Radio spots tell stories of forgotten New Mexicans

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Switch on the radio this centennial year and you'll hear snippets of New Mexico history about everyone from Ham the astrochimp to a UFO-spotting Socorro sheriff.

With the help of research by the state historian, State Folklorist Claude Stephenson trimmed 261 oral portraits down to 240 words timed at 1.58 minutes each.

Stephenson edited the stories for radio stations across the state to use. The tales cover everything from buffalo soldiers to buried treasures to murders, rebellions and floods.

"It was extremely difficult," he said. "These radio stations wanted me to cut them down to 60 (seconds). I said they were nuts.

"I originally thought that 90 seconds might be the thing. We just came up with scripts to try and tell a succinct story."

"This is not a public service program," Stephenson added. "This is like a two-minute version of 'Gunsmoke.' "

In January 1961, the 5-year-old New Mexican-African chimp Ham gained fame by becoming the first American primate in space. "He was from Cameroon, but he was on an American rocket," Stephenson said.

Ham was obviously a star, having beaten out 40 competitors for the role. He was trained to perform simple, timed tasks in response to electric lights and sounds. If he failed to press a lever within five seconds, he received a mild electric shock to the soles of his feet. A correct response earned him a banana pellet.

Trained at Alamogordo's Holloman Air Force Base, (his name was an acronymn for the base medical center) Ham rocketed to the skies from Florida's Cape Canaveral. He soared through the heavens 155 miles above the earth, slicing through the atmosphere at speeds of 5,800 mph. The capsule suffered a partial loss of pressure during the flight, but Ham's space suit prevented him from suffering any harm. When a rescue ship recovered him in the Atlantic Ocean, he had suffered only a bruised nose. The flight lasted 16 minutes and 39 seconds.

Ham's flight led directly to Alan Shepard's mission aboard Freedom 7 in May of the same year. The famous chimp retired to Washington's National Zoo in 1963, eventually moving to the North Carolina Zoo, where he died in 1983.

"He died in the zoo," Stephenson said. "But he's buried in Alamogordo in a memorial garden in the (International) Space Hall of Fame."

Then there's the lost mine of Padre Larue, who administered to a poor Indian village in northern Mexico.