Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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PORTALES — A pair of Eastern New Mexico University regents fear Chancellor Jeff Elwell has uncorked a few issues in approving a weekend wine festival on campus. The Queso Vino Festival is scheduled for this weekend at the ENMU baseball field, in opposition of current university policies on alcohol. Elwell believes he had the authority to waive policy for the festival without board approval due to exigent circumstances. Regents Joseph Gergel and Lance Pyle believe that was a decision for the board to make. The festival w...
CLOVIS — The scoreboard that hangs above the center of the Curry County Events Center was highlighted at Tuesday’s county commission meeting as a true symbol of technology. The only issue, Fairgrounds Director Justin Gregory said, is that it’s a symbol of 2009 technology, when the events center was just starting up. Commissioners seemed willing to change that technology out, but tabled an item on potential scoreboard replacement because vendors hadn’t responded to inquiries and Gregory couldn’t give commissioners any price...
Our family befriended another family in my hometown. We’ll call them the Milsons. The Milsons visited the Wilsons for dinner and game nights, and the Wilsons visited the Milsons for dinner and game nights. After they moved across the state, we traveled to be part of a surprise Milson anniversary party. Milsons came to our high school graduations. The Milsons did a few things quite differently from us. Every Halloween, while I was trying to convince my parents Alex Trebek would be a great Halloween costume, the Milsons were po...
CLOVIS — After months of rumors, Allsup’s Convenience Stores, Inc., told its employees on Tuesday it is being acquired by an equity firm that operates Iowa-based convenience store chain Yesway. The deal for 304 locations, announced via a Yesway release Tuesday morning, is subject to regulatory approval and closing conditions. “We are very excited to have selected Yesway as the acquirer of our company and the future custodian of our brand and legacy,” said Mark Allsup, Allsup...
CLOVIS — In one more week, Clovis Community College expects to have its new president named to take over on Jan. 1. Board of Trustees Secretary Raymond Mondragon chaired the search committee that pored over more than 60 applicants to create the finalist pool that visited campus last week. Mondragon didn’t get into too many specifics with the format of the finalist visits, as everybody attending the Monday board meeting had participated in some activity with one or more finalists. Each day included campus and city tours, int...
CLOVIS - It wasn't the easiest Saturday for the Clovis High Band. But, who said that winning band competitions in two cities in one day was supposed to be simple? The Wildcats band overcame some challenges, likely brought on by a heavy travel day, and took grand champion awards at the Lubbock Westerner and Amarillo's High Plains Marching Festival. After performing its "Rachy" show at the Clovis High homecoming football game Friday night, the band got back at it again early...
CLOVIS - In his first season as a professional rodeoer, Shad Mayfield is learning you don't need to be the best roper every single time you show up at an event. You just need to be a professional, defined as somebody who gets paid for what they do. Big checks, little checks and everything in between added up, and they secured Mayfield an invite to the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo scheduled Dec. 8-14 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Mayfield, who lives south of Clovis, was of course...
CLOVIS — As Greg South talked to Clovis citizens about his desire to be Clovis Community College's next president, the fives kept coming up. First, there were the five elements he believed any community college needed to possess - credit transferability, basic skills training, technology, lifelong learning and continuing education. "If you can't do those things," said South, interim vice president of academic affairs at Portersville College in California, "you're just a j...
CLOVIS - Robert Riza said a community college has to tell its story, and a community college president has to be known throughout the community and the state. That's because in both cases, nobody else is going to do it for them. Riza hopes he'll soon be telling the story of Clovis Community College, as he took part in a day full of interviews at the Clovis campus. Riza, currently the president at Clarendon College in Texas, has had 21 years experience in higher education admin...
CLOVIS - Although he'd prefer to do it at Clovis Community College, Michael Fitzpatrick said his basic mission in life doesn't change based on his job or location. "It's about what I leave behind," Fitzpatrick told a group of residents during his Friday forum at CCC. "I serve a God more important than me. If I can't show God in his glory, I don't need another breath in me." Fitzpatrick, the final finalist candidate interviewed for the CCC president's position, addressed 16...
Quick, what’s the first lesson your parents taught you when you were little? I’m going to assume, for the purposes of this column to go smoothly, that it was the classic, “Don’t talk to strangers.” At some point in life, this philosophy butts up against everything else you’re told to do growing up. Trying to sell Girl Scout cookies or Boy Scout popcorn? Strangers have money. It’s Oct. 31? Put this costume on. Strangers have candy. Soon, “don’t talk to strangers” morphed into something else with my parents: Don’t buy...
The sound of notes bursting through base, the booms and rat-a-tats of drumlines and the whipping of colored flags in the air. Those sights and sounds have been a constant in the band halls and the football fields of eastern New Mexico weeks before the students playing them even had to worry about their first day of school. All of that early mornings, late nights and even some weekends has led to the next few weeks, as band competition season is upon the Clovis and Portales...
PORTALES — Hours before the university’s homecoming king and queen were crowned, another winner of the vote was announced to the Eastern New Mexico University’s Board of Regents. By an 87.5% vote, students who participated in the homecoming elections earlier in the week also favored adding a women’s golf team, as the college has explored over the last few months. There are obvious asterisks attached to the vote. The 552 votes on the question, tacked onto the homecoming vote, represents less than 10% of the student body, a...
“Kevin, you look like you’ve been chewing.” I had some pretty dumb things said to me during high school, but this was one of the dumbest. Yes, the principal is clearly going to think I am a fan of chewing tobacco, which discolors your teeth, makes you spit black saliva, causes pain to your mouth and tastes kinda disgusting. Must be addictive if you do that. Nope, those black marks were from something less addictive, but still a mainstay in my life — the Oreo. Part of me wants to call it the chocolate sandwich cookie, as an ac...
PORTALES — Designing a house can be difficult for a newlywed or even a long-married couple, between the discussions on materials, the floor layout and what rooms serve what purposes. But compromises are made because at the end of the day, the couple will have to live together in that house. Now imagine the process is done by a committee whose members aren’t sure what to compromise because they aren’t sure who’s going to live there. That process is about to come to an end at Eastern New Mexico University, with Regent Terry O...
CLOVIS — Golf is a difficult game. Golf course regulations aren’t much easier sometimes. The city’s parks, recreation and beautification committee worked with Touchstone Golf on Monday evening to hammer out basic course rules, and how to notify people, whether they play golf or walk around the course. Keaton Aucutt, general manager for the Colonial Park Golf Course — operated by Touchstone as of May 1 — presented a list of 16 rules he acknowledged were often common sense, but have to be written somewhere on the basic notion o...
PORTALES - In a matchup of the hot and the not-so-hot Thursday evening, nothing in particular changed on the volleyball court. The Portales Rams upped their winning streak to seven matches Thursday, taking just a shade over an hour to dispatch an overmatched Ruidoso squad 25-7, 25-15, 25-12 at the Ram Athletic Center. The host Rams (7-1) had little trouble keeping the Warriors winless, with plenty of big runs sustained by a season-high 26 service aces. The Rams moved the...
A key to my early adolescence was a TV program you might remember called “The Wonder Years.” I didn’t grow up in the 1960s and 1970s like Kevin Arnold did. But I was also named Kevin, and that was enough for sixth-grade Kevin Wilson to relate. It was also enough for my non-creative friends. Whatever happened to Kevin on “The Wonder Years,” my friends applied it to me the next morning in school. The episode where somebody nicknamed him “Kev-bo” lived on for years. I liked the show even though I didn’t have a Winnie Cooper a...
CLOVIS — With little discussion, the Clovis City Commission on Thursday approved a $25,000 study to give its employee position review and salary study an update after two years in place. The study, which passed by an 8-0 vote, was anticipated. City Manager Justin Howalt told the commission during an August meeting he planned to bring the study up for another look, and that $50,000 was included in the 2019-20 budget for such purposes. “I felt it was time to ‘re-look,’” Howalt said, “and make sure we are competitive...
CLOVIS — The former operator for the Clovis Municipal Golf Course turned himself in to police Wednesday evening, and has pleaded not guilty to charges he withheld information on loan balances attached to equipment he sold the city in May. Carlos “Charlie” Maciel, 66, was booked into the Curry County Adult Detention Center after surrendering himself to Clovis Police Det. Randy Pitcock, and released less than an hour after he was booked on a recognizance bond. He is facing a civil lawsuit from the city and a criminal charg...
CLOVIS — The next president of Clovis Community College is in the hands of its trustees. The college’s search committee identified its five finalist candidates Wednesday to succeed Becky Rowley as president at the college. The finalists are, in alphabetical order: • Michael Fitzpatrick, vice president of instruction at Pratt Community College in Kansas • Charles Nwankwo, vice president of technology and business partnerships for Chandler-Gilbert Community College and Maricopa Community College in Arizona. • Robert Riza, pre...
CLOVIS - A former city golf course operator faces criminal charges alleging improper removal or disposal of encumbered property over $20,000. Also, the city of Clovis was granted a restraining order Monday to freeze the bank accounts of its former golf course operator, after claiming Charlie Maciel did not inform them of debt owed on merchandise it purchased from him. Court documents indicate the restraining order may have come too late. Following the order to freeze any...
PORTALES — Last season, Eastern New Mexico’s women’s soccer team made its first appearance in the Lone Star Conference tournament championship match. Two weeks into this season, the firsts are still coming. Three days, two shutout wins at home and all of a sudden, the Greyhounds are off to their first 3-0 start in the history of the program, which began play in 2003. The Greyhounds, now idle until they visit Southern Nazarene on Saturday, topped Adams State 3-0 Thursday and F...
“What the (expletive) is a pasty?” That’s what I said when we were in Butte, Montana. Fine, that’s what I wanted to say, but I was 8. While I knew better than to say the expletive, young me did not yet know Butte as strange sibling of the Montana family. If some Wyoming piece of trash talks about Butte, know that we will defend our brother — but if we’re all Montanans, Butte has an extra vowel because it was the butt of almost every joke. My favorite joke: When you registered a vehicle, the state would take a few days to sta...
CLOVIS — The city of Clovis is suing the former operator of the Colonial Park Golf Course, alleging it was never informed of outstanding debt on equipment purchased in May. The city is suing Charlie Maciel and Real Golf, his limited liability corporation, for costs in excess of $177,000 covering debts and attorney fees. According to a civil court filing on Wednesday, the city alleges: • The city was transitioning golf course operations from Real Golf to Touchstone, and entered an agreement to purchase 15 pieces of lan...
