Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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Portales schools students will be released early on most Fridays but will still spend more time in class under a school calendar adopted Monday in the wake of new legislation that requires more classroom time in state public schools. While students will be freed early on Fridays, teachers will be working full days. The non-class time will be filled with communicating with parents, professional development, enriching knowledge of subject areas and other teaching enhancements, according to Sara Hunton, coordinator of...
Beginning July 1, professional staff at Clovis Community College will receive an 11% raise, the CCC Board of Trustees decided unanimously on Wednesday. The added cost of professional staff raises is expected to be $96,966 over the next 12 months, according to a document attached to the board’s agenda. A budget planning document presented at a workshop on Tuesday states that CCC has 45 professional employees with current total salaries of about $2.1 million a year. CCC Interim President Robin Jones said professional staff i...
It is hard to describe just what kind of venue Uncle Mike's in Portales is, but many musicians who play rock music in a band in eastern New Mexico have performed and jammed with others there. The owner, Mike Morrison, who is a drummer, calls it a "live music venue," which about sums it up. "It's a place to have bands and musicians play," he said, but other performers, including poets and comedians, have mounted Uncle Mike's stage, according to Jason Jouett, who seemed to be in...
For two years, Cherie Davis has managed the Curry Resident Senior Meals Association's (CRSMA) food service operations in Clovis, which provides daily lunches at $4 each for seniors and includes a meal delivery service. The CRSMA shares quarters with Clovis' Friendship Senior Center at 901 W. 13th St. Davis took the job after running the House Coop in House, which offers a combination of farm and ranch supplies and general store merchandise. She commutes to her job from...
Cutter Burnett cannot remember a time when he was not singing, but for five weeks beginning in June, he will be participating in Italy with other very promising young performers in an intensive workshop that includes rehearsing and performing a full opera. Burnett, a Clovis native, has been chosen to sing one of the most important roles in the Mozart opera "Don Giovanni" during the workshop after he auditioned for placement in the program. He is a master's degree student in...
Approval of a proposed Master of Social Work degree program Friday by the Eastern New Mexico University Board of Regents is only one hurdle to be cleared. The program must now receive approval from state agencies, including the New Mexico Higher Education Department, Jamie Laurenz, ENMU’s vice president of academic affairs, told the board. The ENMU board approved the new degree program, but the additional steps to final approval mean the program is not likely to get started before Fall 2024, Laurenz said. Despite a c...
A former Farwell, Texas, high school principal and former superintendent of Chillicothe, Texas, schools has been picked to be the interim superintendent of House Municipal Schools. Coby Norman, who retired as Farwell High School’s administrator on July 31, 2022, was hired at a special House Municipal School Board meeting on Friday. Norman said on Monday he retired after 32 years in education, 22 of which he was an administrator. Temporarily, Norman replaces Bonnie Lightfoot, whom the board placed on paid leave on March 14. L...
Reydecel Coss is the director of campus life at Eastern New Mexico University, but since 2009, his freshman year at ENMU, he has also been a student. He currently holds four degrees-two bachelor's degrees and two master's – from ENMU, and he's working on another at ENMU, a master of Business Administration degree. Using counseling experience, fluency in Spanish and his experience as the first in his family to enroll in college, Coss presides over a wide range of student activi...
This week marks one year since the legalization of recreational cannabis in New Mexico. With 10 months of statistics officially reported and recorded, Clovis cannabis retailers alone have racked up a little more than $8 million in sales. Clovis’ sales in the first 10 months rank it 10th among the state’s cities in recreational cannabis sales, according to data from the Cannabis Control Division of the state Regulatory and licensing Department. The city’s recreational sales were 58% larger than sales of medical canna...
House Schools Superintendent Bonnie Lightfoot was placed on paid administrative leave March 14 by the House Municipal School Board. Parents said the move was in response to the handling of an alleged threat made by a student but school board members would not confirm. The unanimous vote to place Lightfoot on paid leave followed a 2 ½-hour executive session. Lightfoot left the board's meeting room with board members but was not with them when they returned to the...
A bill that extends New Mexico’s school year made it to the finish line as the New Mexico Legislature concluded its 60-day 2023 session on Saturday. It awaits signing by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. Clovis Municipal Schools Superintendent Renee Russ said she does not anticipate “any significant impact to our school calendar for the 2023-2024 school year” as a result of the new legislation. She said Clovis schools have “historically exceeded the minimum requirements by many hours,” and “we will likely only need to make minor...
Kathy Elliott has owned and operated her Elliott Marketing firm in Clovis for 21 years. Most recently, she has been working with a partner, former state Sen. Clint Harden, as a lobbyist in the New Mexico Legislature. On the side, she also does business as a pet crematory owner and officiates at weddings. Elliot is also a world traveler and plays clarinet in the Clovis Community Band. She carved a little time from a very busy schedule to talk with The News about her career and...
SANTA FE – Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Thursday morning signed into law House Bill 7, the Reproductive and Gender-Affirming Health Care Act. The action may nullify ordinances passed by the Clovis City Commission and Roosevelt County Commission designed to discourage abortion in those communities. The law prohibits public bodies from denying, restricting, or discriminating against an individual's right to use or refuse reproductive health care or health care related to g...
Norman Kia is vice president for information technology and operations at Clovis Community College. He's a graduate of Eastern New Mexico University with a master's degree from Wayland Baptist University in Educational Technology. CCC was Kia's first employer, starting even before he graduated from ENMU, and, he notes, he started his 25th year at CCC in January. Kia, who recently ran for Curry Couny Commissioner, is also a father of five and farms as a hobby. The News caught...
The New Mexico Legislature is entering its final week of a 60-day session. Legislators who represent Curry and Roosevelt counties -- all Republicans -- favor stronger criminal penalties and have unanimously opposed a bill that would support abortion and gender-changing services, which would invalidate local ordinances. The “Reproductive and Gender Affirming Health Care” bill received Senate approval on Tuesday and headed for Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s desk. The bill passed the Senate on a vote of 23-15. Sen. Pat Woods...
Robin Jones will stay on as Clovis Community College’s interim president until a new president is hired, CCC’s board of trustees decided unanimously on Monday. Jones has been interim president since Aug. 8, when former President Charles Nwankwo was placed on administrative leave while allegations leading to declarations of “no confidence” in Nwankwo by three CCC employee groups were investigated. Nwankwo resigned on Feb. 6 after being named president in February 2020. In addition to extending Jones’ stay as interim president,...
New Mexico State Rep. Jack Chatfield’s campaign committee has published an advertisement claiming a bill going through the New Mexico Legislature would remove parent involvement for minors who may receive reproductive care, including abortion, or gender-changing care. Chatfield represents District 67, which includes parts of Curry, Quay, Harding, Colfax and Union counties. The advertisement is running in today’s edition of The News. Chatfield was not available Thursday to comment on the advertisement, but on his cam...
Three bills under consideration by the New Mexico Legislature that would increase minimum wages and enhance family and medical leave benefits for employees in the state are being opposed by Chambers of Commerce members in Curry and Roosevelt counties. Two of the bills proposed in the state House of Representatives have been sent from the House Labor, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee to the House Commerce and Economic Development Committee. The economic development committee has tabled one of the bills, House Bill 28,...
Duane Castleberry has been a magistrate judge and spent nearly 20 years in the automotive muffler business, but the frame of his life has been music. He started playing drums professionally in the 1970s at the age of 18 and made his living in music for about eight years. Now as a retired magistrate judge, music is again a central interest in his life as he has continued an association with Johnny Mulhair, a well-known Clovis musician. Castleberry took some time on Thursday to...
Curry and Roosevelt County members of the New Mexico House of Representatives, all Republicans, voted Tuesday against a bill requiring appropriate medical professionals to provide reproductive services, including abortions and gender-affirming care when asked. The bill passed the House on Tuesday on a party-line vote with the Democratic majority prevailing, and now faces action in the state Senate. On Wednesday, the bill went to the Senate, where it was assigned to the Senate Health and Public Affairs Committee. Opponents to...
Opposition is unanimous from Curry and Roosevelt county’s all-Republican state legislators to pending bills related to abortion and gender-affirming medical treatment, and regulation of firearms. As of Thursday, the House had not taken a floor vote on House Bill 7, which would require appropriate health care providers in the state to perform abortions and other reproductive services, along with sex-change care when requested. It had been on the House calendar for three days. Left up to the Curry and Roosevelt delegation, h...
Arrangements for selling $3.5 million in general obligation bonds to support Portales Municipal Schools were finalized Monday in a unanimous 4-0 vote of the school board. Board president Rod Savage did not attend Monday’s meeting. The bonds were approved by voters in a 2021 election, when voters approved $7 million in general obligation bonding for the district. The first $3.5 million in bonds were deployed in 2022. Regina Gaysina, director of the municipal finance department in Albuquerque of RBC Capital, the financial a...
Robin Kuykendall currently serves as vice president of enrollment management and student affairs at Clovis Community College, and as a part-time instructor. For part of 2019, she served as interim president of CCC, between the presidencies of Becky Rowley and the college's most recent president, Charles Nwankwo. Kuykendall was at the time director of extended learning and division chair for occupational technology at CCC. Her career at CCC began 23 years ago, when, with a...
Two matters involving cooperative agreements between Roosevelt County and the city of Portales were delayed Tuesday as the Roosevelt County Commission decided to continue negotiations with the city before making decisions. The county commission decided on Tuesday to arrange to get more information to the city on resurfacing city streets and county roads that converge at 18th Street, Roosevelt Road 6 and Industrial Drive. Heavy truck traffic from two businesses there have left these roadways in need of resurfacing, according...
Roasting drums emerge on New Mexico streets and parking lots during August and September. That’s when green chile crops come in, and the aroma of chiles sizzling in the late summer air captivates many New Mexicans. But does that mean the state should declare this enticing scent as the official state aroma? State Sen. William Soules seems to think so. His 37th Senate district includes Hatch, the unofficial center of the green chile universe. Soules’ Senate Bill 188 would make the smell of roasting green chiles the official sta...
