Pages past — April 26

On this date ...

2006: John Neibling was named Clovis Community College’s third president. The college board voted 3-2 for Neibling; dissenters wanted to hire Becky Rowley, who became CCC's fourth president when Neibling retired in 2011.

1960: A Portales News-Tribune reporter counted 129 bicycles parked at the city’s three grade schools and junior high.

Reporter Dave Thornton, reporting on Bicycle Safety Week, found that 29 of the bikes had lights and none of the lights he tested worked.

He found many of the bikes had broken pedals, needed chain guards or fenders and lacked horns.

1950: State game officials were urging “careful consideration” before planning any prairie chicken hunting.

Gaming Director James Cox said prairie chicken populations in Roosevelt County were “not so abundant as in previous years,” The Associated Press reported.

Drought conditions and a heavy kill the year before were blamed for the decline in population.

Their business ...

1950: Consolidated Milk Products Co. had closed its Portales operation.

Area supervisor Lyle Bridges said the plant’s equipment had been moved to Winfield, Kansas.

He cited lack of raw materials as the reason for the plant’s closing.

He said most milk went for whole milk and cheese products.

The Portales company had been operating 10 years, converting buttermilk and skimmed milk from creameries into livestock and poultry feed.

Transitions ...

1901: Thomas Edward “Black Jack” Ketchum, described as the “most noted desperado of the Southwest” by the Galveston Daily News, was hanged in Clayton.

Ketchum, a self-confessed train robber accused of multiple crimes including murder, was also a rancher near Tucumcari who rode on many trail drives. He was hanged for a failed train robbery in which no one was killed.

They hung him so hard, the history books tell us, his head came off.

The native Texan, who lost an arm in the botched train robbery, seemed at ease in the hours before his death.

“Ketchum talked for over an hour with visitors, cooler than any who met him,” the Galveston newspaper reported.

He confessed to some crimes but denied others, claiming he’d never killed a man and only shot three.

Pages Past is compiled by Editor David Stevens. For more regional history, check out his weblog at:

www.highplainsyesterdays.com