The Santa Fe New Mexican from Santa Fe, New Mexico • 1

Opeumi Smile i V- Santa Fe speech pathologist i helps repair1 cleft palates in the Philippines Ilcijficrs E-6 'N SUNDAY 1 NEW MEXICAN foiled thieves in By STEVE TERRELL The New Mexican that had plagued Northern New Mexico in the preceding months Thefts of centuries-old religious paintings santos and candlesticks from churches chapels and Penitente moradas frequently made local headlines in the early 1970s In July 1972 burglars had broken into Santa San Miguel Mission one of the oldest churches in the United States and stolen antique paintings and statues That case was still unsolved when the cathedral was burglarized in March 1973 Please see STATUE Page A-5 La Conquistadora had last been seen by Della Garcia the sacristi-cian She had left the church at 9:15 the night before and locked the doors she told police La Conquistadora was still in place when she left she said attired in a red gown a gold crown and holding a rosary Historian Pedro Ribera-Ortega said in a recent interview that investigators later learned that the thieves had hidden in the choir loft and waited until Garcia left the building The burglary was just the latest in a series of thefts of religious artifacts some called a miracle and others-simply called good police work About 5:30 am on Monday March 19 1973 Brother Pancartius discovered the priceless statue missing from the altar dedicated to her The priest searched the cathedral for two hours then notified police of the theft Capt Alfred Lucero then head of the Santa Fe Police Investigations Bureau told reporters that day that police had found footprints on the plastic mantle of the altar and footprints outside of the cathedral There were no signs of forced entry into the church It was a crime that tore at the soul of Santa Fe the theft of the beloved and historic icon La Conquistadora from St Francis Cathedral 25 years ago by a would-be criminal" For about three weeks it looked like Easter 1973 was going to be a pretty bleak one for Santa Fe especially within the large Roman Catholic community But before that came to pass this Easter story had a happy ending that La Conquistadora was found In an abandoned mine shaft along with a cache of other religious Items One Indian Hero Democrat vows to dig up transgressions History books ignore Miguel Trujillo even though he fought stiff odds for Indian suffrage in New Mexico and won The Associated Press ffT 4 Lf 'V 4 tn 'i 4 Mulholland declared in a telephone interview from his Chico home 90 miles north of Sacramento The White House and national DNC officials distanced themselves from project saying they do not sanction digging up dirt on people think right for people to be looking into the personal lives of presidential spokesman Jim Kennedy said DNC spokesman Rick Hess said the party behind the effort is not a DNC-spon-sored activity We condone or encourage this We are focused on the Democratic agenda not on exploring personal he said Republicans characterized the counterattack plan as unseemly years of FBI files enemy lists and illegal foreign Please see DEMOCRAT Page A-4 LOS ANGELES A state Democratic official is scouring public records on GOP House Judiciary Committee members and threatening to bring embarrassing details' to light if lawmakers begin impeachment proceedings against President Clinton Bob Mulholland a Democratic National Committee member and campaign adviser for the California party said Saturday that Republican members of Congress who have skeletons in their closets should not be attacking the character He said he is looking into whether lawmakers have committed adultery or perjury these 20 House members go forward with some process to attack the president I will disseminate this to the New IRS codes tax patience reward preparers The Dallas Morning News i Photos by Abel UrlbeThe New Mexican Above Josephine Waconda 64 of Isleta Pueblo stands by an old trailer her father Miguel Trujillo built to give his students rides when he was a teacher Below trash litters the Martin Luther King Jr monument in Civic Plaza which Includes the only public commemoration of legacy a small water-stained plaque 1 StwybyRAJfRiVElU The New Mexican wife practices business law impossible for the average person to get it done correctly and even if they do it takes hours away from your As the April 15 tax filing deadline draws near Giroir and millions of other Americans will put their pride aside and hire tax preparers In fact the 800 pages of changes in the tax code enacted last summer have sent more people than ever before scurrying for tax help according to Block The US Internal Revenue Service estimates that about 52 Please see TAXES Page A-4 DALLAS Dr Brett Giroir has never retreated from hard work or complexity He holds degrees in biology from Harvard and in medicine from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center But years spent unraveling the mysteries of medical science are nothing he said compared to facing a blank tax form think a travesty that the average citizen or the above-average citizen cannot figure out what they need to pay the said Giroir whose I NM Indians now hold the power of the swing vote Page A-3 INSID OS LUNAS -Seven years before Rosa Parks refused to ride in the back of the bus Miguel Trujillo refused to gb uncounted On June 14 1948 Trujillo an outspoken 43-year-old ex-Maiine sergeant and member of Isleta Pueblo walked into the Valencia County office here to register to vote It was a small act of defiance in a state that 78 years after the 15th Amendment outlawed racial dis- -crimination at the polls still allow Indians living on reservations to vote His simple action set into motion a legal battle that would eventually win voting rights for New Mexico Indians forever altering this history Yet 50 years later Trujillo is a hero few have ever heard of on or off the reservations and The Oldest Newspaper Partly cloudy breezy High 67 low 38 Miguel Trujillo pueblos While name is etched alongside Martin Luther King in every mind Trujillo's name is scarcely mentioned if at all in state history books personally think of Miguel Trujillo as one of the great civil rights leaders at least in the said anthropologist Gordon Bronitsky one of the few scholars who has done any i it Please see VOTE Page A-2 Weather Page B-2 Lata paper: 984-0363 Classified ade: 982-4451 Community Info-Une: 8206060 11 sections 100 pages 149th year Issue No 102 On the World Wide Web: www sfnewmexicancom in 1 3.