Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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ALBUQUERQUE -- The New Mexico Activities Association announced Thursday night that limited amounts of spectators will be permitted at prep sporting events, with capacity levels based on county metrics on COVID-19 spread. The spectator policy is based on the state’s “Red to Green” county-based system that measures counties every two weeks based on the gating criteria of eight or fewer daily cases per 100,000 residents and test positivity at or below 5%. Red counties meet neither, yellow counties meet one, green counties meet...
The New Mexico Department of Health is set to host a COVID-19 vaccination event Saturday in Portales. Roosevelt County Manager Amber Hamilton said officials expect to administer 500 doses to those registered on the NMDOH vaccine portal at: https://cvvaccine.nmhealth.org/ and are eligible for the current round of vaccines. "Following registration on the NMDOH Vaccine Portal, you will be sent a text/email with instructions when a vaccine is available and will be able to make an appointment at that time. Please visit the...
PORTALES — Eastern New Mexico softball coach Kira Zeiter is admittedly all over the place in the days leading up to a season many people weren’t sure would happen, and fewer people thought would happen on Greyhound Softball Field. But here the Greyhounds are, hoping to built off of a promising albeit short second season under Zeiter. “The whole team is very excited,” Zeiter said. “It’s been about a year since we’ve been able to play a game. That anticipation has been growing.” It’s been less than a calendar year, but it feel...
The Amarillo Veterans Affairs Health Care System is hosting a Moderna COVID-19 vaccination clinic on Wednesday in Clovis. The clinic is at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post at 2815 W. Seventh St. in Clovis. To participate, veterans are asked to call 806-355-9703 and press option 2 to reserve a time. Veterans may also schedule Moderna vaccines in Amarillo any day this week by calling 806-355-9703 and pressing option 2....
William Nelson still isn’t sure how it started. But his mother and two brothers had no chance to escape their three-bedroom trailer when fire broke out in his brother Al’s room about 4 a.m. on Feb. 23. Al Nelson, 65, was paralyzed and couldn’t walk. The knees of brother Johnie Lee Brewer, 77, were filled with fluid and so swollen he could barely walk. And their mother, Leona Drake, 95, had returned home just a day earlier from the hospital after fracturing her pelvis. “I woke up about 4:30 (a.m.), and all I could see through...
PORTALES — Roosevelt County Probate Judge Kendall Terry announced Tuesday at the county commission meeting that state entities hosted seminars for the Legal Resources for the Elderly Program in January, and more are scheduled for March 30, April 27, May 27, and June 24. “If you have a loved one, a friend, or a close relative that needs some questions about power of attorney answered, healthcare advice, probate advice, non-probate advice, like transfers of deeds on deaths, this is a great program and free of cost that the stat...
CLOVIS — Curry County will have a steering committee to establish a land trust. Who exactly is on that trust is to be determined. County commissioners voted Tuesday to create a five-member board, comprised of two commissioners, a member of the Central Curry Soil and Water Conservation District member and two at-large members. The committee was set in motion at the commission’s meeting last Thursday, when it pressed forward on an engagement letter with Colorado attorney Peter Nichols to aid the county in land trust cre...
FARWELL — Farwell senior Jonathan Mora earned District 3-2A defensive MVP honors for the 2020-21 campaign. The Steers’ season came to an end last week at 25-4 with a loss to second-ranked Clarendon in the area round of the playoffs. Farwell finished second in the district behind Olton. Representing the Steers on the all-district team were senior Leefe Actkinson and juniors Leo Nunez and Grayson Waldrop. Bovina had two selections to the squad in seniors Cole Emery and Jose Mata. Meantime, Farwell had five honorable men...
SANTA FE — The state House adopted legislation Sunday that would require private employers in New Mexico to offer paid sick leave to their workers, sending the measure over to the Senate with 20 days left in the session. Supporters said the proposal, House Bill 20, would offer critical protection for low-income New Mexicans who might otherwise have to choose between a paycheck or caring for a sick loved one. It would also, they said, reduce the spread of illness in the workplace. "This is the right thing to do, not only f...
The U.S. Deputy Sheriff’s Association is in fact having a “Clovis, New Mexico, area drive for America’s police and sheriff’s emergency equipment” as its fundraising letter states. That’s according to USDSA Public Relations Coordinator Alexis Goldwater. But to be clear: While the USDSA is asking Clovis-area residents for money, those donations are not being used to benefit Clovis-area law enforcement agencies specifically. Clovis’ Anthony Mahan is among residents confused by the fundraising drive. Mahan last week presente...
I’m being dogged by memories. Maybe it’s because we’re closing in on the three-year mark of Dad exchanging earth for heaven. Maybe we just snapped so many photos of him doing “Dad things” that we have an endless supply of these moments. Social media is getting in on the action, periodically tossing up some photos of Dad and cakes (or cookies or pieces of muffins or cupcakes). The first few times it was a bit unnerving because it was so unexpected, and it was a reminder that I...
During one of the most famous battles ever fought, the World War II “Battle of the Bulge,” the Germans made use of a battalion of men commanded by Maj. Otto Skorzeny, “the most daring commando in the German army.” According to author Stephen Ambrose in his book “Citizen Soldier,” 500 or so volunteers from that battalion were dressed in American uniforms and dispatched across the lines to wreak havoc and confusion, perpetrate mischief, and cause misery and mayhem in any way...
PORTALES — Jaime Ramirez and the Portales Rams aren’t dealing with anything other teams aren’t as they try to wind their way through an abbreviated football season. Numbers are down a bit and everybody is trying to do the best he can to get ready for the start of play. Defending Class 4A champion Portales, with 30 players on its varsity squad, opens its four-game slate with a neutral-site game on Friday against former District 4-4A rival Moriarty at Santa Rosa. “My numbers are down, but I think that’s the same for everyone...
CLOVIS — Veteran Clovis High soccer coaches Greg Trujillo and Traci Sievers aren’t sure just what to expect with their teams’ upcoming abbreviated seasons. They figure to learn a lot, though, in a short period of time. “We’ll find out right away where we’re at,” said Trujillo, in his 14th season as the boys coach. “It’s going to be interesting to see what happens.” Sievers, entering her 10th campaign with the girls’ program, sustained some key losses to graduation but expects the Lady Wildcats to be able to hold their ow...
CLOVIS - It's a busy opening week for the Clovis High volleyball team, and the Lady Wildcats are starting it without one of their top players. Monday night, Artesia made it tough on CHS, controlling much of match except for the second set - which the Lady Bulldogs nearly pulled out as well - in claiming a 25-18, 22-25, 25-18, 25-19 win at Rock Staubus Gym. Senior outside hitter Kameron Kelley is out with a knee injury sustained in a scrimmage last week. Lady Wildcats coach...
CLOVIS — It had been at least five seasons without a winning record for the proud Clovis High football program before 2019, when the Wildcats posted an 8-4 mark and reached the state Class 5A playoff semifinals. Fourth-year coach Cal Fullerton is hoping his senior-laden squad can build on that in this COVID-shortened spring campaign, noting there are many hidden challenges to just getting through it. “Right now, we’ve just got to take it one day at a time,” Fullerton said in looking ahead to Saturday’s 5 p.m. opener ag...
On this date … 1951: Eastern New Mexico University was fighting for its life as a four-year college. State Comptroller Richard Strahlem had proposed the university's budget be limited to $374,487. The 1950-51 fiscal year's appropriation had been $414,000 and University President Floyd Golden had requested $629,000 for the 1951-52 fiscal year. Golden wanted the increase to raise faculty salaries by 25 percent and to hire additional instructors. Strahlem's position was that only University of New Mexico and New Mexico A&M s...
I chauffeured a dear friend to the Roosevelt General Hospital clinic recently to receive her second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. I’ll call her B. As the masked and gloved medical assistant cleaned B’s upper arm with an alcohol wipe, she asked B if she’d had surgery on that shoulder. “No,” B said. “On the other, but not that one.” “Why do you have this scar then?” the MA asked. “Oh,” B answered with a laugh. “That’s from my smallpox vaccine.” You see, when B was a first gra...
It was right about eight years ago when I first started working on an idea for a news service for the state’s independently owned newspapers, especially the small-town papers whose local owners must work without a net. After the previous eight years running the Las Vegas Optic for its corporate owner, I left that “payroll job” and incorporated as Gazette Media Services. Then I ran around the state soliciting support for a statewide news exchange that, when launched in May 2013, became known as the New Mexico Community News...
A couple of local sheriffs claim to be concerned that new legislation makes “law enforcement” (sic) the enemy. If so, they don’t understand the nature of legislation. Legislation always makes someone the enemy. Both those harmed by the legislation — and make no mistake: all legislation harms some innocent people — and those who enforce that legislation. If policing were limited to law enforcement, they would only be the enemy of actual bad guys. When they act as legislati...
As I drive to work, past the barricades and the fencing surrounding the New Mexico Roundhouse, I think how it informs public perception about our democratic process and understanding of the “rule of law.” Equally important is how the “rule of law” is required to maintain a civil and democratic society. The “rule of law” is an evasive notion, transformed into a purely aspirational concept. It is something we want a judge to follow or an executive to apply within its limits. But what is the rule of law really? Thomas Paine put...
CLOVIS - Home at last. Sort of. The Curry County Commission, for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began last March, met in person at its commission chambers on Tuesday. The three-hour meeting was not without its hiccups, but nothing that happened gave commissioners any concern they made the wrong decision. "I want to thank Lance (Pyle, county manager) for getting this going," Commissioner Chet Spear said. "The way it went today, I don't see why we couldn't continue...
CLOVIS — While prep athletics have resumed in New Mexico, they’re not resuming as spectator sports for the time being. Due to public health orders during the COVID-19 pandemic, local school districts are reminding fans that fans are not permitted to attend events in person and sports venues will be limited to teams, essential personnel and venue management workers. Clovis Municipal Schools has partnered with the NFHS Network to livestream home competitions. Livestreams of road competitions are at the discretion of host sch...
COVID-19 cases continue to drop across the state, with the state reporting 166 new cases on Monday. Between Feb. 23 and Monday, the state has confirmed 2,406 new cases of COVID-19 for an average of 344 new cases per day. That number was largely impacted by Friday’s report of 659 cases, more than 200 cases above any other daily report in the last week. Locally, Curry County had 37 cases while Roosevelt County had eight in the last week. The two counties have accounted for two of the state’s 94 deaths over that period — a Cur...
LUBBOCK — Gov. Greg Abbott said it’s time to “open Texas 100%” Tuesday, citing declining hospitalizations across the state as more people are vaccinated against the coronavirus. The move flouts warnings from health experts and federal officials, who have urged caution from state officials as new, more contagious variants that could make coronavirus cases and hospitalizations rebound after promising declines. “Texas is in a far better position now than when I issued my last executive order back in October,” he said. “Now,...
