El Paso Zoo curator Rick LoBello’s mission is to share his love for animals with students

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EL PASO – As a child growing up in the northeast part of the country, Rick Louis LoBello fell in love with wild animals when mountain gorillas jumped out at him from the pages of National Geographic. Today as the El Paso Zoo’s education curator, he shares that childhood fascination with new generations. LoBello, 60, grew up two miles from Lake Erie. As a child he spent his days bird watching, searching for salamanders along the creek and reading about nature in Angola, New York. “I could get on my bicycle, go down to the creek and study the animals,” he fondly reminisces his childhood years.

Thousands climb Mt. Cristo Rey to express their faith on Good Friday pilgrimage

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EL PASO — Lucille Maya remembers when her father carried her infant brother up Mt. Cristo Rey to ask for a miracle. Her brother was born with a birth defect and doctors told her family that he would never be able to walk, but soon after her father’s pilgrimage her little brother walked for the first time. “I do this for my faith.” said Maya, 73, who has been coming to Mt. Cristo Rey all her life.

Life’s little things carry loads of meaning for Dagoberto Gilb

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EL PASO, Texas – Dagoberto Gilb creates colorful images with a few words, drawing scenes in an audience’s imagination like a skilled painter. The El Pasoans present at a recent lecture here are his canvas and also his inspiration. This border city in the Chihuahuan desert is the main setting for many of the stories written by this internationally published author. “I have written 72 short stories and all of them except for three are set either in El Paso, or L.A.,” Gilb said. For the first time since he wrote Pride a feature in the Texas observer in 2001, Gilb, read it here, where it originated.