A highlight of his life was when "I got to escort President John F. Kennedy," when he visited Los Alamos, said Louie Rojas.

Louie and his late wife, Patsy, arrived in Los Alamos in 1947. Their six children: Lou, Ric, Tom, Christy, Chelo, and Joe grew up in Los Alamos where Louie served as sheriff for 34 years, the longest serving sheriff in New Mexico history.

Louie has been honored by the Ironworkers Union, of which he has been a member since 1938. Though he is now one of the oldest card-carrying union ironworkers in the United States, Louie has officially retired from the trade. His career as an ironworker began in the shipyards of Galveston, Texas, in the late 1930s.

The Los Alamos Board of Realtors named him Citizen of the year in 1988. A founding member of the Los Alamos Democratic Party, Louie was inducted into the Democratic Hall of Fame in 1990.

Additional biographical material can be found in the Los Alamos Monitor of September 15, 2002.

Written by Karen Nilsson Brandt, copyright ©