ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

Ink in the Blood
By Robin Frames

Maria Elena Alvarez is not your typical journalist, but you couldn’t find one more committed. She seems to have that sixth sense that puts her in the right place at the right time. “Writing and working as a journalist is what I love doing most,” she says, “and I’m convinced it’s the medium through which I can get the most accomplished.”

Maria Elena is one of those rare native New Mexicans. She was born in Las Vegas, NM into one of the early Colonial families whose members seemed to have printer’s ink flowing through their veins. “ If genes mean anything, I have people such as my maternal great-grandfather, Ezequiel Cabeza de Baca, to thank. He was editor of La Voz del Pueblo, a Spanish-language paper published in San Miguel County at the turn of the century and he later became the state’s first lieutenant governor and second Governor of the State of New Mexico.

"My grandfather Antonio Martinez was also a journalist. He wrote an eclectic political column for the Spanish-language edition of the Santa Fe New Mexican called El Burro Que Toco la Fluata (The Donkey That Played the Flute).”

After graduating high school in San Antonio, Texas she beat it to the nation’s capital where she had an aunt and uncle. “In 1973 I found myself a job as typist for New Mexico Senator Joseph P. Montoya, during the time he was a member of the Watergate Committee. I worked in the basement of the Senate Office Building, on some of the first “automated” typewriters that punched a ticker tape,” she recalled.

From this job she went on to become the executive secretary for the president of the National Council of La Raza, Raul Yzaguirre, when he first took that job. Yzaguirre transformed NCLR into one of the nation’s most important think tanks for the Hispanic community. “It was in this job that I realized that I wanted to get a serious education,” Maria Elena says.

She followed her roots back to Las Vegas, NM, where both her grandmother and mother had studied at New Mexico Highlands University. “I focused on courses in philosophy, anthropology and sociology,” she recalls.

Maria’s higher education was to take a circuitous route, however. After a year-and-a-half at Highlands, she enrolled in a foreign study program in South America. She spent most of the 10-month educational sabbatical in Ecuador, but also took the opportunity to experience Venezuela, Colombia and Peru - hiking and camping in Machu Pichu and hitchhiking around the countrysides.

“My grandmother - Marguerite Martinez C De Baca - has always been my greatest mentor, even though she died when I was only 13. I have always felt the strong breath of her spirit in my bones. Amazingly I discovered after my travels in Ecuador that I had seen a number of the places where she had traveled when she worked for the United Nations’ UNESCO organization.”

On returning to the United States, Maria Elena enrolled at George Washington University for one semester and then returned to Highlands, where she completed her BA in 1980. When it was time to find a real job "I wound up my courage and wrote a two-page essay to all the newspapers in New Mexico, explaining why I should be hired as a journalist given my Washington, D.C. experience and family pedigree.” She must have done something right, because the Santa Fe New Mexican responded by hiring her to run its Rio Arriba County bureau, based in Espanola.

Maria Elena walked into the job with virtually no practical journalism experience, but she remembers it as “a great job that felt like putting on a pair of comfortable shoes.” She wasn’t afraid to ask basic questions.

During this period Maria Elena not only learned the journalistic ropes, but married one of her colleagues, Tom Sharpe. They had two daughters, Magdalena Margarita and Carmen Elizabeth. During this period she got off the career path and spent four years at home taking care of her precious babies.

“When I got back into the job market, I got a big break as a result of my early contacts with Raul and NCLR and was invited to create the prototype for Hispanic Magazine followed by an invitation to be its managing editor." She uprooted her young family and moved to D.C. and created a successful footprint for Hispanic Magazine, which is still in publication but now out of Miami, Florida.

After three years life in the Washington, D.C. area became too frenetic to raise a family. "I returned to New Mexico in 1990 and to become the Arts Editor for the Albuquerque Journal. From Arts Editor she was promoted across the newsroom to the Editorial Board. “This job was a great job that disciplined my mind and taught me the art of respectful disagreement,” she says.

During this same period life began to take on personal challenges she had never imagined. “I was raising Maggie and Carmen on my own and then in 2000 we found out that Maggie, at 17 in her senior year at high school, had developed a brain tumor, later to be determined to be a cyst. “That brain surgery put everything in perspective for me on a grand scale. I realized what it really meant to me to be a mother, to bring someone into the world and what my responsibility to that person was and how far I would go to care for her.

“Maggie was so brave and almost never allowed anger or resentment to set in. She decided to wear her minor disfigurement as a badge of honor. To observe her behavior and valor was and still is amazing. I have to say that today it is me that is proud to be her mother.”

During that same year her younger daughter Carmen became extremely rebellious. "I was so afraid of losing her I took drastic measures and shipped off to a boot camp in Mexico for seven months. While it was painful beyond belief it worked and Carmen turned her life around."

“Owning Prime Time is a dream come true for me,” Maria Elena says. “My goal and mission for the paper is to make it the most interesting, relevant monthly publication for New Mexicans over 50 reader. I want it to be the voice and advocate for this segment of the community.“

Today it publishes 25,000 issues monthly and circulates in the entire Middle Rio Grande region from Santa Fe to Albuquerque including the surrounding metro areas and boasts having over 100,000 readers as a recent audit confirmed.

Awards/Recognitions

2007 Invited to join the New Mexico chapter of the International Women's Forum
2006 Women in Broadcasting and Media Girls Scout of Chaparral Council
2004 Awarded Best Design by North American Mature Publishers Association (NAMPA)
2003 Rookie of the Year, General Excellence and 1st Place for Cover Illustration NAMPA
2002 Appointed by Gov. Bill Richardson to serve on then New Mexico Arts Commission
2002 Public Service Award from the NM Conference on Aging
2001 Chairman of the Albuquerque Public Arts Board
1995 Maynard Management Fellowship at Kellog School of Business at Northwestern
1995 Mexican American Solidarity Foundation Fellow
1999 US Dept. of Commerce MBDA Journalist Advocate
1997 New Mexico Press Association 1st Place for Editorial Column
1996 The Associated Press of Managing Editors Award
1989 Recognized by First Lady Barbara Bush among other Women Editors
1989 Press Advocate, New York League of Women Voters