THE PAST 100 YEARS

From The Santa Fe New Mexican:

May 23, 1923: Santa Fe Fiesta Has Reached Only $1,600 — With $1,900 Still to be Raised. Get Busy!

May 23, 1973: Española Mayor Richard Lucero has been indicted by the Rio Arriba County grand jury on two counts of paying or receiving public money for services not rendered and falsifying public documents, according to Asst. Dist. Atty. Raul Sedillo.

The indictment came after Lucero had been served with a warrant containing the charges. The grand jury returned the indictment following a session in Tierra Amarilla.

Lucero was arraigned this morning in Santa Fe before District Judge Santiago Campos on those charges.

May 23, 1998: The tears did not come until the awards assembly, when the St. Catherine Indian School seniors gazed at one another in purple gowns and mortar boards, and reality set in.

Enmarie Sheppard, 18, of Tuba City, Ariz., struggled for words. Mostly, she struggled to choke back the tears that came every time she spoke.

“It’s hard to imagine you don’t have something to come back to,” said Sheppard, who four years ago was scared to attend St. Catherine and is now afraid to leave.

“There won’t be anything to come back to.”

Members of the class of 1998 received their diplomas Friday afternoon at St. Francis Cathedral in a ceremony presided by Archbishop Michael Sheehan.

The day was bittersweet for the 35 seniors who learned in April that the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, a Pennsylvania order, decided to close the 111-year-old Indian Catholic private school because of lack of funding.