The Gallup Cultural Center is getting a top-to-bottom refresh that will see new programs and classes this summer, along with building repairs and the return of Indian dances three nights a week.

The old Santa Fe Depot that houses the Cultural Center has gotten a major spring cleaning: painting, repairs and the addition of a new arena for Indian dances. The dances will be presented at 7 pm Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the summer.

“We’re expanding on dances, artwork, history and just public relations to get people to come to our city and the Gallup Cultural Center in a way that showcases us as uniquely Gallup,” Director Teri Fraiser said.

The room that used to house...

Gallup citizens are accustomed to having movies filmed in their town. Popular movies like “Superman” (1978), “Natural Born Killers” (1994), and “The Grapes of Wrath” (1940) have all brought movie crews to the small town of Gallup.

Back in February, another film crew spent a weekend in downtown Gallup.

“Liberty of Jewels” is a short film about a struggling Navajo father who works in Gallup as a clerk for a trading post.

The film was directed by Keanu Jones, a member of the Navajo Nation.

“‘Liberty of Jewels’ is about a financially strained Navajo father who’s trying everything that he can to take care of his family,” Jones explained in an interview with...

Students take part in Earth Day WORK EVENT

Roaming neighborhoods in squads to pick up trash, hundreds of students braved the wind April 21-22 to take part in Keep Gallup Clean and Beautiful’s Earth Day Clean-up.

The event began with a challenge within Gallup-McKinley County Schools to see which team could pick up the most trash.

All students at Catherine A. Miller, Lincoln, David Skeet and Turpen elementary schools, plus 100 from Thoreau and 175 from Stagecoach Elementary got into the act. Among middle schools, Crownpoint (199), Kennedy (600+), Tohatchi (100) and Thoreau joined in. Miyamura High School had 83 participants, including 15 teachers and assistants, eight...

Ever since childhood, Gallup native Lou Sandoval knew that God had a purpose for him.

Flash forward to Sandoval as an adult who has just walked out of “The Passion of the Christ,” a movie about the last 12 hours of Jesus’s life, his crucifixion, and his resurrection. Twenty-four hours later, an idea lights up his mind: a sculpture depicting Jesus as a “warrior champion.”

“We’ve never really seen a trophy statue of the greatest victory in the history of our species,” Sandoval said in an interview with the Sun.

With this idea in his head, Sandoval drove back home to Gallup to begin sculpting in his father’s workshop. Four months later, he emerged with a finished...