Thunderbird Jewelry celebrates 50 years in business

Don Cosper already had a lot on his plate as the Thunderbird Motel owner in the 1970s when he decided to take on a new challenge: selling turquoise stones out of the motel. Local artists began selling their jewelry to him, and thus Thunderbird Jewelry was born.

His business grew so much, that soon he had to move it out of the motel. Then, in 1974 the company moved again to the building it’s in now at 1923 W. Hwy. 66. And now, the business’s employees are getting ready to celebrate the store’s 50th anniversary.

Many of the employees have been with the store for almost 50 years themselves.

Danny Thomason initially thought of the jewelry store as a nice summer job in 1978. He said working in the jewelry environment brings challenges every day, and that’s something he really enjoys.

“I enjoy the challenges,” he said. “ I just kept saying ‘OK, I can do that, OK, I can do that.’”

That gung-ho attitude helped Thomason climb up the corporate ladder at the company over 40 years, and he became CEO in 2017.

He said facing the challenges and fixing problems is his favorite part of the job.

“There’s always something in business that needs improvement,” Thomason said. “So it’s always “What can we do better, what can I do better.’”

Knowing his employees and how they can work together is another part of Thomason’s job.

“Some of them are jackhammers, and some of them are not,” he said. “You’ve got to learn which tool you can use where and where they can fit best.”

Angel Rohrer also began her career at Thunderbird Jewelry, moving up in the company from a salesperson in 1986 to the current day store manager and jewelry buyer.

As the jewelry buyer, Rohrer meets with the artisans who come in looking to sell their products. She said her favorite part is interacting with all the different people she gets to meet.

“My favorite part is talking to the vendors, the artisans,” she said. “I’ve gotten to meet so many people, and we’ve become friends.”

Most of the jewelry makers Rorher works with are from the Zuni and Navajo tribes. Jewelry making runs deep in these cultures; some of the vendors she works with are the children of vendors she worked with in the past.

She said the hardest part of her job is telling potential vendors “no.”

“The hardest part is not being able to purchase [all of the pieces that come through the door],” Rohrher explained. “There’s just some things that aren’t right for the area, or it doesn’t fit a certain price range, or maybe we don’t have the clientele for the colors.”

CELEBRATING

50 YEARS

Thunderbird Jewelry staff will celebrate the store’s 50th anniversary with a refreshment celebration on June 7 from 1 pm to 3 pm. The event is open to the public.

Staff Reports

Galanis-Dimas, Baca both have big plans

The 2024 election is approaching swiftly, and primaries will take place on June 4. On the local side of things, incumbent McKinley County District 3 Commissioner Robert Baca and former communications director at McKinley County’s Metropolitan Dispatch Authority Georgene Galanis-Dimas are preparing to face off.

WHY GALANIS-DIMAS WANTED TO RUN

For almost 10 years, Galanis-Dimas was the communications director at McKinley County’s Metropolitan Dispatch Authority before leaving the position to take care of her mother and 92-year-old grandmother full-time in February. But now, after almost six months away, she’s ready to tackle a new role.

As the director at Metro Dispatch, Galanis-Dimas worked closely with the commissioners and county government, including her brother-in-law, County Manager Anthony Dimas. She said they were able to keep their professional and personal lives separate during her time at Metro Dispatch, and she doesn’t see that changing if she’s elected to the county commission.

Galanis-Dimas said she saw a lot of opportunity for change during her time at Metro Dispatch.

“I saw a lot of things I could change or have better ideas for,” she said. “I spoke to people who said ‘Hey, why doesn’t the county do this?’ Our 911 center was a city and county entity, so I attended city council meetings. People were always like, ‘Why are you here?’ It’s just my love for community; what are we doing, what can we do better….”

She told the Sun that it was actually her family who convinced her to run. She said her kids were always asking her why she hadn’t run for office yet, and her husband saw her true strength come out when she was taking care of her mother and grandmother, and encouraged her to take the plunge and run for office.

But her passion for McKinley County and the City of Gallup isn’t the only thing that pushed her to run. Galanis-Dimas’ dad was the late George Galanis. He served his community in multiple ways — starting with two terms as the McKinley County Treasurer from 1980 to 1984, then moving on to the New Mexico House of Representatives from 1985 to 1988. He then served as the Mayor of Gallup from 1991 to 1994 before working as a Magistrate Judge from 2001 to 2007. He died in 2021.

Galanis-Dimas said she learned a lot about helping the community from her dad.

“He always wanted me to run for office,” she said. “He said ‘If you ever run for office, it doesn’t matter if someone just got out of jail or if they own a multi-million-dollar business, you take that call and you talk to them.’ … My dad really taught me not to take ‘no’ or ‘can’t’ for an answer. There’s always another way or a different way.”

WHAT SHE HOPES TO ACCOMPLISH

Galanis-Dimas said her top priority when entering the commissioner role is maintaining transparency. As she prepares for the role, she’s done some research, looking into public records and the history of the Commission. She explained why transparency is so important to her.

“I’m really running on transparency because I would’ve liked to look at ‘Well, what are we as a county doing? Why couldn’t we get this task done? Why did we purchase this property as a county?” she said.

As a former health care worker, she wants the hospital to remain open. Then there is dealing with the ongoing concerns regarding public safety and local water issues, specifically the success of the Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project.

With all this in mind, she said she plans to have an open-door policy if she wins the commissioner seat.

“I don’t want my picture [on the county’s website],” she said. “I want my phone number and personal email there. I want people to address me directly. I want to listen to people’s thoughts, ideas, experiences, and education.”

BACA WANTS TO KEEP WORKING ON HIS PROJECTS

Incumbent District 3 County Commissioner Robert Baca hopes to continue his work on the County Commission to improve facilities and resources across the county.

Before Baca was elected county commissioner during the 2020 elections, he already carried a long history of public service. He served as a lieutenant with the New Mexico Department of Public Safety’s Motor Transportation Police for 26 years before retiring in 2011. He then worked as a Magistrate Judge in McKinley County, serving one term from 2012 to 2014. He also served as an associate judge for the Pueblo of Zuni from July 2016 to September 2017.

He’s since served on multiple boards and committees, including the Local Emergency Planning Committee. He is currently the Chair of that committee.

When asked why he wanted to enter local government in the first place, he said he felt as if he needed to stand up.

“I believe that if you’re going to sit around and complain about something, you should have a solution or you should be willing to step up and help,” he said. “As a citizen I want to know where my money is going and how it’s being spent and what’s being done for us. [Being a commissioner] kind of let me in and let me see some of the things that were happening.”

As a commissioner, Baca has helped the County pass bills and legislation to fix up Red Rock Park, including improving the park’s bathrooms. He’s also helped bring funding to Rehoboth McKinley County Hospital in an effort to keep its doors open.

Baca also worked with the Gallup City Council for their restoration efforts, giving each councilor $25,000 to improve neighborhood parks in their districts.

WORK TO BE DONE

But Baca is not done yet. He said he does have some plans for future projects, including hiring the right groups to redesign and fix the entryway into Red Rock Park so it’s not so congested when people are trying to get in and out.

Then there are the other ongoing issues around Gallup. He wants to improve the roads around the city, and so he has met and discussed with Ricky Serva, Cabinet Secretary for the New Mexico Department of Transportation, on how to handle that project.

Baca also highlighted the lack of affordable housing as one of those challenges. He has partnered with Gallup Land Partners to develop affordable housing options for the community. However, this is still a project in progress.

He wants people to feel as though they can reach out to him and share their concerns about what is happening around Gallup or McKinley County.

“There are things [people] can bring to me that I can be the advocate for them with the city or [I can] try to find some funding for projects that maybe they want to do,” he said.

But at the end of the day, he wants people to know that serving on the County Commission is not a one-man job.

“With County Commission, this isn’t something one person does,” he said. “It takes the commission to do it. You can have the idea, but it takes everyone saying ‘You’re right, we need to work on that project, we need to make that a priority’ or ‘No, that’s not a priority….’”

FINAL THOUGHTS

Galanis-Dimas is excited for this opportunity to lead, and she believes she can represent the county well.

“I truly believe I can represent people who are Democrat, people who are Republican, people who do vote, people who don’t vote,” she said. “Should I be elected, people are going to see things get done. I want us to be prosperous. I want [McKinley County] to be a destination.”

Baca encouraged everyone to go out and make their voices heard.

“Let’s just go out and let the citizens decide on who they want,” he said when asked how he felt about the upcoming election. “I encourage anybody and everybody, please get out and vote.”

The New Mexico primary election will take place on June 4. To register to vote or for more information, visit NMVote.org.

By Molly Ann Howell
Managing Editor

Incumbent District Attorney for the Eleventh Judicial District Bernadine Martin is hoping to hold her seat and win reelection in November, but her opponent Grant Birtcher worries that not everything is getting prosecuted properly under her watch.

A district attorney represents the government in criminal cases, including felonies and misdemeanors.  To do this, they need help. In an interview with the Sun, Birtcher voiced his concerns about a lack of staff in Martin’s office.

Currently, Martin only has her Chief Deputy and two contract attorneys working under her.

Birtcher said the office actually needs about nine or ten prosecutors to properly prosecute criminals. He said he’s got five attorneys who have unofficially said they would come work with him if he won the District Attorney election.

“It says a lot when no one wants to work for the current DA,” he said. “It’s unfortunate, but it’s the reality of it.”

Martin addressed Birtcher’s staffing concerns, saying her office is currently working on retaining attorneys. They’ve put ads out on job websites, including LinkedIn.

But she also has some concerns of her own, mainly surrounding Birtcher’s own ability to properly prosecute cases. She said that the people he’s looking to hire may find themselves with conflicts of interest at the district court level. She explained that she’s worked with three of four attorneys he’s looking to hire, and they’re all former defense attorneys.

“I don’t know if the public understands that Grant Birtcher will not help the county,” she said. “He can’t with the conflicts of interest piled up with the four defense attorneys [he’s looking to hire]. What worries me is that the drunk drivers will get away, because one of those four attorneys was a defense attorney for drunk driving cases.”

In her three and a half years as DA Martin said she’s only had three cases she had to dismiss herself from due to a conflict of interest: one defendant was an employee’s relative, another case involved a local politician, and the final one was a suspect she’d defended about 10 years prior.

WHAT EACH CANDIDATE HOPES TO ACCOMPLISH

If she is reelected, Martin hopes to continue her approach to DWIs. She said she’s a big believer in second chances.

“A few will go to the Department of Corrections, because if it’s a murder then we have to argue for that,” she said. “But if it’s a first, second, third, or even a fifth or six DWI, we’ll give them a chance by putting them on supervised probation. And obviously if there’s a violation we look for incarnation. We give them a chance [and hope] that supervised probation will help them not to drink and drive. People are going to drink, they can do it at home all they want. But do not drive.”

Birtcher said he hopes to tackle drug-related crimes by helping those who struggle with addiction.

“If we can help somebody rather than punish them, and if they’re not hurting anybody but themselves, then I think some sort of drug rehabilitation program would be more beneficial,” he said. “[I want to] take each case on an individual basis and really try to see people get the help that they need.”

THE CANDIDATES’ BACKGROUNDS

Before she was elected as the DA, Martin served as the assistant DA and as an attorney for the Navajo Nation.

She received her law degree from the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona.

Unlike Martin, Birtcher didn’t plan on going to law school. He is a former Marine Scout Sniper, with two combat tours in Iraq on his resume. He was honorably discharged from service in 2007.

After his time with the Marines, Birtcher went on to get his bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Criminology. He planned to use the degree in some form in the Marines, but his plans soon changed. While he was completing his bachelor’s degree, many of Birtcher’s professors started telling him he should look into law school. He decided to take the plunge and graduated from the Arizona Summit Law School in 2013.

Birtcher has worked as an attorney for multiple entities, including the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority and the Navajo Nation Gaming Enterprises. He also worked for the previous DA, but ultimately decided to leave the office in 2019.

He said that all of his experiences, especially his time in the Marines, taught him how to be a leader.

“I know what it’s like to lead people, and that office really just needs a leader,” he said. “I know I’m up for the task.”

Birtcher is half-Navajo, and has lived in Gallup with his wife and two kids for 10 years now. He was born and raised in Fort Defiance, Arizona. He said his ultimate goal in running for the DA office is to make the community a safer place.

By Molly Ann Howell
Managing Editor

The UNM-Gallup graduation on May 14 at Angelo Di Paolo Memorial Stadium in Gallup