Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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Less than 12 hours after Clovis police received a hefty pay increase, roughly 100 city employees protested Friday by taking a sick day. City employees were protesting the fact there is no plan to increase wages of all city employees, though several said they were happy the city commission awarded a $714,899 annual pay increase for city police. City officials said 72 employees of the public works department and 26 from the parks and recreation department either called in sick or reported to work Friday morning, filled out a si... Full story
For the first time in roughly 40 years, a write-in candidate won an election in Parmer County. And this time it wasn’t because an incumbent candidate forgot to file. Write-in candidate Kathryn Gurley of Friona defeated Farwell Republican Jeff W. Actkinson 2,014 votes to 1,606 on Tuesday night. Bonnie Warren, who worked as Parmer County clerk for 36 years until 1997, said the only write-in candidate to win an election in the last 40 years was an incumbent county commissioner in the 1960s. In that case, Warren said the c...
A former Eastern New Mexico University student-body president is at the center of a tug of war among the state’s most prominent student leaders, some of whom want to strip him of his title as the president of the Associated Students of New Mexico. Bob Cornelius, ENMU’s student body president last year who now attends the University of New Mexico, claims he was run out of Portales after he lost the student body-election to his fraternity brother Brett Trembly in the spring. As the lame-duck president at Eastern, he was re-...
Hours of debating, number-crunching and spirited pleas by Clovis police and concerned citizens came to a head Thursday when incoming District Attorney Matt Chandler addressed the Clovis City Commission. Faced with the strong possiblity the commission would vote to approve the lesser of two salary increases for Clovis police, Chandler gave an impassioned speech that brought a packed room to its feet. He described police as soldiers with badges, and said the public safety of Clovis was slipping through the hands of... Full story
A former Eastern New Mexico University student-body president is the center of a tug of war among the state’s most prominent student leaders, some of whom want to strip him of his title as the president of the Associated Students of New Mexico. Bob Cornelius, ENMU’s student body president last year who now attends the University of New Mexico, claims he was run out of Portales after he lost the student body-election to his fraternity brother Brett Trembly in the spring. As the lame-duck president at Eastern, he was re-... Full story
In a nip-and-tuck race for the presidency, Democrats and Republicans in Portales were still waiting late into the evening for a victor — even though Roosevelt County resoundingly favored President Bush. Nationwide, CNN reported 246 electoral votes for Bush and 188 for John Kerry at 10:30 p.m. Tuesday night. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the presidency. With 21 of 22 precincts reporting at 10:15 p.m., 3,618 Roosevelt County voters favored Bush and 1,608 favored Kerry, the state secretary of state’s Web site showed. Por... Full story
Rube Render discusses the presidential race while watching the returns with newly elected District 9 Public Education Commissioner Dennis James Roch at a party of Republicans on Tuesday night in Clovis. (Staff photo: Mike Linn) While experts and analysts chimed in their thoughts on what swing state John Kerry or President Bush would take, Rube Render and other Republicans at a party in Clovis couldn’t help but add their thoughts to the mix. “I think if Bush gets Florida and Ohio it’s curtains for John,” said Render, a member... Full story
Poll workers Codie McDowell (left) and Pam Sury receive instructions Monday at the Curry County Courthouse. (Staff photo: Mike Linn) Months of anticipation and speculation are over. Talks of voter disenfranchisement, rights, turnouts, conflicting polls and political spin will culminate throughout the country today with the reaffirming of George W. Bush as president or a choice for new leadership in John Kerry. In Florida, voting officials continue to defend election reform following 2000 when terms like “hanging chad” and... Full story
COPS AND COURTS District Judge Joe Parker on Friday sentenced a former Eastern New Mexico University student to 19 months in the state Department of Corrections for violating probation, according to a press release from the district attorney’s office. Tiffany Rodgers, 21, was originally ordered to serve six months in jail before being released to serve 2 1/2 years on probation, the press release said, in connection with the February 2002 death of Portales teenager Matthew Foley. A report of probation violation was filed in S...
Clovis Community College officials are inviting students to view a movie on Monday that contradicts Fahrenheit 9/11, the anti-Bush film shown Thursday that garnered numerous calls from students, teachers and community members who thought the viewing was in poor taste. FahrenHYPE 9/11, which challenges filmmaker Michael Moore’s anti-Bush documentary, will be shown at 12:15 p.m. Monday at the school’s Town Hall. CCC President Beverlee McClure said at a press conference Friday the school in no way endorsed a public viewing of Mo... Full story
Rocky Fleming, left, 41, speaks with his court-appointed attorney Jim Wilson after being sentenced Friday evening to 35 years in prison on charges he manufactured child pornography. (Staff photo: Eric Kluth) A Cannon Air Force Base staff sergeant, charged with five counts of manufacturing child pornography, showed no emotion when a district judge Friday evening sentenced him to 35 years in prison. He didn’t react when Deputy District Attorney Brian McKay described his actions as sick and horrific. He was impassive when his c... Full story
The public safety committee voted unanimously Thursday to recommend the Clovis City Commission approve a $714,000 plan to increase wages at the Clovis Police Department. Police officers pleaded with the committee to push the issue to the city commission, a necessary step they said will make Clovis more attractive to certified police officers and will help resolve what they described as a crisis situation. “We are in a crisis situation and we have to draw certified police officers,” Police Chief Bill Carey said in the meeting....
A Clovis Community College instructor who invited students to an on-campus viewing of the movie Fahrenheit 9/11 has created a buzz among students who felt the viewing was in poor taste. English instructor Paul Nagy said he showed the movie, a documentary highly critical of President Bush’s administration, to about 35 students, 12 of whom were in his English 102 class. He said the film was used as an examination on argument and persuasion. He said CCC’s student government officially sponsored the viewing. A student who ide... Full story
A public safety committee will meet at 3 p.m. today at Clovis’ city hall to discuss increasing police salaries to bring them up to par with other departments throughout the state. But some current and former Clovis police employees say increased wages will not fix the problems within the walls of a department that has 10 openings on a 62-officer staff. Detectives Kirk Roberts and Keith Farkas are active organizers in the Clovis Police Officers Association, a group wanting to unionize in the hopes of bargaining with city o...
Rocky Fleming, left, appeared with his attorney Jim Wilson for his sentencing Tuesday at the Curry County Courthouse. Sentencing was postponed until Friday. (Staff photo: Eric Kluth) Sentencing for a Clovis man charged with five counts of manufacturing child pornography was postponed on Tuesday because his lawyer did not receive a diagnostic evaluation in time to schedule witnesses to testify on his behalf. Rocky Fleming, 41, a staff sergeant at Cannon Air Force Base, is scheduled to be sentenced Friday after pleading guilty... Full story
Assistant Fire Chief Ray Westerman will be appointed Clovis’ new fire chief on Thursday. “I’m looking forward to the challenge,” said Westerman, who will take over for Ron Edwards, who after 31 years in the department will retire on Friday. Westerman, who has been with the Clovis Fire Department almost 30 years, said it’s an honor to be able to head a 71-man department dedicated to public service. “These are ordinary people who come together and do extraordinary things,” he said. Westerman started with the department in...
Congressman Pete Domenici, center, addressed community leaders about BRAC issues while in town Tuesday. State Sen. Stuart Ingle is on the left. U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici on Tuesday lauded the importance of Cannon Air Force Base to America’s military operations and provided a short yet strong list of reasons the base should fare well in the upcoming Base Closure and Realignment process. The proximity of Melrose Bombing Range, good weather for flying, and quality airspace are great assets that will be viewed positively by the B...
Reporter's Notebook Hungry anyone? Bring some spice into your evening by attending this year’s Taste of Home cooking school at 6:30 p.m. tonight at Marshall Junior High School Auditorium. Tickets are $8 and can be purchased at the door. The Clovis News Journal-sponsored event will allow attendees to learn 12 new recipes and be in the running for a host of prizes. Taste of Home’s Tamra Duncan will introduce several new grocery products, offer unique serving techniques as well as demonstrate 12 featured recipes, according to...
He was good at mimicry. He always opened the door for his coworkers. And he had a voracious appetite. But what coworkers with Cannon Air Force Base Public Affairs remember most about Airman 1st Class Brian Kane was his ability to put a smile on their faces — day in and day out. Kane died Saturday morning after collapsing at a soccer game on base. He was 29. “Brian was one of those people who would walk into a room and the entire room would light up,” 1st Lt. Jennifer Geeslin said. “He’d never met an enemy. Brian Kane was...
Letters to the editor • Sign-stealing not going to sway votes Tension levels high as election approaches Angie Baca and her fellow Democrats are actively campaigning for Kerry by putting up signs. The Bush supporters who are stealing or vandalizing her signs are contributing not a whit to Bush’s re-election. If they spent the same amount of time campaigning for President Bush that they spend collecting Kerry signs from front yards they might swing some votes his way. I’m sure the Republican headquarters here in town can u...
Congressman Pete Domenici on Tuesday lauded the importance of Cannon Air Force Base to America’s military operations and provided a short yet strong list of reasons the base should fare well in the upcoming Base Closure and Realignment process. The proximity of Melrose Bombing Range, good weather for flying, and quality airspace are great assets that will be viewed positively by the BRAC commission in the upcoming year, the Republican said at a meeting of base community supporters at the Holiday Inn in Clovis. “I know that BR...
He was good at mimicry. He always opened the door for his coworkers. And he had a voracious appetite. But what coworkers with Cannon Air Force Base Public Affairs remember most about Airman 1st Class Brian Kane was his ability to put a smile on their faces — day in and day out. Kane died Saturday morning after collapsing at a soccer game on base. He was 29. “Brian was one of those people who would walk into a room and the entire room would light up,” 1st Lt. Jennifer Geeslin said. “He’d never met an enemy. Brian Kane was...
A local entrepreneur plans to build a $1.2 million shooting range outside of Clovis and has offered to allow local law enforcement agencies to use his facility at a discounted rate. Stephen D. Powell presented his plans for Patriot Arms Training Center at Thursday’s city commission meeting, just two weeks after the commission made $400,000 for a regional firing range their top request from the state Legislature in 2005. Powell, who predicted his facility will be ready by summer, said he could rent the range for Clovis police...
A Clovis native sat on a four-person panel with President Bush on Wednesday during a campaign stop the president made to Rochester, Minn. Asked by Bush to tell her story, former Cameo Elementary fifth-grade teacher Jill Wooten said she grew up in a little town in eastern New Mexico called Clovis. She told the president she moved in the summer of 2003 to Minnesota because her husband got a job at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. The president then asked why she left Clovis, then realized she had already answered the question,...
Clovis police are investigating the Friday death of a Clovis infant as child abuse, according to a press release from the Clovis Police Department. Detective Tony Bosque said a suspect has agreed to speak with police today about the incident. The 41-year-old suspect — who maintains his innocence — is the boyfriend of the child’s mother, Bosque said. Police have not released the name of the child, who died from injuries sustained by shaken baby syndrome, police said. “The death wasn’t the cause of any fall or anything...
