Jared Franklin "Jed" Howard

1934 - 2017

Jared Franklin Howard, 83, passed away September 22, 2017 at Landsun Homes. Cremation has taken place. Rather than a funeral, he has requested a small memorial service take place at Carlsbad Municipal Cemetery, 10:30 AM, Saturday, November 11, 2017. Arrangements are being handled by Denton-Wood Funeral Home. Born April 25, 1934 in Carlsbad, NM to Jared Clark and Frieda S. Howard, Jed attended the Carlsbad Public Schools, where he graduated in 1952. From 1952 to 1954 Jed was a participant in a cooperative work program newly initiated between the White Sands Missile Range and the then New Mexico A&M College outside Las Cruces. At this time, he was studying as an engineering student. In 1954 Jed transferred to the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service at Washington, D.C., graduating there with a Bachelor of Science Degree in 1957. After a short term of service as a Reserve Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force, he returned to the then New Mexico State University to acquire both a Master of Arts in History and the Social Sciences and his Secondary Teaching Certificate. Jed would later receive a second Master of Arts in the Humanities at St. John's College in Santa Fe, NM. In 1962 he returned to Carlsbad as a teacher of 9th Grade Social Studies in the town's new Mid High School. In 1964 Jed shifted to a position in the Senior High School Social Studies Department just vacated by Connie Chapman on her retirement. These two teachers' careers ultimately spanned over 70 years of the first 90 years of that High School's history. From 1965 to 1976 Jed was sponsor of the High School Student Council, introducing an original multi-council system and election that sought to encourage every student's direct participation in the school's extra-curricular activities. Jed also initiated both "Los Pobres" to encourage independent intellectual pursuits by the school's most gifted students, and a unique Interact program, in cooperation with the Carlsbad Rotary Club, designed to encourage more active leadership by the male students holding officer positions in the school's organizations and clubs. He instigated the school's Winter Prom, a December formal dance called the Sno Ball and created Walapurgolopus, a spring prom night activity for those students who did not participate in prom. In the classroom, Jed spent most of his career teaching soon-to-graduate seniors in courses required for graduation. He structured a highly innovative approach that required very high levels of independent work by each of the students and experimented with up to 70 students per class period. It had been his hope to extend this unusual class approach to all of the school's seniors, but a student and parent revolt in 1978 guaranteed that those who wished would have an alternative. He continued with his own approach, however, until his retirement in 1999. He also, for a time, team-taught a unique Humanities Course with several other members of the faculty. Away from school, he became, in 1965, the Chapter Dad for the Carlsbad DeMolay Chapter and held that position for five years. In an international competition that was taking place in the DeMolay system at that time, Jed was able to spur the Carlsbad Chapter to a rank of 3rd in the world. A dedicated back packer from the 1960's through the 1980's, he introduced a long sequence of Carlsbad students to the hidden corners of the Guadalupes. Later he would turn to the decidedly less physical recreation of duplicate bridge. On his trips through the Guadalupes Jed sought to define the location and extent of the Texas Madrone, an unusual Chihuahuan Desert species that exists in New Mexico only in the Guadalupes and in the Organ Mountains outside Las Cruces. A long-time Rotarian, in 1993 he and the Carlsbad Club sold and planted over 300 small Madrones around Carlsbad as a club beautification project. A book collector, he traveled, across the years, to virtually every major American city seeking pristine copies of the 400-book series of classics published by the Heritage Press between 1936 and 1964. Having ultimately brought together three of these collections, Jed presented one to Grace Episcopal Church in memory of his friend Mary Frances Merchant and one to Carlsbad's Temple Beth El in memory of his mother, Frieda. He was president of the Carlsbad Museum & Fine Arts Center Board in 1999-2000. He was president of the Carlsbad Foundation Board of Directors in 2001 and 2002. He was president of the Carlsbad Community Concerts Board from 1999 to 2005 and personally funded its annual free concert for the students of Carlsbad High School across a series of years. From 2002 to 2005 Jed was an appointed member of the Board of Directors of the New Mexico Natural History Museum at Albuquerque, and he was president of the Southeastern New Mexico Historical Society at Carlsbad from 1998 to 2010. In 1985, as a hobby, he began to search out the area's early photographs and copy them for the community. This collection ultimately grew to 15,000 images. For information on the photos Jed systematically read through all of the town's first 50 years of newspapers – and in time became fairly widely known as one of the area's historians. In 2012 the photo collection was handed to the public on the Internet Web Page "near lovings bend.net". That photo collection and the databases that accompany it made Carlsbad one of the best documented communities in America. In 1997 Jed received the Excellence in the Humanities Award from the New Mexico Endowment for the Humanities. In 2005 he was named Carlsbad's Humanitarian of the Year by the Carlsbad Foundation. In 2009 he received the National Daughters of the American Revolution Historic Preservation Medal. Jed was preceded in death by his parents and his only brother, David. He is survived by that brother's six children. These nieces and nephews are Ann Phillips, David Howard, Jr., Paul Howard, Margaret Howard, Michael Howard and Leslie Coll, all living on the West Coast. His death leaves this valley without a member in residence from this particular Howard family for the first time in 103 years. Memorial contributions may be made to the Jed Howard Heritage Preservation Fund at the Carlsbad Foundation, 114 S. Canyon Street, Carlsbad, NM 88220 or to any charity of your choice. Condolences may be expressed at dentonwood.com