Gallup Senior Center dedicates dining hall to Juan Delgado
A legend has died, or rather, “The Legend” has died.
This was the moniker given to Juan Delgado around Gallup. In an interview with the Sun, Tim Delgado, Juan’s youngest son, explained how his father earned that name.
“A lot of people called him ‘The Legend’ because he did everything. There wasn’t a lot that my dad did not do,” Tim said. “When he applied himself and did something he was really good at it. He took on things that people thought were impossible.”
EARLY LIFE
Juan was born on Jan. 25, 1931, in Winslow, Ariz. He was three months old when his family moved to Gallup.
Growing up in Gallup, Juan became very involved in sports. He received a total of 12 letters in football, baseball, basketball, and track throughout his youth.
After high school, Juan decided to enlist in the Army in 1959. In a 2009 article from the Gallup senior center magazine Gallup Senior Guide, Juan explained why he wanted to join the Army.
“Everybody was joining, it’s just what men did after high school,” he said.
But even in Germany, home wasn’t far away. One day while Juan was standing in formation in Germany, a Major was inspecting uniforms and stopped right in front of him.
The man asked Juan ‘Why is your stripe not polished?’ Juan didn’t know how to respond, but he soon realized who the man was: the assistant football coach from Gallup High School, Mr. Denard.
Denard told him he needed a right tackle, and soon enough he was in charge of the army’s recreation efforts in Germany. He ended up at survey school, where he moved up the ranks to Sergeant.
SERVING GALLUP
After his time in the Army, Juan came back home to Gallup, where he married his first wife Elisa Sandoval, and they moved to Los Angeles. After six years in California, he returned to Gallup.
In his younger adult years in Gallup, Juan had many jobs, most notably running a nightclub called El Corral. Many famous bands performed at the club, including Ray Camacho, the Teardrops, Cayman 5, and Charlie Pride. However, the nightclub tragically burned down in the late 1950s.
It wasn’t until he was in his 60s that Juan took on the job that he is probably most known for around Gallup. He first ran the city’s Recreation Department, and then went on to lead the Senior Center Program. He helped out at the Senior Center for 28 years before he retired from the position in 1990.
Tim said that when his dad started at the Senior Center, he surveyed all the seniors and asked them what they wanted to do at the senior center. The first thing on that list? Travel.
A friend of Juan’s was a retired mechanic, so he fixed up an old school bus and the two men took it upon themselves to load up the senior citizens and take them wherever they wanted to go. They often drove to Albuquerque and Las Cruces, and took groups to Las Vegas, Nevada almost every other month.
“He saw those million-dollar buses taking elderly people on trips and said, ‘well s***, if they can do it, we can do it,’” Tim said.
Tim, who was in middle school and high school when his dad worked at the Senior Center, remembers how some of the senior citizens’ children were concerned about these bus trips. They were worried about their elderly parents sitting in uncomfortable seats, but the senior citizens often told their children they didn’t mind.
“Some of the community members would say ‘Mom, Dad, why do you want to ride on that school bus? I can drive you to Albuquerque or Las Cruces’ and they would always say ‘No, we’re riding with Juan,’” Tim said.
The big trips Juan organized included a trip to Hawaii where 160 seniors hopped on to two planes, as well as multiple trips to Disneyland. He even took one group to Europe.
“One thing my dad recognized was that anything he experienced in life prior to him serving the senior citizens, he wanted them to experience it too because he knew that we lived in an impoverished community and he knew a lot of the people had never traveled,” Tim said. “They never did anything outside of their home or hometown.”
Tim said his dad would often get calls in the middle of the night from some of the senior citizens asking him if he could come fix their toilets or telling him that their water had stopped running. Tim said his father would always rush right over to their homes.
During his free time, Juan officiated basketball, baseball, and football games around Gallup for 50 years. After he retired from the Senior Center, a manager at Rio West Mall asked him to put on a Santa costume during the holiday season.
“I think he was always looking for something to do,” Tim said. “He really poured his heart into our community.”
HONORING HIS LEGACY
Juan passed away in his sleep on Aug. 15. He was 92 years old.
Juan’s hard work and dedication for the senior center is one of the reasons the City of Gallup decided to dedicate the Senior Center’s dining hall to him by renaming it the “Juan Delgado Dining Hall.”
District 1 City Councilor Linda Garcia attended the Sept. 14 dedication ceremony.
“The reason that we [dedicated the dining hall to Juan is because] he contributed so much to the seniors. … Whatever you needed and you asked Juan Delgado for, his answer was never no,” Garcia explained.
Mayor Louie Bonaguidi was a close friend of Juan’s. The two worked on improving the Gallup Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial together.
“He was a close personal friend of mine. We usually had lunch every two weeks or so for the past 15 years,” Bonaguidi said. “But as for what he contributed to the community, it’s probably unmatchable to any other citizen I’ve ever known.”
When the new senior citizen center Is built, the new dining hall will still bear Juan’s name.
By Molly Ann Howell
Managing Editor
