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Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com In The New Mexican's small conference room, there's a big, black-and-white photo of people who worked here once upon a time. From the details in the [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com Friends say Juan Valdez was many things.A quitter was not among them. Valdez, who worked for a time in Santa Fe city government, spent years as [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com You can have a convocation of eagles, a tower of giraffes or a scurry of squirrels. But what do you call a gathering of five-dozen Jewish [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com 'Hey, Felipe, you got a cigarette?'That was Pete Domenici's only-in-New Mexico way of disarming would-be interrogators. He'd sidle up to unsuspecting local reporters, maybe offer a [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com A scan of New Mexico attorneys general over the past half-century reveals an unpredictable Scrabble of political fortune.And political fortune - rather, political future - is [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com 'Follow the money' was the phrase made famous during Watergate, as a pair of Washington Post reporters exhumed the truth behind a botched break-in at the [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com There's a stew of stories cooking almost every day in New Mexico. And in late December, we usually recount them in year-end inventories under the headings [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com I suspect Sen. Martin Heinrich could go on at length about a new assault weapons bill he and Maine Sen. Angus King recently introduced - a [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com Time magazine named Taylor Swift its person of the year last week, and I get it. Well, check that. I don't exactly get it, because I've [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com I'm sure - at least I hope - this has happened to you:You're grinding away, going to school, doing a job, raising a family, maybe even [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com One of my most treasured possessions is a copy of The Magic Journey, by John Nichols. Actually, I've got two copies: The first one, acquired in [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com I suspect someone will build a statue to Bill Richardson someday, a bow to the late governor's personality, power and persistence.Love him or loathe him, he [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com Bruce Black has a thing for history - going back in time, combing through material, assessing the hows and whys of events that shaped the world.He's [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com Bill Sanchez comes from a layer of New Mexicans for whom the date Nov. 22 is as riveting and painful as Dec. 7 was for the [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com For the next 12 months, The Santa Fe New Mexican will be observing its 175th anniversary - an event for which the newspaper is incredibly proud. [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com Sometimes, efforts with humble beginnings become a force for good.And then they get jets and really take off. Enter the Northern New Mexico Toy Drive. Organizers [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com The winners in this year's City Council election were Alma Castro, Michael Garcia, Pilar Faulkner, Jamie Cassutt.The revelation? None of the above. That title goes to [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com By some accounts, there are at minimum 170,000 words in the English language. But in my business, two are favored above all others when describing a [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com Gary Colson always emitted the laid-back vibe: quick to smile, even eager to forgive. But when his coaching career at the University of New Mexico came [...]

Byline: Will Webber and Phill Casaus, The New Mexican ALBUQUERQUE - In an era where a silver-haired knight reigned as the king of college basketball, the man who gave us [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com Cameron Wilson sounds just like a first-year coach you'd find on, well, a football field.His kids are working hard. The initial few months have been a [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com I've typed about 10 different leads to this column and deleted every one.Got rid of the cutesy-pie preamble. Dumped the scene-setter. Sealed up the side-door entrance [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com If you're going to point to a single date when things began to wriggle out of control for Mayor Alan Webber, ask Alexa to recount the [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com We're fascinated by gambling - the odds, the handicapping, the uncertainty.The Dallas Cowboys are a 6-point favorite to beat the New England Patriots on Sunday afternoon. [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com I'm trying to think of a college president who's been on the job for 16 years, and there's ... nothing. Or at least, very little. Administrators [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com So, yes, yes, yes, Bob Vladem is proud to play a crucial role in bringing a modern art museum to Santa Fe -- a town where [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com It's hard to write a requiem for Bill Richardson because he was more real, more human, more authentic than almost any other member of his breed: [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus and Nathan Brown pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com nbrown@sfnewmexican.com Bill Richardson, 1947-2023 Bill Richardson had an outsize handshake and jovial smile - the kind that could calm foreign despots, disarm local [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com Sometimes, the toughest, most demanding congregation is the one in the mirror.John C. Wester, archbishop of Santa Fe, acknowledges there are times when he steps out [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com My favorite point in any TV newscast comes at weather time, when the guy or gal in front of the green screen chirps: 'The nation's high [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com Anniversaries have come and gone and times have changed, but Psychotherapy & Pastoral Counseling Associates soldiers on.The longtime Santa Fe counseling and psychotherapy organization celebrated its [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com Peter Sanchez is not from Santa Fe and is not an artist. With those two facts at hands, you're just waiting for strike three.It's all conjecture [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com We're closing in on the Fourth of July. I tell myself I'm saving room for pancakes on the Plaza, plus the strawberries.I've alerted my wife that [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com Grandpa, what was the Lobo-Aggie rivalry?Well, buddy, it was important a long time ago. People here had a thing for men's college basketball, and the teams [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com To understand the institutional heft of David Abbey, you have to hear the Uh-oh Story.Several years back, New Mexico was broke - as in 'Buddy, can [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com My 28-year-old daughter dropped some knowledge on me the other night, proving you're never too old to be uncool at your own dinner table.'Do you know [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com It was like one of those awards shows in which there's a winner so dominant he or she should just stay on the stage and wait [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com Michele Worstell is closer to age 60 than she is to 20, 30, 40 or 50. Big deal. In her heart, she's young. In her mind, [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com On the CSI shows and in the movies, it goes like this, right?Dogged police officer eats, sleeps and drinks a murder mystery that won't be solved. [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com Paul Slaughter, 1938-2023 Paul Slaughter had an ear for jazz, a feel for people, an eye for photography.His life was much more complex than that, but [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com I'm gonna refrain from Aggie jokes today, because nothing has been funny at New Mexico State University in the past year.(Also because my wife, an Aggie [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com Allegations of sexual abuse and hazing within two New Mexico college sports programs this spring have prompted Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to call for legislative action [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com Jerry Apodaca, 1934-2023 Jerry Apodaca was a football player at the University of New Mexico, and that sense of competition never evaporated when he traded his [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com Bad knees and all, I think Michelle Lujan Grisham, age 63, could take John Block in one round. Two at the most.There, I've gone and done [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com Rosendo Garcia won medals in the air, but he was a man of the Earth. A man of his time. He lived a life that might [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com Michael McCabe was unassuming and humble, a man so understated the casual observer might never know he was a giant in his field.But in the world [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com Those of you who've been to the nation of Equatorial Guinea, please raise your hands. OK, Mark Asquino, smart guy, you can join me at the [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com NCAA TOURNAMENT 'Trees will tap dance, elephants will drive at Indy and Orson Welles will skip lunch before North Carolina State finds a way to beat [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com It's easy to be wowed by Dominic Sandoval. A high school senior, he's been accepted at many of the gilded names in the exclusive club of [...]

Byline: Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com One of the great affectations remaining in American newspapers is the willingness of some to attach a catchy, maybe kitschy, column title to the columnist who [...]