A gavel with a personal touch

If you make it to Santa Fe for this year’s legislative session (it ends Feb. 19), pay attention to the gavels being used by Lt. Gov. Howie Morales as he presides over the state Senate, and those being used by many Senate and House of Representatives committee chairs.

Each one was uniquely crafted by state Sen. Bill Soules of Las Cruces, who also uses a gavel he made — it’s his second; he gave the first one away — to use as chair of the Senate Education Committee.

Soules took a woodworking class in high school, he said, and was given a Shopsmith (a woodworking machine that includes a table saw, drill press, sander and boring machine) by his uncle.

“I made some bowls and some little things,” Soules said. One day, during a session of the senate in Santa Fe, he noticed Morales had a small and ineffective gavel, and thought, “I bet I could make him a gavel that was better than that.”

Soules did so, using mesquite wood — “very New Mexico,” he said — and turquoise inlay, and even gave the lieutenant governor a strike plate to go with it. Morales’ first hit with the new gavel “was much bigger and louder than what we had heard before,” Soules said. Morales was very grateful and treasures the gavel, Soules said.

"Throughout my time as a senator and now as lieutenant governor, I have received many gifts, and I have appreciated them all,” Morales said. “Sen. Bill Soules' gift (the gavel) meant so much to me. He used his true talent and his own hands to make it."

Soules saw the gavel Morales had been using and "took it upon himself" to make a gavel the lieutenant governor has cherished throughout his right years presiding over the Senate and "will cherish for a lifetime," Morales said.

Since then, Soules has made 30-40 gavels, for all the chairs of Senate committees and about half (so far) of the chairs of House committees, along with a former New Mexico Supreme Court chief justice and a number of Las Cruces-area judges.

He makes them out of local mesquite, black walnut and Applewood from the Cloudcroft area, Russian olive and oak.

“Some legislators give me a branch or a piece of wood, and I make the gavel out of that,” he said. “When I’m doing it, I’m thinking about that person for a couple of hours, wherever the wood takes me,” Soules said. “They are all unique. They are all custom-made; different sizes, different shapes,” with unique colors, patterns and inlays.

I’m very honored when I see people using the gavels I’ve made,” he said.

Soules makes the gavels and does other woodwork at his Las Cruces home.

“It’s cheaper than therapy,” he said.