Faces & places
Chris Romero, native son of Tesuque and graduate of Santa Fe High School, was promoted to the rank of colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves at the New Mexico Capitol. Less than 1 percent of the U.S. population serves in the military. He received his commission from Eastern New Mexico University, and is now in an elite group of senior commissioned officers.
Romero made a special trip back home because it was important to him to share this event with his nine siblings, family and friends. His wife, three children and his mother participated in pinning on his new rank. Romero has deployed six times overseas. His last assignment was as a battalion commander for a civil affairs unit in Utah. In his civilian job, Romero will soon retire after 25 years with the Kansas City Police Department.
The New Mexico Alliance for School-Based Health Care has elected its board of directors for 2017-18, a group that includes Secretary Mary Kay Pera and Director Debbie Birkhauser of Santa Fe. Other board members are Therese Hidalgo, president; Patsy Nelson, past president; Amilya Ellis, president-elect; Mary Morse, treasurer; Director Caitlin Adams; Adrian Carver, Elizabeth Dickson, Amanda Frost, Italia Aranda Gonzalez, Marnie Nixon, Darcie Robran-Marquez, Rebecca Sisneros, Adrienne Turner, Susan Wilger and David Vigil. Nancy Rodriguez is the executive director, and Kim Stanek is the program manager.
Judith Pepper (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma), director of institutional advancement at the Institute of American Indian Arts, has announced that the IAIA annual scholarship dinner and auction, held in August, raised a record $208,000 for scholarship funds that help IAIA students reach their academic and artistic goals. These funds will support 298 students, with the school awarding 564 scholarships this fall.
The Rev. Robin Dodge, rector of Church of the Holy Faith in Santa Fe, will be inducted as canon for ecumenical and interfaith dialogue during the opening Eucharist of the 65th annual Convention of the Diocese of the Rio Grande on Oct. 19 at All Saints Episcopal Church in El Paso.
Dodge grew up in Springfield, Vt., and received a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University in 1980, where he studied history with a particular focus on England during the reign of the Tudors and Stuarts. He received a Juris Doctorate in 1983 from Boston University. As a lawyer, Dodge practiced corporate law, concentrating in trademarks, copyrights and unfair competition, first in Chicago and then in Washington, D.C.
Dodge entered Virginia Theological Seminary and was awarded a Master of Divinity in 1999. He was ordained deacon in 1998 and priest in 1999. Dodge spent more than three years as associate rector of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Arlington, Va., before being appointed associate vicar of St. Mary Redcliffe in Bristol, England. Upon the vicar’s departure in 2004, Dodge served as priest-in-charge. In 2005, he was called to be rector of St David’s Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., where he served until he was called to Holy Faith.
Since 1986, Dodge Robin has been married to Thérèse SaintAndré. They have two sons, Cameron, 24, a graduate of St. Albans School in Washington and the University of Virginia, who lives and works in Atlanta, and Barrett, 21, who is pursuing vocational training.