A whirlwind year includes seat at Super Bowl
Los Lunas’ Guinn among health care workers at game
Lauren Guinn describes herself as a wandering soul when she explains how a girl from Alamogordo ended up as a health care worker in Tampa, Florida.
That wandering soul was treated to a peak NFL experience in the form of a free ticket to Super Bowl LV in Tampa on Sunday.
Guinn, 22, who graduated from Los Lunas High School in 2016, reveled in her random reward, attending her first NFL game and watching her favorite football team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, beat the Kansas City Chiefs.
Guinn, in her first year as a radiologic technologist at a regional hospital in Tampa, was one of 7,500 health care workers drawn from a raffle of those who had been vaccinated and eligible to win a free ticket to attend the big game at Raymond James Stadium.
“It was crazy,” she said. “But it was so much fun. A once-in-a-lifetime experience for sure.”
Guinn grew up in Alamogordo. Before her junior year, she attended LLHS, where her mother, Darian Jaramillo, is the principal.
At Los Lunas, Guinn became a two-time state champion athlete, winning with the girls’ basketball team in 2015 and with the girls volleyball team in 2016.
She grew up “sort of” a Dallas Cowboys fan because her mother loves that team. Football surrounded Guinn during her childhood. Her stepfather, Tony Jaramillo, was a longtime football coach, working at Alamogordo and then for Los Lunas.
When Guinn moved to Tampa this past summer, she easily fell in love with the Bucs. Two weeks before the Super Bowl, she couldn’t believe when she was told that she had won a free ticket.
“When you live in a town that has a team, you want to root for them,” Guinn said. “Since we were like ‘Title Town’ this year, we wanted the Bucs to win so bad. The Lightning won the Stanley Cup. The Rays were close to winning the World Series. It was so exciting.”
Darian Jaramillo said she considered her daughter’s special Sunday a reward for all the challenges she had to deal with and the adversity she overcame to find a new home in Tampa.
After four years at Colorado Mesa Uni
versity, Guinn earned a degree in radiological sciences. As many graduates last spring, she could not accept her degree in person during a live ceremony due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Afterward, she was unsure if she could find a job. She had always wanted to live in Florida. In August, she interviewed for a job in Tampa.
Guinn described her first six months on the job as “life-changing.” Many of her days have consisted of chest X-rays for COVID-19 patients, examining for fluid in lungs or attempting to detect signs of pneumonia.
“I learned a lot this past year,” she said. “It makes you thankful for your health and for your family’s health. It makes you just very humbled. It’s not fun seeing people in these types of conditions.”
She was able to take the day off Sunday and enjoy the Super Bowl with her colleagues. At certain moments during the day, she said she felt united with all the other health care workers who are fighting against the coronavirus.
Before the game, Miley Cyrus performed for the health care workers in a private concert.
During the game, Guinn wore her Tom Brady jersey and cheered for the Bucs while at a distance from other health care workers and surrounded by mostly cardboard cutouts of fans.
She sat two rows from the field when The Weeknd performed at halftime.
Darian Jaramillo declined to talk about the situation at Los Lunas High and the upcoming decisions for students to return. She instead only wanted to talk about her daughter, and for the Super Bowl, she became a Bucs fan.
“Watching the game was a little more exciting this year because I knew she was there,” Jaramillo said. “She was sending me videos, pictures and even FaceTimed me throughout the day. I know how hard she works and how busy they have been in Florida, so this was extra special.”