City to dedicate
downtown plaza Saturday

Construction crews work into the evening on Tuesday, on the McKinley County Courthouse Square. A multi-faith blessing will be held at the site on Saturday, and a Memorial Day dedication ceremony for the Veterans' Park and Memorial will be held on Monday. [Photo by John A. Bowersmith/Independent]

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

GALLUP — Faith will be the order of the day when the city unveils its long-awaited courthouse square Saturday. Local representatives from almost a dozen faiths and denominations will be on hand to dedicate the community's new gathering place with prayers and readings from their sacred texts.

"The diversity of faith expression is an important aspect of a community that is as diverse as this one," said Layloni Drake, a reverend of the First United Methodist Church and chair of the dedication's planning committee.
She sees no conflict between church and state in the dedication since the event is designed not to promote any one faith over another.

The experience reminds Drake of stories in the Old Testament about kings who would call on the religious leaders of their day to bless their own new civic projects. As Drake sees it, Mayor Bob Rosebrough is calling on Gallup's religious community to do the same.

Rosebrough may not have intended to put himself in league with the kings of yore, but the idea for a religious dedication, the mayor said, was his.

"It's just a good way to start the usage of the courthouse square, which is the heart of the community," said Rosebrough.

Bringing this community's many faiths together for the dedication, be believes, will provide a good opportunity to demonstrate its collective spirituality, which he called the "highest purpose" of unity.

Following a welcome address by Rosebrough at 1 p.m. and another by Drake, the dedication will include a series of prayers and sacred readings, each delivered by the representative of a different faith or denomination. Baha'is, Baptists, Catholics, Jews, Methodists, Mormons, Muslims, Navajos, Presbyterians and Zunis are all on the list. Donald Steele, reverend of Gallup's Westminister Presbyterian Church, is set to deliver the closing prayer just before 2.

Like the mayor, Octavia Fellin, a member of the planning committee and the namesake of the city's public library, sees both the plaza and its dedication as an opportunity to bring the community together.

"The courthouse square is a sharing place," Fellin said. And as "a person of faith," she added, "I think the program we have for Saturday is a binding program."

The occasion reminded Fellin, a Roman Catholic, of a conversation she had with local cardiologist Anandan Swaminathan, a Hindu.

"All religions are like a great river ... and a great river has many outlets," Fellin said, quoting Swaminathan, who compared those outlets to the world's many faiths.
For all the talk of religion, the plaza has a very secular purpose as well.

Like other communities across the country, big and small, Gallup's downtown retailers have struggled to compete with the chain stores, shops and restaurants cropping up around the city's edges. City officials hope the plaza will help draw in the visitors and prospective patrons who will keep the neighborhood's retailers alive.

"As the malls came in and the big boxes came in ... some of the small businesses moved out," said City Planner Lisa Baca Diaz.

City officials hope the plaza will help bring them back, and keep the ones still there where they are.

"We're hoping it will engage the whole business community again," Baca Diaz said.

Gallup-McKinley County Chamber of Commerce Director Herb Mosher believes it's already begun to do just that. He noted the money Phil Garcia has put into building a new home for his business Gallup Title Co. right next to the plaza. And the nightly American Indian dances set to begin Monday on the plaza's centerpiece, a 150-foot wide dance arena with an earth-filled center surrounded by tile work in the design of a Navajo basket, should only help.
"We're hoping that will get more people to the downtown area," said Mosher.

And with more people in the neighborhood, he added, the chamber hopes to convince some shop owners to start keeping their doors open a little later into the evening than usual at least a few days of the week. Promised visits from the downtown walking tours the chamber is organizing, Mosher said, five businesses have already signed on.

In addition to the main dance arena, the $2.17 million plaza will include a second performance space to double as a parking lot by day flanked by covered walkways for food and crafts vendors and a tree-lined veterans memorial slated for its own dedication ceremony on Memorial Day.