Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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Local church presents annual youth crusade The First Church of God in Christ in Clovis is inviting the public to its annual youth crusade this weekend. Using the theme “A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste,” the crusade will focus on Philippians 2:5 and run from today until Sunday. It will be conducted by Evangelists Andre Singletary and Yvette Bell along with the Joylight COGIC Drill Team from Albuquerque. Friday and Saturday services will be at 7 p.m. in the church, located at 3400 Vinton Street. The Sunday service will be...
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...
While many Clovis families enjoyed Memorial Day by cooking food in back yards on a family grill, members and friends of VFW Post 3015 came to a Monday afternoon cookout at the veterans’ post. “This is our family,” said Post Commander Dale Huft. “We get together as veterans — it’s tradition.” As he ate a meal of large hot dogs and hamburgers, longtime VFW member Alfonzo Chavez said the post has been sponsoring a Memorial Day lunch since the post began in 1934. “It’s been the best times in my life and I’ve come here since I w...
As nearly 300 people gathered outside the Clovis-Carver Public Library for a Memorial Day ceremony dedicating Curry County’s new veterans memorial, several family members of deceased veterans being honored enjoyed a reunion after spending years apart. Tommy Hohstadt said he was surprised to see Nancy Young Wright when she attended House Baptist Church. Both have relatives who died in war and had their names engraved on the veterans memorial, and both were among the family members who unveiled monuments for Curry County war d...
When Clovis veterans and their relatives come to today’s Memorial Day services scheduled for 11 a.m. at the Clovis-Carver Public Library, they won’t be hearing speeches by politicians or community leaders. Instead, they’ll hear family members of eight of the 171 war dead whose names are engraved on a new veterans’ monument tell the stories of the lives of their relatives who died in World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. Jim Cowman of the Clovis Joint Veterans Council coordinated the veterans’ memorial project a...
Army Air Corps Staff Sgt. Jack Love and Seaman 1st Class Dan Love died on the opposite sides of the world during World War II, but their deaths enabled their widowed mother to petition for the discharge of a third brother, Clyde Love, who returned home to Clovis after the family lost their farm near Grier. Their niece, Nancy Young Wright, drove from Tucson, Ariz., with her mother, Iris Young, to participate in today’s Memorial Day ceremony in Clovis. Wright said she’s become a student of World War II history and has loc...
In 1907, Charles Ledbetter came to Curry County when it was still a pioneer community only recently connected to the rest of the world via the new Santa Fe railroad line. A few years later he became one of the first three graduates of Clovis High School. “Charles Ledbetter was my mother’s brother,” said Clovis resident Dudley Bailey. “I never met him, but he was the only one in that family who really got an education.” That high school diploma helped Ledbetter obtain employment as postmaster for Grier and later a schooltea...
When Helen Garcia Trujillo observes Memorial Day, she can’t decorate her older brother’s grave. The grave of Joe C. Garcia, along with thousands of others, is located in France, not far from the location where he died on D-Day while the 101st Airborne Division was parachuting out of the skies as part of the invasion of Nazi-held Europe. Trujillo does have a photograph of the grave, however, marked with a simple cross in the American cemetery in Normandy. “A cousin of mine went to France and looked up his grave and took pictu... Full story
Matt Chandler has raised nearly $4,200 more than incumbent Brett Carter in the campaign for district attorney, according to campaign finance records filed Thursday evening. State law requires candidates to file campaign finance reports on May 10 and May 27. Through Tuesday, Chandler had raised $29,007.84 and spent $25,696.03; Carter had raised $24,833.85 and spent $24,549.59. Chandler’s fund-raising lead started out as nearly two-to-one, showing that he raised $22,870 to Carter’s $14,355 by May 10. Carter narrowed the differe...
Matt Chandler has raised nearly $4,200 more than incumbent Brett Carter in the campaign for district attorney, according to campaign finance records filed Thursday evening State law requires candidates to file campaign finance reports on May 10 and May 27. Through Tuesday, Chandler had raised $29,007.84 and spent $25,696.03; Carter had raised $24,833.85 and spent $24,549.59. Chandler’s fund-raising lead started out as nearly two-to-one, showing that he raised $22,870 to Carter’s $14,355 by May 10. Carter narrowed the dif...
Four pillars honoring Curry County residents known to have died in war will be unveiled at 11 a.m. Monday at Clovis-Carver Public Library. (CNJ staff photo Eric Kluth) In most years, Clovis veterans gather at a local cemetery for Memorial Day services honoring deceased veterans. This year will be different, as the Clovis Joint Veterans Council dedicates a new addition to an existing veterans memorial at the Clovis-Carver Public Library. The memorial lists Curry County residents known to have died in wars since 1916. The...
District Judge Joe Parker on Friday afternoon withdrew from a hearing on whether the state should continue to control Buena Vista Nursing Home. Ten minutes before the hearing was scheduled to begin, attorneys for American Heritage Bank petitioned to intervene in the case between the New Mexico Department of Health and nursing home co-owners Dr. Ali Ghaffari and his wife Linda. Since Parker is a stockholder in American Heritage Bank and the parties couldn’t agree on whether he would be able to impartially decide the case, P...
A Clovis restaurant manager called police about 9 a.m. Monday to report that an employee’s cash drawer had come up $235.79 short and the night manager had no explanation. The restaurant manager informed police that cash shortages have been occurring more and more frequently at the restaurant. She told police she had directed the night manager that if shortages continued to come up at the end of the night, she was to call police. Officers told the restaurant manager that no calls had been made to the police from the p...
Both Curry County magistrate judges and a retired district judge have campaign signs in their yards supporting 9th Judicial District Attorney candidate Matt Chandler, despite prohibitions on political activity by New Mexico judges. All three judges — magistrate judges Richard Hollis and Douglas Miller, and retired District Judge Bill Bonem, who still hears some cases — say the signs were put up by their wives. The signs in the yards of Hollis and Miller on Saturday had nearby disclaimers reading the campaign material was ere...
Emergency personnel from throughout Curry County met Wednesday to plan for a disaster they hope will never happen. In their scenario, a tornado appeared over the skies of southwest Clovis, touching down and destroying half of Plains Regional Medical Center and half of Sandia Elementary. Curry County Emergency Management Director Ken De Los Santos asked 35 representatives of local agencies including 24 first responders how they would respond to each stage of the developing crisis. The answers, participants learned, weren’t a...
John Schmuck is accused of battery in connection with a Clovis bar fight in November of 2002. He didn’t show up for court in April 2003, he didn’t show up for another court date last week and a warrant has been issued for his arrest. But his supporters say he has a good excuse for missing court — the Marine sergeant is stationed in Iraq in the United States’ war against terror. “I think it is ridiculous — stupid, that’s a better word,” said Schmuck’s father, former Army officer Allen Schmuck of Portales. “I think it’s demoral... Full story
Retired Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Sam Parish discusses how to improve the work of NCO’s in a conversation Wednesday with Command Chief Master Sgt. James Randall. CNJ staff photo: Darrell Todd Maurina. CANNON AIR FORCE BASE — When Sam Parish enlisted in the Air Force 50 years ago, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with his life and never dreamed he’d someday become the top enlisted man in the Air Force. Then, as the Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force from 1983 to 1986, Parish regularly met with the senior... Full story
Personnel at Cannon Air Force Base have won many awards over the years, but until this year the trophy cases at Cannon never included the Daedalian Award for aircraft maintenance. Maintenance isn’t just a routine function for fighter aircraft — even small problems can lead to massive equipment failures at the high speeds and severe stresses experienced during military maneuvers. Due to its importance, the maintenance group is Cannon’s largest unit. Now the 27th Fighter Wing Maintenance Group has earned not just one but two D...
An early morning fire drove a mother and four children out of their trailer home about 3 a.m. Saturday morning. Fire officials said the cause of the fire was suspicious but declined to specify the reasons for their investigation. “(It was) just the way everything was this morning when we went in and what the homeowner was telling us when we got up,” said fire investigator Jeff Allan. “We’re not sure exactly sure how everything went as far as what transpired and that’s why it’s under investigation.” Battalion Chief Kevin C...
Cops and courts An airman at Cannon Air Force Base will spend 18 years in a military prison after a conviction on sex charges, according to the Cannon Public Affairs Office. Airman 1st Class Joshua D. Loyd, a member of the 27th Security Forces Squadron — equivalent to a civilian police force — was found guilty in a general court-martial before a military judge. The trial ran from Tuesday to Thursday and Loyd was found guilty of two counts of rape, one count of indecent assault, and one count of carnal knowledge. In add...
While patrolling near the corner of 21st and Thornton streets about noon on May 8, police noticed a black 2004 Dodge Ram 2500 pickup that appeared to be the same one reported missing earlier in the day. Police stopped the truck and asked the driver, who was an employee of the dealership that had reported the truck missing, if he was authorized to drive the vehicle. The man said he was not authorized to drive and said he would return it to the dealership. Police said he could not do that and arrested him for possession of...
PORTALES — State officials learned Friday that their team of hired consultants will tour New Mexico’s military bases this week to determine which ones may be in danger of closure. At Friday afternoon’s meeting of the New Mexico Military Base Planning Commission in Portales, representatives of the Whitney, Bradley & Brown defense consulting firm explained how they will evaluate each of New Mexico’s four military bases. The team will come to Cannon this Friday. Retired Lt. Gen. Carl Franklin said his consulting firm has a s...
Darrell Todd Maurina: CNJ staff writer FORT SUMNER — Seeking to stave off a court fight between the sheriff and county commission, representatives of a state law enforcement association outlined a mediation plan at Tuesday’s De Baca County Commission meeting. “We are not an advocate for the sheriff or for the commission,” said Jim Burleson, executive director of the New Mexico Sheriffs’ and Police Association. “We don’t want to get into local politics, who we vote for, who we don’t vote for, will there be a recall,” Burles...
Portales police on Friday discovered a body buried in the back yard of a north Portales home. The body was discovered about 3 p.m. while police executed a search warrant. Two people found at the 717 N. Ave. J residence were arrested on unrelated misdemeanor warrants and were in jail on Saturday night, Roosevelt County Detention Center officials said. No one has been charged in connection with the death. Capt. Lonnie Berry of the Portales Police Department would not say if the death was a homicide, which would be the city’s f...
A 25-year-old airman stationed at Cannon Air Force Base but deployed to Iraq called the Clovis Police Department about 11 p.m. on April 24 to report that his 18-year-old wife had been writing checks on his account. The husband advised that he has revoked the legal documents allowing her to manage his money while he is deployed but she continues to write checks. The husband supplied numerous copies of checks via e-mail and a copy of the legal documents. Police advised him that they weren’t sure how the district attorney w...
