Archive for June, 2008

By Stephany Trego

LAS CRUCES, NM – June 11, 2008 For the sixth time in seven years, Las Cruces, New Mexico has been recognized by Facilities & Destinations magazine as a Top Destination.

The Facilities and Destinations Top Destination Awards are given to the leading Convention and Visitor Bureaus or similar organization for marketing and meeting planner services.

Las Cruces was among several US cities selected by the magazine’s readers to receive the 2006 award recognizing destinations for their ability to accommodate groups and conventions.

“This is a great honor for Las Cruces and the CVB; we are pleased to have been selected again by the readers of Facilities & Destinations to receive this year’s Top Destination award,” said Las Cruces Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB) Executive Director Ken Mompellier.

Readers based their decision on such criteria as quality of meeting space, professionalism of staff, hotel accommodations, onsite management, special promotions and services, accessibility and the attractiveness of the destination.

“Together, the bureau and local hotel sales departments have taken an aggressive approach to promoting Las Cruces facilities to the meetings market while emphasizing the many great reasons to hold meetings in Las Cruces. Over the past few years we have established many great contacts and are looking forward to expanding the meetings and convention market in Las Cruces,” said Mompellier.

The Convention Sales Department is currently under the direction of Convention Sales Manager John Bulla who joined the CVB staff in 2006.

For more information, contact the Las Cruces CVB at (505) 541-2150 or by email at cfaivre@las-cruces.org.
 

By Stephany Trego

LAS CRUCES, NM – June 11, 2008 When Mesilla artist Jeanne Rundell walked along the Antique Equipment Park at the Las Cruces Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum, she saw more than old, rusted farm implements. She saw what she refers to as “dinosaur bones” from the industrial revolution, and decided to bring them to life in the form of colorful, modern-style paintings.

“Relics of the Industrial Revolution: The Art of Jeanne Rundell” features 18 large paintings and will be in the museum’s south corridor through Nov. 16.

Rundell worked on the project for the past two years. After she took more than 200 photographs of the equipment, she chose parts and pieces from the machinery for the interpretations seen in the exhibit.

“They spoke eloquently about the disappearance of farming as a way of life,” she said of the implements. “Their structures and forms were beautiful.”

Rundell has been interested in art since childhood. She attended Cornell University, and received her B.F.A. from the University of Colorado. Later, she earned an M.A. in clay and glassblowing at Emporia University in Kansas. She has also studied drawing at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin, and apprenticed in pottery with Margarete Wiedemann in Regensburg, Germany.

In 1975, she and her family moved to Las Cruces where she founded Mesilla Valley Pottery and began a thirty-year stint showing her art at fairs across the U.S. Rundell recently has had paintings accepted into two nationally juried art shows, at both the Prince Street Gallery in New York City and at the Creative Arts Workshop in New Haven, Conn. Since 1986, her studio has been located at The Potteries in Mesilla and she continues to work there daily.

The museum is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and from noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday. Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for senior citizens and $2 for children ages 5 to 17. For more information, please call (575) 522-4100.