Diane Joy Schmidt
“I’m proud to say, I’ve just turned 82,” says author Maria Espinosa. “I’d love to take a painting class or a sculpture class. But, no, no, I just feel, ‘Maria, you haven’t finished your work yet. You have X number of novels, stories you’ve got to complete, and you’ve got to do your damnedest to get them out in the world. And that’s what you were born on earth to do. When I was much younger, I wanted to be a dancer and actress, a singer, anything but a writer.” Asked if it takes a kind of courage to write, Espinosa replied, m“Oh, very much so. Even more so as you get older, to go against the prevailing currents and to write what you need to write, whether it’s popular or not.”
Pandemic hinders vet service on Navajo Nation, dogs multiply
VIDA VOLKERT, Gallup Independent
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GALLUP, N.M. (AP) Gloria Skeet used to run a couple of miles from her home to her sister’s place on the Navajo Nation just south of Gallup until the dogs started to chase her.
“It was around 2008 that I started developing anxiety because there was a pack of dogs that would follow me,” Skeet, the Bááháálí Chapter manager told the Gallup Independent. “I was running with my dogs and I felt safe with them, but after that man in Sundance was killed by a pack of dogs, I thought, Oh my God, when are they going to find my dead body?’
By Cedar Attanasio Associated Press / Report For America
State Senators are considering a bill to provide $30 million in subsidies for attendees of two-year colleges and a pilot program to help college dropouts finish their degrees.
Of that, $26 million would be drawn from the general fund to support students of two-year colleges through the Opportunity Scholarship. The scholarship covers tuition and fees before federal funding is awarded.
Stephanie Rodriguqez, acting secretary of the New Mexico Higher Education Department, says in an op-ed in the Albuquerque Journal that allows students the option to apply other financial aid they receive, such as federal Pell grants, to other expenses that often stand in the way of attaining a degree.