CELEBRATIONS

Faces & places

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Mexico awarded more than $570,000 in grants to 26 nonprofits statewide through its Healthy Kids, Healthy Families initiative. The grantees include the following organizations:

◆ Economic Council Helping Others: Teaching preschool children the importance of healthy foods by developing and maintaining a garden.

◆ Many Mothers: Providing infants and caregivers with in-home services and wraparound care aimed at creating healthier outcomes.

◆ Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central New Mexico: Providing outdoor physical activities and educational opportunities for children and youth.

◆ Rebuilding Together Sandoval County: Providing critical home repairs for low-income homeowners.

◆ Santa Fe Indigenous Center: Providing continued support for the Emergency Financial Assistance program that helps Native families avoid homelessness, destabilization and family separation.

◆ American Cancer Society: Educating New Mexicans on the importance of cancer-related screenings.

◆ New Mexico Appleseed: Supporting systemic change that yields permanent and long-term improvement on hunger, homelessness, family economic security, child mistreatment and education.

◆ New Mexico CASA Association: Strengthening and growing local CASA programs that serve abused and neglected children in foster care.

◆ New Mexico Dental Association Foundation: Increasing oral health literacy among children and families.

◆ Pegasus Legal Services for Children: Offering free, bilingual civil legal services to children, youth and their caregivers.

Education standouts

Two students in the Institute of American Indian Arts’ Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing program have been awarded scholarships of $10,000 each from Warner Bros. Discovery Access.

The scholarship committee recognized Sabrina Saleha, who is Diné, and Cressandra Thibodeaux of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians for their promising TV pilot screenplays and commitment to advancing visibility, opportunities and intellectual property rights for Indigenous people in the television and film industries.

Saleha is a Navajo and Bangladeshi American screenwriter and actress based in Atlanta. Her work is influenced by her identity as a Native American and South Asian woman. She pursued studies in business that led to employment at a Fortune 500 company in Silicon Valley. In 2018, she left the corporate world to pursue her passion for storytelling. She writes science fiction and fantasy, and is working on adapting Navajo stories for film and television that accurately represent Indigenous people and cultures through complex and nuanced story arcs.

Thibodeaux earned a Master of Fine Arts in Directing from Columbia University’s film program and received many awards, including two MacDowell Colony Fellowships and a Rockefeller grant. She studied documentary theater at the Tectonic Theater Project in New York City, where she started preliminary work on her critically acclaimed play, Dialogues on Grace, and has been the director and editor of several award-winning documentary films. She also is the founder of the artist-run theater 14 Pews and production company Bechdel Films in Houston, where she works as a filmmaker and teaches filmmaking to at-risk teens. She is developing a screenplay for a television series that centers on tribal law and sovereignty.

Several local students have graduated from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City:

◆ Lindsey Reader of Los Alamos earned a doctorate in biology.

◆ Daniel Rodriguez of Los Alamos earned a doctorate in chemistry.

◆ Sean Ramsey of Santa Fe earned a Bachelor of Science in health and kinesiology.

◆ Claire Ticknor of Los Alamos earned an Honors Bachelor of Science, cum laude, in mechanical engineering.

◆ Benjamin Shelton of Santa Fe earned a Bachelor of Science in psychology.

◆ Samuel Baty of Los Alamos earned a doctorate in political science.

Camryn Dickson of Los Alamos graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in kinesiology from Abilene Christian University.

Annie Schulz of Santa Fe graduated magna cum laude from Furman University in Greenville, S.C., with a Bachelor of Science in sustainability science. Schulz’s parents are Margaret Lambe and Kenneth Schulz.

Faye Heneghan of Santa Fe was named to the spring 2022 Dean’s List at Montclair State University in New Jersey. Heneghan is a social media public relations major.

Kyle Barrett of Santa Fe graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York with an MBA.

Colton Lake of Santa Fe earned a Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, at Adelphi University in Garden City, N.Y. Lake majored in political science and economics and earned Pi Sigma Alpha honors and Departmental Honors.

Isabella Child of Santa Fe was named to the Dean’s List at Bates College in Lewston, Maine, for the winter semester ending in April. Child, the daughter of Josiah H. Child III and Mary N. Wegner, is a 2018 graduate of Santa Fe Preparatory School. She is a senior at Bates majoring in rhetoric, film and screen studies.

Trinity Lopez of Santa Fe received the John Herbert and Mamie E. Farley Prize in Philosophy, awarded to a senior student at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis., excelling in the study of philosophy. Trinity graduated in June with a major in philosophy.

Oscar Loya of Santa Fe received the school’s Christine Gerdes Award in Anthropology, awarded to an outstanding junior anthropology major. A member of the Class of 2023, he also was named to the Mortar Board. He is majoring in anthropology and East Asian studies.

Julianna Tibbetts of Santa Fe earned a Master of Science in communications sciences and disorders from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.