Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
On this date ...
1960: Portales city officials were pushing a proposed paving project.
Promotional ads proclaimed, “The mayor and council members want to make as many progressive moves as possible, but we want your reaction because you are going to pay for the paving. If you do not protest, the city governing body will assume that you are in favor of the proposed paving.”
1961: Officials said faulty wiring was likely the cause of the previous night’s fire that destroyed the Silver Grill restaurant at Sixth and Main in Clovis.
The popular eatery was gutted by the fire, which was witnessed by “thousands of Clovis citizens (who) flocked to the scene to see the blaze, attracted by flames and smoke,” the Clovis News-Journal reported.
Officials said the fire started about 8:35 p.m. on May 13 while patrons were crowded inside.
No injuries were reported.
Officials said the restaurant’s roof caved in and firefighters needed more than two hours to bring the fire under control.
Several nearby shops also sustained extensive damage from heat, smoke and water, officials said.
“Scores of teenagers, out on their customary Saturday night prowl, aided owners of the businesses in removing contents and helped firemen lay hose around the building,” CN-J reported.
A restaurant cook told firefighters he smelled something burning before noticing flames coming from the ceiling.
1967: Muleshoe High School was scheduled to graduate 96 seniors.
Wetona Kincanon was valedictorian. Neil Finley was salutatorian.
Tom Jinks was the high school principal, Neal Dillman was the school’s superintendent and class sponsors included Ruby Lee Kerr, Bee Miller, Elizabeth Black and George Washington.
1970: The Curry County Red Cross had received an appeal from officials in Lubbock for used furniture.
About 400 vacant homes had been set up to house families who’d lost everything in a May 11 tornado. Furnishings for those homes was among the most critical needs.
Clovis Mayor Chick Taylor had offered the use of the city maintenance building at Fifth and Sycamore as the depository for anyone wanting to donate furniture. Cannon Air Force Base officials had agreed to help transport donated items.
1972: A New Mexico State University agricultural economist was predicting water available for irrigation in Curry and Roosevelt counties would “drastically decrease in the next 90 years, causing a sharp decline in farm and ranch receipts and property tax bases.”
Frank Osterhoudt wrote a magazine article in which he reported the water supply for the two counties came strictly from underground aquifers.
“Recharge of the aquifers is limited to the downward percolation of a small amount of local precipitation, less than one half of an inch per year,” he wrote.
1975: Petitions were being circulated in eastern New Mexico asking Gov. Jerry Apodaca to use his power and influence to “prevent the entrance of Vietnamese refugees into the state of New Mexico.”
The economy was already burdened, said organizer Leroy Radcliff of Elida. He said the nation should first take care of its own problems before it considers taking on any more.
“The government won’t pass a farm bill to help the farmers, but they go right ahead and take in these people … I don’t think it’s right,” Radcliff said.
1976: Marshall Junior High freshmen girls set a local record as 15 of them crammed into a telephone booth.
Sixteen girls were actually in the booth, but one was an eighth-grader.
The previous record for freshmen girls in a Marshall phone booth was 14 set in 1975.
The girls all dressed in 1950s-style clothes and “also relived some of the crazy times the fans of Pat Boone and Elvis Presley did,” the Clovis News-Journal reported.
Pages Past is compiled by David Stevens and Betty Williamson. Contact:
