Contributors

Kathleen Sloan has been a local-government reporter for 17 years, covering counties and cities in three states—New Mexico, Iowa and Florida. She has also covered the arts for various publications in Virginia, New Mexico and Iowa. Sloan worked for the Truth or Consequences Herald newspaper from 2006 to 2013; it closed December 2019. She returned to T or C in 2019 and founded the online newspaper, the Sierra County Sun, with Diana Tittle taking the helm as editor during the last year and a half of operation. The Sun closed December 2021, concurrent with Sloan retiring. SierraCountySun.org is still an open website, with hundreds of past articles still available. Sloan is now a board member of the not-for-profit organization, the Sierra County Public-Interest Journalism Project, which supported the Sun and is currently sponsoring the Sierra County Citizen, another free and open website. Sloan is volunteering as a citizen journalist, covering the T or C beat. She can be reached at kathleen.sloan@gmail.com or 575-297-4146.

Born and raised in Brussels, Belgium, I lived 20 years in the San Francisco Bay Area and have been living in Sierra County, NM for the last 20 years. I have been taking photographs for 40 years as a way of sharing my point of view. Beauty surrounds us, we just need to pay attention. I believe in the power of images as they say “One Picture is Worth a Thousand Words”. ”Local” is very important because we can engage in a more personnel way whether reading the news or buying food. That’s why I was sorry to see the Sierra County Sun go and want to support the Sierra County Citizen by being on the board of the Sierra County Public-Interest Journalism Project and posting local images.

Tom Sharpe has been a print journalist for most of his life. He grew up in East Texas, graduated from the University of Texas at Austin and began coming to New Mexico to work as a forest firefighter out of Questa in 1971. He has worked full-time for the Santa Fe New Mexican, the Santa Fe bureau of the Albuquerque Journal and the Santa Fe Reporter, has freelanced extensively for the Denver Post, Engineering News-Record and Agence France-Presse, and was a press aide for New Mexico Gov. Toney Anaya (1983-86). Sharpe and his wife Stacy Brown, an artist (paintings and drawings available at Snakestone Studios in Truth or Consequences) and master knitter (knitted toys available at Dust), have six children from previous marriages. They began coming to Truth or Consequences for long weekends away from Santa Fe more than 20 years ago, and after retiring from their jobs and selling their Santa Fe home in 2023, moved to the Truth or Consequences Hot Springs District.

Durrae Johanek is a Pennsylvania native, transplanted to Montana in 1992, who has fallen in love with T or C, where she snowbirds with her husband, John. To keep her off the streets, John forces her to create art for his ZIA Gallery. In a shoebox under her bed is a diploma from Kutztown State University (yes, that’s a real school) that says she was qualified to write 4 books on Montana and work as an editor for Bird Watcher’s Digest and assorted medical publishers for way too long.

John Johanek spent 40 years in publishing including four years as art director for Popular Mechanics in New York. He then founded his own design consulting firm with clients worldwide. His firm earned the highest awards in magazine design excellence. He’s written numerous articles on the fine points of magazine design in leading industry magazines and presented hundreds of design seminars and workshops for major trade conferences, publishing organizations and private publishers stateside and internationally. He and his wife Durrae have authored two books on Montana (his home state): Montana Behind the Scenes and Montana Folks. For the past several years John has pursued his passion for art and now he and Durrae operate Zia Gallery in Truth or Consequences to showcase their work. He is a member of the board of directors of the Sierra County Public-Interest Journalism Project.

Steve Morgan is a retired landscape architect who spent most of his 35 year career in Arizona and New Mexico. His current career is giving Chautauquas or Living History performances, as Aldo Leopold. He happily calls Kingston, New Mexico his home now, nestled in the Black Range Mountains only 3 miles from the Aldo Leopold Wilderness. His writings are strongly shaped by Aldo Leopold’s love of the wild lands, with respect and compassion for the land – the soils, waters, plants and animals. Steve’s compassion for nature is evident by his strong, driving desire to open people’s eyes to the marvel and joy of experiencing the natural world.

Debora Nicoll, a member of the board of the Sierra County Public-Interest Journalism Project, will cover the Sierra County Commission for the Citizen, as she did for the Sierra County Sun, capitalizing on her past regular attendance at its monthly meetings as a concerned citizen and champion of responsive government. Nicoll was born and raised in the midwest but is a southwesterner by choice, calling Sierra County home since 2010, when she retired from a 22-year career as a research scientist.

John Ofalltrades is the former editorial cartoonist for the Sierra County Sun. A respected area artist, John (who prefers a pseudonym to retain his anonymity) wants to continue his cartooning endeavors and share his perspectives with the Sierra County Citizen readers. All opinions expressed are his alone.

Diana Tittle, a member of the board of Sierra County Public-Interest Journalism Project, was the editor of the Sierra County Sun, the Citizen’s precursor. A former resident of Truth or Consequences who now lives part-time in northern New Mexico, she spent her 42-year professional career in Cleveland, Ohio, where she worked as a newspaper reporter, magazine writer and editor, book author and publisher and publishing consultant. She is the recipient of a Cleveland Arts Prize for Literature.

Sierra County Public-Interest Journalism Project’s board president Max Yeh is a novelist and writes widely on language, interpretation, history, and culture. He has lived in Hillsboro, New Mexico, for more than 30 years after retiring from an academic career in literature, art history and critical theory.