2022 Presentations
Thursday, September 22nd
The Sonnie Sussillo Memorial Gila River Festival Keynote Address
The Sonnie Sussillo Memorial Keynote Address honors the dedicated Gila River Festival volunteer Sonnie Sussillo who passed away in March 2021 while hiking in the Gila that she loved so much. Sonnie was a critical member of the Gila River Festival planning committee for many years. She moderated presentations, led and supported field trips, coordinated speakers, and stepped in to help wherever she could. Her photography and writing celebrated the Gila and the wonders of Nature, and she committed countless volunteer hours conducting inventory work and tracking wildlife in the Gila National Forest in an effort to protect the Gila River and its watershed for future generations.
The second annual Sonnie Sussillo Memorial Gila River Festival Keynote Address will be presented by Nuevomexicana writer and biologist Leeanna Torres.
Ríto - Tributaries of My Gila Querencia
Presentation with Leeanna Torres
Thursday, Sept. 22nd, 6:00 pm; Online and In-person at the WNMU Global Resource Center Auditorium; $10 suggested donation at the door.
AND Online (Click here to register)
As a young girl growing up, I’d heard of the great Gila, but had never been there. Then just after college, a work-opportunity took me deep into the heart of the Gila, and I was never the same. The landscape, the work, the deepness of the place changed me in ways even now I attempt to define. But in its simplest form, the Gila became a place of my querencia.
Querencia – a word derived from two Spanish words. The first ‘querer’ meaning to desire, or deeply love.
The second word ‘herencia’ meaning inheritance or heritage.
What does it mean to belong to a place, to be tied to a space or landscape? And how does one’s individual relationship to place change over time? Similarly, how too does a community’s relationship to place change as conditions change?
Last time I visited the Gila as a ‘fishery biologist’ working for a government agency was 2006. Now, sixteen years later, I return to the Gila a very different person. Now I am a mother to a young boy, and I wonder what his relationship to this place might be.
I approach the Gila now as a mother, and I will explore this place from that deep stance of motherhood.
This session will be introduced and moderated by Silver City District 4 Town Councilor Guadalupe Cano.
Leeanna T. Torres is a native daughter of the American Southwest, a Nuevomexicana who has worked as an environmental professional throughout the West since 2001. Her essays have appeared in publications including Blue Mesa Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Eastern Iowa Review, Minding Nature, and High Country News. More recently, she has work in two anthologies by Torrey House Press including First and Wildest: The Gila Wilderness at 100 (2022).
Friday, September 23rd
One River, Many People, Panel Discussion with
Michael Darrow, Barnaby Lewis, Skylar Begay, Joe Saenz
Moderated by Alex Mares
Friday, September 23, 6:00pm; Online and in-person at WNMU Global Resource Center Auditorium.
Suggested donation $10 at the door.
And ONLINE on Zoom
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_wGLxonitReCGoM_JlWkbTQ
A panel discussion with Fort Sill Apache Tribal Historian Michael Darrow, Archaeology Southwest's Tribal Outreach Fellow Skylar Begay, Gila River Indian Community Tribal Historic Preservation Officer Barnaby Lewis, Red Paint Tribal Council member Joe Saenz, and moderated by Diné Park Ranger and Interpreter Alex Mares will examine the indigenous connections to the Gila River from its headwaters in New Mexico to the Great Bend of the Gila in southwest Arizona. How has the Gila River shaped the cultures of the past? What is the importance of the Gila River currently? What does Traditional Indigenous Knowledge teach us about how to live in a hotter, drier world?
Michael Darrow
Michael Darrow is the ex-Secretary-Treasurer of the Fort Sill Apache Tribe, and has been the designated Tribal Historian since 1986. He attended the University of Oklahoma, majoring in botany, and received an associate degree in Museum Studies from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. He has worked for the Tribe on Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act and on cultural and language preservation issues.
Barnaby Lewis
Barnaby V. Lewis is the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer (TPHO) for the Gila River Indian Community since February 2009. THPO consults with federal and state agencies regarding the religious and cultural significance of historic properties. Mr. Lewis supervises all aspects of cultural resource consultation in connection with federal, state, and tribal laws.
Skylar Begay
Skylar Begay is an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation, and has Mandan and Hidatsa ancestry as well. He is the Tribal Outreach Fellow at Archaeology Southwest where he works on the Respect Great Bend campaign. As a young Indigenous person passionate about conservation, Skylar bring a perspective that incorporates his ancestry and his western education. He hopes to find effective ways of bridging these two worlds.
Joe Saenz
Joe Saenz is of Chihe´ne (Warm Springs Apache) ancestry and is part of the Red Paint Tribal Council. Joe is also the owner and operator of Wolf Horse Outfitters, and member of the Mountain Horse Singers.
Alex Mares
Alex Mares is of Diné and Mexican American heritage. He has served as a Park Ranger and Interpreter for 32 years in both Texas and New Mexico. He also served as Native American liaison for New Mexico Wild in the successful effort to establish the Organ Mountains Desert Peaks National Monument.
Saturday, September 24th
After the Fires with landscape photographer Michael Berman.
Saturday, Sept. 24th, 10:00 am; In-person at the Silco Theater, 311 N Bullard St, Silver City, $10 suggested donation at the door. No one turned away for lack of funds. This session will not be offered online.
For a century we did a damn fine job of putting fires out in the Gila. The problem was when we got good at putting out all the small fires, we set things up for very big fires. Some folks would like to tell you that everything went to hell in a hand basket up there.
If you want to see what happens after a fire, put on your boots, and head up pretty much anywhere in the Gila. Don't bother with the trails - many of them are gone or fizzle out anyway. Or you can grab a cup of coffee and come to the Silco for a little verbal ramble through the post-fire Gila Wilderness with photographer Michael Berman.
Michael P. Berman wanders the terrain of the American West and Mexico Norteno. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2008 to photograph the Chihuahuan Desert for "Trinity" the third book of a border trilogy with writer Charles Bowden. His most recent book, published by Museum of New Mexico Press, is "Perdido: Sierra San Luis". His photographs are included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Amon Carter Museum and the Museum of New Mexico. He has received grants for environmental work from the McCune and Lannan Foundation. In 2013, he was honored with the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts in New Mexico. Michael as born in New York City in 1956 and now lives in the Silver City in Southwest New Mexico.
A Life Entwined with the Gila: Reminiscences and Observations of a Rancher/Conservationist with Neil Fuller and Bart Roselli
Saturday September 24th, 1pm: Silver City Museum Courtyard, 312 West Broadway, Silver City, $10 suggested donation. No one turned away for lack of funds. This session will not be offered online.
Interested in learning about the Gila River through the story of a man who grew up with the waterway as a common childhood experience? Neil Fuller is a conservationist and rancher, deeply knowledgeable about the river and its history and interested in sharing stories about his intimate relationship with the waterway.
As an experienced living history actor, Neil enjoys portraying his grandfather’s background as a homesteader and rancher along the Gila River, describing how the river sustained his family, and exploring the meaningful connections between the waterway and the household.
Neil also wants to share how the watercourse has changed across time, and what that has meant to both his family and to the rich animal and plant ecology that the river nourishes.
Moderated by Silver City Museum Director Bart Roselli.
Neil Fuller was raised on his grandfather’s cattle ranch, a property of approximately 95,000 acres that encompassed 7 miles of the Lower Gila River Box. Retired from the USDA Soil Conservation Service/Natural Resources Conservation Service, Neil brings history to life as a volunteer with the NM Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum. One of the characters he enjoys portraying is his grandfather so he can share his experiences as a homesteader and rancher along the Gila River.
Bart Roselli is the Director of the Silver City Museum. He began his career more than 30 years ago in a recreated 19th Century village museum in his hometown of Middletown located in the Hudson Valley of New York State. He studied museum education and management at Bank Street College of Education in New York City and at the Getty Institute of Museum Management in Berkeley, California. He has plied his trade in museums of history, art, natural history, science and even a zoo. He has served on state, regional, and national museum associations and other community non-profits.