Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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I have fresh appreciation this week for two of the appliances in my house: the washing machine and dryer. I may have lacked the proper appreciation for the luxury of in-home laundry services as a kid, but by the time I was a college student and entered the better part of a decade relying on commercial laundromats, I rapidly grasped the value of what I had left behind. My first apartment fitted with … gasp … a built-in washer and dryer … gasp again … was bliss. When my 40-some...
Seven years ago - on a February evening in 2013 - the Roosevelt County Chamber of Commerce surprised Vern Witten by naming him Workhorse of the Year. "To be honest," he told the Portales News-Tribune that evening, "I wasn't sure they were talking about me until they got down to the peanut brittle." To anyone else in the room - and frankly, anyone who ever met Witten - the only surprise that evening was that he hadn't already been named Workhorse of the Year at least a dozen...
Back in the spring of 1997, 13-year-old Brandon Reed was finishing his seventh-grade year as a student in the Floyd Municipal Schools. Anticipating the spring fever that strikes most kids as May rolls around, Reed said his school offered a series of enrichment classes. "This allowed us, for around two hours a week, to take fun classes that might interest us," he said. The one that caught his eye was "Introduction to Aviation," taught by Dink and Mitzi Miller, who still live...
PORTALES — After 40 years of marriage — and at the ages of 70 and 85, respectively — Grace and John Fair of Portales became new parents on July 15. Yes, you read that right. New parents. How that happened is nothing short of a love story, according to Grace Fair, one that involves an entire community … or maybe two. On the morning of July 15, I was honored to join the Fairs at the Clovis office of attorney Michael Garrett for a video hearing with Ninth Judicial Distric...
With all that is going on in our nation and our world — not to mention this brain-frying heat — I found myself turning this week to some wise words penned several decades ago by Robert Fulghum. Fulghum, a beloved American storyteller and retired Unitarian preacher, wrote “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” as his personal credo, a statement that he honed over the years and first shared with his congregation. Later, the story goes, he read it aloud at a prima...
With a little more time at home these past few months, I’ve found myself flipping through some of the vintage cookbooks that fill a couple of shelves in one of my bookcases. Two of my favorites are slim, battered, spiral-bound volumes that are in my rarely-used-but-I’ll-keep-them-forever-anyway collection. “What’s Cookin’ in Portales, New Mexico,” was published by the Portales Woman’s Club in 1948. “Our Favorite Recipes,” was compiled by the Homemakers Clubs of Roosevelt Coun...
I don’t know about you, but I think what our world needs right now is a heaping dose of Will Rogers. When he and his pilot friend Wiley Post died in a crash in Alaska in 1935, headlines at the time called Will Rogers “the world’s most famous humorist.” Rogers had published his first books in 1919, and in 1922 he began writing his syndicated newspaper articles. Between those, his radio broadcasts, and his foray into Hollywood (he had credits in 54 films and short feature...
If you are my age or older and grew up in rural Roosevelt County, I’ll venture a bet that you spent at least a nickel or a dime — maybe even a quarter or a dollar — at some point in your youth in Dollie Gordon’s store across the road from the Floyd schools. To say that Dollie Gordon was a pillar of the Floyd community is an understatement. In the 70-page index of the community history book, “Floyd: One Hundred Years,” there are few names with more page number references than h...
This ditty has been making the rounds lately on wall plaques, t-shirts, and social media posts: “Best childhood memory: Falling asleep on the couch and waking up in bed. I miss teleporting. It never happens to me anymore.” At my house, we didn’t “teleport” often from the couch — we were nudged to wakefulness and sent on our way. But on occasion, we did succeed in hitching a sleepy ride — about 30 yards or so — from the back of the family car, across the yard, and inside to our...
I’ve been thinking about the phrase, “left to their own devices.” It’s been around in one form or another for a few hundred years, loosely defined as being able to handle a situation with no outside assistance. My various books on word and phrase origins say “devices” was originally “devises,” which meant “wishes” back in the old days. Then along came all those goodies we collectively label as “electronic devices:” cell phones, laptops, tablets, etc. It gives new meaning to...
Of all the adaptations to tradition we humans have made in these past few months, I'll hazard a guess that one we may hold on to is the drive-by parade. These impromptu horn-honking, poster-waving lineups of cars, trucks, fire engines, baby strollers - you name it - have been used to celebrate graduations, retirements, birthdays, and anniversaries. But for greatest emotional impact, I'd have to nominate one that took place on Cherry Street in Portales on the Saturday of...
Whatever else we humans can or cannot find consensus on right now, maybe we can agree on this: When the going gets tough, the tough … um … er … the tough turn to comfort food. If that comfort food reminds you of your childhood home, even better. For Rob Borden — a Portales native presently living on the 33rd floor of a 36-floor building in Miami, Florida — it was a long-distance Mother’s Day visit with his parents, Sheryl and Bobby Borden of Portales, that got him thinking ab...
I’m writing this on a warm morning, settled in near the air conditioner with outside temperatures already well past 90 degrees and climbing. This was always a hopeful time of year when I was a kid. School was out — or we were breathlessly counting the minutes. The garden was planted. Our old mossy swimming tank was freshly filled with ice-cold water. We were close enough to watermelon season to taste them. We grew up without air conditioning. Our mother had a strange ave...
School administrators are regularly required to make those “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” decisions. You know the kind I am talking about: Wondering if the buses will have time to run before the predicted snowstorm hits, or whether that freezing rain will make the highways too icy to be safe. Decisions about public education during a global pandemic, though. Sheesh. They make calling a snow day look like a walk in the park. And then comes graduation. Celeb...
I’m on the hunt for a grizzly bear. No, I don’t want a head to mount on my wall, or a rug to cover the floor in front of my fireplace. I want the real thing, alive and hungry, and here’s why. I’ve learned recently that grizzly bears love to eat moths — by the tens of thousands, they say — and have I ever got a banquet waiting. If you don’t live in the country, you may not even be aware that our annual springtime visitors — the miller moths — have arrived. They are having a...
Christopher Rustay is on the hunt for a few good playas in the Clovis area. Well, not really. In truth, Rustay is looking for a few damaged playas in the Clovis area, and he's bringing some serious funding to help private landowners of those shallow temporary wetlands make improvements aimed at extending the life of our region's most precious resource: underground water. Rustay is the conservation delivery leader for Playa Lakes Joint Venture (PLJV), a regional partnership of...
How does one host a service club fundraiser during a global pandemic? Carefully. Very, very carefully. That’s the plan when the Kiwanis Club of Portales hosts its annual flower sale Saturday morning in the parking lot of C & S Inc. at 300 W. First St. in Portales. Portales Kiwanian Anthony Schroeder said when the club picked the date for this annual ritual, it was well before any restrictions were in place. The traditional petunias and geraniums were ordered and paid for in a...
I’ve spent a lot of time lately looking for rainbows. It’s a lesson I learned from my daughter when she was a toddler. While I love a good thunderstorm as much as the next person, we do have a rare storm through here that does more harm than good. You know the ones I mean, the kind that flatten crops and pastures with bruising hailstones, rip shingles from roofs and limbs from trees, send trampolines and lawn furniture tumbling toward Texas, pummel livestock and wildlife, or e...
A disclaimer: This is not a column about viruses, nor is this an April Fools' joke. We have more than enough about the former, and I've never been a fan of the latter. Instead, I invite you to lace up a pair of virtual walking shoes and join me on a morning stroll. It's been an exceptionally beautiful spring. Remember the good rains we had right before frost in the fall? Those, plus the unusual March showers, have ushered in early green grass. Over there ... in the top of...
If you need a bracing dose of good cheer or a stiff shot of feel better, this is a fine time to check in with Crystal Pritchett. The new executive director of Portales MainStreet and founder of the Portales Creative Group may be the antidote we all need right now. "My ultimate goal is to inspire people to be creative," Pritchett said. "That is it." Pritchett has had less than a month to settle into her new office high above the Yam Theatre. The MainStreet headquarters are...
Even though I knew better, I thought Joe Blair was going to live forever. Last Thursday, he proved me wrong. It's going to take some getting used to. Like many of you who knew and loved this icon of Portales, I'm flooded with memories and hard put to know where to begin. Let's start here: Nobody ever revered our flag more and handled it with greater love and respect than Joe Blair. As part of the American Legion honor guard (a group he helped found), Blair was a regular for...
I was thinking about clocks last weekend as I stumbled through my house resetting all the timepieces in compliance with daylight saving time. Even though we are annually admonished to “spring forward,” I find nothing springy in this ritual. It does, however, make me aware of what a ridiculous number of clocks we have — 10, if you’re counting, and I was — and that only includes the ones that require human intervention. Smart electronics are another class all together,...
If you want to be technical, the cardboard box I excavated (I am not exaggerating) from my garage this week is not historically significant. But I can’t help feeling like an archaeologist as I wade through the dusty detritus of notebooks, envelopes, and crumpled registration forms from the 2015 reunion for the folks who attended the schools that eventually ended up in the Dora school district in south Roosevelt County. It was time to dig it out again because — like a fla...
Where can you find performing dogs, a wedding in front of strangers, a pair of operas, a Shakespeare comedy, a wind symphony, and a plate full of spaghetti and meatballs, all in one geographic region? If you answered, “In eastern New Mexico this weekend,” then you win. Actually, we all win, because a most eclectic collection of activities is lined for this leap day weekend. Kick things off Thursday night when Eastern New Mexico University’s Department of Theater and Digit...
Peggy Shackleford and Billy Prater met as 5-year-old first graders at Dora School back in 1937. Although they couldn't have imagined it then, come Saturday these two sweethearts will be celebrating their 70th wedding anniversary with a party hosted by their children at the Dora Senior Citizens Center. The 2-4 p.m. shindig is sure to attract plenty of former students (including me), because between them, they racked up an even half-century of classroom years at Dora. In case a...
