Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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Mennell Mullins was born in Clovis, but was raised in the country by his folks Burrell and Levata Tinney Mullins. In August, I had the pleasure of interviewing him about his musical history. Most people won’t recall he was a musician, as they probably remember him running his Mennell Furniture Auction business on East Second Street for many years. Ollie Mennell Mullins was born a farm boy in 1936, and raised at Forrest, just over the Curry County line in Quay County. He remembers listening to his uncles making music with t...
“Old Fred Pair was a ring-tail tooter, “A cane raiser, and an out-house shooter. “He stood outside his kitchen door “And plugged that privy with a forty-four.” The time was 12:30 on the afternoon of Sept. 5, 1945, and the place was the little town of Morton, Texas, about 50 miles southeast of Clovis. Three men rode into town in a stolen maroon Pontiac convertible coupe, which had the right headlight out. The car’s right-front fender had no paint and the right-rear fender was missing. They robbed the First State Bank of $17... Full story
“Old Fred Pair was a ring-tail tooter, “A cane raiser, and an out-house shooter. “He stood outside his kitchen door “And plugged that privy with a forty-four.” The time was 12:30 on the afternoon of Sept. 5, 1945, and the place was the little town of Morton, Texas, about 50 miles southeast of Clovis. Three men rode into town in a stolen maroon Pontiac convertible coupe, which had the right headlight out. The car’s right-front fender had no paint and the right-rear fender was missing. They robbed the First State Bank of $17...
Jim “Mac” McDonald of Clovis plays a round of golf almost daily. He’s 84. He says golf keeps him fit. Twenty-three years ago, I wrote a column about his grandpa, Moses B. McDonald, the accepted leader at the little settlement at Plain, which is a few miles west of Grady. Plain is where Mac McDonald was born in 1918 and where he was raised. Today there is nothing there except a cemetery. That is why Mac wrote his life history for his kids. He wanted to tell his kids and grandkids where he came from and how he was raise...
Clovis’ big, expensive homes are an indicator of the growth of the city, most of which has been to the north and east after World War II. In the early days of Clovis, the big homes were primarily built on Gidding Street, from the 300 block to East Seventh Street. Maybe that’s the reason this residential street was the first street to be paved. As Clovis grew north, the ideal street was again Gidding, and in the 1400 block of that street could be found the big homes. When my family moved from the country to town in 1944 and ki...
It was cold that December of 1936. The drought the preceding summer had ruined the wheat crop on the small farm. There wasn’t a lot of money to be spent on Christmas. The father worked part time for a neighbor, herding sheep for a dollar a day, but this had to go to provide necessities, not Christmas gifts. The youngest son, only 5, had seen a “Monkey-Ward” catalog. There among the many other items delighting the eye was a little cowboy suit — a blue vest, a pair of cowboy gloves with cuffs that went halfway up the elbow a...
Not every hairdresser would work at a funeral home. The former Verdine Crume, now Mrs. Duane Howard of Clovis, has been praised by many husbands, fathers and children of the deceased with the wonderful work she performs. Verdine received her cosmetology license in 1938 and was soon called by a funeral home to use her hairdressing talent on a 3-year-old girl. She’d been killed in an auto accident, along with her parents, coming through from California. “I was working in Portales at Kirby’s Beauty Shop when I was asked to go...
Not every hairdresser would work at a funeral home. The former Verdine Crume, now Mrs. Duane Howard of Clovis, has been praised by many husbands, fathers and children of the deceased with the wonderful work she performs. Verdine received her cosmetology license in 1938 and was soon called by a funeral home to use her hairdressing talent on a 3-year-old girl. She’d been killed in an auto accident, along with her parents, coming through from California. “I was working in Portales at Kirby’s Beauty Shop when I was asked to go...
Editor’s note: This is the conclusion of a two-part series on the Santa Fe Heights housing project that began in Clovis in the 1940s. Part one was published Dec. 3. “My brother and I,” said Cameron Mactavish, “had part-time work at the Santa Fe Heights project when out of school. Andrew was the youngest brother. Occupants came and went and it was normal to do a complete interior paint job, repair the roofs, and try to fix the chuck holes in the paved roads. “Henry Thomas, a railroad occupant with a wife and three daughters...
Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series. The story will conclude next Wednesday. Clovis’ biggest boom in housing projects started during the middle of World War II. An acute housing shortage in Clovis had been recognized by the federal government because of “increased war activity” in this area. The Clovis Army Air Base began training bomber flight crews and Camp William C. Reed, near Brady and the Portales highway, began training soldiers to run railroad operations overseas. The Santa Fe Railroad also saw a gre... Full story
In my column of Oct. 8, I wrote about a tumbling weed, which produced true love by carrying a message across the Texas Panhandle. The fictional story was written by Reuben Boone in 1920. A lot of people, including my editor, asked me who was Reuben Boone. I didn’t know until Toby Phipps — a friend I saw at the Bluegrass music session in Farwell — told me Reuben Boone once lived in Quemado. Phipps went to school at Quemado and he knew Boone’s daughter who lived in Truth or Consequences. From that daughter to another daughte...
From the Editor's Desk Not everyone is thrilled with the region’s recent economic growth. Some longtime residents are concerned that newcomers will mean dramatic and unpleasant change. Mom-and-pop businesses, they fear, will be driven out by the likes of Lowe’s, Hobby Lobby, Hastings and other chain stores that have opened in Clovis in recent weeks. They’re concerned that our dwindling water supply will disappear faster because of the influx of big businesses that include dairies and a proposed cheese-processing plant. And t... Full story
A town in our area harbors deep secrets. A railroad had built from the east to the west in eastern New Mexico prior to Clovis and Texico. Killings were commonplace in this new tent town, which for its first year went by the name of “Six-Shooter Siding.” Ill feelings between the gandy dancers — railroad construction crew members — and the cowboys from the vast ranches in the area led to the killing of 13 men. At first, the sunburned cowboys looked on the budding town as the answer to a cowboy’s dream: saloons, whiskey,...
The first homes in early-1900s Clovis were tents and one- or two-room shacks. But one of the homes built in 1908, at Ninth and Gidding streets (almost out of town at the time) was the J. S. Fitzhugh home that ranked among the best homes in eastern New Mexico. It cost more than most home builders could afford. Fitzhugh first purchased the quarter section of land where his home would be built. It was then divided into blocks and lots and became part of the North Park Addition. His home, barn and other out building were...
H. W. Rehorn says he is the oldest Indian trader in New Mexico. He has been at it 43 years. He is now 82 and still in the business in his Indian Shop of Triangle, inside Triangle Home Center on North Prince. He said a Clovis woman asked him to move here 28 years ago because she liked his Indian jewelry. Rehorn, pronounced Ray-horn, said he was born in Orange City, Iowa, but raised in Kansas City, Kan., during depression times. He said he was making a living for his mother by the time he was 14. He said his parents separated...
Back in the summer of 1922, there existed in Clovis a gang of young boys called the “Desperate Six.” The gang got started when four eighth-grade boys asked two third-grade boys to join them. This is Travis Anthony’s report: “We felt highly honored to be in a gang with ‘big boys,’” Anthony said. “Actually they picked us two small boys for ‘stoogies’ to wait on them, but of course we didn’t know it then. “They had us search the alleys for bottles and buckets, which we washed and sold to the grocery store and collected eno...
My name is LeAnn Westley (Johnson) and I am the daughter of Anthony “Tony” Johnson, sometimes known by strangers as the “man who jumped off Hotel Clovis.” I would like to express my feelings about the column in Wednesday’s newspaper by Don McAlavy headlined “Hotel Clovis holds story of one tragic life.” When my father died, I was 7 years old. I am now 24. The article hurt my grandparents and other family members because they unexpectedly relived painful memories about my father’s death. I feel McAlavy should have informed m...
The only documented death from jumping off the top of Hotel Clovis occurred in 1986. Old timers claim one or two others attempted it but were talked out of it. Apparently no one was with 27-year-old, Anthony “Tony” Johnson, when he jumped off the top of the hotel on a Wednesday afternoon. The hotel has been closed since 1983, but Johnson succeeded in getting to the top of the 55-year-old nine-story hotel, which was built in 1931. Two hours prior to death, Johnson was released from the Curry County jail for failure to app...
James Whiteman Services: Have been held. James Ridgley Whiteman, 93, of Clovis, a carpenter, entertainer and artist, died Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2003, at Laurel Plains Nursing Home in Clovis. He was born on Jan. 15, 1910, in Portales, to Levi J. and Katherine Greathouse Whiteman. He graduated from Clovis High School in 1928. He married Rachel Merie McCarty on Aug. 25, 1935. He married Edna Lampman “Falling Leaf” of Oklahoma, then Thelma Crume Green. He was a carpenter by trade, but being part Indian, his primary interst was Indi...
The 1983 hijacking of a tractor-trailer truck loaded with 38,550 pounds of meat should have been made into a Hollywood comic-action movie by now. The hijacking of the meat truck in Friona, Texas, was not funny, but the incident became comic when an assorted cast of characters brought the meat truck into Curry and Quay counties and sold boxes of meat to individuals. They then tried to hide the evidence of their crime — the truck — by dismantling it. They sold parts and then buried the leftovers of the truck. The FBI got wind o... Full story
Joseph Fahnert Jr. Services: Have been held. Mr. Joseph “Joe” Allan Fahnert Jr., 84, of Clovis, a retired printer, died Tuesday, July 22, 2003, at Laurel Plains Healthcare in Clovis. He was born May 30, 1919, in New Orleans, to Joseph Allan and Theresa Helena Fahnert. He served in the U.S. Army. Upon separation he worked for the Clovis News Journal before purchasing City Printing. He later worked for the New Mexico State Police as a photographer and at Allsup’s Convenience Stores as a printer and auditor. Family membe... Full story
Starting at 10 a.m. today, the Clovis-Carver Public Library will display Bobby Wildcat for two weeks before he is taken back to Clovis High School. Our 53-year-old stuffed-and-mounted CHS mascot is now in his own new glass case, courtesy of the CHS Class of 1953, which met in Clovis last weekend. When that class heard the Class of ’50 was going to make a glass case for the Wildcat, the Class of ’53 volunteered to pay the cost of that glass case. An auction was held last Saturday night at the ’53 Class reunion and, true to for...
Don McAlvy Fred J. and Lou Ella McCarty were the start of a dynasty in Clovis. Fred was a railroader for the Santa Fe in Kansas. He carried a pistol at work there. He was sent to Clovis in 1912 to straighten the railroad out. That’s what his kids thought. (He was actually the bonus timekeeper in the back shop, and later as an RD inspector.) Lou Ella ruled the roost at 412 Wallace. He liked limburger cheese. She disliked it, but he kept buying it. Every time Lou looked in the ice box he’d have more limburger. “You get rid o...
The records of our rural school in Curry County have been ruined or destroyed. One story is that the basement in the county courthouse flooded and ruined these records. All that is known of our rural schools was obtained from early day school teachers, from children that went to the first schools and from a superintendent’s secretary. Mrs. Vernon H. Miller was the secretary for our first county school superintendent, Louis C. Mersfelter. She once said that in 1912 when we became a state there were 64 rural schools in Curry C...
Bobby Hagler has made a name for himself as a civil engineer. In the last 30 years he has been designing and building electric transmission lines and substations from North Dakota to California. He was raised on the outskirts of Clovis. He is the son of Bob and Chris Hagler of Clovis. After graduating from Clovis High School in 1969 he received a scholarship to New Mexico State University. His physical science scholarship involved tracking navigational satellites from Navy and Marine bases in Cyprus, Brazil and South Africa.... Full story
