Several hundred students, parents, alumni, and friends gathered Friday afternoon at Lew Wallace Elementary to celebrate the school’s 90th birthday.Outside, there were plenty of people milling around enjoying hot dogs, bags of chips, tangerines, and cake. But inside the building that holds the gym and cafeteria, the formal program was dominated by student flamenco performances. Above, teacher Lydia Krebbs guides one group through a performance. Behind the dancers (and just barely visible through a gap) is Eva Encinias, the singer and founding director of Sawmill’s National Institute of Flamenco. Fourteen students were subsequently awarded full scholarships to attend a five-day camp that will coincide with next month’s Festival Flamenco.The occasion was especially delightful for Huning Highlands residents Victoria and Dennis Maietta. Victoria attended third grade at Lew Wallace back in the 1960s and recalls excellent Frito pie served at lunch and whooping it up at recess in a time when the playground equipment was dominated by the monkey bars and not much else. The couple subsequently sent their two children to the school. Two of their grandkids have gone as well, and two more are still working their way through. “It’s a positive gem here in Downtown Albuquerque,” Dennis said.Mayor Tim Keller declared Friday “Lew Wallace Elementary School 90th Anniversary Day” and presented Principal Melanie Mísquez-Telles with a framed copy of the document.Handwritten rosters of the 1950s-era teaching staff (high resolution) were among the historical items on display on the gym’s walls during the event. Lew Wallace’s location at Sixth and Roma was originally the site of another primary school built in the early 1890s. The new school was named for the former New Mexico territorial governor, who went on to serve as ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. But these days, Lew Wallace is perhaps better known for two other things: writing “Ben-Hur” and for saying that “every calculation based on experience elsewhere fails in New Mexico.”
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