Sammy Until We Meet Again

[Daria]

SammyBobby Trujillo, 62, went home to be with his Lord and Savior on Saturday September 2, 2017. He was surrounded by his loving family. Sam was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico to Felix and Angie Moya Trujillo. He is survived by his loving wife, Bernice Mora Trujillo of 46 years; five children, Bobby Trujillo and wife, Mary, Sammy Trujillo and wife, Monica, Christine Chavez and husband, Joe, Joe Trujillo and wife, Veronica, and Vanessa Trujillo and fianc, Anthony Warrington; 12 grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.

Sam will be greatly missed by numerous relatives, friends and all that knew and loved him. He was known for his sense of humor, infectious smile, his love for his family and being in church. Sam had a strong faith and love for Christ. Sam will truly be missed by all of us, but we thank him for all the love and laughter and precious memories he gave us. Now he is in heaven with our father, until we meet again.

A viewing will be held Thursday, September 7, 2017 at 9:00 a.m., followed by a Funeral Service at 10:00 a.m. at Calvary of Albuquerque, 4001 Osuna Rd NE in Albuquerque. Interment will follow at Mt. Calvary Cemetery. Please visit our online guestbook for Sam at www.FrenchFunerals.com.

Mary grew up in Pleasant Valley (Coyle) and moved to Guthrie in 1958 after marrying her true love, Leon Marquardt on July 11, 1958 until he went to meet the Lord in February 2010. They had two children, Diana Lynn Marquardt Thomas (married to Comanche Thomas) and David Leon Marquardt (married to Debbie King Marquardt) and daughter-in-law, Rose Marquardt Williams.

Mary enjoyed working in her younger life in the Guthrie Public School System, Benedictine Hospital in Guthrie and she later opened an inhome daycare where she took care of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, not to forget many children she grew to love as her own.

She was a strong willed, loving woman who will be missed by all who knew her. Mary enjoyed cooking and made sure no one went hungry. She also enjoyed traveling and loved to fish. She enjoyed family and family gatherings. She made sure everyone was welcome. Most of the daycare kids are adults now and she loved them all. We often hear how she made an impact on their lives.

Mary is survived by her sister Leona Beeler, brother Sammy Dear, and her children Diana Lynn (Marquardt) Thomas and David Leon Marquardt. She is also survived by her grandchildren: Kristen Schneider Mosley, Kiah Thomas, August Marquardt, Amber Marquardt, Dustin Marquardt, and Kayla Marquardt. She has eleven great-grandchildren: Camryn, Karlyn, Coby, Harper, Wyatt, Brea, Bram, Spencer, Jason, Parker, and Azriel as well as nieces and nephews whom she loved.

I love you O Lord my strength, the Lord is my Rock, my Fortress, and my deliverer. My God is my Rock in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call to the Lord who is worthy of praise and I am saved from my enemies.

The cords of death entangled me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me. The cords of the grave coiled around me. The snare of death confronted me. In my distress I called to the Lord. I cried to my God for help and from his temple he heard my voice and my cry came before Him into his ears.

Sam was there as the owner of Big Bang, a groundbreaking downtown nightclub with a devoted following. He was sitting at a folding table, and as the meeting unfolded I saw something special in his handsome face, exuberant spirit and twinkling blue eyes. It was the glimpse of a future for me in Orlando filled with meaningful activism and unforeseeable characters and experiences.

The moving tributes in local media, and all those glorious photos on Facebook, just make his death more surreal. Two weeks after his death, Sam is still with us; still present in our hearts. I had planned to grow old with Sam, telling and retelling our stories. I hope his passing never completely sinks in.

Sam was pure energy and radiated the often venerated but rarely witnessed, deep and important talent. Sam possessed a bright heart, candy coated in camp and satin gloves. Sam was kind and gentle and always a friend to me. Without fail, we always smiled when we spotted each other.

He never said no to any charity event I was organizing. Miss Sammy was always there making a joke or singing a Streisand song. As a matter of fact, I was adopted by the entire Singhaus clan and am a peacock proud Sunday Singhaus regular.

I first met Miss Sammy at Southern Nights when I was a contestant on a game show hosted by Miss Sammy and Julian Bain. For years, I had a relationship with Miss Sammy through fundraising events for numerous charities and socializing at bingos, trivias and drag brunches. Miss Sammy had a magical presence wherever she graced.

Later, I got to know Sam the man and was equally in love. We shared very similar political ideology and often were the most progressive in thought of those around us. We had several inside jokes about this and I am so glad that my Sis-Bro got to get his vote in before he crossed the Rainbow Bridge.

My husband suffers from Severe Depressive Disorder that has largely been resistant to a variety of both eastern and western treatments and has worsened since the COVID pandemic began and a series of friends passed.

I was fortunate to speak to Sammy while his partner, Jessica, held the phone and while this did bring me some relief (as I am sure it did for a good majority of our tribe), I found myself beginning to sink into my own situational funk.

I will always be grateful for people like Sam. It is because of his tireless dedication that I and so many were able to live out loud!!! We salute you Sam Singhaus because without you there would be no us!

There are Adirondack chairs in Lake Highland Park that were placed in his honor by Commissioner Stuart and me. You can leave tributes, flowers or simply reflect on his extraordinary life. No one can fill these high heels.

Going to the home Sam shared for many years with his brother Steve and sister-in-law Marcy was like entering the world of Auntie Mame. Fabulous chaos, served up on a midcentury platter of fun. A place where anything could happen.

Of course, Sam connected with countless others in the same way. Not only was he a charismatic performer, but he channeled that gift into his one-on-one interactions, ensuring the person he was spending time with felt important and valued, the spotlight rotated outward.

My thinking about influencers always circles back to Sam, and I suspect his form of influence may be a necessary antidote to the innate mistrust that is now a party of our daily lives. As a gifted performer, Sam had undeniable power he could have easily monetized for his own personal gain. Instead, he used his power to connect with others, a form of lasting influence that is evident in our collective and copious memories of Sam.

Way back in stone-age Orlando when I served as executive director of The Center, our big annual fundraiser was a complete buy-out of a SeaEscape (a six-hour gambling cruise into international waters and back to port) ship which we would re-brand as GayEscape. We would charter the ship, market the evening sailing as an all-gay cruise and bring on all our own custom entertainment. Years after leaving that post I privately produced my own all-gay, three night cruise to Mexico which proved a huge success, but shortly afterwards SeaEscape went out of business.

A newer entry into the gambling cruise market at the time was a company out of Ft. Lauderdale called Discovery Cruises and they invited myself and a guest to come experience their product, which was an overnight gambling cruise to the Bahamas. I invited Sam as my plus one. We were friendly colleagues and some-time co-performers at that time but had not yet become truly close. The reason I am sharing this somewhat sordid tale is because it was this experience over which Sam and I truly bonded.

The sky prematurely darkened and the seas became uncommonly rough. It took some doing (No really it did) but I convinced Sam that the only way we could have a good time was to each take one of the two hits of ecstasy I had brought along. Sam insisted that he had no experience with doing ecstasy and I believe that was true at the time.

We stopped eating, each ingested a pill and sat there enjoying an after-dinner drink waiting for the show lounge and casino to open where there would be the requisite visual and audible stimulation to compliment the drugs.

Suddenly, without warning, a fucking Poseidon Adventure-type wave slammed into the side of the ship causing it to so jarringly lift to one side that the ceramic dinner plates stacked at the start of the buffet line leaped up out of their spring-loaded warming towers and crashed onto the tile floor surrounding the buffet, breaking into shards. Sam and I, being the youngsters that we were at the time, each quickly picked up and saved our cocktails with one hand and grabbed on the table for stability with the other hand. Glassware and dishes went flying off tables all over the room and literally everyone other than Sam and I simply fell off of their chairs onto the floor or fell over while still seated in their chairs. Honest to Christ, Sam and I were the only two people remaining upright in the entire dining room. People started moaning and crying as cruise staff came rushing to the rescue. People were hurt. Some were bleeding from their heads. Sam casually soaked in this scene and I started laughing uncontrollably. It was like a scene straight out of a disaster film and we could not stop laughing. Our roll had kicked in.

I told Sam we had to get out of the cabin or I was going to jump out of my skin and die. Oddly enough it was not raining so we each took a blanket and pillow and went off to sleep outside on deck chairs.

When our salad shooting phase had passed, we spread out our bedding and laid down side-by-side, on our backs, holding hands, gazing at the amazing light show in the sky until we eventually fell asleep and there we spent the night and with that were officially close friends.

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