It’s been a long wait for the next Ceremonial and this year’s will seem different from those in the past.

Nevertheless, the Gallup Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial Association has a new office at 2105 E. Aztec Ave. and a web site at gallupceremonial.com and it remains dedicated to preserving and perpetuating Native American art and culture.

On the schedule for this year’s festivities is a wine gala. On Aug. 12 at 6 pm, the Gallup Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial will feature New Mexico wines, craft beers and Pendleton Whiskey.

The ribbon-cutting to open the Arts Exhibit Hall will also happen at that time. Poster artist Allen Bahe will do the honors.

The art will be on...

Building a jewelry supply company piece by piece

What started out as a side-hustle for the owner of the Thunderbird Motel during the Indian jewelry boom of the 1970s, has grown into the profitable and successful jewelry supply chain Thunderbird Supply Company.

On July 17, Thunderbird celebrated its 50th Anniversary with a huge two-day sale, complete with cake and customer giveaways. CEO Danny Thomason said it was a proud moment for the employees of the Gallup flagship location.

Thunderbird also has stores in Albuquerque, which opened in October 1993, and Flagstaff, Ariz., which opened in March 2007.

Thomason recently took some time out of his busy management schedule...

New city logo to undergo changes

The Gallup rebranding journey discussed by city councilors on July 13, continued on July 27.

Bandwagon LLC Chief Client Officer Cory Cart’s presentation from the previous meeting was put up for a vote July 27 and the “Visit Gallup” campaign received some criticism.

Gallup Tourism and Marketing Manager Jennifer Lazarz  explained that the rebranding is necessary in this era when technology searches help determine vacation destinations.

She showed the council that ‘visit’ is a commonly used term, whereas ‘real’ ‘true’ and ‘real true’ didn’t pull up any results about Gallup or any other city.

She did note, however, that...

The Gallup City Cemetery suffered damage from the July 24th downpour.

Assistant City Manager Jon DeYoung told the Gallup Sun that 100 graves were damaged by flooding. One-hundred of them caved in.

DeYoung said the repairs will include adding more dirt to fill in the sites. He estimated that the repairs would be completed in the next few weeks.

City of Gallup Parks Director Vincent Alonzo went into more detail about what it takes to recover graves after the storm.

“Right now I have a crew out there — What they’re doing is, wherever it’s sunk in, they’re having to refill and make new grave mounds,” he said. “Wherever the headstones have sunk we’re having to lift them...