Henry Torres, 80, of Silver City, died at Rust Medical Center in Rio Rancho on April 6, 2018.

Henry, born in Dwyer, now known as Faywood, in southern Grant County, NM, to Procopio Donaldson "P.D" Torres and Paula Almeraz, on November 7, 1937, was raised in Luna County.

His father was a third-generation Mimbreño, living on his father, Francisco Torres' farm when his parents married. His mother was working for two doctors in Deming at the time. Her family was well known in the Mesilla Valley, and Henry's maternal grandfather, Emeterio Almeraz, moved his family to Deming on March 9, 1916.

Henry said the land was a farm plus the land his father and aunt and uncle homestead on a section each. The farm and ranch were sold in 1941, but it is still called the Nan Ranch Torres Pasture.

Torres began school in a one-room schoolhouse at Akelan Siding on the Southern Pacific Railroad between Deming and Las Cruces. He said the school had 10 or 12 students, with three or four as ranch kids and the rest railroad employee children.

The family moved to the Double Circle Ranch north of Deming and he and his sisters Beatrice, one year older than Henry, and Elsie, a year younger than Henry, attended Deming schools through high school. He was part of the ranch crew from the time he could ride horseback.

As a 4-H member, he and Beatrice raised steers, and Elsie raised lambs and showed them each year. Their father was one of the charter members of the Luna County Fair.

After graduating high school, Henry joined the Navy and served four years. In 1960, he returned to the ranch and worked for his father, as well as part-time for the New Mexico Cattle Sanitary Board, later renamed the New Mexico Livestock Board in 1967. In 1965, Henry went to work for the Sanitary Board full time.

In 1970, he resigned from the Livestock Board to help his father at the ranch. But Henry continued working under contract to the federal and state livestock boards on a brucellosis eradication project.

He met his wife Carolyn Shores at the Deming Livestock Auction and they married in July 1971. In 1974, they purchased part of Henry's home ranch and bought the livestock auction in Socorro in partnership with Carolyn's father, Carl Shores. The partnership lasted until 1977 and Henry went back to work for the Livestock Board in Clovis. In the fall of 1979, the district inspector position in Silver City was open and Henry asked for and got it. He and Carolyn moved in 1979, where Henry served as district inspector until he retired in 1996.

Henry took an active part in the Cliff-Gila Grant County Fair for many years, serving as a bid caller, as a ringman and chaired the Buyers and Donors Committee.

In 1990, he became Area Livestock Board supervisor, which included working with the four inspectors in southwest New Mexico. He was a charter member of the Grant County Cattle Grower's Association.

When Henry and Carolyn moved back to Silver City, Harry Benjamin was running the Silver City Museum, and Harry asked Henry to sell stuff by auction to raise money for the museum. For selling at the sale, the museum gave him a potted plant, which he had hanging in his office at Smith Real Estate, where he was interviewed by this author for an article in the Glenwood Gazette. He worked in real estate for 14 years. Henry also served on the Museum Board.

Henry became interested in cowboy poetry and participated in gathering in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Because of his interest in preserving ranching and its history in the area, he got involved in the Silver City-Grant County Chamber of Commerce and served on the board for four years.

His interest in museums led him to get involved in the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Museum Foundation in Las Cruces. Henry worked with the original group who got the Legislature to help fund it. In the later 1990s, Gov. Gary Johnson appointed him to the board, on which he served from 1998-2002. Henry had been co-chair of the foundation board prior to the appointments.

ADDED: Henry was instrumental in the creation of the Museum’s biggest event – Cowboy Days. There have now been 19 Cowboy Days festivals at the Museum and Henry’s expertise and tireless effort was critical in the early years of this event, according to the Museum's Communications Manager, Craig Massey.

Then Henry got involved in county government in Grant County, when he saw things he thought he could improve. While he served on the County Commission from 2001-2008, the county floated a bond issue for a new jail, kept Fort Bayard Medical Center in the county, helped create the Grant County Economic Development Coalition for Progress and the Gila/San Francisco Water Commission. He served as chairman of the County Commission for six of the eight years he served.

In 2002, the American Cowboy Culture Association honored Henry at the National Cowboy Symposium in Lubbock, Texas.
In 2011, he and Carolyn moved to Nevada, for her health and for her to be near her children. She died in 2014 and he returned to Silver City.

In 2016, the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum honored him as one of the founders. Also that year, he purchased Ian Valenzuela's swine at the Junior Livestock Sale at the Grant County Fair.

That year was a busy time for Henry as he again ran for County Commission. Having lived his whole life as a Democrat, the stint in Nevada, he said, showed him, his party had left him, so he changed his registration to Republican to better match his conservative views. He ran in 2016 as a Republican and was narrowly defeated.
He remained active in the Republican Party of Grant County and was serving as vice president at the time of his death.

Henry is survived by one daughter and three grandchildren.