The return

CIBOLA COUNTY, N.M. – The Grants/Cibola County Chamber of Commerce and New Mexico Mining Museum have hired a new director amid a flurry of political heat from Grants City Hall. A return for the director, Brenda Curtwright, means a return to business as both the G/CCCC and NMMM had known.

Sharing a director establishes challenges for the person in the position; weighting the responsibilities of both boards and two separate entities with different missions sounds like a challenge, but to Curtwright, the challenge is part of the fun. Curtwright was the last director for both entities, but in the middle of the pandemic, family health issues caused Brenda to leave the director position.

Within the last several months, Curtwright’s situation has settled, and she felt that she had the ability to lend her time to the agencies again. She made some phone calls and submitted her resume, after going through the whole process of interviewing for the position and discussing her plans for the entities, the hiring committee – a joint committee made up of two members from the Grants/Cibola County Chamber of Commerce and two members from the New Mexico Mining Museum – decided that the best action was to rehire Curtwright.

Curtwright was gone from May to the end of July before being rehired. Curtwright is a former business owner, has worked for the City of Grants before.

New Mexico Mining Museum

“The New Mexico Mining Museum may be a uranium museum, but it’s gold as well, because we had people from Russia here last weekend. We had over 40 tours in one day last week, and that’s during the week. So, while everyone is doing what they do throughout the week, this place is full of torusits,” Curtwright said. Members of the New Mexico Mining Museum Board of Directors go to meetings and bring back information to help the museum.

A large chunk of the museum’s responsibility is keeping Grants’ mining history alive. From carefully maintaining and keeping a register of miners, to just keeping alive the history of mining efforts, a lot of this work comes from Board President Roger Siegmann. “That’s the kind of volunteer work that’s involved. That’s how much they care about the history of mining,” Curtwright said.

The board also puts on a series of events, the annual Hard Hats and Boots Gala will be held on ###, this is an event made to honor miners. This social event brigns together miners from across Cibola County and the state to meet and honor each other’s sacrifice to their country, according to Curtwright. The museum also works with the Knights of Columbus during the autumn months to put on a “Haunted Mine” that collects canned food donations to help fight food insecurity.

“The rise of this little town and the fall, the museum preserves and saves all of that information,” Curtwright said, “I’m really big on reading, not only my family’s history, whether its something in Arkansas, or Oklahoma, I want to know all about it. For me, I was born here, I was raised by a miner in town. My uncles and family were all miners, that’s how they raised their family, this town provided us the best life, it was an easy life, it was a happy life. There was a lot going on, so for me, I can sit in this office and reflect on all the good stuff that’s come through here.”

Curtwright has plans to ensure that the museum stays for years to come, “I want to honor our miners, I grew up with them.”

Grants/Cibola County Chamber of Commerce

The chamber works with local businesses and is supposed to work on behalf of local business, “We should be advocating for those businesses,” Curtwright affirmed.

The G/CCCC is no stranger to scrutiny from its own business members, complaints of ineffectiveness have plagued the institution for years, something Curtwright had already started to turn around the first time she was director. “I’ve heard all the reasons why people are upset with the chamber, there is a lot of direction we will be changing as a chamber. These will be board decisions that will change our involvement in the community.”

More in-person visits to local businesses and more outreach have been part of Curtwrights efforts to reinstall faith in the chamber to area businesses. Part of this effort includes the #ShopLocalCibola campaign, many businesses across the county sport a #ShopLocalCibola poster and the effort has turned several businesses into chamber members.

“The reality is that we do need new members, we need the movers and the shakers to get our efforts going,” Curtwright said. Curtwright wants to establish a network for local businesses, so they can help each other and lift up the community as a whole.

The chamber puts on some events, like the Fourth of July Parade (the actual event is owned by the Grants Rodeo Association but the chamber puts on this event.), the annual Chamber Banquet, and the Fall Fiesta. This year, a Wine and Beer festival will be held instead of the fiesta, as an effort to include more local businesses, Curtwright said.

“This was an idea I had from listening to business owners, the Fall Fiesta is basically a wash, business owners say it does nothing for bringing people in to their shops,” Curtwright said.

Curtwright wants to see more involvement from the local pueblos, she said that she recognizes the lapse between the chamber and pueblos was a mistake, and wants to see the relationship between area pueblos and the chamber be repaired.

Lodger’s Tax

The mining museum and the chamber both benefit from Lodger’s Tax funding from the City of Grants. Lodger’s Tax is an extra tax imposed on people who stay in area hotels, and can be used for advertising outside of 50 miles from the City of Grants.

The museum and chamber spend the bulk of their Lodger’s Tax funding on advertising, several billboards, and an phone app called “Explore Grants!” “At the chamber of commerce, sometimes our budget seems so high because you have to pay to get our brochures all across Route 66, paying for webpages – all of this stuff, trade shows and the state fair, if we’re going to get our name out there, we need to pay for it.”

Curtwright said that these efforts are effective at attracting people to Grants and Cibola County.

The New Mexico Mining Museum received $75,000.

The Grants/Cibola County Chamber of Commerce received $95,000.

The entities’ Lodger’s Tax was a topic of discussion at the City of Grants Special Council meeting on July 12. City Mayor Martin “Modey” Hicks had cautioned the councilors to consider how much money to give the chamber, mainly because he was unhappy with the work of the chamber over the last couple of years, making comments about how a previous director did not even have a general equivalency diploma.

At that special meeting, the city council agreed that if the chamber doesn’t show significant change or start bringing more money into the city, they will look at cutting the chamber’s budget the next time they request money.

Despite this challenge, Curtwright is not deterred, and is excited about the future of the New Mexico Mining Museum and Grants/Cibola County Chamber of Commerce.