We’ve all been aware of the hard times that Ruidoso residents have been facing since the huge South Fork and Salt fires and subsequent flooding this summer.
Last Sunday, the Albuquerque Journal wrote a great story about how the Ruidoso High School football team was going ahead with its fall season, even though they were shortchanged on their fall practice sessions and many of the players homes were lost in the fire or flooding.
Their first outing was not very successful, with the Warriors losing 50-7 to the always difficult Eunice Cardinals. (When I was a football player at Ruidoso High School centuries ago, the teams in southeast New Mexico that were in our district — Jal and Eunice — would always flog us mercifully.) But I have hope for better things from Ruidoso.
As an example, my pet project at White Mountain Elementary to have students in the 3rd grade raise and release trout is moving ahead, despite the setbacks.
As you may recall, the students at White Mountain Elementary were able to release 13 tiny fish they had raised in their classrooms into the Rio Ruidoso last May, only to have them washed away in subsequent flooding a few weeks later after the devastating South Fork forest fire.
I was very doubtful that the program would be able to continue in the coming school year. Several teachers lost their homes in the fire and/or the flooding, many of the students’ parents lost homes or jobs and had to move away.
Yet the teachers who initiated the Trout Unlimited “Trout in the Classroom” project wanted to give it another try.
We’re hoping to deliver fish eggs from the New Mexico Game and Fish Department earlier this year — hopefully late October or early November — so the fish will be a bit larger when we release them. We’ve also been able to convince the NM Game and Fish Department to let us release the fish in Grindstone Reservoir, which was not affected by the two fires or flooding.
(The only downside is that the fish will probably eventually be caught and eaten by people from out of state — well, mostly one state to the south and east of us — I won’t name names.)
I’m very heartened by the dedication of these teachers and their desire to keep things normal in their community after all the suffering it has endured this summer. As I said before, the two individuals who initiated this program, Michelle Thurston and Rachel Lutterman, are the kinds of teachers we all wanted our kids to have when they were growing up. They expressed no hesitation about getting the program going again.
I’m hoping for a great outcome this year and am looking forward to several trips to Ruidoso this fall and winter to help the program succeed and help show how the community has recovered.
I’ll keep you posted.
aero-cordero.com 