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  • Don't give up on your crazy ideas

    Karl Terry|Updated Oct 1, 2023

    Food trucks are a hot thing these days but the idea of making your business mobile has been around for a while — take for instance, the first business in Portales. According to the book “Roosevelt County History and Heritage,” sometime prior to 1898, Josh Morrison operated a really small general store in the Big Salt Lake area just west of the Texas state line in east-central New Mexico. It was nearby what was known as Portales Springs, where ranches, including the DZ Ra...

  • Elvis' plane joins 'what could possibly go wrong' collection

    Karl Terry, Local columnist|Updated Sep 23, 2023

    Just last January the auctioneer, the former wife and trustees of the estate proclaimed “It’s Now or Never” and dropped the gavel on the jet that’s been sitting at the Roswell airport, which once belonged to Elvis Presley. The aircraft has been the subject of several news stories over the years and has been listed in at least three previous auctions. It’s been parked on the tarmac in Roswell, out in the weather for 40 years. It popped back into my attention span...

  • Throwing my hat in as a fan of Terry Funk

    Karl Terry, Local columnist|Updated Sep 16, 2023

    I know I’m a little late to the match, but I want to throw my hat into the pro wrestling ring as a big fan of Terry Funk. The wrestler from Amarillo passed away late last month at the age of 79. If you’re going to be a fan of a sport you have to have a hero. For a time I was a fan of “Big Time Wrestling” and in particular the Western States Sports promoters out of Amarillo, which Terry’s family owned. Along with his father Dory Funk Sr. and Dory Jr. the trio...

  • Spent some time and dedication in newspaper delivery

    Karl Terry, Local columnist|Updated Sep 9, 2023

    It passed without notice by most of the readers of this newspaper. But once it was a special day for myself and others who grew up doing what I did for spending money. Yes, National Newspaper Carrier Day on Sept. 4 probably slipped right past you last week. Indeed, if I hadn’t been alerted to it by a television news anchor it would have gotten by me too. One of the news anchors seemed stupefied by the fact that newspaper carriers had their own day and even a hall of fame....

  • Wendy's Facebook page site of comedic chaos

    Karl Terry, Local columnist|Updated Sep 2, 2023

    I scroll Facebook a lot. It’s not as good as it once was, but still I scroll mindlessly. Despite all my scrolling on the “bubblegum for the mind” app, I nearly missed out on one of the greatest social media marketing ploys in decades. Have you seen the chaos that is the Wendy’s Facebook feed? I was alerted to it by a story I read about it on Inc.com . I get a daily email with story headlines from the online version of Inc. Magazine. It sometimes has some pretty good...

  • Dogs doing well, but human could stand to lose weight

    Karl Terry, Local columnist|Updated Aug 26, 2023

    The two pups and I are still adjusting to life without my sweet doggie-loving wife who died in May. Lots of people asked me if either of the two dogs was mourning for her and as much as she would have hated to hear it, I really haven’t noticed any behavior from them that looked like they were mourning. That’s not to say that we haven’t been on a bit of a rollercoaster since she left this earth. We’ve had the older dog, a shepherd possibly pit bull mix, for 15 years...

  • I've had my hand in more than one column about fairs

    Karl Terry, The Staff of The News|Updated Aug 19, 2023

    When I decided to write about the excitement of the local county fairs, I realized right away that wasn’t exactly a unique topic for me in August. Just for fun and because as you may know by now if you read very often, I am my own greatest fan, I took a look back at my column files. Sure enough, I haven’t missed many Augusts in the past 20 years without writing about the fair. There is the column where I just made lists of the sights, sounds and smells I had experienced at...

  • Proud of what teachers, support staff are doing for kids

    Karl Terry, Local columnist|Updated Aug 12, 2023

    School is back in session. I know because I attended a breakfast last week where we helped welcome over 600 teachers and school staff back to school. I’ve worked this event for the Chamber of Commerce for more than a decade and it always makes me feel good seeing all the people who dedicate their life to educating and caring for our young people. I can’t think of a more important job and if you don’t believe that yourself just stop and think about the teachers that made...

  • Truly sad to outlive the places and buildings of your youth

    Karl Terry, Local columnist|Updated Aug 5, 2023

    Another Portales landmark is falling by the wayside this week and strangely enough I’m not as disturbed by it as maybe I should be. Portales City Hall hasn’t been at First and Main all of my life, but it’s been there long enough that I don’t remember it being anywhere else. The low-profile red brick building was directly across the street from another one of those landmark buildings for me, the Portales News-Tribune office so I passed it on my bike every day as I took...

  • Colorado tube ride nearly killed me

    Karl Terry, Local columnist|Updated Jul 29, 2023

    Never let your mind write checks your body can’t cash. That vacation in Colorado I wrote about last week in advance of leaving went off mostly as planned. I soaked in a hot spring and each of those little boys got an opportunity to reel in a fish. My body and fish whispering allowed those checks to be cashed. It was that last full day of vacation that tripped me up and darn near killed me. It was decided by the family group of six that tubing the San Juan River would be...

  • Looking forward to teaching my great-nephews to fish

    Karl Terry, Local columnist|Updated Jul 22, 2023

    Fishing is good for your soul. Fishing with two little boys — well, we will see. By the time you’re reading this I’ll know if my fishing trip with these two great-nephews was a success or if short attention span won out over Uncle Karl’s ability to talk with the fishes. All three of us have had a rough spring and even if we don’t catch a fish getting out and about in the mountains will be a great distraction from our problems. There might be S’mores, ice cream,...

  • Antique, classic car show links me to my heritage

    Karl Terry, Local columnist|Updated Jul 15, 2023

    Even though I didn’t follow in the steps of my father it doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the path he cut. Both my dad and my father-in-law collected and restored antique and classic cars. Wandering a car show or seeing classic cars shined up in a parade still gives me a strong connection to them. I fetched tools, I helped load cars, I drove parades for them when they needed another driver, but I never really caught the bug. They sought cars out and then worked on them...

  • Billy the Kid's journeys may have taken him near Portales

    Karl Terry, The Staff of The News|Updated Jul 8, 2023

    This Friday will mark 142 years since the death of Henry McCarty, a.k.a. Billy the Kid, a.k.a. William or Billy Bonney. On July 14, 1881, most historians believe Billy the Kid died around midnight in Pete Maxwell’s bedroom in Fort Sumner. That fact has been challenged and debated for years concerning just who did Lincoln County Sheriff Pat Garrett gun down in the dark from Maxwell’s bedside. Some believed it wasn’t Billy and that he lived for decades in Hico, Texas. Form...

  • Marveling at how much tech smartphones have replaced

    Karl Terry, Local columnist|Updated Jul 1, 2023

    I saw a news item flash across my iPhone last week noting the 16th birthday of the iPhone. And so I clicked on it and was reminded just how many items the marvelous device in my pocket had replaced. It replaced my home phone for starters. I no longer have an alarm clock at my bedside either. I hung on to a specific model of cheap desk calculator until a few years ago when I realized the one on my cell phone was as good and as easy to see and use. I quit wearing a wristwatch...

  • Reaching that age where I am deeply thankful for personal freedom

    Karl Terry, Local columnist|Updated Jun 24, 2023

    I have this framed print of Geronimo hanging on my office wall at home and as I stared into those piercing dark eyes I saw him a little differently than I have since I hung the piece on the wall. I wrote about acquiring him in the fall of 2018 and I told of his exploits in that column, but I didn’t tell the whole story because perhaps I hadn’t aged enough to understand it fully. The portrait shows him posed with a rifle supposedly on the San Carlos Reservation in Arizona...

  • Jury service might be more than I need in my life right now

    Karl Terry, Local columnist|Updated Jun 17, 2023

    I recently received greetings from a governmental body along with a request for my service — jury service that is. I’m very much all about people doing their civic duty through juror service but I really didn’t need this in my life right now. July is chock full of work commitments and I’m trying really hard to get back into a good work mode since I’m no longer a caregiver. It hasn’t been easy. These days you take the jury questionnaire online where your answers go...

  • Thomas Vernon Long special part of Roosevelt County

    Karl Terry, Local columnist|Updated Jun 10, 2023

    After being on the other end of the equation a month ago, this week I found myself on the outside looking in at a funeral service. This was no ordinary funeral service, however. Only one person at the gravesite had been personally acquainted with the deceased. Most of the family never met him. The family of Thomas Vernon Long gathered at the Portales Cemetery last week to lay the World War II veteran to rest for the second time. Others have told this incredible story in this...

  • Might be time for a change in vehicle philosophy

    Karl Terry, Local columnist|Updated Jun 3, 2023

    I may have mentioned previously my current vehicle philosophy. It hasn’t always been my philosophy, but it’s worked for the last five or six years. I think I’m ready for a change. My philosophy, as I’ve recited it to numerous folks over the years, is to have enough junker cars in front of my house that at any one time I can go out and depend on at least one of them to start and run. Granted I’ve had a few times when I had to jump start more than one vehicle to have...

  • Still haven't found treasure, but it could happen any time

    Karl Terry, Local columnist|Updated May 27, 2023

    Deep down inside us all there lives a treasure hunter. I believe that is true to one extent or another. For some the treasure is in searching antique shops. For others it’s junkyards or auctions. For some it may be shopping malls or finding a new restaurant or winery. Lately I have a YouTuber I’ve been following who lives in Southwest New Mexico where he raises lion trailing hounds and rides and packs mules on his trips into the desert mountains around where he lives. On...

  • Hard to say goodbye to my special lady

    Karl Terry, Local columnist|Updated May 20, 2023

    The last few weeks have been a long, sorrowful journey. Two weeks ago, I watched the love of my life take her last breaths here on Earth. I’ve watched her health falter for the last 20 years. At times she would rebound, but it always seemed like the next setback for her was never far away. Since the first of the year a new problem among all of the others she had presented itself with a fury. Alzheimer’s attacked my sweetheart’s memory. The last few weeks of her life I...

  • GoFundMe tempting solution to uncovered medical expenses

    Karl Terry|Updated Apr 29, 2023

    I recently went blind in my right eye and I’m blaming Joe Biden and the IRS. OK, I’m not really blind, folks — it just seems like it as I write this column as I squint at the screen. Expect that there will be typos. So I was sitting at this same desk, frantically working on my taxes on April 18 when a tiny fly began flitting around between me and my 1040. No amount of hand waving was doing any good and I soon realized that it must be one of those vision floaters that...

  • 50 years with the famous Kakawate Road

    Karl Terry, Local columnist|Updated Apr 22, 2023

    The boss editor sent down a message to his minions last week with the tip that it had been 50 years since they cut the ribbon on the Kakawate Road. I drew the short straw and got the assignment of doing a column about the road. I guess someone who has driven the road all that time should be able to write about it. First, I want to relate that the road was there before Mayor James Kiker of Portales and the Muleshoe mayor met at the state line to snip the ribbon, it just...

  • History helped me better experience life in the area

    Karl Terry, Local columnist|Updated Apr 15, 2023

    My mind has been brought to the history of Portales this week thanks to Ruth White Burns. No, I haven’t been talking directly with Ruth, just her family. But it started me to remembering her and her love for history and her family’s prominent place in it. Her family is in the midst of preparing for an estate sale and they’ve asked me to help find a home for a couple of items too special to fall to the auctioneer’s gavel. One of those was the double-door safe from the...

  • Remembering my days of hunting those wascally wabbits

    Karl Terry, Local columnist|Updated Apr 8, 2023

    I learned many Easter egg hunts ago from none other than Elmer T. Fudd that wabbits are wascally. I was convinced at a very young age that my Daisy BB gun was going to take down one of the long-legged jackrabbits running everywhere in our part of the country. I put in the hours hunting those long-eared bunnies but I’m pretty sure I never hit one. Mostly because they were usually a long way out and running fast when I got a shot. I did club one with the stock one day while fo...

  • Grandmother's memories one of the things I cherish most

    Karl Terry, Local columnist|Updated Apr 1, 2023

    One of the things I cherish the most are the memories my Grandmother Musette Terry related at the urging of her daughters. One of the chapters in that book of sorts (it’s also on cassette tape in her words) is the description of how they wound up in town during World War II and my Granddad Bob’s work to get back on his feet financially and out on the farm again — his own farm. In 1940 things weren’t going well and Granddad had taken work with a local contractor...

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