Las Golondrinas Honors Its Volunteers

Pedro Martinez is Volunteer of the Year

Contact: Laura Gonzales-Meredith at El Rancho de las Golondrinas, (505) 271-4461, extension 212

The Santa Fe Hilton Hotel was the site Saturday for the 33rd annual volunteer awards luncheon and ceremony for El Rancho de las Golondrinas, New Mexico’s renowned living history museum.

Over 200 attended, where museum volunteers celebrated the year past, looked forward to the coming season, and museum leadership recognized its volunteers with service awards of pins, turquoise stones, and solid silver medallions.

Pedro Martinez of Santa Fe was named 2018 Volunteer of the Year, the museum’s annual most prestigious award.

Martinez, a living history enthusiast and native New Mexican, coordinates and assists other volunteers on non-festival weekends. He also was interviewed last year on Public Broadcasting System’s Santa Fe Adventure starring Emmy Award-nominated Darley Newman.

Daniel Goodman, museum director, gave the highlights of 2018, which saw increased attendance, more special tours, more revenue, new festivals in their second successful year, and new partnership programs.

Last year Las Golondrinas volunteers donated 31,000 hours, worth more than $765,000 according to the organization Independent Sector.

Laura Gonzales, manager of education and volunteers, shared stories of visitors, including children who didn’t want to leave the Museums Fiesta de Los Niños event because they were having such a wonderful time, and museum supporters and volunteers that helped the museum recover from the 2018 flood.

El Rancho de las Golondrinas (The Ranch of the Swallows) is the nation’s only living history museum focused on the experience of Spanish settlers in what is now the American Southwest.

It was founded in 1972 on the site of an original rancho in La Cienega dating to the early 1700s and features 34 historic structures and agricultural fields on 200 scenic acres.