Our own remembered most in 2014

Editor’s note: This is one in a series of columns looking back at regional news in 2014. It will continue through Jan. 1.

Roy Ebihara was 8 when he was run out of town because of his race, but he was excited to return home in 2014.

Micah Thompson pitched a fit when she saw trees being cut down at the Portales cemetery, and she did something about it.

Tommy Mares Jr., Fort Sumner’s unofficial town watchman for decades, still brings smiles when friends remember his orange vest and the whistle he used to stop traffic when the fire alarm went off.

A lot of people made news around eastern New Mexico in 2014. Here are a few who won’t soon be forgotten.

‘Just welcome me home’

Ebihara was among 32 residents of Clovis’ “Japanese Colony” who were forced out of town a few weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

All 10 of the men in the group had worked for the railroad in Clovis for 20 years or more. All 17 of the children were born in Clovis, most were active in the public schools and many attended the Christian churches.

But suddenly their loyalty to the U.S. was in question. Officials loaded them all into state patrol cars and relocated them to Fort Stanton in the middle of the night on Jan. 23, 1942, claiming it was for their own safety.

“I cried and cried myself to sleep off an on,” Ebihara remembered. “We traveled for endless miles in the darkness.”

The families scattered around the country after being released from government custody, learning to be farmers or factory workers, pretending to be Chinese out of fear for their lives. None attempted to return to Clovis; the children assumed they were not wanted in the community where they grew up.

But this spring, Adrian Chavez, a Clovis native who’d learned about the 32 in a college history class, asked city leaders to apologize to members of the Clovis colony who were still alive, and invite them to return home. Ebihara, Lillie Kimura Kiyokawa and some of their family members accepted the city’s invitation and they were honored guests for the annual Pioneer Days parade.

“It’s been wonderful,” Ebihara said near the end of his visit. “The people have been more than gracious. It’s almost making me cry, because along the parade route, people had come up and said, ‘I’m so sorry’ and being apologetic, and I said, ‘Please don’t be. Just welcome me home and I’m happy.’”

You can fight city hall

Micah Thompson said she was driving past the Portales cemetery in late February when she saw city workers cutting down trees. (Remember, we don’t have a lot of trees.)

“When I saw the trees coming down, it just made me sick,” Thompson said. “The trees have green buds on them. They aren’t dead.”

While it was never clear who ordered the diseased trees cut down, city officials took notice when Thompson and dozens of other area residents asked them to stop. A “tree doctor” was called in and at least 18 of the 90-year-old, 40-foot tall trees marked for destruction were treated with nutrients and saved.

Meanwhile in Clovis, retired school teacher John Kibler fought city hall and defeated efforts to build a 160-foot cell phone tower in the middle of his Hilltop Plaza neighborhood.

Kibler suggested the cell phone company locate its tower at an established “antenna farm” north of the shopping center.

A little help from a new friend

It wasn’t just nature our residents tried to save in 2014 — Quaylene Parkey went out of her way to help a new neighbor.

She was walking into a Portales grocery store when she saw a pregnant woman with young children having a “melt down,” and decided not to look the other way.

She spoke with the woman and learned she’d come to Portales from Stephenville, Texas, because a friend told her there was assistance here to help her start a new life.

“I couldn’t leave them there, but I had no idea what to do,” Parkey said.

So she began calling shelters, non-profit agencies, friends and friends of friends. Before she stopped, the young mother had a place to stay and a job.

“It was just so amazing to see a community come together to help a family,” Parkey said.

Gone, never forgotten

We lost several good souls in 2014, including Mares of Fort Sumner, an “intellectually disabled” man who found dozens of ways to help around town, whether it was janitorial work at the school, watching the fire station when firefighters were on a call or checking to be sure doors were locked after hours at downtown businesses.

“He had a great disposition,” said Juan Chavez, Fort Sumner’s mortician and one of Mares’ friends. “He was always real friendly. He spoke to every person he saw. He was a good communicator in English and Spanish. His mom taught him to be respectful to everyone.”

Mares died in a Clovis nursing home on June 22. He was 67.

We also lost Johnathan Dawson, a songbird, Mylessa Denny, who was well on her way to becoming New Mexico’s first female sheriff in 50 years, Zala Smith, who was instrumental in bringing us Clovis Community College’s Cultural Arts Series, Ben Barrow, whose barbecue made our mouths water for decades — it wasn’t the meat, it was his sauce — and Irvyng Urquijo, a bull rider who lost his life in the practice arena at Eastern New Mexico University, doing what he loved.

Heroes all

But we didn’t lose John Reilly. That’s because ENMU football players Ben Langford and Chevrolet Mikaele and others from their Church of the Nazarene Bible study class rushed to his aid when a pickup he’d been working on fell on him.

In all, about 10 men lifted the pickup high enough that church Pastor Johnny Pacheco was able to drag him to safety.

Reilly was seriously injured, unable to speak or walk for weeks, but Pacheco said this week he’s about ready to start rehabilitation and hopes to return home to Portales soon after the holidays.

We’ll remember 2014 for a lot of reasons, but mostly for the people who lived around here.

David Stevens is editor for Clovis Media Inc. He can be contacted at 1-800-819-9925. His e-mail address is:

[email protected]