Remembering Richard McCord: He was Santa Fe

In 2015, Richard McCord was being considered to be honored as a Santa Fe Living Treasure. I would like to share with you the Richard I know through the following nomination of him for his richly deserved (and accepted) position in this august group of Santa Feans. McCord died earlier this month. He will be missed.

Richard McCord is probably best known as the founder, editor and publisher of the Santa Fe Reporter from 1974 to 1988, following his journalism years at Newsday in New York and then the Santa Fe New Mexican.

He has won countless awards for excellence throughout his career, most recently documented in “The rich, full life of an editor who lost the Pulitzer” by columnist Milan Simonich in his “Ringside Seat” article in October 2015 for the Santa Fe New Mexican. He is also acclaimed author of four books.

But the Richard McCord I would like to recommend to you is all of that and much more.

Richard has a deep and abiding love of Santa Fe. Has from the moment he and his then-wife (and future co-editor at the Reporter) Laurie Knowles arrived in our city and pitched a tent up on Hyde Park. Personally, I suspect it’s because he found a home of people just like himself. Quirky types. Idealistic. Cerebral, but passionate about life. Creative and driven to right the wrongs they see. Talented, with lots of stamina and enough sense to at least get by.

I met Richard when I joined the board of the Old Santa Fe Association about a decade or more ago.

He extolled our organization through several articles in various publications, and worked in writing and editing our newsletters. My favorite was an article vividly describing what Santa Fe would look like today if there had been no OSFA. Thoroughly documented and imaginatively described.

One day over Indian food, I asked Richard if I could read some of the

Reporters he had published. Not two days later, he appeared at my door with a large suitcase. In it was a copy of virtually every weekly edition for every year for 14 years. It took me awhile, but I read (or at least scanned articles in) every one.

Clearly, he touched, and was touched by, Santa Fe and Santa Feans of all stripes. He took on every injustice, every silliness, and lauded every tradition and cultural icon he came across, from the Roundhouse to “The Oldest House.”

In a nutshell, Richard McCord isn’t just a proud and accomplished citizen of Santa Fe. He is Santa Fe.

And the Santa Fe community is so very much better for his arrival here.

Marilyn Bane nominated her friend, Richard McCord, to be a Santa Fe Living Treasure.