"Teaching is the one profession that makes all the other professions possible," says Larry Torres, a teacher of Russian, French, Spanish, and English, and Chair of the Department of Foreign Languages at Taos High School in Taos. Mr. Torres is the second of eight children born to parents who, themselves, never completed high school. "All eight children went on to become teachers in various fields, and when the last of the eight received his Master's degree, the regents from New Mexico State University came to my hometown to acknowledge my parents' indirect contribution to the field of education," says Mr. Torres. He adds that education was so deeply ingrained in his upbringing, that he "never conceived of wanting to be anything but a teacher." Mr. Torres's excellence as a teacher is clearly reflected by the popularity of his classes in a subject, foreign languages, that is not traditionally associated with student enthusiasm. Mr. Torres is also a writer and a journalist; a book that compiles his weekly columns on New Mexico's Hispanic culture for The Taos News has recently been published.
1977 New Mexico State University, B.A.
