That microscopic, yet loyal set of Better Burque readers were last left hanging on their collected seat (they’re good at sharing a single seat) by news from 52 years ago that Albuquerque Public Schools almost, very nearly built its central, premier high school way out west overlooking the town from just east from what is now called Old Coors Rd.

We’d left ourselves hanging simply because Scot (me) was selfishly so excited to find that this frankly incredible choice of location almost happened that he couldn’t wait to tell you about it. He didn’t even have the decency to tell the rest of the story.

Until now…

But before I do (“Did he really just make us wait some more?”), let’s just imagine the city’s eponymous high school sitting on a bluff west of the River versus its current location next to an interstate freeway. There’s the geo-politically shocking westsidedness embedded in such a move from the old location downtown, one reminiscent, at least to a retired public school teacher, of the dramatic move in 19th Century city dynamic from Old Town to “New Town” with the coming of the railroad depot.

You can get an immediate sense of what such a move would have been like by driving/riding/walking out to this stretch of Old Coors south of Central and east as the Mesa bluffs cascade sharply down to Atrisco Park and its little league fields.

I love this part of town, but my, perhaps very limited, imagination has to stretch mightily to ever envision AHS there. Now that I have that image in my mind, however, I can’t shake it. How cool would it have been to have our big, central high school looking over the city instead of, for instance, the Amazon monstrosity further north and west?

That would have been very, very cool. Almost as aesthetically cool as it was geo-politically unlikely.

I know, I know, I promised you the rest of the story. Unlike Paul Harvey, I’m not good or great at setting these things up, and will just direct you to the name of the good guy in the non-fiction “movie” that is the 1972 story of Albuquerque High, one Emmanuel Schifani.

So instead of real estate estimated at $1.748 million, Mr. Schifani sold it to APS for $550,000, and the school ended up along the interstate instead of overlooking the city. Thus, Emmanuel Schifani is surely the good guy who brought a “happy end to what had been an arduous search,” but like all good movies there is that historical plot twist left hanging: What if Schifani hadn’t dropped his price? Would that have actually ended up making him an even better “good guy”?

As always there’s more to any story, and there’s more to Schifani. Mr.Schifani was also Lt. Col. Emmanuel “Andy” Schifani, as related below.

And for a time served as Adjutant General of the New Mexico National Guard, having been moved up command to Brigadier and then Major General. His work in this role included significant cleaning up of mismanagement and outright impropriety at both the state National Guard and Adjutant General’s Office.

Notably, Schifani resigned his post in 1958 after he tried to fire part of the problem and pissed off outgoing Governor Mechem in doing so. Here’s the Santa Fe New Mexican’s December 26, 1958 editorial on the imbroglio finalizing in the dying days of one of the many Mechem gubernatorial administrations in the era.

Schifani’s service also included multiple stints chairing the Bernalillo County Red Cross, all the while running Springer Moving and Transfer Company and helping to raise funds for a new Chamber of Commerce headquarters, not to mention his work for the Albuquerque Civic Symphony. He later served as a City Commissioner (now known as Councilor).

Schifani was indeed “the good guy” in our movie, it turns out, yet a character with enough depth to have his enemies along with many friends. There’s quite a few such characters in the movie that is Albuquerque history, I’ve learned, and maybe somebody should do something about making these undiscovered Burqueños more well-known.