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SANTA FE — The New Mexico Court of Appeals has reversed a verdict in favor of Curry County in a Whistleblower Protection Act lawsuit brought by a former detention center administrator. The Curry County Commission, by a 4-1 vote, fired Gerry Billy as administrator in January 2013. Billy sued, alleging he was fired in retaliation for refusing County Manager Lance Pyle’s directive to discipline a detention center employee. In August 2016, Fifth District Judge William Shoobridge found in favor of Billy, and awarded more than $200...
CLOVIS - If the state decided to reopen the process to award a sixth racino license, there's a good chance the next mayor of Clovis will be on board with having it around. Four of the five candidates hoping to succeed David Lansford largely supported such a possibility during a miniature candidate forum held at the Thursday Clovis Rotary Club meeting at the Clovis Civic Center. The fifth candidate, Mike Morris, said he is open-minded on the topic. Due to the noon-hour...
Information on new products for the home that help with safety, and bag making will be the featured topics on “Creative Living” 9:30 p.m. Tuesday and noon Thursday (all times Mountain). As seniors look towards where they want to live in their platinum years, designers are realizing that changes need to be made in their living conditions. If you choose to “age in place” Lisa Cini has some ideas for various products that will be such a help in terms of safety, fitness and pet...
Clovis Elementary Monday: Breakfast — Orange muffin top. Lunch — Battered waffle chicken bites, au-gratin potatoes, steamed carrots, fresh, fruit, fresh veggies. Tuesday: Breakfast — Homemade sausage, egg, cheese burrito w/salsa. Lunch — Turkey and cheese croissant, veggie dippers, ranch dressing, fresh apple, fresh veggies. Wednesday: Breakfast — Cinnamon roll. Lunch — Chicken nuggets, mashed potatoes with gravy, seasoned green beans, chilled cantaloupe, fresh veggies. Thursday: Breakfast — Banana bread. Lunch — Spaghetti w...
Baxter Curren Senior Center 908 Hickory St., Clovis Monday: 8 a.m.-4 p.m. 8 ball pool, 8:30 a.m. exercise class, 10 a.m. jewelry pals, 1 p.m. canasta, 1 p.m. line dance, 5 p.m. social night, 5 p.m. business meeting, 5:30 potluck, 6 p.m. games. Tuesday: 8 a.m.-4 p.m. exercise equipment, 8 a.m.-4 p.m. 8-ball pool, 8 a.m. quilting, 11 a.m. line dance, 1 p.m. pinochle, 6 p.m. musical. Wednesday: 8 a.m.-4 p.m. exercise equipment, 8 a.m.-4 p.m. 8-ball pool, 9 a.m. sew days, 8:30 a.m. exercise class, 1 p.m. needle gang. Thursday: 7:...
I think I moved back to New Mexico to escape driving in and shoveling snow. This year that plan was working out well until the dang groundhog reared his head. I found myself in the mountain enclave of Santa Fe as the first good snowstorm of the season bore down on New Mexico. That’s not bad in and of itself, but escaping said mountain town on schedule is another thing. Folks in the hotel lobby were buzzing about the weather as the predicted trace went past 3 inches. One c...
Melissa Sena, 55, is a native to the Portales area. She works at Eastern New Mexico University in the Alumni Affairs office as their administrative assistant. She has been married to her husband Johnny for 25 years and together they share three children and four grandchildren. Prior to working at ENMU, Sena had 20 years of experience as an insurance agent. She is working on completing her associate's degree and plans to complete her bachelor's degree in criminal justice with...
Jim Turner cared about the details, and he cared about people as well. Friends said local education, and eastern New Mexico at large, were better for both of those reasons. Turner, who served as president and nearly anything else you could name at Clovis Community College over more than 30 years in education, died Jan. 22 after suffering from Parkinson’s Disease. A voluminous resume started while Turner was attending Portales High School, where he was selected as a Boys State representative in his junior year. After his g...
A triumphant but low-key President Trump took to center stage Tuesday night at the U.S. Capitol to deliver his third State of the Union address. The president had recently returned from maligned Iowa where, in the Republican caucus, he smothered his two GOP challengers, former U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh and former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld. President Trump received 97 percent of the vote. And with his Senate acquittal a forgone conclusion, President Trump, in buoyant spirits, touted the economy, low unemployment rates and his...
Booked The following were booked into local jails (Tuesday-Friday): Clovis ∞ Annaelvira Saucedo, 19, failure to appear on a felony charge ∞ Vladimir Draper, 28, breaking and entering, battery against a household member ∞ Carlos Parraz, 68, false imprisonment, interference with communications, criminal damage to property, aggravated batter ∞ Gabrielle Armstrong, 22, probation violation ∞ Isicca Sena, 20, probation violation ∞ Joe Arias, 29, out of state fugitive ∞ Amanda Ruiz-Loflin, 48, possession of a controlled su...
And so 2016 finally draws to a close. It’s been the longest election year in American history. It ran from Feb. 1, 2016, the date of the Iowa caucuses, to the Senate vote to acquit President Donald Trump last week. It’s true that Nov. 6, 2016, was a signal event in this long election year, but it didn’t really conclude anything, even though the result wasn’t in doubt. Usually, contested elections are ties or near-ties. This is the first time an election has gone into overtim...
It started Sunday night with an exciting and hard-fought Super Bowl game, which I was happy to see end with the Kansas City Chiefs defeating the San Francisco 49ers. Then the next day came the Iowa caucus, aka the Democrat Party’s Iowa fiasco. For weeks, the liberal mainstream media and cable TV had been building up the importance of a win in Iowa. They treated the state’s obsolete caucus process like a sacred ceremony of grassroots democracy that was going to play a cru...
What a dire scenario: A corrupt Republican president soaked in scandal wins re-election in part because dimwitted Democrats decide to nominate a small-state senator who’s way too left-wing for the American mainstream. But enough about how Richard Nixon thrashed George McGovern in 1972. If Democrats want to reprise the past, they need only nominate Bernie Sanders in 2020. Donald Trump would eat him as an appetizer. Beside the fact that Bernie’s grassroots army is overloaded with abusive and sexist acolytes who terrorize his De...
Last week marked a turning point in the already strained (an understatement) relations between Democrats and Republicans. After the Republicans in the Senate ignored the Democrats’ thorough impeachment case against President Donald Trump and kept him in office, and after Trump’s made-for-Hollywood State of the Union address, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi ripped up her copy of Trump’s speech on camera. She made sure everybody in the room and watching on TV could see it. It was an act of rudeness and contempt for a presi...
Three “tough-on-gun-crime” bills sponsored by Republican Rep. Bill Rehm, a retired Bernalillo County Sheriff’s captain, and backed by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham deserve serious consideration by state lawmakers. House Bill 35 would increase the sentencing enhancement for using a gun to commit a crime from one year to three years for a first offense, and from three years to five years for a second offense. New Mexico SAFE — a coalition of faith-based, nonprofit and community groups — notes the bill would not give a judge discr...
CLOVIS — Curry County will be holding two Community Development Block Grant meetings this week to solicit ideas from the community on how to spend this year's CDBG funds. Both will take place at the Curry County Administrative Complex on 417 Gidding St., the first at 4 p.m. on Wednesday and the second at 9 a.m. on Thursday. Residents are welcome to come and present their project ideas to the county....
The following marriage licenses were recently filed at the Curry County Clerk’s office: • Richard Orosco Jr., 39, and Alma Delia De La Cruz, 35, both of Clovis • Cassandra Danielle Chavez, 28, and Maria Griselda Chavez, 34, both of Clovis • Rahshaan Cortez Smith II, 20, and Joshari Albrenai Ricketts-Lewis, 19, both of Clovis • Jacob Andrew Berckefeldt, 44, and Andrea Renea Davis, 42, both of Clovis • Daniel Ray Scheuler, 30, of Friona and Samantha Ashley Boldon, 26, of Lubbock • Harild Ray Dean, 80, of Midland, Texas, and Ma...
CLOVIS — Former Clovis police Detective Francisco Hernandez, 33, was arraigned Friday morning on misdemeanor charges of embezzlement and tampering with evidence. Hernandez is accused of taking $166 from a criminal suspect arrested on unspecified charges on or around July 29. Records show the money was never returned to the owner or logged into evidence after the arrest. Pictures of the money taken after the arrest and logged in the department's digital evidence server were found by investigating officers and officers later f...
PORTALES — The Portales Municipal Schools Board of Education will receive details of its upcoming general obligation bond sale, and discuss submitting another bond question to voters in 2021. The meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday at the district administrative office at 501 S. Abilene. The bond sale would allow the district to acquire the final $2 million available from bonds approved by voters in 2017. Other items on the agenda include: • Out-of-state travel requests from the Portales High track teams in March and for...
Monday • City of Clovis Civil Aviation Board — 5:30 p.m., Clovis Municipal Airport Terminal Conference Room, 459 CR 11.5, Texico. Information: 575-769-7890 • Portales Municipal Schools board — 6 p.m., Board Room, L.C. Cozzens Administrative Offices, 501 S. Abilene, Portales. Information: 575-356-7000 • Clovis Astronomy Club — 7 p.m., Room 143 or 145 (look for signs), Clovis Community College, 417 Schepps Blvd., Clovis. Information: 757-846-7509 Tuesday • Curry County DWI Task Force victim’s impact panel — 7:30 p.m., Curry...
On this date ... 1960: A huge dust storm roared through the region with wind gusts clocked at 70 mph flipping airplanes and limiting visibility to a few feet. Two planes were upside down at Clovis Municipal Airport and one was upended at the Portales airport, the Clovis News-Journal reported. Texas had it worse, according to United Press International. The storm roared through the state “with the force of a full-fledged hurricane, blotting out the sun, blowing down trees, snapping power poles and blasting out windows.” UPI...
CLOVIS — Nearly five months after a brutal robbery attempt, a victim’s family is still hoping for closure in the case. Last September, Savanah Sena was with her girlfriend in the house adjoining her recently opened Dirty Curry Creations smoke shop on Pile Street. Three men pounded at her door, claiming to be law enforcement. They soon broke down a door and demanded to know where the business’ money was while delivering a beating that required staples in her skull and stitches in numerous places on her body. She’s only pa...
CLOVIS — The sale of alcohol is now legal in the unincorporated areas of Curry County, but aspiring sellers will need to pay a fee if they intend to start operating. The Curry County Board of Commissioners approved the Curry County Liquor License Tax during a Thursday meeting, requiring anyone taking advantage of the new market to pay a $250 tax to the county annually. The fee applies to retailers, dispensers, restaurant or club license owners selling alcohol in the unincorporated areas of the county. This wouldn’t aff...
CLOVIS — The end date of the Curry County jail renovation and addition project has been pushed back once again. And it seems Curry County will be expected to foot the bill for 29 additional cameras needed for the renovation, which will likely cost the county several hundred thousand dollars. During Thursday's County Commission meeting, the commissioners met with representatives from HB Construction and ASA Architects to check on the progress of the renovation and review the plans. The substantial completion date for the p...
CLOVIS — The Eastern New Mexico Rural Water System, long known as the Ute Water Project, will receive its biggest federal award in the program’s decades-long history. The $15 million award from the Bureau of Reclamation for the 2020 fiscal year is more than triple last year’s $4.3 million BoR award and puts the authority closer to its “40/30/20” plan to cover an interim groundwater system. “We are very thankful for the allocation of $15 million from the BoR for the Finished Water 3 phase of the Interim Groundwater Project,” s...