{"id":1260,"date":"2007-02-14T11:15:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-14T17:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/02\/spaceport-pioneer-dead-at-58\/"},"modified":"2007-02-14T11:15:00","modified_gmt":"2007-02-14T17:15:00","slug":"spaceport-pioneer-dead-at-58","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/02\/spaceport-pioneer-dead-at-58\/","title":{"rendered":"Spaceport pioneer dead at 58"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Lonnie Sumpter, executive director of the New Mexico Spaceport Authority, died Tuesday afternoon following a brief illness.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Sumpter, who worked for more than 20 years to make <a href=\"http:\/\/www.spaceportamerica.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Spaceport America<\/a> a reality, was 58. His death came quickly and was a shock to a tight-knit community that has shared the vision of a spaceport in <st1:place st=\"on\">Southern New Mexico<\/st1:place>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\u201cIt\u2019s a big loss to all of us,\u201d said Do\u00f1a Ana County Commissioner Kent Evans, who has also worked on the spaceport for more than two decades. \u201cHe was a mainstay behind the spaceport, and I have a lot of respect for Lonnie.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Gov. Bill Richardson called Sumpter \u201ca true public servant.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\u201cAs executive director of the N.M. Spaceport Authority, he was a pioneer in his profession and a valued member of my administration,\u201d <st1:city st=\"on\"><st1:place st=\"on\">Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Sumpter was able to oversee the first launch from temporary spaceport facility at Upham in September, but Evans said it\u2019s sad that he won\u2019t be able to see the completion of the spaceport.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Sumpter died about 4 p.m. Tuesday. Earlier in the day, Sen. Leonard Lee Rawson, R-Las Cruces, sponsored a memorial that praised Sumpter for his work. The memorial was approved by the Senate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lonnie Sumpter, executive director of the New Mexico Spaceport Authority, died Tuesday afternoon following a brief illness. Sumpter, who worked for more than 20 years to make Spaceport America a reality, was 58. His death came quickly and was a shock to a tight-knit community that has shared the vision of a spaceport in Southern [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1260\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}