Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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On this date … 1930: Portales’ Palo Duro Café was open day and night and promoting its Sunday dinners. Ike Hahn’s café served chicken, steak and roast pork on Sundays. Each meal included soup, coffee, tea or milk and a dessert “in a cool, clean dining room with efficient waiters,” according to a newspaper advertisement. The Sunday dinners cost 60 cents. 1930: A political ad published in the Portales Valley News asked, “Does a sick man call in a plumber?” The answer: “Not un...
On this date … 1930: The Mountain States Telephone Co. had released its newest telephone directory for Clovis. The directory featured 1,055 phone numbers, including 19 Smiths, 18 Joneses, 10 Davises and eight Browns. Twenty eight businesses started their firm’s name with Clovis. 1957: Sporting crisp crew cuts, two coaches and two players from the Eastern New Mexico University Greyhound football team were photographed as they watched a film preparing them for an upcoming gam...
If you looked up on Saturday morning, you may have thought the moon was taking a bite out of the sun. At least that's how NBC News described the annular solar eclipse visible in five-plus states. New Mexico had one of the better views, a little after 10:30 a.m. Greatamericaneclipse.com tells us the moon's shadow was traveling at 3,005 mph when it hit the sun over the Land of Enchantment. The whole thing lasted less than five minutes. Clovis-Carver Public Library held a watch...
On this date ... 1930: The biggest single rise in the Pecos in 16 years occurred at Fort Sumner when the river hiked 10 feet and carried out three spans of a De Baca County bridge. Up to 5 inches of rain fell across eastern New Mexico and central-eastern New Mexico, causing the floods. Two farm houses were reported washed away and three “orchestra boys” found their vehicle submerged in nearly 6 feet of water near Melrose as they drove to perform in Fort Sumner. No deaths wer...
On this date ... 1941: Funeral services had been held for Ann Jennings, one of Billy the Kid’s staunchest defenders. Jennings, 73, had lived in Roswell and Tascosa, Texas, and knew Billy Bonney well, along with Sheriff Pat Garrett, who shot the Kid at old Fort Sumner. Jennings had maintained the Kid was only seen as a “bad boy” because of lawmen like Garrett. Her funeral services were held in Tucumcari. She was buried in Panhandle, Texas. 1952: Clovis police were alert...
News, notes and trivia by the numbers: 4: Number of arrests recorded by New Mexico State Police at last month’s State Fair in Albuquerque. All four arrests were for misdemeanor crimes. Also of note: “(N)o vehicles were stolen from the 230 acres of Expo property” during the fair, according to a police news release. Maybe we can visit Albuquerque and do fun stuff sometimes. 9: Days until Eastern New Mexico University hosts First Amendment Day in the Sandia Room at the Campu...
Area high school football fans haven’t had a lot to cheer about the past two years … at least not by our standards. In the past two seasons, not one team from Curry or Roosevelt counties won a state title. That just might change this year. Heading into the season’s eighth week, at least four squads are playing well enough to keep their fans hopeful. Portales is generating the most optimism. The Rams are 7-0 heading into their bye week. And they’ve not been challenged yet. Here...
This has been a pretty good month for interaction with readers … A sampling: Ron Mask read a report in the Quay County Sun that New Mexico State’s interim president has decided this “is not a good time” for a merger with Mesalands Community College in Tucumcari. This pleases Mask, who prefers Mesalands link up with Eastern New Mexico University in Portales. “NMSU's decision is heaven sent,” he wrote in an email. “ENMU is a much more logical partner for Mesalands Community Col...
On this date ... 1934: A Santa Fe railroad conductor was seeing “decided improvement” after suffering burns on his hands a week earlier. S.K. Cotton was tarring his roof, at 818 Gidding, when he saw 5-year-old Bobby Miller, whose clothes had caught fire. The boy had been playing in the yard near the fire where the tar was being heated. Cotton attempted to save the boy, severely burning his hands in the process. Bobby Miller died. Doctors said it would be months before Cot...
It seems some of New Mexico’s public entities want changes to the state’s Inspection of Public Records Act. Mostly they want to charge taxpayers for the time public employees spend researching and compiling public information when it’s requested. Melanie Majors, director of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government, suggests you think of their plan like this: “When the fire department comes and puts out a fire at your house, they don’t say, ‘Mrs. Jones, here’s your bill....
On this date ... 1910: Miller & Luikart, a Portales dry goods store, was selling black derby hats for $3. 1941: The Cash Ramey family hosted a football-themed dinner party at 414 Gidding St. in Clovis. Centering the dining table was the football used in 1933 when Clovis High won an unofficial state championship. Cash Ramey Jr. had been the captain of that team. Guests found their places marked by picture place cards bearing photos of 1933 team members in their uniforms....
Late last year, the question began circulating among respected members of our community: Is it true Clovis Municipal Schools is placing litter boxes in restrooms to accommodate students who identify as cats? The answer is no, CMS was not, and is not, placing litter boxes in restrooms. I know this because I asked students and teachers and volunteers in multiple schools. None of them had ever seen a litter box in a school restroom for any reason. None of them knows anyone who...
On this date ... 1952: A U.S. Air Force photo printed in the Clovis News-Journal showed some of the 40 Explorer Scouts from Portales and Clovis who had been outfitted with parachutes before boarding an Air Force C-47 plane at Cannon Air Force Base for a flight over eastern New Mexico a few days earlier. Oscar P. Cantwell, Plains District field executive for the Boy Scouts of America, supervised the outing. Troop leaders were Jack Eichenberger, Bud Cagle, and Art Hutchins of...
Have you ever Googled yourself? Mostly you don’t find yourself. David Stevens has over 35 years of experience in the mortgage banking industry. David Stevens is an American politician and a former Republican member of the Arizona House of Representatives. Highly skilled 168-pounder David Stevens scored a wild last-second KO of Sean Hemphill in January. None of those David Stevens are me. There’s a David Stevens on a wrestling roster, a David Stevens on a football roster, a l...
Security cameras show arson suspect Jimmy Guillen entering a closed Walmart “though a roll up door used for shopping carts on the northeast side of the store,” court records show. The cameras also show him “grabbing multiple bottles of propane canisters off store shelves and starting a fire by “placing a torch with an open flame on the shelves where other propane canisters are located.” “The fire begins to intensify and becomes larger and larger” until the video cameras stopp... Full story
On this date ... 1927: Portales Canning Co. was preparing for its first full-day run of the season. A day later, the company’s 70 employees produced 12,000 cans of tomatoes. 1930: A Muleshoe boy was being credited with the biggest snake haul of the season. Eugene Moore, 11, killed 13 rattlesnakes in a den. Most were about 8 inches long, the boy said, but two were "extra large." 1942: A rubber shortage and other wartime concerns was forcing area sports teams to cut back on c...
New Mexico’s governor last week issued an “emergency health order” that bans firearms in all public places in Albuquerque. The only people exempt from the ban are police and security officers. And criminals, of course. Criminals don’t follow laws, so this nonsense does not apply to them either. Michelle Lujan Grisham herself said she expects opposition from those who care about liberty and the U.S. Constitution. She was right. New Mexico’s House and Senate Republicans immediat...
Twice last weekend, police had eyes on Jimmy Guillen, a person of interest now tied to last Sunday's Walmart fire. Twice, they let him go. In both cases, officers did the right thing, Police Chief Roy Rice said. "We didn't have anything to hold him on. If we knew then what we know right now ... they would have placed him under arrest," Rice said. Going into this weekend. police were actively searching for the 59-year-old California man believed to be transient. "I think he's... Full story
On this date ... 1929: Dozens of Clovis business owners and community leaders took out a full page newspaper advertisement to show their continued support for the Transcontinental Air Transport after a plane crash at Mount Taylor, New Mexico, killed all eight people aboard. “Storms, washouts, typhoons and the like can’t be legislated from the path of transportation companies,” the Chamber of Commerce of Clovis stated in its support of the coast-to-coast plane-train servi...
I don't always publish press releases, but when I do they're usually interesting. The best press release in recent weeks comes from Wheatfields Estates Senior Living. It tells the story of retired football coach Sesario Ramos, who was honored at the Clovis High game on Sept. 1. "Ramos was announced to the crowd before the varsity football game as he joined the team on the field to wish them good luck prior to kickoff by shaking each one of the players' hands," Wheatfields repo...
The first reports that Walmart was on fire were received by Clovis Fire Department at 3:37 a.m. Sunday. Six minutes later the first firefighting unit was on scene. Soon after that, "everything we had, literally," was on its way to the region's largest retail outlet, Deputy Fire Chief Fay Craigmile said. And it was already too late to prevent what she and others have called "significant damage." "We didn't initially see anything suspicious ... but just the heavy fireload that...
On this date ... 1932: George Lancaster, 19, accused of killing his wife, Blanche Lancaster, 34, entered a plea of not guilty in district court before Judge Harry Patton. Attorneys Carl Hatch and A.W. Hockenhull asked jurors to consider the former high school football star’s mental condition and relationship with the woman “many years his senior.” George Lancaster’s attorneys presented a temporary insanity defense. They said he was a “boy who has not sinned, but who has been... Full story
In May 2005, a federal committee charged with reducing the nation’s military installations recommended that Cannon Air Force Base be closed. Local, state and federal lawmakers joined the community to rally behind the base in hopes of saving it. Area residents wrote hundreds of letters and thousands lined the streets of the city when the federal Base Closure and Realignment Committee came to town for a public hearing. If the local efforts had a vocal leader, his name was B...
On this date ... 1911: New books at the Womans Club Library in Portales included “The Goose Girl” by Harold McGrath, “Freckles” by G.L. Porter and “New Chronicles of Rebecca” by Kate Douglas Wiggins. 1915: Curry County Fair Association officers met to form committees and ordered “a number of big posters which will reach every section of the county in the extensive advertising campaign,” The Clovis Journal reported. One goal was to produce an agricultural exhibit worthy...
Tell the truth, Reader. Have you ever wanted to beat me? Think back to those op-ed pieces I've written through the years, like the one that ended "Kill them. Kill them all," referencing prairie dogs. Or maybe that story I wrote about the tunnels under the city of Clovis that turned out to be an April Fools' joke. You did want to beat me, didn't you? Now turn your attention to longtime Mayor David Lansford, who's now a partner in the Zia Radio Group. Did you ever want to beat...
