Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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"Tommy Lopez, game ball goes to you!" There was a ferocity in Portales High School head coach Jaime Ramirez's voice while delivering the line to a cluster of sweat-soaked Portales High School youngsters, after an exhilarating 21-14 comeback win over West Las Vegas. Sure, Lopez, a 5-foot-9-inch slot receiver-turned-quarterback, had a great game. He totaled two rushing touchdowns and a pick-six – not to mention his pass breakup on a potential game tying touchdown in the g...
Teresa Doyal is grateful for the work of first responders. "It takes a special kind of person to be willing to sacrifice your own life to protect others," said Doyal, the manager of Steed-Todd Funeral Home. On Wednesday, Steed-Todd and Doyal showed that gratitude by treating local firefighters, police officers and other emergency workers to a barbecue luncheon at Hillcrest Park. Of the nearly 3,000 people killed on 9/11, 343 were firefighters and paramedics, 23 were New York P...
Violent crime, Clovis’ airport and the economy were among multiple topics addressed Friday morning during “Coffee and Conversation” with Clovis Mayor Mike Morris at The Java Loft. Six area residents participated in the hour-long, informal discussion. Criminal activity at the Clovis Apartments on the city’s west side was the most contentious issue. Morris said gunshot-detection tools and license-plate-recognition systems can help deter crime. “We see a lot of the gunshot calls and a lot of the violent crime that happens i...
In a 36-17 victory over Sul Ross State, where his bulldozing blocks helped Eastern New Mexico get to 2-0, 25-year-old offensive lineman Bailey Adair was reminded why he's still playing. It's the feeling of knowing he has something left to give, coupled with the overwhelming feeling of knowing his job at ENMU isn't finished. "I bleed green and silver," said Adair, the only member of the 2019 Greyhound squad that captured the program's first Division II bowl win, after...
If anyone understands the struggles of sleeping in a bed that's not her own, it's 47-year-old Anna Chavez. She knows the shame and anxiety of sleeping on a park bench at night. Just like she's endured the guilt of crashing at someone else's pad that led her to the park bench in the first place. "You get that look, like they're tired of seeing you," said Chavez, who said her drug addiction led her to spend nights in jail, too. But now, after coming to Clovis' Lighthouse...
June Jorgensen, a shift manager at Clovis’ Cook’s restaurant and truck stop, slipped outside last Monday to pet a customer’s dog. “They said that they had a Labradoodle, and I was like, ‘Oh, I want to see the puppy,’” Jorgenson said. While Jorgenson and her adopted granddaughter admired the dog, an 18-wheeler clipped the rear of a black SUV on the highway in front of them. The collision sent the SUV into a ditch, leaving the seven family members inside – including five young kids – reeling for help. “I ran over there. The...
These days, it ain't easy being Stan Hodges, Clovis High School football's first-year head coach. Following a 54-0 loss to Cleveland High School on Friday, the Wildcats are 0-3 and have been outscored 151-8. The last two of those losses have been mercy-rule defeats. After the game, similar to the previous two losses, Hodges maintains it's the grueling, early steps which lay the foundation for the resuscitation of "The Beast from the East." "I know that the best is yet to...
Eastern New Mexico University senior fullback Ron Craten cracked up while reflecting upon a smiley face tattoo on his right bicep. Though it's the size of a dime, it unearths who this first-year transfer from Mississippi College is and where he hails from. "It's definitely a country tattoo," laughed Craten, a native of Oak Grove, a rural, low-income town in northeastern Louisiana of fewer than 2,000 people where folks honk their horns to holler at one another, kids fish, play...
After a couple of decades, Lucio Marin can still remember the people – Loyce Hodges was a favorite teacher – and activities – kickball, blacktop basketball – that made Lincoln-Jackson, an original Black school and later a Clovis public school, so special. "I think it really represented the core of what education should be," Marin said. Given the positive experience Marin had, it made Saturday's reunion "bittersweet." "Sweet" because it honored 100 years of the school'...
LAS VEGAS, N.M. – It was a blend of old and new for Eastern New Mexico football in its season-opening 63-37 victory over New Mexico Highlands on Thursday night. The old being ENMU head coach Kelley Lee and offensive coordinator Andrew McCraw back on the sidelines together, masterminding an offense that totaled more than 500 rushing yards. The new being the forefront of that attack: Mississippi College transfer senior fullback Ron Craten. Though it’s one game, and NMHU isn’t a formidable foe, Thursday night’s thumping showed 2...
First-year head coach Stan Hodges gave a slight grunt while sitting down in Clovis High School's film room after its 50-0 mercy rule loss to Rio Rancho on Friday night at Leon Williams Stadium. The Wildcats are now 0-2 and have been outscored 97-8. "My back's acting up on me. I've got a lot of weight on my shoulders," he quipped. In less than three quarters of action, CHS fumbled over five times, allowed quick screens to go the length of the field and watched several fans...
A multi-use trail from Bob Spencer Park to Hillcrest Park in Clovis could mean more opportunities for health and well-being. Proponents envision people running, walking with friends or riding their bikes. According to a 2014 study by the National Library of Medicine, “proximity to greenspace has been associated with lower levels of stress” and “reduced symptomology for depression and anxiety.” Trent Doolittle, who grew up in Clovis, works with Stantec, an engineering, architecture and environmental consulting organizat...
In 2023, upon returning to Eastern New Mexico University after a two-year hiatus, head coach Kelley Lee wanted to check out the facility he called home for nearly a decade. So, he grabbed a pair of keys that he meant to return when he left but never did. "I turned the lock and it still worked," said Lee, ENMU's offensive coordinator and head coach from 2012-19. Maybe it was fate those keys remained in the glove box in his truck. Whatever the reason, as Lee enters year two of...
Tate Turnbough, the Roosevelt County delegate for the Democratic National Convention, said the United Center in Chicago was shaking – literally – when Vice President Kamala Harris gave her acceptance speech as the party's presidential candidate on Thursday. "It was unreal," Turnbough said. Turnbough said he's among Democrats across the nation – and in eastern New Mexico – experiencing a renewed enthusiasm since Joe Biden announced he would not seek a second term and Harris...
Tommy Fellows, a self-proclaimed online child predator catcher who operates Colorado Ped Patrol, approached Clovis resident Timothy Conrad Harper at Harper’s Fourth Street home on Aug. 17. Over the past couple of weeks, Fellows said Harper had been led to believe he was conversing with Molly – a 13-year-old girl – and expressed interest in taking her virginity. Court records show he intended to meet with her last weekend. Harper knows now that Molly never existed. Someone else was online posing as a child. Court recor...
TEXICO – Following a 50-0 mercy rule victory over rival Santa Rosa High School, Texico High School head coach Bob Gilbreath soaked in the scene and expressed pride in how far the program has come. Upon arriving in 2020, Gilbreath said spirit revolving around the team was low, the varsity squad had just 27 players and the JV squad scratched just one game together. But now, after back-to-back 2A-state championship appearances, including last year's state championship victory, G...
Thursday’s water authority meeting got off to a contentious start when a village of Logan administrator alleged members were damaging Logan’s economy in favor of others. “I’m simply going to leave you with one small request,” Logan village administrator Rodney Paris told the Eastern New Mexico Water Utility Authority: “Don’t do any construction (in Logan) until you figure out how much it’s going to take, and you have full funding to build your treatment plant before you start tearing up everything there, damaging our ec...
After coaching football in Texas for nearly three decades, Stan Hodges thought he would be fine retiring from it full-time to cash in on the oil industry in May of 2023. But there Hodges was, "bawling like a baby" in his 2022 Ford F-150, while driving through oil sites in west Texas' Permian Basin last summer because of how much he missed the job that gave him reward and fulfillment. "I was like, 'Man, I don't know if I can do this,'" he said he thought to himself. Turns out...
On Tuesday morning, while lying in a tent that blocked out swarming flies, Michael Martinez grappled with the fire that killed several of his dogs and left him without a bathroom. "It's just hard to get a grasp," he said. Martinez is just one of several people impacted by a fire on Ivy Street in Portales on Saturday. It left a complex for unhoused people needing a residence, running water and a stove in ruins. According to Portales Fire Chief T.J. Cathey, "A single story resid...
Nearly a month ago, Patsy Delk stood at the front of what would become Curry County's history museum and closed her eyes. "It'll be worth it," she thought at that moment. But with so much left to do – and so little time available – could Delk and other members of the High Plains Historical Foundation pull it off? Turns out they could – and did. "I'm gonna try not to cry," Delk said while addressing a thicket of city members, foundation folks and friends during the museu...
The ride swooshed from side-to-side like a seconds pendulum on a grandfather clock. And with each daunting swing, more momentum and fear were built. And it all reached a crescendo when the riders were suspended in air upside down for a few seconds – or lifetimes – before completing a loop that invited and denied death in one fell swoop. "I'm a thrill seeker so I wouldn't call it scary, but it's fun for sure," said Jax Piepkorn after surviving the ride. Known as the Kam...
Night had settled in. Country music bounced through the speakers. Individual conversations at picnic tables combined to one neatly organized cacophony. And a variety of smells from food trucks and stands provided patrons at the Curry County Fair that familiar coziness: Ribbon fries smothered in nacho cheese; turkey legs the size of footballs, funnel cakes with an avalanche of powdered sugar and sugary, rainbow-colored slushies to wash it all down. And then there's kettle...
As the last glimmers of sunlight shot across the Clovis night sky on Tuesday, Richard Willadsen leaned against a wall adorned with massive stuffed animals on the midway at the Curry County Fair. Behind Willadsen were rows of glass bottles. Some Coors. Some Miller Lites. All begging to be shattered by a baseball thrown by someone willing to cough up a couple bucks. But after 45 years working at stands like this one, Willadsen's voice has turned gravelly, in a nearly imperceptib...
Tylan Barnaby remembered the Livestock Pavilion at last year's Curry County Fair. "It was so hot and there was no air conditioning," said the 12-year-old. Not the ideal conditions for a confined space filled with cattle, swine, lambs and what they leave behind. "Just nasty," Tylan said. But Monday, following a $14.2 million grant from Regional Recreation Centers Quality of Life that led to massive construction, Tylan stood near some of his lambs and beamed at the Livestock...
Sheila Lewis, a gun violence prevention trainer, spoke at length on Thursday to a cluster of people at Clovis' La Casa Senior Center. One focus was ERPOs – Extreme Risk Protection Orders. In simple terms, ERPOs, or red-flag laws, are aimed at preventing people who "pose a significant danger of causing imminent personal injury to self or others" access to guns, said Lewis, a member of New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence. Lewis feels ERPOs could help residents of New Mexi...
