Photos and article by Mary Alice Murphy

On May 1, 2026, Sixth Street Elementary School students and staff invited the public, including former students and teachers, to attend the Farewell Fiesta. The school will close at the end of this semester, but the historic building will continue its educational purpose.

Western New Mexico University has agreed to purchase the building and property for its Early Childhood Education Center of Excellence. When the Sixth Street building became available, due to consolidation of schools because of decreases in enrollment in the Silver Schools, WNMU made the decision to purchase the building, instead of spending many millions on constructing a new Early Childhood center. Yes, the university will make some changes to the facility, but at a much lower cost, as it is already an educational structure for young children.

The Farewell Fiesta held on May 1 began with all classes of kindergarteners, decked out in colorful Mexican traditional clothing, walking into the cafeteria area to sit in groups.

 Following the presentation of colors by the Vietnam Veterans  of America Chapter 358, Principal Heather Holguin began the ceremony by giving some of the history of the school, which is 144 years old, founded in 1882, as the first publicly funded elementary school in the Territory of New Mexico. She also noted that one of her favorite stories about the school was that in the 1940s and '50s, parts of the basement were dug out by the students

 Silver Schools Superintendent William Hawkins, Southwest New Mexico Council of Governments Executive Director Priscilla Lucero and Lt. Gov. Howie Morales presented a state proclamation honoring Sixth Street Elementary School for its long history and final days as an elementary school.

A speaker also gave recognition to Maria Spencer, who, in the 1960s began cultural appreciation and bilingual programs tinSilver City. Before that time, Spanish was not allowed in the schools, But Spencer mad sure that emphasis was placed on learning Spanish in Silver City sPublic Schools. She also taught students about the culture, through songs, stories and food.

State Rep. Luis Terrazas spoke briefly about his days as a student at Sixth Street as did NM Lt. Gov.Howie Morales.

Editor's Note: This author was busy taking photos and didn't always get the names of the speakers in order. oops.]

One of the speakers said: "I lived right up the street from here. The thing I remember most about Sixth Street was the couple of years when we had cows as pets. Mrs. Peru corroborated it. I remember Mrs. Littleton's husband was a rancher and he came and branded them right out there on the playground. When they sold them at auction, they took some of us kids down there to see the process."

Another speaker said he had way too many stories, but: "I'll just say that this place has changed a lot over this years, but in some ways, it feels exactly the same. At the center of it has always been the children, and it's always been these people who are dedicated to educating the children. So, as one of those children, from the bottom of my heart, thank you to this place and to all the people who participated in that teaching. Y'all did amazing work."

Holguin said they had cards for people to write down their memories of their days at the school "We're going to collect those and insert it into our time capsule. We're creating a time capsule for Sixth Street Elementary that will be most likely housed at the museum."

Lisa Serna from First New Mexico Bank spoke about the bank's partnership in education with Sixth Street Elementary."I am very proud to say that I was a student here at Sixth Street. But close to 20 years ago, Mr, Ramirez established a partnership with us and the school. We created a fund and the teachers would let us know when a child needed a jacket or shoes or glasses.

"We were told we could no longer take donations for that, so because we were already invested with Sixth Street, " she continued, "we developed a tradition to celebrate a New Mexico-based fun day, and the bank staff would come down and cook hot dogs and load them with lots of sugar, sodas and ice cream.

At the beginning of each school year, we also provided T-shirts for the students and staff and they wear them on field trips and on fun day. We created a fund at the bank that if we contributed $3, we were able to wear jeans on Thursdays and Fridays. With those monies, we could get with Santa Claus and he would let us come deliver these gifts to Sixth Street.

"We, also, each year would hold an art contest, in which the student created Christmas-themed drawings.And the bank employees would select one of the drawings for our annual Christmas cards to our customers.What we're going to miss the most is the Christmas tree. Our tree each year was decorated with ornaments made by the students and staff. We and the customers will miss that."

"We deeply appreciate the relationship and the memories we have built together with First New Mexico Bank, would like to extend its appreciation to all teachers and all staff of Silver Schools and all the schools."

Former Principal Trujillo said when he first arrived, the custodian asked him if he knew about the ghost. "You know, here I was thinking the scariest thing I would find in Sixth Street was the teachers. The custodian told me that he would be playing music when he was in the building at night and the ghost would let him know he didn't like it, so he had to change the music. The ghost liked the oldies."

He mentioned one story, about an 18-year-old who came back to visit the school and remembered while he was there that he had lost a Lego down a vent "back in that corner."

They opened up the vent, he crawled in and came out with the Lego. "The look on his face was like that of a small kid, who had found a lost treasure."

In between speakers, the students performed various skits, songs and dances. The first had one of the classes each holding a letter of the alphabet and naming the jobs that the letters represented. The music and twirling of skirts and of young caballeros dancing with large sombreros on their heads entertained the audience.

The last performance of the students before they returned to class, featured the classes of Mrs. Alvarado, Ms. Davis, Mrs. Bush and Mrs. Haworth, Mrs. Clark and Mrs. Stemmerman, Mrs. Martinez and Mrs. Painter. The students closed with singing a rewritten version of a song to "This Little Light of Sixth Street," with a different set of words for each of the four verses and one final version by all classes.

Javier Marrufo of the Silver City Museum elaborated on the history of the school, with many bits of history that he had uncovered. He's still searching for more historical texts to create a strong history of the school to be housed at the museum.

Angelica Padilla also sang toward the end of the program.

Holguin then invited people in the audience to come tell their favorite stories about Sixth Street. Several took advantage of the invitation, and regaled the audience with stories from their days at Sixth Street Elementary School to the laughter and applause from the attendees.

To pause the slide show, mouse over the image.