Our Team
Dennis Peter Trujillo, Ph.D.
Assistant State Historian
Dennis Peter Trujillo was born in Montrose, Colorado, at the foot of the San Juan Mountains where he learned to fish, hike, and climb. His parents were both born in New Mexico, his mother in Bueyeros and his father in Chamita. Dennis received his B.A. in anthropology at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, his M.A. in museum studies/anthropology from the University of Denver, and his PhD. in American Studies from the University of New Mexico. Dennis has been awarded several fellowships and honors including the College Art Association (CAA) Professional Development Fellowship; Center for Regional Studies, University of New Mexico Research Fellowship; Center for Southwest Research, University of New Mexico, Clinton P. Anderson Fellowship; and American Philosophical Society Library, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship. Dennis has a keen academic interest in Southwest history and cultures, tourism, and ethno-aesthetics. His dissertation was entitled The Commodification of Hispano Culture in New Mexico: Tourism, Mary Austin, and the Spanish Colonial Arts Society. He is an avid reader, music lover, hiker/camper, and traveler. Dennis lives in the Albuquerque Nob Hill area with his wife/partner, archivist Beth Silbergleit. Dr. Trujillo is presently Assistant State Historian and serves as a Board of Trustee member for the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, member of the the Editorial Board of the New Mexico Historical Review, Board member for the Historical Society of New Mexico, and as a member of the Rocky Mountain Online Archive Advisory Board. He is a past board member and Vice Chair of the New Humanities Council and volunteers for several local music and art organizations.Bonnie Coleman Iapoce
Assistant
Bonnie is an award winning corporate communications executive with more than 20 years’ experience in client development, marketing, branding and public relations. She has extensive experience building marketing programs and start-up departments to integrate resources and heighten visibility. Bonnie worked for a large Albuquerque accounting firm as Director of Marketing before giving up the four year, 135-mile per day commute for a life in Santa Fe.
Prior coming to the Office of the State Historian, Bonnie set up her own marketing and advertising consulting firm in Santa Fe where she built websites and ad campaigns for fun and wrote an occasional business and marketing column for the New Mexico Business Journal. The "City Different" suits her style.
She is a member of the the Santa Fe WildFlowers Chapter of the Red Hat Society® and with the encouragement of her fellow Red Hatters, Bonnie submitted her recipe for "Kentucky Derby Day Cake," the only recipe from the State of New Mexico selected for inclusion in the Red Hat Society's® Cookbook, "Eat Dessert First." Now, she bakes for her friends at OSH.
Bonnie lives in Santa Fe with her husband, Michael, a former stand-up comic from San Francisco by way of NYC. He is a published author on business issues and gives seminars on the intricacies of getting a client's attention -- and keeping it. He also writes copy on business and international affairs for Stanford University and some of the "Dummies" books as well.
Bonnie's personal staff includes two Afghan Hounds and a Beagle, all of whom are "rescued," although there seems to be some dispute as to who rescued whom!
Professional Affiliations: American Bar Association, Public Relations Society of America, Law Marketing Association, Association for Accounting Marketing.
Community Activities: United Way of Central New Mexico, Women in Philanthropy, Red Hat Society, Unbroken Chain Foundation, Rex Foundation, New Mexico Beagle Rescue, Afghan Hound Rescue.
Rick Hendricks, Ph.D.
State Historian
Rick Hendricks was born in Waynesville, North Carolina, nestled between the Great Smokey and Blue Ridge Mountains. Rick received his B. A. in History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his Ph.D. in Ibero American Studies at the University of New Mexico. He also attended the Universidad de Sevilla in Spain. He is a former editor of the Vargas Project at the University of New Mexico, a long-term, historical editing project that transcribed, translated, and annotated the papers of New Mexico governor Diego de Vargas. Rick has been a historical consultant for Sandia, Santa Ana, and Picuris Pueblos in New Mexico and Ysleta del Sur in Texas. After the conclusion of the Vargas Project, he worked in the Archives and Special Collections Department at New Mexico State University Library. While there he took part in the project to microfilm the Archivos Históricos del Arzobispado de Durango and the Archivos Históricos de Sombrerete and edited the guides to those collections. At NMSU Rick also taught courses in colonial Latin America and Mexican history. He has written or collaborated on more than sixteen books and seventy articles on the Spanish colonial period in the American Southwest and Mexico. His writings have garnered awards from the Historical Society of New Mexico, the New Mexico Historical Review, the El Paso County Historical Society, the Border Regional Library Association, and the Doña Ana County Historical Society. His most recent book, New Mexico in 1801: The Priests Report, was published in June 2008 by Rio Grande books. He edited the Southern New Mexico Historical Review, a publication of the Doña Ana Historical Society, for a decade. Rick is a past president of the Historical Society of New Mexico and is a long-time member of the Advisory Council of the Center for Big Bend Studies at Sul Ross State University. He is currently completing biographies of Mesilla Valley pioneer agriculturalist Thomas Casad and Spanish-Mexican patriot Father Antonio Severo Borrajo. Rick’s leisure time is usually filled with soccer. He served on the High Noon Soccer League board for ten years, six as president. He coached for ten years and is a referee, referee instructor, and referee assignor. Rick’s wife, Lois Stanford, a cultural anthropologist, is an associate professor on the faculty at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. His son, William, is a high school senior and will soon be headed to Spain to experience the culture and play soccer for a year before beginning college where he eventually hopes to study medicine and become a trauma doctor. The family’s life is enriched by a loving rescue dog named Mischa, a Labrador-Australian Heeler mix.