Gov. Bill Richardson deserves credit for his bold initiative to begin the process of restructuring the governance of the C&TS. I also applaud his statesmanship in garnering the support of Gov. Owens. I’m hopeful that this move will lead to the sort of rationalizing of the organizational structure that some of us had tried to achieve several years ago.
I reluctantly believe the replacement of the entire Commission, that included former NM Gov. Dave Cargo, was critically necessary. It was also ironic. In the history of the C&TS, there are only two NM governors that have displayed the level of interest in preserving the railroad that it deserves. And now one of them has fired the other from the Commission. Such is politics.
My hunch is that as a few years pass, the heated controversies of recent months will fade and Gov. Cargo will be remembered and appreciated for his crucial role in creating the C&TS as well as for his faithful support over the years. You can disagree with some of his positions as a Commissioner (and I certainly have), but had there not been a maverick governor with vision like Dave Cargo in the right place at the right moment in time, the C&TS would today be a jeep trail...at best.
Lost in all the shouting since the announcements of the Commissioner’s replacement and the new memo of understanding, is that Richardson has tapped his long-time friend Carl Turner to continue as the Commission’s official lobbyist for NM. If a C&TS Hall of Fame is ever housed in the Friends’ planned Interpretive Center, folks such as Terry Ross will surely be inducted as founding members. And Dave Cargo and Carl Turner will be among them.
One of my best times with the Friends/RGRPC was spent one evening back in August 2003 at the Chama Station Inn listening to Dave Cargo and Carl Turner trading stories about the early days of the railroad, NM politics, and various rogues and scoundrels they’d known. Dave was in his usual dapper clothes and Carl wore his signature flannel shirt and curved stem pipe, as they both sipped Carl’s cheap scotch. Together, one a Republican and one a Democrat, they held court while I along with Frank Turner and Dick Cowles (whose last name Carl would sometimes mispronounce as “Cow-alls” just to piss him off) mostly listened and laughed as they regaled us with just about the right mix of truth and bullshit for our listening pleasure.
I first met Carl Turner in Santa Fe soon after I moved to NM. I’d asked Dick Cowles to arrange a meeting for me with Carl so he could show me around the Roundhouse (the NM statehouse) and provide me with a few introductions. I arrived dressed in a gray suit & tie because I didn’t know any better and he showed up in blue jeans, flannel shirt and pipe. He looked me over, drew on his pipe just long enough to let me know that I wasn’t back East anymore and then said, “You must be Mr. Shoup.” Then he looked at my suit one more time and with a big grin, he drawled, “Ah dressed up since Ah heard you was coming.” I liked him immediately.
Later that morning at the Roundhouse, I found that Carl knew every legislator in both houses and often their wives and kids as well. And they all knew him. During every conversation he had that morning with legislators, no matter how casual it was, he slipped in a plug for the railroad and reminded them how key their support was. I don’t recall one legislator failing to assure him. I’d done some government affairs work during my career, but I’d never seen it done this well and this smoothly. I was watching a master.
Carl served a term or two as a state representative back in the early 60s and then became a fixture as a lobbyist in his role as executive director of the NM Rural Electrification Association. He was an early supporter of the railroad and served an earlier stint on the Commission back in the 1980s. His ties with Gov. Richardson go deep – Carl headed up Richardson's transition team back when he was first elected to Congress.
What I’ve come to admire most about Carl is his unrelenting willingness to stand by his beliefs no matter how unpopular they might be at the moment. You can get angry with him, you can sweet talk him, or you can threaten him. But he just doesn’t care. He'll stand firm. He’s learned that he often can prevail if he waits for the worm to turn.
He may have come by this ability to stand resolute as a young man who believed in civil rights during the Jack Crow days that existed in Mississippi in the late 1940s. The story is told that while he was attending Old Miss Law School, he was advised by some good ole boys that his progressive notions about black citizens having equal rights might be bad for his long term health. They suggested that perhaps he might want to reconsider his ill-advised, non-segregationist political views. Not being someone who was inclined to change his beliefs just because somebody threatened him, he chose to change his neighborhood instead and headed west. Fittingly, he landed in NM where the blend of cultures and acceptance was much more to his liking. There is no more vigorous booster and patriot of NM than Carl Turner…the only native New Mexican I ever met who wasn’t born there.
The C&TS is fortunate to have him working the statehouse for a few more years.
