School feeds dozens stranded from New Mexico winter storm

By Web Staff

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    MOSQUERO, New Mexico (KOAT) — Dozens were provided food and even shelter at a school after being stranded due to unsafe travel conditions in New Mexico.

The Mosquero Municipal School provided shelter for around 26 people after up to 80 were fed Monday afternoon. The school wrote that anyone who needs a place can travel to Mosquero School to get shelter or warm food.

Two people stayed overnight there, Katherine McCuiston and Kelsey Ingram, who were traveling from Angel Fire from a ski trip when they met whiteout conditions.

“We kept trekking along, around 10 miles-per-hour or less at times,” McCuiston said. “Until we arrived here in Mosquero. Pulled over to the side of the road, and the mayor [Victor “Ray” Vigil] came along within five minutes and pointed us in the direction of the school.

“They opened the school for us, heaters, fed us, gave us a TV, probably 85 people or more were there for lunch,” McCuiston said. “The school cafeteria lunch lady came in and cooked dinner for everyone. They’ve just been wonderful.”

Vigil said he started spotting more cars as he went around town and pulled over on the side of the road.

“There were like 15 cars, got them headed that direction [towards the cafeteria], went back over and there were five or six more, went into town to find other cars parked on the side of the road,” said Vigil. “You know, a lot of them were families, some with little kids. 99 percent of them were skiers either going to ski or coming back from skiing.”

Johnna Bruhn, the superintendent of Mosquero Schools, said one group of college boys were also among those stuck. She said they made the best of the situation by playing basketball in the gym and helping shovel the sidewalks.

“They were a little upset at the beginning because they thought their trip was going to be tarnished and they said man we probably had a better time here than we would’ve at our Airbnb,” said Bruhn.

But both Vigil and Bruhn say the real hero in this story is the school cook, Barbara Melton.

“I asked her [Bruhn] if she wanted me to come in and cook for them and she said yes. I came in and got started, it didn’t take us long,” said Melton. “We fixed spaghetti, green beans and garlic toast. We made the kids some sloppy joes too.”

Melton said this is a community that comes together to help out.

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