Even in today’s uncertain times, there are certain things you can count on:

The sun will rise in the East.

Thanksgiving will fall on a Thursday.

And, if it’s an even year, Dawson folks will come together for another reunion.

So it came as no surprise to learn last week that the Dawson New Mexico Association has scheduled this year’s reunion for Sept. 1, the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, on the old townsite in northeastern New Mexico.

That’s because these gatherings have been taking place pretty much ever since the Phelps Dodge Corp. shut down its last coal mine – and months later the entire company town – in June 1950.

In fact, it took only four years for the first reunion to take place — 1,000 miles away in Pasadena, California, no less – which means this year’s biennial event will occur on the 70^th anniversary of the first. In time, the California reunions would move to New Mexico and ultimately to the old townsite around 1980.

My own familiarity with the reunion is considerably shorter. When I attended my first two years ago – 2020 was canceled due to COVID-19 restrictions – I was about a month away from submitting the final version of the manuscript that would lead to the publication last fall of  Crosses of Iron: The Tragic Story of Dawson, New Mexico, and Its Twin Mining Disasters.

I must have made a good impression. I’ve been invited back this year not only to sell and sign copies of the book, but to speak to attendees Sunday afternoon. That’s quite the honor – and a bit intimidating, I might add – given last year’s speaker was Dawson-born Dolores Huerta, the celebrated American labor leader and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient.

To be honest, I was planning to attend this year’s reunion anyway, if for no other reason than to extend my gratitude to the Dawson community for its steadfast encouragement and support in the years leading up to the book’s publication by the University of New Mexico Press in October.

As in previous years, the reunion will be preceded that weekend by a special exhibit of Dawson memorabilia at the Raton Museum and a reception Saturday night at the Elks Lodge in Raton.

Details for reunion weekend are available here in the Miner’s Pick newsletter.