This anti-war demonstration was pictured in the 1972 Swastika. If you recognize the alumni or the event, please write us at Aggie PANORAMA. If you graduated in 1971, come to your 25th reunion at Homecoming Oct. 24-26. The classes of 1946 and 1956 also will be honored. This photograph was provided by the Hobson Huntsinger University Archives at the New Mexico State University Library. If you have material you wish to donate to the archives, please call (505) 646-4727.
NMSU's first anthropologist applies funnybone
Stage fright is a phenomenon that few who know Bradley Blake would likely associate with him. But Blake, renowned at NMSU these last 30 years as a riveting classroom teacher and a top-notch raconteur, claims public speaking used to cause him untold distress.
Arriving at NMSU in 1965, fresh from graduate school in anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, Blake had limited teaching experience, just small quiz sections of 10 to 12 people, he remembers. At his first lecture class, 75 students in a converted barracks on a broiling August day, he panicked.
"We all used to smoke in class then, teachers and students. I lit a cigarette and my hand was shaking so hard I couldnt write my name on the chalkboard. Then I went to take a drag on my cigarette and got the chalk instead. They laughed at me!" Blake says in mock-injured tones. "I thought I had prepared a 50-minute lecture, but I finished in 20 minutes, sweating like mad. None of us in graduate school had ever taken an education class or drawn up a lesson plan."
He learned a lot in a hurry, enough to earn NMSUÕs highest honors for teaching, the Westhafer Award (1969) and the Roush Award (twice, 1984 and 1987).
This July Blake retires after 31 years at NMSU. Hired as the universitys first anthropologist at an annual salary of $8,000, he taught initially in the Department of History and Social Sciences. In those days his program had no skeletal equipment, no labs, not even maps, he says, claiming he remedied the deficiencies with some creative thievery and some imagination. For example, a Red Cross van from the Korean War, repainted and dubbed the Titanic, served as a field vehicle for archaeological digs.
Blake developed and taught every course in the discipline for five years, until he was able to hire more faculty. Later he headed the Department of Sociology and Anthropology.
For the last 10 years he has served as director of the NMSU Museum, presiding over its extensive collection of natural-history, archaeological and historical artifacts. Under Blakes leadership the museum has built especially strong ties with the Las Cruces community. On the side, his freewheeling Directors Notes column in the museum newsletter has earned him considerable repute as a writer and storyteller.
He is a master teacher, comments Blakes longtime colleague Wenda Trevathan. "Whenever I mention in the community that IÕm from the anthropology department, someone tells me about how a course with Brad Blake years ago turned them on to anthropology "
Blake himself says simply, "What has kept me going is the fun of teaching here. I really, really like the students." A tough grader, he is the kind of teacher who demands lots of participation. And donÕt try skipping class: He has a sharp eye for missing faces. Next time he sees you heÕll inquire pointedly after your health.
It was speaking to community groups, Blake says, that helped him overcome his fear of public speaking once and for all.
"Thats how I got my training, it wasnt in grad school, it was in the trenches of Las Cruces," he says with a touch of bravado. He adds, arching an eyebrow, that he was once sought out by a spouses group called Wildlife Wives. (They only wanted a speech.)
Blake has an Indiana Jones-style panache. A former U.S. Air Force jet fighter pilot who kept his commercial pilot credentials, he once ran an air-taxi service and still gives flying lessons in his spare time. A prize-winning clarinetist, he has played at rodeos and parades with the Mohave Indian marching bandÑas well as at Las Cruces Symphony concerts. He can toss off phrases in Telugu, having done field work in southern India,where his harmonica playing charmed the natives. And hes still friends with the fishermen he met while conducting research on maritime anthropology in Ireland.
Blake traces his curiosity about different cultures to his boyhood in an ethnically mixed neighborhood in Stevens Point, Wisc. Heir to his railroad-engineer fathers Irish love of words and wit, Blake also benefited from the emphasis his mother, an English teacher, placed on education. After high school, travel with the U.S. Air Force whetted his appetite for other places and ways of life.
Egged on by his wife, Terry, Blake has recently written some reminiscences that may one day add up to a full-length memoir. Though he plans to continue teaching Honors classes at NMSU, he expects retirement to fulfill some long-deferred dreams.
"I have a young family I want to spend time with," Blake says. Terry, their son Sam, 10, and daughter Elinor, 6, will receive top priority. "And I have to catch a record-sized striped bass out of Elephant Butte. "
Oh, the fish stories to come.