Murphy Builders Inc., DePauli Engineering explain Nizhoni Boulevard project delays

Nizhoni Boulevard has been in some form of repair since March 2020, but Murphy Builders and DePauli Engineering have now wrapped up Phase 3 of the project.

Gallup’s Planning and Development Director C.B. Strain gave the two companies time during the Sept. 27 city council meeting to explain how Murphy Builders and DePauli Engineering completed this phase, as well as all the delays to the council and public.

“This is probably one of the most, if not the most, challenging project we’ve had to date,” Strain explained. “It went on, as everybody knows, a lot longer than expected.”

Phase 3 of the project was completed in approximately 468 days. Murphy Builders’ first day on site was May 31, 2023, and their last day was Sept. 8. As the most expensive portion of the project thus far, Phase 3 cost the city $6 million.

Matt Long of Murphy Builders said they spent nearly $1.2 million in payroll. He said the time spent on Phase 3 totaled almost 38,000 hours, equivalent to 15 full-time employees working on it.

“That’s all local, it’s all kept local,” Long said. “We appreciate the opportunity [to work with the City of Gallup] because we believe in being a community partner.”

The project’s main goal was to make sure the sidewalks along the road were ADA-compliant, make storm drainage improvements, and make a dedicated northbound turn off Nizhoni Boulevard onto Second Street. They also improved the underground utilities.

While they faced many challenges and delays, DePauli Engineering & Surveying’s Construction Manager Dillon Troncoso said the rock excavation proved to be the most time consuming.

“Rock is really hard to estimate, especially in Gallup,” Troncoso said. “Some hills have it, some hills don’t.”

Murphy Builders spent 47 days of the project excavating rock.

Nizhoni Boulevard is also a heavily trafficked area in Gallup. It serves as an emergency route to Rehoboth McKinley Christian Hospital.

With this in mind, the crews couldn’t work on the whole road at once. They worked on the northside and the effluent and sewer lines first, then the southside and the waterline second.

Another problem arose when it came time to update the underground utilities. The crew ran into New Mexico Gas and Lumen Technologies, which owns CenturyLink internet and phone lines. The Lumen lines were in the way of the storm drain, making it impossible for crews to work on it.

Troncoso said it took Lumen another 44 days to come out and move their line, adding on to the project timeline. This also delayed the crew’s work on the northside storm drain.

Strain commended Murphy Builders and DePauli Engineering for their hard work.

“I know we caught a lot of flack for [how long this project was taking],” Strain said. “I know council caught a lot of flack for it. Our contractors caught a lot of flack for it from the public, but that’s why we thought it was important for you to actually know what the challenges were and what an excellent job they actually did do.”

The council thanked the crew for their hard work.

“I commend DePauli Engineering, Murphy’s Builders, and C.B. Strain for their hard work,” Councilor Linda Garcia, Dist. 1, said. “I always expect delays, there’s always something going on that’s going to happen with projects, and the public doesn’t understand.”

Now, the city plans to go out to the bid for Phase 4 of the project soon. Phase 4 will concentrate on the intersection of Nizhoni Boulevard and Second Street.

Staff Reports

OFPL seeks funding for new position

Locals around Gallup who struggle with alcohol and substance abuse have a bevy of resources to aid them. However, there is another key issue that many people may be facing, but with fewer places to turn to: their mental wellbeing.

Octavia Fellin Public Library Director Tammi Moe agrees with the lack of mental health resources in Gallup. The library offers numerous services to the public as is, but she believes that they can add that crucial support to that list.

“Right now, you can’t just walk into the library and say ‘I need mental health support’ and ask one of the front clerks about that because they’re not knowledgeable,” Moe said in an interview with the Sun.

She, along with the City of Gallup’s Behavioral Health Department Manager Debra Martinez, came in front of the city council during their regular meeting on Sept. 24 to ask for funding to support a new position at the library: a library case manager. Moe explained that the case manager would primarily connect people who suffer from behavioral health issues with resources that are available to them within McKinley County and the State of New Mexico.

Moe cited the lack of mental support programs due to other issues like substance abuse taking precedence from the city.

“There’s just not really a system in place for people who are not dealing with an alcohol and drug problem because Gallup emphasizes those problems,” Moe said. “So, these other systems kind of fall away. And with our hospital at this point really not functioning and there being a lack of mental health providers, there’s not a safety net for people in the community who are experiencing different types of social issues.”

The case manager’s job entails gathering up a list of local resources and floating between OFPL’s main library and the children’s library. They would then guide people who come into the library seeking assistance with food insecurity, housing needs, legal concerns, applying for immigration, or other social concerns. This includes providing the appropriate information and even helping to fill out the necessary paperwork.

Martinez said the new role fills a hole in the Gallup’s Behavioral Health program.

“We really don’t have any case management services for youth through our program,” she said. “So, this would be an extension of that, offering case management and early intervention [for potential mental health problems] before people turn to substances or other issues.”

The estimated salary stated by Moe is about $40,120 a year, with a bonus package equal to over $27,000.

Gallup’s Behavioral Health Department is partially supporting the position through the ReCAST grant. The ReCAST Grant aims to promote resilience, trauma-informed approaches, and equity in communities that have faced collective trauma.

The city council approved the programs and projects for the ReCAST grant during their Aug. 13 meeting. The grant funding will provide $33,000.00 annually for two years to cover half the cost of the position. The remaining $27,180.00 would come from general funds.

PROACTIVE MOVEMENT, NOT REACTIVE

Moe said that she and Martinez started discussing the case manager position in the spring.

During the council meeting, she informed the council that the library had two separate indecent exposure incidents over the summer. The first one happened on June 15 and the second one on July 12.

According to Moe, the first incident occurred when a person walked out of the library restroom without their pants on. The second one involved someone exposing themselves in the computer area.

Library staff called the police, and Gallup Police escorted the people out of the library. Moe said her staff is legally not allowed to touch the individuals when situations such as these occur.

In these cases, the case manager will establish protocols for indecent exposures or other situations in which the library’s environment is disturbed.

“Our goal in the library is to build a space where people are safe, welcomed, and they can access the resources for whatever their need is,” Moe said.

The council approved the requested funding for the case manager on Sept. 24, so now Moe and Martinez can start searching for the right person for the role.

By Molly Ann Howell
Managing Editor

Each month, the Sun recognizes a local teacher for his or her determination to help students go above and beyond. Anyone can nominate a teacher by emailing the Sun at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and providing the teacher’s name, where they teach, and why they should be selected as that month’s winner.

This month’s award went to Monique Martinez, who teaches Pre-K at Catherine A. Miller Elementary.

PATH TO TEACHING

Martinez was born and raised in Gallup. She attended Indian Hills Elementary, JFK Middle School, and Gallup High. After she graduated high school, Martinez pursued a degree in Elementary Education at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales.

When she graduated from college, Martinez returned to Gallup and took a job teaching first grade at a school that eventually merged with what is now Del Norte Elementary. She taught at Del Norte for 11 years before she decided to go for a change of pace. She accepted a job at Catherine A. Miller Elementary where she split the responsibilities of a Pre-K room with another teacher. She taught in the mornings and the other teacher taught in the afternoon.

That job-share opportunity helped Martinez fall in love with teaching Pre-K, and she hasn’t looked back since. She’s been teaching the youngest students (the 3-year-old) group at Catherine A. Miller for nine years now, meaning she’s been teaching for a total of 20 years.

When she realized Pre-K was where she belonged, she went back to school and got her master’s in early childhood curriculum and development.

WHAT THE 3-YEAR-OLDS TEACH HER

Martinez fills her days with watching the world through her students’ eyes. They learn about insects, shapes, and colors, and she said watching them interact with the world really inspires her.

“I really love this age because I can learn from them, be creative with them, and I think it really sparked a joy back in me because the focus is on the whole child and not a test score,” she said.

While she’s teaching the students how to skip and ride a trike, they’re also teaching her. For example, some students found a type of beetle while playing outside recently. Martinez said she grew up calling it a “mustard beetle,” but when she took a photo of it with her phone the internet informed her that it was an elm leaf beetle.

Overall, Martinez said the students encourage her to slow down and take a look at the world around her.

“We’re in such a fast-paced society, it’s so neat to just sit with a child and see what they’re going to make out of some blocks,” she said.

As a teacher of such a young age group, Martinez said she loves seeing the amount of growth each student experiences throughout the year in her classroom.

“I feel like I get to see such growth from the beginning of the year to the end of the year,” she said. “They grow from kids who couldn’t say any words at the beginning [of the school year] to students who are greeting me at the end of the year.”

She also enjoys when parents or guardians approach her and excitedly tell her about the new skills their child has shown off. A grandparent of a student with special needs said her grandson was announcing every time he saw the letter “L” in public because he recognized it as a letter in his own name. Another parent told her they were celebrating their son’s vocabulary development because he’d started using the word “delicious.”

Lacinda Arviso teaches 4-year-olds in the room next door to Martinez’s, and her son was in Martinez’s classroom a couple years ago. In an interview with the Sun, she complimented Martinez and said her son truly enjoyed having her as a teacher.

“He loved it,” she said. “It was just a joy every day to have him in there, and I was just so lucky to be next door to him and hear him and listen to all their songs and experiments.”

Another person who sang Martinez’s praises was her assistant teacher Sefina Garcia. The two women have worked together for the past eight years.

“I think she’s so awesome to work with,” Garcia said of Martinez. “She gets down to the kids’ level and that’s exactly what these kids need. The kids here are so very blessed to have her as a teacher, and I’m very blessed to have her as my co-teacher. She supports me emotionally just like she supports the kids.”

PREPARING THEM FOR THE FUTURE

Martinez said the hardest part about teaching is watching the students move on to the next stage of their education.

“You really create such a bond that seeing them go off to the next grade makes you feel a sense of happiness but also sadness because you really create a little family here in your classroom,” Martinez explained. “So it’s really hard to see them go.”

But ultimately Martinez believes that as long as she’s helped them grow and get ready for the world, she’s done her job right.

“At the end of the day, if they leave my room and they’re able to control their little emotions a little more, or be excited about learning still, then I feel like that’s the best part, seeing how they grow and change over time,” she said.

By Molly Ann Howell

Managing Editor

Ramah students gain confidence

Gallup-McKinley County Schools provides its students with ample opportunities to prepare themselves for their future careers.

From the “Schools Of” program to internships led by community members, GMCS students have a wide selection of experiences that can help further their education and careers.

One such program is the Business Professionals of America. BPA is a nationwide organization that helps students develop employable skills that will prepare them for jobs in both the general workforce and the business sector.

Ramah High School has a rather large BPA participation rate, as every student who takes the business classes participates in BPA in some shape or form.

Shawna Grassie is Ramah’s sponsor for the program, and she said watching the students develop these valuable skills fills her with pride.

“At the classroom level and as the sponsor for the chapter, seeing the students put everything together that they’re learning into practice and perfecting their abilities and talents [is my favorite part],” she said. “It’s great to see them take the concepts from the classroom and explore how to implement them in a lot of different capacities, whether it’s just talking to students from other schools within their region or state at different networking events or developing leadership skills that help them inside the school or outside the school and in their communities or on sports team.”

WHAT BPA DOES

As a Career and Technical Student Organization, BPA teaches students important skills surrounding their potential future careers. Students can compete in regional, statewide, and even national BPA competitions. These competitions feature a variety of challenges, but a core component involves testing a student’s interview skills. Students participate in a role-playing exercise and are graded based on their performance.

Overall, students learn communication skills and technical skills that will give them a step up in the world outside of high school.

Several students from Ramah have competed at the national level in the past, and Principal David Gibbons said he’s seen some vast improvement out of those students.

“We had some kids go to nationals last year [and] their confidence just went through the roof,” he said. “They participated and competed and saw that kids from a little school can really be successful. There’s really no barrier to what they can do.”

Grassie chaperoned last year’s trip to the BPA National Competition, which was held in Chicago. She said seeing the students experience a different part of the country was her favorite part of the trip.

“For the students I’ve taken to nationals, my favorite part is seeing the fire in their eyes when they see this whole new world that’s been opened up to them because of their abilities that they work so hard to refine,” she said. “Two of the students I’ve taken to nationals in the past couple years had never really been out of the local area, so having that opportunity to travel to someplace completely different than what they know was a great chance for them to see how things work in other cities and states and meet people from around the country.”

Students from all over the country traveled to Chicago for nationals last year. Ramah students Autumn Cooche and Darren Garcia traveled to the Midwest city and experienced many unique opportunities.

They tried deep dish pizza and visited the Field Museum. They didn’t get to see the “Bean,” though, since it was under construction starting in August 2023, and didn’t reopen until late June.

Cooche, who was a junior during the trip, said she couldn’t get over how big the city was, especially Lake Michigan.

“I thought it was an ocean; it does not look like a lake!” she said.

WHY THEY JOINED BPA

Both Cooche and Garcia said they joined BPA to get outside of their comfort zones.

“I wanted to be a part of BPA because I wanted to get out of my comfort zone and also try to explore more fields of the workforce,” Garcia said. “I also want to pursue an education in accounting.”

The program helps students connect and collaborate with students across their own state and the nation. The conferences arrange breakout sessions in which the students discuss different topics and broaden their perspectives.

To prepare for competitions, Grassie hands out packets the students can study. The packets include vocabulary words and concepts surrounding the specific areas they may compete in.

In an interview with the Sun, Ramah Dean said that the students truly have come out of their shells while participating in BPA.

“This group is actually one of our quieter group of students, and it’s actually been through BPA that we’ve seen these guys come to live and start talking and start participating and being more active as students,” she said. “It’s been a really cool thing to see as admin and teachers as these guys come out of their shells a little bit.”

THE COMPETITION THAT LAYS AHEAD

The students are only starting to prepare for this year’s competitions. The regional competition is in Farmington on Dec. 11, and the state leadership conference will take place in Albuquerque from Feb. 20-22.

If any students from the GMCS area qualifies for the national competition, they will head to Orlando the weekend of May 9.

For more information about BPA, visit BPA.org.

By Molly Ann Howell
Managing Editor