Pages past — Feb. 2

On this date ...

2006: Eastern New Mexico University football coach Mark Ribaudo had signed 13 players to letters of intent.

Ribaudo said his second recruiting class as head coach “blows last year out of the water.”

Signees included Clovis safety Devin Sweet.

1966: Actor/comedian Buster Keaton died of lung cancer at his home in Woodland Hills, California.

He was 70.

1946: A convicted killer admitted his crime to a Clovis News-Journal reporter in a jailhouse interview.

John Romero Jr., 18, who had been convicted a week earlier in the Sept. 2, 1945, slaying of Crawford Trees, 59, said he was sorry for the killing and said he’d prayed to be forgiven.

Romero, sentenced to life in prison, blamed his actions on alcohol. He said he’d committed multiple foolish acts in his life while drinking.

“When I shot my finger, and those two times I cut myself to get my wife’s sympathy, I had been drinking,” he told reporter Kathryn Bomar. “If I ever get out of the pen, I’ll never take another drink.”

Romero said he’d killed Trees, an acquaintance he considered “a good man,” with a hatchet, then set Trees’ bed on fire to conceal evidence.

He denied stealing Trees’ money, which authorities had suspected was a motive for the slaying.

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

www.highplainsyesterdays.com