SantaFe.com

Ed Grothus doesn't really need a special forum for speaking his mind. He's been doing it for almost 39 years, since he left his job as a machinist with Los Alamos National Laboratory and began speaking out against nuclear proliferation and selling the lab's throwaways at the store he calls the Black Hole.

During that time, he often found himself in the national news, whether it was for accidentally finding a book with the signatures of 47 major Manhattan Project players that sold at Sotheby's for $23,000 or for getting a visit from the Secret Service after sending some "organic plutonium"...

Friday, May 9, 2008
by Polly Summar • Journal Santa Fe

Welcoming a new baby is part joy, part work. It can also be lonely if there's no family around.

"We call ourselves the modern-day version of extended family," said Julie Peet, program director for Many Mothers, a nonprofit organization that provides help for new mothers.

And Joyce Bond, 53, knew she was going to need an extra pair of arms— or two or three— when she learned she was going to deliver triplets.

"I'm probably the oldest mom of triplets in New Mexico," said Bond, marketing manager for the city's Public Works Department, who said fertility treatments were involved in the pregnancy.

Saturday, May 3, 2008
by Polly Summar • Journal Santa Fe

Clayton— the Self-Professed Messiah of a Doomsday Cult Went From Presiding Over His Compound to a Cell at the Clayton/Union County Jail on Tuesday, Courtesy of the New Mexico State Police.

Wayne Bent, aka Michael Travesser, was booked into the jail— where he turned down an offer of juice and a bologna sandwich— on multiple charges of sexual contact with minors.

In an Internet posting before his arrest early Tuesday, he said he had committed no crime and compared his impending arrest to the persecution of Jesus.

Bent, 66, had previously admitted having sex with adult followers and...

Wednesday, May 7, 2008
by Vic Vela and Polly Summar • Journal Santa Fe

Frank Murphy is no tea snob. It's just that his credentials make him seem like one: author of a new book on the "transcendent nature" of tea, a senior student of a Taoist priest tea master and the recipient of the kind of full-body reaction to tea that more commonly describes a '60s drug trip.

But in his modest kitchen near Santa Fe High School, Murphy puts an ordinary saucepan of water on the stove to boil for tea, chats with his teenage daughter about whether it's OK for her to cut up a bed sheet for a dress and sets some jam jars on the counter for the tea.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008
by Polly Summar • Journal Santa Fe

The "Ticket to College" event at Santa Fe Community College on April 16 was billed as a day for prospective students to talk with financial aid and academic advisers, and get a sampling of what the college had to offer.

But an 18-year-old prospective student got an unwelcome sampling when she took a bathroom break about 1:30 p.m.

Someone tried to take a photo of her with a cell phone camera but neglected to turn off the digital function that makes the shutter sound.

"She looked behind her and saw a man's hand under the stall with a camera phone," Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano said.

Wednesday, April 30, 2008
by Polly Summar • Journal Santa Fe

There's a lot of paper involved in Wednesday's premiere of "HOME ... A Work in Progress" at the Lensic Performing Arts Center.

Talking about paper, fretting about words on paper and literally watching it rain from the sky.

That's because Joey Chavez's Santa Fe High theater students have put together an original production focusing on the 896-page manuscript of the main character, Ruben, an Española Valley native.

Ruben has come to New York City seeking fame and fortune for his novel, and life is not exactly delivering what he had planned.

"I made Ruben into a wacky, failed writer with not...

Tuesday, April 29, 2008
by Polly Summar • Journal Santa Fe

When the private New Mexico Academy for Sciences and Technology came to town 10 years ago, it was the planned buildings that were getting all the attention— an equestrian center, a swimming pool, tennis courts— all on some 27 acres of choice real estate on Old Santa Fe Trail.

But 10 years later, it's the tiny graduating class of seven that's getting the spotlight.

"It's a small class— five students from here plus two from Mali and the Ukraine— but their acceptances read like a 'who's who in colleges,' '' said Ken O'Brymin, who took over as head of school just last July.

Monday, April 28, 2008
by Polly Summar • Journal Santa Fe

Ellen Levy walked around the displays of some 50 science projects at Santa Fe High School on Thursday afternoon like a proud mother hen.

"Each individual school here has had science fairs for years," said Levy, mathematics and science coordinator for Santa Fe Public Schools. "But having a districtwide exposition and challenge for the winners from each elementary school is a first for us."

Levy was enjoying a few minutes of calm— soaking in the hypotheses and conclusions— before the Carlos Gilbert Elementary contingent arrived for individual consultations with the volunteer judges.

Friday, April 25, 2008
by Polly Summar • Journal Santa Fe

The Savannah College of Art and Design has been on Stuart Kirk's radar screen for several months.

When Kirk, president of the College of Santa Fe, announced in January that the college would not have to file for financial exigency— the higher education version of Chapter 11 bankruptcy— he mentioned SCAD as a school that was doing very well as an arts college.

The College of Santa Fe is now discussing a possible merger with SCAD, and that idea has come as a surprise to many, Kirk admitted.

"I met with all the faculty on Friday," Kirk said. With "anything like this, anyone is concerned until...

Thursday, April 24, 2008
by Polly Summar • Journal Santa Fe

If you've ever thought nothing could hold an 8-year-old's attention like his or her big brother's Wii game, you haven't seen 35 second-graders crowded into a classroom with two zoo ladies and a hedgehog.

The rain forest birds were an obvious hit for the Ramirez Thomas Elementary students. The snake, too, of course. But a hedgehog?

As zoo lady Courtney Bowers— a financial planner in her other life— held tiny Prickle in a towel and walked among the rows of chairs, the kids said "ohhhh" in lowered voices and craned their necks to see her.

As part of the "Zoo to You" program of the Rio Grande...

Tuesday, April 22, 2008 at 2:52 PM
by Polly Summar • Journal Santa Fe