Philip Vargas

PHILIP GABINO VARGAS, born on October 8, 1932, in Cañon, passed away on February 28, 2015 in Taos. He was the son of the late, Juan Andres Vargas and Virginia Lucia Trujillo Vargas of Canyon and the brother of, Liz Vargas Halloway of Arkansas, Virginia Vargas Romero and Alice Vargas of Santa Fe, Kika Vargas Allred and Andres Vargas of Taos and the late Irene Vargas of Taos. Mr. Vargas is survived by two children, Juan Patrick Vargas of Taos and Shana Maria Vargas of Santa Fe.\r\nDr. Vargas was a proud veteran of the Korean War. After serving in Korea, he received a BA degree from the University of New Mexico, where he was also a Golden Gloves boxing champion. He went on to receive a PhD in Sociology from the University of Colorado in Boulder. \r\nDr. Vargas was strongly committed to social justice. While in Boulder, he worked for the Colorado Migrant Council and fought to better working conditions and housing for farm workers in northern Colorado. Later, after obtaining a law degree from Harvard Law School, he received government funding to open a legal services office in Taos. In the mid-1970s, Dr. Vargas received a fellowship from the Drug Abuse Council in Washington D.C., where he reported on the epidemic of aerosol sniffing among poor youth. He was appointed as the primary investigator for the National Commission on Paperwork, which found evidence that the government was withholding information from the American public. After leaving public life, Dr. Vargas established the SES International Corporation, which conducted studies to monitor the effects of various US projects in developing countries. In his later years, Dr. Vargas wrote several screen plays and a book entitled, “The Flesh of the Cedar Wood,” a novel based on people he knew and experiences he had growing up in the mountains of northern New Mexico .\r\nA memorial service will be held for Dr. Vargas at Quail Ridge in Taos on Saturday, March 21, 2015 at 1:30 pm.\r\nThe family of Philip Gabino Vargas has entrusted their loved one to DeVargas Funeral Home & Crematory of the Española Valley.

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