Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Sorted by date Results 251 - 275 of 851
On this date ... 1951: John Smallwood of Haileyville, Okla., had been selected “the most eligible bachelor” on the campus of Eastern New Mexico University. The Kappa Delta Alpha sorority selected Smallwood for the honor at its White Rose dance. 1955: Gov. John Simms announced he would not sign a bill that would have built a youth reformatory in Quay County. Simms cited cost as his primary concern. The proposed institution’s price tag was $650,000. 1956: Jimmy Allman of Clovis...
On this date ... 1950: B&J Drug Co., at 104 NW Colorado in Portales, was preparing for its half-century sale. Advertised deals included electric hair dryers for $4.49, Pangburn’s chocolates for $1 and phonograph records for 39 cents. 1955: E. Sweet, who operated the state-recognized Billy the Kid Museum on Highway 60, estimated 10 parties per day were stopping to remember the West’s most infamous outlaw. Sweet was disappointed the Kid’s gravesite south of town was cover...
On this date ... 1956: Mary Ann and Linda Ferguson of Portales, ages 8 and 6, received a package in the mail. It contained a live alligator. The children’s father ordered the alligator, which came with instructions about what it likes to eat — minnows, cray fish, shrimp, insects and earth worms. The girls didn’t have any of those things, but were relieved to learn the foot-long baby gator only ate once a week so there was time to shop. 1956: Hugh Jones Firestone, which offered...
On this date ... 1950: Temperatures dropped to 9 degrees after a high of 50. Buds had started to come out on local fruit trees, but the freeze likely killed the fruit crop, The Portales Daily News reported. 1955: The 22nd session of the New Mexico Legislature ended with a record 735 bills introduced. The previous record was 714, set in 1951. Officials said it would be weeks before the governor would decide which bills would become law. One bill approved by the Legislature...
On this date ... 1953: Grover Seitz, manager of the Clovis Pioneers baseball team, announced that outfielder Jim Matthews had been sold for an "undisclosed fat sum" to the Amarillo Gold Sox, the team that won the West Texas-New Mexico league pennant the year before. Matthews, who gathered 39 home runs for the Pioneers in the previous season, was unable to settle a salary dispute with management. Seitz said he hoped to use proceeds of the sale to purchase a suitable...
On this date ... 1946: The Harlem Globetrotters “treated a sardine-packed Clovis Junior High gymnasium to a Broadway version of hoosier basketball,” the Clovis News-Journal reported. The gym’s windows “rattled from the wind of the guffaws of the multitude,” reporter Charles Stanfield claimed. The Globetrotters defeated the House of David, 55-39. The ’Trotters trailed 12-0 early, but made their comeback after a timeout. They huddled up — with one of their bearded opponents lis...
On this date ... 1946: A committee of Curry County men finalized plans for fairgrounds facilities that would include a grandstand, cow barn and display hall. Cost for the projects was estimated at $75,000. Committee members represented five organizations — Chamber of Commerce, county agent, Mounted Patrol, Bi-State Fair Association and Soil Conservation Service. Dean Pattison made the resolution calling for a $25,000 bond election. The plan was for the remainder of the money t...
On this date ... 1956: Police Officer Bill Davis, who had his foot amputated following an on-the-job auto accident, received a “beautiful 17-inch table model TV set” as a gift from friends and business owners. Davis said the TV had been delivered to his home in Portales and he wanted to thank those involved. 1961: Parmer County’s sheriff was searching for those responsible for swiping more than $300 worth of groceries and cigarettes from the State Line Food Mill. Deputy Tom At...
On this date ... 1962: Summer baseball organizers were asking Clovis city officials for improvements at Bell Park. The field once home to the professional Clovis Pioneers baseball teams needed new lighting, water system repairs and dirt on the infield, city commissioners were told. Costs for all improvements were estimated at $1,000 to $1,200. Commissioners asked for an itemized list of costs associated with each repair and said they would consider approval. 1962: A...
On this date ... 1946: Don Holderman of Portales was a prisoner of war but he did not die because of the hard labor forced upon him, Holderman was glad to report. Holderman’s name was among those listed as killed as war trials got under way in Tokyo. “Holderman was too busy getting ready to marry Miss Maxine Watkins of Portales ... to be concerned over the mistake,” the Clovis News-Journal reported. 1956: Items recently reported stolen to Clovis police included a pair of fe...
Evelon Grace was the fastest runner in my elementary-school class. Not just the fastest girl. When Billy Dan Vinson organized races at recess – his mom provided candy for prizes – Evelon won most of the time. I picked up a couple of jaw breakers myself – third place was rewarded, too -- and it was a lot of fun. I also had youthful athletic success in my cousins’ back yard and on the road in front of their house. We played two-on-two softball games in the yard. Just one bas...
On this date ... 1935: Police were searching for “Slick” Darnell who had escaped from the Farwell jail. Parmer County Deputy Sheriff J.C. Wilkinson said Darnell had fashioned a key from the metal top of a refuse can and used it to manipulate locking devices in the jail. He was being held on a robbery charge, to which he had pleaded guilty. 1953: A Clovis City Council meeting created an uproar with a discussion to change parking in downtown Clovis from diagonal to parallel to...
A petition some hoped would overturn Clovis’ anti-abortion ordinance has likely failed. Organizers fell 31 signatures short of the required number to force an election, city officials announced last week. While those who oppose the ordinance were frustrated, many were also surprised to learn their names and addresses will soon be made public. Prior to the City Commission passing the ordinance, this space warned of big government run amok. Not only will the controversial d...
On this date ... 1934: Auctioneer Vernon Tate was shot to death about 2 p.m. outside Clovis’ Citizens Bank on Main Street. Brothers Carsey, Louis and Bee Bohannan were charged with the slaying, but were acquitted in a jury trial after it was determined Tate also had a gun. “It is not necessary under the law for a man to wait ’til he’s shot at before he goes after his gun,” defense attorney E.M. Grantham told the jury. Jurors deliberated 19 hours and two minutes before de...
On this date ... 1943: The Clovis Army Air Force basketball team was looking for competition. Lt. George Pastor, the team’s coach, said they would play high school teams, independent teams or other service teams, home or away. They were coming off a 39-30 loss to Clovis High, but Pastor said his men had been practicing and would make a better showing in their next appearance. 1965: The Curry County Clerk’s office reported it issued 57 marriage licenses in January 1965. Onl...
Comics survey says: Our newspaper readers love Pickles, they really don’t care for Macanudo, Popeye is hard to read and … please bring back the grocery store inserts and the Parade magazine. We received three dozen responses to the survey that asked readers tell us their favorite comics, their least favorite comics and for suggestions on other comics they’d like to see. OK, that’s not a huge sampling, but when was the last time you responded to a questionnaire that didn’t...
When Clovis pastor Farril Defoor and Portales school teacher Logan Brown asked for thousands of public emails late last year, it would have surprised no one if Clovis city officials cried “excessively burdensome.” Or, as other public entities have been known to do, they could have claimed the records were all protected under some kind of “attorney-client privilege.” Or that city government didn’t have access to all of its elected officials’ cell phone or personal computer reco...
On this date ... 1929: Ridge Whiteman, 19, of Portales wrote a letter to the Smithsonian Institute reporting he’d found an arrow point with elephant bones at the site now known as Blackwater Draw. Anthropologists and archaeologists soon realized the discovery was proof that man was living in North America 11,000 years ago. 1952: Curry County Sheriff Val Baumgart announced a lie detector would soon be among the crime-fighting tools employed by his office. Baumgart said the p...
On this date ... 1954: Eldon Burk of Clovis, a 126-pound novice entry, defeated George Williams of Cannon Air Force Base to open the fourth annual regional Golden Gloves boxing tournament. The National Guard Armory hosted the competition. 1960: As a result of the late completion of the new Elida gym just a week earlier, Coach Bob Miller announced several schedule changes. The District 6-B Tigers would play at home for the next two weeks, hosting Farwell, San Jon, Texico and...
On this date ... 1957: The Long-Bell International Paper Company at 201 Pile in Clovis was having a penny sale — buy one roll of wallpaper at regular price and receive another roll of the same paper for a penny. Patterns that included “rich, modern colors,” ranged in price from 27 cents to 82 cents per roll. 1960: Clovis Municipal Schools had plans to build a new elementary school in hopes of alleviating overcrowding at Highland Elementary. The W. R. Bauske construction firm...
On this date ... 1940: Actor James Stewart and his flying instructor stopped at the Tucumcari airport because of bad weather, according to Debra Whittington’s book, “In the Shadow of the Mountain.” They spent two nights in town before the storm cleared. “If I stay in Tucumcari much longer I’ll feel like an old-timer, buy a pair of cowboy boots and a 10-gallon hat ... and get me a cow,” Stewart said just before departing. 1965: Terry Edwards, the Boy Scout executive f...
If it’s January in New Mexico, it’s time for Democratic lawmakers’ annual efforts to make up unconstitutional gun laws that have no chance of accomplishing stated goals. So it’s also time to remind our elected representatives why their time is better spent trying to isolate violent criminals – or preventing them from becoming violent criminals -- so they can’t hurt the rest of us. We can outlaw guns with large-capacity magazines, we can outlaw guns in schools and shopping ma...
On this date ... 1946: A Curry County man and his son were awarded more than $700 by a district court jury. Thomas J. Stephens and his son Tommy Dale Stephens, 10, who lived five miles west of Clovis, sued Victory Bus, which operated between Clovis and the Clovis air base. The Stephens’ alleged a Victory Bus was being operated recklessly when it struck the boy, who was running across the highway after exiting a school bus. The boy suffered a broken leg, broken hand and o...
On this date … 1906: A letter from Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Chief Engineer W.B. Storey had reported the name of the railroad station located closest to Texico would be called “Clovis.” The letter, dated Jan. 17 and written to engineers at Texico, referenced Clovis as “an old French name.” 1930: George and Carl Bohannan were shot to death by auctioneer Vernon Tate, the deadliest day in a 12-year feud between neighboring farm families. The feud, believed to have s...
Just one year ago, trustees at Clovis Community College unanimously extended the contract of President Charles Nwankwo through February 2024. There was no great debate, no public hint anything was wrong in the relationship between the college’s fifth president and its trustees or faculty. Last week marked five months since Nwankwo was placed on paid leave pending an investigation spurred by votes of “no confidence” from three CCC employee groups. He’s being paid $506.85...
