Suzie Frazier is currently the Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Project Coordinator. Previously she served as Co-Chair of the Vecinos Del Rio Petroglyph Committee, a rock art recorder, and a volunteer trainer for recording teams. She helped envision and develop the Summer Youth Internship Program and participated as a volunteer educator and field work instructor with the project since its inception. Revising the school curriculum, recruiting schools, training teachers and coordinating the school project is a priority. Responsibilities also include continuous communication and education with local landowners and community leaders.

Suzie has worked as a facilitator/consultant in the Public Health field for 30 years and holds a M.S. in Human Relations. Her passion is working with diverse communities to address broad-based health, environmental, cultural and spiritual concerns to continuously build healthier and sustainable communities. Learning archaeology and anthropology has always been an attraction which has now grown into an energetic avocation.

Vecinos Del Rio, founded in 1993, is a community organization dedicated to preserving the culture and traditions and to sustaining and enriching the quality of life in the northern Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico. Creating unique and vibrant educational opportunities has been a primary focus of the organization's projects. The Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Project was envisioned in 2001 to protect the petroglyphs and the natural surroundings which provide their context. Volunteers have systematically recorded 1000 acres of the 36 square mile Mesa Prieta that runs north from Ohkay Owingeh (San Juan Pueblo) to Velarde along the Rio Grande . Most of the mesa is privately owned and landowner and community education is a priority. The project's seven year-old Summer Youth Internship Program teaches youth from local pueblos and villages how to record the petroglyphs and adult volunteers work with them in the field for two weeks in the summer. Their petroglyph recording documentation becomes part of permanent archives shared with landowners, Ohkay Owingeh, Vecinos Del Rio, and the New Mexico Archaeological Records Management Section. Additionally, a school curriculum, “Discovering the Story of Mesa Prieta”, has been developed and is being taught in local schools with 4 th through 9 th grades. Experiential activities provide skill building, service learning, and bonding to caring adults, healthy peers, and community. Connections are created between youth and their cultural heritage through relationships with their current and ancestral landscape. Our perspective is not exclusively academic. Outcomes are grounded in community values: sense of heritage and pride, obligation of stewardship, and recognition of responsibility. Land use ethics, archaeological and cultural preservation, environmental literacy, and outdoor competence are integral components.