Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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Ann Carole Maurina, 67, of Grand Rapids, Mich., died Thursday, June 24, 2004, at the Holland Home Hospice Center in Grand Rapids, Mich. She was born on Jan. 16, 1937, in Traverse City, Mich., to Ronald Michael and Ruby Irene Monroe Hinshaw. She married Gary Wayne Maurina in 1965, in Grand Rapids. She was a graduate of Lakeview High School in Battle Creek, Mich. She attended journalism school at Michigan State University and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Aquinas College in Grand Rapids. She had been a h... Full story
Police believe two armed robberies Tuesday evening were the work of the same man and could be related to recent armed robberies in Farwell. Sgt. Roger Grah of the Clovis Police Department said a Hispanic man in his late 20s or early 30s with sunglasses and a blue and white bandana across his face robbed the Hampton Inn desk clerk about 9:10 p.m. Tuesday. A man with a similar description robbed the Allsup’s convenience store at 2600 W. Seventh Street at 10:38 p.m. The man got about $270 from the Hampton Inn and $80 from the c...
Clovis firefighters work to put out a fire Sunday at the China Star restaurant on Main Street. Fire officials said the building was a total loss. (Courtesy photo: John Bourne) Clovis firefighters have secured the premises of the China Star restaurant, which burned Sunday morning, and don’t plan to do further investigation until Wednesday pending arrival of investigators from the restaurant’s insurance company. Ray Westerman, assistant chief of the Clovis Fire Department, said it’s common practice for fire department and i...
Christian Heller, the driver of a Buick station wagon at right, sustained a punctured lung following a wreck Saturday night. (Staff photo: Eric Kluth) A Clovis City Cab driver remained in critical condition Monday following a Saturday night crash at a busy intersection. Christian Heller Jr., 24, was northbound on Prince Street and stopped for a red light at 21st Street when his 1994 Buick station wagon was struck from behind, police said. Tim Walton, 44, of Clovis, has been charged with great bodily injury by vehicle. Police...
Decisions by state regulators to take over and then shut down Buena Vista Nursing Home had nothing to do with the actions of a state-appointed volunteer who propositioned Buena Vista employees for sex, an attorney for the state said Saturday. District Judge Stephen Quinn didn’t make a final ruling Saturday but ordered attorneys for both sides to produce a summary of their findings of fact within 10 days so he can rule on whether the state was justified in taking control of Buena Vista. “This case has nothing to do with a sex...
A state-appointed volunteer, charged with reporting on the condition of Clovis’ Buena Vista nursing home, solicited sexual favors from nursing home employees, the nursing home’s owner has alleged. A state official said this week she did not know about the allegations, but said the volunteer’s reports played only a minor role in the state’s ultimate decision to take control of Buena Vista in May. The issue is expected to come up at 8 a.m. Saturday when a hearing on the receivership continues in Curry County’s district... Full story
On Sunday, Clovis resident and retired state police Capt. Alan Brockmeier exchanged his police uniform to become a man of the cloth with a different color — the black cassock and white collar of an ordained Episcopal priest. Raised in a small German denomination that merged with the United Methodists in 1968, Brockmeier said he became an Episcopalian about 10 years ago out of love for the rituals and high-church liturgy of the Anglican tradition. Brockmeier’s wife Suzanne had been raised as an Episcopalian and brought him... Full story
Future editors of the student newspaper at Clovis High School won’t face prior review of their articles by the school principal and students will be allowed to produce “an underground student press” if a proposed policy is approved. The new policy — which calls for prescribed time and place distribution rules — was proposed at Tuesday’s school board meeting, where school officials verbally supported the proposed changes. The four-page policy provides that student editors “are responsible for determining the news, opinion and...
FORT SUMNER — The superintendent of the Fort Sumner Municipal School District took responsibility Monday for failing to administer two state-required tests to students in grades four and eight. Superintendent Lecil Richards said on Saturday he believed the schools had administered one of the two tests, but told the school board Monday that his investigation determined that school officials administered the older Terra Nova test, not the one required by the state. “It was an oversight on my part,” Richards said. “It wasn’t...
When 2nd Lt. Ira Pottard left the Army’s veterinary corps after fighting in World War II, he couldn’t arrange the financing to begin a veterinary practice in Clovis and traded his officer’s uniform to become a chauffeur. More than 35 years later when Delores Forrest entered the United States Air Force as a nurse, she began a career that has taken her to the rank of colonel and commander of the medical group at Cannon Air Force Base. Both Pottard and Forrest are blacks who take pride in wearing the uniform of the United States...
Fort Sumner school officials who failed to administer mandatory tests to students could have their educational licenses suspended or revoked, a news release from New Mexico’s Public Education Department said. The state’s news release said Fort Sumner schools did not order New Mexico standards-based or criterion-referenced tests for their students in grades four and eight. Another school, Moreno Valley Charter School in Angel Fire, did order the tests but failed to administer them. Fort Sumner Superintendent Lecil Ric...
Two men on medical furlough from the Curry County Adult Detention Center have walked away from Clovis’ hospital in the past two weeks and face felony escape charges, jail administrator Don Burdine said on Saturday. One prisoner remained at large on Saturday night, officials said. Jail records show Edgar O. Perales, 41, and Paul L. Salazar, 28, were taken to Plains Regional Medical Center from the county jail on July 1. Burdine said Salazar walked away from the hospital on July 1 and was recaptured Friday morning. Perales w... Full story
Clovis officials have more than $63 million on their wish list for capital improvement projects over the next five years, according to a plan approved July 1 by the Clovis City Commission. The city’s Local Infrastructure and Capital Improvements Plan for 2004-2009 isn’t a budget but rather a list of desired projects with estimated costs and potential funding sources, according to Joe Thomas, assistant city manager. “Obviously we are not going to be able to get funding for every project on here,” Thomas said. “Anytim... Full story
When commissioners to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) voted on July 2 not to make a technical change that would have allowed local churches and regional presbyteries to ordain homosexuals, they did so by a narrow margin: 259 to 255. All three local Presbyterian pastors said they were happy with the results. “I believe in equal rights for people of any sexual orientation but I’m not sure leading a church congregation is entirely suitable in the traditional family-oriented church,” said the Rev. Frank...
Curry County commissioners voted Wednesday morning to issue a four-year contract to County Manager Geneva Cooper. All commissioners except Ed Perales voted for the renewal. A person answering the telephone at his business who identified himself as Perales’ son said Perales would not comment. County Attorney Steve Doerr said the existing contract was “technically in force for another year,” but he recommended changing it. A three-year contract issued in May 2001 was automatically renewed for a one-year term on July 1 of this... Full story
A county commission candidate wants to get the county’s road policy amended to make it easier for residents to see her campaign signs. Gloria Wicker asked the Curry County Commission on Wednesday to allow candidates to put signs in the right-of-way, which extends 30 feet from the center of county roads on each side. With the present rules on signs, Wicker said it is difficult to find locations where she can legally put up signs that will still be seen from the road. But a county official said changing the road policy could p...
MELROSE — The village of Melrose faces a possible $500,000 cost for emergency repairs on its sewage lagoon due to environmental hazards, but an engineering consultant told the village council Thursday night that the community may be able to obtain a grant to pay for the expense. “I don’t believe they would shut us down, that would be pretty drastic with the sewer,” Mayor Ray Hester said. “We’re like every other little town; the state inspectors tell us to fix something with no thought to what the cost is,” Hester said. “We ke...
Melrose City Council members will decide at 6 p.m. Thursday whether to fill a vacant position with a local business owner or a man who serves in Curry County administration. Mike Jacobs, 41, owner of a well and electrical business in Melrose, and Lance Pyle, 23, executive assistant to Curry County Manager Geneva Cooper, are vying for the seat. The winner will fill the seat of former council member Hoyt Clifton, who resigned this spring after the death of his wife and his relocation to Santa Fe, according to Melrose Mayor Ray... Full story
Kamron Canchola, 5, of Clovis, takes a swing at a junk car during a car bash Sunday at the Smoke on the Water celebration at Greene Acres Park. (Staff photo: Eric Kluth) Whether relaxing with friends, visiting out-of-state relatives, working in public safety jobs, or working to keep a business open to serve the public, Clovis residents contacted Monday afternoon said they enjoyed their Independence Day holiday weekend. ••• For Weldon Killough, gifted and talented counselor at Clovis High School, July 4 has more than one m... Full story
When Karen Tidwell remarried after a difficult first marriage, but she and her new husband Mike knew they needed help to make their marriage work. While stationed in England for her husband’s Air Force career, they joined a Christian program known as University of the Family and said the Bible-based teaching was responsible for keeping them from divorce. Now that both the Tidwells and their former group leaders, Russell and Marni Hawkins, are all in Clovis together, the Tidwells have joined a leadership training program t...
D-Day isn’t just a date in the history book for Clovis resident Chuck Haas. Sixty years ago, on June 6, 1944, the sailor was making the treacherous passage between troop ships anchored off Normandy and the stretch of shoreline code-named “Omaha Beach.” On that beachhead and others like it, tens of thousands of American soldiers were being ferried by Haas and men like him into a hail of German gunfire as they began an invasion of Nazi-controlled France that proved to be the beginning of the end for Adolf Hitler’s dominat... Full story
The Clovis Municipal School Board gave tentative approval Wednesday night to a $44.9 million budget for the upcoming school year, but several members objected to a spending plan that could cut the district’s cash reserves by as much as $500,000. Board member Mark Lansford asked Maxine Hinderliter, the district’s retired assistant superintendent for finance who prepared this year’s budget, what the district plans to do if its $1.8 million cash reserve is exhausted. “If we continue on, in 3 1/2 years we will be out of our cas...
Shirley Rollinson, a chaplain, talks about the Clinical Pastoral Education program at the nurses station at the medical unit Thursday at Plains Regional Medical Center. CNJ staff photo: Eric Kluth. Plains Regional Medical Center is offering an intensive training program to assist local pastors in doing hospital ministry. Chaplain Susan Thornton, pastoral community education coordinator at PRMC’s parent corporation, Presbyterian Healthcare Services in Albuquerque, said she’s been assigned to help strengthen pastoral care at... Full story
Both the incoming and outgoing district attorneys said they want to make the next seven months an effective transition period. Incumbent 9th Judicial District Attorney Brett Carter said he hasn’t yet called his successful challenger, Matt Chandler, but will consult with him as the time comes near for Carter to leave office in January. “We’ll just keep running the way we have in the past; we will run an efficient office and there’s no reason to change what we’ve been doing,” Carter said. “If something comes up that will aff...
Curry County Republicans decided Tuesday by a two-to-one margin that Rhonda Bookout will be their candidate to face chief deputy treasurer Rachel Toney in November’s race for county treasurer. According to election tallies, Bookout received 1,953 votes compared to 970 votes for her Republican primary opponent, Beni A. (“Benette”) Dampier. Toney was unopposed in the Democratic primary, where she received 977 votes. “If I had to have an opponent in the Republican primary, I’m glad it was Beni because it never got ugly,” Bo...
