@NMSU
Well-known NMSU professor remembered
"His poetry was as honest andfearless and direct as the man." That's how one faculty member remembers Las Crucespoet laureate and former New Mexico State University Professor Emeritus KeithWilson. A memorial service for Wilson will be held at St. Andrews EpiscopalChurch on at 4:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 28.
"Keith mentored me, among otheryoung writers, when I arrived at NMSU in 1966," said Mark Medoff, artistic director of NMSU's Creative Media Institute for Film and Digital Arts. "He was always honest, compassionate and encouraging. The way he treated his studentswas instructive to me as to how I ought to treat mine." Wilson spent 22 years at NMSU before retiring in 1987.
Medoff, a Tony Award-winning playwright and Oscar-nominated screenwriter, credits Wilson with nurturing the writing community in Las Cruces for decades.
"He and his wife Heloise - and they were a team, make no mistake - welcomed many writers into their home," Medoffsaid. "They were responsible for many public readings and many congenial gatherings of beginning writers, the rising and the famous. "
With nearly 40 volumes published, Wilson was an internationally known poet awarded numerous honors including a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship, a Senior Fulbright-Hays Fellowship to Romania and New Mexico Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts. Wilson was Las Cruces' first and only poet laureate. At age 81, Wilson died Feb. 10 at Mesilla Valley Hospice.
"Keith had great longevity as a writer; the creativity never waned, nor did his commitmentto NMSU and Las Cruces," Medoff, said. "He was a bright thread in the tapestry of our community."
A stroke left Wilson unable to speak for the last five years, but his voice will live on in a 1,000-page volume of his collected poems called "Shaman of the Desert." It will be published by Clarke City Press.
Written by Minerva Baumann.