Pages past — Feb. 24

On this date ...

2006: Portales city leaders gathered to review response to a recent water failure.

“In my 33 years of municipality experience, I have not had a situation like this occur,” City Manager Debi Lee said of an outage that left the city without water for a day.

Officials said they needed to map locations for natural gas, water, utility and sewer lines as well as water valves.

City leaders also asked that an emergency medical technician be on hand to treat workers suffering from exhaustion or hypothermia.

And Lee asked for an emergency contact list in hopes of improving communications.

1966: Eleven area clergymen had received certificates for participating in a 16-week course in clinical pastoral care.

The purpose was to “acquaint ministers with the many community resources to help them be more effective in helping persons during the times of crisis and stress ...,” officials said.

Area ministers involved included Rev. Clyde Chesnutt of First Methodist in Portales, Rev. W.C. Strickland of Hamlin Memorial Methodist in Farwell and Rev. E. Leonard Gillingham of Kingswood Methodist in Clovis.

Pages Past is compiled by Editor David Stevens. For more regional history, check out his weblog at:

http://www.highplainsyesterdays.com