Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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Dell Dickenson, a longtime teacher in the Clovis school system, passed away on July 2 at the age of 90. Dickenson began teaching elementary school in Plainview, Texas and taught for a total of 34 years, more than half of that in Clovis, said her son Keeney Dickenson. She taught third grade at Cameo Elementary School in Clovis. "Last year we made a video for her 90th birthday and we received more than 200 videos for her birthday," Dickenson said. "Some of these had her as...
CLOVIS — The 2021 Curry County Fair will celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the fair and will be held Tuesday through Saturday. K.C. Messick, general manager of the Curry County Events Center and Fairgrounds, said fair officials would have liked to have this 100th year of the fair be the biggest ever but “unfortunately due to the COVID restrictions they had to cancel the indoor major concert series.” “Our biggest focus of this 100th anniversary of the fair will be all the military aspects such as the GoldStars Tribute...
CLOVIS — Curry County employees, effective today, will receive a 5% cost of living salary increase, the county commission decided Tuesday. County Manager Lance Pyle said the county ended the year in “great financial condition” and that county employees “went above and beyond” in their duties over the year, especially with an ongoing pandemic. “It is becoming increasingly difficult,” Pyle said, “to attract qualified employees.” The increase is for all employees with one continuous year of employment with the county. All emplo...
Funding to expand the wifi network at the Curry County Fairgrounds has passed the U.S. House of Representatives. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez, D-N.M., secured the approval of the U.S. House for a $250,000 appropriation last week to fund the design, purchase, and installation of an expanded WiFi network at the Curry County Fairgrounds. This is part of a group of more than $74 million in community project funding requests in appropriations legislation made by the congresswoman, according to a press release from her office. The...
CLOVIS — The Clovis City Commission on Thursday paved the way to include retail as an eligible category of economic development dollars. The Nov. 2 general election ballot will include a question as to whether Local Economic Development Act dollars, collected as an increment of gross receipts taxes, can be used to recruit and retain retail businesses. Senate Bill 49, which went into effect July 1, allowed communities of 35,000 or more to make that change. City Attorney Jared Morris told the commission voter approval is r...
This year’s United Way “Stuff the Bus” campaign to collect school supplies from the community will be held from 9 am to 4 p.m. on Aug. 7 at the Walmarts in Portales and Clovis and at the Big Lots and OfficeMax in Clovis. Erinn Burch, executive director of United Way of Eastern New Mexico, said that weekend is “tax free weekend” in New Mexico. On those days, gross receipts taxes are not collected on most school supplies and select clothing and computer items. United Way volunteers will be at the store sites to collect d...
PORTALES — The Roosevelt County Board of Commissioners Tuesday discussed the regulation of cannabis sales, manufacturing and consumption and whether to change the commission’s meeting time to evenings. Although the commission approved a Notice of Intent For Consideration of a draft ordinance on cannabis, which sets the approval process in motion, most of the discussion revolved around the concept of regulating activity on private land, with very little talk about specifics of the draft. Two commissioners said they did not thi...
CLOVIS — The 2021 Curry County Fair will be somewhat “unorthodox this year as far as what people expect to see,” said K.C. Messick, the general manager of the Curry County Events Center and Fairgrounds. The fair will be held August 10th through 14th at the fairgrounds. Included in what's new this year is the GoldStars Tribute Wall, a traveling show in tribute to the fallen soldiers from the Gulf War, Messick said. The wall will be at the fair the 12th, 13th and 14th. “We're hoping to (get) a lot of people from the Cannon Air...
PORTALES — The Roosevelt County Fair this year will include several new events, including seven new carnival rides, said fair board president Sheila Hays. The fair runs from August 17th through the 22nd at the fairgrounds in Portales. This is the first time the fair will be held since 2019 before COVID and “we’re super excited about this,” Hays said. “We’re so glad to have this to offer to the community again. It will be great to have everyone in the community come and enjoy themselves at the fair.” Coach J’s BBQ and RC-Q pr...
CLOVIS — The Curry County Events Center in Clovis reopened the last weekend in June after closing for 14 months due to the COVID-19 restrictions. “We’re looking at adding some more community-driven type of events,” said K.C. Messick, the new general manager of Curry County Events Center and Fairgrounds. “People are ready to get out and see stuff so we’re going to make it available for them,” he said. The center is a county-owned, equestrian-based facility, which contains 98,000-square feet, Messick said. It is a 112- acre p...
WASHINGTON — The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday passed the Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) Action Act that included an amendment on water used for agricultural purposes introduced by Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-NM). Speaking to the House, Fernandez said Highland Dairy, which is in her district, learned in 2018 that PFAS “from the nearby (Cannon Air Force Base) leaked into the shared aquifer that watered the grass which fed the cows. The PFAS contamination poisoned the cows and the dairy could not...
New Social Studies standards that the New Mexico Public Education Department is developing could be “contentious,” Portales Municipal School Superintendent Johnnie Cain Monday wrote in a report presented Monday to the school board at the board’s regular monthly meeting. The social studies standards, Cain said in an interview after the meeting, are likely to include some guidelines involving “critical race theory,” a topic that has become very controversial nationwide. Critical race theory teaches that racism has been buil...
A Clovis dairy farmer who has been fighting the federal government for more than two years on groundwater contamination addressed the matter Friday. The News was invited to a virtual press conference with Highland Dairy owner Art Schaap and Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, D-N.M. Cannon Air Force Base in 2018 disclosed the presence of PFAS and PFOA in a plume surrounding the base, with the root cause firefighting foams used by its fire department. The Environmental Protection Agency has no federal standard for drinking water, but...
CLOVIS — The Clovis Regional Airport is working with the city and Cannon Air Force Base to qualify for an annual $1 million Federal Aviation Administration award to make improvements to the airport. Chairman T.J. Curtis said at Tuesday’s Civil Aviation meeting, covered virtually by The News, that official business base travel out of the airport is “still a critical piece” of the effort to increase the enplanement — an airport term for total passengers. “Our FAA yearly entitlement is $150,000,” Airport Director James Harris...
Harry Sheets came to Farwell as an eighth-grader, and spent most of the rest of his life making it a better and more powerful place. Sheets died June 5 at his home at the age of 91, according to a eulogy by son Gene Sheets. He was a self-made businessman, occasional pilot and generally witty and funny role model. "He was very creative," said his other son, Dr. Kyle Sheets. "(He) always had another idea to make life easier." In 1950, Harry had an idea to use natural gas...
Jerry May could always make people laugh, even when he was the target of the laughter. May, a lifelong resident of Clovis, died June 9. His wife of 52 years, Sammye May, said they went to high school together in Clovis but connected while attending Eastern New Mexico University. They became acquainted when Jerry was helping her brother-in-law move to San Angelo, Texas. "We dated a few months and then ran off to Juarez, Mexico and got married in 1969," she said. He had a colleg...
The Friendship Senior Center opened its front door on Thursday for the first time since the onset of the pandemic in March of 2020, according to Barbara Riggan, director of the city of Clovis Senior Services. Although the state has reopened 100 percent, some safety guidelines will remain in place at the Friendship Senior Center, Riggan told the Clovis City Commission at its meeting on Thursday. Based on guidelines by the New Mexico State Aging & Long Term Services Department, if 85 percent or more of the staff are vaccinated,...
CLOVIS — Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Monday signed into law legislation legalizing adult-use cannabis in New Mexico. At the local level, the city of Clovis and its Planning & Zoning Commission met Wednesday in a study session to begin fashioning a city ordinance outlining days and hours of operation, zoning and density of dispensaries around the city and other issues. City Attorney Jared Morris said the state bill is about one and a half pages, meaning much of the regulation is left to local jurisdictions. Morris said h...
Senior centers across the state are reopening on July 1, according to a release from the New Mexico Aging & Long-Term Services Department. Barbara Riggan, director of city of Clovis Senior Services, said the state has directed them to review the reopening guidance and formulate their own plan for the Friendship Senior Center. “We are working with city officials to put a plan into place,” Riggan said. She hopes to meet with the city today and then bring the plan before the city commission on Thursday for approval, she said. Ch...
The New Mexico Division of Vocational Rehabilitation (NMDVR) State Rehabilitation Council (SRC) announced Clovis' Kayla Damron as a 2021 award winner. Damron was named the top vocational rehabilitation counselor for Area IV, which includes Clovis, Roswell, Hobbs and Carlsbad. "(Kayla) is a mentor to everyone around her and has a wealth of knowledge," said Tracy Agiovlasitas, chairperson of the awards committee. "She is really good at meeting different people with different...
CLOVIS — The city of Clovis has $700,000 to spend on paving roads in residential neighborhoods. At the city Public Works Committee meeting Wednesday, Public Works Director Clint Bunch said each district needs to select some roads that need repaving. Each district will have at least one paving project. Helping in the decision over what roads to prioritize, Bunch said, is a vendor called Roadbotics that drives and photographs every stretch of city road and assesses both overall condition and problem areas. In other business d...
CLOVIS — Friendship Senior Center reopened to 20-seat limited capacity on April 16 and attendance has steadily increased since June 1, Senior Services Director Barbara Riggan said at Thursday’s Senior Services meeting. The center has had 74 seniors attend since June 1, Riggan said. The meal site has had 256 attendees. In other matters discussed at the Thursday meeting: • Committee member Shelley Winn said most activities at the Baxter-Curren Center have resumed with the exception of bingo and dance. An in-person gener...
CLOVIS — The Clovis City Commission listened to presentations Tuesday related to a grant program that would help pay for the creation of easements that would encumber the bulk of local farmers’ water rights with the ultimate goal of conserving water. By entering into conservation easements with local farmers, who would otherwise use the water to irrigate crops, the city would hope to conserve drinking water for future generations, the presenters discussed. Former Clovis Mayor David Lansford said he has been working on thi...
Clovis native Sandy Massey received an email Jan. 19 that shed light on a mystery she had wondered about since July 1966. A story about the young woman’s death, and the 55-year effort to identify her, is featured in the most recent issue of Texas Monthly. Every summer Sandy, then 15, would stay with her grandparents in Pecos, Texas, where they owned The Ropers Motel. On July 5, 1966, in the morning her granddad checked in a young man and a young woman, Massey said. Her granddad said the girl “was so young and (the man) loo...
The city of Clovis Commission heard a plan to revitalize two Metropolitan Redevelopment Areas in the city at its meeting Thursday. Jacqueline Fishman, principal/planner for Consensus Planning, a planning consulting firm based in Albuquerque, explained the plan in detail. She and her staff identified “opportunity sites” within two redevelopment areas and using information from a survey of the residents identified properties and development strategies. Assistant City Manager Claire Burroughes said the city has two Met...
