Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
On this date ...
1953: Two Clovis men were among prisoners of war on their way home after a truce had been signed in Korea.
• Cpl. Dan McKinney was captured by Chinese troops on April 23, 1951.
“The Chinese wiped us out that night,” McKinney said when he addressed airmen at Cannon Air Force Base more than 60 years later.
“They over-ran us, and to this day I suffer from what’s called survivor’s guilt. Out of 200 (U.S. Army) men, when that night was over there were 26 men alive, and out of those 26, 13 were captured.”
Senior Airman Jette Carr reported McKinney’s story for a publication of Air Force Special Operations Command.
• Lt. Col. Thomas Harrison suffered life-threatening injuries when his plane was shot down over Korea on May 21, 1951.
North Korean doctors amputated one of Harrison’s legs after his capture. He then survived a 140-mile forced winter march, on crutches, to a POW camp.
“Despite a deteriorating physical condition resulting from the unskilled amputation of one injured leg, six primitive operations on the remaining one, inhumanly brutal beatings, long periods of sadistic torture and ruthless incessant interrogations, Col. Harrison remained resolutely steadfast in his refusal to divulge security information to the enemy,” military records show.
He received the Air Force Distinguished Service Medal in 1955.
1960: Judy Hallford, 8, was hospitalized at Roosevelt General after a freak accident that occurred on her family’s farm near Arch.
Judy’s father, Lavon Hallford, was running a shredder to kill weeds when he saw Judy, who was playing nearby, jump and begin running, with blood spurting from her leg.
Family members believed the shredder had flung a 6-inch piece of wire that hit the girl in the leg.
The gash required 70 stitches to close.
She was released from the hospital a day later.
1961: The mother of a Clovis woman arrived safely at Clovis Municipal Airport after an unplanned stop in Cuba.
Mrs. William Conn, who lived in Miami, was among 37 people on a plane hijacked at gunpoint and flown to Havana.
She told a reporter she had no idea the plane had been hijacked until it arrived in Havana and an announcement was made that “We’re landing in Havana, Cuba, at gunpoint. Be calm, we’ll probably be leaving in about 15 minutes.”
She said passengers were held for 29 hours, but “They treated us like royalty. They were a real congenial bunch.”
The gunman remained in Cuba and Premier Fidel Castro kept the $3.5 million airplane, United Press International reported.
UPI reported the passengers returned home with straw hats, boxes of cigars and bottles of rum purchased at the Havana airport. They were put up in a hotel for two nights.
Conn was on her way to visit her daughter, Myrtice Conn, when her plane was hijacked.
1970: Furr’s grocery store at 1001 Main in Clovis offered a 20-ounce bottle of Listerine mouthwash for 89 cents.
Fresh ground hamburger was 53 cents per pound.
Three “California-golden” ears of corn went for 29 cents.
1975: Esther Flores was reigning queen of the Fiesta de Portales, which had been held at Lindsey Park.
The selection had been made based on contributions, which were used for the next year’s fiesta.
Flores collected $140.
Runner-up was Glorie Corralez, who collected $107.49.
1970: Portales burglars received a “wet welcome and little else,” when they tried to break into Ozzie’s Drive In.
When Marie Damon went to open the eatery, she found a torn window screen and flooded floor.
Police theorized someone attempted to break in by crawling through a rear window. The would-be burglars were successful, but crawled through the window onto a sink, which gave way to the weight.
A busted water pipe began to “spew water in a stream toward the ceiling,” the Portales News-Tribune reported.
“The burglars evidently beat a hasty retreat, as nothing was disturbed and nothing was missing.”
But the water stream cut a hole in the ceiling and “drenched the entire interior of the building.”
1977: From the Clovis police blotter:
• The animal shelter reported 31 dogs were killed in the previous week.
• Police arrested five illegal aliens in the previous week.
• Four Timex watches and 15 cartons of cigarettes were reported stolen from the Circle K at 13th and Thornton streets. The losses were valued at $187.
1977: A teenager had found an octopus in an irrigation ditch near Fort Sumner.
Eugene Sena Jr., 14, said he was washing his hands in the ditch southwest of Fort Sumner when he spotted the creature, about 1.5 inches in diameter, floating in the water.
He poked it with a stick and discovered it was dead. But movement in the water alarmed a second octopus, which swam away.
Sena said the second octopus was about 6 inches in diameter.
Dick Hanes, a biology teacher at Fort Sumner, confirmed the dead creature was an octopus.
He had no idea how it ended up in a De Baca County irrigation ditch, the Clovis News-Journal reported.
Pages Past is compiled by David Stevens and Betty Williamson. Contact:
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