KSJE spotlights Aztec Museum season, Bloomfield High theater production

KSJE 90.9 FM used its local airtime to put two familiar San Juan County institutions in the same spotlight: the Aztec Museum & Pioneer Village and Bloomfield High School’s stage. For families looking for something rooted in place, the mix of museum programming and student theater showed where county culture still gathers, in Aztec and Bloomfield.

Joan Monninger, the museum’s executive director, joined Scott Michlin to talk about the Aztec Museum’s 2025 season and the events built around it. The museum sits on 3.5 acres in Aztec and includes 15 historic buildings, thousands of artifacts, and displays of farming, ranching and oil-and-gas equipment. Its exhibits trace life in San Juan County from the late 19th to the mid-20th century, giving visitors a compact look at the work, homes and industries that shaped the region.

The summer calendar gave residents a reason to keep coming back. KSJE listed a free concert series on the second Friday of each month, with performances on June 13, July 11, August 8 and September 12. The lineup included Black Velvet and Zia Chicks, The Badly Bent, Jeff Solon Swing'n Big Band and The Village Band. Museum event listings also said pets were not allowed in the Pioneer Village during events except service animals, a small but important detail for anyone planning a visit.

Bloomfield Public Schools kept the arts in view on its own schedule. The district’s public events page listed Bloomfield High School’s spring musical as Disney’s The Lion King Jr., with performances set for March 6 and 7 at 6:30 p.m. in the high school auditorium. That kind of school production remains a visible draw in Bloomfield, where student performers, parents and neighbors often fill the same seats.

Taken together, the museum season and the high school musical showed how San Juan County keeps its public life grounded in recognizable places. At a time when practical community value drives attention, the museum’s historic buildings and the school’s auditorium remain two of the county’s clearest stages for history, music and youth arts.