About Spencer Theater founder Jackie Spencer.

Jackie Everts Bancroft Spencer Morgan was well on her way to being a legendary figure long before her passing in May of 2003.

The public still buzzes over anything written about her because, in life, she was a fiercely private person who gave generously of her vast wealth with steadfast, absolute resolve. She never sought the public eye, rather she shied from it, but her gifts inexorably fixated our interests.

Tall and striking, vibrantly alive and brazenly honest, Jackie was twice widowed and raised three children. Her first husband, Capitan rancher Hugh Bancroft, Jr., was an immediate heir to a New York publishing fortune (his father founded Dow Jones & Company). When he died, in 1953 she was thrust into the top one percent of America’s wealthiest citizens. Yet, rather than return to her native Denver and cosmopolitan living, she opted to marry again, this time to the family doctor, the late Dr. A.N. Spencer, and make a home in dusty, wind-whipped little Carrizozo, New Mexico. The lack of pretensions generally associated with such fabulous wealth was unique: Jackie was indeed a “Forbes 500” figure of power and prestige, but she stuck to what felt right and generously colored the world with her potpourri of pleasures. She surely loved the more civilized refinements of life – the fine dining and travel, symphonies and dramatic musicals – as her creation of the monumental Spencer Theater makes apparent. But Jackie also relished the bosky side of living, the indulgences that are more physical and rowdy like late-night parties, ten-pin bowling, fireworks and fast race horses, as well as the simple goodness of children’s plays and hamburger helper.

She shot from the hip, telling folks exactly what she liked and disliked in a disarming manner that was so refreshing and oftentimes hilarious.

She ignored all manner of status keeping, needless hobnobbing or the trivialities of gossip – particularly if she were the subject. Rather, she made certain that what mattered most to her and those she cared about happened.

The lady had panache. Few people impacted the quality of life in south-central New Mexico more directly. She read about a local child desperate for a liver transplant. She helped pay for it, saving his life.

She toured a camp for troubled boys and the bus she was touring in broke down. She bought them a new one.

Carrizozo children wanted a boxing program so she bought them a professional ring. They wanted to bowl so she built a recreation center. She wanted to golf so she built a nine-hole course and the Carrizozo Country Club. Ruidoso children wanted to ski so she underwrote their annual lift tickets. When the New Mexico Symphony was about to go under (in the 1980’s) she financially saved it. When the Governor’s Mansion needed refurbishing she generously supported it.

Luckily her love for theater and the performing arts was so strong that she saved for 15-years and built the Spencer, her “little gem” in outback Alto. She hired Architect Antoine Predock who melded his talent with her dreams. And she ordered four major glass art installations from Dale Chihuly, who created dazzling, multi-colored sculptures that squirm with life and matched her nature.

Since its opening in 1997 Jackie had been repeatedly thanked for building and gifting the theater to New Mexico. Now we’re being asked to take the reins.

We are the fortunate.

You are asked to help by becoming an annual Spencer Circle contributor, contributing to the Spencer Theater Endowment, the theater’s Ticket Angel Fund, or possibly even becoming a signature sponsor for one of our performances. For information, contact Tom Battin at 888.818.7872, or email him at tbattin@spencertheater.com

From the Albuquerque Journal
Wednesday, May 14, 2003

Arts Benefactor Jackie Spencer Morgan Was 'Always Giving'

By Rene Romo and Paul Logan
Journal Staff Writers

LAS CRUCES — Jackie Spencer Morgan, a well-known New Mexico benefactor who built the landmark Spencer Theater for the Performing Arts near her Alto home, died Sunday.

The 77-year-old patron of the arts, community supporter and Republican contributor, died at Presbyterian Hospital in Albuquerque about 6:30 p.m. Sunday due to complications from a continuing illness.

Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said Morgan was a friend to his party and a ''community-spirited woman'' who did much for her adopted home town of Carrizozo and later built a ''fantastic theater'' in Alto.

''She was always giving to the community and making it a better place to live,'' Domenici said.

Morgan's first husband was Hugh Bancroft Jr., a publishing-fortune heir whose father had been president of Dow Jones & Co., publishers of the Wall Street Journal. The couple moved to the Capitan area in the early 1950s. Following Bancroft Jr.'s death in 1953, Morgan married Carrizozo doctor A.N. Spencer, whose grandfather, William C. McDonald, was the first New Mexico governor elected after statehood.

When she lived in Carrizozo in the 1960s, Morgan funded construction of a youth recreation center complete with an eight-lane bowling alley, landscaped a 10-acre park, built a nine-hole public golf course and paid for a school building to house a library, cafeteria and band room.

In the 1980s, she supported the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra and the now-defunct Ruidoso Summer Festival. She also was a big donor to the New Mexico Governor's Mansion Foundation.

In recent years, she had been a regular contributor to the campaigns of Domenici, Rep. Heather Wilson, then-Rep. Joe Skeen and other GOP candidates.

But Spencer's crown jewel — what she called ''my little gem'' — was the $20 million Spencer Theater, built near her Alto home in 1997, eight miles north of Ruidoso. The intimate 514-seat theater is enclosed in a 49,000-square-foot building with a luminous white stone exterior meant to resemble Sierra Blanca.

Spencer's donations to cover the theater's operational costs kept the lavish venue's prices affordable.

At the theater's gala opening, former Gov. Gary Johnson said the Spencers ''made a contribution unmatched in the history of our state.''

''Jackie was one of those singularly rare individuals who have a sense of not only what she desired the world to be, but the incentive to carry out her dreams,'' said friend and legal counsel Mike Line. ''She had a great sense of what is important in life — not only art and culture, but family.''

She is survived by her husband Ron, three children and seven grandchildren. Her children include: Hugh Bancroft III of Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.; Christopher Bancroft of Dallas; and Kathy Kavadas of Boston, Mass.

A memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. Sunday at the Spencer Theater. A reception is to follow in the theater's Crystal Lobby.