`Cowboy Cupid' Rounds Up Wives South Of Border

NUEVO CASAS GRANDES, Mexico - Ivan Thompson, the self-proclaimed "Cowboy Cupid" of Columbus, N.M., recently found himself two hours south of the border looking for love.

But the love in question was for a client.

Thompson is a lean, 57-year-old rancher who speaks with a sharp Oklahoma twang. And, in searching for that most elusive of human conditions for his male-only clientele, he takes a doggedly simple approach.

He arrived in this midsized Mexican farming town in late November by car. He placed "personal ads" with the local radio station and newspaper. Then, ensconced with his client in a low-budget hotel room on the edge of town, he waited for the phone calls from prospective wives to roll in.

His client's ad said: "American man, 64 years old from Columbus, N.M., seeks a lady with matrimonial aims between 40 and 60 years, no more than 70 kilos."

Thompson seems an unlikely matchmaker, but he says he has been fixing up lonely American men with prospective Mexican wives for 10 years.

This month, he self-published a memoir of his romantic efforts in a slim pink paperback titled, "Cowboy Cupid: Mail-Order Brides and Other Tales from the Desert Southwest."

Thompson does not maintain records on his professional successes, but he figures about 400 of his clients have gotten hitched throughout the years - despite the fact that most of the men do not speak Spanish and most of the women do not speak English.

He estimates there have been about 30 divorces among the marriages he has helped arrange.

The Cowboy Cupid was a lonely divorce in 1989, recently arrived in Anthony near the Texas border to run a horse ranch, when his matchmaking career began. He left the ranching business and moved to Columbus a couple of years ago.

"I stumbled into all this by accident," he said. "I never dreamed I'd be doing anything like this. But when I put a lonely man in touch with a woman who wants better, it makes me feel good."

Talked himself into it

Thompson wrote how the idea for a matchmaking service formed: "Well, I sez to myself, `Self, finding Mexican wives for American men will make a good business because half of the men in the U.S. are divorced and a great percentage of the other half are gonna be.' "

For about eight years, he arranged for the women to meet his clients at a restaurant just south of El Paso's international Santa Fe Bridge, with himself or his then-wife serving as interpreters. Later, he began organizing fiestas at an El Paso hotel, where dozens of men and women would gather to mingle and check one another out.

Thompson credited feminism in the United States with creating the demand among his American clients for Mexican women, who he says "are more like women in the U.S. 40 or 50 years ago."

American women, the matchmaker said, want to be boss.

This kind of thinking sounds like a recipe for a "very warped marriage," one based on an imbalance of power, said marriage counselor Robert Del Campo, director of the Family Therapy Training Program at New Mexico State University and president of the New Mexico Association for Marriage and Family Therapy.

The arrangement provides all the power in the marriage to the American man, and once the Mexican bride becomes acculturated, she is bound to become dissatisfied, Del Campo said.

Thompson, who speaks simple, broken Spanish, said the relationships he initiates are actually fostered by the couple's inability to communicate with each other. It cuts down on petty arguments, for one thing, Thompson said.

Del Campo was highly skeptical: "That's the basis of any successful long-term, interpersonal relationship - effective communication."

From the lobby of the Nuevo Casas Grandes hotel, the ads were getting a few nibbles, and Thompson made telephone contact with a potential date for his client and friend John Muzzio of Columbus.

Muzzio, a twice-married retired chemist who lives off a small Social Security check and the sale of clay flutes at craft fairs, was nervous.

"I've never done anything like this before," he said.

Lonely and willing to move

Muzzio, who has five adult children, said his age, limited income and residence in a tiny town make dating difficult. He said he is looking for someone to share his feelings with and is willing to move to Mexico for the right person. Then, he'd have to learn some Spanish, too.

Thompson asks basic, straightforward questions of the women callers: Name? How old are you? How tall? How much do you weigh? Would you like an appointment? When can you come to the hotel to meet?

Thompson says he normally charges $2,000 for his services, but the trip for Muzzio was at a deep discount.

Muzzio's first introduction was awkward. The date, 51-year-old Evangelina Olivas, was a divorcee of 12 years who works in a Nuevo Casas Grandes fruit-packing plant.

Olivas said she would like to learn English, but if she married again, she would prefer to live in Mexico.

Asked what she is looking for in a man, Olivas told Muzzio: "Well, I don't want to work anymore."

A second meeting developed later when two women arrived unexpectedly at Thompson's hotel looking for the American man. One of them was Jovita Herrera, a divorcee of six years with three children still living with her. She cleans homes for a living, speaks no English, does not own a telephone. She said she likes to watch television in her spare time.

Muzzio did not appear interested. He said he could not make eye contact with her.

"I'm disappointed," he said later.

This time, Muzzio's search for companionship was unsuccessful. But the Cowboy Cupid vowed to stay hot on the trail.

"This is a nonmoneymaking thing for me, but I'm going to keep at it because once I get going, I hate to give up on an assignment," Thompson said.