Michael Martin Murphey
Returns on September 16, 2021 to the Flickinger Center for Performing Arts. Show starts at 7PM. Tickets on sale now!
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Teresa Ham
The following passage was a special in the Alamogordo Daily News written by Cindy Stong:
Teresa Ham died following a brief non-COVID-related illness on April 2, 2021. Teresa was born in Savannah, Georgia on October 20, 1943 to Pickney and Velma Newman. Teresa was remembered in the Alamogordo community not only for her work at the Flickinger Center for Performing Arts, but also her service to the community. Ham was a board member of the Rotary Club and was actively involved with the Rotary Mexico Medical/Dental Mission from 1978 to 1989. She assisted the doctors on trips to remote locations in Mexico as the medical providers provided eye care to those in need. Ham learned to speak Spanish and obtained a pilot’s license in order to help the team. For her service to that mission, she received the Rotary Club’s prestigious Paul Harris Fellow award.
She was a member of the 100 Women Who Care Alamogordo, a nonprofit group that donates to local nonprofits. For over 20 years Ham hosted Women’s Bible Study retreats in her home for 20 to 30 women, twice a year. She served as a board member of C.O.P.E. (Center of Protective Environment, Inc.) and was the producer for the organizations annual fundraiser for many years. For the past six years, Ham was the producer of the annual COPE Benefit Show, raising more than $20,000 each year. She received the Service to Mankind Award from Sertoma, the highest award given to a non-Sertoman. Ham was a member of P.E.O. chapter BI Alamogordo, and received the Woman of Merit Award in 2010 and in 2018 was Alamogordo’s Citizen of the Year. In the early 2000s, she participated in medical mission trips around the world including Romania, Thailand, Cambodia and Guatemala. As a Rotarian, she traveled to Nicaragua with rotary’s most recent project, Bridges to Prosperity.
She received a nursing diploma at Georgia Baptist Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1966, and after 25 years of nursing, decided to return to college, to earn a Bachelor of Science Degree in nursing from New Mexico State University. She worked at Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center. For more than 50 years she mentored young nurses, volunteering to cover shifts during the holidays in order for other nurses to spend the holiday with their young families. Ham served on the Habitat for Humanity board from 2005 to 2007. She assisted in building the first three Habitat houses in Tularosa. She left the Habitat Board, when her friend, Susie Hall, asked her to return to the Flickinger Center for Performing Arts, to help keep the theater doors open.
Ham was an active supporter of the Flickinger since 1988, when the old Sierra Theater was acquired by Margaret Flickinger. Both women, along with many other volunteers, spent hours scraping gum off seats and scrubbing sticky soda off the floors in an effort to restore the theater. Ham was the general chairperson for the initial Million Dollar campaign, working for a year to convert the movie theater into a performing arts center. She served on the Flickinger board and was instrumental in the recent acquisition of new seats for the theater, as well as underwriting the acquisition of the adjacent building, which is now the Patron’s Hall and Heritage Gallery. Ham believed that it was important to give everyone, but especially students, a chance to see live performances. The Flickinger Center is crucial for quality of life and economic prosperity in the Alamogordo community. Thousands of people of all ages, each year, attend world class performances there. The theater is also used by local talent and many other nonprofit organizations. Ham had recently approached Heather Bash about starting a children’s theater in Alamogordo. “I was in, 1,000%, because I knew her passion and mine could accomplish anything. Children's Music Theater of Alamogordo is one of her many legacies, and I am beyond honored that she chose me as her partner in this oh-so-worthy endeavor," Bash said. Lee Selden from the Flickinger Guild said, “No one could tell Teresa no. Teresa had such a positive attitude about everything at the Flickinger and these positive feelings were contagious. She made us all feel like anything was possible if we worked together.”
Ham shared, months ago, her story of her love for the arts: “I grew up in Savannah Georgia – a historic city that had beautiful architecture and creative expression everywhere I looked. Streets were lined with beauty and the grace of the south. It became deeply embedded in my spirit. My Grandmother was very creative and this became a part of my consciousness. I needed to express it as much as I needed the next breath of air. Over 30 years ago here in Alamogordo I became involved in the dream of Margaret Flickinger to create a place for the Performing Arts. . . That dream continues today . . . The arts touch people’s lives in profound ways . . . in their understanding of themselves, their connection to local and world communities and cultures, and in their understanding of their own creativity. The arts provide these qualities to the greater public for the social and economic benefits that the shared performance experience provides.”
Teresa Ham passed away at 77.
