Howard & Meriom Kastner

Honored May, 2002

Howard & Meriom Kastner

• The Council on International Relations
• The Randall Davey Audubon Center
• The Museum of New Mexico
• The Santa Fe Opera
• New Mexico Repertory Theater
• Chamber of Commerce Visitors Booth
• The Santa Fe Corral of Westerners
• Temple Beth Shalom
• Historic Santa Fe Foundation
• Friends of the Palace of the Governors

The list could go on and on, but space does not allow. Ever since retiring here in 1983, the Kastners have excelled as volunteers for many of the organizations that make Santa Fe so special. He was born in Austria in 1917 and came to America in 1936. A year later he met Meriom in New York City, and they married in 1940.

After his career with a chemical firm, in the United States and Europe, the Kastners looked for the perfect place to live. "When you retire, that's the time to give something back," they felt. Almost immediately after their arrival here, they were plugged in-and they still are today, despite encroaching physical problems.

Of all his volunteer work, Howard perhaps has most enjoyed the CIR: "It's been absolutely great fun-Santa Fe is so different that foreign visitors are always fascinated." As for Meriom, it's been the museums: "The museums are storehouses of everything we own. We have to keep them going," she says. Then, as though in chorus with her husband, Meriom adds: "I think we do it because we love people."