Veterans Memorial Complex at Fort Canyon renamed Joe Vargas Veterans Memorial Complex

Joe Vargas served the Gallup community as the Parks Director from November 1963 to December 2000. Now, 21 years after his last day of work and two years after his death on March 29, 2020, he is being honored in an extraordinary way.

During the March 8 city council meeting, the current Parks Director, Vincent Alonzo, came to the council to speak about Vargas and to recommend that the Veterans Memorial Complex at Ford Canyon be renamed the Joe Vargas Veterans Memorial Complex.

“Ford Canyon was Joe’s baby,” Alonzo said. “He was proud of Ford Canyon. To me, the park system is all because of Joe...

Meskee Yatsayte of the Missing and Murdered Diné Relatives Task Force, state Sen. Shannon Pinto, and Madam Chair Amber Kanazbah Crotty support the signing of several MMIWR bills in Albuquerque March 16. Photo Credit: 24th Navajo Nation Council

Week ending Friday, March 11, 2022

 

Aging Reversal

A study published in the journal Nature Aging documents how U.S. researchers successfully turned back the biological clock in animals with a form of gene therapy. While such success in humans is not likely for many years or even decades, mice with equivalent ages of between 35 and 50 in humans that were treated with what are known as Yamanaka factors for several months appeared much younger. Their skin and kidneys were said to have shown significant signs of rejuvenation. But older mice with ages equivalent to 80 years in humans showed little or no sign of improvement. The use of Yamanaka factors in humans can trigger cancer, so...

WPA website in the works

Looming on the horizon is a virtual museum featuring a unified collection of Depression era art, furniture, decorative objects, and architecture. This vast national treasure trove of artworks emerged from numerous public works New Deal art projects occurring under the leadership of President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the years 1933 to 1942.

Thanks to Roosevelt’s federal Public Works of Art Project, put in place to stimulate the Great Depression’s dire economy, a diverse group of artists of varying levels of experience and notoriety contributed sculptures, lithographs, furniture, architecture, wall paintings, Navajo weavings, watercolors, oil...