TO OUR READERS

In our cover story, Features writer Rosalie Rayburn traveled to the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument near Mountainair, where a crew of young men is toiling through the summer to stabilize the centuries-old stone walls.

It’s a part of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s HOPE Crew program, which gives high school and college students hands-on experience and a shot at a possible federal career in the National Parks Service.

Rayburn also spent time with another young New Mexican, a recent Cottonwood Classical School graduate who spent part of her summer in China. Sage Herrick, also a Presidential Scholar, was one of a small group of U.S. teens chosen to visit China in late July to foster better understanding between the two countries.

Author and financial planner Donna Skeels Cygan connects the dots between money and happiness in her column this month.

Assistant Arts Editor Kathaleen Roberts looks at a retrospective exhibition at the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts that spans 40 years of trailblazing artist Rick Bartow. The traveling show assembles 120 paintings, drawings, sculptures and prints by the artist who died in April.

Roberts also previews “The Gavones of Philadelphia,” a black comedy opening at the Adobe Theater this week, as well as “Auntie Mame” at Albuquerque Little Theatre.

David Steinberg reviews “Rob Thy Neighbor” by Corrales’ David Thurlo. The book is the third in a mystery series started by Thurlo and his whife, Aimée Thurlo, who died in 2014.

Until next week,

Helen Taylor Editor