It might seem a little out of the ordinary for a New Mexican of Middle Eastern descent to be a die-hard fan of the Fighting Irish while making his living as a Spanish interpreter — unless, of course, that person happens to be Abdallah Samuel Adelo.

Sam Adelo, the 86-year-old dynamo, is devoted to his alma mater, The University of Notre Dame, where he graduated in 1947. Next weekend, he and his wife, Lauretta, are headed to a reunion at the university as part of the 50-Year Club of Notre Dame graduates. He has attended the reunion every year since 1997, when he became part of that club.

"It's always a great time," Adelo says. "The university puts together a wonderful series of activities and lectures geared toward our age group. There are lectures on ecology, estate planning and other topics that pertain to us at this stage in our lives. They also make it easy for us to get around the campus, with vans shuttling us back and forth."

In addition to receiving both his undergraduate and law degrees from Notre Dame, Adelo taught Spanish there in 1946, so he also gets a chance to visit with former students.

Adelo was born in Pecos in 1923; he is one of six sons and two daughters born to Assad Abdallah Adelo and Lourdes Varela Silva. His father immigrated from a small village near Beirut, Lebanon, in 1913 and married a local girl from Pecos. In 1919, the couple started Adelo's Town and Country store in Pecos, which is still in operation today and run by his nephew, George Adelo.

Sam's father was a member of the Maronite Rite religion in Lebanon, where the Catholic Church would hold services in Arabic. The elder Adelo made it a point to send his children to Catholic school, with Sam graduating in 1940 from St. Michael's High School as the class valedictorian and editor of the school newspaper, the San Miguel News. Adelo is involved with some of the committees that are working on the school's 150th anniversary this year.

After graduating from St. Michael's, Adelo spent the better part of the next three decades, as he says, in "economic exile."

"Although I missed New Mexico greatly," he says, "I just couldn't make a living here." After attending Notre Dame, Adelo lived in Mexico City for a year, where he had received a fellowship to the Universidad Nacional de México. He was a soldier in the Army during World War II and later enlisted in the Army Reserve. He also did doctoral studies at Northwestern University, where he later taught Spanish.

Because Adelo is fluent in Spanish, Italian and, as he says, "survival" Arabic, Gulf Oil recruited him to work in its legal department in 1958. During the next 26 years, he lived and worked in Italy, Venezuela, Argentina, Chile, the Canary Islands, Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico. "I loved my job, but I had a strong yearning to come home. I received a break in 1976 when Gulf became interested in the coal and uranium business in western New Mexico," he says.

For the next eight years, Adelo worked for Gulf Oil in Santa Fe before retiring in 1984 and taking on a whole new career as a Spanish interpreter for the judicial system. He's also a contributing writer for legal and cultural publications in the region and nationally, and continues to teach both law and Spanish. Adelo just returned from teaching a course on criminal and civil procedures to Navajo students at the University of Arizona.

As full as his life is, it wouldn't be complete without his continued association with Notre Dame. As Adelo says, "Notre Dame football is like a religion for me. I attend at least two of their games each year, and I juggle my work schedule around their reunions."

Adelo has been married to Lauretta Adelo for 36 years, and she organizes his busy schedule and keeps him on track. The couple met in Coral Cables, Fla., in 1971, when Adelo was working for Gulf Oil.

Ana Pacheco is the founder and publisher of La Herencia, a culture and history magazine (www.herencia.com, 505-474-2800).