Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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CLOVIS — The Plateau Custom Classic has become as much a part of the local summer as heat, thunderstorms and more heat. Now in its 36th year, the Classic is still as big a summer tradition than ever. And once again, teams from around the panhandle and Eastern New Mexico will descend upon Clovis for a chance to play some really good competition, maybe win a championship. It begins Friday night and runs through Sunday afternoon. The event hasn’t done any leaps-and-bounds gro...
McKINNEY, Texas — Fourth place is neither the penthouse nor the basement. And fourth is where the Eastern New Mexico football team was projected out of a nine-team field when the Lone Star Conference’s preseason poll was released at Monday’s LSC Media Day. Coming off a 5-6 season, Eastern New Mexico head football coach Kelley Lee will take the prediction — for now. But when it comes time to go out and do it on the field, Lee thinks his team is capable of so much more. “It’s n...
CLOVIS — When Anya Hammond first came into the world, she didn’t have a sister. That lasted for 1 minute and 10 seconds. Then, Anya was joined by her twin Maya, and the pair has been close to inseparable ever since. Oh, they’ve had their own personalities, separate interests, especially when they lived in Albuquerque. Since moving to small-town Clovis, however, they’ve had to run — and swim — in the same circles more often than not. The Hammonds have been integral parts of Cl...
Quick, now. What comes to mind when you think about University of California athletics. Aaron Rodgers? Jared Goff? If you’re old enough you probably remember when Cal football’s kick-return laterals beat Stanford while New Mexico native Joe Kapp was coaching the Golden Bears. If you’re older still, you might remember when Kapp was California’s quarterback. Cal men’s basketball? Kevin Johnson likely comes to mind. “KJ” in 1992 became the first California men’s basketball play...
Division I college basketball is a grand stage no matter what size the school. Consider Oklahoma's Southwestern Christian University kind of off-Broadway. It's the elite level but in a smaller setting. And in that setting, 2018 Clovis High graduate Jakeem Wynn will continue his basketball career with the NAIA school. Wynn recently signed a letter of intent to attend Southwestern Christian in Bethany, Oklahoma, where he will play point guard in the Sooner Athletic Conference....
PORTALES — This was one of those times where there was room to get it right. There will be plenty more times, plenty of preseason practices and scrimmages between Friday’s Seven-on-Seven Tournament and Lineman Challenge at Greyhound Stadium and the start of high school football season late next month. But Friday was a fairly important preseason milepost, a chance for coaches to see what’s good, what’s bad, what needs tweaking, how their skill players might be looking early....
PORTALES — Athletes come, athletes go. Fade out, fade in. That’s the story for collegiate athletics. A good crop comes in and it’s soon time to bring in a fresh batch of recruits. Eastern New Mexico cross country/track & field head coach Jeff Kavalunas is quite pleased with this year’s batch. Earlier this week ENMU announced the signing of 23 athletes who will compete for the university’s cross country and/or track & field teams, a diverse group that includes athletes from Israel, Nebraska, Arizona and Colorado, plus athl...
PORTALES — Becoming Eastern New Mexico’s head baseball coach seemed the next logical step for Riley Price. The Kansas native, like his father, played college ball. Price has had to be versatile throughout his playing and coaching careers. He’s had to deal with adversity throughout both. And after coaching near the Canadian border for a while, he was looking to head south. Eastern’s job checked all of the above boxes. And so Price, after passing muster in the ENMU intervi...
J.D. Hipp is not the father of 16-year-old Mikaela Snider nor 11-year-old Kailie Wieland. But he’s like a proud papa this month just the same. Hipp serves as gymnastics coach for Snider and Wieland. Each gymnast competed in the 2019 USA Gymnastic Championships during the first week of July at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines, and each turned in memorable performances. Snider of Clovis reached the finals and finished top-eight there, “which is a big deal,” Hipp said, “because the U.S. Olympic team will come out of the eli...
CLOVIS — Some Little League All-Star teams don’t even score 19 runs in an entire tournament. Friday night, Roosevelt County’s Junior League District 3 team scored 19 in one-half inning. Yup, 19. Roosevelt County got its state tournament journey off to a wild, weird and exciting start by rallying to beat Zia of District 5 (Albuquerque) 26-15 at the Lady Wildcat Softball Complex. As if 26-15 wasn’t a crazy enough final score, consider this — Roosevelt County trailed 11-7 heading...
PORTALES — Anyone expecting Eastern New Mexico’s athletic teams to bolt the Lone Star Conference and return to the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics should not hold their collective breaths. ENMU president Jeff Elwell said Saturday afternoon that those are just rumors lacking validity. Elwell did say, however, that the university is in an exploratory phase of starting a women’s golf program that would begin competing in the fall of 2020. “Because we need (athletic) opportunities for females,” Elwell said, “an...
With July 4 having come and gone, it’s time for the Little League state baseball and softball tournaments. Some tournaments are underway, most begin this weekend, others don’t start until the weekend of July 19-21. Locally, the 9-11 year-old Baseball and Junior Softball brackets feature a slate of games at Beachum Field and the Lady Wildcat Complex, respectively, beginning this weekend, as District 3 plays hosts for those tournaments. In the 9-11 bracket Friday at 5:30 p.m., District 9 plays District 1, and at 7:30 p.m., Dis...
PORTALES — Roughly two weeks after Eastern New Mexico University athletic director Greg Waggoner turned in his resignation, the process of replacing him is humming along. Waggoner’s resignation became public on June 25, was formally announced by the university on June 26, and the position was posted that weekend on ncaa.com, collegead.com and the university’s website, in addition to going out across social media. The response since has indicated great interest in the Division II position. “In less than two weeks we have go...
It’s been an NBA offseason where you need a scorecard to keep track of all the wild and wacky moves. For the NCAA Division II Eastern New Mexico men’s basketball team, it hasn’t been anywhere near as crazy. But the Greyhounds have made a flurry of moves since the spring, and perhaps a scorecard to track it all wouldn’t be a bad idea. In a span of just under three months, the Hounds added Brandon Meadows (Apr. 11), Marvin Mapaga (May 16), Yosnier Cobas (May 17), Jose Serrano (June 28), and just last week, Nico Matheus...
MELROSE - Who hasn't opened a book and embarked on a journey? Whether it was down a rabbit hole, into outer space, back to a bygone century or into a future one, everybody has been taken on a trip by countless authors, delivered from point A to B through words, just by turning pages. Samantha Odom is taking young readers in Melrose through a similar journey, only she's using her own personal skills to do so through illustration. Odom, who herself came through the Melrose...
PORTALES — Greg Waggoner is moving on. Waggoner on Monday officially resigned as Eastern New Mexico University athletic director, submitting his letter of resignation to university president Jeff Elwell, though Elwell stated on Tuesday afternoon that there were face-to-face discussions leading up to it. Elwell answered simply, “no,” to the question of whether Waggoner was asked to resign, before adding, “we met regularly for the two years that I’ve been here and like any people working together, we didn’t always agree on th...
There they were, Patrick Swayze and Chris Farley, in what was to become an instant Saturday Night Live classic. According to the sketch's premise, they were competing for a spot in the famous Chippendale's dance troupe. And as each danced his heart out, Loverboy's song "Working for the Weekend" blared, a tune more than high-energy enough for dancing competitors to strut their stuff with abandon. The skit debuted live in October 1990 when the song was already nine years old....
It was a case of hello, goodbye. That's how quickly Joe Jones and his cousin Gary Rector saw a man they were fairly certain was ex-Beatles legend Paul McCartney on Clovis' Main Street around 1973. It was quite a few yesterdays ago, but Jones - then a teenaged visitor from Friona, now a retired dentist in Santa Fe - still remembers the surprise and confusion nearly five decades later. Jones and Rector were frequent day trippers to Clovis, regularly popping over from Friona to...
CLOVIS - Smack in the middle of the fray, in the center of the many softball fields hosting games for the 36th annual Custom Classic softball tournament, was a sign reading 'Welcome to the 'Guy' Leeder Complex." Fitting, because there was a lot of welcoming to do. Approximately 100 teams came from throughout the panhandle area and descended upon Clovis over the weekend for this year's installment of the perennial tournament, which included five divisions - three men's and two...
Aundrea Dawson has many loves. Faith. Family. Music. Basketball. Faith is likely first and foremost, the fountain from which the other three spring. Basketball was a passion in the 1990s — especially near decade’s end when she helped Clovis High’s girls basketball team win a state championship — and in the early 2000s when she was playing the sport for Liberty University. These days it’s mostly about faith, family and music. And Dawson combines all three with her Gospel act, which will open for Christian singer/so...
For Josh Wilson, it was no accident. No serendipity. No coincidence. Wilson’s life, like everyone’s, has taken him on a path. But because of his deep spirituality, Wilson thinks he was led to a career as a Christian singer/songwriter. “God knows what the plans are. I don’t really know what they are,” he said Thursday in a telephone interview from Nashville. “He kind of put the things together where they are in my life. So I’m thankful for that.” Be it Providence or some fortunate booking, perhaps both, Wilson will be perform...
Turn them loose. Loverboy - a band that Baby Boomers and Gen X-ers surely remember, a band whose music most Millennials and Gen Z-ers have probably heard, whether they realize it or not - will be performing at this year's Draggin' Main Music Festival. They'll be working for the weekend, or at least part of it, when they take to the Marshall Auditorium stage on Friday night. Best known for the hit early-'80s singles "Turn Me Loose" and "Working for the Weekend," the Canadian...
CLOVIS — This is the time of year that Clovis goes back in time. Drive-ins. ’50s music and nostalgic tours. ’60s music. Even some ’80s rock. Bringing together all of the above and more is the Draggin’ Main Music Festival, scheduled to run through Saturday. Organizers have been working hard to make sure this year’s installment of the festival is a memorable one, maybe even the most memorable. “I think it’s fantastic, I think it’s fantastic. We anticipate our biggest year,” event chairman Derek Cockrell said last week. “Ye...
CLOVIS — Ropin’, rustlin’ and ridin.’ Three words that are a surefire sign the rodeo was in town. In a tradition that began in 1971, cowboys and cowgirls from throughout the southwest descended on the Curry County Events Center Thursday, Friday and Saturday for this year’s installment of the Pioneer Days Rodeo. Bucking broncos, rope tricks, riders trying to rope steers or tie calves while the steers and calves tried to avoid being roped and tied, men and women literally...
Officially, high school sports season ended in May. For Texico it was May 18 in Albuquerque to be exact, as the Wolverines baseball team routed Estancia 13-3 at the University of New Mexico’s Santa Ana Star Field to win the program’s fourth consecutive state championship. Two months earlier, Texico’s basketball team had its state championship quest halted by Pecos in the 2A semifinals at The Pit in Albuquerque, just a few hundred feet from Santa Ana Star Field. Both of the above are now in the days-gone-by file. But, there...
