Luis Sánchez Saturno/The New Mexican
Patricia A Lundstrum, D-Gallup, takes her oath of office on the house floor during the first day of the legislative session on Tuesday, January 19, 2021.
At 16, state Rep. Patty Lundstrom started her own business.
An overnight success? Hardly. Her first venture failed miserably.
“We were broke at the end of it,” the Gallup Democrat, now 60, recalled in a recent interview. “We had to close up shop two weeks early.”
But the experience — operating a concession stand at the government-owned swimming pool in the village of Milan, where she grew up — proved valuable for the ambitious self-starter. Looking back, she said it offered lessons that helped shape her.