RELIVING the pain of a DAUGHTER gone

The Livingstons were a tight-knit family due in large part to Raven Livingston. She was described by her family as talkative, caring, and a friend to many people. She would do whatever was necessary to help her family and friends be happy.

However, she did not live to see her 26th birthday. Raven was killed in a collision with an alleged drunk driver on Dec. 31 of last year.

Jeulina Livingston, Raven’s mother, recalls hearing sirens that night but did not pay it much attention until Raven had been gone too long.

“She just went to the movies and never came home,” Jeulina Livingston said through tears.

Jeulina Livingston works at KTNN in Window Rock as a DJ. When the news reached her, she felt the whole world stop as she called and sent messages repeatedly with no response.

Ray Livingston Sr., Raven’s father, used to work for the McKinley Mine as a heavy equipment operator, but resigned after Raven’s death.

“[We’ve been] hurting for the most, three months,” Ray Livingston said during an interview. “I still am.”

EARLY LIFE

Raven was born Ray Livingston Jr. on June 18, 1992 at around 5:30 in the morning, Jeulina Livingston recalls.

“I was so happy when she got born, around 5,” Ray Livingston recalled. “[I was told] we need to name the baby. [I said] Ray Livingston Jr.”

He was asked why Raven was given that name, to which he responded, “I thought my name was going to go on for legacy.”

Raven was close to her cousins and they enjoyed many things together.

“We all grew up on the Red Rock Reservation,” Rashawna Livingston, Raven’s sister, recalled. “She always enjoyed family time. She really loved her cousins.”

The family talked about the common human activities they did with Raven, such as watching TV, having sleepovers, numerous games and sports, and arts and crafts. They recall how some of the family would even get their nails done by Raven.

Raven Livingston was described by her family as a beautiful child, humble and sweet at home. She attended Chuska Boarding School from 2nd to 8th grade, often staying at the dorm because she enjoyed it.

It was during her years at Chuska Boarding School that Raven Livingston surprised her family by coming out as transgender. Raven had been the only male in a class full of females, the family recalls, and while she initially tried to push it aside, she soon insisted she was a woman.

Ray-to-Raven Livingston transition helped the family to think about the LGBT communities in a different light. She would also meet with various pride groups around the Window Rock and Albuquerque areas.

“I love you guys if you want to be like that,’” Ray recalled his words to Raven. “The way you want to be a person, I accepted it a long time ago. We all accepted it.”

After finishing at Chuska High School, Raven moved onto Wingate High School, becoming involved with numerous sports teams in an unexpected manner.

“One time she told me, ‘I’ll be in the game,’” Ray Livingston Sr. said.

The family attended to see what Raven would be doing.

“I was so surprised she came out of the bear suit, ‘I’m a mascot too,” she said.

After finishing high school, Raven entered the job corps, got involved with office administration, and then decided to wait on committing to a path for her future.

Yet, she would not live to make that choice.

THE AFTERMATH

Ray Livingston Sr. said that the family had separated after Raven’s death, and that the animals and livestock on their property were removed as well. He said it was hard to be in the region where his transgender daughter’s life had been cut short.

“Life was not right, family’s not together,” he said. “Part of me is gone, part of me was taken away early.”

The family was asked what they would say to the alleged drunk driver. Ray Livingston Sr. said that it would be hard to think of something to say because of the anger. The driver hasn’t been formally charged at this time.

The family instead wonders what was going through Raven’s mind in the last moments of her life. They concluded that she would have been thinking of her family.

“‘I want to see my dad, my mom, I just want to go home,’” Ray Livingston said he was told those were her last words.

The court date has not been set yet, but the family expects an update by the end of July.

“We just need justice for Raven,” Jeulina Livingston said.

HONORING RAVEN

On June 18, the Livingston family gathered at the Gallup train station and held a candle vigil. They also released balloons into the sky during the gathering.

“I loved it, I know she’s looking down at us,” Jeulina Livingston said.

The family feels that going on with life and helping out people they can, specifically through a commemorative walk and showing the effects that drinking and driving can have on a family, helps them to manage the pain. In that way, the family thinks of these actions as planting a new tree. The old one may fallen, they said, but they can choose to start over where they are.

“What she experienced, she tells us. [She] just tells us, ‘Be busy all the time,” Ray Livingston said.

By Cody Begaye
Sun Correspondent

A historic meeting of the UNM Board of Regents was hosted at the UNM Gallup Branch June 12.

The BOR hosted its regular meeting in an open and closed session at the Student Services Technical Center, and Regent President Rob Doughty thanked the Gallup community for its hospitality.

“It’s a real honor to be out here today, I speak on behalf of the board. I just learned this morning that this is the first time in 50 years that Board of Regents has been here,” he said.

Doughty added, “It truly is an honor and I just wish to say thank you to the folks here in Gallup for all of your hard work.”

Dr. Garnett Stokes, UNM president, provided her administrative report and said her tour of the state branch campuses was complete.

June 9 was her 100-day mark as president and Stokes said she has received plenty of input from the communities of New Mexico.

“We had town halls, we met with many groups and visited four branch campuses,” she said. “I have four more trips to make to cover all 33 counties of the state.”

Throughout her visits a recurring theme emerged, the need for improving communication and transparency.

To this end, the university will become a military/veteran friendly campus utilizing community policing while remaining focused as a research university, she said.

In addition, the assessing athletics programs for economic austerity will also be implemented.

“It’s a defining time for UNM athletics and we’re going to have some difficult decisions up ahead,” she said.

Strategic planning is also going to be executed, as the current plan is set to expire in 2020.

“We will begin our strategic planning in the fall,” she said.

Regent Tom Clifford asked about the safety initiative.

“One of the big concerns is, not just the safety of the campus itself, but the neighboring community to the campus. Maybe that’s an area where our police may reach out (to Albuquerque Police Department) and provide additional safety,” he said.

“I hear the same thing. We do have a lot of students who are living right off campus. Certainly there is a lot of activity in several neighborhoods around the campus,” Stokes replied.

Stokes said UNM is challenged by the fact that it is located in an urban area with its own challenges. Working with the city leadership to tackle some of the causes of the crimes that exist right off the campus is an opportunity to consider, she added.

The regents covered the monthly financial reports before Dr. James Malm, UNM-Gallup CEO, provided his administrative report.

Ralph Richards, UNM-Gallup Local Board chairman, joined Malm for the administrative report to the regents.

“This is a historic moment for Gallup. We’re turning 50 years old on July 1. The economists describe us as a distressed community,” Malm said.

He said the Economic Innovation Group ranked Gallup in the bottom percentile of 26,000 zip codes in the U.S.

“We are a part of a group of cities and counties across the country that have essentially lost jobs in the economic recovery. I believe we have lost one in eight jobs,” he said.

When contrasted against prosperous communities that added 6.5 million jobs in the same period, the challenges facing Gallup are obvious.

“Essentially, we have been managing the decline,” he said. “The way forward for our distressed communities is linking ourselves with prosperous communities and growing our economies.”

UNM-Gallup brings hope to the community, Malm said, adding that he is proud to serve the local region.

Other issues such as a $500,000 mid-year deficit, the loss of two senior managers and reaching the bottom of a seven-year double-digit enrollment decline has challenged the branch campus.

Through a program prioritization process that included budget data for 73 index managers, review of spending patterns and allotments over the past five years, including enrollments and subject codes over the same timeframe has produced results.

“We asked them to write about their efficiency in spending the dollars and their effectiveness in meeting the university mission. We charted these 73 on an axis matrix,” Malm said.

The results of the study determined that most of the programs were mission effective, but most of the programs were below the line when it came to financial efficiency.

Using the information, the branch campus executed reduction in force, attrition and retirement for their workforce to a balanced budget with no tuition increase and no use of reserves.

“During this time, we also suffered a line item veto from Gov. (Susana) Martinez for our career technology building. We failed a national search for a dean of instruction and we struggled to work with a public charter school on our campus,” he said.

However, UNM-Gallup is on the upswing.

The summer semester enrollment from last Monday is up 18 percent from the same time last year and hasn’t been this high in five years. Additionally, fall enrollment is currently up 9 percent from the same time last year.

“We are maintaining our 94 percent minority percentage,” Malm said.

Middle College High School is bringing in students from the nine rural high schools to study in the freshman cohort programs.

In addition, UNM-Gallup is set to select a new dean of instruction by week’s end.

“As we get this firm footing for Fiscal Year 2019, we are undertaking four major projects,” Malm said. “We have a unique operating environment here, we have a unique mission. We’re so glad to be a part of the UNM community.”

By Rick Abasta

Sun Correspondent

Staff Reports

The Navajo feed and Grain Store received extensive fire damage early Sunday morning.

The first notice of the fire occurred about 4:55 am., according to Gallup fire officials. When the first fire trucks arrived on the scene, firefighters reported seeing heavy black smoke and large flames coming from the west side of the Feed store.

Most of the damage was done on the second floor and much of the efforts of the firefighters was to keep the fire from spreading further into the business, according to the fire report.

This is a developing story. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

Evan Staat of Xenia, Ill., recently and honorably discharged from the Marine Corps after five years of service, was anxious to get back home to civilian life so he could be near his beloved family, and begin his studies to become a lineman operator.

Stationed in California, Staat, 23, packed his belongings, some of which consisted of computers, cameras, his uniforms, and three marksmanship awards, and headed east with his father Dan Staat in his light metallic green 1968 Chevy Nova with its two large white stripes across the hood and trunk.

Tired from the long drive down Interstate 40, the father-son duo decided to retire for the evening in Gallup –Rand McNally’s “Most Patriotic Small Town in America,” unbeknownst to them. Staat parked his car in the back lot at the Hampton Inn & Suites north, and settled in for the night.

It was on the morning of June 3, when Dan and Evan Staat like other traveling folks, checked out of the room, and headed to the car. But Evan Staat’s prized car had vanished into thin air, causing his heart to sink and prompting him to call the Gallup Police Department to file a report, and start what seemed like a fruitless search for the car.

“You don’t think it’s going to happen to you until it does,” he said, during a phone interview.

Still stunned from the incident, the soft-spoken Staat was not only concerned about retrieving his classic car, but also getting back his uniforms and awards, plus a sentimental teddy bear that dangled from his rearview mirror that he fondly said, “a lady gave me.”

However, Staat and his family weren’t in this search alone.

His aunt Kim Staat Stoub sounded the social media alarms and dropped the Gallup Sun a Facebook message and photo of Evan Staat’s prized ride. From there, the message and photo was posted, and shared hundreds of times with comments pouring in to encourage Staat, and to slam the thief or thieves that made off with his car.

Many folks also offered to help him out, and others apologized that he had to experience a darker side of Gallup.

Staat reluctantly continued his trip to Illinois. He had to figure out a game plan to return to Gallup to search for his car.

But, those plans came to an abrupt end, thanks to some unexpected news from the McKinley County Sheriff’s Office about a vehicle SWAT officers found hiding under some brush, boards and blankets out past Mentmore on County Road 1, near the area known by locals as the climbing wall, June 4. It was his ’68 Chevy Nova.

SWAT was there to engage in some tactical practices when they discovered the car nearby.

“It was really pretty cool,” Staat said, when he heard the news as he was traveling through Missouri. “I figured it would have taken longer to find it.”

Instead of turning around with his dad, the father and son met up with mom, Angie Staat, and the two headed south to New Mexico.

Meanwhile, American Muffler & Towing was dispatch to tow the vehicle back to their yard on Ninth Street. Owner Pancho Hurtado took a photo of the Nova after it was placed on the flatbed tow truck, and posted it on his Facebook page, along with a note:

“Best stolen vehicle I have recovered to date! Apology from us good folks in Gallup … it’s here for you to pick up free of charge anytime!”

Staat and his mom were back in Gallup shortly after noon on June 5 to pick up the car. Evan Staat looked anxious to get into the vehicle to see what was left of his belongings. His uniforms, award medals,  teddy bear, and other items were found to his relief, but his Toshiba laptop and desktop computers, GoPro camera, and “a sentimental bottle of whisky” were missing.

So, Evan Staat’s search continues as he has no backup files of the memories he snapped while in the Marine Corp.

After some visiting with media and Hurtado, mom and son finally hit the road in separate vehicles.

“We’re so grateful to the people of Gallup. So many people sharing and caring. It really mushroomed,” Angie Staat said, referring to all of the Facebook comments on the stolen car. “I am in awe of all the good people that jumped in and helped.”

By Babette Herrmann

Sun Editor