Dennis Chavez: From Seventh Grade Dropout to New Mexico Senate Pioneer

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Dionisio "Dennis" Chavez was born in April 1888 in Los Chavez, in the New Mexico Territory, 24 years before New Mexico became a state. His parents, David and Paz Chavez, moved the family around 1895 to the Barelas neighborhood of Albuquerque so his father could work on the railroad. By seventh grade Chavez had to leave school to deliver groceries for the Highland Grocery Store, while studying engineering and surveying at night through the University of New Mexico. He became an engineer for the city of Albuquerque, edited a weekly paper in Belen, and worked as a court interpreter. In 1916 he served as Spanish interpreter for Andrieus A. Jones's Senate campaign and followed Jones to Washington as an assistant executive clerk.

Without a high school diploma, Chavez passed a special admission exam for Georgetown's law school, studied at night, and graduated in 1920. Back in Albuquerque he built a name defending labor and high profile murder cases, won a state legislative seat in 1922, and in 1930 won New Mexico's at large House seat, later chairing the House Committee on Irrigation and Reclamation. He narrowly lost a 1934 Senate race to Bronson Cutting, then was appointed to the seat after Cutting died in a plane crash in May 1935. Chavez won the 1936 special election and in 1940 became the first person of Hispanic descent elected to a full Senate term, serving until his death on November 18, 1962.

• He gave up a safe House seat to challenge Cutting in 1934 and lost, only to be appointed to that same seat five days after Cutting's fatal crash.
• In 1954 Senate Republicans pushed a resolution to void his 1952 election, which would have let New Mexico's Republican governor appoint a replacement; it failed 36 to 53.
• He chaired the Senate Committee on Public Works and was fourth in Senate seniority when he died at 74.
• Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson traveled to Albuquerque to deliver his eulogy.
• His brother David served on the New Mexico Supreme Court, his daughter Imelda wrote a Washington Evening Star column, and granddaughter Gloria Tristani served on the FCC.