Albuquerque Journal

Mystery Benefactor Is True Amigo to Lobos
By Rick Wright Of the Journal

The announcement was as low-key as the mystery man himself.
       
Last Thursday, the University of New Mexico athletic department revealed that Omar Heins, an Albuquerque resident since 1939, died in January at age 96 and left UNM athletics $1.16 million.
       
Larry Ryan, who heads the Lobo Club as UNM's associate athletics director for development, believes Heins' gift to be the largest private contribution ever bestowed upon the department.
       
Yet, the information was released in almost oh-by-the-way fashion. The Journal received a brief news release via e-mail at 3:30 on Thursday afternoon, with two small photos of Heins and a short biography attached. That was it. No news conference, no further explanation.
       
I can't possibly know this for a fact, never having met the man — nor having heard of him until Thursday. But I'm guessing that's the way he would have wanted it.
       
Who was Omar Heins?
       
"He truly was the millionaire next door," said Ryan, who didn't know Heins but has learned a lot about him recently. "He was someone you would never, ever know had that much wealth."
       
How much wealth? UNM athletics' $1.16 million was but one of five identical gifts to various causes bestowed by Heins after his death. That's pretty good coin for a man who worked as an electrical engineer at Sandia National Laboratories for most of his professional life.
       
The Labs pay well, I'm sure, but not that well. Ryan said he was told by Heins' estate lawyer that most of the money came from the stock market.
       
Meanwhile, Ryan was told, Heins lived quietly and frugally in a modest house on Columbia NE. Twice married but childless, he was a longtime Lobo Club member but a publicly silent one. He was never quoted, as some high-profile boosters have been, about whom UNM should hire as a football or men's basketball coach.
       
Evidently, he had neither a pet sport nor a pet peeve when it came to the Lobos; his gift comes with no strings and no instructions as to how it's to be used.
       
From a news-media standpoint, in fact, Heins simply didn't exist until three days ago. The first reference to him in the Journal's electronic library was Friday; there is no Omar Heins envelope in the Albuquerque Publishing Company Library's newspaper-clippings file.
       
Heins' life wasn't always so quiet, however. Amid explosions and gunfire, he served as an officer under Gen. George Patton in World War II. He was awarded the Bronze Star at war's end.
       
As for what exactly motivated Heins' extreme generosity toward UNM athletics, Ryan — who has worked at the Lobo Club for six years in two separate stints since 2000 — admits he has no information. But he believes the gift is the product of longstanding ties with the program.
       
"In my time, in my tenure here, it came out of the blue," Ryan said. "But he was a longtime fan who had a great relationship with us."
       
Ryan said he agrees that Heins wouldn't have wanted a lot of publicity, but added he hopes other Lobo fans and boosters take note. For years, UNM — not just athletics — has worked to develop planned- and deferred-giving programs. To see a Division I athletic program mentioned in a deceased booster's will is by no means unusual.
       
You just don't expect to get $1.16 million in one bequest.
       
Ryan said the bio in Thursday's news release was taken from a two-page document written by Heins himself.
       
"At the end of it," Ryan said, "he wrote `adios, amigos,' and signed his name."
       
A truer amigo than Omar Heins, the Lobos have never had.