NANCY HAMILTON

1929 - 2017

Nancy Corinne Miller Hamilton was born Aug. 22, 1929, in El Paso, the daughter of Harold F. and Corinne Miller. She graduated from Austin High School in 1946 and received her B.A. degree in journalism in 1949 and M.A. in English in 1954 from Texas Western College (now The University of Texas at El Paso). Her career alternated mainly between newspaper reporting and educational public relations. She spent nine years with the El Paso Times (1950-59), nine years with the El Paso Independent School District (1959-68), four years with the El Paso Herald-Post (1972-76) and nine years in media relations for UTEP (1976-85). She then became associate director of Texas Western Press at UTEP, serving until her retirement in 1990 and continuing to edit books for TW Press and other publishers for another ten years. In 1997 and 1998 she was a part-time lecturer in public relations for the UTEP Department of Communication. She married Ralph E. Hamilton in 1968 and became the stepmother of his children, James (Jay) and Jeannie. Mrs. Hamilton was an accredited member of the Public Relations Society of America and served twice as president of Rio Grande Chapter. She is former proctor for Paso Del Norte Chapter of American Mensa, past chairman of the Executive Committee of the UTEP Heritage Commission, past sheriff of Mt. Franklin Corral of Westerners, and past president of Western Writers of America. Her history interests included serving three years as editor of the El Paso County Historical Society's Password, ten years on the El Paso County Historical Commission, longtime secretary-treasurer of the Pioneers Association of El Paso County, author of a biography of El Paso's first mayor and a history of UTEP, and service on the Four Centuries '81 Commission. She was a contributor to the revised Handbook of Texas. She is co-author of Legendary Watering Holes (2004, Texas A&M Press), Literary EI Paso (2009, TCU Press) and Grace and Gumption: Women of EI Paso (2011, TCU Press). Her honors included the El Paso Women's Hall of Fame, the1988 Phillip E. Danielson Award from Westerners International, honorary membership in Zeta Pi Chapter of Delta Kappa Gamma, various listings in Marquis Who's Who in Media and Communications, South and Southwest, and American Women, and Austin High School Outstanding Ex of 1990. She received the Historical Society's Porter Award and was named to the Hall of Honor. She received the College of Liberal Arts Gold Nugget. Mrs. Hamilton began collecting Mexican folk art paintings of saints known as "retablos" in 1967. In 1981, she arranged and loaned pieces for the exhibition "Saints Preserve Us" at the Institute of Texan Cultures in San Antonio, and in 1991 she loaned six pieces for the InterCultura touring exhibition "The Art of Private Devotion." As a result of the latter show, she started editing the Retablo Newsletter for collectors, museums and libraries, continuing until 2002 at which time the mailing list numbered 286. In 2014, she donated her retablo collection to the El Paso Museum of Art. Her survivors include her daughter, Jeannie, and her children, Jonathan and Carie, of Minnesota; her son, Jay, his children, Carol Hamilton and Ryan Hamilton, of Oklahoma; sisters-in-law, Joan Cook of Palco, KS, and Mary Ann Moore of Douglass, KS; and several cousins, nieces and nephews.