Joe Skeen Federal Building

JOE SKEEN FEDERAL BUILDING -- (House of Representatives - September 22, 2004)

Mr. BURNS. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3734) to designate the Federal building located at Fifth and Richardson Avenues in Roswell, New Mexico, as the "Joe Skeen Federal Building."

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Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, when Joe Skeen was elected to the Congress, one of the first acts that he introduced in 1981 was legislation to name the Federal building in Las Cruces, New Mexico, after the man he replaced, the late-Congressman Harold Runnels, and I believe it is appropriate 23 years later to return the favor.

Joe Skeen won his election with a successful write-in campaign. It was only the third such victory in the history of the United States Congress, and during his nearly 22 years in the House of Representatives, he was a defender, a staunch defender, of New Mexico's rural lifestyle and its farming and ranching interests.

Even as Parkinson's began to claim his speech in his later years, Joe's sense of humor remained intact, and it is one of the things that all of us here treasure about him. Just about everybody in this body has a Joe Skeen story, something that makes us smile. One always knew if they had to go to talk to Joe about something, they might as well start smiling because before it was over he was going to make them laugh.

After 11 terms in the United States Congress, Joe decided to return to his ranch, a place that he described as being "at the center of my upbringing and which shaped my character and principles in life."

Joe's ranch in Picacho is 17 miles from pavement, and Joe was never a gentleman farmer. He was a farmer, a rancher and a gentleman. He could be fixing fences and working with his one hired hand, and hop in the truck and drive to Roswell, fly out, take a shower at his apartment in Washington and come to the floor of the House.

Throughout his service in the Congress, he kept a foot in both worlds, and the country and New Mexico benefited from it. He leaves behind a proud tradition of public service in which he has been a positive influence on many people's lives, including my own.

Joe died peacefully in his sleep of Parkinson's disease and its complications in Roswell, New Mexico, on December 7, 2003. His wonderful wife Mary was with him.

Joe was truly a great New Mexican. He will be deeply missed, and now, near his hometown in Roswell, New Mexico, there will be a building with his name on it. Every time people in Roswell walk by that building, they will look up and smile.

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