WHEN THE 50-FOOT Zozobra marionette collapsed in a fiery demise for the 100th time, Raymond Sandoval fell to his knees, overcome with emotion. He’d helped build the giant puppet with the Kiwanis Club of Santa Fe since he was a kid. As the club’s event chair since 2013, he’s overseen more than a decade of the Burning of Zozobra, culminating in this year’s all-out centennial celebration. But something more was tugging at his heart: gratitude for having just fulfilled a long-standing promise.
“When I was 18, Kiwanis member Harold Gans came to me and said, ‘You have to promise to get Zozobra to 100 years old,’ ” Sandoval recalls. Gans had taken over the job of building Zozobra’s face from the puppet’s creator, Will Shuster, and made a similar promise. As the fireworks started, Sandoval began to cry. “I said to myself, I kept that promise,” he says.
The pressures of pulling off the beloved Labor Day weekend bash seem insurmountable. Roughly 60,000 people flood the Fort Marcy Park field, eager to cast off a year’s worth of troubles as the Fire Dancer sets the towering puppet alight. Yet each year, Sandoval and a cadre of volunteers make it happen—and then somehow find the energy to produce three more celebrations: New Year’s Eve on the Plaza, Fourth of July Fireworks, and the City Different Día de los Muertos.
“The number-one thing for me is to create community,” Sandoval says. It’s a lesson handed down from his parents, whose Santa Fe roots go back centuries. “By bringing people together, we remember that we’re all in this boat together.”
Raymond Sandoval promotes inclusivity by organizing events like the Día de los Muertos celebration to welcome and represent everyone in his diverse community.
With a reputation for getting things done, Sandoval was recruited by then Mayor Javier Gonzales to create the inaugural New Year’s Eve on the Plaza in 2015. The party boasts bonfires, live music, and a unique midnight tradition that Sandoval dreamed up while watching the sun rise over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. “I was thinking, It’s a brand-new day, like a brand-new year,” he says. “Let’s raise something into the air—a Zia—a symbol of us all being together.”
Two years later, Gonzales asked Sandoval to organize the Fourth of July celebration. Sandoval moved the event to Santa Fe Place Mall and organized a dance party with bands, food trucks, and fireworks. “The mall checked off a lot of boxes,” he says.
The city’s growing southside sparked the idea for a two-day Día de los Muertos celebration with music, dance, and festivities honoring loved ones who have passed. “I learned doing outreach that the citizens of the southside, especially Mexicans, did not feel welcome on the Plaza,” he says. “I feel the Plaza is a heart of the city, and it should be a welcome mat to anybody.” In just three years, the event has become a hit among those with Mexican heritage and the rest of the city’s multicultural population.
“He cares about honoring each tradition and the way it speaks to everyone’s heart,” says Judith Moir, who works with Sandoval as a volunteer event deputy. “He has an incredible gift for making people feel valued.”
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