New Mexican (Newspaper) - October 14, 1997, Santa Fe, New Mexico SANTA FE 1 off hi By MARK OSWALD The New Mexican q people losing their jobs are Hispanic but officials deny Hispanics are being targeted The state Personnel Board has approved plans for eliminating 51 jobs at the High way and over the objections of legislators who say His will bear the brunt of the job cuts Rep Luciano Varela D Santa Fe told the Personnel Board at a hearing Friday that by coincidence or percent of the workers whose highway jobs are being eliminated are His panic Highway Secretary Pete Rahn said later that he didnt know if Varelas 80 percent fig ure was correct but that its true that a large number of Hispanic employees would be affected by the reduc tion in force Rahn said an ble effort is being made to find other highway department or state jobs for all whose cur rent positions are being cut The efforts include hiring tutors to help employees qualify for other jobs Rahn said Pete Rahn wm her 2 and Shelby 1 at her Job at s Auto Sates in Albuquerque On Christmas Eve 1992 Nadine daughter and by a drunken driver ears later she is the most vocal advocate in the state Stories by MONICA Mexican adine Milford was once a shrinking violet A housewife for 35 years she had never been far from home or J her five children If she went anywhere she says it was to sing in the choir or to minis ter to other women I had never been out of my home honestly and Milford said My church my children and my dren were my That was before December of 1992 In an instant Milford went from being an obscure housewife to the most visible advocate in the state The Christmas Eve crash that killed her daughter and three ters came to epitomize the states DWI problem and became the catalyst to strengthen the laws against driving while intoxicated Five years later Milford has just been elected president 01Mothers Against Drunk Driving Albuquerque chapter a position from which she can further her crusade to chip away at the DWI problem Looking back Milford is not the same person She is not the naive housewife perhaps too candid in news papers and on TV Now she has an idea what to say and not say publicly She has a better idea how to affect policy What guided her transition I think it was the she said On Dec Milford was in bed When Bob Milford came to bed he picked up the remote and flipped through the TV stations On Channel 7 local news interrupted the scheduled programming with a special report There had been a horrific crash The TV flashed images of their daughters car tangled and fused with a pickup Bob Milford ran to the front room and woke his other children who were at the house that night for the hol idays Calmly Nadine Milford told her chil dren to call her daughter Melanie on the phone Theyre probably home she said When they got no answer calmly she told one of her children to drive out to the accident scene Its only three Everything was fine she told herself A relative went to the crash site and Please see CRUSADE Page A4 looks at a photo collage of her daughter and granddaughters who died in a Christmas Eve crash In 1992 Activists plan to fight for DWI laws The states activists plan to lobby the state Legislature for the same measures they sought during the last leg session Nadine Milford president of the Albu chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving said her group drafted a letter recently to state legislators asking them to support proposals to close drive up liquor store windows and to increase penalties Milford said the group also plans to push for tougher vehicular homicide penalties The current vehicular homicide law allows three years per death and one year per prior DWI conviction MADD wants Please see Page A3 Hispanic one ethnic Sanchez wrote The Personnel Board voted after Fridays hearing to approve the highway depart ments reduction in force plan The cuts are effective Jan 2 The highway department announced the job cuts in August The department actually is cutting 71 jobs but is creating 20 new positions in road construction for a net reduction of 51 positions Of the jobs being eliminated 57 are filled by employees and 14 are vacant Rahn said He said that of the affected workers 37 have been placed in new positions or chosen Please see WORKERS Page A3 Country boy John Denver dies in plane crash Im real confident that while a lot of the affected employees are Hispanic all of them are being treated fairly and with com Rahn said I dont think ethnicity is even an House Speaker Raymond Sanchez D Albuquerque sent the Personnel Board a letter Friday saying he was concerned that nearly all of the employees to be laid off appear to be Hispanic and many of them are longtime public servants I believe it is within the jurisdiction of the Personnel Board to inquire as to what steps the Highway and Transportation Department is taking to ensure that this reduction in force does not unfairly impact New Mexican wire services PACIFIC GROVE Calif With such 1970s hits as Rocky Mountain High Sunshine on My Shoulders and Take Me Home Country Roads John Denver was a wholesome hip pie who turned out sunny music for cynical times In the end he died in a straight out of his music over the mountains sea and before Ms experimental plane plunged Sunday into picturesque Monterey Bay He was Who I am is in my Denver a 1986 interview I love it when people get Peter Paul and a of Denvers Leaving on a Jet Plane in 1969 and on Monday member Mary Travers mourned him as man who offered an alter native to angry rock and helped bind the wounds of tumultuous times I think he brought a sense of optimism a sort of naivete we were thrilled to have after Viet nam after Watergate after the rising tide of cynicism of the she said was talking about how beautiful it was in the mountains saying There is another side to it Denvers Long EZ plane crashed during the afternoon in the choppy waters just offshore His body was badly man gled and his identity was John I Singer leaves legacy larger than his music finger prints sent from Colorado National Transportation Safety Board spokesman George Peter son said Denver had just bought the plane and had performed three practice land ings at the Monterey Peninsula then told the tower he Please see DENVER Page A2 Theory refutes human immigration tenets Lexington There were about 25 or 30 of them members of an ancient race and they had found a com campsite on a sandy bank above a creek in what is now Chile They erected huts and built hearths for their fires Game and plants from nearby hills ed food They made medicines from local herbs There came a day when one of the children perhaps watching preparation of a meal left three tiny footprints in the soft clay beside one of the hearths Now the footprints and other evidence uncovered by University of Kentucky anthro Tom D Dillehay and fel low researchers are shatter ing 50 years of prevailing scientific opinion about when human beings first arrived in the Americas The October issue of National Geographic features a report on the discoveries by Dillehay who is professor and chairman of anthropology at UK Those discoveries are revolu As Bering nd brickie Tribune because dated the Chilean footprints and accompanying artifacts as being years old more than years older than the previ accepted date for the earli est human habitation in the New Please see THEORY Page A3 INSIDE Wests Oldest Newspaper Sunny High 60 low 35 Classified ads 9824451 Community On the Web Ann Landers B6 Mutuals C5 Business Dl Movies Calendar B2 Opinion A5 Classified D2 Police notes B2 Comics Scoreboard C2 Crossword B6 Sports Cl Daily Millions B2 Stocks Horoscope B4 Television B3 Local news Bl Time Out B6 Four sections 24 pages year Issue No 287
