Klipsch Museum Chronicles the Life of an Acoustic Genius

Even with my hearing deficiency, I can tell the sound coming from speakers the size of small chests of drawers is exceptional. The separation of the music from left to right is so distinct, it’s as if two different tracks were playing. And resonance from bass to treble bubbles forth in a rich palette of color.

The speakers are Klipschorn and the place where I’m listening to them is the Paul W. and Valerie S. Klipsch Museum in NMSU’s College of Engineering, specifically the Foreman engineering complex just south of the venerable Goddard Hall.

The museum was dedicated in 1997, when the Foreman building was completed, and, although the museum is more than a dozen years old, its treasures are virtually unknown by Las Cruceans.

Paul Klipsch undoubtedly deserves the recognition for the masterpiece speakers he created. He’s in the Audio Hall of Fame and the Engineering and Science Hall of Fame. NMSU’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering was named in his honor. Of greatest interest to me is the fact Klipsch is also an Aggie. He graduated in 1926 when the university was still New Mexico College of A&M. I received my degree in 1966.

And then there’s Joe Creed, who also earned his degrees from NMSU. He’s Assistant Dean of the College of Engineering and Professor Emeritus. Before he retired, Prof. Creed not only taught but, as dean, was responsible for alumni relations with the college. That’s how he met the Klipschs and got involved in the museum.

Following graduation, Klipsch worked as a geophysicist until the beginning of World War II. He enlisted in the Army at the rank of Major and was assigned to the Southwest Proving Grounds in Hope, Arkansas, where he specialized in ballistics, earning several patents for his work. When the war ended he remained in Hope. His lifelong love of music undoubtedly contributed to his interest in building speakers, which he began doing in a tin building behind a dry cleaner.

The business prospered, perhaps despite its founder. According to Prof. Creed, “Paul Klipsch was more interested in building the best and most beautiful speakers he could and not just making money.”

Because his wife, Valerie, was so much a part of his life and the business, I’d be remiss if I did not include this story. Mrs. Klipsch was born in Austria and immigrated to the United States prior to the war. Since Hope was their home, I had to venture an obvious question: Did they know the Clintons? Prof. Creed told me, Valerie Klipsch was an accomplished pianist and taught piano in Hope. “She was, in fact, Bill Clinton’s piano teacher,” he says, “but she recommended he take up saxophone because his hands were too large for piano.”

Klipsch continued to refine and build even better speakers. His Klipschorn speakers are considered the best sound producing instruments of their time. Built for installation in a corner, the speakers use the walls as part of the bass horn to reach the high fidelity they achieve, proving it was possible to reproduce the sound of a live orchestra in a home. Their name, however, was not chosen by their designer.

In an 1999 interview, Klipsch said he made a sales call to a prospect in New York and was surprised to learn the man already know about his speakers. “We’ve heard about your corner horn,” the prospect said. “We call it the Klipschorn.”

n time, the Klipschs decided to retire and sold the business to Fred Klipsch, Paul’s brother. The business exists today, based in Indianapolis. The plant in Hope is also still there and the unique Klipschorn speakers are still being built there, albeit as special order items.

Paul and Valerie Klipsch had always had high regard for NMSU. They endowed a scholarship fund that supports about 45 students annually. They also had a small museum in Hope and decided to donate it to the university.

Enter Joe Creed. “Taking care of alumni was just part of my job,” he says. “That’s when I met Paul and Valerie and got involved with the museum. I was lucky to be here when they came to make their donation.”

He flew to Hope to accept the artifacts and memorabilia, rented a truck, and drove back to Las Cruces with the treasures.

That meeting led to a lifelong friendship, which continues to this day. While Klipsch died in 2004 at age 98, Mrs. Klipsch still lives in Hope. “I’ve been happy to be associated with the Klipschs,” Prof. Creed says, “because they are such gracious people.” He talks with Mrs. Klipsch frequently and often travels there to examine the newest items she’s found, since she’s constantly on the lookout for her husband’s earliest speakers.

When the Foreman building was completed, it had two spacious foyers. Prof. Creed convinced the university to make minor adjustments to the design of one of the foyers and turn it into space for the museum. There visitors can examine the various styles of speakers that came from the Klipsch factory, including the large, corner Klipschorn with its matched fronts in fine wood. Several of the speaker sets are wired to CD players so visitors can insert their music and listen to it. There are technical exhibits including a cutaway of the Klipschorn, an exhibit of the awards and honors Klipsch earned, photos chronicling his life, and a cabinet of his papers. Prof. Creed also rescued the office of the acoustic genius and has reassembled it as if Paul Klipsch has just stepped out for lunch.

The museum is open Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1 to 3 p.m. or you can call 646-2913 for an appointment. Prof. Creed is more than willing to share the stories embraced by the museum to anyone who is interested.

We all listen to music, but until your favorite composition resounds from a Klipschorn speaker, you haven’t really heard it. It’s worth the time to hear the difference and learn about the man who made it possible.

Posted by Bud Russo

An Encounter With Otero Mesa: Learning What Makes It Unique

I’m standing on a hillock in the middle of Otero Mesa, the last remaining Chihuahuan Desert short-grass prairie left on public lands in the U.S. I find it hard to comprehend how vast this grassland is. Knowing it’s 1.2 million acres just doesn’t do it. I turn in a slow circle and look out over the plateau. From where I am to the horizon in every direction there is the undulating grassland. Sixty-some miles to the north are the Sacramento Mountains. To the west are the Hueco Mountains and to the east are the Cornudas Mountains, which block my view of the Guadalupe Mountains farther east. The plateau within this triangle of mountains constitutes Otero Mesa.

The human footprint here is still relatively light. Ranchers lease much of the BLM-managed lands for cattle. Other than that, the land seems empty. It is anything but. Life, comprised of more than 1,000 plant and animal species, abounds everywhere I look.

Ever since joining the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance (NMWA) I had heard about Otero Mesa and I had wanted to experience it. On a weekend in late September, Cheryl Fallstead and I joined Nathan Newcomer, NMWA associate director, and about a dozen people at a campsite in the shadow of Alamo Mountain, the highest peak in the Cornudas.

Saturday most of the campers elected to hike the a steep trail to the summit of Alamo Mountain, some 1400 feet above the plain. They were promised a grand view of the entire mesa and were not disappointed.

Cheryl and I joined Steve West, NMWA staff scientist, to conduct wildlife surveys at several stock ponds out on the plateau. Otero Mesa is high on the Department of the Interior’s list of possible new national monuments and knowing the variety and extent of plant and animal life contributes to our understanding of the land and why it should be protected.

Instead of the grand view, we got up close and personal. We sited and identified more than forty of the 250 species of birds that call Otero Mesa home or which migrate through the area. I’m not a birder so this was an education, learning to tell the difference between a bunting and a warbler; a Vesper’s sparrow from a Brewer’s sparrow. I was more impressed with the raptors we sighted: the osprey, northern harrier, red-tailed, Swainson’s, and Cooper’s hawks. We saw waterfowl – red and green-winged teal, an American coot, and American avocet – and one magnificent hummingbird. That’s not an exaggeration. That’s its name: Magnificent.

We listed plants not yet identified in other areas on the mesa. I learned how to tell the difference between a croton and a winter fat plant and about the all-thorn or crucifixion-thorn tree. The trees we were looking at grow exceedingly slow and may have been more than a century old.

What was most obvious was the change in plant assemblages. In some areas there was an abundance of gramma grasses studded with yucca, indicative of healthy grassland. Other areas were carpeted with yellow snakeweed, mesquite, and prickly pear – signs of poor range management over the century or more cattle have been grazed here. How to give the land respite and let it recover are issues now being debated.

As evening arrived, we helped set up mist nets to trap birds, which West was banding. Each one he caught, he measured and weighed. He was excited to find and band an orange-crowned warbler and a cordilleran flycatcher.

There were other exciting moments during the day. We spotted several pronghorn, some single males and others with their harems. Pronghorns we were told are not antelopes but last surviving species of nine Pleistocene animals, which thrived as long as two million years ago. That may account for their strangely shaped horns and head that’s out of proportion to their bodies.

As the sun settled over the Hueco Mountains, we were treated to a delightful coyote howl. I expect the coyotes were simply letting each other know they were in close proximity, maybe on the edge of each other’s territory but, to me, they sounded more like an a cappella choir in four-part harmony.

Sunday was a day of exploring human history rather than natural history. Newcomer led our group up to the first bench on Alamo Mountain to see some of the hundreds of petroglyphs. Many of the rock-art creations are thought to have been made by the Mescalero Apache whose territory was near the area in the mid-1800s. Designs of horned characters and zigzagging lines may represent Apache deities of wind, rain, thunder, and lightning. Drawings of horses suggest many of the petroglyphs date from the 1600s, although other artifacts and potsherds indicate native people have inhabited the area for thousands of years.

As you might expect, there was a wide range of artistry. Some rock artists could do no more than make stick figures; others had the competence to do remarkable images of fish, owls, bear paws, and what looked like a rainbow. He also pointed out a broad bowl in which archeologists have found pit houses and other evidence of human occupation. Newcomer said he expects scientists will find pottery, tools, charcoal from old campfires, and perhaps even human remains. We looked into the bowl from its edge and turned away. No one wanted to disturb an area that could enlighten us about those occupying the land long before us.

Our last stop was the remaining stone walls of the Butterfield Stage station, one of 140 stations along the trail from St. Louis to San Francisco. Perhaps impressed by the Native American rock art, a number of Anglos – maybe travelers, maybe cowboys – etched there names and the dates of their passing.

If our ride onto Otero Mesa was like venturing into a brave new world, our ride home was like leaving an old friend, one we’re sure to revisit time and again, certain each visit will reveal new wonders.

Posted by Bud Russo

Color Las Cruces Plein Air Festival Gets Underway Sep 3

Time to mark your calendar. Doña Ana Arts Council will kick off its first Color Las Cruces Plein Air Competition and Festival with an exhibit of work by the Plein Air Painters of El Paso. The exhibit will run the month of September and works will be on display at Rio Grande Theatre, El Paso Electric office on Water Street, and Carolene de Mesilla Galleries on the Downtown Mall next to the theatre. The exhibit kicks off at 5 p.m. on Sept 3 as part of the Downtown Art Ramble. The Festival is Sept 11 and 12 and features two Plein Air competitions, workshop, VIP artists' reception, and citywide gallery hop. In my untutored opinion, Plein Air is as close we can come to classical Impressionism without cloning Monet! The painting here is called Hollyhocks & Fountains and its by Candy Mayer.

Wilderness -- Are Your For or Against?

The 1964 Wilderness Act defines wilderness as land having no human footprint. Well, actually that’s the only thing wilderness can have. But there is no tire track, no helicopter skid mark, no evidence of machinery at all.

The Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks Wilderness Act is completing its journey through the U.S. Senate and it seems likely to pass there as well as in the House. And yet, the legislation has remained controversial since its inception a few years ago.

At first glance, the Doña Ana lands to be set aside as wilderness don’t seem to quality. People have been living on and manipulating these lands for about 12,000 years -- ever since the first hunter-gatherers migrated into the area. Today much of the land is criss-crossed with dirt tracks. Some are actually graded county roads. Some are used by ranchers and others are abandoned mine roads. So what’s the point of wilderness designation for these lands?

Las Cruces is the second largest city in the state. When I first came here in 1961 as an NMSU student there were about 25,000 residents. Today that number is pushing toward 90,000 and beyond. We’ll know the exact number when the 2010 Census is complete.

People need homes, schools, businesses, and entertainment. Those structures need to be connected by roads, water and sewer systems, power lines, etc. All of that requires land. What once was rural ranching country is changing. How rapidly is a matter of conjecture. Spaceport America could bring substantial high-tech industry to Las Cruces. In fact, city leaders are hoping that’s the case. As the area becomes more urbanized, the old ways of living fade into the shadows. Most of us like a good steak, but we’re mostly detached from where our beef comes from -- other than the butcher at the grocery store. It may not be too many years before ranching in this area is simply economically unfeasible and the ranch land will be sold to developers.

Without some vision of land use, without protection, the more spectacular portions of land that define who we are could be lost. I’ve seen it happen in other places, most notably around Civil War battle sites back East where suburban subdivisions back up to the cramped portions of land that was once hallowed for the American blood spilt there.

Wilderness is the highest level of protection we can offer these lands, even though they may not be purely wild lands. They are, however, the most scenic and the most accessible to our community. And they need the protection to assure they will be there generations from now when we are nothing but our great grandchildren’s distant memories.

What’s your opinion? Should we support the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks Wilderness Act? Why or why not?

Posted by Bud Russo

Pardon Billy The Kid?

The Las Cruces Sun-News reported July 29, Gov. Bill Richardson is initiating an inquiry into the alleged pardon of Billy the Kid by then Gov. Lew Wallace. If the facts merit it, the Governor is said to have decided, he would pardon the legendary outlaw.

The life of Billy the Kid is wrought with legends and myths, making it difficult now ... after more than 125 years ... to sift fact from fiction. The facts are these: Billy was tried in Mesilla, convicted and sentenced to hang for the murder of Sheriff William Brady in Lincoln. He escaped and was a fugitive for some months. He was shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett, who had been tracking him all those months. Billy did indeed write Gov. Wallace asking for his intervention. The letters are on display at the New Mexico Museum of History in Santa Fe and the museum in the L.G. Murphy store in Lincoln.

The questions are these: Was Billy the lone shooter of Brady or, as some historians believe, was he only one of several of Alexander McSween’s Regulators to have shot the sheriff? Were the Regulators a vigilante committee bent on revenge over the murder of John Tunstall, Murphy’s rival, or duly sworn deputies of the law? Some believe Brady has at least nine bullet holes in him delivered by at least six guns. So, was Billy the killer or just the scapegoat? Was Billy looking for his girlfriend in Fort Sumner and was he armed with a six-gun and not a turkey leg the night Pat Garrett shot the fugitive? Did Garrett fire in self-defense or did he simply execute Billy? Convicted murderers at the time could be captured dead or alive and returned for execution of sentence.

The ultimate question, of course, is what purpose does it serve to pardon a man who’s been dead 129 years? Will it separate legend from fact? Will it benefit descendants of Billy the Kid ... assuming he sired any? Will it “settle the score”once for all?

Register your vote: Should the governor pardon Billy the Kid? Yes? Or No?

Oh, by the way, Pat Garrett’s death on February 29, 1908 ... a Leap Year ... is cloaked in as much mystery as his shooting of Billy. But that’s another story!

Posted by Bud Russo

Explore! New Mexico Ribbon Cutting Ceremony

We want to thank our friends and supporters who attended our ribbon cutting ceremony today. As new members of the Greater Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce, Explore! New Mexico had the opportunity to celebrate our business with friends. Thanks to the Conquistadores for doing a great job with the ceremony!

Taos Daytrip: Kit Carson, Blumenschein & Bent

On our last day of travel, we headed along the High Road to Taos. Once there, we visited the Kit Carson Home and Museum as well as Carson's grave, stopped by the Gov. Bent house and gift shop, and toured the Blumenschein house and museum. In between we popped into any number of interesting galleries -- for which Taos is known.

Highway 68 runs from Espanola to Taos. That's how we came home. On our way there, we took thefamous High Road through Nambe, Truchas, and Penasco. The road wound and turned, often taking us back the way we came before heading northeast again. We rambled through juniper/pinon dotted hills with pine forest climbing higher up the mountains. Mt. Wheeler, the highest peak in NM, towered over us. It's a strikingly beautiful drive and, as we climbed higher into the pine forests, enjoyed grassy meadows dotted with wildflowers. At one point we hit the shoulder. We had just stopped to photograph a lovely church that two artists were painting and had barely started driving again when there to our right was a log flume. That's right! Two 20-foot-long logs had been hollowed out to move water to where we had no idea, but the technology was straight out of the 18th Century.

Cheryl had a particular interest in the Kit Carson house. Her great-grandmother lived across the street from the Carsons in Taosand the two families were friendly. Kit Carson's home eventually included 12 rooms in a few separate buildings. We toured four rooms of his home, which comprise the museum. Some rooms in another building are unstable and unsafe, soare not included in the museum. Another set of rooms across a courtyard are part of a gallery and gift shop. The museum is owned and operated by the Masons, as Carson was a member and they wanted to preserve his legacy. It was an interesting look into the character and life of the American hero. We went next to see the graves of Carson and his third wife, Josefa Jamarillo.

I had an interest the the Gov. Charles Bent house. In 1847, after Gen. Kearny left Santa Fe for California, many of the Indians and Mexicans in Taos -- those who resented the American take-over -- rose in revolt. They stormed the Bent house and murdered the governor. While he held them off, his wife and daughter, and Mrs. Carson pushed a hole in a back wall and escaped. Mrs. Bent is buried in the same cemetery as the Carsons. Charles Bent's grave is not there.

Ernest Blumenschein, an artist from back East, was enroute from Denver to Mexico

when his wagon broke. He rode on horseback into Taos to get repairs and fell in love with the town. He is one of the founders of the Taos Society of Artists, the foundation of today's art

s community. His house consists of nine rooms. They

were built at various times from 1797 to 1924. He and his wife purchased three rooms in 1919 and as other buildings came on the market, they acquired them and expanded their residence between 1924 and 1931. Blumenschein, his wife, Mary, and daughter, Helen, all were artists and much of their art is on display, along with some of their furnishings. The house is interesting to explore and the art compelling. However,

we felt the $8 entrance fee was a bit steep.

Tired from walking and the heat, we headed south, stopping at the St. Francis of Asis church in Rancho de Taos -- a popular subject of painters and photographers -- and then dropped from the high plateau into the Rio Grande gorge.

I had read about an adobe home in Rinconada having two Mississippi riverboat capstans decorating it and wondered if the house is still there. The story dated to 1928. While we didn't find the house, we did meet Mark Saxe, who runs a stone carving school and gallery. He said perhaps the 90-year-old man across the highway might know, but advised not visiting his property unannounced. We decided to wait and see if Mark could contact his neighbor and inform us of the whereabouts of the capstans.

We returned to Santa Fe exhausted from our week of travel. We've had an exciting journey, and will have many more stories to tell -- after we've had a few days rest. And of course, we can't wait to return to do more exploring!

Posted by Bud Russo