Friend leaves legacy of love and compassion to others

I remember the first time I met Gloria Bradford. I think most people do. A tiny Latina woman, but when she walked into a room she was hard to miss. Every time I close my eyes, I see two things: her big curly her and her big smile.

For several years Gloria and a small group of community partners came together for the annual Martin Luther King Jr Day Celebration, most recently held on the Western New Mexico University campus. Each year, we would look at each other and think of how time went by so fast and wonder how we were going to manage to put on another celebration so soon.

Gloria made it happen. You see, the rest of us in the world tend to fall under our own pessimism. We shrug our shoulders and think small. We just want to mark a tally on a checklist to say that we accomplished a task.

Not Gloria. At every meeting, she brought new ideas. Not the kind of thoughts you hear from CEOs and corporate leaders. Ideas that focused on people and purposes. She always thought of the forgotten, and the Mining District was something of a special focus in her heart. We always listened because each time she spoke we knew that there was meaning and emotion behind what she…