Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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The accomplishments of Martin Luther King Jr. have echoed throughout generations and every year groups in Clovis and Portales make sure to celebrate his legacy. This Saturday, the Clovis chapter of the Martin Luther King Jr. Commission starts the celebration early with its 28th Annual Scholarship Breakfast at the Clovis High School Cafeteria. Tickets are $10 a person or $100 for a table and the event will feature a speech by James B. Lewis from Albuquerque. Students and...
CLOVIS — The Curry County Commission broke in the new year by approving the purchase of new security equipment at the detention center during their first meeting Tuesday morning. Mark Gallegos said the jail is in need of an advanced system to help screen new detainees for contraband. The new system would replace searches by staff with an x-ray machine and drastically streamline the screening process for new entries. “The primary job of this will be able to reduce and minimize the amount of contraband that might make it int...
B.J. Pierce’s life may have been very different if he’d been born a few decades later, but if you ask those who he mentored, taught and entertained over the years with a collection of stories from his rodeo days, he may not have had it any other way. Growing up in the Clovis area, Pierce and his family farmed and raised cattle and horses during his childhood. He roped for fun as a boy and continued to do so even during high school when his family moved to the city. Pierce graduated from Clovis High School and went on to stu...
PORTALES — The first meeting of the year was a brief one for the Portales City Council as it addressed only a few items before wrapping up. To start the new year, the city made some changes to its Portales Area Transit Passenger policy, which was adopted last October. The policy update contained several small changes like title and program names being referred to instead of generic references, as well as minor rule changes. The main change was to alter suspension time for passengers who break the rules from a mandatory 3...
The City of Portales and Roosevelt County have a lot on their plates this year as they focus on their ongoing road improvements and infrastructure capital improvement projects. In Roosevelt, there are three major projects the county will pursue this year, as well as several specific legislative goals. The county's road improvement plan is ongoing across the county, with projects scheduled through 2021 and a budget of $500,000. “We only ask for the amount of money our team can complete for roadwork,” said Roosevelt County Man...
PORTALES - Inside the Yam theatre, at tables adorned with clocks, hourglasses and all other manner of timepiece sat members of the Roosevelt and Portales community celebrating another successful 10 years. The 2019 Annual Chamber Banquet was held Thursday night with all 160 seats sold according to Roosevelt Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Karl Terry. Roosevelt County Commission Chairman Matt Hunton emceed the event, sharing the county and city's biggest accomplishments o...
MELROSE — After shutting down in 2018, the Melrose Clinic will be making a return under the guidance of Clovis Family Healthcare early this year. The Curry County Commission approved Clovis Family Healthcare as the new healthcare provider for the clinic during a meeting in December and CFH hopes to have the clinic open sometime next month. The clinic was constructed in 2010 using funding from a community block development grant and has been previously operated by two different healthcare providers, first La Casa and later R...
PORTALES — The Roosevelt County Commission kicked off its first meeting of the year by taking care of some yearly business, first of which was appointing a new chairman and vice-chairman. Chairman Shane Lee relinquished his position to former vice-chair Matthew Hunton, with Tina Dixon then stepping into the role of vice-chair for the year. The commission went on to approve several general items requiring re-approval at the start of each year. First was to add both the new chairman and vice-chair as authorized signatory offici...
With 2019 behind them, area entities are looking forward to different projects and legislative goals to pursue in 2020. For the city of Clovis, there are various improvement projects and new services planned across the city for the year. There are several construction projects already in progress or waiting funding. The Public Works Department has several road and drainage projects underway and more planned for later in the year. The road project on Seventh Street is nearing completion with the next phase on Maple Street to...
PORTALES — Sitting down at night to read with your child is one of the most iconic parts of being a parent. Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is a nationwide program meant to make sure every family has the opportunity to do so. The Imagination Library works with counties and cities across the nation to send free books to families with children from birth to 5 years old. It recently partnered with United Way of Eastern New Mexico to bring the program to Roosevelt and De Baca counties. United Way will kick things off Jan. 13...
The Clovis Municipal School District saw a big change this year as Renee Russ took charge as superintendent to fill the role left by the departure of Superintendent Jody Balch. Balch served five years as superintendent, first taking over in July 2014, and had served a total of 39 years in education before deciding to leave the career behind. “You know when it’s time,” Balch said to the CMS board after announcing his intent to leave. Balch went on to be appointed to the Curry County Labor Management Board by the County Commi...
PORTALES — After three years of negotiations, some worried that the Sagamore Wind Farm may never become a reality, but before 2019 was out, community members from Roosevelt County and beyond gathered 8 miles east of Elida to break ground on the 100,00-acre wind farm. Xcel announced it would commence with the project in September after previously coming under fire from the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission in 2018 because of a proposed rate hike for customers intended to help pay for the project. Xcel worked out an a...
PORTALES — After working several years to secure funding, Portales finally broke ground on a new fire station in the northwest part of town in 2019. La Casa originally donated the land to the city several years ago, but it took time to secure funding to finally make use of it. Former fire chief Gary Nuckols was committed to getting the project off the ground before announcing his retirement in December and making way for Timothy J. Cathey to step in and take over as chief. The new station is on the north side of the train t...
CLOVIS — The Curry County Commission approved a change order to install additional camera conduits for the Detention Center renovation project during a short special meeting held Monday afternoon. The change order was for $12,148 and is the first step to address an issue regarding additional camera sites discovered by contractor HB Construction during the renovation that weren't outlined in the architect's plans. The original plan showed 59 cameras that would need to be switched from an analog to digital system as part of t...
While the presidential election will hog the spotlight in 2020, local elections are first up, starting with signup day Jan. 7. Clovis Mayor David Lansford said he’s not yet decided whether to seek another four-year term. “It’s a decision that requires a lot of thought and, if in the affirmative, will require a lot of commitment for four years of service,” Lansford said. Lansford said he will make his final decision on Monday or Tuesday. In addition to the mayor’s race, four city commissioner spots and the municipal judge sea...
The end of the year is only a few days away, which means tax season is right around the corner. There are still a few things you can do to optimize your 2019 tax return before the year is out and plenty to keep in mind when you go on to file next year. You could make a contribution to a charitable organization, make an extra interest payment on a loan or contribute or withdraw money from an individual retirement account fund as last-minute options to get your tax return right where you want it, assuming you plan to itemize de...
CLOVIS — Every year, students compete in the nationally recognized Air Force Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps Leadership and Academic Bowl. They take an ACT- and SAT-style test to prove their knowledge of leadership, citizenship and academic subjects. There are three levels in the competition and Clovis High students have made it to the second. There are 44 New Mexico JROTC teams that compete in the first round, but only five are selected to go forward. “The purpose of it is to help prepare for things like the SAT...
Last January, the Roosevelt County Sheriff’s Department reported an undisclosed amount of cash missing from its evidence room. Last week, county commissioners took steps they hope will prevent that from happening again. The county adopted a “two-person rule,” meaning two individuals must be present in order to handle any money obtained by the sheriff’s office and both individuals must count the money after each handling. “This is the governing body’s resolution to the incident in working with the sheriff’s office to enh...
To share the holiday spirit and make sure everyone can have a good meal on Christmas Day, Lighthouse Mission in Clovis and El Rancho Restaurant in Portales are hosting free community meals today. El Rancho will be serving free enchiladas, beans and rice from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for anyone willing to come out. Joey Garcia organizes the meal every year and said they often see around 500 people. The annual meal started when Garcia and his wife were looking for a way to give back during the holiday season and decided to pick...
CLOVIS - Even with Administrator Mark Gallegos's year-long absence, the Curry County Detention Center has been making strides in its efforts to improve the local jail and has managed to curb some of its longest-standing issues. Gallegos returned to his position at the Detention Center in September after taking a year to serve his active duty time in the U.S. Navy. He recently led members of the county commission on their annual tour of the facility following Thursday's...
CLOVIS — A new magistrate court building is in the works for Curry County and if all goes well, construction should begin adjacent to the county courthouse within the next year. The Curry County Commission received a presentation on the proposed new magistrate court addition adjacent to the county courthouse and what the following steps will be for the project moving forward during its meeting Thursday morning. The Administration Office of the Courts would partner with the county for the project and the New Mexico Finance A...
PORTALES — The city of Portales will have a new garbage truck added to its fleet after the city council on Tuesday approved a purchase. The M2 106 garbage truck will cost $193,447 and comes with a side-dump body used for the disposal of solid waste and on-board cameras for backing up safely. The truck will replace one of the older trucks in the fleet, with the old truck to be moved into the backup fleet and one of the backups to be retired. The city currently has seven trucks in service. “These trucks typically have abo...
PORTALES — Roosevelt General Hospital is well into the planning phase of its Emergency Department expansion project, which will add new emergency facilities at the hospital to serve the people of Portales and the surrounding area, while also paving the way for future expansions. The RGH Board of Trustees received an update on the project, as well as a presentation of its 2019 audit during its regular meeting Tuesday. Scott Johnson of FBT Architects walked the board through the most recent iteration of the new department's s...
Area residents have another chance to taste some local history. The Guadalajara Mexican restaurant is back after 12 years. Once a local staple, the restaurant closed in 2007 after nearly 70 years in business. "I grew up here and I've been around here my whole life," owner Michael Mendoza said. "My granddad taught me how to cook in the 1980s and after he passed my mother ran it while I cooked for her. She was the boss but retired in 1998 and my wife and I ran it until 2007."...
In a year's time, the open fields and farmland east of Dora will be filled with towering white windmills that will harness New Mexico's strong winds to generate enough electricity to power 194,000 homes. The towers themselves won't start arriving until April, but members of Wanzek Construction will be plenty busy until then as they build foundations and roads for them at the site of the Sagamore Wind Project. Local and state officials, representatives from Xcel Energy and...
