Silver Horizons New Mexico, Inc.

Noel Behne , 71, is the first to say that his life was never the same after he and his wife, Fran, moved to Albuquerque in 1965.

After meeting in Duluth, Minn., where he worked for the General Electric Credit Corporation, the couple married and spent their honeymoon in New Mexico. At the Texas-New Mexico border, on their way back home, Fran tossed part of her wedding flowers back into New Mexico as a symbolic gesture of their desire to return. Four years later, Noel transferred with GE to become a branch manager in Albuquerque.

In 1969, he joined First National Bank, where he stayed for 27 years, retiring as senior vice president when the name was First Security Bank. He returned to banking for an additional seven years, with First Community Bank, retiring last December.

Along the way, Noel has contributed countless hours to the Albuquerque area as a member of nonprofit boards and organizations. He has served on the boards of the St. Joseph Health System, St. Joseph Healthcare Foundation, Albuquerque Rescue Mission, New Heart, Association of Commerce and Industry, New Mexico First, the Better Business Bureau of New Mexico, ARCA, and more.

The Behnes have never regretted their move to New Mexico.

"We've always felt Albuquerque was such a great place to live and have received far more than we were able to give back," he says.

Virginia Perkins Grant , 62, began her life in Mississippi in a poor sharecropping family, and when she retired, she was vice president and human resources consultant of the Bank of America in Albuquerque. Along the way, she married and was divorced from Don Perkins, a teenage neighbor who went on to become a star running back for the Dallas Cowboys.

She raised their four children, along with a foster child, and discovered talents for business, organization and leadership, along with a sensitive insight for the benefit of others. She is now married to Uriel Grant and her story continues happily ever after.

Her volunteer work dates to the mid-1980s, when she traveled the university circuit as volunteer producer of "Bound for Canaan," a play that co-starred her first husband. For years, she has volunteered with AARP,

helping prepare income tax returns for seniors, shut-ins and others. She is president of the Retired Senior Volunteer Program and has assisted with the Senior Olympics and health fairs around Albuquerque.

Grant is a counselor with SCORE, offering business advice to people, and she co-authored the "Quick Employment Compliance Guide for Small Businesses in New Mexico."
A devoted member of Hoffmantown Baptist Church, she was one of the first Albuquerque residents to "adopt" a family displaced by Hurricane Katrina to Albuquerque.

She tells the triumphant story of her life in her autobiography, "Sweet Journey".

Ted Martinez , 72, had retired after a distinguished career with the University of New Mexico when he decided to volunteer for the Peace Corps, spending two years in Belize. In between, he served as executive director of the New Mexico Board of Educational Finance.

Before he retired, he was just as busy. After earning both a bachelor's and master's degree at the University of New Mexico, Martinez devoted his career to education, first as a history teacher at Rio Grande High School, then as an administrator at UNM. Along the way, he served on the Albuquerque Public Schools' Board of Education and the governing board of TVI (now CNM), including stints as chair of each one.

He also was Albuquerque council president of the League of Latin American Citizens and active in the Albuquerque Economic Forum.

He has served on the boards of the UNM Alumni Association, United Way of Greater Albuquerque, Presbyterian Healthcare Services and the TVI Foundation, to name only a few.

Closer to home, he regularly visits longtime friends and colleagues who are ill or now live alone, lending his infectious sense of humor and friendship. Despite all that he contributes to the community he has called home most of his life, he remains devoted to his family and rarely misses a recital or performance of his grandchildren.

Lenore Wolfe , 92, has spent her long life working to improve the rights of others, following a path set down by her father in Oklahoma. As a college student in New York City, she was a labor organizer, and since the 1960s in New Mexico, she has been one of the state's foremost advocates for early childhood education.

It was only fitting that she was honored on her 90th birthday with a reception inside the Roundhouse in Santa Fe, where she spent many hours helping to secure funding and establish the standards for public-school kindergarten education. She earned a B.A. and M.A. in elementary education at UNM and subsequently taught children and adults in a variety of capacities.

She established the Head Start program at Laguna Pueblo and helped develop bilingual early childhood education on the Navajo Reservation and throughout the pueblos,

which led her to develop a similar program in Nepal. She served on the Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education and continues to help develop laws and policies that benefit young children.

Wolfe also was known for her menagerie of birds and reptiles at her home, often a field trip destination for various elementary schools. In her 50s, after her Nepal experience, she began traveling the world; her most recent trip was to Alaska two years ago. In her 70s, she became a docent at the Rio Grande Zoo and, in her 80s, was a docent at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History.