Ay, ay, ay, that Denise Chavez, ’71, ’80, sure can tell story. She is a wild girl, dramatic to the ends of her salted dark hair. She captures the cadence of the borderland in a way that reading her latest novel, Loving Pedro Infante, at first is like listening to Chavez tell the story herself. Soon, though, she exits the page leaving you in the company of Tere Avila, the young woman who in her own voice charms and exasperates you to the very end.

After the book came out in April, however, Chavez reclaimed center stage, talking about Tere and about Pedro, the real-life Mexican film star killed in a 1957 plane crash. “Tere doesn’t know how to separate the myth of loving Pedro from the reality of her own life,” she says.

In telling Tere’s story Chavez drew on her own sweet memories of growing up in Las Cruces, where she has lived for most of her life. She recalls going to the movies in El Paso, Texas, with her mother and aunt. “We rented adjoining rooms at the McCoy Hotel next to the Plaza Theater and spent the whole weekend watching movies,” she says. “For my mother, who was single, the movies were her only romance.”

Fans of Pedro Infante and of Denise Chavez have had the fun of seeing them both at Pedro-a-thons held all over the country. Hundreds came to the Mexican Fine Arts Museum in Chicago to hear her read from the book and to see clips from the star’s 62 films. “I met people who said ‘My mother took me to see Pedro’ or ‘Pedro kissed me,’” she says.

Loving Pedro Infante (Farrar Straus Giroux, $24 hardcover) is available at the New Mexico State University Bookstore by contacting Carol Maness, (505) 646-7660, cmaness@nmsu.edu.

Having forgotten English after living in Mexico for six years and being placed in the seventh grade at age 14, Lina Benavidez, ’01, dreamed of harnessing the language well enough to be placed where she belonged — in the 10th grade.

A bilingual education graduate from the College of Education at New Mexico State with a graduate scholarship to Harvard, Benavidez dreams of the day she can help students like herself reach their full potential

The only daughter of a Mexican mother with a second-grade education, Benavidez was discouraged by her family from pursuing her education this far, but she says “It’s the best way I could possibly help them.”

She also was discouraged from applying to college by her high school guidance counselor, who felt her linguistic differences would prevent her from any kind of success in higher education.

Volcanic rock is the foundation of a successful business developed by, from left, Hilton A. “Skip” Dickson III, ’80; John R. Funk, ’80; and Cody R. Leser, ’78.
Photo by Meghann Dallin

A college friendship and membership in the Delta Sigma Pi business fraternity has bloomed into a successful business partnership for three New Mexico State University alumni.

Hilton A. “Skip” Dickson III, ’80, accounting; John R. Funk, ’80, accounting; and Cody R. Leser, ’78, marketing, have teamed up to make their company, Santa Fe Mining Co. of Las Cruces, the nation’s largest producer of scoria, a porous, multi-colored volcanic rock with a surprising range of uses.

Funk, Santa Fe Mining Co.’s executive vice president and general counsel, said the partnership wasn’t something the three ever planned on, but it fell into place after Dickson bought the company in 1997, becoming its president and chief operating officer.

“Skip and I went through business school together at NMSU and we kept in touch over the years. He called me and asked me to join him and, eventually, we called Cody, who happens to be one of the best salesmen in the world,” Funk said.

Leser became Santa Fe Mining Co.’s executive vice president of sales and marketing in May. Together, the three have raised Santa Fe Mining Co. from number three to number one in its unique marketing niche, Funk said.

Scoria, which is actually a volcanic glass, is mined from the cones of extinct volcanoes that dot New Mexico’s landscape. Santa Fe Mining Co. has three mines in Dona Ana County and one near Santa Fe, Funk said.