I first met Graz on Halloween of 1986. Tod was training her as a potential employee at KZZO-FM in Clovis, NM. I had just come back from a concert at Eastern New Mexico University in which I had gotten to go backstage. I remember Tod was dressed up as a clown that night, even though the only people who were going to see him were Graz and me.
At the time, she was a freshman at ENMU in the Radio/TV Department. She had gone to high school in Raton. She was Hispanic with short hair and glasses. She was noticeably overweight, but she was rather cute. We never did hire her, but she hung around with us a couple of weeks later when the KZZO Mobile Music Machine played a dance in the Campus Union Building Ballroom.
One night, she called me up when I was working my overnight shift and we started talking. We talked for about three hours. She was definitely interested in me. The Theatre Department at ENMU was doing a production of the play, "Talley's Folly." I asked her if she would like to go with me. She agreed.
About a week before the date, KZZO did a live remote at the Clovis Zoo. (We loved doing "The Zoo at the Zoo" promotions.) They had just gotten a giraffe. Graz and her roommate hung around with me and Tod most of the time. I don't recall her roommate's name, but I remember that she had long, dark red hair. She was also what you would call a "two-face." If you saw her from one angle, she was attractive. If she turned her head, she wasn't so pretty. It was weird.
After we were done with the remote at the Clovis Zoo, I tried to find her, but she and her roommate were nowhere to be found. I went home. My phone rang. She called me and told me she still wanted to hang out with me, so I went to meet her and her roommate at Long John Silver's. We ate and talked for awhile.
The big night for the date arrived. I dressed up and drove down to De Baca Hall, where she and her roommate lived. I went to the front desk and called her to come down. She brought me back to her room. (I mentioned earlier that there was only one other time in college that I had gotten to go inside a woman's dorm room.) We hung out with her roommate until it was time for us to go to the Theatre, which was a short walk.
What we were actually seeing was the final dress rehearsal, so we were the only ones in the audience, with the exception of the director (who had given me permission to come to the rehearsal). But this wasn't so strange because there's only two cast members in the play. (When the audience outnumbers the cast, that's considered a good outcome in theatre. I've experienced the opposite, but that's a story for another post way in the future.)
I walked her back home after the performance. We had enjoyed it. I had to get back home so I could work my overnight shift, so I couldn't hang out for very long.
A few days later, she called and asked me to be a part of her Video Production class project. She just needed me to come down and do an interview. The only bad thing was that the class was at 10am, so that meant I only got to sleep a couple of hours before I had to show up. I came down and did the interview, went straight back and crawled into bed. I don't recall much about it except that I got to see my old TV professor Dr. G again and that some people had comments about my hair, which covered most of my face at the time.
Graz called me at the station a couple of more times after that. From the things she was saying, it was apparent that I wasn't the only one who thought she was cute. She indicated there were several other guys talking to her and one of them was Lid. I tried to set up another date, but she wouldn't commit to anything.
One time, I suddenly had to drive some equipment from the station to the Mobile Music Machine in Portales. I was a mess because I hadn't taken a shower that day. Since I was in the neighborhood, I called Graz and told her I was in town. She said she had made other plans. I was rather relieved, because I was in pretty bad shape. But I still wanted to see her. She said she would call me. But she never did again.
I never did see her again. Later, I wondered if her entire interest in me was strictly related to her attempts to get a job with us. That would have meant that she used me. But I didn't feel used at the time.
As her name is rather common, I have been unable to find what's she's been up to or where she might be now. When I would drive back and forth between Denver and Artesia, I would pass through Raton. I always expected to run into her there, but that just didn't happen.
This also wound up being the last time I dated a student at ENMU.
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