Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Sorted by date Results 101 - 125 of 803
On this date ... 1910: Miller & Luikart, a Portales dry goods store, was selling black derby hats for $3. 1941: The Cash Ramey family hosted a football-themed dinner party at 414 Gidding St. in Clovis. Centering the dining table was the football used in 1933 when Clovis High won an unofficial state championship. Cash Ramey Jr. had been the captain of that team. Guests found their places marked by picture place cards bearing photos of 1933 team members in their uniforms....
Late last year, the question began circulating among respected members of our community: Is it true Clovis Municipal Schools is placing litter boxes in restrooms to accommodate students who identify as cats? The answer is no, CMS was not, and is not, placing litter boxes in restrooms. I know this because I asked students and teachers and volunteers in multiple schools. None of them had ever seen a litter box in a school restroom for any reason. None of them knows anyone who...
On this date ... 1952: A U.S. Air Force photo printed in the Clovis News-Journal showed some of the 40 Explorer Scouts from Portales and Clovis who had been outfitted with parachutes before boarding an Air Force C-47 plane at Cannon Air Force Base for a flight over eastern New Mexico a few days earlier. Oscar P. Cantwell, Plains District field executive for the Boy Scouts of America, supervised the outing. Troop leaders were Jack Eichenberger, Bud Cagle, and Art Hutchins of...
Have you ever Googled yourself? Mostly you don’t find yourself. David Stevens has over 35 years of experience in the mortgage banking industry. David Stevens is an American politician and a former Republican member of the Arizona House of Representatives. Highly skilled 168-pounder David Stevens scored a wild last-second KO of Sean Hemphill in January. None of those David Stevens are me. There’s a David Stevens on a wrestling roster, a David Stevens on a football roster, a l...
Security cameras show arson suspect Jimmy Guillen entering a closed Walmart “though a roll up door used for shopping carts on the northeast side of the store,” court records show. The cameras also show him “grabbing multiple bottles of propane canisters off store shelves and starting a fire by “placing a torch with an open flame on the shelves where other propane canisters are located.” “The fire begins to intensify and becomes larger and larger” until the video cameras stopp...
On this date ... 1927: Portales Canning Co. was preparing for its first full-day run of the season. A day later, the company’s 70 employees produced 12,000 cans of tomatoes. 1930: A Muleshoe boy was being credited with the biggest snake haul of the season. Eugene Moore, 11, killed 13 rattlesnakes in a den. Most were about 8 inches long, the boy said, but two were "extra large." 1942: A rubber shortage and other wartime concerns was forcing area sports teams to cut back on c...
New Mexico’s governor last week issued an “emergency health order” that bans firearms in all public places in Albuquerque. The only people exempt from the ban are police and security officers. And criminals, of course. Criminals don’t follow laws, so this nonsense does not apply to them either. Michelle Lujan Grisham herself said she expects opposition from those who care about liberty and the U.S. Constitution. She was right. New Mexico’s House and Senate Republicans immediat...
Twice last weekend, police had eyes on Jimmy Guillen, a person of interest now tied to last Sunday's Walmart fire. Twice, they let him go. In both cases, officers did the right thing, Police Chief Roy Rice said. "We didn't have anything to hold him on. If we knew then what we know right now ... they would have placed him under arrest," Rice said. Going into this weekend. police were actively searching for the 59-year-old California man believed to be transient. "I think he's...
On this date ... 1929: Dozens of Clovis business owners and community leaders took out a full page newspaper advertisement to show their continued support for the Transcontinental Air Transport after a plane crash at Mount Taylor, New Mexico, killed all eight people aboard. “Storms, washouts, typhoons and the like can’t be legislated from the path of transportation companies,” the Chamber of Commerce of Clovis stated in its support of the coast-to-coast plane-train servi...
I don't always publish press releases, but when I do they're usually interesting. The best press release in recent weeks comes from Wheatfields Estates Senior Living. It tells the story of retired football coach Sesario Ramos, who was honored at the Clovis High game on Sept. 1. "Ramos was announced to the crowd before the varsity football game as he joined the team on the field to wish them good luck prior to kickoff by shaking each one of the players' hands," Wheatfields repo...
The first reports that Walmart was on fire were received by Clovis Fire Department at 3:37 a.m. Sunday. Six minutes later the first firefighting unit was on scene. Soon after that, "everything we had, literally," was on its way to the region's largest retail outlet, Deputy Fire Chief Fay Craigmile said. And it was already too late to prevent what she and others have called "significant damage." "We didn't initially see anything suspicious ... but just the heavy fireload that...
On this date ... 1932: George Lancaster, 19, accused of killing his wife, Blanche Lancaster, 34, entered a plea of not guilty in district court before Judge Harry Patton. Attorneys Carl Hatch and A.W. Hockenhull asked jurors to consider the former high school football star’s mental condition and relationship with the woman “many years his senior.” George Lancaster’s attorneys presented a temporary insanity defense. They said he was a “boy who has not sinned, but who has been...
In May 2005, a federal committee charged with reducing the nation’s military installations recommended that Cannon Air Force Base be closed. Local, state and federal lawmakers joined the community to rally behind the base in hopes of saving it. Area residents wrote hundreds of letters and thousands lined the streets of the city when the federal Base Closure and Realignment Committee came to town for a public hearing. If the local efforts had a vocal leader, his name was B...
Wilson Alegria was stocking Walmart's frozen food section when the commotion began around him about 3:30 a.m. Sunday. "All the fire alarms went off, everyone started running toward the exit screaming 'Fire!'" he said. "It was scary. You could tell all the other employees were pretty shocked." Alegria said he was one of about 50 Walmart employees working the overnight shift when the fire broke out, likely in the automotive section on the store's south side. The building was...
On this date ... 1911: New books at the Womans Club Library in Portales included “The Goose Girl” by Harold McGrath, “Freckles” by G.L. Porter and “New Chronicles of Rebecca” by Kate Douglas Wiggins. 1915: Curry County Fair Association officers met to form committees and ordered “a number of big posters which will reach every section of the county in the extensive advertising campaign,” The Clovis Journal reported. One goal was to produce an agricultural exhibit worthy...
Tell the truth, Reader. Have you ever wanted to beat me? Think back to those op-ed pieces I've written through the years, like the one that ended "Kill them. Kill them all," referencing prairie dogs. Or maybe that story I wrote about the tunnels under the city of Clovis that turned out to be an April Fools' joke. You did want to beat me, didn't you? Now turn your attention to longtime Mayor David Lansford, who's now a partner in the Zia Radio Group. Did you ever want to beat...
On this date ... 1941: Mrs. Ted P. Holifield had returned from training in Seattle and opened her studio at her home at 812 Pile in Clovis. She planned to teach piano, music theory and harmony, the Clovis News-Journal reported. In Seattle, she had studied under Kenneth Lyman, who had been a student of the Conservatory of Leipzig, the oldest university school of music in Germany. 1942: J.S. Click, president of Portales National Bank, was welcomed into membership at the weekly g...
My electronic mailbox was loaded with thought-provoking correspondence this month. Well, some of it anyway. Here’s a sampling: So many questions unanswered Bill Hailer of Portales has a few complaints. He said he read the “puff piece” we did with Portales Public Utility Director John DeSha. “He did not answer anything.” Hailer wrote that the press used to hold government accountable. “Now it’s just a parrot for the government.” Hailer wrote that he’s not had much luck with ge...
On this date ... 1903: The Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper reported the town of Texico in Roosevelt County was home to “several hundred people” and “about 14 stores.” 1945: A.W. Skarda and Mrs. J.J. Walker, both of Clovis, received separate telegrams telling them their children — Cash Skarda and Dale W. Walker — had been released from Japanese prisoner of war camps. 1945: Portales High School Coach C.F. Brown had issued 77 uniforms to boys coming out for football. Only nine o...
Before he played the bouncer in “Road House” … before he was the focus in the documentary “Beyond the Mat” … before he was elected to five wrestling hall of fames … before he retired from the sport the first time in 1983 ... Terry Funk was a legend in Clovis and across the High Plains. If you grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, you were a Funk fan, whether watching him wrestle on television or seeing him in person at the Clovis Arena, 1509 E. Mabry Drive, or at the National Guard...
Some people head out to the county fair For a chance to see all of the livestock there. The goats, the pigs, can you hear the moo? The horses, the chickens -- it's a small-town zoo. You may go for the midway carnival rides, That's where, some think, the action resides. Whirling, twirling, head over heel, Soaring into the sky on a big Ferris wheel. Others venture out just for something to do. They look for wood carvers, and face-painters, too. They listen for crooners, where...
On this date ... 1938: Clovis’ canine population was on the rise, according to city pound director H.A. Scott. He said 231 dog tags had been sold to owners already in 1938, compared to 175 for all of 1937. 1944: The summer of 1944 was arguably the hottest in Clovis history. National Weather Service statistics show the city had an 11-day run of 100-degree days and it hit 110 on Aug. 3 and Aug. 4. 1957: A 12-year-old Clovis boy picked up for taking a motor scooter from a p...
On this date ... 1908: John V. Farwell, one of the primary investors of the XIT Ranch that financed the Texas state capitol building, died at age 82. The Texas Panhandle ranch covered 3 million acres and took 36 days to survey, according to the Texas State Historical Association. Farwell, whose business career focused on wholesale dry goods in Chicago, spent some time on the XIT as its managing director. The town of Farwell on the Texas-New Mexico border is named in his...
You’ve probably heard the story by now. A small-town Kansas newspaper on Aug. 11 was raided by police who seized the paper’s computers and other electronic equipment. Newspaper officials claim the raid occurred because they had been looking into the background of the local police chief and other leaders in the county of about 12,000 people. Police claimed they had information that the newspaper was gathering information illegally and invading individuals’ privacy. Ironically,...
More than 50 years ago – on Aug. 16, 1970 – the Fort Sumner State Monument was dedicated. Its focus was on the U.S. Army fort, which, according to media coverage at the time: “is best known as the residence-in-exile of thousands of Navajo Indians subdued in 1864 by Col. Kit Carson and brought to Fort Sumner after the march from their western New Mexico-eastern Arizona homeland.” While military leaders “had envisioned the post as a place where the Indians could learn the white...
