ENMU Grad Heather Balas Featured in Albuquerque Journal
by Autumn Gray
Albuquerque Journal
New Mexico First President Heather Balas does not need to say that she is really a farm girl. It is evident the minute you visit her traditional New Mexican Corrales home, where a yellow Labrador and an orange cat help her welcome guests.
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New Mexico First President Heather Balas does not need to say that she is really a farm girl. It is evident the minute you visit her traditional New Mexican Corrales home, where a yellow Labrador and an orange cat help her welcome guests. “Can I get you some tea, water?” she asks graciously. “And do you like apricots?” The apricot tree in the backyard is exploding with orange, helping to shade a porch-turned-camping area where her children have set up a tent and the ripe fruit dots surrounding grass like small Easter eggs. |
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THE BASICS: Born Heather Catherine Balas in Portales on Dec. 19, 1968; bachelor’s degree in journalism from Eastern New Mexico University and master’s degree in political communication from the University of Maryland; married to Joe Wellborn since Aug. 25, 1995; daughter Devon, 11, and son Grant, 9; yellow Labrador mix named Daisy and two cats, Stepney and Scratch. POSITION: President and executive director of New Mexico First. WHAT YOU DIDN’T KNOW: “My minor in college was in music and I started out actually as a music major. I thought that I would be a musician (a flutist) when I grew up, and then I realized I was really more cut out to be someone who sings with the radio instead of any other way. … I listen to a lot of sort of modern folk. But I would love to have more time to do music.” |
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and tomatoes, three kinds of squash and two kinds of lettuce, strawberries, corn, cucumbers and chard – all but make themselves edible as she approaches. The vegetables are Balas’ past being reborn annually for her to cultivate just as she did in her youth, through college, on her family’s farm. Only one key ingredient is missing: the peanuts.
“My grandfather raised peanuts in eastern New Mexico. Portales was, and to some degree still calls itself, the peanut capital of the world and grows the Valencia peanut. It’s actually sort of a specialty crop. So my grandfather was a real pioneer in that industry and helped breed that particular seed, and so he raised peanuts in Roosevelt County for probably 40 years.
“For many years, I helped my grandmother (harvest her vegetable garden) and prepare the meals to feed all the employees who were working during harvest, ’cause you have to hire extra people to get the crop. And then when I was in college I drove trailers, drove the truck that pulled the produce bins in and out of the fields. And it was just good fun.”
Balas, a fifth-generation New Mexican, says she spent about 50 percent of her time outside school helping them: “I had this sort of irrational notion that the family needed me to help get that crop in, so I stayed at home and went to school for my undergrad and then did my master’s on the East Coast when I was living in Washington.”
By the time she was in D.C., she had also completed a year’s service with VISTA, a counterpart to the Peace Corps. It had placed her in St. Louis in a shelter for runaway and homeless kids.
“So I went from having spent most of my life in small-town Portales, associated with the farm, to a really urban space with kids who had very, very different childhood experiences than me. And I had a real compelling experience there in terms of my interest in seeing the ways that social and educational policies, in addition to their family situations, had affected these kids’ lives.”
When she moved to Washington, she worked for the Commission on Presidential Debates, her first nonpartisan organization, and later to California to work for the National Network for Youth, which lobbies on behalf of runaway and homeless kids.
Journalism and the farm seemed like another lifetime until she and her husband decided to return to New Mexico so their young children could grow up near family.
Balas soon got a job with New Mexico First, serving as deputy director in 2005. She was named president and executive director in 2006.
Q: Have you been the head of N.M. First longer than anyone else?
A: The longest a person has been head of N.M. First is likely six years. … My guess is that if I’m not the longest stretch in it, I’m close. I really like my work. … The values of the organization really mirror my values, and I hope that the work that we do really makes a difference.
Q: What does N.M. First do?
A: We’re a public policy organization that focuses on engaging New Mexicans in policy through public deliberation and also through research. … Some of those deliberations are smaller. They might be 30 people in a room in Clovis to talk about how do we help make sure we have enough child care centers in that community to the large 200-person, big statewide town halls. The intent of our work is to give people an opportunity to develop those recommendations but to also give people an opportunity to be reminded that we’re often not as far apart as we sometimes believe. People think about what’s the right thing to do, what’s the right thing for our community or for our kids, and there’s a whole lot of common ground around that. New Mexico First kind of sees ourself as an archaeologist. We find that common ground even though people don’t know it’s there, and then we document that.
Q: Did you ever think you might continue farming as an adult or continue the peanut tradition of your grandfather?
A: I would have loved to have figured out how to do that, but I had other interests. So I didn’t see myself becoming a farmer. Ironically, I now grow as much of my own food as just about anybody in the family with my garden. … I don’t have beets yet, but I will by the end of the season. … I probably have 20 gallons already of apricots this year.
Q: Do you still eat peanuts, or did you get sick of them?
A: I still eat lots of peanuts. I still push peanut butter sandwiches off to school.
Q: What is your biggest challenge these days?
A: The biggest challenge that I face now is balancing between the needs of my little family – my husband and kids – and my big extended family. … And then all of the needs associated with the really demanding and exacting work of New Mexico First. So managing those three activities is the hardest thing I do. … And then I think the biggest challenge within the circle of my big family is we’re losing my grandmother to Alzheimer’s, and so that’s without question just incredibly hard.
Q: Was your decision to move to Corrales an intentional effort to return to your roots as much as possible but remain in the city?
A: Absolutely. Corrales is just a good fit. … It still really is very much a farming village and I like that about it. I can walk to the grower’s market from my front door, and I do most Sunday mornings during the growing season. And also the sense of community. I alluded to the fact that what I like about my work at New Mexico First is the capacity to connect people, people who might not even realize they have things in common. … Corrales is a village where people are really connected.
There’s a whole lot here that is very much about being a community, being with your neighbors, supporting the local economy, supporting local growers – those kinds of choices. And so the ethic that drives what I like about New Mexico First drives a whole lot in my personal life, including the selection of this crazy little village that I live in.
| Alumni Social in Albuquerque (photos by Robert Graham and Ashley Wolfe) |
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Alumni Affairs hosted an alumni social in Albuquerque at the Marriott Pyramid North on Saturday, July 14. The day before, an alumni golf tournament was held in Albuquerque. |
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| Xcel Energy Donates $5,000 Annually to ENMU Foundation |
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Stephen Doerr, president of the ENMU Foundation (left) and President Gamble, president of Eastern New Mexico University in Portales (right), received a check for $5,000 from David Essex of Xcel Energy for the Alliance for Minority Participation (AMP) grant. According to Dr. Gamble, the funds are distributed to applicants to the AMP program benefiting minority students in science, math, engineering and technology programs. |
| ENMU System Well Represented at Bond C Meeting |
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The ENMU system was well represented at the Bond C statewide committee meeting in Albuquerque on Wednesday. Representing President Gamble, Dr. Clayton Alred, president of ENMU-Ruidoso, made a presentation on the activites that ENMU-Portales is doing to inform others about the bond. Cod Omness from ENMU-Ruidoso also attended, as well as Dr. John Madden, president of ENMU-Roswell. Jim Dodson and Wendel Sloan from ENMU-Portales attended and handed out packets of materials that ENMU has produced about Bond C. (photos by Wendel Sloan) |
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| Dr. Clayton Alred |
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