The past 100 years

From The Santa Fe New Mexican:

Aug. 15, 1917: East Las Vegas, N.M. — Following the course recommended by the country’s best educators, and profiting by the experience of the Dominion of Canada, which has found it a poor policy to encourage young men under 21 to give up their schooling to go to war, the New Mexico Normal University has prepared to encourage education during the coming school year more than ever before. The school has reason to expect the largest attendance in its history because of the fact that the summer session just closed, showed a marked increase in enrollment. It was the only summer school west of the Mississippi to show a gain, which demonstrates that interest in educational matters in New Mexico is growing so rapidly that the depressing effects of the war are more than offset.

Aug. 15, 1967: The New Mexico Constitution is getting gray hair. It’s 55 years old, and in the opinion of many it’s seriously outmoded.

Former Gov. Jack Campbell, with the help of the legislature, established in 1963 a 15-member nonpartisan commission to study the Constitution in depth, constitutions of other states and to recommend improvements.

The 261-page report now is complete. It recommends very far reaching, controversial changes and, in the opinion of commission members, could give New Mexico the means to cope with changing demands of the residents.

Aug. 15, 1992: The early morning sun woke Sue Radecki one morning a few days after her husband was killed.

She arose to pull down the shade and glanced out her bedroom window, which overlooks Rodeo Road.

“There was just a man standing there like he was praying,” Sue said, bowing her head to mimic the man’s posture. “He was just standing like he was meditating or praying. It was a complete stranger, someone I didn’t know, saying a little prayer.”

The man, Sue believes, was praying for her husband, Chester, in the spot where Chester was gunned down a week ago today by someone else she didn’t know.