June 14, 1979
Orogrande – Nothing is ever simple here. The 80 folk of this small community in the desert south of Alamogordo were all set to cut the ribbon on Orogrande International Airport this Sunday, when they complicated matters by throwing in this “sister city” thing.
Well. As always with Orogrande, it’s a long story. The airport first. A while back, a U.S. Border Patrol aircraft ran into engine trouble in the air above Orogrande and landed on an access road to U.S. 54, which runs through the community.
The plane was towed in to Perry Brunson’s garage, where it has been for about two months while Perry and friends work on the engine. The minor mishap inspired the impish Wood Johnston, who is chief ranger of the Orogrande National Forest (two trees and still growing) and chef du jour of the Oro Chico Café, to dub Perry’s station and garage Orogrande International Airport.
“Oh, we’re having fun,” Woody announced Monday. “We’ve got the signs up already and everything – where the ‘gates’ are, and ‘baggage claim’ counter – everything.”
Plans call for a gala ribbon-cutting Sunday. To those fuddy-duddies who can’t see how Orogrande could be so “presumptuous,” as one man put it. Woody has an easy answer: “Why, our Runway 54 is 80 miles long!”
But what about the sister city business? Seems some Algerian engineers and embassy officials, in El Paso to study the implementation and operation of a natural gas pipeline with El Paso Natural Gas engineers happened upon the Oro Chico.
The café is also the “temporary” Ranger Station of the Orogrande National Forest. What with explanations of that arbor’s sign, and the signs about the airport, the engineers and the Orograndians became fast friends. And the engineers decided Orogrande has much in common with their home town. Zelboun, Algeria.
For one thing, they’re both little desert towns, with about the same head count – 80 humans, dogs uncounted. And, Woody points out, they both have border crossing problems – the Algerians complain the Moroccans come over and take jobs away from natives.
By the time all the comparisons had been made, the Algerians and the Orograndians had decided Orogrande and Zelboun were born to be sister cities. So among the festivities Sunday will be the presentation to Ali Boukhiar, as representative of Zelboun, of a proclamation from Orogrande and gifts to the Algerian town.
They will be delivered when the engineer goes home in July. “The whole thing’s got to be quasi-official, of course, because we’re not really a municipality.” Woody says. “I’ll be signing the proclamation as chief ranger. But though the airport is tongue-in-cheek, and though there’s a great deal of fun, connected with the sister cities, the feelings of friendship are genuine.
“Surely we haven’t reached the point quite yet in this bureaucratic world,” he adds. “That a proclamation of friendship and hopes for peace must be ‘officially official’ to be real.
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