On Thursday, September 10, the Leanor de San Juan Wine Bar in historic downtown Aztec will fill with the clink of glasses, the murmur of conversation, and the unmistakable sound of a town celebrating its own peculiar heritage. From 4 to 7:30 p.m., the Aztec Museum & Pioneer Village hosts its "Pour Decisions Fundraiser," a meet-and-greet with the nine nominees vying to become the next Six Old Soreheads. For a $15 donation at the door, guests can mingle with the candidates, designate their contribution to one or more of them, and raise a glass to a tradition that has defined this small New Mexico town for more than half a century.
The evening promises all the trappings of a convivial small-town gathering. Hoyle Osborne, a beloved local pianist and himself a 2025 Old Sorehead, will play tunes from the 1960s and beyond. The Leanor's curated selection of wines, New Mexico beer, cider, and mocktails will be available for purchase, alongside a signature event cocktail called the "Sorehead Sour." A locally inspired spread of cheeses, meats, and artisan bites will be on offer, and guests are welcome to bring in takeout from other local eateries. The nominees — Jake Armenta, Mike Dutka, Valerie Griffin, Jan Howell, Connie Hutcheson, Brett Lanier, Katy Scott Moss, Dana Reed, and Jessica Sledzinski — will be on hand to make their case for soreheadedness, and the six who raise the most money will be "unsacked" in the traditional way at the October 10 Fall Festival Parade, cementing their place in the city's enduring Sorehead legacy.
To understand why a town would proudly crown its own "soreheads," you have to go back to the late 1960s. Aztec, like many communities in San Juan County, had ridden the wave of an oil and gas boom in the 1950s, but by the end of that decade the boom was leveling off. The U.S. Census recorded a loss of 793 residents between 1960 and 1970, and the town's movers and shakers were looking for ways to make Aztec memorable to travelers passing through on the highway. Joan Monninger, executive director of the Aztec Museum & Pioneer Village, has researched the phenomenon and found that other small towns were experimenting with similar mascots around the same time — residents of Sebastian, Florida, for instance, embraced the idea of local "grouches" promoting their town. In Aztec, the idea took the form of a roadside sign.
Around 1969, the first sign went up welcoming visitors to a town of several thousand "Friendly People" and "Six Old Soreheads." It was a light-hearted gesture, a wink at the road-weary traveler, and it worked. The community rallied around the signs and began electing Soreheads to act as city boosters, raising funds for local charities through the Aztec Chamber of Commerce. The Soreheads were not without controversy — Monninger notes that some residents didn't care for the grumpy-ambassador conceit, and the signs came and went over the years as community sentiment and city leadership shifted. But the tradition endured, and the Soreheads became a beloved piece of Aztec's identity.
By 2025, the signs had been gone for some time, and the museum decided it was time to bring the Soreheads back. Believing that the town's unique shared history matters, the Aztec Museum & Pioneer Village relaunched the Old Soreheads as an annual fundraiser. The first class of revived Soreheads — Bonnie Adams, Dr. Jimmy Miller, Joan Monninger herself, Hoyle Osborne, Greta Quintana, and Albert Velarde — were selected and raised money for the museum throughout 2025. They were "unsacked" at the Aztec Sparkles event in December, a tradition that calls for the honorees to wear paper bags over their heads until the moment of their unveiling. The museum has since made the program an annual affair, and this year's nine nominees are competing for the six spots in the 2026-27 class.
The venue for Thursday's fundraiser is as steeped in history as the tradition it celebrates. The Leanor de San Juan Wine Bar occupies a two-story brick building at 200 S. Main Ave., constructed in 1906 as a general merchandise store by J.M. Thomas. Its modest style is typical of the construction that accompanied the city's railroad boom, with upper rooms serving as living quarters and some rented to overnight guests. Thomas added scales in front of the store for the use of draymen, coal haulers, and grain dealers. The building features decorative zipper brick and a dentil cornice on the front, with a corbelled cornice stepping down the side, and it is registered as a historical building in both the National and State Registries. Over the decades it housed various businesses, including Eddie's Radio-TV Service. In 2022, Robin Kelly purchased the building and undertook a painstaking renovation, transforming it into The Leanor Petite Hotel and Event Space. More recently, the space has taken on new life as the city's premier wine bar on Thursday through Saturday evenings, courtesy of Wines of the San Juan, and as a coffee bar on Thursday through Sunday mornings.
The Aztec Museum & Pioneer Village, the beneficiary of Thursday's fundraiser, is itself a keeper of the town's stories. The museum sits on 3.5 acres along Main Avenue and features 15 historic buildings and thousands of artifacts. The museum operates as an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and the Soreheads fundraiser is one of its key annual events. As the museum's mission states, it exists to collect, preserve, and share the rich history of the communities it serves — and, as the organizers are quick to add, the Soreheads are worth preserving.
For those who attend Thursday's gathering, the evening offers a chance to participate in a living piece of Aztec's history. All friendly people and soreheads over age 21 are welcome, and the museum is also inviting past Soreheads to fill out a "My Sorehead Story" form for a new archive — a project born of the realization that no complete record of past Soreheads has ever existed. It's a fitting gesture for a town that has spent more than five decades celebrating its own gentle self-deprecation. As the old saying goes, "Once a Sorehead, Always a Sorehead." On Thursday night, with a Sorehead Sour in hand and a piano playing tunes from the sixties, Aztec will once again prove that there's nothing wrong with being a little sore — especially when it's for a good cause.