Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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CLOVIS - Fire crews battled a structure fire Sunday afternoon at 13th and Mitchell streets, with minor heat exhaustion to two firefighters but no other injuries reported. The fire remains under investigation, said Clovis Fire Chief Mike Nolen, and the investigation as to its cause has been turned over to the state fire marshal. That's "because of the size of the building, the type of previous occupancy - it is a high-value building - and if we can't get right in there and...
CLOVIS - Marcos Urban Jr. "lived for community service" and was en route Friday morning to a funeral in Portales at the time of his fatal collision south of Cannon Air Force Base. Urban Jr., 64, was transported to Plains Regional Medical Center with critical injuries and died at the hospital soon after a head-on collision Friday morning on State Road 467. Urban Jr. was driving southbound on SR467 in a 1996 Cadillac and was struck when Octavio Vasquez, 28, of Clovis, attempted...
CLOVIS — Three months later the crash is still under investigation, but reports shared last week with The News say a Clovis Police officer "failed to yield" in the April 14 motor vehicle collision with a civilian driver. Documents shared Friday through a public records request did not identify the police officer nor the driver or passenger of the other vehicle involved in the incident. Police Capt. Roman Romero told The News that all three individuals were seen at a hospital for "non-life threatening injuries" and r...
CLOVIS - He's not quite back to riding, as he'd hoped, but "Bullet Bob" is still counting his blessings on the first anniversary of his catastrophic motorcycle wreck in northern New Mexico. "This is the longest I've been off a motorcycle since I was 10 years old," Robert Vilandry told The News on Friday, reflecting on the past year of recovery and more than a half-century riding bikes. "I've had bad wrecks before but I've never been off more than three or four months." Today...
LAS CRUCES — A Clovis man convicted in 2014 of manslaughter was among prison inmates charged with attempted murder last week in Las Cruces. Rico Sena, 32, and four others allegedly attacked a sergeant and officer at the Southern New Mexico Correctional Facility on June 16 after a nurse finished passing out medication in their pod. Inmates “congregated around the pod door” when prison staff attempted to place them into lockdown and were ultimately subdued with “less lethal shotgun and pepper ball grenades,” according...
CLOVIS - Some three dozen gathered Wednesday morning to witness the swearing-in of Clovis' newest city commissioner. David Robinson was appointed last month to replace District 1 Commissioner Ladona Clayton, who resigned this month to start a new job in Dallas. His term expires in March, at which time the seat is open for election again. Robinson is the chief executive officer of telecommunications company Plateau and said he has no intention to seek another term after...
CLOVIS - Many people knew him as "Uncle Freddy," a smart, outgoing man with "a big heart," his niece told The News last week. Alfred Tacorante, 50, was pulled dead from the site of a structure fire July 14. The fire resulted in Tacorante's mother, 71-year old Mary Delgado, being hospitalized on breathing support. Clovis Police Chief Doug Ford told The News that a determination as to the cause of Tacorante's death was still pending autopsy, and that fire investigators...
PORTALES - His grow is only in its baby stages now, but one Roosevelt County farmer hopes hemp can blossom into a thriving industry for eastern New Mexico in the coming years. You may say he's a dreamer, but he's not the only one, not by far. Heath Grider, a farmer and carpenter in Portales, has one of 11 current licenses this year to grow hemp in Roosevelt County. In Curry County there are three, and statewide there are a total of 356 as of Friday, according to the New...
LAS CRUCES — A Clovis man convicted in 2014 of manslaughter was among prison inmates charged with attempted murder last week in Las Cruces. Rico Sena, 32, and four others allegedly attacked a sergeant and officer at the Southern New Mexico Correctional Facility on June 16 after a nurse finished passing out medication in their pod. Inmates “congregated around the pod door” when prison staff attempted to place them into lockdown and were ultimately subdued with “less lethal shotgun and pepper ball grenades,” according...
CLOVIS - It still feels unreal to Esmeralda Arias, whose uncle died and grandmother was hospitalized after a structure fire early Sunday morning in Clovis. Arias came in Monday from Portales to visit her grandmother, Mary Delgado, who was still in Plains Regional Medical Center on breathing support. Arias said Delgado, 71, used a wheelchair and oxygen tanks and lived with her son Alfred Tacorante, who was dead after being pulled from the fire. Officials did not identify the in...
Hey Moon, thanks for the memories. It’s been almost 50 years since mankind first took that “giant leap” onto the surface of Earth’s moon, finally getting physical with a relationship that for much of human history only consisted of romantic poetry and yearning gazes through a telescope. And as Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Neil Armstrong became the first humans to land on the moon, the rest of the world watched in voyeuristic awe on their black and white television sets. Most people did, anyway. Clovis’ Dawn Lampley was 12 years...
CLOVIS — Two apartment buildings were briefly evacuated Monday due to a damaged gas line on Clovis’ west side. Contractors doing excavation work on the 1500 block of Cameo Street “struck a 4-inch steel natural gas line” around 10:40 a.m. Responders evacuated residents from two nearby apartment buildings for close to two hours, according to New Mexico Gas spokesman Tim Korte. The leak was stopped around noon and repairs completed by 4:30 p.m., he said. There were no injuries and no interruption to customer service, since t...
CLOVIS — Trial this week for a man accused of strangling his son on New Year’s Day 2017 was continued to next month. The delay is attributed to the sudden unavailability of a lead investigator. David Plyler, 61, of Lubbock, was initially indicted on a charge of involuntary manslaughter. That case was dismissed due to issue with the medical investigator office in Lubbock and Plyler was re-indicted on the third-degree felony charge of aggravated battery (great bodily harm), according to Chief Deputy District Attorney Brian Stov...
CLOVIS — Commissioners on Tuesday tabled a request to consider raising facility fees at the Curry County Events Center and Fairgrounds, with the hopes of keeping the venue affordable for local entities. A proposal from Spectra management comparing CCEC’s rates with other facilities suggests raising the first day rate for the indoor arena from $1,000 to $1,500, with the second and third days costing $1,200 and $800, respectively. Rates have not changed since CCEC opened in 2009, and County Manager Lance Pyle said the pri...
CLOVIS - A special guest making its nationwide tour this summer came Sunday afternoon through eastern New Mexico to the accompaniment of a law enforcement escort and about 75 motorcyclists. That was none other than Old Glory, an American flag making a relay-style motorcycle journey across all 48 contiguous states. The "Patriot Tour" started May 18 in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, and came up last weekend from Roswell and through Portales for a changing of the guard ceremony in Clovis...
FORT SUMNER - You visit the moonlit gravesite of an infamous outlaw at midnight on the anniversary of his violent death, you do well to expect about anything. So if you visited the Fort Sumner burial ground purporting to hold the remains of "Billy the Kid," shot dead just before midnight on July 14, 1881, in a house on a property adjoining that site, you could be forgiven a few goosebumps. Maybe there won't be something as dramatic as a spectral vision or a rattling on the...
MELROSE — Last month the Melrose community said goodbye to one of its longtime residents, a “Great Generation” exemplar, a “good neighbor and happy person” and the oldest member of its Baptist church — both in age and in years of membership. Virginia Delores Blackburn, 95, was born in Melrose in 1924 and buried last month at the family plot in Melrose Cemetery. She lived many years at the home she made on a cattle ranch in Hassell, outside House, New Mexico, where she met her husband Eldon Blackburn while teaching sc...
CLOVIS — Curry County's former senior meals director, charged in February with embezzling thousands from the program, was scheduled this week for a trial in September. The matter was set to go to trial later this month, but a continuance was granted due to a change in counsel for Cherisse Perez, 35. Perez was indicted in March on one second-degree felony count of embezzlement (over $20,000) in connection with transactions from 2018. An investigation started in December, and by January she had departed her position as director...
PORTALES — Roosevelt County will begin exploring options to sell its longtime healthcare building in an effort to “pare down and focus” its efforts as a governmental entity. Since 1995 the La Casa Family Health Center has operated at the 1515 W. Fir St. location through a lease agreement by which it provided “various services” to county residents, County Manager Amber Hamilton told The News. “I anticipate that they will remain in the building; the hope is that we would be able to dispose of the building and allow them to pro...
PORTALES - The brother and sister charged in a Portales homicide appeared in separate hearings Monday afternoon in Roosevelt County court for pre-trial conferences. Korbin Baldridge, 19, charged with first-degree murder and armed robbery in connection with the April 7 shooting death of Adam Holts, appeared in custody with his defense attorney Gary Mitchell. He is tentatively scheduled for a weeklong jury trial next year, but Mitchell said the court would likely need two weeks...
CLOVIS — A state district court judge on Monday heard a motion to dismiss a wrongful death lawsuit against Roosevelt County officials. Judge Fred Van Soelen said he would take a few days making a decision in the case that stems from the 2016 death of a Portales woman killed following a high-speed chase with Roosevelt County Sheriff Malin Parker. The case has already been dismissed in federal court. Attorney Daniel Macke represents defendants Roosevelt County, its board of commissioners and its Sheriff Malin Parker. In his F...
CLOVIS - The 4th of July is "always the busiest day of the year for the fire department," said Clovis Fire Dept. Chief Mike Nolen, and this year was no exception. Nolen told The News on Friday that didn't yet have a count as to how many fires his units addressed on Independence Day, but that "as far as the number of calls, every year is right on track." CFD keeps a minimum staffing of 20, Nolen said, "but each of the fireworks shifts we allocate to hire extra staff," and even...
PORTALES — No, that’s not a convention in town next weekend at Portales’ Memorial Building, and it’s not open to the public. It’s just a big family reunion. For the first time since 1979, when the Elliott family tradition first started, descendants of Seymour Elliott will meet up in Portales. Elliott, originally from Tennessee, homesteaded on a ranch west of Floyd in 1906. “The other side of the Melrose bombing range, right there beside of it,” his granddaughter Burma Stark told The News. “We had milk cows and range cows,...
The fireworks are at night, but the cities of Clovis and Portales welcome you to come out early to celebrate Independence Day in eastern New Mexico. Preparation for Clovis' annual "Smoke on the Water" event started Tuesday with portions of Main Street closed off for the fireworks shooter to set up. The show itself is scheduled for 9 p.m. Thursday, bringing a "dazzling grand finale" to cap a day of food and live music at Greene Acres Park. "The annual fireworks show brings in...
CLOVIS — While many this week will celebrate the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, for some in Clovis the day marks a more somber and recent event: two years since 12-year-old Gevion Lewis drowned in the pond at the city’s Hillcrest Park. First responders pulled Lewis from the murky waters within minutes, but he never regained consciousness. He turned 13 eight days after the accident and was removed from a respirator at a Texas hospital on July 15, 2017. “It was a horrible, horrible event...
