When Linda Skerritt (now Avery) was looking to attend college over sixty years ago, academics were not the only thing on her mind. “I came [to New Mexico] for my health,” Avery explained, “I had very bad asthma as a child growing up in New Jersey, and I had a doctor who suggested the dry climate might help.”
After looking at schools in Arizona and New Mexico, Avery decided to attend Western New Mexico University (then College), where she majored in English and minored in drama and Spanish. “I came out [to Silver City], and I just felt right at home right away,” she said, “I had never been to the southwest before, but it just felt like this was the right place.”
Apparently, the New Mexican climate agreed with her because Avery immediately became involved in numerous activities on campus. “Because I could breathe more comfortably,” she said, “I was excited to do as much as I could . . . I just had the best time exploring different things and being in an entirely new environment.”
Avery joined the Westernettes, a drill and service club, where she made many friends, some of whom she continues to stay in contact with. “We had a lot of fun,” said Avery of the group, “We marched during half-time at the games, and we marched in the Homecoming parade.” Eventually, Skerritt became “Chief Wrangler” of the large club.
Avery was also very involved in drama during her time at the university, playing central roles in multiple plays, including William Shakespeare’s “As You Like It,” and joining the Playmakers, which was a drama club on campus. She was also a member of honors societies for each of her three academic disciplines, English, Spanish and drama.
Avery was Homecoming Queen in 1961, when she was a junior, and she remembers there was a great deal of ceremony surrounding the Homecoming coronation in those days, including parading on the back of a car to the event and receiving a bouquet of congratulatory roses from then President of WNMU J. Cloyd Miller.
The most life-changing part of her time at WNMU, however, came about through her work in the library. Explained Avery, “The assistant librarian in charge of cataloging [Nobel La Fond] was a former Marine who had gone to library school after he got out of the service . . . He suggested I get my MLS, and the New Mexico Library Association had a small scholarship that I applied for and got.” After graduating from WNMU in 1963, she went on to earn her Masters in Library Science degree, something she said that she likely would not have done if not for the encouragement of La Fond.
After earning her MLS, Avery accepted a position as a librarian at the then newly-created Cochise College in Douglas, AZ, where she worked for three years.
Avery’s next move was to Albuquerque. After teaching high school English for a short while, she accepted a position as a librarian at Sandia High School, where she worked for over eighteen years. She then moved to a position at Hayes Middle School. “I thought middle school kids were just like high school kids,” laughed Avery, “but they were shorter, so I could see over the tops of their heads . . . They were fun.”
Avery retired after working in the public schools for twenty-five years, and since then she and her husband have travelled extensively in their camper van.
This year she was inducted into the WNMU Alumni Association’s “Golden Circle,” a program that recognizes alumni that graduated fifty or more years ago.
When Avery’s classmates voted her “Most Likely to Succeed” sixty years ago, they almost certainly could not imagine the trajectory of her life and career, but with a college experience full of campus involvement and honors, followed by a professional career of librarianship, Avery has certainly fulfilled their prediction.