Maria Elena Jurado and her family consider New Mexico State University to be one of the members of their family. “It has made such a difference in our lives,” she says. “I even consider the members of the basketball team my grandkids.”

She and her husband Arturo married while he was a student and both of their children were born before he finished his business degree. “I was so worried that he would be tempted to quit school, I was afraid to tell him I was expecting our second child,” Maria Elena says.

In the early 1970s when their children, Rosario and Xavier, were both enrolled in elementary school, Maria Elena decided to go to work and accepted a job as a teacher’s aide with the Las Cruces Public Schools. It wasn’t long before she realized that what she really wanted to do was return to college and complete the degree in education she had started a decade earlier.

In 1977 that dream was realized as she graduated with her bachelor’s in education and began teaching elementary school. Over the years she taught in several different capacities and schools.

Over the last forty years, the Jurados have developed an extensive chile operation with farms in both Doña Ana County and Mexico. They grow and process red chile for the cayenne pepper industry.

“Giving back is an important part of life,” Jurado says. “People say a diploma is just a piece of paper but it is so much more than that. Our children also graduated from NMSU and I can see the importance the university has had in all of our lives.”

Two years ago, long time friend and fellow Aggie Eula Fern Thompson invited her to take a tour of the College of Education’s Children’s Village located in a section of the old Vista del Monte student apartments.

“It was in its infancy then but the staff could feel the potential of this facility to play a major role in the lives of area preschool age children,” she says. Maria Elena became a founding member of Aggies for Kids who were raising money to help this school take shape. One thing she noticed was lacking was an appropriate play area for the children, only a blacktop parking lot.