GRIT Newsletter: December 2024

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With the end of the year approaching, the December GRIT featured articles reminiscing about Sandia Heights’ past. Ann List authored an article describing the Christmas celebrations of years gone by, including a mother-daughter brunch, house-to-house Christmas caroling, and a neighborhood progressive dinner. Ann also unearthed and re-published an article about a local fire from the Dec 1976 GRIT—a reminder that fire was a danger then as now. Following in the same historical vein, Stan Davis detailed the use and history of an old stone ranger station, now in ruins, just east of Northern Sandia Heights. This archaeological feature article also contained photos of the remnant structures within and around the cabin. The Communications and Publications committee published their retrospective, as well. Their article chronicled the evolution of the Sandia Homeowners Association Logo as it appeared on The GRIT masthead over the years.

The IT committee published a more contemporary piece discussing the use of AI in conducting SHHA business, including its use in constructing the online index of The GRIT. The gratitude of the GRIT’s Editor to the IT committee in upgrading The GRIT’s functionality was front and center in the Editor’s own article, thanking both the IT committee and the Communications and Publication Committee’s significant volunteer time spent indexing, organizing, authoring, proofreading, and laying out the GRIT’s content. Despite AI being used to automate the organization of GRIT content, and supply occasional graphic spacers, the meat of the publication is still an entirely human-conducted job. That job comes with its own human-centric benefits, however, as encapsulated by the Editor’s article title, a new long-form wording for The GRIT’s acronym: “Guiding Residents, Inspiring Togetherness.” Finally, in a somewhat dark but humorous article about surviving a Zombie Apocalypse, Merrilea Mayo discusses practical ways to forage food in and around Sandia Heights, focusing on 3 common local plants: prickly pear cacti, yucca plants, and cholla cacti.

Beyond the feature articles, the December GRIT also includes an announcement of December 7^th as Sandia Heights’ semi-annual Trash Pickup Day, an event orchestrated by the Environment and Safety Committee; a notification that the SHHA front office has gone cashless; monthly reports from the Architectural Control Committee and Covenant Support Committee on actions taken since the last GRIT; the ongoing Community Events Bulletin Board (local bridge and dining clubs are soliciting members); and first-but-not-least, the front page President’s Letter, which described continuing efforts to work with the county Sheriff on traffic (speeding) management in Sandia Heights. That letter closes with a banner reminder that the 2025 annual meeting of Sandia Heights Homeowners Association, to which all Sandia Heights homeowners are invited, will be taking place on Saturday, February 22, 2025.