Former governor Apodaca dies at 88

Jerry Apodaca was a football player at the University of New Mexico, and that sense of competition never evaporated when he traded his shoulder pads for a real contact sport: politics.

Determined and gritty, Apodaca parlayed his background in athletics, the insurance business and two terms in the state Senate into the highest office in New Mexico. A Democrat, he was elected governor in 1974, the first Hispanic to head the state in the modern era.

Apodaca died Wednesday morning following what may have been a stroke at his home in Santa Fe, his son Jeff Apodaca said. He was 88.

His death was noted by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, whose office released a statement lauding Jerry Apodaca's contributions to the state.

"As the state's first Hispanic governor, he paved the way for more New Mexicans to enter public office, making sure that our diversity is better represented in our leadership," Lujan Grisham said. "He was also a stalwart advocate for the rights of patients and was instrumental in the creation of the state's first medical cannabis program nearly half a century ago."

Jeff Apodaca said that while his father's election in the 1970s was historic, his years after leaving the Governor's Office may have had the most impact: Jerry Apodaca worked to make boardrooms and executive positions more accessible to minorities who'd rarely gotten access to those positions.

"His legacy is not that he was the first Latino governor elected," Jeff Apodaca said. "His legacy was that he opened doors for minorities, Hispanics, women in the state and around the country."

Born Oct. 3, 1934, in Las Cruces, Jerry Apodaca was a star high school football player and recruited to UNM, where he played for the Lobos in the 1950s. After graduating, he took a job as a football coach at Albuquerque's Valley High School before returning to Las Cruces to get into the insurance business.

Apodaca was elected to the state Senate in 1965 and served until 1974, when he ran for governor and defeated Republican Joe Skeen.

Apodaca pushed hard for a variety of reforms in state government, specifically pointing his attention at education in New Mexico. The building that houses the state's Public Education Department is named in his honor.

"He believed education was community up, not top down," said Jeff Apodaca, who ran for governor in 2018.

New Mexico governors were limited to four-year nonconsecutive terms in the 1970s, and Jerry Apodaca ventured into the business world when he left office in 1979. He helped found Hispanic magazine, worked as a radio talk-show host, helped manage pension funds and served as a consultant for Hispanic-owned companies.

"He was a smart dude," said longtime state Sen. Stuart Ingle, R-Portales, who came to the Legislature after Apodaca left office but developed a friendship with him through the years.

He took his role as both adviser and role model seriously, said Jeff Apodaca, an Albuquerque businessman and former media executive.

"I used to meet with people in Fortune 500 companies and there was not a meeting that went by where I wouldn't run into a Latino executive who'd ask me, 'Are you Jerry's son?' They would tell me so many stories about what he'd done," Jeff Apodaca said. "General Motors, McDonald's ... he opened doors for Latinos in the '70s and '80s."

Though considered a tough political infighter, Jerry Apodaca came to the game when it was far more genteel than today — a time when those on the opposite side of the spectrum could have a drink, or at least a conversation, when work was done. Ingle said Apodaca was straightforward with Republicans, earning respect despite disagreement.

"He was engaging," Ingle said. "He just knew how to talk to people."

Apodaca left New Mexico for a time, but returned in the 1990s and got the political bug once more. He plotted a primary run for governor, hoping to unseat incumbent Republican Gary Johnson, but didn't get the nomination. He did, however, get off a few good lines.

"He can run through New Mexico," Apodaca said of Johnson, a fitness fanatic, "but he can't run it."

In truth, Apodaca had his own athletic chops, and not just as an ex-running back. In the late 1970s, he was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to head the Council on Physical Fitness. A onetime UNM regent in the 1980s, he was often seen at Lobo football and basketball games in the company of his son, who played football at Santa Fe High and later UNM.

In recent years, Apodaca struggled with his health, though he enjoyed time about town in Santa Fe: lunches at Atrisco and La Choza, Jeff said.

Jerry Apodaca and Arizona's Raul Castro were elected as governors the same year — the first Hispanics to hold the post in the U.S. since New Mexico's Octaviano Larrazolo took office in January 1919.