Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
On this date ...
1972: Eastern New Mexico was still reeling from a horrific accident two days earlier that claimed 19 lives and left 15 people with severe injuries when a busload of mostly junior high and high school students collided with a cattle truck on a narrow bridge between Melrose and Fort Sumner.
The victims were all associated with Woodlawn Baptist Church in Austin, Texas, and had been on the way to a winter retreat near Taos.
Survivors, including church members on a second bus not involved in the crash, were returned to Austin on a Texas International charter plane from Clovis.
State Police Chief Steve Lagomarsino said it was the worst traffic crash in New Mexico history.
1952: Mr. and Mrs. Vincent Langhans, and their children, Monika, Michael, and Gabriele, had arrived in Clovis as immigrants from Germany.
Sponsored by Dee Blythe of Clovis, the Langhans family left Germany "to escape the Russian zone where they probably would have been stopped and sent to Siberia," the Clovis News-Journal reported.
They came to New York City aboard the steamship Italia, and then crossed the country from New York to Amarillo on Greyhound buses. John Kos, brother of Joe Kos of Clovis, brought them the rest of the way to Clovis.
Pages Past is compiled by Betty Williamson. Contact her at: [email protected]
