Statuesque Nominee.(New Mexico & The West)

Byline: Larry Calloway Of the Journal

Colorado's just-unveiled-in-Washington statue of Jack Swigert, the Apollo 13 astronaut who died in December 1982 shortly after being elected to Congress, is the 96th statue in the 137-year-old National Statuary Hall. Only four more to go! And one of the final four will be from New Mexico.

Swigert stands in a space suit, helmet in hand, in contrast with a lot of standard generals and politicians. Only two or three other figures in the collection were even born in this century, according to the Capitol Architect's office.

New Mexico's statue, chosen by the 1997 Legislature with easy passage of a bill by Sen. Manny Aragon, also will present a contrast -- but from the other end of the historical spectrum. Pope, the legendary leader of the 1680 Pueblo Revolt, probably will be the oldest figure in Statuary Hall.

He's so old he doesn't even have two names. The only others with that distinction seem to be Oklahoma's Sequoyah and Hawaii's Kamehameha I. They're historical. Pope is fuzzier. He might become the most mythological and artistic creation of them all in Statuary Hall because nobody knows what he looked like, and nothing he said has been handed down.

Now, I didn't mean to criticize Colorado for choosing an astronaut, but the state is deprived. We have a native-born astronaut, Harrison Schmitt of Albuquerque, who, unlike Swigert, actually landed on the moon and actually served a full term in the U.S. Senate. But Aragon and the Legislature, of course, couldn't choose Schmitt because: 1., he's alive, and 2., he's a Republican.

New Mexico craving