Aggie Almanac; 192; Victorio Peak and Study Abroad

You Coming up on Aggie Almanac, a new book and a new take on an old regional legend. My grandmother was my closest friend, he said. She and her husband found something, a treasure, and then they lost it. And it was a study abroad program like few others. I went with a lot of questions and I think I came back with even more. Hi, I'm Gary Worth and thanks for watching Aggie Almanac.

If you've lived in Southern New Mexico or West Texas for a while, you've probably heard the legend involving Victoria Peak. Well, now that tale has inspired a new book, co-authored by a well-known NMSU writer and another author who grew up in El Paso. Their work is a fresh look at an old story that just never seems to die. The story of Terry DeLonis in his pursuit of phantom treasure is rooted in the desert, land of illusions and thin air. Like any good mystery, it refuses to be solved. Instead, it offers an eye of the beholder experience. A glimpse of a glittering vista that might be gold or dried mud, miracle or mirage. The reader authored David Schwydel, the audience, people who love literature. The subject, a new book about an old, very old, local legend.

A place called Victoria Peak in a remote part of Northern Doniana County that many believe hides caverns filled with valuable treasures and lots and lots of gold. A tale that proved irresistible to local writer and professor Robert Boswell. I went out to the mountain and crawled through the caves and listened to the stories and I was hooked. Boswell, best known as a fiction writer, decided this was a true story that he had to tell. But he knew also that he could not do it alone. It was too big a project that in fact ended up taking 14 years. He called on a friend for help. It was 1993. I got a call from Robert. You wanted to check out this treasure hunt and I flew down to El Paso. We came out and we met with Terry for about three hours. This is Terry. His full name, Terry Dolonus. He grew up in Clovis, transfixed by stories told him by his grandmother. Ova Babe Nas, a better husband, known as Doc Nas and his mysterious adventures with the legendary gold at Victoria Peak.

My grandmother moved in with us for a period of time when I was about five and started sharing her amazing stories about the peak. And my mother and my aunt and uncles began talking about again and corroborating her stories and telling their individual stories of what they'd experienced in and around the peak. And the bouillon bars they'd seen and the coins and the artifacts and my grandmother eventually took me on some driving trips, as I got to be older, 12, 13 years old. And a big one when I was 16 and we went driving all around the Southwest and she introduced me to people, some older folks who had been players in the original 30, 40s, 50s events out there. And those people told me they're their individual personal experiences and what they'd seen removed from the peak and what they believed happened to it. As the story goes, in 1937, Doc Nas, known to be an adventurer and also something of a con man, was on a hunting trip when he stumbled upon the fabulous treasure alongside various artifacts and human skeletons inside the caverns at Victoria Peak.

Over time, he and Babe retrieved what they could, including a number of very heavy gold bars which he hid in a variety of locations in the desert. Disaster struck in 1939 when Doc decided to widen the passageway leading to the treasure with dynamite, instead causing a cave in that shut him out from the cavern. Attempts were made to reopen the shaft. Here, the couple started excavation work in 1941 after raising funds for the job. But things again went sour after Doc hired a Texas oil man to help out, a man who instead ended up killing Doc after a dispute over the deal in 1949. As the years passed, Babe Nas held on to her claim, occasionally hiring men to clear the shaft. But after World War II, when the federal government took over the region to create white sand's missile range, Babe Nas got locked out.

By 1958, few people put much stock in Babe's tail. Until two airmen from nearby Holleman Air Force Base claimed they penetrated the cavern through another opening in the side of Victoria Peak and found a hundred gold bars. Babe continued her dispute with the military and returned to the mountain in 1963 for a 60-day expedition in cooperation with the Museum of New Mexico. The money ran out before anything was found. In 1972, the story got bigger. When nationally known attorney, F. Lee Bailey, who represented 52 claimants to the gold, pushed for a new expedition. The army called it Operation Gold Finder, and it lasted only 10 days. Again, no result. But the event drew a lot of national publicity, including TV reporters like Dan Rather. And it left Babe convinced the army had taken the treasure. She died in 1979 at the age of 84. Never doubting her husband would be vindicated, and looking to her grandson to continue the family's fight.

I remember seeing the footage of John Dean testifying at the Watergate hearings that the Attorney General Mitchell and Mr. Ehrlichman and the president had had conversations about very gold on white sand's missile. And that kind of astonished the nation. So when Mr. Ehrlichman got out of prison and moved to Santa Fe, I went to see him. And I just put a note on his door that I was over in Austin's grandson. I'd like to meet with him, talk about Victoria Peak. And he called me and said, let's have breakfast. We had two breakfasts. And he told me about the meetings. The meetings in the White House about Victoria Peak. And that he gave me the names of the people in the administration who had done the research on it. And who were involved in briefing the White House about it.

And I asked him if he thought it was a matter of worth pursuing. And he said, yes, I think it is. Terry's mother had warned him not to get involved in what she called the family curse, but he was already caught up in it. But it wasn't until several years later that Terry was convinced his family's story had merit. When he was invited to a meeting in Palm Springs, headed by a retired U.S. Army General. And he said, we, and he gestured to the other individuals in the room, who introduced themselves as operatives for the CIA. He said, we removed half of the treasury. And I said, you did? Why didn't you take it all? And he said, we were interrupted. And I said, who interrupted you? And he said, you're a grandmother. And I was astonished.

But also now fully motivated and determined to go back to Victoria Peak and find the truth. Terry formed the Oven Noss Family Partnership and hired professional treasure hunter Norman Scott and managed to get a special act of Congress passed in 1989 to get access to the peak. It took us from 1990 to 1996 to actually break into what we felt was a significant down, a vertical fisher that seemed to fit the description that my grandfather had given about, that we thought would lead down to the lower levels of the mountain. And on the way down, you know, we found lots of my grandfather's artifacts and little symbols and signs on the wall. And, you know, go this way. It was like really the stuff of a movie, adventure stuff, unbelievable stuff. But we were evicted right after we broke into that one large fisher in 1996. Our equipment was confiscated.

The military claimed it was due to billing issues to pay for army personnel and archaeological surveillance. And Terry says he was warned to drop the matter once and for all. This is Terry DeLonus, who's the, you know, featured person in the book. Terry hasn't given up his quest and finds himself once again in the spotlight as the main character in the new book about the legend. Here with one of the authors telling a fascinated audience why the story just won't die. And why he believes the family tale is true. For one, he says it's because of the many artifacts pulled from the site. Well, Terry, the question, I guess, was what had happened to the artifact? Oh, yeah, they're in a number of hands. We have a few of them left the sword. Some smaller items, you know, napkin rings, silver, silver items and such. And those are still in the possession of the family. A lot of other people that accumulated them from Doc early in the 30s and 40s, you still have possession of those. One interesting item, these stirrups, Doc said they came from the cavern and he gave them to an El Paso sporting good store owner in the 1930s to pay for supplies.

And there's this armor. It was also allegedly found inside the peak by Las Crucins Ben Samaniego when he followed Doc out there one day. For the two writers of the book, telling the story through Terry's eyes was a challenge. There's all these strands to the story. There's the history of gold. There's the congressional history. There's the army. And how do you tell this story in a way that engages the reader who's at home, you know, sitting in his living room? What's going to grab them? And the thing about Terry becoming the central character. I mean, he's at the center of the action in the first place, but also we both really felt like this story wasn't just a story for Terry. You know, the texture of his life was greatly influenced by the story. And so everything mattered. So in filtering the details of Doc and Babe's story, it wasn't just anyone. It was the grandmother of this person.

And I think if you read the book, you come to care a great deal about Terry. And you appreciate the stories sort of through the lens of how he views it. In fact, the book opens not inside a cavern, but rather in a psychiatrist's office in Los Angeles, where Terry, who grew up Jehovah's Witness and Gay, expresses suicidal feelings. We pick it up from there, with more reading from Shwadell. Suppose you really were going to kill yourself. Is there anything you'd want to do first? The question surprised him, but not the answer that sprang to mind. My grandmother was my closest friend, he said. She and her husband found something, a treasure, and then they lost it. It's complicated, and it all happened a long time ago. But they had it, and then they lost it. And she spent the rest of her life trying to get it back. People didn't believe her. They thought she was strange, a liar, a character. But you believed her?

It would have been easier if she had forgotten about it, but she couldn't. He tried to explain how the treasure had made her life extraordinary, but spoiled it at the same time. I went out there once, with her, to the mountain where the treasure is buried, seven years ago. She brought her scrapbook. For 40 years, she'd been trying to get the treasure back. They would never let her do it. Is this something you could do, the therapist asked? Just like that? You tell me, she said. The prospect of pursuing the treasure, thrilled and daunted him. Outside the window of this therapist's office, the city's flickering lights had grown brighter as the neighborhood darkened, a trick of perspective. The nearby buildings no longer clashed. Darkness blurred the distinctions that moments ago had seemed obvious. Terry would not be diagnosed with AIDS for another three years.

By then, his project would have an office and letterhead stationary, a core of volunteers and investors who had put up thousands of dollars. He would feel unable to quit. His purpose, despite the prospect of dying, would remain unchanged. Reach the mountain, find the treasure, learn the truth. For Terry, the focus on him is somewhat troubling. The book, what men call treasure, beautifully written prose by two really fine writers. Boswell and Chouardelle, whom I consider to be friends. I like to call them friends. They started researching the story and ended up writing a very painfully personal story about me. And my efforts around the peak and my personal life that I think diminished the real history that my efforts were set against. It's beautifully written, but it does not cover the political intrigue and some conclusions that I radically disagree with.

The conclusions come from the two authors who actually inject themselves into the story. I had the impulse to put us in the story because after this concerted effort that went on from 1993 to 1996, I'd say, involving the treasure hunt. We tried to tell that story and we didn't really have a character whose perspective on the treasure really changed. And in order to get that sense of a process in the book, we needed to have a character who got deeply involved in the project and came out on the other side and was different. And we were the best candidates in the end and the fact that we had somewhat different takes on the material and what it meant. Rather than try and wrangle over which interpretation we should use in the book and come up with something that was halfway between what either of us really felt, we decided let's include both perspectives.

Boswell's perspective, he's not convinced the treasure exists. I sort of play the bad guy, the skeptical person who's wondering whether Doc Noss was a con man, whether there ever was any treasure. And Dave gets to have the heroic dreamer. I think that Doc Noss found something there and that it has never been fully recovered. That makes sense to me or rather, there are certain things that I can simply not explain away. If it were an entirely made up story, I just don't think that explanation fits the facts better than that there really was something that he found. This book, as you might imagine, has no glorious ending. It may be bound and printed, but for Terry DeLonus, it's still a work in progress with the final chapter yet to be written.

I had a great love for my grandmother because I thought she was the most amazing person I had ever met. And I felt that her reputation was worth preserving. And I really wanted to finish her work. Now Terry tells us to stay on top of this tale in the 10 years since he was evicted from Victoria Peak. He says researchers have dug into the political intrigue surrounding the story. And Terry says they are documenting some amazing events that happened behind the scenes involving high public officials that will one day be made public. And if you're wondering how that treasure got into the peak in the first place, well, there are several theories about that. Some dating back to the earliest colonizers of this region, but you'll have to read the book to find out what those theories are. We'll be right back. I went with a lot of questions and I think I came back with even more. But it helped me in a way to kind of understand why there is not peace over there.

Welcome back from many students a highlight of their college career is study abroad. Many spend a term in Europe or Latin America. But one NMSU student had a different destination in mind, the Middle East. This past summer and Tony Oresa completed a unique summer study abroad internship program in Israel and Palestine. He was one of 30 students from across the U.S. to take part in the program. Tony is a finance major at NMSU and also a member of the NMSU Model United Nations team. He worked as an intern at an asset management company in Tel Aviv while he was overseas. But as part of the program, he also attended a seminar hearing from leading Israeli and Palestinian experts and representatives from various organizations who discussed regional issues. The idea of the program is to give students from different disciplines and backgrounds a chance to understand this troubled part of the world and enhance their college experience.

Well, with us now in our studio to talk more about this study abroad experience is Nancy Oretskin, an NMSU professor in the College of Business. She's the faculty co-director of this program which is hosted by George Mason University. She helped create the program after going to Israel in 2005 on a full bright scholarship. And with her, the student you saw in those photos, Antonio Reza, he is now back from that eight-week internship and here to tell us more about his experience in the Middle East. And Antonio, Tony for short, welcome Nancy. Why did you decide to do a study abroad in Israel? That's very unusual. Well, I remember I went to talk to Nancy one day and I saw the poster that she had on her door. And before this, I was involved in the Model United Nations here in NMSU. And one of my topics for one of the conferences was a question of Palestine. So I got really involved with that topic and I was really comfortable with it. So, and I really wanted to get to know it more.

So I asked about it. She told me everything, the financial stuff, the requisites for the program and I just decided to apply in. Now, had you already decided to do a study abroad program before that? I wanted to go to Germany during school for a semester abroad but I thought this one was way better because it got me an internship and a seminar which a lot of important people. And a chance to go to a part of the world where really I think you can learn something because it's what? Probably one of the most troubled parts of the world. Had you traveled before you went over there? No, that was my first time actually. So not only going abroad but going to a really different culture and a really different place. And I'd like to know if it was different from what you expected. You said you're in the Model UN so you have a little bit of maybe more experience in the average American student with international issues. But was it different from what you expected? Yes, a lot. Things that you learned in books and seeing pictures are definitely far from what it really is.

How is it different for you? What were some of the things that you thought it would be and wasn't? Well, the most impacting thing for me it was the wall. The divides Israel and the occupied territories. That was one. Just talking and questioning the Palestinian legislative council or hearing, listening to the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister, it was very interesting and very, very good. I know in your first week you got a chance to go to a seminar and hear from people from all different parts of both from Israel and from Palestine, different points of view. How did that help you? What was the picture you got? Is it different from what we think? We hear all about the attacks and the unrest. What did you learn from that? It was very complicated because I went with a lot of questions and I think I came back with even more. But it helped me in a way to kind of understand why there is not peace over there. I guess it made me reaffirm my belief so that maybe I don't think pieces of Iowa way but maybe cooperation first.

I don't know what you mean by that but you don't think pieces easily achieve. Exactly. After what you saw there, the differences are just too great. It's very, there are two different people, like way different, the customs, the way of living. Everything is so different that it's really almost very hard to believe that there will be an arrangement soon. You did an internship. That's part of what makes this so unusual as a study abroad. Not just living with a family going to school. You did it. What did you do? I worked in Tommy Fishman. It's an asset management company. I worked in the stock options department. It was a really nice place, one of the tallest buildings in Tel Aviv. It was in Tel Aviv, yes. I was there for six weeks working with them. It was really nice. I learned a lot about economics and actually exchange itself from there because there's a stock exchange in Tel Aviv so I learned a lot from there and their company as well. Professor Retskin, I've got to get over to you to talk about this unusual program that you started. What was the idea behind this? This is not your usual study abroad program.

Well, this program was conceived collectively with Dr. Yehuda Lukach who is at George Mason University and we were both in Israel in 2005 and we had led 10 day programs before where students were just briefed. And students wanted more of an experience and they actually wanted to intern with different organizations. And so we kind of worked together, worked our contacts and decided to give it a go. This Tony participated in the third program. We went through one war the year before and had half the program and had to cancel it. That was last year. And so we believe that students who can experience firsthand the conflict and also have the opportunity to work in their major, like Tony's a business student and for him to have the opportunity to work in an asset management company in Tel Aviv in a conflict zone to see that for many people it's their daily life and business is usual. We thought that that would be an invaluable internship experience. Students who are interested in the Middle East and getting involved in different aspects.

This is an easy place for them to see the contrast. If you go to just an Arab country, you aren't going to see very many Jews or Catholics there because of the nature and historic relevance of Jerusalem. Students have the opportunity to see a microchasm right there. And this experience also they are in credit, right? They are in credit. This is an academic program. So it's not a vacation. Tony can tell you we had to write a paper, keep a journal, attend seminars, undergraduates get six credits and or nine credits and graduates get six credits for the program. What kind of things were you writing in your journal? Do you find yourself writing? Pretty much all the experiences that I lived and I kind of compared it to what it was like at home. I was originally from Mexico so it was kind of contrasting. The way of living in Mexico and in Israel so that was pretty much what I was writing and how different it was.

I wanted to ask you both, how important are programs like this to do enough college students go overseas and do this kind of thing and why should they do it? I believe that too often students are stuck in a classroom reading a textbook and are just spoon-fed different ideas. I think it's imperative that US students get out in the world and based on their own research, form their own ideas and have the opportunity to work and form their own ideas and live in a community to grow that way rather than to grow through a professor's eyes. Nancy Oreskin, who organizes all this and Tony who got the advantage of this. Thank you so much for joining us on the program. We really do appreciate it. Well, it's time now for our amazing Aggie of the Week when we honor someone on campus involved in something we think is extra special. This week we salute Ivan Flores. She coordinates and amiss use Crimson Scholars program, more than 2500 very smart students. Yet her co-workers say that somehow she manages to make each one feel special. They say she's efficient and has that personal touch that helps students reach their highest potential.

Now, if you'd like to nominate an amazing Aggie or have any comment about the show, give us a call at 646-2818 or send an email to AggieAlmanac at Yahoo.com. And that's our show for this week. I'm Gary Worth. Thanks for watching. Thanks for watching. You