Sergeant Roberta Radosevich, of the Rio Rancho
Department of Public Safety, honored with Heroes’ award.
Public-safety heroes named from Corrales, Rio Rancho for Salute
to Heroes Week 2006
Barbara Kline Hammond, manager of The Day Spa at Serenity Gardens,
announced that public-safety personnel from Sandoval County were
designated “Hero 2006” for the Fourth Annual Salute
to Heroes Week, which Hammond organizes in memory of the tragedy
of September 11, 2001. This year’s heroes are Sergeant Roberta
Radosevich, of the Rio Rancho Department of Public Safety, and Chief
Anthony Martinez, of the Corrales Fire Department, with Rio Rancho
firefighter Michael Legendre receiving an honorable mention.
Radosevich, who started her law enforcement career in 1989 and
has been working for the Rio Rancho Department of Public Safety
for the last sixteen years, has dedicated her career to serving
and protecting those who cannot help themselves—especially
victims of domestic violence. She has organized multiple domestic-violence
conferences for the City of Rio Rancho and has been an investigator
for the city’s Domestic Violence Reduction Team.
Most recently, Radosevich served as Sandoval County’s domestic-violence
coordinated community response coordinator, taking an active role
to make marked improvements in Sandoval County and Rio Rancho’s
response to domestic violence and teaching a domestic-violence class
for Rio Rancho’s Citizens Public Safety Academy. This past
spring she coordinated a community initiative to benefit Haven House,
Sandoval County’s only domestic violence shelter provider.
The initiative, called Run for Shelter, was a motorcycle run to
publicize the effects of domestic violence on our community.
Chief Martinez became a Corrales Fire Department volunteer at the
age of sixteen, joined the paid staff six years later, and became
chief in 2003. He has grown the force from two to seven paid staff,
with fifteen volunteers. He works tirelessly to obtain funding for
his citizen-based fire department, and is vice chair of the Sandoval
County Regional Communications Board.
During this difficult year of both drought and flood, Martinez
worked tirelessly to keep Corrales safe. His activities included
organizing daily patrols of the Bosque at the height of the fire
danger and developing evacuation plans for both people and animals
during the flooding. When the floods came, Martinez worked with
emergency services, spending many hours personally pumping water
out of flooded areas, filling sandbags, and patrolling roads.
Firefighter Legendre was nominated by seventy-seven Rio Rancho
schoolchildren, who submitted depictions of heroic fire rescues
in crayon and ink.
“We received nominations this year from Albuquerque, Corrales,
Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, and Rio Rancho,” Hammond said.
“It was a privilege to review these wonderful stories of heroism
and kindness.”
Heroes Week, September 11-17, is an annual event sponsored by the
Day Spa at Serenity Gardens to honor law-enforcement and fire-department
personnel in Bernalillo and Sandoval counties. The winners will
be honored at a high tea and fashion show sponsored by Resources,
Inc., on Saturday, October 21, from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at the
Embassy Suites Hotel, on Lomas Boulevard Northeast and I-25. Proceeds
from the event will be used for Resources programs, which assist
victims of domestic violence.
In addition, Hammond will donate a portion of proceeds the Day
Spa received during Heroes Week to a charity selected by each winner. |
