When Diane Denish was elected lieutenant governor, she didn’t think too much about the glass ceiling she’d just shattered.

“But when I looked down over a crowd of several hundred people and saw my name on signs and stuff,” she said, “I was pretty overwhelmed.”

The Democrat became the first — and so far, only — woman to hold the position in 2003, when she and Gov. Bill Richardson stepped into the Roundhouse. There, she became known for her drive to tackle early childhood issues and support small businesses.

It is now approaching 15 years since Denish left office.

She resides in an Albuquerque house with big windows and a shih tzu named Molly, writing a regular political column for nm.news and paying close attention, still, to problems impacting young children. She has a collection of fr

See Full Page