“NMSU has the comfort and warmth of family. All my NMSU experiences are precious to me.”

Emmy Award-winning journalist Carla Aragón ’77 spent more than 35 groundbreaking and successful years in the broadcast industry—all because she needed courses outside her major.

It all began at NMSU

A native of Santa Fe, Carla loved to travel and thought her calling was international relations. But when the NMSU Spanish major took a journalism class, her destiny changed. She made a “natural progression” to broadcast television, although at the time she was one of only a few women, and she was the only female student to progress through the television production classes. She gained tremendous experience working at KRWG-TV, even helping to lay TV cables from Milton Hall to the Pan Am Center through the underground tunnels.

Carla received a Corporation for Public Broadcasting grant and stayed at KRWG for about two years after graduating with a double major in Spanish and Journalism and Mass Communications. “NMSU was my training ground,” Carla says. “I worked on educational programming and TV shows for young people. I recorded promos and station IDs—they were still using some of them for 10 years after I left.”

From New Mexico to California

Carla’s next stop was KOB-TV 4 Albuquerque to co-host PM Magazine, a syndicated program with male and female hosts in each of its markets. “This was the most fun job I ever had, traveling New Mexico! It was the ideal vehicle to go to communities and highlight special places and people doing interesting things.” Carla’s PM Magazine adventures included horseback riding, hot air balloons, flying a plane, whitewater rafting, and spending a night in an igloo at Wolf Creek Pass to showcase the efforts of a man who made ultra-cold-weather clothing.

One of Carla’s favorite PM Magazine memories is from 1982 when the space shuttle made its first and only landing at White Sands Missile Range. Carla’s team joined journalists from across the nation and the world: “This was my first experience watching history in the making.” Shortly before the shuttle landed, however, a dust storm blew through. The New Mexico crews were, of course, prepared with trash bags to put over the cameras and mics—and helped crews from elsewhere protect their equipment, too.

While at PM Magazine, Carla caught the eye of a talent scout who thought Carla—a Hispanic female in an industry dominated by White males—would be a good fit for the Los Angeles, California market. At first Carla worked on a per diem basis, which at the time was a common practice as a trial run to determine whether a person was good enough to be hired full-time. Carla was, indeed, good enough, and spent 12 years “watching history being made during the best and worst of times.”

Carla says Los Angeles during the 1984 Olympics was magical: the smog lifted, traffic eased, and the city buzzed with a celebratory energy. The darkest times were the Los Angeles riots following the beating of Rodney King by four police officers. “Watching the destruction—it didn’t make sense. When [actor and activist] Edward James Olmos led the cleanup effort and so many people followed, it restored my faith in humanity.”

Back to New Mexico

Carla came back to New Mexico to again join KOB-TV 4 in 1994. “There were some difficult times, reporting on people I knew who had gotten into trouble, but the stories needed to be told.” She prefers to remember the stories “where you’ve made an impact, even if it’s on only one person.”

For instance, while at KOB she covered the story of a little boy suffering from epidermolysis bullosa, a rare skin condition that causes fragile skin that blisters and tears easily. “He was a gentle little soul who loved Carlos Santana and his music. I was able to get him a meeting with Carlos when he came to Albuquerque—Carlos was so generous; he brought him a guitar case full of memorabilia and met with him backstage. It made me feel so good to help.”

Carla took her role as an anchor and public figure seriously. “I needed to be a role model, and I tried to always be gracious.” The only downside to being in the public eye? “People would come up to me, and I’d have to think, ‘Do I know them?’ It was a nice problem to have.”

Time for a change

For years, Carla devoted “every single moment” to her career. “When I wasn’t on-air, I was often the master of ceremonies at charitable events, I was on organization boards—but when I got married in my 40s, I realized I needed to do something different. I was still young and had things I wanted to do.”

In 2007, Carla left television to pursue creative projects, including writing children’s books that preserve traditions from her childhood. Her first, Dance of the Eggshells/Baile de los Cascarones, was published in 2010. She also engaged in legislative efforts related to New Mexico’s ties to Spain and Mexico, working with late Governor Bill Richardson on the New Mexico-Sonora Commission. This initiative established a mutually beneficial framework to address cross-border issues such as trade, tourism, health, and public safety.

She has also served on the board of the National Hispanic Cultural Center Foundation and the University of New Mexico Children’s Hospital, among others. Carla wrote a column for the Santa Fe Hometown News that emphasized positive things happening in the community and has been a freelance producer, writer, and talent for television, radio, and other projects.

Connection to NMSU and New Mexico history

One of Carla’s favorite projects was working as both talent and producer for the late Senator Pete V. Domenici oral history project, now part of the Pete V. Domenici archives here at NMSU. “I admired Senator Domenici—he was friends with many journalists, including me, and made himself accessible.”

Before he retired, the senator asked Carla to interview him and voice his oral history, and a crew from NMSU went with Carla to Washington, D.C. They spent two days with him, talking about everything from his childhood in New Mexico to how he started in politics to the issues he championed, including mental health and nuclear non-proliferation. When he passed away, the family asked Carla to emcee Senator Domenici’s public celebration of life at Isotopes Stadium in Albuquerque, and Carla remains a friend of the family to this day.

Carla’s impressive list of accolades includes an Emmy Award for Final Journey, which documented the final days of a hospice patient, and in 1990 she was named one of the Most Influential Hispanics in the U.S. by Hispanic Business Magazine. In 2021, she was inducted into the New Mexico Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame.

She was celebrated by her alma mater, too. In 2009, Carla received an NMSU honorary Doctor of Letters. “I was thrilled when I heard from the regents that I was selected! Everyone was so hospitable to my family. My nieces attended the ceremony and got to see me honored in this way—I like to think that influenced two of them to choose to attend NMSU.”

Today, this celebrated Aggie is a board member of El Rancho de Las Golondrinas, a living history museum in Santa Fe devoted to preserving the cultural traditions of New Mexico. Although she is now most active behind the scenes, her ongoing legacy continues to be a passion for telling the unique stories of the people, places, and history of New Mexico.

You can hear Carla interview the late Senator Pete Domenici in his oral history at here.