Volunteers
Annie Sahlin
Annie was drawn to New Mexico in her early 20's by the lure of a family homestead on the Old Santa Fe Trail. A passion for photography led to an immersion in New Mexican culture and history through her work with the Smithsonian American History Museum's exhibit called American Encounters. In shows and magazine articles she continued to record New Mexico with subjects such as Santa Fe silversmiths and her village of Cañada de los Alamos. More recently Annie has traveled to Turkey and begun a film project on Turkish women. Remaining true to her community, she also continues to record its past with film and oral histories when not indulging other artistic interests such as printmaking. Cynthia Dobson, Ph.D.
Cynthia Dobson retired to Santa Fe in 2005 and has enjoyed becoming more familiar with New Mexico’s fascinating history through her volunteer work at OSH. She received a B.A. and M.A. in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin, a M.A. in Library Science from the University of Wisconsin, and a Ph.D. in Sociology from Iowa State University. She taught sociology at Iowa State University and Oklahoma State University, worked as a librarian at several universities, and had a brief stint in a marketing department teaching consumer behavior. Her publications include articles in the areas of social psychology and social gerontology.
Doris Meyer, Ph.D.
Doris Meyer is Roman S. and Tatiana Weller Professor Emeritus of Hispanic Studies (Connecticut College) and also taught for many years at Brooklyn College (CUNY). Since retiring to New Mexico in 1998, she has also been Research Associate at the University of New Mexico’s Latin American and Iberian Institute and at the Southwest Hispanic Research Institute. She holds a B.A. from Harvard and a Ph.D. from U. of Virginia. Her publications include numerous books and articles on Latin American literature, particularly contemporary women writers. Her most recent publication, This America of Ours: The Letters of Gabriela Mistral and Victoria Ocampo, co-edited and translated with Elizabeth Horan (U. of Texas, 2003), will be published in Spanish in Fall 2007. She has also written about New Mexico in the territorial period, including her book, Speaking for Themselves: Neomexicano Cultural Identity and the Spanish-Language Press, 1880-1920 (UNM Press, 1996). Of Hispanic decent on her mother’s side, she is married to Richard Hertz and lives in Santa Fe.
Harry Myers
Harry Myers retired from the National Park Service in March 2007 after 28 years of service. His last position was as the team leader for the Long Walk National Historic Trail Feasibility Study, involving the Navajo Nation and the Mescalero Apache Tribe. He previously served as superintendent of Fort Union National Monument, New Mexico, and Perry’s Victory and International Peace Memorial, Ohio. Myers has also served at Omaha, Nebraska and Fort Scott National Historic Site, Kansas. Myers graduated with high honors from Western Illinois University (Macomb, IL) with a B.S. in Recreation and Park Administration and previous to that served three years in the U.S. Army, including a year in Vietnam. Myers is the author of numerous articles on the Santa Fe Trail and has spoken a number of times to various groups. His particular interest lies in geographical history and early trail routes, the Hispanic Trade on the Camino Real and Santa Fe Trails, and the impact of the arrival of Europeans on American Indian Tribes. Jack Loeffler
Jack Loeffler is a bioregional folklorist, musician, writer and radio producer.
Michael Miller
Michael Miller is the author/contributor of eleven books on New Mexico and the Southwest. He also writes for regional and national publications on a variety of topics. He served as Director of the New Mexico Records Center and Archives and Director of the Center for Southwest Research at UNM.
In 1998, he retired as the first Director of Research and Literary Arts at the National Hispanic Cultural Center of New Mexico. He lives in La Puebla, New Mexico on his family's farm.
Patricia M. Hummer, Ph.D.
Patricia M. Hummer is a volunteer at the Office of the State Historian. She has an M.A. and Ph.D. in American history from Duke University, where she specialized in women’s history. She taught history at C. W. Post College, Mary Baldwin College, and Duke University, and writing at Michigan State University. She also spent many years at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where she developed user interfaces for software, created and maintained Web sites, and tested both software and Web sites for usability.
Virginia Sanchez
Virginia Sanchez is an author, historian, and genealogist. Her published articles have appeared in Colorado Heritage, New Mexico Magazine, La Herencia, BlueSky Quarterly, and genealogical journals, such as the Colorado Genealogist, New Mexico Genealogist, and the Colorado Hispanic Genealogist. In 2002, she was inducted into the Daughters of the American Revolution in honor of her eighth-great-grandfather, New Mexico Colonial Patriot, Soldado de Cuera Antonio Xavier Madríd. She has also presented her historical research at conferences of the New Mexico Historical Society and to genealogical societies in Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming. She is a member of the Colorado Historical Society and the New Mexico Historical Society. She is immediate past president of the Colorado Society of Hispanic Genealogy and serves on the board of directors for Alianza de las Americas, a support group of the Denver Art Museum’s Spanish Colonial collection. In 2008, Virginia Sanchez was recognized by the Hispanic Annual Salute for her contributions in the area of Hispano history. William Baxter
Since retirement to New Mexico in 1997, William Baxter has had the opportunity to indulge his avocations of archaeology and history, finally taking that BA, Anthro, UC Berkeley, 1965, off the shelf. He shares a small rancho in the vicinity of San Marcos, south of Santa Fe, with his wife and a gaggle of animals, in a region of New Mexico that is especially rich with the footprints of those who have come before. For a decade now Bill has been the Archaeological Conservancy’s steward at San Marcos. He is also a founder and director of the Cerrillos Hills Park Coalition, and is currently chair of the Santa Fe County Open Lands & Trails Planning and Advisory Committee. He is the author of THE GOLD OF THE ORTIZ MOUNTAINS, Lone Butte Press, Santa Fe 2004, and has served as editor for a number of area writers. Bill’s once and continuing project, an historical exegesis for the Cerrillos Hills, is the father to his historical names database.