Bobblehead of Las Cruces mayor provides light moment at conference

Yes, Las Cruces Mayor Ken Miyagishima presented a bobblehead doll of himself to former U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici on Wednesday.
No, that’s not something you can buy at City Hall.
“There’s not a thousand of them lying around, or anything like that,” said Miyagishima in a phone interview.
He had given the life-like bobblehead to Domenici as a joke. Over the years Miyagishima has given New Mexico’s longest-serving senator several items — plaques, a key to the city and other commemorative pieces — during the Domenici Public Policy Conference, which began in 2008.
“I was running out of things to give him,” Miyagishima said. “So I told him, ‘Here’s something to remember me.'”
Miyagishima bought the bobblehead at a Las Vegas, Nev., casino recently on a trip there with his wife. Technically, the doll is hers; he borrowed it for a laugh Wednesday.
He said the company produced the $150 bobblehead using only a photo of Miyagishima. And he marveled at its resemblance.
“But the hair is better than mine,” he said. “It’s a nice little conversation piece.”
It provided a light moment at the Domenici conference, during which former CIA director and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta discussed the Islamic State, or ISIS, and other weighty topics. The Domenici conference is sponsored by New Mexico State University and held at the Las Cruces Convention Center.
Miyagishima said some attendees from Albuquerque told him not to tell Mayor Richard Berry about it because he’d want one.
Breanna Anderson, spokeswoman for Berry, said Wednesday that he does not own a bobblehead of himself.
Added Anderson in an email to the Sun-News: “I’ve been working for him for about 3 years and I don’t get the impression he’d want a bobblehead.”
A check with the mayors of El Paso, Mesilla and Hatch found they don’t have such a doll of themselves either.
Neither does Rio Rancho Mayor Greggory Hull. But he does own two collectible bobbleheads of Orbit, the mascot for the Albuquerque Isotopes, a minor league baseball team.
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