Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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RIO RANCHO – Logan stunned top-seeded and previously unbeaten Melrose 25-16, 25-20, 25-20 in the Class 1A volleyball championship Saturday after the Lady Buffaloes mostly dominated the Lady Longhorns this season. Melrose was hoping to notch its seventh volleyball championship and its first undefeated season since 1983. Instead, a jubilant Logan squad delivered a three-peat in state championships to its coach, Robert Young, at the Santa Ana Star Center, including a title victor...
RIO RANCHO – For Texico, call it six the hard way. The top-seeded Wolverines volleyball team captured its sixth consecutive state championship Saturday, but it had to get past an upset-minded, fifth-seeded Mescalero Apache team that Texico had conquered in three sets the day before. Texico prevailed 23-25, 25-19, 24-26, 25-12, 15-11 in the Class 2A title game that took nearly 2 1/2 hours to complete at the Santa Ana Star Center. Riley Rohrbach's kill on match point enabled t...
“I think we will be a decent ballclub if we can stay healthy.” Tucumcari head coach Wayne Ferguson’s thumbnail assessment of his team matches others in the region. Simply put, coaches in Quay County and beyond are struggling to get enough athletes out for football. Ferguson has 31 players on his varsity roster, but he’s seen fewer than 20 show up for practices so far. Because of his lack of skilled players, he felt forced to cancel a scrimmage last week against the Clovis...
The New Mexico Racing Commission — minus one commissioner fired last week — will reconvene Thursday to hold its first regular meeting in more than two months, including discussing the possibility of awarding a sixth license. The commission emailed a lengthy meeting agenda Monday morning that included a closed session to discuss a sixth license and nearly a dozen other items, plus an item about a sixth license among 23 others in new business. The meeting will begin with a closed session at 8:30 a.m. Thursday and an open ses...
The mayor of Logan was fined $800, given a suspended 90-day jail sentence and put on unsupervised probation for illegally working and bidding as an electrical contractor without a license during a plea deal Tuesday afternoon in Tucumcari magistrate court. David Babb, 63, pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor violations of the Construction Industries Licensing Act — one for working as a contractor without a license and the other for bidding as a contractor without a license. He was charged in May after the state of New Mexico f...
ALBUQUERQUE - The Fort Sumner boys track team so dominated the Class 1A field during the NMAA Track and Field Championship, it nearly doubled the number of points scored by the runner-up. The Foxes ended the two-day meet Saturday at the UNM Soccer-Track Complex with 102 points, well ahead of No. 2 finisher Logan's 54 1/2. Melrose finished third with 43 points, and Clovis Christian ended up with seven. What's startling is not everything went well for the Foxes. "We had things...
Editor's note: The victim and those associated with her are not identified in this story, in line with Eastern New Mexico News policy not to identify victims of alleged sexual assault. A former Tucumcari fire chief avoided time behind bars for embezzling city funds and drugging and trying to sexually assault a city employee, but not without hearing scathing statements from the victim and her acquaintances and receiving additional conditions from the judge during sentencing...
The New Mexico Racing Commission’s ratification Thursday of a proposed settlement clears the way for it possibly awarding a sixth racetrack license during a special meeting on Tuesday — provided the governor doesn’t fire the commission first. The commission, after a closed executive session during its regular meeting Thursday at its office in Albuquerque, approved the agreement with Hidalgo Downs LLC, one of the license applicants from Lordsburg. A settlement was announced in early April between Hidalgo and the New Mexic...
TUCUMCARI — The New Mexico Racing Commission today abruptly canceled a planned April 30 special meeting to discuss awarding a sixth horse-racing license, and by the afternoon a new racing commission was appointed by Gov. Michelle Lujan-Grisham. The commission sent out an email Thursday morning, stating the planned April 30 meeting had been canceled “under further notice.” Commission Executive Director Ismael “Izzy” Trejo declined comment when contacted by phone Thursday morning but said he likely would make a statement...
TUCUMCARI — A former Tucumcari fire chief on Tuesday pleaded no contest in district court to five criminal counts — three of them felonies — from a 2017 case in which he was accused of drugging and sexually assaulting a city employee and embezzling city funds. Shane Warner, 42, who now lives in Clovis, agreed in a 10th Judicial District courtroom to plead no contest to assault with intent to commit a violent felony (second- or third-degree criminal sexual penetration), attempt to commit a felony (extortion), felony tampe...
TUCUMCARI — The New Mexico Supreme Court has publicly censured a 10th Judicial District judge in Tucumcari for violating the Code of Judicial Conduct during a private meeting last year with Quay County’s manager. Judge Albert J. Mitchell allegedly said he would ask the governor to veto capital-outlay funds due to the county because of a dispute over court-security funds, according to a document unsealed Monday afternoon by the high court. Mitchell, who serves Quay, De Baca and Harding counties, denied he engaged in “willful m...
The New Mexico Racing Commission again has placed awarding a sixth license on its tentative agenda for its regular meeting Thursday in Albuquerque. But with a lawsuit due in an Albuquerque courtroom in about two weeks from a license applicant, it appears unlikely the commission will take action on that item. The meeting begins at 9:30 a.m. at the commission’s board room at 4900 Alameda Blvd. in Albuquerque. The sixth-license item lies near the end of the agenda after several dozen other action items. When the commission w...
ALBUQUERQUE - The Melrose boys basketball team finished a mediocre 4-4 in district play and landed just a No. 5 seed in the Class 1A state tournament. But Saturday night, the Buffaloes captured their second straight state championship with a 54-50 victory over No. 2-seeded Fort Sumner, their district rival, at the DreamStyle Arena, aka The Pit. "If you would have told me we'd be in this position this year, I would have told you you were crazy last year," Melrose coach Kevin...
ALBUQUERQUE – The Melrose boys basketball team finished a mediocre 4-4 in district play and landed just a No. 5 seed in the Class 1A state tournament. But Saturday night, the Buffaloes captured their second straight state championship with a 54-50 victory over No. 2-seeded Fort Sumner, their district rival, at the DreamStyle Arena, aka The Pit. "If you would have told me we'd be in this position this year, I would have told you you were crazy last year," Melrose coach Kevin La...
ALBUQUERQUE - It was a turnaround the Lady Buffaloes didn't want. The Melrose girls basketball team saw a double-digit lead turn into a four-point deficit in less than five minutes of the third quarter, leading to a 57-48 loss to Tatum in the Class 1A championship at DreamStyle Arena, aka The Pit. Celeste Jimenez led the Coyotes (28-4) with 21 points that included going 14-for-18 from the free throw line. Tatum went 34-for-42 from the charity stripe, while Melrose (24-7) went...
High winds apparently toppled a wind turbine Saturday near House in Quay County. No one was hurt during the mishap, but it caused a lot of chatter on social media. Shana Shoemaker Stowe of House shared an album of photos of the downed wind turbine on Facebook. As of Monday morning, it had been shared more than 2,900 times on the popular social-media network and prompted hundreds of comments. Bryan Garner, a media-relations representative for NextEra Energy Resources that runs...
GRADY — The state-ranked Logan girls basketball team jumped to a 16-point lead early and cruised to a 70-33 district victory Thursday over a rebuilding Grady/San Jon/House team. Harlie Roach’s 16 points led the Lady Longhorns’ balanced attack, along with Kesleah Shields’ 14 and Jordan Hines’ 10. Timia Northcutt’s 11 points led the Lady Bronchos. The game featured teams in transition — one dealing with a season-ending injury to a star player and one trying to advance to a more competitive level. Logan, which improved to 1...
GRADY — The Bronchos had an upset brewing because of their strategy, but the state-ranked Logan boys basketball team fended it off Thursday during a 70-60 district victory. Logan (16-4 overall, 3-0 in district and ranked fifth in Class 1A) defeated Grady/San Jon/House 84-57 during the Dora Tournament on Dec. 6, with Logan’s Dyson Day scoring 18 points. Bronchos athletic director Alicia Rush, who led the team in place of Jonathan Langan after an ejection the previous game forbid him from coaching Thursday, said her squad was...
The possibility of awarding a sixth racetrack license is on the agenda for the regular meeting Thursday of the New Mexico Racing Commission, but it remains unclear whether commissioners will make a decision because of a pending lawsuit filed by one of the applicants. An item called “Sixth Racetrack License” is on the agenda, along with 30 other items, for the commission’s 9:30 a.m. meeting at its boardroom at 4900 Alameda Blvd. in Albuquerque, according to an email from the commission Monday. The commission previously has s...
ALBUQUERQUE - With a request for an injunction still pending in a courtroom, the New Mexico Racing Commission on Friday refrained, as expected, from awarding a coveted sixth horse-racing license to applicants in Clovis, Tucumcari or Lordsburg. Commissioners, however, passed a resolution by a 3-1 vote Friday that stated the commission is "committed" to awarding a sixth license "once we get the attorney general's office approval or the judge grants or denies the petition," Commi...
ALBUQUERQUE — The New Mexico Racing Commission has scheduled a special meeting for Friday morning, but the commission is unlikely to award a sixth horse-racing license during the meeting. Three applicants in Clovis, one in Tucumcari and one in Lordsburg are vying for a license that would lead to a racetrack/casino. The commission sent out an email Tuesday morning about the meeting, set for 9 a.m. Friday in its boardroom at 4900 Alameda Blvd. in Albuquerque. The agenda for Friday’s meeting includes a closed executive ses...
TUCUMCARI - The state-ranked Texico boys basketball team owned a size advantage against Tucumcari and used it during a 64-45 victory Thursday at Tucumcari High School's Snake Pit. The Wolverines' varsity roster listed players at 6-foot-4, 6-foot-3, 6-foot-3 and 6-foot-2, while the Rattlers don't have one player that tall. Still, Tucumcari head coach John Span said his squad could have done a few things to counter Texico's height advantage. "I think their size bothered us a...
TUCUMCARI — Workers on Oct. 25 dismantled and hauled away a 1950s-era neon sign from the Cactus RV Park in Tucumcari after a collector from Albuquerque purchased it. It was the second time in less than a year a vintage neon sign along Route 66 in Tucumcari was taken away. In February, a sign collector in Wisconsin bought the Paradise Motel sign on the town's west end after the long-abandoned property sustained its second suspicious fire in less than six months. A prominent R...
TUCUMCARI — Despite incomplete data, the Fired Up festival Sept. 29 in downtown Tucumcari surpassed its goal of 4,000 people attending. Tucumcari MainStreet Executive Director Gail Houser said the official total stood at a record 4,024 on Oct. 1, despite one volunteer's counter that went at least temporarily missing over the weekend. The organization stations volunteers with clicker counters at three entrance points and counts each person walking into the festival area. The p...
TUCUMCARI — If all goes according to plan, a long-closed ethanol plant in Tucumcari may be converted into a methane plant and become fully operational by mid-2020. Tucumcari Bio-Energy Co. is hunting for investors and may begin converting the plant to methane gas production as soon as early 2019, said Robert Hockaday, president, during a phone interview. He hopes to acquire the necessary investors and loans by year’s end. Bringing the plant, located on the city’s north side, to full production would require 18 months, he said...
