Böcker av Richard McCord

The story of the College of Santa Fe is a BIG story. Its ancestry traces to 17th-century France, and its history is totally intertwined with the history of the state of New Mexico. Its original founders arrived in 1859, after months of traveling the Atlantic Ocean in wooden ships, then the young land of America by railroad, ox cart, horseback, and on foot. In 1874 it became the first institution of higher learning chartered by the New Mexico Territorial Legislature, and when New Mexico became the 47th of the United States in 1912, more than one-fifth of the drafters of the state's first constitution were among its graduates. As a full four-year post-secondary college, it opened its doors in 1947, on the site of a former U.S. Army hospital abandoned at the end of World War II. All the structures it occupied were "temporary" military buildings, and the first new hall erected there did not come until 1961. All through its existence it struggled financially, but year after year it held on, bringing college degrees to thousands of students, many of whom had not dreamed that such success was in their reach. The college had a life-and then it had a death. It did not attain old age, succumbing after 62 years, due to unrelenting economic pressures. But before it died it achieved academic distinction, as one of the best liberal-arts schools in the West. It also gained professional acclaim, with its graduates triumphing as performers, as artists, as achievers at the highest levels in their several fields. Now the story of its entire existence is told in this book.

The party in the cemetery. The amputation of the bronze foot. The reincarnation of Billy the Kid. The only book ever to make The New York Times best-seller list in both fiction AND non-fiction. The female gentlemen. The cave that waited 40 years. The murderous "squaw man."Where will you find these strange stories, and more? Only in "The Other State: New Mexico, USA." Anyone who lives in or travels to New Mexico understands that it is a place unlike anywhere else. Extremely unlike anywhere else.These true tales, brief and fast-moving, paint a unique portrait of a unique land. They are told by a multiple-award-winning writer, who found his home in New Mexico decades ago and has been telling its story ever since. If you too feel New Mexico''s spell, then welcome to . . . "The Other State.""Author and journalist Richard McCord is a natural storyteller. These sketches of his, lovingly stitched together, portray quirky, unpredictable New Mexicans, and especially their unconventional capital of Santa Fe. The characters who briefly walk through these pages each cast a ray of light on the human condition, and occasionally even evoke a chuckle. McCord''s book is as absorbing as it is genuine." (MARC SIMMONS, historian)Raised in Georgia, trained in New York, Richard McCord found home in New Mexico in 1971. Three years later he founded the weekly Santa Fe Reporter, which soon won a national reputation for excellence. Now a freelance, he celebrates the place he loves.

The story of McCord's fight for survival in Sante Fe, New Mexico, and also of his guerrilla warfare to help another small paper survive against Gannett's underhand tactics in Green Bay, Wisconsin. It seeks to show what happens when a ruthless wheeler-dealer gets control of the news.