Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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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...
I recently saw a copy of one of the old printed shopping lists provided by Grady’s Food Market in Portales, the grocery store of my childhood. It’s funny how a small piece of paper can bring back so many memories. Grady’s got its start on the square, I’ve been told, as Grady’s Red and White Grocery. At some point before I was old enough to remember — or maybe even before I was born — it moved to 217 S. Ave. C in Portales, on the site now occupied by Aaron’s. Grady and Ethel...
It is one thing to see a problem, point it out, and grouse about it, as many of us like to do. It is quite another to see a problem, mull over how to fix it, then set about doing that ... especially when you're only 12 years old. That is exactly what Kaylee Jo Summers of Elida did (the latter, not the former). Thanks to an effort spearheaded by this enthusiastic soon-to-be seventh grader in the Elida Schools, the existing playground area in Elida's shady green town park is on...
I face an ongoing dilemma: I love having a clean house, but I hate cleaning. But with an incoming overnight guest on the way last weekend, I tackled our abode in an all-out scrub fest. By nightfall, it was far from immaculate (because let's be real here), but by golly, it was a lot cleaner than when I started. Then sometime around 11 p.m. Saturday, the first of two overnight sandstorms arrived, pummeling the north side of our house. I raced around in the dark, slamming...
On this date… 1966: Eight Roosevelt County girls were packing their suitcases for New Mexico Girls State, set to open later in the week on the campus of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Dora School’s representative was Nicky Gresham, while Causey School was represented by Ramona Casey. Elida School’s candidate was Beverly Radcliff, and Mary Ella Dobbs was selected by Floyd School. Portales High School had four representatives: Sheryl Brasell, Sue Kremenak, Coret...
On this date… 1971: The Pioneer Days Rodeo parade was declared such a success that instead of awarding top prizes in only three categories, the judges gave five first-place awards and four honorable mentions to participants in the 56-unit parade. Doc Stewart Chevrolet-Buick won the judges parade award for an entry featuring a new pickup perched atop a slanted float emblazoned with the company logo. Other award winners included La Vista Lounge’s float featuring a bunch of hil...
I counted recently and discovered that my shelves are creaking with more than 80 yearbooks from various schools. The oldest is from 1940, the most recent is from 2016. They're mostly from this immediate geographic area: Eastern New Mexico College (and later University), Dora, Floyd, and Portales. While I can say with complete certainty that selling yearbook ads tops the list of activities I am grateful I never had to participate in again after graduation, I find those ads...
On this date … 1966: Local Future Farmers of America members returned from the state FFA convention in Albuquerque, where Pat Woods of Grady received the Sunshine State Farmer Award, “the highest annual honor bestowed by the state group,” according to the Clovis News-Journal. Woods, a third-year member of the Grady FFA, was farming 100 acres of wheat and 73 acres of grain sorghum, and owned 90 feeder steers. Jerry Wood of Dora received a Foundation Award at the conve...
I never crack open a raw egg without thinking of an old family friend named Mrs. Klein. Mrs. Klein was the mother of one of my mother’s best childhood pals in the 1930s and early 1940s in Cleveland. Improbably for two big-city girls, my mother and her friend ended up living only 18 miles apart in eastern New Mexico, so Mrs. Klein stayed a part of my mother’s life — and eventually mine — for all of her remaining years. Mrs. Klein was still living in Ohio when I was a kid, bu...
I have a proven record of misidentifying things I see. It isn’t getting better with time. Once it was an owl. I would have bet money on it. It was nighttime and our dog was in the front yard barking like a maniac. I flipped on the porch light and peered out to see what the cause of the ruckus might be. On the ground, maybe 30 feet from the porch, I was met by two glowing eyes, their gaze fixed upon me. It was unquestionably an owl. There was simply no doubt. I knew it s...
I saw a recipe for cicada cookies this week that took me back in time. While I have zero desire to incorporate these large, loud, and crunchy (I’ll come back to that) insects into any aspect of my diet, they are part of one of the most vivid memories of my life. It was purely by accident that I happened to be living in the Washington, D.C., area in 1987, during one of the mega-emergences of the 17-year cicadas that make their home in the Midwest and eastern United States. T...
I read something recently that proposed an interesting conundrum (and gave me an excuse to use “conundrum,” which is one of my favorite words): We humans love choices, but we hate making decisions. There is no question I agree with the latter part of that statement. After all, I have spent my entire life surrounded by people who would rather keel over from hunger than agree on a restaurant. “I don’t care. Where do YOU want to eat?” “Whatever you want is fine with me.” “You d...
I never see a printed school menu without being reminded of my own years in the lunch line and cafeteria at the Dora schools. As a species, we humans love to complain. In those long-ago days before cell phones and the internet (also known as the 1960s and 1970s of my youth), one of the only things most of us had to grouse about was school cafeteria food. Our lunch ladies at Dora made that exceedingly hard. Most of our lunch ladies were also school bus drivers. It was a good co...
This past weekend offered numerous opportunities to spend time (both virtually and in-person) with other people who love books and reading as much as I do. First came three days of events associated with the annual Williamson Lectureship hosted entirely online this year by Eastern New Mexico University. Then there was a Sunday afternoon backyard gathering of several vaccinated members of a loosely organized book club I’ve belonged to for years. In both cases, there were l...
After a solid year of postponed and canceled events, the weekend that is coming (even with all the still-necessary modifications) represents a glorious return of some beloved events and local traditions. Get ready for some virtual elbow-rubbing time with science fiction folks, a High Plains talent show, tasty smoked pork chops, high stakes domino championships, and a cascade of petunias and geraniums. The fun kicks off Thursday with events that will be vying for space on the...
It comes as no surprise that the drought monitor maps continue to keep our area solidly in center of a puddle of the dreaded deep brown patches that forecasters designate as “D4 - Exceptional Drought.” There are many situations where being labeled “exceptional” is positive. “Those biscuits were exceptional!” “What an exceptional novel.” “She is a pianist with exceptional talent.” But when it comes to drought, exceptional is what we don't want to be. For those who don't sha...
High Plains forecast for Thursday: Sunny, 80 degrees, and a 100 percent chance of smoked meats, accompanied by macrobursts of generosity and torrential warm fuzzies. In other words, it’s the perfect day to head to Coach J’s BBQ Shack in Portales, make a donation to Habitat for Humanity of Roosevelt and Curry Counties (HFHRCC), and take that brisket and sausage plate to the park where we can enjoy a great meal for a good cause. It’s a documented fact that fundraiser food taste...
About this time last year, Jan Smartnick was gearing up to direct a pre-Easter performance of "The Living Last Supper" at First United Methodist Church in Portales. The drama, written in 1954 by Pastor Ernest K. Emurian, is inspired by Leonardo da Vinci's painting, "The Last Supper," a depiction of Christ and his disciples sharing a final meal together. "We were all ready," Smartnick recalled this week. With two rehearsals under their belts (or maybe sashes?), the cast was...
In 2009, a writer named Judith Wynn Halsted published a book called, "Some of My Best Friends Are Books," a guide to 300 of her favorite books for young readers. The title has always stuck with me because, well, it's true: Some of my best friends are books. And a number of those friends have arrived via used book sales throughout my life. I spent a couple of hours last Friday among some potential new "friends" as we set up the Friends of the Portales Public Library Pay What...
My mother was a lifelong fan of the Metropolitan Opera. Most Saturday mornings of the September-March opera season (I'll bet some of you didn't even know opera had a season), she wrestled the antenna on our portable radio into compliance, shushed my brothers and me into reluctant silence, and settled in for the live broadcast of the opera matinee from Lincoln Center in New York City. If it was one of her favorites and she wanted to be sure she wouldn't be interrupted, she...
In the fall of 1967, clutching a fat pencil, a box of crayons, and a Big Chief tablet, I became one of the 28 little kids in Peggy Prater's first grade class at Dora Elementary School. By the end of the first day, I had fallen head over heels in love with my teacher. Fifty-four years later, that hasn't changed. Though I knew she was under hospice care, when her daughter notified me on Saturday that sweet Mrs. Prater had died, I was heartbroken. I suspect that I am one of...
I chauffeured a dear friend to the Roosevelt General Hospital clinic recently to receive her second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. I’ll call her B. As the masked and gloved medical assistant cleaned B’s upper arm with an alcohol wipe, she asked B if she’d had surgery on that shoulder. “No,” B said. “On the other, but not that one.” “Why do you have this scar then?” the MA asked. “Oh,” B answered with a laugh. “That’s from my smallpox vaccine.” You see, when B was a first gra...
There are no two ways around it. This last year has been a tough time to host fundraisers. Our community service organizations have had to cancel many long-standing events because of the ongoing health restrictions. Fortunately for local chili lovers, the members of the Kiwanis Club of Portales have come up with a way for us to satisfy our annual craving this Friday evening and stay safe: chili to go. Here’s the plan, but first a caveat: I am writing this on Monday, and this i...
Like many on the High Plains, we woke up without water on Monday morning in the sub-zero weather. It was a preventable problem, at least at our house, but I had grown complacent after a string of winters when we had dodged that icy bullet. Out here in the country, water and electricity go hand-in-hand. Our water flows with the aid of pumps powered by electricity. Most of the times we do not have water, it's because we don't have power. In fact, we are so well-trained that at...
If you were out and about last weekend on U.S. 70 from Roswell to Clovis, you may have passed a young backpacker on the side of the road, moving east with quick steps like a woman on a mission. We like to call it "walking with purpose." Because, in every sense of the word, she is. Hannah Bacon blew through our area like a tumbleweed, and along the way completed "days 79 and 80, and miles 1149-1187" of a trek that she hopes will take her completely across the United States -...
