OUTSIDE THE PEPPER POT RESTAURANT, Hatch resident Rodrigo Varela is chatting with friends and family when a fire engine’s siren interrupts them. As the vehicle turns onto West Hall Street, Varela waves to the driver, who is followed by a stream of other Hatch Valley residents in tractors and cars decorated with the indelible symbols of southern New Mexico: Hatch chile, green and red.
One of those residents, sitting in the flatbed of a 1950s-era Chevrolet pickup, is the Hatch Chile Festival’s grand marshal, 98-year-old June Rutherford. “Hey, June, we love you,” Varela says. She smiles and returns the wave.
Rutherford, the matriarch of a chile growing dynasty, was one of the early organizers of the Hatch Chile Festival, which first took place at Hatch Municipal Airport in 1972. At one time, she and other volunteers cooked thousands of pounds of food—most of it chile-fortified—for guests. Some visitors partook in events like tractor pulls and shooting, fiddling, and horseshoe-pitching contests. “People were everywhere,” she says.
The harvest-season event has happened for every year but one, 2020, when the pandemic hit. For a while it was unknown whether there would be a festival in 2021. That was when business owners and residents came
