‘NorthFest’ celebrates an old neighborhood’s roots

Bringing the cultures of the north side community together, UNM-G’s North Campus in collaboration with gallupARTS, Art123 Gallery, ATD Fourth World, and New Mexico Aging & Long-Term Services Department, held “NorthFest” Sept. 15.

The celebration was held at the UNM-G North Campus, 425 North St., with art, language, food, music and storytelling. NorthFest invited students of the newly built Del Norte Elementary school to participate in the festivities.

Laura Jijon, director of the North Campus, says the north side often gets a bad rap, and people tend to think of it as the wayward side of town. Jijon wanted to show people that a lot of good things go on here and hopes this event becomes an annual thing, plus she said a happy accident was that Del Norte received an “A” grade and was celebrating their good work and decided to put the two together.

“This is the first year and we wanted to do something with our students ... we decided to do this by celebrating language, arts, storytelling and literacy,” she said. “Everything we’re doing here is way to tell a story, and that’s one reason. The second reason is that we wanted to celebrate the north side. We got support for this from City Councilor Linda Garcia, who gave us $3,000 out of her discretionary fund, which went to purchasing the materials for this event.”

Having the students of the newly minted Del Norte Elementary went hand in hand.

Del Norte Elementary was the merging of two schools, Juan de Onate, which is now closed, and the recently demolished Washington Elementary. Onate received an “A” grade and Washington a “B” grade. Principal Kristen Bischoff, who was the principal of both schools for the past five years, said this was a time of celebrating their academic successes and the diverse cultures of the north side community.

“It was a smooth transition of 500 kids and 75 staff members, since March 2017, to this new school,” she said. “I thought I would have never dreamed of being part of such a huge project in taking two schools from an “F” to an “A and B.”

Born and raised in Gallup, Bischoff says she is a “turn around” principal, who turns low, failing schools to thriving ones, and was excited about this new change. Being a leader for this project meant some notable transitions.

“I care about the kids and want them to be successful, and this new school is inspiring … of how it looks, and that makes students want to do much better,” she said.

Students of Del Norte walked over to the North Campus with their teachers and partook in the numerous activities that NorthFest had to offer.

Part of the activities was fence weaving, in which the students created colorful images in the chain link fences along the North Campus by weaving long, colorful strands of ribbon between each chain link. Art teacher Kelly Stapp says this activity expands children’s mind.

“We decided to let the children use their creative free minds, to use color, shape, and design,” Strapp said.

Having done partnerships with the North Campus for some years, Karen Stornelli, director of ATD Fourth World (All Together Dignity), said that whenever an idea comes up to be a part of the North Campus, they jump on it. ATD is a non-profit organization that fosters educational and cultural activities.

“We were excited to a part of this, since we work with a lot of the children of Del Norte in other programs, this was a perfect fit,” Stornelli said.

Partnering with three other organizations at Del Norte, gallupARTS and Art123 Gallery, also helped out with the activities. Rose Eason, who’s a part of both gallupARTS and Art 123, said this event will hopefully shed positive light on the north end of Gallup.

“I think it’s great. It’s so much fun. The whole idea is that the north side community kids, who go to school with their families, can share their stories of the north side,” she said. “What gallupARTS is doing is making a ‘Big Book’ and everyone is contributing one page to a larger-than-life-size book; where kids are sharing memories, like the times they caught a lizard, a friend’s birthday party, playing basketball with their brother, liking school and doing math. It’s a chance for them to express what they love about their community and to build community in the process.”

Story and photos 
by Dee Velasco
For the Sun

Woman escapes with minor injuries

This past Labor Day weekend could have ended tragically for one motorcyclist. Francisca Wright’s ride down eastbound Highway 66, ended abruptly when a car darted out in front of her, near the UPS Store, 2418 Hwy 66, at about 5:15 pm on Sept. 3.

Wright rammed into the silver-colored sedan as the driver attempted to cross the road to turn left. The driver apparently did not see or yield to Wright, and she struck the driver’s side door.

Witnesses said Wright’s husband, who was riding next to her, stopped immediately, dropped his bike, and ran to her aid. When police arrived a few minutes later, Wright was writhing in pain, and frightened from the ordeal.

Wright is a member of the motorcycle group “Endless Riders,” and shortly after the emergency responders showed up, several members from the group also arrived to provide support for their “family,” allowing Wright’s husband the ability to drop everything and focus on his wife’s wellbeing.

Gallup Police Department spokesperson Capt. Marinda Spencer said that Wright was later released from a local hospital with “minor injuries.”

In addition to Wright’s accident, it was a bad month for motorcycle riders in McKinley County in general, and Jim Smith of the Gallup-based Western New Mexico Motorcyclists Rights Organization, keeps up on this sort of news.

“We have already had four accidents in the last month in McKinley County, which is a lot for just one month,” he said.

It wasn’t just a bad month though –  the month was part of an overall bad year in the state of New Mexico.

Raymond Gallegos of the Albuquerque-based New Mexico Motorcyclists Rights Organization, said that according to the statistics, he said “there have been 213 crashes year-to-date, which is 56 more then all of 2016. There have also been 32 fatalities, which is one less than all 2016.”

A common theme with many of these crashes is distracted driving. According to a 2015 study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 14 to 18 percent of all crashes involve distracted driving, which includes texting. There were over 391,000 distracted-driving crashes in 2015, and almost 3,500 deaths.

One of those deaths was Michael Jakino of Farmington, N.M., father of 2016 Miss New Mexico Summer Jakino-Whistle. On the bike riding with him was Jacinko-Whistle’s mother, Robin Jakino, who was severely injured. This Labor Day weekend marked the two-year anniversary of the accident.

On Sept. 6, 2015, Michael and Robin Jakino were on U.S. Route 550, north of Durango, when a pickup truck traveling in the opposite direction crossed over the center line and hit them head on.

Michael Jakino was pronounced dead on the scene, and Robin Jakino had to have a significant portion of her leg amputated. Robin Jakino is still dealing with the physical trauma now two years later, having several surgeries to repair damage from infections.

“Her leg is now amputated up to near the hip, which makes getting a prosthetic difficult because there is nothing left to attach it to,” Jakino-Whistle said.

Jakino-Whistle describes her father as “an amazing man.” He was chairman of the board for San Juan Regional Medical Center, and he worked extensively with underprivileged youth.

“Daddy was also the head of the Kiwanis Club,” she said, adding that he “was very popular with the community.”

One of the men Michael Jakino counted among his friends was Sen. Steven Neville, R-San Juan.

After the tragic death of her father, Jakino-Whistle partnered with Neville to introduce Senate Bill 55, which would increase fines for the first offense for careless driving from $25 to $100, and fines for subsequent infractions would cost wayward drivers $500-$1,000.

Neville said that this “would put careless driving at least on par with speeding tickets.”

He went on to say that while the penalty for careless driving currently does not carry any penalty of points on a driver’s license, and getting the fines more in line with speeding tickets would help facilitate the conversation of applying points and “that could be a real deterrent for many drivers,”and would penalize those who do not pay attention.

“The more offensive it is to the offender, the better,” Jakino-Whistle said.

Neville said that the bill made it all the way through the Senate, but it ran out of time before the 60-day legislative session ended.

When asked if he would be introducing the bill next session, Neville said that it would “be challenging,” as every other session is a shorter 30-day session, and topics are supposed to be confined to budget matters.

A DANGEROUS COCKTAIL: TEXTING/TALKING WHILE DRIVING

While it’s not immediately clear what caused the driver to hit Wright, texting and talking on cellphones keeps making news headline in the form of tragic accidents.

Cities such as Gallup, Albuquerque, and Santa Fe have bans on texting/talking and driving, but there’s no state-wide ban, with one exception – novice drivers. Or those who are younger than 18, or drivers holding a learner’s permit or a provisional license. They are prohibited from using hand held devices while driving.

According to DMV.com, “New Mexico is one of the states with the most lenient distracted driving laws, and has no statewide text messaging ban for all drivers,” a ban that has been enacted in many other states.”

In addition to the leniency in the current distracted driving laws, another issue is the accuracy of witness statements on exactly what happened when a motorcycle vs. car accident occurs. Gallegos said that often bystanders “associate noise with speed,” and that when it comes time to give a statement the recollection of a loud motorcycle, it may color their memory of events.

According to Huffington Post, 98 percent of adults know that distracted driving is “unsafe.” It’s even enough for CNBC to declare that “texting and driving is worse than drinking and driving.”

Despite the claims and data, according to the Centers for Disease Control, 31 percent of people admit to having sent/read text messages in the last 30 days while driving, and according to a Virginia Tech study, this takes drivers eyes of the road for 4.6 seconds.

At a speed of 60 miles an hour, a driver would cover 134 yards in that time. To put that in context, the longest play in NFL history is 109 yards. So, in the space of one text, a driver would travel farther than anyone in the NFL’s 97-year history.

While distracted driving is an issue for drivers, it is particularly important for a motorcyclist.

A NTHSA study found that in all motorcycle accidents occurring between motorcyclists and cars, the motorcyclist was either not at fault or less at fault than the other driver 80 percent of the time. Furthermore, the federal government estimates that per mile traveled in 2014, the number of deaths on motorcycles was over 27 times the number in cars.

Despite this danger, Gallegos said, “We love to ride, it is a sense of freedom”

By Jonathan Gregg
Sun Correspondent

By Tom Hartsock

Sun Correspondent

It has become a joke in our society, but it really is not funny. The older person, usually a lady but not necessarily, who has taken in more cats or dogs than is responsible for them to keep, especially in the city.

It is a disease, with a name long enough to trip over, that affects caring people who honestly want to do the right thing and wind up with a total mess on their hands. Some call these folks animal hoarders, other collectors, but whatever the term, a mobile home on the 600 block of Jay Street in Gallup became overran with cats.

Gallup-McKinley Humane Society animal control officers are still trying to rectify the problem, which began earlier this week.

There have been 39 cats “rescued” so far, according to Humane Society Director Cosy Balok.

"Most of the cats we have removed are sick," Balok said. "They are all feral and know how to hide and escape capture. We are holding them at animal control but most will need to be euthanized.

Cats especially, when put into closed environments like they were, contract serious illnesses, including: leukemia, Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP), and upper respiratory virus."

A neighbor in the area, who asked to remain anonymous, said the woman living in the trailer often sat in her car or on the porch of her trailer. Neighbors were tipped off by the stench coming from trailer, prompting them to call authorities.

The ongoing hunt for more cats in and around this mobile home will continue until Balok is positive that all have been captured.

Balok stressed the advantages of vaccinating and caring for your pets, which includes spaying and neutering your loved ones to avoid having to care for possibly unwanted litters.

Contact your personal veterinarian or the Humane Society for more details and cost.