A hospitality business maven and tireless volunteer, she has served Albuquerque at her best.

Dixie Burch and her husband moved from Oklahoma to Albuquerque in 1954 to open a beer stand under the A&W on West Central.

Burch’s daughter, Kelly Cooper, said one of those A&W’s best customers was future recording artist, TV and movie star Glenn Campbell, then a teenager in his uncle’s Albuquerque band, Dick Bills and the Sandia Mountain Boys.

“He would sit at the table and flirt with my mom while my dad was cooking on the grill behind her,” Cooper said.

From root beer and burgers, Burch grew into a career in catering and event planning that made her a star in the New Mexico hospitality industry. She was known and admired as a tireless and creative volunteer who grew the New Mexico Arts and Crafts Fair into the wonderful attraction it continues to be, and was the heart and soul behind the creation of the Mother’s Day Symphony Concerts. The zoo turned into a music-filled event today at the ABQ BioPark.

“She had boundless energy, was full of creativity and had more ideas than we could ever have expected,” said Ginger Grossette, a longtime friend of Burch’s in the Albuquerque Women’s Symphony Society and the Albuquerque Opera Guild. “She was always out to make the world a better place. She contributed her time and skills to this, and she had many talents.

Burch died April 19. She was 88. Surviving are her daughter, Kelly, and her husband, Kevin; four grandchildren, Casey, Corey and Dixie Cooper and Tyler Birch; great-granddaughter, Jayna Bratton; sister Kay Matthews and brother Edward Matthews. She was also preceded in death by her son, Brad Birch.

Food and fundraising

The Burchs sold A&W in 1960 when Dixie’s husband went into the real estate business and she began raising a family and doing volunteer work in a seemingly constant blur.

“Our kids were so lost in our volunteer work that they thought we had a job,” Grossette said.

In addition to the Symphony Society, Burch was in the Junior League, the Albuquerque Opera Guild, and worked with the March of Dimes and other organizations.

“Those women were full-time volunteers,” Cooper said. “There were not many women working (in the workplace) then. They shaped Albuquerque in a way you can’t now.”

She said her mother got her involved in volunteer work.

“When I was in second grade, she recruited me and my best friend to the Mother’s March of Dimes and sent us knocking on doors,” Cooper said.

Ruth Duffy worked with Birch in the Junior League.

“We did a sale at the Albuquerque Civic Hall,” she said. “And we worked on the Junior League Follies, which was like a talent show. It was a fundraiser. Some of them got up there and danced, some of them sang.

“And we certainly spent a lot of time at Dixie’s house having committee meetings. She had a wonderful meal while we were dating.”

Martha Day worked with Birch on programming for the Albuquerque Women’s Symphony Society and the Mother’s Day Concert. Burch said she has new ideas about food and loves to cook, but she’s always up for a chicken-fried steak restaurant, something an Oklahoman like Burch would appreciate.

Cooper said people who know her mother likes to cook try to prepare the best food.

“But she was a Southern cook. 10 days a week, she opts for chicken-fried steak, fried okra, beans, collards and cornbread.

Mrs. New Mexico

Burch won the title of Mrs. New Mexico in the early 60s, when many women were homemakers and proud of it.

“She won for her personality and her shrimp curry recipe,” Cooper said. “She had never been to Florida before, so she went there for the national competition. But she had an ear infection and had to compete with a big cotton ball in her ear.

In the early ’70s, Albuquerque Mayor Harry Kinney recruited Burch to host the grand opening of the Albuquerque Convention Center, which turned into a grand four-day affair.

“She formed a volunteer committee as a teenager, of which I was chairman,” Cooper said. “We went to every high school and said, ‘We want someone from your school to perform at the opening.’ I was on the Del Norte drill team, so our team showed up. But we had ROTC teams from schools and debate teams. If you can stand in a room and perform, you are invited. For four days we had entertainers in every room of the convention hall.

Volunteer work has proven to be a good training ground. Day became director of development at KNME-TV, Grossette worked as social services manager for the Albuquerque Office of Senior Affairs and Duffy as a special education teacher at New Futures High School.

Burch and her husband They divorced in 1974, and she used her food, entertainment and organizational skills, as well as the connections she had made through her many years of volunteer work, to get a job catering at Carlisle’s old Four Seasons. From there she went to the Doubletree Hotel downtown, the former Hyatt Regency in Tijeras and the late Petroleum Club at 500 Marquette NW.

During these years spanning the 2000s, Burch was in her element and flourished.

“She was very, very creative, both in food and in decoration,” Duffy said. “And she had a wonderful personality. She just drew people to her.

In the year In 1982, he coordinated the opening of United World College in Montezuma, 6 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Prince Charles, now King Charles III, attended that event. She and her cooking team prepared a dish called Montezuma Doro for the occasion.

After Cooper College opened, the dish sold well for years because everyone wanted to eat what Prince ate.

on the road

Burch spent as much time with her friends as she could, especially after her career.

“Everybody and their dog had a book club,” Day said. “We had a bookless club. Oh, we choose a book. I remember Dixie picking ‘Kitchen Confidential’. But the club wasn’t really about the book.

Duffy and Burch were in the Eating Out Again (EOA) club, which met once a month for different meals.

“She loved the opera,” Grossette said. We go to Santa Fe and to the cinemas when they show the opera. And we took three amazing road trips.

The first trip was to Florida, where Burch had relatives, but there were many stops along the month-long trip. They went to the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Elvis Presley’s home in Memphis, and the New Orleans Music Festival.

“And everywhere we went, Dixie was checking her cell phone to see where all the locals went to eat.” Grossete said.

The second trip was to visit a friend in Red Lodge Montana, the third drive in upstate New York.

“We were very good friends,” Grossette said.

“I remember the laughter, the creativity and the energy,” Day said.

“She was a wonderful person, always interested in taking care of other people,” Duffy said.

Cooper said her mother’s ashes will be scattered at the Santa Fe Opera.

“She had a love for the community,” Cooper said. “She had a love for people who volunteered and gave their time. Volunteers would come to her for help, and she would help anyone.