Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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TAOS - Bernie Ellis, who made national headlines in the early part of the century after the notorious federal bust of his Tennessee pot farm in 2002, gave away 25 pounds of high-grade cannabis in the parking lot of the Carnelian Center in Dixon early this month. Ellis is a career state and federal epidemiologist best known through his work providing medical cannabis free to AIDS patients beginning in the 1980s. His unofficially sanctioned grow operation in Tennessee, and the h...
New Mexico legislators have thrown many billions of dollars at its public school system over the years in an effort to elevate student test scores, graduation rates and attendance records from rock-bottom rankings, with little effect. That’s because public funding isn’t the primary reason students perform far worse, on average, in New Mexico than in most other states — broken or unstable families are to blame. The percentage of children living in single-parent homes in the United States has been rising steadily in recen...
TAOS — Around 8 a.m. on March 15, two deputies and Sheriff Steve Miera climbed a steep descent down the gorge to recover the body of a young male adult who jumped from the Río Grande Gorge Bridge. The man jumped over the railing — a 4-foot-tall obstacle — while visiting the bridge with his family mid-afternoon on March 14. According to Miera, the man’s girlfriend attempted to scale the railing after him, but she was stopped by a guard and transported to Holy Cross Hospital for a behavioral health evaluation. The bridge has be...
The New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions has released its latest labor market review, which breaks down the state’s employment data for January and concludes that New Mexico is grappling with the second-highest unemployment rate in the country. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor of Statistics, New Mexico’s unemployment rate in January was 5.9 percent, surpassed only by the District of Columbia, at 6.3 percent. California had the third-worst ranking, with a 5.8 percent unemployment rate. The Department of Wor...
Thirty food and agriculture groups have released the sixth annual Feeding The Economy report, a historic farm-to-fork economic analysis revealing how these sectors influence the local and broader United States economies. Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s study highlights how the industries remained resilient to provide Americans with jobs, economic opportunities and safe food. The report’s findings show that seven percent of the nation’s economy and 29 percent of American jobs are linked to the food and agric...
Last summer, when droves of tourists left their home cities to travel again after lockdowns, the tourism industry saw some much needed regrowth. Taos, too, saw its share of travelers, who enjoyed at least partly reopened businesses, parks and other town amenities. But the Taos Visitor Center, the one dedicated resource for tourists at the corner of Paseo del Cañon and Paseo del Pueblo Sur, remained closed, and still is today. Some people have been asking why the center is still shuttered. But the more important question...
TAOS - Several ski resorts in Northern New Mexico opened for business in November - despite virtually no natural snow on the ground. To remedy this, ski resorts brought out their snowmaking machinery to create snow for snowboarders and skiers too eager to wait for the weather to change. As the planet continues to change and warm - these machines, which use millions of gallons of water for relatively small sections of ski runs, are becoming increasingly important to the...
TAOS — Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed HB-22, the Grow Your Own Teachers Scholarships Act, which expands financial aid support for students pursuing teaching degrees. “Improving educational outcomes for all New Mexicans is vital, and we must work together to support aspiring educators and fill current vacancies,” said Stephanie Rodriguez, Acting Secretary for the New Mexico Higher Education Department. The bill, signed into law on March 17, was introduced by Rep. Joy Garratt, D-Albuquerque, and expands the Grow Your Own T...
Well, the weather is warming up, vaccines are getting into arms, and sports are once again making their way into our collective minds. For pro athletes, sports never really left, just modified a little. But for the hybrid creature known as the “student-athlete,” the return of sports is a huge deal. In 2020, the global pandemic robbed an entire class of student-athletes of their ability to showcase their skills for college recruiters. Coronavirus robbed them of one of the most unforgettable times in their lives; a time whe...
It’s been half a dozen years since the Taos News editorialized about renaming Kit Carson Memorial Park. Now, as a movement has spread across the country to reconsider which historical figures should be honored with statues, streets and named parks, this might be a good time to again take up the question about naming the central park of Taos after Christopher “Kit” Carson. Like many historic figures, his legacy is complex and draws mixed and impassioned reactions. Some see him as a frontiersman and soldier who spoke multi...
Life is precious. So is quality of life. We do not get to choose when our lives begin. Most of us don’t get to choose when it ends. But some — like those diagnosed with a terminal illness or an illness such as Alzheimer’s that slowly but most assuredly kills the brain — know what is coming and may even have an estimated time frame before they die. How they choose to live within that time is important. Just as important is whether or not they should have the right to choose how and when they die. Avis Vermilye chose to end...
Recently, a young man from Vail, Colorado, died in an avalanche at Taos Ski Valley. He was already a registered organ donor. Corey Borg-Massanari’s last act on earth, because of his caring forethought, gave new life and hope to 11 other people, strangers he will never know. The doctors, nurses and other staff who cared for the 22-year-old in his final hours and then ensured his organs were safely transported to awaiting recipients lined the halls at University of New Mexico Medical Center in Albuquerque to pay their r...
Congratulations, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, on the beginning of your journey leading the state. You certainly have the political chops and smarts for the job. We agree with so much of what you talked about in your inaugural speech Jan. 1 as you took the helm of a troubled state. We applaud your plan to raise the minimum wage and ensure early childhood education for every New Mexican preschooler. Certainly your focus on increasing renewable energy and protecting the environment are vital goals. We also think you made good...
Several days ago, a group of teens and supporters led by River Johnson, 17, zip-tied handwritten, laminated notes of care along the Río Grande Gorge Bridge in hopes that someone on the verge of suicide would reconsider and choose life instead. Within a few hours, the state highway department had taken the notes down. One man who saw officials taking down the notes called the newspaper, angry. “They shouldn’t do that. Those notes might help keep someone alive,” he said. This is not the first group to place notes of love a...
We applaud the unanimous decision of the Taos County Commission recently to deny a construction permit for a Family Dollar store in Ranchos de Taos. It was the right decision. We say this not because we oppose dollar stores as a whole. They provide a valuable service to residents in rural areas that have lost their general stores. Properly situated, they help people who lack transportation have easier access to some basic goods. Even if the profits from these dollar stores go to some far-off fat cat in a far-off state, the...
When deep trust is broken, it is gut wrenching, soul crushing, life altering. When the trust is broken by someone not only in a position of power over us, but someone who holds our deepest spiritual convictions, someone we believe has a special relationship to the Creator, it threatens our very bonds with God. How could it not? This is what happened when Catholic priests sexually abused young people over the course of decades. And so, it should not seem beyond reasonable belief that the children and teenagers who were violate...
The night of Nov. 6 was the celebratory moment for Democrat Michelle Lujan Grisham. She had the time to thank the people who made it possible, a few hours to enjoy the applause. Then, it was off to sleep and rest because now it gets real. Now comes governing. The key to a successful term as governor for Lujan Grisham — something New Mexico needs desperately — is to choose a great transition team and begin assembling a Cabinet, immediately set policy and legislative priorities and reach out to legislative leaders from bot... Full story
