that is playing the guitar, each one of the fingers, the detail and that was amazing. Isn't that fantastic? I myself have not tried to make fingers yet, and I cannot understand how Jenny Randall has the finesse to make each little finger so that it moves. Tell me, is Rankinean and Rankinean be are they considered soft sculptured? Certainly. Oh, there are rag dolls.

There are rag dolls. So is the soft sculptured doll usually because they're made out of cloth? When I was a kid and we were, you could get a pattern for a rag doll. It was like a flat. I mean you could have just drawn around it. And then your mother sewed around the edge and left the head open. You turned it inside out and stuffed it. It was sort of a flat pancake, but nobody had a nose or cheekbones or anything like that because that I'm seeing now in soft sculpture. This is actually sculpture. Oh yes, with a needle and thread. It is not being poked in from the back. Sometimes in order to give it a little more detail, as you use your needle and thread, you'll poke in a little more stuffing to give it a, maybe a poochie nose or poochie cheeks. And I saw a couple of men and you probably know who I'm talking about that were, they were, they had rented booths and they were sellers rather than observers and or customers.

And they had huge sculpted dolls. They were absolutely out of this world. And I didn't know if men were creating those or just selling them. Oh men, men create dolls too. And really in the collector area, you'll find it split. Men and women both collect 50% of each one. Well, of course, the ones that still fascinate me are the porcelain dolls. And they are, they are so beautiful or bisque as you were saying because they are, they are fired, the heads of those are fired in a, in a kiln. And then the beautiful painting, the painting on them is out of this world. They're fired not once, but sometimes as many as 5, 6, 7, 8 times because you can't overlap the paint. And then to create that face, that color in the face, that is truly artistic. I was so amazed. If I'm collecting porcelain dolls, if I'm collecting

any doll, is it better if I can find clothes that are made for that doll rather than someone that went downtown and bought baby clothes? Oh yes. I would think it's hard to find one that probably store bought that would fit a doll. Well, I have seen some of the, some of the members of some of the doll clubs have said they have created dolls where they could go down and actually buy baby clothes. But pretty big doll. Yeah. But I love the handmade things that you brought up today. Those are, those are lovely, lovely clothes. Now, of course, we get right back to collecting. If I want to be a collector, everybody says, oh, especially since we've had the, the collecting show on, on public television, the antique show, everybody's just sure that their addict is filled with priceless things, you know. When did, when did you start to collect? Well, my grandmother started me out when I was a young girl and, you know, got me a couple of the old plastic, you know,

hard plastic. I think they're two-piece molded. It doesn't bend at all and started out in the international collection of that. And then I, you brought those dolls with you? Well, I brought one of them. Yeah. And then I, you know, they gave me and I surely tampled and I saved it kind of, didn't play with that and kind of kept it. And then some other dolls, I have the right play, did I still have? I think that's wonderful. What advice do you give to a beginner that says, I want to buy something that's, that'll be collectible? Well, like Nancy said before, whatever you like. I mean, for me, it's personal. I, I collect soft sculpture, soft rag dolls, vinyl dolls, porcelain dolls, fashion dolls. I mean, just whatever, whatever appeals to me at the moment. It's, you know, it's an individual. You know, having for me. Is this better not to say on the air? Yes, my, my daughter has twice as many as I do. What do you do with them? Do you explore them? Display them? Try to display them? Yeah. Well, I have some that are in the closet

that are not out, but I try to keep them out, of course. I had a two, too, too many in the living room at one time. I hasn't said, do you mind moving them? Not, not looking at me all the time. So I moved a lot into my bedroom to a dresser. So what you're saying then is, first of all, like they say with most collection, buy something that you want. Yeah, like something that you enjoy. There are certain, you were showing me there are books, a dictionary of doll marks, doll values. When I went to the show, there was a woman in fact there that was signing books, and she also was giving people the, you know, they would come up and ask her what she thought this doll was worth, or that doll was worth, and she was more or less giving them an idea. Yeah. Well, it's even not to, if you don't really collect dollars for money or to investments or something, but it's good to know what you have, what the cost is, so you can ensure it. Right, right. So that's it. I also saw some dolls that look like foreign dolls, but what you're telling me is that they aren't really from another country, but they have been dressed by a woman that was from another country that,

that the Russian dolls that we saw beautifully done, absolutely beautiful dolls, and gorgeous clothes. Again, there is your creativeness. The lady has an idea of what the doll should look like, taken from the Russian fairy tales, the Russian history, and then she creates that doll in that image. Oh, what fantastic. Yeah. Before we've got 30 seconds, I want to ask you, you told me that somebody's uncle had given you a doll, and it was called a patsy or something. No, that was my mother-in-law's doll. She wanted that doll when she was pregnant with my husband. So her husband, Papa, went out and bought the patsy Joan doll for her. Patsy Joan. And so today, patsy Jones, I've never heard of them. Are there many of those around? Yes. F&B was the manufacturer, and they made a whole series of patsy dolls, various sizes. Wonderful.

Well, all we've done is just peak your curiosity. Believe me, you'll want to go up to the Hilton. The date's May 5th. It's 9 to 4. It's Hilton Hotel in Las Cruces. $2 is a cost. Children, under 12, it's free. And if you want to know more about this club, then there's a phone number right there on your screen. Call that number, and let's get busy playing with dolls. It's the sort of thing that grown up girls have got to do. Thank you so much. We'll be right back. You can spend an hour, a day, or a whole entire week visiting the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque, where you'll observe dancers and ceremonies in the colorful patio. You'll watch artists and weavers and silversmiths demonstrate their skills in the main building. K-Posa visited the center during a weekend when they celebrated and honored their elders. And we brought the highlights of that weekend back to you.

This week on K-Posa with Dolores, we'll speak with members of the Donaiana Doll Club, Gail Savage and Nancy Mackie, about collecting and creating dolls that just might increase in value. Then director J.D. Jarvis takes us to Albuquerque's Indian Pueblo Cultural Center for a visit with former director Rafael Guterres and a tour of the center. Good times and great guests, please join us. Hands on history lessons next on K-Posa with Dolores. Welcome to K-Posa, K-RWG's weekly community event show celebrating 20 years of bringing you

the sights, the sounds, and the people of New Mexico. And now, here's the host of K-Posa, Dolores Langco. One of our fondest memories from the past 20 years is one that happened just about three years ago. When we accompanied 36 middle school students on a three-day trip through Sierra County and we watched history come alive for them in their own backyard. This week on K-Posa, we'll travel with 36 middle school students from Deming, Silver City and Truth or Consequences as a experienced history on the Geronimo Trail in Sierra County.

They'll plan a tree in the Hila, they'll visit museums. They'll spend time at a working ranch and they'll marvel at the construction of Elephant Butte Dam, come learn with us. This week on K-Posa with Dolores, we'll travel with 36 middle school students from Deming, Silver City and Truth or Consequences as a experienced history on the Geronimo Trail in Sierra County. They'll plan a tree in the Hila, they'll visit museums. They'll spend time at a working ranch and they'll marvel at the construction of Elephant Butte Dam, come travel with us, come learn with us. This week on K-Posa with Dolores, we'll travel with 36 middle school students from Deming, Silver

City and Truth or Consequences as a experienced history on the Geronimo Trail in Sierra County. A living guidebook to the desert and a new center in an old village coming up next on K-Posa with Dolores. Welcome to K-Posa, K-RWG's weekly community event show celebrating 20 years of

bringing you the sights, the sounds and the people of New Mexico and now here's the host of K-Posa, Dolores Langco. Our first guest are representing the Chihuahuan Nature Park, 1000 acre preserve located in Doniana County, about 25 minutes it says from Las Cruces. Please meet next to me, Dr. Stephanie Bestomeyer, who is the director of the park and next to her, Kim Hartley, who's on the board of directors, also editor of a weekly newspaper, The Bulletin, is that right? That's correct. Good to have both of you here. Now, before I get into the park and I want to know everything about it, I have to clear up something. I was reading and saw a picture in the paper that you had a successful fundraiser for this park and it was called Dear God, a celebrity bug

banquet and people ate bugs. Do you want to clear that up? You have it right. We had it so sorry. We had about 70 people attend the bug banquet and they were treated to non-bug food if they wanted and then we also had a buffet of insect containing items and we had a celebrity panel of local celebrities from here in Las Cruces and they all agreed to munch bugs for the Chihuahuan Desert Nature Park. She says it all but there's this smile. They all agreed to munch bugs for her. Who are you? Were you one of the celebrities? I wouldn't ask someone to do something that I wouldn't do myself. What did you eat? I tasted everything. There were meal warms and cricket stuff. Well, I'm sorry. I asked the question really more than I need to know but it did raise money. It raised money. It got a lot of support for the park. A lot of new volunteers.

Because you really do need the money out there, don't you? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the emphasis is on education. Kindergarten through 12. What kind of things? What kind of programs do they put in? There's dozens of different programs that covers all sorts of different aspects of science. Do the kids come to you? Do you go to the classroom? We have a really flexible program so we do have the kids come out to us on field trips. We see about 2,000 kids a year that way and because our park isn't established yet, we just have an undeveloped plot of land. We use a thousand acre plot of land. We use the nearby Hornata Experimental Range to actually run the tours because they have porta-potties and electricity and some of the things we need. We also go into the classroom with all kinds of, we have about 12 different programs we bring into the classroom. What can you bring from there? We have a whole bunch of different programs. For example, we have one program on

arthropods where we bring in tarantulas and scorpions and hissing cockroaches. We have other programs where we let the kids actually do science because we found they really learn better that way. So great. We have them planting seeds in little film canisters and testing the effects of different soils on seeds and graphing the results and they really enjoy it. Have a great time. Do they learn about the insects? They learn about the plants. Any animals? Certainly. We have a great plains toad we bring in all of the time. We have pocket mice, all kinds of different things. The animals are primarily to help the kids learn about those and get them interested in the topic and then we get in a whole bunch of other science information as well. How long have you served on this board? One full year as a board member. I've been involved with the park since 1997. Is not growing as fast as you all wanted to? Is that right? Well, I think in the sense that if you're talking about the physical structure at the site,

no, but the work of the park and the sense of bringing education, science education to the classroom, it's going incredibly well. What do teachers say about it? What I've heard teachers say is that it's one of the best programs that they've ever seen as it's in our literature that we don't advertise the actual programs. It's all word of mouth from teachers talking to other teachers about what we do. That's wonderful. How did it even start? It started in 1990 by a group from mostly from here in Las Cruces and their dream was to put together something similar to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. Of course, ours would be focused on the Chihuahuan Desert, which is a unique place, a really special place. And so they got together and formed the organization and started the education program shortly thereafter. It's going to happen, right? It's going to happen. It takes time. Now, I noticed you had other programs. You have one of the most interesting quarterly newsletters that I'd seen. Thank you so much for sending me those because they are really interesting. How do you get on that mailing list?

Getting on the mailing list is simple. We just ask that people give a donation. There's no minimum requirement to become a member of the nature park. We want students to get involved. We want classrooms to get involved. We want seniors to get involved. So any kind of donation to the park gets you on the mailing list and you receive the quarterly newsletters. Great. And then I noticed also that you have a great brochure. And within that brochure, you're talking about your volunteer program. How do you train volunteers? How do you get involved with volunteers? We've started having, well, it's on Monday evenings. There's a volunteer meeting where volunteers are instructed and any kind of little thing that needs to be done, that particular week or for plans for a future like the Insect Expo that will be happening next month. That's about as far as that goes. That's about as far as it goes. It's training volunteers. We haven't developed the site, of course, so there's not a need for really trained docents yet, but some who are interested are actually trained to help in the in-classroom programs.

That's wonderful. You find the volunteers are people who are retired or are they people that are saying, you know, I just love the desert. So the neat thing is they come from all walks of life. We have a lot of retired teachers, retired scientists. A lot of our volunteers are professional scientists from New Mexico State and from the Hornata Experimental Range. And they donate over 800 hours of their time each year to our programs. Isn't that great? We also have New Mexico State students. We have all kinds of people. And they give anywhere from, you know, an hour a month if that's all they can do to much more than that for some of our volunteers. Well, I was reading in there with volunteers, but you need, you need artists, you need fundraisers. And I'm sure that's one thing the board is always looking for. But you need just about any kind of talent that they might have to give, even if it's just to put together a direct mail and help you get that sent out to people. Absolutely. So the secretary will help all the way to hopefully someday the docents that say welcome to our park. And this is what you're going to see. And there

will be trails and that sort of thing. What's the, we have 30 seconds or so. Can you say, can you hope or do you know that a goal might be five years from now? It's hard to say right now. We have just received funding for what I kind of call phase one half of the park. We're going to put a big entrance sign in and we're going to have experimental plots where kids can go on their field trips and people can see a little bit about what we're all about. Good. We need that to start with. The future development of the site really depends on this community and their willingness to get involved not only as volunteers, but putting money behind what we believe the park can be in the future. Spoken like a very good board member. That's exactly what you need. But it is true. If everybody does a little bit then we can really have something that will, well, not only be educational, but certainly will be a tourist attraction for the entire area. I thank you both so much for explaining this to me. As I said, I'm, I'm not going to be a thing that could bug banquet, but anything else you can count on me. And we'll see you in just a

moment. There's something new in Old Messia. Messia has a visitor center on Avenida de Messia, just a couple of blocks from the plaza and parking on the side. And when you see the flag out front and blowing in the wind, that means the center is open. Please meet the man that made it possible. Tom Hutchinson, he's the owner of LaPosta, and serves on the board of the Old Messia Association. I'm glad to have you here, my friend. Thanks so much for having me. Oh, it's nice to see you. I say made it possible because you and your wife, Jareen, had a house, had it fixed up. I know I watched that. I didn't know if it was going to be done by this. And it was wonderful. And then you left the town, use it as a stop cap center for tourists while the center is actually being

completed. But the center, as you were telling me a while ago, is going to be a part of what town hall? Eventually, when the town receives enough funds, they will build a town hall just the north of San Andreas High School. But that could be a few years out. In the interim, we feel that our tourists and our visitors to Messia are starving for information. So we felt that this building lent itself really nice to this kind of purpose in the interim. Yeah. Have any of the Messias also Camino Real? Yes, ma'am. I'm sure it is. It sure is. They do a lot of, there's a lot of celebration there. That's correct. And when I was there, the thing that I enjoyed so much is that it's so tourist-friendly. Well, we tried to, with our colors and the core, try to make it friendly, try to make it inviting. And, you know, the folks that have visited us thus far have really enjoyed it. We have a video room. We show a video of Messia. We have handicapped restrooms, vending area. So we try to make it reflective of what we're all about in Messia. Yeah, the best kitchen in the world.

Tell me, as far as running the place, that's all done by volunteers. Do you need more volunteers? Dolores, we do. We have a wonderful program in place called the Amigo Program. And it's kind of an offshoot of our old Messia Association. It's a group of volunteers that have dedicated time to staff the center. We're open seven days a week, six hours a day. Oh, wonderful. But right now, we're about three or four shifts short, manning it seven days, all seven days. So we'd love to have a few more volunteers. They're great people. And you do train them. Yes, we do. Let them know what's going on. Yes, we do. And the rest of the tourist community has been very grateful in providing us brochures and pamphlets and everything we need to not only sell Messia, but our entire area. Oh, I'm so pleased. We're going to put a number up there. The 524, 3524. And you call and ask for Tom. And he will let you in on how to become a volunteer because boy, they do need them. And it's a wonderful place to work. There's plenty going on,

no Messia. In fact, even as we speak, Cinco de Mayo is being celebrated. And you know, at the end of September, they do DSCC's to September. But there's more than that. There's great food. There's shopping. There's a market on the plaza. There's music and dancing. And we're going to show you a little bit of that because the K-Pasta producer, Hugo Perez, visited Ole Messia and he captured some of those highlights for us. So enjoy going to Ole Messia. And we'll see you next week. Thanks, Tom. Thank you very much, Dolores. This week on K-Pasta with Dolores, guest Stephanie Besselmeyer and Kim Hartley, invite us to visit the 1,000 acre Chihuahuan Nature Park.

Then Tom Hutchinson from the Ole Messia Association describes a new Visitor Center on Avenida de Messia. All this plus a Messia travel segment produced for K-Pasta by Hugo Perez. Come travel with us. We'll see you next week on K-Pasta with Dolores.

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