Aggie achievements

The NMSU Alumni Association honored its 2024 Distinguished Alumni Award recipients at a sparkling gala event Nov. 8. Held at the Las Cruces Convention Center, more than 200 Aggies gathered for an evening of celebration, recognition and a powerful display of Aggie pride.

Distinguished Alumni Awards began in 1956, with the James F. Cole Memorial Award for Service added in 1966 and the Young Alumni Service Award added in 2019. Anyone can nominate a Distinguished Alum, recognized for significant achievement and service that honors the university.

Receiving the James F. Cole Memorial Award for Service is Gabe Anaya ’59. Anaya earned a bachelor’s degree in education from NMSU and spent 30 years teaching mathematics. He retired as a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve in 1990 and is a longtime supporter of the Alpha-Omicron chapter of the Tau Kappa Epsilon and El Caldito Soup Kitchen. 

The Young Alumni Service Award recipient is Garrett Leitermann ’16 ’17, monument archaeologist with the Las Cruces office of the Bureau of Land Management. Leitermann has led the return of human remains and cultural objects under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act and leads outreach events including hikes to prehistoric sites on public lands.

The Distinguished Alumna from the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences is Antonia Roybal-Mack ’03, who earned a degree in hotel, restaurant and tourism management. She co-founded Roybal-Mack PC, working on disaster mitigation and wildfire recovery cases, watershed issues and environmental mass tort recovery. She founded the Mora Fire Fund with the Center of Southwest Culture.

The first College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Alum is Tony Lovitt ’76. While at NMSU, Lovitt pioneered play-by-play broadcasting of volleyball on the radio, and four years later became the first play-by-play volleyball announcer for ESPN. He has announced indoor volleyball competitions including the Olympics and the Goodwill Games and authored two award-winning children’s books.

The second College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Alum is Don W. Cleveland ’72. Chair of cellular and molecular medicine and neuroscience at the Ludwig Institute of Cancer Research, Cleveland has made field-leading discoveries into the causes and treatment of ALS and Huntington’s disease, with implications for spinal muscular atrophy, Alzheimer’s disease and chronic traumatic brain injury. 

Mary Bell ’92 is the Distinguished Alumna from the College of Business. Commissioned through Army ROTC as a Distinguished Military Graduate, Bell was a leader and an aviator in the Army Aviation Branch, eventually commanding high-risk missions in Haiti, Iraq and Colombia. She is dean of the Beacom College of Computer and Cyber Sciences at Dakota State University.

Shanta Thoutam ’04 ’16 is the Distinguished Alumna from the College of Engineering. During her master’s and Ph.D. in electrical engineering, she worked with Arrowhead Center guiding technologies to commercialization. Later, Thoutam championed an accelerator that created 10 startups and raised more than $2 million. Today, she is chief innovation officer of the Government of Telangana in India.

The Distinguished Alumna from the College of Health, Education and Social Transformation is Rebecca Gallegos ’06. After her Roadrunner nursing program, Gallegos worked in a trauma center. Inspired during a mission trip to an orphanage in Mexico, she moved her family to Mexico from 2011 to 2014 and founded a nonprofit organization to support orphanages and prevent child abandonment. 

Find full biographies at nmsualumni.org/awards-recognitions. Nominations for 2025 awards will open in February 2025.