The Sharlot Hall Award 2005 goes to Patricia Preciado Martin for her outstanding contribution to the preservation of Mexican-American oral history committed to print. In this preservation effort, she is surely Sharlot Hall's cultural comadre.

In Ms. Martin's award-winning first collection, Images and Conversations: Mexican-Americans Recall a Southwestern Past (1983), thirteen ordinary women and men recall pioneer life.

Other oral histories followed that allowed the voices of plain folk to speak eloquently of the ties of family and community and the importance of place. They are: Songs My Mother Sang to Me (1992), and Beloved Land: An Oral History of Mexican Americans in Southern Arizona (2004) about ranch families rooted in the land. Fiction books include Days of Plenty, Days of Want; El Milagro and Other Stories; and Amor Eterno. In these books she writes with love and wit of family traditions, cultural pride and the magic of everyday life. Ms. Martin says, "All lives -- not just those of the famous or powerful and the wealthy, the beautiful or ingenious -- are of significance and worthy of retelling."

Ms. Martin is the recipient of multiple literary, cultural, educational, and community awards. Her books are available in Sharlot Hall Museum's Gift Store.