This month we have chosen to highlight Dolores Varela-Phillips. Dolores has been a Whitfield volunteer for over ten years. She first began her service
as the Friends treasurer where she spent six years ensuring our fiscal accountability. When she transitioned out of this position after serving her full allowed tenure, she became our communications and membership manager. She has served in this capacity for five years. Dolores was responsible for ensuring our newsletter being delivered on a quarterly basis to Friends members. She will be sincerely missed as we find new volunteers to fill her shoes.

Dolores retired from Albuquerque Public Schools after 32 years as an elementary teacher. She used the environment as her curriculum theme. Her crowning achievement was spearheading the creation of an 5 acre outdoor learning laboratory at Los Padillas Elementary School called the Los Padillas Wildlife Sanctuary. In addition, she wrote and secured a $150,000 five year grant to train the staff in the use of this facility.

It was after retirement that she put her talents to work at the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge. Here she spent five years as an educator and conducting antelope research by monitoring herds on the refuge.

Dolores was born in New Jersey and her husband, Clyde, was born and raised in New Mexico. He is a graduate of Valley High School. They love traveling. In the past twenty years they have visited every state in the Union except Florida. Camping at least four times a year is also one of their joys. Dolores says Alaska is one of their favorite places having been there twice and planning for another trip in the future. Although she claims to be a homebody, she often invites her very large family to visit her beautiful home. She says that “We are quite unassuming people who enjoy our 20 bosque acres”.

Spending time at home for the past six years she and her husband have turned their twenty-acre homestead, which is adjacent to the Rio Grande, into a wildlife sanctuary. They used a grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Partners in Wildlife program to embellish the area with a pond and native vegetation. They also cleared for a defensible space around their home to prevent it from being burned should there be a fire. They have five trail cameras throughout the property and to date have seen elk, deer, bobcats, mountain lions, javelins, coyotes, raccoons, turkeys and squirrels. Her home is in Socorro County approximately ten miles south of Belen. In addition to being recognized as a wildlife sanctuary, their home was awarded the designation by the National Audubon Society as a Backyard Wildlife Habitat. Dolores is very proud of the plaque they received for this recognition. When not volunteering for the Whitfield or tending to her twenty-acres, Dolores also likes to dabble in wildlife photography, bird watching and, in the past, dog agility competitions.

We will miss all the support Dolores provides us but know that now it is time for her to spend more time doing the above activities. Dolores states, “It is time to make a few changes since I turned 80 this year”.