Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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CLOVIS — By any measure, Jay Neff was a success in the financial industry, from his rise in the local banking industry to more than 20 years of success in the title business he and his son recently expanded. But Neff, who died March 1, always found a way to give more than he received — be it his love, his time, his knowledge, his humor or his values, friends and family said. Neff spent his entire life in Clovis, save the months he spent attending New Mexico State University. He met his wife Deana Keslar when she was a ser...
PORTALES — After more than five years of chasing rumors, interviewing possible witnesses in two murder cases, and following leads across the country, law officers on Friday afternoon arrested a Portales man suspected in a gruesome 2016 double homicide. Jose R. Zapata, 37, was arrested about 6 p.m. Friday after authorities served a warrant at a home at 820 W. 14th Street in Portales. He was found “hiding in a crawl space,” District Attorney Andrea Reeb stated in a news relea...
CLOVIS — Clovis High girls coach Jeff Reed knows the schedule will get tougher, but for now the Lady Wildcats are enjoying some early success. On Thursday night, 11 Lady Cats scored as Clovis opened a 12-2 lead at the quarter and cruised past Artesia 61-33 at The Rock. “We missed a lot of opportunities (early),” Reed said. “We were able to turn them over a lot, but we didn’t always capitalize on them.” Still, CHS was never threatened by the Lady Bulldogs (1-3), who in addition to turnover woes missed 16 free throw attem...
TEXICO - After making a pretty good run at Class 5A Clovis on Tuesday night, Texico pushed Portales High a bit in their Thursday matchup. The Class 2A Wolverines cut a 19-point deficit to five in the final minute before the Rams nailed down a 62-55 victory at Texico Sports Arena. Senior guard/forward Julian Tellez and 6-foot-4 junior post Greydon Rigsby each tallied personal bests of 24 points as Class 4A PHS (1-1) staved off the late comeback. "They're very good," Rams coach...
CLOVIS — Clovis Christian’s boys came into Friday’s District 6-1A matchup against top-ranked Melrose riding high and with high hopes, but the Buffaloes — particularly senior guard Trace Jackson — quickly shot them down. Jackson poured in all 20 of his points in the first half, including five 3-pointers, as Melrose pulled away to a 73-62 victory over the previously undefeated Eagles at the CCS gym. Jackson was coming off a personal-best 32 points, with eight 3s, in a home win over Grady on Thursday night. Several of his 3s aga...
PORTALES — Eastern New Mexico University announced on Friday the hiring of Tye Hiatt as the school’s 17th head football coach. Hiatt replaces Kelley Lee, who resigned last month after nine seasons at ENMU, the last four as head coach, to accept a position as the athletic co-ordinator and head football coach at Veterans Memorial Early College H.S. in Brownsville, Texas. “We are thrilled to welcome Tye to Eastern New Mexico as our next head football coach,” ENMU athletic director Matt Billings said in a release from the sch...
On this date ... 1951: A 1951 Philco radio-phonograph was being promoted as the “best buy in town,” by Shaw's in Clovis. The Philco was “beyond compare in tone, performance and space-saving cabinet luxury,” according to a newspaper ad. Cost was $99.95. The phonograph played records of all sizes, and customers could take up to 15 months to pay. 1956: Mrs. Bruce Cox of Portales had been selected Clovis-area winner of the Mrs. America contest. Area winners were selected by The American Gas Association, which sponsored the contes...
PORTALES — Arrests and calls for service in the city of Portales dropped during the COVID-19 pandemic. But Portales police reported an increase in burglaries and some violent crimes. Portales Police Chief Chris Williams presented the statistics during the Portales City Council meeting Tuesday in the Memorial Building. Williams said calls for service dropped from 19,975 in 2019 to 12,996 in 2020. Arrests by police dropped from 619 in 2019 to 586 in 2020. But Williams also reported the number of burglaries increased d...
Booked The following were booked into local jails (Tuesday-Friday): Clovis • Victoria Kirven, 33, probation violation • Joey Petty, 22, aggravated fleeing a law enforcement officer • Freddie Sanchez, 43, battery against a household member • Manuel Rubio, 34, driving while license suspended or revoked • Roberto Jimenez, 36, aggravated driving while under the influence of intoxicating liquor or any drug, open container • Christopher Harrelson, 48, aggravated driving while under the influence of intoxicating liquor or any drug...
Rodeo may be the only college sport that isn’t knee-deep in hypocrisy. That’s because rodeo is not part of the NCAA, and has never held romanticized notions about the purity of amateur athletics. The sport has always been about prize money. The Pro Rodeo Cowboys Association champion each year is the one who wins the most money. Marginal athletes in rodeo don’t get cut or put on waivers. They know it’s time to quit when they can’t earn enough gas money to get to the next event. And so, college athletes in rodeo compete f...
America is on trial. Or at least, that is the conviction of many observers as Derek Chauvin, a white former Minneapolis police officer, faces judge and jury in the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American man. America on trial: It’s a headline in Time, the Toronto Star and Agence Marocaine De Presse, a news agency in Morocco. It’s the considered opinion of CNN’s Don Lemon, the Rev. Al Sharpton and of a group of black barbers in Washington, D.C., who were interview...
Will someone please lend President Biden a history book? He thinks Georgia’s new voting integrity law is “Jim Crow on steroids.” And Georgia’s pretend ex-governor Stacey Abrams says it’s “Jim Crow redux in a suit and tie.” Really? Come on, you guys. You’ve been watching too much CNN and MSNBC. The crimes against equal voting rights that are allegedly being committed by Republican state lawmakers in Georgia and other Red states to suppress black votes are nothing like what occu...
I am so glad the whole white supremacy and gun nut narrative is over, so we can get back to the one about voter suppression. Those horrific shootings late last month diverted our attention away from what President Joe Biden has called “Jim Crow on steroids,” namely the recent controversial voting reform legislation passed in Georgia and signed by Gov. Brian Kemp. Anyone who has actually read the almost 100 pages of the Georgia law would know that it is not an attempt to kee...
Why do the Russians need to bother spreading disinformation when our own domestic sources do a much better job at it? We just went through a four-year national obsession with Kremlin disinformation. It supposedly swayed the 2016 presidential election. It was “sowing divisions” in American society. It accounted for the discovery of Hunter Biden’s laptop during the 2020 election. Social media companies were excoriated for allegedly letting Russian disinfo poison their netwo...
Major League Baseball has decided it won’t play its annual all-star game in Atlanta this summer. That’s because, it alleges, Georgia lawmakers are engaged in voter suppression. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott planned to throw out a ceremonial first pitch last week, but changed his mind when he heard the news. “I was looking forward to throwing out the first pitch at the Texas Rangers’ home opening game until @MLB adopted what has turned out to be a false narrative about Georgia’s election law reforms,” Abbott tweeted. “It is sham...
CLOVIS — A Clovis man was jailed Monday night on charges from a weekend shooting at Sheldon Street. Kaleaf Gardley, 28, remains in the Curry County Adult Detention Center on charges of shooting at a dwelling, aggravated battery, assault with intent to commit a violent felony and felon possession of a firearm. He has a pretrial detention hearing set for Tuesday in district court. According to the criminal complaint filed in Curry County Magistrate Court: • The Clovis Police Department was called at around 5 p.m. April 3 to...
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Friday signed off on a $7.4 billion budget plan that will boost state spending and provide 1.5% pay increases to state employees and teachers. However, the Democratic governor used her line-item veto authority to strike down legislative earmarks for more than $1 billion from a federal stimulus plan for various state programs — including a largely depleted state unemployment fund, a popular college scholarship program and highway repairs. The governor also vetoed 17 bills passed by lawmakers, i...
CLOVIS — The Clovis Police Department investigated an allegation a juvenile took a firearm to Clovis High School Freshman Academy Thursday night. According to a release from Clovis Municipal Schools, school officials received a report after school hours that a weapon was brought onto the campus and immediately notified the CPD. Capt. Roman Romero told The News dispatch received a call at 8:24 p.m. Thursday regarding the 15-year-old, and responded to an addres on Grand Avenue to make contact. The juvenile, who was i...
CLOVIS — The Curry County Commission is seeking applicants for positions on its valuation protest board. The board hears and decides on protests of valuations from the county assessor’s office. It includes three voting members and three alternates representing the public, the state and the appraisal community. The commission will appoint applicants to the two-year terms at its May 18 meeting. To apply, submit a letter of interest to County Manager Lance Pyle at 417 Gidding, Suite 100, Clovis, NM 88101 or lpy...
SANTA FE — New Mexico is continuing to make improvements in the fight against COVID-19 spread, as evidenced by 23 counties in either green or turquoise status and passing the one-third mark in getting citizens fully vaccinated. But there are still various questions state officials admit they can’t quite answer. Human Services Secretary David Scrase said tweaks were likely coming to the state’s “Red to Green” plan, which assigns each county a status based on the benchmarks of daily cases (8 or fewer per 100,000) and test posi...
Tuesday • Holocaust Remembrance by Survivor: Peter Stein — 2 p.m., via Zoom. Interactive presentation with Stein based on his memoir, “A Boy’s Journey: From Nazi Occupied Prague to Freedom in America.” Event available at: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_H-s8Tu7dS7ONIthdBPGr_Q. Information: https://www.facebook.com/ENMUReads • Virtual Afterschool S.T.E.A.M. (Science, technology, engineering, arts, math) “Rockets Away” — 4:30 p.m., Portales Public Library Facebook page. Open to kindergarten-sixth grade. Materials availab...
Meetings are subject to change due to coronavirus concerns. Monday • Clovis Civil Aviation Board special meeting — 2 p.m. at Clovis Municipal Airport Terminal, 459 CR 11.5, Texico. Tour of airport projects. Information: 575-769-7890 • Portales Municipal Schools board — 6 p.m., Portales Junior High School cafeteria, 700 E. Third St., Portales. The meeting is open to the public, will also be available via livestream at https://livestream.com/accounts/25937490 or on the Portales Municipal School District website, http://...
MILNESAND - A morning on the stomping grounds of the lesser prairie chicken gives plenty of insight into why the bird's population has dwindled over the decades. It requires a very specific type of land to mate, it's an easy target for predators and the eggs that do get laid have about a dice roll's chance of making it to adulthood. But a morning watching the birds in action show why so many in the most rural of rural eastern New Mexico want to keep them alive. A group of cons...
CLOVIS - For more than 42 years, Joe Thomas served the city of Clovis in a series of positions, each more difficult than the next. But he may have been the least difficult man in Clovis to ever deal with, according to his family and friends. Thomas, who died Thursday at age 70, left behind a lifetime of service in the Clovis Police Department and various city administrative positions - including his last 11 years in the city manager position before his 2015 retirement. "He's...
BASKETBALL Prep summaries Boys Tuesday Clovis 50, Texico 35 Texico (1-1) — Cade Collins 3, Anders Nelson 2, Cade Figg 3, David Davalos 13, Max Villarreal 2, Jahvon Askew 12. Totals 13 5-12 35. Clovis (3-0) — Darrell Lewis 4, Dominick Brown 6, Elijah Garcia 16, Bryson Goldsmith 9, C.J. Gutierrez 10, Jaylen Hyman 3, Jaden Phillips 2. Totals 18 10-19 50. Texico 12 12 7 4 — 35 Clovis 16 9 9 16 — 50 3-pointers — Texico, Askew 2, Davalos, Figg. Clovis, Garcia 3, Hyman. Junior varsity — Clovis 63, Texico 35. New Mexico Military 49...
