Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities

Reporter's notebook - Jan. 21

An inquiring mind wants to know

A Washington State fifth-grader wants to know a little more about New Mexico.

Blake Maggart wrote to The Eastern New Mexico News last week for a report he’s making on the state, seeking information and artifacts.

Bravo, Blake. We’re glad to be on the other end of an inquiry from time to time.

In an interview with The News on Friday, Blake asked about balloons, bizcochitos and bovines.

He seemed delighted to learn the hot air balloon is the state’s official aircraft, as signed into law in 2005.

He struggled to pronounce the state’s official cookie, “bizcochito,” adopted as such in 1989. That’s according to the New Mexico Secretary of State website, which also includes a recipe for the “small anise-flavored cookie ... brought to New Mexico by the early Spaniards.”

Blake asked if it were true that New Mexico has more cows than people.

Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 2012 census reports 1,354,240 “cattle and calves” in the state, of which about 225,000 were in Curry County and more than 109,000 were in Roosevelt County. That, compared to state population numbers from censuses in 2010 and 2015 that both hover just over 2 million, suggests we humans in New Mexico still have the edge — but likely not in our eastern counties.

His last question invites a little more audience participation: Why is New Mexico called the “Land of Enchantment”?

NMSoS says the phrase was first noted in the title of a 1906 book about New Mexico by Lillian Whiting, but it was more than 90 years before the state designated it as the official nickname.

Yet the question remains: what makes New Mexico enchanting? Send letters, pictures, postcards, old license plates, products or other facts to Blake for his project at: Cascade Christian School, 601 Ninth Ave. SE, Puyallup, WA 98372.

— Compiled by Staff Writer David Grieder

 
 
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