Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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A memorial reception for a lifelong banker friend last weekend set my mind to wandering, as events like that are wont to do. The Saturday afternoon gathering was in honor of Bob Wood, who was president of the First National Bank of Portales when I was a kid. I hadn’t really considered it before, but we are — mostly by choice and because it’s so darned convenient — quite removed from banks and bankers these days. It’s possible to go through a lifetime now rarely setting f...
Most of us picture Santa Claus as a jolly old fellow, complete with a red suit, a white beard, and a sleigh pulled by reindeer. None of those words describe Kirsty Forrest of Clovis. Yet to the residents of nursing homes and assisted living facilities in eastern New Mexico and west Texas - Clovis, Portales, Farwell, Friona, Muleshoe, and Logan, to be specific - Forrest is Santa Claus personified. Her project is called Silver Bells, a beautiful community effort to make...
The calendar says December but Mother Nature sure isn’t doing her part to put us in the holiday spirit. However, not to worry. That mild weather means there will be another opportunity to do some volunteer work to spiff up veterans’ grave markers at the Portales Cemetery, and as for that holiday spirit stuff, well, break out your Santa hats, because a merry weekend is coming at us like a runaway reindeer. A new Little Miss Merry Christmas will soon be crowned, Eastern New Mex...
I'll bet a wishbone that you have seen and/or handled a turkey this week. The National Turkey Foundation says that 88 percent of us Americans will tuck into a portion of that iconic bird as our main course on Thanksgiving Day. But don't tell that to my new friend Buddy ... Buddy the turkey, that is. Buddy will not be on the table tomorrow - or at least not roasted and on a platter, thank you very much. His owner, Chock Banister of Portales, wouldn't think of it. On the...
Without a doubt, one of the most entertaining things I did in the last year was serving as a member of the “season selection committee” for Eastern New Mexico University’s Department of Theatre. I bring that up this week because you may have heard the name of the Eastern’s newest production that opens Thursday — “Gruesome Playground Injuries” — and wondered, “Umm, excuse me, what?” I will begin by saying right up front that this show is not for everyone. I will also tell you...
Two of Roosevelt County’s last surviving World War II veterans are expected to receive special recognition at Thursday’s 10:30 a.m. Veterans Day observance at the Portales Memorial Building. Alfredo Bachicha Jr., and Clarence Thompson both had somehow “slipped through the net” when other WWII veterans were previously honored, according to Mike Woolley, a retired Air Force colonel and lifetime member of the American Legion, which hosts the annual event. Bachicha and numerou...
Blame it on some hot summer days. Blame it on COVID. Blame it on the fact that, as Nancy Dunson said, her husband Randy "didn't have a project at the time, and he needs a project." Blame it on whomever you like, but if you're able-bodied and own a few common tools, then please consider showing up at the Portales Cemetery at 9 a.m. Saturday. That "project" I mentioned is a big one, and many hands are needed. The Dunsons live about a mile and a half from the Portales Cemetery. I...
Jean Grissom, 94, has been keeping a diary since she was a 'tween. I started sharing some of her stories in Wednesday's paper. I couldn't stop with one column. She's too fascinating to capture in just 1,000 words. So here's part two. A boy from Artesia Jean gave higher education a try in 1944, enrolling in what was then Eastern New Mexico College that fall. But she was small in stature and had a miles-long walk to and from campus. With no lockers available, she had to carry...
I have lost track of the number of times I've started journals or resolved to keep a diary - if nothing else, at least a bare-bones occasional record of events and important dates. After a week or two - at best a few months - it gets set aside and forgotten. In conversations with others, I find this is a common human experience. That makes the story I am going to tell you even more remarkable. At the age of 94, Jean Grissom is making entries in her 17th five-year diary. I'll...
I saw a picture of Portales’ old La Hacienda Restaurant recently, and it got me to thinking about some of our family’s favorite eating spots that are long gone. La Hacienda, for those who don’t remember, was originally on North Avenue K in Portales. When we have birthdays in my family, it’s always been tradition for the birthday person to get to pick the menu and/or eating spot for the main meal. I picked La Hacienda for my 15th birthday supper, not only to celebrate my arriva...
I was 3 or 4 years old when I first became a hairdresser, an early career path that failed to earn wholehearted support from my parents. I’m not sure who was my first victim, the baby “Pebbles” doll, or … well, let me get to the other in a moment. If you’re old enough, you may remember Pebbles, the cavegirl toddler who was the daughter of cartoon Neanderthals, Fred and Wilma Flintstone, on the popular Saturday morning series, “The Flintstones.” The 16-inch Pebbles doll was rel...
Ten years ago this week, David Stevens (at that time editor of the Portales News-Tribune and other regional publications) called to see if I’d be interested in writing a weekly column for the Portales newspaper. The initial offer was for a food column. Reporter Argen Duncan, who penned a cooking column each week in her spare time, had moved onto greener pastures. Although I love food — and truly enjoy both cooking and eating — I had no interest in tying on an apron and attem...
With Homecoming activities in full swing this week at Eastern New Mexico University, it’s only natural (at least, for me) to do some reminiscing about a long ago gathering of Greyhounds. I hit the newspaper archives for both the Portales News-Tribune and the Clovis News-Journal for a peek at Homecoming from a half century ago. Eastern’s 1971 Homecoming took place on Nov. 12-13, and was attended by a “near record crowd,” according to the News-Journal, although no specific numbe...
In almost 23 years as a firefighter - including three as chief of the Portales Fire Department - Steve Beaty never saved the life of a chicken. "I saved a dog, some cats ... a few people," he said. But chickens? Nope. Not from fires anyway. But from other causes? Undoubtedly. In fact, the first day I talked with Beaty, he had just done blood tests on 150 chickens to screen for pullorum (a Salmonella-related disease that causes high mortality in poultry) and had swabbed the thr...
Even though Roosevelt County’s wettest recorded year happened 20 years before I was born, I rarely empty my rain gauge without thinking of 1941. I grew up on the stories — you may have as well. At our place it was known as “40 inches in ’41.” It was the year our grandparents and great-grandparents were kept busy planting, replanting, and emptying those rain gauges until the rains finally turned off late in the fall. The official precipitation for Portales for 1941 was 43.61...
If you lived in eastern New Mexico prior to 1971 and had pets or livestock, there's a decent chance you remember the veterinarian known as Doc Black. Or maybe, like our family, you called him Ol' Doc Black. His name came up in a conversation a few weeks ago, and it set me to trying to learn more about him. The first challenge was finding out his first name. Turns out I wasn't the only person who didn't know right away - to so many here, he was simply Doc. Thanks to a post on...
All it took to make me nostalgic this week was a box of ripe peaches. I grew up less than a quarter mile from a veritable garden of Eden, although I didn’t properly appreciate it until after I grew up. My grandfather — “Pa” — was the orchardist. He worked most of his magic long before I was born, although he still deftly wielded a hoe into his 96th year. By the time I was old enough to toddle in the shade of his orchard, his life was drawing to a close, and I never got to re...
I was looking over back-to-school supply lists from area schools this month — ‘tis the season, after all, even for those of us whose children are grown. It took me back to my own elementary days even as I realized that many of the items on today’s lists weren’t even invented when I was a kid: dry erase markers, highlighters, hand sanitizer, and zip lock bags, to name a few. One beloved item from my youth remains on every list I saw, however, much to my delight. Crayons...
All it takes is one breath of “rural county fair,” that intoxicating fragrance of horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, and poultry, intermingled with all manner of deep-fried foods, and topped with a whiff of warm spun sugar, and nostalgia sets in. What I wouldn’t give to turn back the clock … for a few hours at least … and walk onto the Roosevelt County fairgrounds from my childhood. My first stop would be on the shady bleachers on the south side of the old grassy paddock where a g...
Remember what the weather was like on the High Plains on Christmas Eve of 1992? Iva Stewart of Clovis does. "It was snowing and icy," she told me as she recalled that evening from 29 winters ago. "About the middle of the night," Stewart told me, "somebody knocked on our door and said, 'The newspapers are ready.'" The late-night caller was from the Clovis News Journal. He told Stewart that the next day's newspaper was printed, and that she needed to get cracking and get them de...
I had a weekend craving for a meal I hadn’t eaten for at least 20 years, so I texted three people who I thought might have the recipe written down. One replied immediately that she did, and that she’d “just have to find it.” A few minutes later, a photo arrived of what was clearly a much-used recipe, handwritten on a stained piece of note paper, which had been folded and unfolded so often that it was almost in pieces. It set me to thinking. Like many of us, I get a lot of...
We’re having one of those summers where, when I close my eyes, all I see are snaking tendrils of goathead vines, dotted with those seemingly innocent tiny yellow flowers. You’re not fooling me, Goatheads. I’m on to you. While I have failed to crack Mother Nature’s code as to what conditions are necessary for a bumper crop of these spiky spreaders, I can say with certainty that we have hit on the ideal combination this year, as we do now and again. Also known as punctur...
It’s county fair season, friends. Before I get to the gist of today’s ramblings, here are some dates for your calendar. The Lea County Fair and Rodeo kicks off in less than 10 days — July 30, to be exact — for a week-long run in Lovington. Curry County’s centennial fair won’t be far behind that. It’s set for Aug. 10-14 in Clovis. Then Roosevelt County continues the fun the following week with an Aug. 16-22 run at the fairgrounds in Portales. This marks the approximate t...
If there is anything more important than the sustenance of a meal, how about a nutritionally balanced meal prepared by someone else and delivered to your kitchen table with a smile? That's exactly what Meals on Wheels does, but it can't happen without assistance from some of the most important people in any community: volunteers. In fact, according to longtime Portales Meals on Wheels treasurer Glenn McCoy, "We are a volunteer organization top to bottom. The board and...
If you happen to spy a 1968 red Pontiac GTO draggin’ Main Street in Clovis this weekend, or see it pulling through the drive-up window at Taco Box, take a look inside. In this season of reunions, two former Clovis High School friends and classmates are having one of their own after not seeing each other in person for almost 40 years. They plan to do it in style. Kathleen Rodgers was Kathleen Doran in 1974 when she met Michelle Williams on the staff of Clovis High School’s stud...
