Former District 3 city Rep. Larry Medina was long over due for the Conquistador Award he received at Tuesday’s City Council’s meeting for his authoring and passing the city’s landmark smoking ordinance in June 2001.

Receiving that award Tuesday also put him in a small club. The mayor’s office reported, after checking the list, that Medina is the only person known to have received the city’s highest civic award more than once.

However, a close reading of the list of Conquistador recipients reveals that at least 18 people have received more than one, that Don Haskins also received three and that former city Rep. Orlando Fonseca got three and possibly four. The mayor's list indicates that 355 Conquistadors have been awarded since 1975. (Download a copy of the list below)

Medina has three Conquistadors, only two of which are on the list that was updated Tuesday. (Download a copy of Medina's biography below)

Mayor John Cook has generally observed the practice of giving his Star on the Mountain Award to deserving individuals who already have a Conquistador Award.

Also at the opening of Tuesday’s meeting, the mayor presented Star on the Mountain to El Paso lawyer Tom Diamond. A former Democratic Party county chairman, Diamond had a major hand in the original recognition of the Tigua Indians’ Ysleta del Sur Pueblo in the late 1960s, when many in the unrecognized tribe were on the verge of losing their homes. Diamond, who was nominated for the Star by city Rep. Eddie Holguin, has never received the Conquistador.

City Rep. Emma Acosta, whom Medina helped to win his former council seat in the spring elections, recommended him for the Conquistador, and the mayor’s office, which keeps the records, didn’t check to see if Medina had already gotten it once.

The first time was June 2, 2001 when outgoing Mayor Carlos Ramirez, in the most lavish of moments for the city, handed Conquistadors out to every member of City Council and to many, if not all of the city’s department heads.

Medina, asked why he received the 2001 Conquistador after Tuesday’s presentation, said it was “for the smoking ordinance and other stuff.”

However, the ordinance that banned smoking in offices, restaurants, bars and other places of public accommodation wasn’t approved by City Council until four weeks later, on June 26, 2001.

“Oh, I forgot about the one from Mayor Ramirez,” Medina said today. “I guess than means I have three.”

He said he also received one in a private ceremony from former Mayor Ray Caballero near the end of his first and only term in 2003.

That’s the one he received for the smoking ordinance and other stuff.

El Paso’s smoke-free ordinance took effect Jan. 1, 2004 and became a model for other cities, with Medina serving as a traveling ambassador and advocate for similar smoke-free measures in more than 35 states, as well as China and Mexico.

He said he has been to China five times, worked with Mexican organizations and officials for the passage of a smoke-free ordinance in Mexico City and is now involved in a effort to push through a national smoke-free indoors law in Mexico.

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