Since she was a little girl growing up in La Puente, Juanita Manzanares has had an excellent work ethic. She credits this to her parents, the late Frank and Carmen Manzanares, who taught their children to work hard and pursue their education.

When she was 15, her parents sent her to a private, all-girl's boarding school in St. Louis so she could do just that. Despite the lack of money the family of farmers had, they still managed to send all of their children away to school.

"A lot of people interpreted this as my parents 'getting rid of them,' but it wasn't that," Manzanares said. "My dad always had this desire to expose us to whatever he wasn't exposed to. He wanted us to be challenged in this life and for us to get as many opportunities as we could to be able to advance and be successful in this world."

Manzanares dreamed up and brought to life a partnership with Northern New Mexico College and the College of Santa Fe that has helped more than 100 people in Chama and the surrounding areas pursue their education.

It is for this reason that Manzanares was recognized as one of The New Mexican's 10 Who Make a Difference.

She was always passionate about education, she said, and when she went to school in St. Louis, she was surrounded by girls from all different backgrounds, both culturally and economically, and felt that her rural upbringing had left her at an educational disadvantage.

"I maybe hadn't been exposed to as much as the others had," Manzanares said. "I felt I had to work twice as hard to be able to be competitive with the other students."

Oftentimes she stayed up studying under the covers long after the lights went out just to prepare for the next day.

"I felt I could do it," Manzanares said. "And I was going to pay whatever price to be able to be successful, even if it took for me to study under the covers."

She always dreamed of coming back home. After graduating from high school, and then college at St. Louis University, she taught in St. Louis for 12 years and then finally realized that dream. She got a position teaching English and Spanish with the Chama Valley School District, which she held for 24 years; later, she took a position as the district's bilingual coordinator, which she still holds today.

Now that she was home, she had one more dream to realize. She had taken on the philosophy of her parents: use good work ethic to advance your education, and she added a twist.

"I have the philosophy that if given opportunities, an individual will find it easier to advance, to educate themselves, to grow professionally and to come out ahead in this world of ours," Manzanares said. "I thought to myself, 'I want to be that person who would give others that opportunity.' "

When she took the position as the bilingual coordinator in 1998, she was asked to implement the Title VII federal program, which required "professional development in the community."

"With this philosophy I had, I saw this as a golden opportunity to be able to bring in college courses that led to degrees or endorsements," Manzanares said.

She connected with the administration at Chama Valley Schools to clarify whether "professional development" could include college courses. It did, so she contacted Mike Castello from Northern New Mexico College, then Northern New Mexico Community College, to forge a partnership and then came up with a plan of action.

Together with her then-secretary, Estefanita Martinez, she went door-to-door to homes and businesses to see if people were interested. They were.

"To my surprise, a lot of our people had gone to college but had not continued for whatever reason," Manzanares said. "Then I had another group who was interested but said they had never had the opportunity of taking college classes."

She received permission to use Escalante High School as a "campus away from a campus" for college courses and had teachers apply to Northern New Mexico College to be considered or teaching positions in Chama. In addition to founding the program, Manzanares makes up the schedules and teaches Spanish courses.

Since the program's inception in 1998, she has helped more than 100 students take classes, half of whom have received bachelor's degrees and some who have gone on to receive master's degrees.

Martinez was one of the students who went on and got both a bachelor's and master's at the College of Santa Fe.

"It helped me advance. I was a secretary," said Martinez, who now teaches English at Escalante High School. "It helps all the way around as far as your salary. It just makes your life better."

Martinez hadn't planned to go to school until her daughter graduated from high school, but the same year her daughter graduated, she received her master's degree.

"Juanita is so passionate about where education can take you, she has made this her life," wrote her nominators, Debbie Manzanares and Francella Manzanares.

In their letter, Juanita Manzanares' cousins relay that Juanita won't take no for an answer.

"She has made dangerous U-turns on the highway to chase down students she knew had the potential of getting into college," they wrote.

"Just to be a nominee for that recognition is just fantastic and deserving because of all the work she does for this community," said Milnor Manzanares, brother and co-worker of Manzanares. "I'm very proud of her."

"I've been very, very grateful that my dream has come true," Manzanares said. About being on of the 10 Who Make a Difference, she said, "I'm elated. I don't even know the right adjective to use."

Contact Ana Maria Trujillo at 986-3084 or atrujillo@sfnewmexican.com.