Wanda Lucero - Citizen of the Year

October 07, 2024

Everywhere you look around Northern New Mexico, Wanda Lucero is there: She’s fearless when it comes to marketing her insurance business, no doubt, but Lucero is everywhere behind the scenes as well, quietly boosting the community she loves and the people therein.

“I'm a behind-the-scenes person,” Lucero said. “I believe in contributing to my community. I like helping the most vulnerable and young people.”

Like many of our Unsung Heroes, Lucero doesn’t contribute out of an expectation she’ll receive praise. Rather, she gives because it is in her nature to give.

Family indubitably made Wanda Lucero into the person she is today — compassionate, giving and joyful. A Taoseña for most of her life, Lucero said, “I truly am blessed to come from a large, loving, caring family. Besides my parents, growing up the biggest influences in my life were my grandparents. Love, support, strength, faith, unity: These words embody all of my grandparents and the examples my grandparents set forth for us.

“I didn't grow up privileged in terms of financial status or owning things, but I was blessed to have the things that are important — the love, the support, the unity, the strength of the family. You don't realize what impacts you 'til much later.”

Lucero’s large extended family taught her to love unconditionally — a lesson she learned well. “I adore my children. We all need a ‘why?’ in our life and my family is my biggest priority in my life. My oldest daughter, Soledad, lives here in Taos. My son, Xavier [Kiley], is in the process of moving back to New Mexico, and my youngest daughter Ana-Alycia [Morgan Cunnyngham], lives here.”

Lucero remembers all her grandparents with affection, including Loren Anaya, namesake for Anaya Field. “Last September was the 50th anniversary of the naming of Anaya Field at Taos High School. My grandfather’s commitment to his craft, to his work, was amazing. We would ride with him to the high school field and run in the sprinklers as he moved the watering pipes to water the entire field. He had to manually water the field.”

A grandparent to four, Lucero said one of her greatest joys is spending time with her four granddaughters Kinzley, 13; Zaria, 13; Cora, 10; and Luciana, 11 months. “I always tell grandparents that we think our grandchildren are a blessing. We don't realize that we are a blessing to our grandchildren also.”

Her father, Alfonso Lucero De Godoi, now 83, owned his own plumbing business and later became a general contractor. “He’s still actively working,” Lucero said, adding her father, children and grandchildren help with many of her endeavors, as does her partner Jim Armijo. “He's a tremendous supporter in anything that I want to do. I also couldn’t do what I do without my incredible team: Rita Rodriguez, Linda Montoya, Nicole Duran, Erika Lester, Ana-Alycia Quintana, Estevan Montoya, and Brittany Romero.”

Born in Taos, Lucero said, “My father was active in the community as well. He was always willing to help other people, and my mother was right alongside him. My maternal grandmother was the center of that family and then my mother was as we were growing up.”

The family lived in Albuquerque for a short time before a divorce left Wanda’s mother Rebecca “Becky” (Anaya) Lucero caring for four children on her own.

“That was a difficult period of time in my life,” Lucero said. “My mother instilled a tremendous work ethic in me — from her work as a caregiver when we were young to her brave support of four children as a single mother during my teenage years.”

Lucero’s hard work led to a 40-plus-year career selling insurance, but not before she had pursued other dreams.

“Growing up, I always knew that I wanted to help others,” Lucero explained. “I ended up going to school to become a massage therapist, then I met someone from Taos and moved back.”

She smiled, recalling, “When I left Taos, I thought I would never be back. I was moving to the big city! That was my first lesson: Never say ‘never’ because you never know. I ended up back in Taos and I realized I really loved it.”

Lucero calls the years in which she first came back “another lifetime,” dismissing that period of her life with a simple, “We all had our dreams. Life didn't work out as planned. I ended up going to work for CB Trujillo, who was a State Farm agent and former New Mexico State Senator.”

The mother of three by then, Lucero said this is when she found her calling, “I realized it wasn't just selling [insurance], it was that I was able to help people. I really loved it and it became a passion of mine. And of course, CB was a tremendous mentor. He helped me grow professionally.”

Lucero eventually went on to become owner and CEO of the Wanda Lucero State Farm Insurance Agency — a legacy she took on from Trujillo. As she has said before, Lucero noted, “My vocation is my occupation. I found that little sweet spot where what I love to do — what I'm good at — lets me help others. One of my values is doing the right thing for the right reasons. … I work hard, but I've been tremendously blessed to have found something that allows me to provide jobs, and it also gives me a little bit of means to help others in our community.”

Lucero currently serves on the board of directors for Girl Scouts of New Mexico Trails and is an advisor/member of Taos Community Foundation’s Women Give Taos, which every year awards one $30,000 grant to a nonprofit that serves women and children in Taos and Western Colfax Counties. She is also on the committee to build a new dedicated facility for St. James Episcopal Church's Food Pantry and other outreach programs.

In recent years she has slowed down — thanks in no small part to the pandemic. “During COVID, I realized that time is precious, and I wanted to spend time with family. As the world has woken up, I'm slowly getting back as well.”

Her resume of public service is extensive beginning with serving on the board of directors for Trudy's Discovery House, a daycare her daughter Soledad attended. Since then, Lucero has served on boards of directors for several nonprofit and business-oriented groups as well as the Taos Municipal School Board. She has supported entrepreneurs and other businesses at regular networking events and as a former board member of T.E.N. (Taos Entrepreneurial Network).

Lucero has supported the Taos community with everything from making sure athletes traveling for sports activities have food to eat to her "It’s a Cinch to Help" campaign, which delivers food and provisions in cinch-tied bags to families in need.

She is there to keep events like Taos Mountain Balloon Rally, Taos Plaza Live, the Lilac Festival, and “Trunk or Treat” happening year after year.

Lucero believes deeply in integrative medicine — a value she attributes to having been raised in a family whose roots go back many generations in Taos: Her great grandmother, Manuelita Anaya, was a curandera (healer) and midwife who traveled and worked during the late 1800s/early 1900s with Dr. Thomas "Doc" Martin (Taos' first practicing physician).

She helped when her “dear friend” Leslie Cronin proposed raising money to raise funds for a SANE (sexual assault nurse examiner) program in Taos.

Lucero also helped start For the Health of It walk, which raises funds for Taos Cancer Support Service. This, too, is a deeply personal cause: In addition to multiple family members who died, she herself had a cancer scare.

“I had pre-cancer. I suffered with fibroid tumors for 13 years, until it got to a point where I was not living. I was surviving. Every morning I would wake up and warm a hot pack to warm my body up to get through the day, and then I would drive to work. And at the end of the day, I would say a prayer that I had enough energy to get home. And then I would roll into bed and stay there till the next morning. The tumors were growing and multiplying.”

Seeing her football-player son reduced to tears spurred Lucero to action. “I realized that it was killing him; that I had to do something to take care of my health if I was going to be there for my family.”

She found her way to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, where the team diagnosed severe anemia along with the tumors, which they removed. “As I recovered from the illness, I realized I was transforming from just surviving to living. The sun is shining, the sky is blue, the grass is green, the flowers are beautiful.”

Lucero said, "I wake up and the first thing I do is open my Bible app. There are daily verses that I read. It includes a verse, daily messages, time for prayer. Then the next thing I do is open my meditation app and I meditate. Then I open up my notes folder, where I list my things that I'm grateful for every day. It just helps me focus on the good things in life. … After I do that, I open my yoga app, which is what I'm focused on right now. I don't do it every day, I try to on weekends, but I do skip some days.

“I'm a morning person. I used to be a night owl, and now I'm a morning person. I love the quiet solitude of the morning, right when the world is sleeping and it's peaceful in your mind, you can think.”

Lucero’s small business, which specializes in home, auto, business, and life insurance as well as financial services, has received the Best of Taos award every year since its inception in 2013. In an earlier interview, she said, “Being successful will happen when we take the time to listen to our clients and uncover their needs. It’s all about focusing on our customers.”

“At some point in my life, someone asked me, ‘Why do you do everything that you do?’ And back then, I hadn't thought about it because I was just doing, doing, doing, doing without any thought. And then I realized, well, I do because I can, because I'm alive, because I have the privilege of being alive and being able to help.”